Day in the Kitchen

 Well, the Year of Doing is off to a good start.

I finished off 2022 by wrestling another warp on to the loom.  If there is an easy or graceful way of warping the loom I surely don't know what it is.  In this case, I made a real dog's lunch of the warp.  But there is a certain level of satisfaction to taking the tangled mess on the right and turning into the orderly warp on the left (it just took a lot of combing and untangling and fussing)

The actual weaving part is simple.  The whole thing will take about 6 hours - after I get the weft yarn spun and dyed (which will take about 20 hours).  And I need it by February 11.  It will happen.

I finished out December with some comfort reading - meaning re-reading favorite books.  My Christmas traditions - The Christmas Carol and Hogfather.  Then Terry Pratchett's "Wintersmith" because of the winter theme.  Someone had mentioned "The Little Prince" and I don't think I've read that since high school so I'm reading it now.  Next Ebaida and I are reading Northanger Abbey.

Today was a kitchen day.  I was given a couple of pounds of raspberries that only had a day or two before they went funky, and a bag of sweet onions that were showing signs of softening.  Now I have a couple of cups of raspberry coulis in the freezer (that stuff is to dye for) and a batch of caramelized onions.   I had also picked my oranges before the freeze so those are now marmalade.   I need to do the same with some of my lemons but I had enough of stirring and simmering for one day.

"Rescuing" food is nothing new.  The amount of food waste in the world is abhorrent (National Geographic once stated that 46% of the food produced in the world doesn't get eaten).  While I was cooking, I remembered a department Christmas party we attended one time.  Part of the decor were tall glass cylinders filled with cranberries used a candle holders.  When the party was over and the caterers cleaning up, Bob wandered over and asked what they were going to do with them.  The answer, of course, was "throw them away."  Which just about sums up our society - buy it, use it one, toss it.  So he was his usual charming self and we came home with several pounds of cranberries which became chutney and sauce.

I finished off the evening by listening to a lecture on Steampunk art, aethestics, and the concepts of problem solving - one of a four-part series that Michael bought me for a birthday/Christmas gift.  And as at this point I'm capable of spinning without looking at it, I also got some more of that blanket weft spun (I spin a hundred yards or so an hour, and I need at least another 1,000 yards so must multitask.)

All in all, a good start to the year.