Favorite Things: Quilting

As I take a moment to extract myself from the pile of books and notebooks that I have been submerged in since early this morning, I am thinking about what makes me happy. The list is long, for my life is overflowing with goodness.

What I am specifically thinking about are the small things, my "favorite things" like Julie Andrews' song. One of these things is quilting. My mother was a quilter, SaraHS is a quilter, my friend Erin from library school is a quilter, and I even incorporated quilts into my undergraduate theses. There is something about the colors and patterns that makes me feel cozy. From the time I was very small, I have been surrounded by fabric and thread. I remember visiting the fabric store and dipping my entire arm into the bucket of buttons. They made the most wonderful sound when I would twirl my arms in the bucket.

Quilting is now something that is peripheral to my life. My arms are dipped in books and manuscript collections instead of buckets of buttons. Practically speaking, I do not have the time or physical space to start a project. But, I miss quilts and fabric stores with a gentle ache, like when you miss a sunny summer day in your favorite childhood tree. My question is: How can I make quilting a part of my life again? I think I have found the perfect solution.

Last week,  through the wonderful world of Twitter, I discovered a blog called The Happiness Project. One of the blog's features is the Toolbox that allows users to create journals, lists, and inspiration boards (to name a few). I am going to create a virtual quilting inspiration board. It will be a place where I can gather my ideas and invite quilting back into my life. When I graduate and get a 'real job,' I will have the time and space to start quilting again. By then, I will have a treasure chest of inspiration.

The first addition to my inspiration board is this darling embroidery pattern from wee folk art.

On a final note, I thought I would share on of my favorite quilts that my mother made. I have hung it next to my bed since she finished it in 1995 (well, now it hangs over the table- but in a studio apartment, that is practically next to the bed).

Cooking: Smitten Kitchen's Crazy Delicious Baked Potato Soup

So we're wrapping up this vegetarian month experiment, and I was looking for a recipe to use up the leeks that I had left over from another meal. Lo and behold, this recipe for baked potato soup -- with two leeks! -- showed up on Smitten Kitchen last week.

I don't often make savory recipes from Smitten, because they tend to be too fussy for me. Needless to say, I don't mind the fuss if the result is a great dessert! But I already had the leeks and potatoes, and I thought this soup would be a good way to start the week. I whipped it up this past Monday, following the directions exactly as written, for once.


Oh. My. Goodness. The ingredients for the soup are pretty basic, but the final result is more than the sum of its parts. I'm guessing it's because of the head of garlic that gets simmered in vegetable broth with the leeks long before the potatoes are introduced.

I love that this recipe uses ingredients I almost always have on hand -- I'd guess one could sub onions for leeks in an emergency. I love that the recipe is finished with a modest amount of (light) sour cream rather than a load of half and half. And while there are no actual baked potatoes in the soup, it's fun to pile on toppings like shredded cheese and chopped scallions. You can bet there will be bacon there too, after next week.

First Week of Classes: What to wear?

The "what to wear" question has always haunted me. Even as a little girl, I would spend a bit (cough) a lot of time trying to decide what skirt looked best with my sparkly-pink, fringed cowboy boots. (I refused to wear pants. I had a firm skirts only rule that lasted until I was almost 10). The years have gone by, I outgrew my pink cowboy boots, and yet am still unable to blithely breeze into my closet and pick out an outfit. I have built the 'outfit picking' exercise into my day's ritual, so that before bed, I know exactly what I will put on in the morning.

This week, I find my ritual complicated by two factors: It is very cold in Boston right now, and it's the first week of classes (good impressions must be made!). If I were to write a want ad for this week's outfits, it would go something like this:

"Eager archives/history graduate student seeks stylish, warm, and functional outfits. Must be compatible with snow boots. Also seeking indoor footwear that fits into tote bag along with books, notebooks, and pens."

Want ad in hand, I dove into my closet and picked the following three outfits:

Vintage houndstooth pencil skirt with red cashmere turtleneck, black fleece-lined tights, and black patent flats.

