Saturday, October 26, 2019

Lacking motivation

I have a lovely shopping bag of towels for the artist open house. There are 42, a bit less than twice as many as last time, if my math is working properly. I also turned a new warp on last week, and it looked to be the nicest to date. Then I began tying it on, and devised story after story for the extra two threads I seemed to have picked up.



There is no short explanation here, except I should have investigated the problem before I had the entire warp tied on.  All is well on the business end, the other side, as long as my Rube Goldberg repair holds up, and the cat doesn't sit on it.

The artist open studio draws nearer and nearer. I know the little tag on each towel for the last open studio was a little fold over paper I printed myself, but six months later, I cannot reconstruct how I did it. The real solution is to apply myself tomorrow and put together the art work for a new card! And then, call it in to the card company.

In the meantime, I have an apple mandolin! All my previous encounters with mandolins have not been good. My craftsman brother made a mandolin for my sister that he eventually made a guard for, to end accidental bloodshed, even stored safely out of a drawer. That mandolin sliced potatoes paper thin, and they became potato chips!



I keep an eye out for good recipes, and I saw one for an apple custard cake. They got me at apple and custard, though I was not comfortable with the instructions for slicing the apple. Basically, cut off the four sides, pitch the core and fine slice the apple. My fine motor skills are gone, and most of my gross, too. But way at the bottom, in the credits you never read, it said or use an Apple Mandolin. I found it on Amazon, of course.






There you have it. A cored apple, in twenty four slices, for lunch!


The custard cake was more cake than custard, and I made two changes for the next time. I changed a third cup sugar to a couple of tablespoons, and two teaspoons of vanilla to one. As to the dessert that did not impress me, I cut my eight inch pan into four pieces. I ate two for lunch and two for supper. So much for inviting a friend over, that time.

The book I'm reading there is The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd. I have no idea why I bought it; but it was there on my book shelf. Shortly in I recall seeing a TV movie, or perhaps a theater movie on TV. I can't remember the movie, only that I've seen it. The book is compelling in the way the recitation of this vile part of our history is.


36 comments:

  1. Mandolin? I've never heard an apple slicer called that. Sue Monk Kidd is a good writer, but I haven't read The Invention of Wings yet.

    Love,
    Janie

    ReplyDelete
  2. I thought that an Apple Mandolin was an iInstrument for a minute.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Another one here who thought you were talking about a musical instrument- and wondering why on earth you would need a guard to prevent bloodshed :)
    I had a thing like an egg slicer once that worked in a similar manner for apples - a bit like your new one.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gosh, you are doing wonderfully well....blossomingly. Yes, I have one of those little apple cutters.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I still don't understand the processes used to make those beautiful towels. The apple cake sounds so good.

    ReplyDelete
  6. My grandfather played the mandolin and that's what I thought you were talking about for a minute (not a minuet). I have a really good mandolin for slicing whatever I want to slice, usually cucumbers for salad. But it seems to have disappeared. I just got my invitation for the craft fair. My daughter and I will try to go.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I've read two of Sue Monk Kidd's books -- "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter" and "The Secret Life of Bees." Both were excellent! I went to Amazon to read a description of "The Invention of Wings" and it sounds good too. She writes so powerfully of women's lives, women's oppression and women's spirituality.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sue Monk Kidd is a favorite writer. I'll take a look at the book you mention. Thanks, I had no clue that apple slicer was called a mandolin. Learn something new every day. Hope you have a good weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I didn't realize that was called an apple mandolin, LOL. I have one of those somewhere :) I read Sun Monk Kidd's book "The Secret Life of Bees" and enjoyed it. I'll have to check out this book of hers.

    betty

    ReplyDelete
  10. I just read "The Invention of Wings" - I'd read "The Secret Life of Bees" so when I saw another by Sue Monk Kidd I was interested. And was not disappointed. It was particularly interesting to me that it was based in part on an actual historic figure.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love the box for butter there in the picture, it is so beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I also thought you were telling us about a musical instrument.

    ReplyDelete
  13. It's like there's an app for everything. :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hari OM
    anything that makes life easier and more pleasant has to be win! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  15. A mandolin is a musical instrument over here. I thought what a clever family, one makes it and one plays it.

    ReplyDelete
  16. My husband and I picked more apples at the orchard yesterday before the orchard closed for the season. Lots of apple recipes being tested here over the next month too. My new favourite apple variety is Russet. So good!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I also have one of those Apple dohickies, but so often the apples I buy seem to have grown off-kilter. When I push the slicer down the top I end up with half the core.
    Deeply enjoying the towels you sent last spring!,

    ReplyDelete
  18. I've never heard of an apple mandolin. It looks useful. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I'm sure only you will know there are two extra threads the same way only I see the flaws in my own work. at any rate, if someone does notice just tell them the flaw is intentional just like the Navajo rug weavers. I had no idea what a mandolin is and was going to look it up but then you showed us. I did google The Invention Of Wings. I knew I had read something else by the author but didn't remember what, oh yes, The Secret Life Of Bees, which I loved. perhaps I'll see if the library has 'Wings'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These towels will be perfect, even though the warp is not. Hard to believe this artist open house is in three weeks.

      Delete
  20. Joanne, you always seem extremely motivated to me... with your weaving, plants, cooking, etc. And the apple custard cake sounds wonderful. I make an apple custard pie that we enjoy here.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I totally want your jar opener!
    And I love that mandolin too. You put me in mind of an old recipe of my granny's that involved apples and thick cake dough and loads of everything else, dried fruit and nuts. She would bake it in castiron hung over the open fire. Never tasted anything so good. I think the peat flavour soaked into it.

    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Without that opener, I could not open jars. It's still a challenge. The other day I struggled and struggled with a new jar of jam, until my hands ached. When if finally "popped", the jelly had run over in processing and had glued the lid shut.

      Delete
  22. That apple mandolin looks useful....the normal brute is lethal...at least, it is in my hands.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't dare own a flat mandolin, let alone use one.

      Delete
  23. That is the first I have heard of an apple mandolin.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I like the apple thingy- looked online and it looks more like a core/slicer. The apple mandolins I saw sliced them in rounds, not sections.
    And thanks for the book suggestion - will check it out, pun intended.
    Mary

    ReplyDelete
  25. My mother had an EGG mandolin. I never saw her use it. I may have used it once just to see what it would do. Who needs perfectly sliced hardboiled eggs? I guess someone does.
    Your weaving is like magic to me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I remember those little things, and perfectly sliced eggs around the top of a salad bowl. My brother made a salad that for want of the real name we called Pig Out Salad. It was always topped by a circle of egg slices from someone's mother's egg mandolin.

      Delete

  26. Have you been enjoying smooth trading by transferring the money into your Binance wallet so that you don't have to go through the process of transferring the amount from your bank account to Binance wallet again and again? But unfortunately your wallet doesn't reflect the amount that was there in your Binance wallet? Don't panic your money is not lost and the money will reflect back once you seek the help of Binance support number. They take care of such problems on daily basis and they are best support in this state of crisis. So dial the number and get the solution.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Huh! Apple slicer I've heard of but never called a mondolin. That one is certainly very spiffy. Your towels are wonderful and I can't imagine anyone but you knowing anything different.

    ReplyDelete
  28. A mandolin can be very handy for mass producing enough tidy apple slices for a class of pre-schoolers at story-time....

    ReplyDelete