A bit of quiet

I took another drive into the hill country. I’m still not sure about the wine they make out there, but they certainly have empty roads.

I have lived in a city all my life. I believe most people do, really, I think the urban folks outnumber rural these days. I’m not sure if I’d like the quiet all of the time, but there are days, certainly, when I appreciate peace. Last Saturday I ventured out into the hill country in search of peaches to can - for they are currently in season - and found a lot of quiet.

The peaches were everything I’d hoped for, and more. Small, juicy, lovely peaches. The country store we were in smelled like nothing but peaches. It was sweet and delicate and overpowering all at once, with that sort of smell of the outdoors and growing things. I got a box and some tomatoes too.

I love going to fruit farms. I’m almost as much of a fan of fruit as I am of flowers, and it probably isn’t a coincidence that they are related. The smell of sweetness and sugar from fruit and flowers is incredible. You can imagine what a delight it was to sit in this fruit stand/store, smelling these peaches, eating homemade peach ice cream. Maybe it’s the experience I’m going for, that sort of sensory overload.

I headed into a town nearby afterward but … it was too crowded and I left. I was off to find quieter roads. Down a side road. Past a beer joint. Into rolling hills parched by drought and heat. But this is an area that can survive without water … the live oaks keep their green and the grasses become every lovely shade of gold.

But as it turned out, there was indeed water along my path.  It was a little river, with a dam small enough to walk over in a minute. It’s the only, er, well really the only WET river I’ve seen around here in a while. Most of the rivers are mere shadows of themselves, and the creeks have dried up to nothing but their rocky beds with a few enterprising plants growing amidst the rubble.

Down the road a bit more I came to a sleepy town, where I found antiques and barbeque. I was quite fond of the barbecue. It was all made properly. “This place is clearly what the barbecue places in Austin are going for in terms of ambiance,” I thought to myself as I sat there perspiring in front of a barely-working window AC unit. I sipped my iced tea and ate my jalapeno sausage quite happily.

Afterward there were antiques to gaze at … lamps made of ceramic jaguars, gorgeous old secretaries with concealed drawers, hobbit-looking salt and pepper shakers, heavy marble-and-ironwork tables, colors from every decade, and oh, yes, a bit of antique crochet in a trunk, hanging out with a dog sweater made from an old shirt front.

It was a lovely day, Saturday.

6 hours of canning later

Sometimes, one cannot post because one is literally up to one’s elbows in the actual craft, and cannot come to the computer.  Such was Sunday, when I spent three hours peeling peaches and feeling the sticky juice drip down my arms. But I will leave that story for later, because I just don’t have the energy to tell it yet.

Meanwhile, let me tell you about antique crochet.  I grant you the possibility that you may not love these as much as I do, but I hope you take a look at the exquisite detail and skill, and maybe appreciate them a bit.  I love them a lot - after all, I am both historian and crocheter, so I’m pretty much guaranteed to love these kinds  of things. Truly, though, my love of antique lace crochet goes farther than that.

Three doilies. The one on the left is unusual in that it is made of undyed linen.  The pattern of the square one is very “pleasing.  The skill of the bottom one takes my breath away.

I’m not sure if my mom’s possessions guided my passions or my passions guided my love of my mom’s possessions, but my very favorite pieces of art that my mother had while I was growing up were (1) 2 pieces of framed antique filet crochet, (2) a medieval grave rubbing and (3) a picture of a German castle.  I ask you, is it coincidence that I have two degrees in medieval history?  Is it coincidence I am a crocheter?  I do not know.

Two potholders and a granny square. The square is so incredibly regular in its tension it looks like it could have been crocheted in rows except for the center. If you have ever done knitting, crochet or needlework you probably know how hard it is to make your tension so impeccably even with an unforgiving light-colored medium like thread.  The potholders are both detailed and double-layered.

I will admit that I had crocheted doilies on my furniture while growing up. And I loved them, and in fact am still a fan of doilies.  I will now be drawn and quartered by all the modernists around here, but I cannot help it.  Those doilies were probably the only “girly” thing that I liked when I was a wee lass.  I disliked pink. I was a tomboy.  I disliked barbies.  I favored toy cars and building blocks.  But I loved my doilies.  Go figure.