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Gray trousers with blue ribbed v-neck sweater, vintage scarf, and gray suede pumps.

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Silver-gray skirt with black drape-necked sweater, black fleece-lined tights, and red plaid pumps.

With these three outfits hanging in my closet (one for each day of class), I can concentrate on other important pre-class exercises such as note-taking.

Comfort Food: Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Someone pointed out to me yesterday that the forecasted high for Boston on Monday is 12° Fahrenheit, and the forecasted high for Moscow, Russia on Monday is 13° Fahrenheit. Knowing that Boston will be colder than Moscow (even if only by a degree) gives me the irresistible urge to bake some comfort food. Having just baked a double chocolate layer cake for my friend Em's birthday, I do not want to bake something that is entirely made of chocolate. One of my go-to recipes is banana bread. I keep a stash of overripe bananas in the freezer specifically for this purpose (my college roommate Emily M. taught me this trick). You can either peel the bananas and put them in a gallon freezer ziplock or put them in the freezer, skins and all. To peel the frozen bananas, simply run them under hot water and the peels slip right off.

Instead of making my usual recipe, I am going to try adding chocolate chips, for a slightly sweeter and decidedly more decadent treat that will help Pablo and me forget about how cold it is outside.

I am going to adapt Molly Wizenberg's recipe for "Banana Bread with Chocolate and Crystallized Ginger" from A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table.  

Today is not a crystallized ginger day, so I will save those tidbits for another time. Here is my ingredient list (I've increased the chocolate chips, eliminated crystallized ginger, added walnuts and an extra banana for good measure).

6 tablespoons of unsalted butter               
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour         
3/4 cup sugar                                          
3/4 teaspoon baking soda                        
1/2 teaspoon salt                                 
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
2 large eggs
2 cups mashed banana (from about 4 large ripe bananas)
1/4 cup plain yogurt (I'm using low-fat instead of whole)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Baking Instructions (also modified to suit my purposes):

Preheat the oven to 350° and grease a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan with butter.

Melt the butter over low heat and set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt). Add the chocolate chips and walnuts and stir until combined. Set aside.

In a medium bowl (or the bowl of your fabulous red Kitchen Aid mixer) lightly beat the eggs. Add the mashed banana, yogurt, melted butter, and vanilla and stir to mix well. (This recipe really can be made entirely by hand, but it is more fun to use the Kitchen Aid).

Pour the banana mixture into the dry ingredients and stir gently. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl. As with all banana breads, be sure that all of the ingredients are combined, but do not overmix.

Pour the batter into the prepared bread pan and make sure it is evenly distributed.

Bake until the bread is a beautiful shade of golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean (tester will likely be covered in melted chocolately goodness). The bread should bake for 50 minutes to an hour, depending on your oven. Molly Wizenberg adds that if the loaf is browning too quickly, you can tent the pan with aluminum foil.

Run a knife along the edges of the bread to separate it from the pan. Cool the loaf on a wire rack for 5 minutes, and then take the bread out of the pan and cool just until the chocolate won't burn your tongue on the first bite.

Pour a cup of tea, turn up the furnace, and enjoy.

*In a leap of faith, I'm writing this post before actually baking this recipe. Should anything go wrong, I will let you know. I anticipate that it will be delicious.

Cooking: Peanut Sauce

We are experimenting with vegetarian cuisine for the month of January, an idea we hatched while we were in SoCal during the holidays. In part, it's a response to the (delightful) excesses of the season, and in part it's a challenge to approach food from a different perspective. We sat down and made a long list of vegetarian recipes that could carry us through the month. So far we have enjoyed the experiment, though I would be lying if I said we weren't missing bacon.

