The canning program I had taken the reins of for Market Central has morphed into what I’m now calling the “Small Business Program”. To recap, I spent the end of last summer and all of last fall teaching a regular weekly canning class with the idea of recruiting and attracting individuals who were interested in learning to can as well as those who might be interested in starting their own canning business. I knew going into it the latter goal was a lofty one, as I know first hand what hard, hot work canning is. It requires a certain passion that’s hard to instill. In addition this passion, one needs cooking skills, knowledge about food (and gardening to some extent, at least the knowledge of the effects of weather can be on a particular crop) as well as the ability to navigate the seemingly confusing food rules and relations, line up suppliers, market to buyers AND be able to keep up with the money flowing in and out. There is quite a bit involved in starting a canning business and I wanted this program to address as much of it as I could. It’s one thing to learn to can, quite another to start your own business based on it. Continue reading
It starts with a walk….
Late last summer, I stumbled across this lamp on a walk around the block.
Abandoned by the curb, it had a broken lampshade perched on top. Recognizing mid-century modern gold, I quickly grabbed it, ditching the broken shade and brought it home. Pat rewired it, I found a burlap shade at the Habitat store, that while not ideal, was $2 and so therefore will work for the time being. Continue reading
Stash busting, uniform changing matters.
I don’t know if it was turning 45 or if it’s just been a long simmering dissatisfaction with the winter version of my trusty uniform but I recently decided a change was in order. Continue reading
And so it goes.
The first week of January always feels like such a let down after the crazy rush towards and then relative quiet of the holidays that make up the end of December. We had a mostly lazy last couple of weeks that involved watching many hours of Gilmore Girls – how had I never watched that until recently? – interspersed with catching up on movies while eating hands down the best chocolate cake I make all year. Edie challenged me to an entire day of doing nothing, with an exemption for knitting, which made it doable. Because as anyone who knows me knows, it is pretty near impossible for me to sit still. And to spend an entire day doing nothing? Whoa. Thank goodness for netflix. Continue reading
Wines (and beer!) I drank: Holiday Edition
It’s been far too long since I did an always popular wines I drank post, so why not a holiday edition? Continue reading
Halls decked.
The last few days have been a whirlwind of holiday activity. In the last 72 hours, we’ve gone from no Christmas decorations to fully decked halls. I’m sitting here enjoying some egg nog in my coffee before I start the Christmas baking. I’m still not entirely sure what our menu for the next two days entails, but I do know there will be cinnamon buns and sausage for tomorrow’s breakfast and oyster dressing for tomorrow’s dinner. Also, brussels sprouts because I appear to have the only child to walk the face of the earth that adores and requests them. Of course, nothing is wrapped, but the day is young. And there’s plenty of nog.
A very merry Christmas to all.
A walk in a country field.
I went for a walk with Betty out in the country the other morning. She has a new puppy, Noodle that she thought I could practice taking photos of with my new camera.
Let there be light.
I didn’t mean to take a blog break, but it happened. I could push at least part of it off on the old ‘busy’ excuse, but the fact is, it’s been a hard couple of weeks here. Continue reading
My version of Uncle Kevin’s Oyster Stew.
One of our holiday traditions is Uncle Kevin’s Oyster Stew. Years past, he’s always had a nice big pot of it simmering on the stove welcoming us when we arrive for Thanksgiving eve. This year found me in charge of the oyster stew, stemming out of our offer to bring some of Smiley’s oysters for the purpose of making said stew. Uncle Kevin is not the sort who cooks from recipes nor is he the sort of make the same thing exactly the same way twice, so there was some wiggle room in how I made it. He sent me a link to a recipe that he thinks his was based on once upon a time. I took a brief glance at it and then went about making oyster stew the way I’ve been making it for a few years now, based on his as I know it.
The real deal.
When I first sat down to write my previous post on the cookbooks Abigail passed along, I intended to mention, but mostly skip over the fiestaware pieces in the box of goodies. I’ve collected fiestaware for probably close to twenty years and we’ve used it as our every day ware since we were married, having received a good amount of it as wedding presents. Knowing this, Abigail thought I would enjoy having a few pieces that belonged to her grandmother. In addition to a sugar bowl and creamer set in yellow, there was a sauce boat, large bowl and a large spoon in what we thought was orange. Being a fan of orange, I was quite excited about my new dishes.
