As Promised

Young R had her birthday in January. Not so young I guess as she's now old enough to drive. Anyway, she requested a Caramelised-Garlic Tart as a celebratory meal. It's taken this long for us to get to it. Forget any stereotypes you might have about young people and fast food. This recipe was full of richness and flavour.

R's Mum--my friend W--had prepared the pastry case. When I arrived we each took our knife, chopping board and head of garlic and started peeling garlic cloves. Yep that's three heads of garlic to flavour this tart. The garlic cloves were then blanched, fried in olive oil and simmered with balsamic vinegar and sugar until they were tender and covered in sauce. Add two types of goats cheese, two varieties of rich cream and a couple of free-range eggs and you have the makings of a delicious custardy tart filling. It was good. We won't talk about calories or cholesterol counts, just focus on flavour and texture and richness . . . 

Change of Pace

This first semester of my Textile Art course has been more demanding than I expected. Yesterday was the last official day of term, though I do have to go in next week--"catch up week" it's called. My essential "catch up" last night was catching up with myself! I picked up this book from the library. It's "Ruth", by one of my favourite authors, Elizabeth Gaskell.

I sat down in the armchair with it in front of the heater until it was late enough to go to bed. I must admit though, that on the strength of my just completed "drawing" and "history" subjects, I did a quick spot of research on Frederick Walker, the painter of the cover picture and placed the story on a mental timeline before tucking myself into the novel for a few hours of relaxation.

A Nice Red

I needed some help to relax yesterday--what with bathroom dramas and personal dramas on top of a heavy couple of weeks. The renewed water leak in the bathroom/laundry was fixed by lunch time. After resolving to wait until the plumber could come and get me out of trouble, I called a friend who was able to deal with the problem much more promptly. By the time I'd managed my appointments for the day and done a round trip to Werribee where young R is in hospital, it was late and I was tired. I'm not one for a nice glass of wine at the end of the day. Instead, here's a skein of wool-silk handspun which has a similar effect: It's a 60%-40% wool-silk blend plied with merino--the colour is "cabernet"--it's smooth richness will do for me.

No.2 Dog

Yesterday it was the turn of No. 2 Dog to provide the image of relaxed contentment while I did my spinning: My two dogs take turns at enjoying this cushion in the front window--though the bigger of the two always gets his own way if he wants to be there--occasionally they share.

Meanwhile, I've moved on to spinning kid mohair tops, fine, for the next stage in my folio presentation. Today's the day to finish up anything I want to hand in before the assesssment and Exhibition. I'm trying to take a leaf out of my dogs' books and relax about the fact that it won't be complete. I have to confess, I'm not as good at relaxing as they are.

Riverside

Yesterday afternoon's excursion offered a great opportunity for some relaxed knitting. We drove to Warrandyte--one of my favourite spots. After a lovely afternoon tea at a local cafe--such a counterful of homemade cakes that choosing was difficult--there was time for a couple of hours of relaxed knitting on the riverbank before it was time to eat again. . . . my right hand isn't on my knitting because it's holding the camera!

When a decent interval had passed, there was room for fish and chips to share between ourselves and the ducks. Then home and an early night.