It is always difficult for me to think about making dinner on Friday nights, when I find myself out of creative energy. Last night we were low on supplies and I didn't want to go to the grocery store, and thinking in terms of no meat was especially challenging. We had already eaten a roasted vegetable soup and a cheese-based pasta dish during the week. Looking over our list of recipes, I was reminded of this amazing peanut sauce. It was introduced to us as part of a delicious chicken-broccoli stir fry recipe that J's housemate Jim made while I was still a college student. Over the years we have recreated the original dish many times, but we have also used the peanut sauce in different applications.

Here's the recipe for the sauce:
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar

Blend these ingredients together in a small glass bowl. (I always find it easier to blend them if I warm them up in the microwave first).

So last night I cut up half an onion and two celery ribs into good-sized chunks, and I shredded 3/4 of a head of green cabbage. I heated some canola oil and sesame oil with crushed red pepper flakes in my big skillet, then stir-fried the veggies in the flavored oil. When everything was still a bit crisp, I poured a half-recipe of the peanut sauce into the center of the pan, warmed it up, and mixed it into the vegetables. We ate this over white rice and it was excellent. It also took less than 20 minutes from start to finish.

The beauty of the sauce is that it's so versatile. You can use it with any type of vegetable that you would stir-fry, alone or in combination. In addition to cabbage and broccoli, carrots and bell peppers are especially nice in there. And you can eat it over rice or noodles. One of our favorite variations combines the peanut sauce with steamed broccoli florets and whole wheat spaghetti or vermicelli. You can mix in tofu, shrimp, or chicken for added protein.

Two notes: First, I find the recipe as it is written makes a very thick sauce. I like to mix up half of the peanut butter, soy sauce, and brown sugar with the full amount of water. Or you can always make the full recipe and add water in the pan to thin it out. Second, I think the sauce testes best when there is some heat in it. I used crushed red pepper flakes last night, but you could also add hot pepper sauce directly to the mix, to suit your own taste.

Enjoy!

Shoe Coup

I am a taller than average woman with longer than average feet. For many years as I was growing up my shoe size matched my age: I wore size eight when I was eight years old, size nine when I was nine, and size ten when I was ten. These are adult women's sizes we're talking about here. By the time I was thirteen my feet had reached their full length at size 11, which made it a challenge to find cute shoes to wear for my graduation from 8th grade.

Having longer than average feet in a large and -- shall we say -- frugal family meant that my standards for shoes were very, very low. For many years my shoe buying criteria were: 1) Do they fit? and 2) Are they affordable? Cute was simply not an option. As a result, I spent a lot of my youth wearing ugly oxfords and athletic shoes purchased at a deep discount. The lone bright spot was a pair of preppy penny loafers I bought in high school and decorated with a couple of lire coins my brother brought from Italy.

With few exceptions, this situation persisted through college and grad school and into my working life. I hated buying shoes and did so rarely. My mother, who continues to feel guilty for her genetic contribution to my lengthy feet, would check the clearance racks and occasionally find a pair of shoes she thought I might like. I shuffled through my 30s in beaten-up Birkenstocks worn with or without socks.

Then I met Amanda S with her adorable shoe collection and I knew I had to raise my game. Thanks to her influence and the wonders of the internet my shoe wardrobe has quadrupled since the spring of 2008, and now includes (at least) two pairs of red shoes, sparkly high-heeled sandals (bought to wear at Amanda's wedding), black boots, brown boots, patent leather slingbacks, and metallic flats. I have a lot of cute shoes.

This past fall I decided to replace my sad old brown boots. I don't have an image of these boots but you can probably picture them in your mind: square toe, ankle height, with a low and clunky heel. They were a gift from my mother several years ago and they have been well-worn, with gratitude if not with enthusiasm. Last winter they were my go-to shoes with jeans or brown trousers.

I wanted to find a pair of low boots with a pointier toe and a well-shaped heel that I could wear to work or on weekends. A couple of weeks before Christmas I ordered these shoes (Partridge, by Clarks) from DSW:
And they were too big! Even with insoles my heels slipped out the backs of the shoes. I sadly packed them back into their box and left town for the holidays.

This past weekend we were in the Portland area and made a pilgrimage to the DSW store in Tualatin to return these shoes and look for others.