The two doilies above both were part of a swap. Isn’t that interesting? In fact, these short messages were why I bought the whole lot - the proprietor of the antique store said the crochet all came from one woman, which means these two pieces date them all, and that date is 1948.  It’s fascinating that these came from women in such small towns in the midwest and ended up in a tiny little town in Texas, and were saved for all these 60 years.  They are hard to read, but as far as I can tell, here’s what they say.

The first one has two notes in different handwriting which tell me that they were a swap.  The top bit says “Mrs. John Puck, Guttenberg, Iowa” while the second says “Rec’d about June 10 - 48.  Sending aprons ( -unreadable) Feb 12.”

The second says “Mrs. Andrew Gangl, Salem, No. Dak.“  (that’s North Dakota, if you didn’t recognize the abbreviation. I didn’t, my mom clued me in.).

I took a picture of the detail of this doily because I was fascinated by the array of techniques used.  The center star and the webbing is (if you look closely) needlepoint woven ribbon. Yes, someone wove ribbon with cotton thread.  Endlessly.  I cannot even imagine the time this took.  The butterflies and some of the edging are filet crochet.  Other aspects are regular crochet.

I am in awe of the skill it took to make this, and am personally offended that it only cost me $3.50 to purchase it, while there were modern paintings in the same store that cost over $1000 and took much less time and effort.  I cannot help it if people don’t recognize art and labor when they see it, but the very least I can do is bring it home and make a blog post about it.  I hope one day the needle arts get more of the recognition they deserve for creating such exquisite, delicate things.

Last week, Part Uno

Last week was a busy week, so I’m going to start with that. I canned, there were fabric hijinks, and did I mention that Jeff and I are (very cautiously) inspecting this house-purchasing idea?  You know, I don’t have a fear of relationship-with-person-commitment or long-term-pet-ownership or anything like that.  What I do have is a total fear of commitment to a given locale.  I’m not a fan of rental properties, but they still offer me the ability to pick up and take off for parts unknown at any time.  Not that I do this (at least not as regularly as I used to), but I can if I want to.  It’s almost like claustrophobia for me, this idea of “settling down.”  You can see why I’ve never owned property.

Back to canning!  I mentioned my initial canning adventures with okra … well, here they are.  I’m partially doing this because I’m impressed that I canned something, and I’m offering proof here that such a thing actually occurred in my kitchen.

I’m also doing this because some of you have told me that canning brings to mind horrible memories of days on end in a hot kitchen having difficulties.  I thought this process was rather simple and quick, and it was air conditioned.  So I’d be interested to know what about this is hard, or if y’all were talking about pressure canning maybe?  These vegetables are not the sort that need pressure canning.  I’m not ready for pressure canning yet, not convinced I ever will be.

CANNING STAGE 1

Cut up and otherwise prepare your veggies.  Boil jars for 10 min.  Heat lids (but don’t boil).  Meanwhile, boil your pickling liquid and simmer for 5 minutes.  My pickling liquid consisted of apple cider, kosher salt, sugar, dill seed, mustard seed, pequin peppers, and a few peppercorns.  After boiling the jars, I set them on a clean cloth to cool for about a minutes.

CANNING STAGE 2

Stuff the jars really full with okra - I had a couple cucumbers, so I did some of those, too.  Add 2-3 garlic cloves each.  Fill with pickling liquid to 1/2 inch below the lid-screw-marks.  Put on the lids and screw on the bands really tight.  I was kind of ginger with handling these … seems to me I’ve heard bad stories about nasty things getting into canning jars, so I kept everything clean.

CANNING STAGE 3

I put the filled jars back in the water bath for 10 minutes to boil.  My jars didn’t sit on anything in the pot, because I have nothing, and besides my canning equipment consists of jars and my biggest dutch oven.  Afterward, I put the jars on a rack covered by a towel to cool down.  That’s them there, all done.  After this the recipe just instructed me to wait 24 hours before trying them.

Did I mention I tried them?  They were good … I think … unless Jeff and Paula were fabricating their reaction so as not to offend … Personally, I thought the okra was great, but the pickles need to sit a bit and be less sharply vinegary, but that comes with waiting a bit longer than 48 hours after they were made, you know?