I approached the clearance rack.

The clouds parted. Angels sang.
Imagine this shoe (Muesli, by Franco Sarto) in chocolate brown leather. Although it's about the same height as the Clarks, the shoe looks much taller and lighter because of the elegant heel. The high vamp gives them the look of boots when worn with jeans, but they're also versatile enough to go with tights and a skirt.

Okay, and the best part? Thanks to DSW's generous rewards program, I paid $4.97 for them. That's a clearance shoe I can live with.

Winter Reading: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

As the snow enthusiastically covered Boston on Wednesday, I devoured The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This book is not one I would normally have chosen to buy and read, but my graduate program just started a book club. One of my favorite things about book clubs is that I end up reading books that I would not have picked on my own. Sometimes this is good (like ‘Henrietta Lacks’) and sometimes this is bad (like ‘Julie & Julia’ -sorry SaraHS). But, as my mother used to say, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Image taken from LibraryThing Catalog

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is one of those books that leaves a niggling sensation in your stomach after you turn the last page. It sticks in the corner of your brain and hours after reading it, while staring out the window at a snow-scaped paradise, you wonder about the story and the characters. It is as if they come alive in a world halfway between reality and history. They jump off of the pages and into your life, and it is only as you turn your gaze away from the snow that you remember that they belong in a story.

What has lingered in my mind goes beyond the provocative questions about medical ethics and racial injustices that this book so deftly raises. These questions certainly deserve more thought, but the ‘something else’ that lingers started with this quote (placed just before the prologue of the book):

“We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.” 

-Elie Wiesel from The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code.

The infamous HeLa cells that were taken from Henrietta Lacks became her identity. Once her soul departed and her body was laid to rest, her name and her dreams, faded into oblivion. She became an abstraction, a person who had never quite lived. Her cells, tiny pieces of herself that she unknowingly left behind, were to assume an identity of their own. 

We too unwittingly leave pieces of ourselves behind every day, like a trail of breadcrumbs that follows our footsteps. What becomes of the pieces that we leave strewn behind us? A lost glove in the supermarket, a digital footprint in cyberspace, cells in a doctor’s office. 

As we turn our gaze to the world around us, to strangers passing us on the street, we begin to see them as pieces. They become another tired face on a busy commute; a dropped coffee cup, now half-covered in ice. 

Perhaps we do not have enough room in our minds and hearts to see the universe that resides within every person. But, it would behoove us to reflect, now and again, on the pieces we leave behind us. For, if we see others as pieces, how must they see us?

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Reading is a joy, a delectable pleasure. Not only do books, fiction and non-fiction alike, create new worlds for us to explore, but, at times, they cause us to rub our eyes and view our own world differently. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has assumed its place on the bookshelf, to be re-read at a later date, and I am already opening the pages of another.

Film Fashion: Bringing Up Baby, 1938

Last week we went to see the movie "Bringing Up Baby" on the big screen at our local historic theater. Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in a screwball comedy on a rainy winter weeknight? Count me in!

I have always been a fan of vintage fashions, but the costumes in this movie were nothing short of fantastic. I almost think the script was written to provide Ms. Hepburn with an unbelievable number of costume changes. And Mr. Grant... well, we'll get to his big scene.


This publicity photo does not do justice to the dramatic dress (and veil!) that Ms. Hepburn, as Susan, wears in one of the movie's early scenes. Words cannot describe how perfectly the gown suits the actress, highlighting her tiny waist and her long legs. Imagine how extraordinarily attractive Cary Grant's David is in a white tie and tails, and then let me tell you that I barely noticed him next to this dress. Unfortunately there is a major wardrobe malfunction, and the dress... well, you'll just have to watch the movie for yourself.

The next time we see Susan she is wearing this --


-- this absolute confection of a gown. That's a floor-length white nightgown under a transparent chiffon robe, with a large polka-dot pattern and deep ruffles at the wrists and neck. It is difficult to imagine any contemporary actress who could pull off this look.

The leopard, of course, is Baby.

As for David, the plot requires him to clean up after helping a farmer with a load of chickens and Susan... well, it's difficult to explain. Let's just get right to Cary Grant in a marabou-trimmed robe:


Seriously, just see the movie. The plot wraps up with a very long evening involving David and Susan, Aunt Elizabeth, a jilted fiancee, an intercostal clavicle, a dog, two leopards, and a million dollars. And while Susan's costume is not so fabulous for this portion of the movie, I was reminded of the point once made about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers: she did everything he did, backwards, while wearing heels. At one point Susan breaks off a heel, and spends the rest of the scene bobbing up and down comically from foot to foot.

Of course David and Susan fall in love, and (spoiler alert) the museum gets the million dollars. I just love a happy ending.

Color Palette: The Issue of Black & Brown

Traditional style advice is that black and brown should not be mixed. A faithful follower of this axiom, my wardrobe rule was ‘black and brown: never the twain shall meet.” Accordingly, I carefully selected my shoes and accessories to match black, brown, and neutral outfits. Recent conversations with fashion-forward friends (SaraHS and the rockstar archivists) and family (Aunt Sue) caused me to re-think my position and have spurred me to experiment with mixtures of black and brown. This experiment seems like a faux pas in the making, and I am a bit afraid it will land me on Stacy and Clinton's show. But, I think I have succeeded in creating two elegant outfits.

These Boots are made for Walking

Beantown is home to the Red Sox, the Celtics, and an abundance of fabulous footwear. My favorite fall and winter styles are based on the boot. I am partial to knee high boots, but when worn correctly, mid-calf and ankle boots can add pizazz to an outfit. In addition to being a boot-town, Boston is also a walking city. There is much to be said for high-heeled boots, but they are better suited for special occasions because the heels get caught in Boston’s cobblestone walkways.

 Acorn Street by Directory of Boston on Flickr

Fashion Forward Football

Here in Oregon, everyone's abuzz about the upcoming BCS Championship Game featuring our very own University of Oregon Ducks. It's the first time the Ducks have played for a national title in football, and that's a big huge deal for those of us who have followed them over the past X decades.


In addition to their dominance on the playing field, the team has garnered national attention for their uniforms, of all things. For the past couple of years Nike has provided an array of uniform options that ensures the players won't have to wear the same outfit twice in the course of the season. Yellow shirts can be worn with green pants and a white helmet as the crowning glory, or they can mix it up with an all-green or all-black option; while sartorially slick, the latter choice has been criticized for including exactly none of the school's colors.


As a historian (and an older fan) my favorite uniform is this throwback style the Ducks wore early in the season. Although there are no fancy wings on the shoulders, these jerseys are a classic green-and-gold reminder of the years at the bottom of the Pac-10 Conference. Good times.

For the national championship game, the #2 Ducks will wear the visitors' uniforms, an all-white ensemble with silver numbers, accented with a silver-grey helmet and bright yellow socks. I am anticipating a beautifully-executed game on the part of the Ducks -- and they're going to look good, too.

Go Ducks!

Shopping: L.A.'s Fashion District

On the Tuesday after Christmas we went exploring in downtown Los Angeles -- the Fashion District, to be precise. Here is a rear view of my husband J (on the right) and his brother A (with my shadow at the lower right). The photo was taken in Santee Alley, a crowded and bustling scene that reminded me of open-air markets in the developing world. On this sunny afternoon the place was packed with a diversity of people; we had to work hard not to lose each other in the melee.

This literally is an alley, a narrow lane running between two rows of buildings that front onto downtown streets. Shop after shop offers everything from knockoff perfume to cheap suits to costume jewelry to racy lingerie. There are R-rated t-shirts in children's sizes and Hello Kitty fleece footie pajamas for grownups. Above all wafts the scent of bacon-wrapped hot dogs available from street vendors. Which we resisted!

We tend to indulge ourselves in shopping excursions when we're visiting our family in Southern California. J's brother, who is an architect, has great taste and it's always fun to have him around when J is looking at clothes. We shop the post-holiday sales in Pasadena's Old Town, at places like Banana Republic and J. Crew. While we have access to these stores closer to home, it's often easier for J to find smaller sizes in California; on this trip, he scored a nice dress shirt and a pair of flannel-lined chinos.

Our purchases in Santee Alley were limited to a couple of knit hats, bought for cash with no receipt (and no questions asked!). Mine still smells slightly of sandalwood, an exotic reminder of the day's adventure.

My Mother Taught Me...

Perhaps it is the historian in me, but when looking ahead to a new year, I am inclined to temper my future plans with a measure of retrospection. This year, 2011, is so different from the world I remember as a child. Words that are common parlance now- Twitter, Facebook, 4G-Network, Kindle- were hardly on the conceivable horizon. Yet, ‘back then,’ my mother taught me many lessons, both profound and mundane, that I find especially useful and heartwarming in this digital, forward-thinking era. I would like to share a few of these with you now in the hopes that you might find her wisdom useful, and that you may take a moment to pause from the busy flurry of life.

Thank You’s 

E-mail was not at everyone’s eager fingertips when my mother taught me about Thank You cards. A thank you phone call, she said, was a good place to start, but it should not be seen as a replacement for a handwritten card. 

I remember composing my first Thank You’s under her watchful eye. Dear so-and-so, I wrote and then carefully began a new line- indented just so that the first letter of the sentence began below the ‘r’ in ‘Dear.’

-Always have a supply of notecards, stationary, and paper (homemade or store-bought), because you never know when you will need to write a Thank You or send a note of good cheer. 

-There is no gift too big or too small to merit a moment of time to write a Thank You. 

-When opening presents at Christmas, Birthdays, or other special occasions, keep a pen and paper handy to note who gave you each gift. This list will help you tailor your Thank You note to each individual.

(Emily Post’s Etipedia or even the recent NPR article have more specific guidelines for Thank You notes).

Clothing and Attire

I have always had my own style- some phases of which are distinctly better than others- from my first pair of pink cowboy boots with fringe and sparkles to my recent purchase of gray, suede heels. My mother was always rather tolerant of the ebbs and flows of my fashion savvy. She always told me to ‘be classy.’ By ‘classy,’ she meant ladylike (a loaded term these days). By ‘ladylike,’ she meant to tell me that my dress, habits, and actions will leave an impression on others. The person who has the most control over this impression is you, she was telling me.

It is also no coincidence that our habit of watching black-and-white classic movies led me to an early love affair with Audrey Hepburn and the styles of Jackie O. 

She also taught me to sew a button, make a button hole, hem a skirt or pair of pants, and mend a torn sleeve. Sometimes I let a tailor take care of the hemming, but I am thankful for being comfortable with a needle and thread in hand. ‘Sustainability,’ was not a buzzword when I was having my sewing lessons, but it is a concept she unknowingly taught. Creativity in mending, dressing, and life, is a lesson I draw from these memories.

The Kitchen

I was baking from scratch before I was tall enough to reach the counter without standing on a chair. The rules for baking were simple: I could bake what I pleased, but I was responsible for the cleanup. To my mother, ‘clean’ was not just that the kitchen looked clean, but that it felt clean. “Run your hand along the countertop,” she would say. “If it’s not smooth, it’s not clean.” Her words and tone were kind, and I know that she was also telling me to put my heart into what I undertake, from the beginning to the end. Clean until it sparkles and take pride in the freshly baked cookies and the shining countertops. 

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I could write on and on about the amazing and beautiful woman who was my mother, but I will stop for now. I appreciate her tangible and practical advice in a digital world where I run from work to class to home.

A toast to the New Year, to all things good and hopeful that are promised by the changing calendar. To big dreams, to daunting challenges, and to the pearls of wisdom we glean by listening carefully to those around us.