Author: N

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Goodwill finds!

I got a purple corduroy jacket/overshirt from Goodwill ($10) over the holidays!

Definitely in fashion now, but the similar jackets I see others wearing aren’t normally so bright. The jacket is currently in a trial period. If I decide not to keep it, sibling C is highly interested. She originally found it at the thrift store but it’s too big on her. It’s also big on me, but we’ll call it stylishly large.

I also found a nicely-patterned kid’s shirt. It fits in the shoulders but everything in the torso is a little too short. I spent too much time compared to the cost of the shirt ($5!) letting out the hem by 1/4 inch.

Parrots!
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Natural dyeing experiments

A natural dye sampler using materials foraged around Austin and leftover from cooking.

It’s really hard to get colors that aren’t shades of yellow, orange, or off-white! Sibling C wore these socks for a few years. She reported that after enough washes, it’s hard to tell which socks go together.

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Weekend trip to Philadelphia: Urban design highlight

We took a trip to Philadelphia (via Amtrak — woo!) over the summer. There were a lot of cool things in Philadelphia, like Amish pretzels, but I wanted to highlight the charming alleys. They’re residential streets with historic row houses.

The highlight is how narrow the alleys are. Technically, they’re wide enough to drive a car down but they’re so narrow that drivers have to go just about walking speed and there is nowhere to park. They are through streets, but the width keeps drivers from wanting to use them so they remain useful (and safe) for pedestrians and cyclists.

These old streets are really nice to use and the old houses give them extra charm.

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Sadly, streets like these can’t be built under modern road design requirements. (Perhaps private streets with this design would be allowed.)

Philly also has lots of street art. In an effort to reduce graffiti, the city funds murals and mosaics.
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Cleaning out highlights

In the process of decluttering childhood items (toys, art, clothes, etc), I saw these two unique pieces by my little sister A:

A collage at the intersection of the love of dogs and of cars.
Aww

And one by me (I think).

A multimedia poliwhirl.
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A trip to the Cloisters

My parents visited us in New York around Christmas last year. For one of our outings, we went to the Cloisters in Washington Heights.

Fort Tryon park is a little hilly.

The museum is an assortment of old European art and architecture that some guy imported. At that time (late 1800s through the 19-aughts), there were a bunch of old abandoned and half fallen-down monasteries and churches that no one was using. I assume people would be more interested in them now, but maybe there are just soooo many old religious buildings in Europe that these would still be considered dregs.

The collector assembled all of the partial monasteries into one eclectic building.

They had an amazing collection of Medieval tapestries. Besides being dyed entirely with natural dyes (!!) and being handmade, this style and era of tapestry is particularly known for portraying real plants with a lot of detail.
From a series about hunting a unicorn. Lots of flower species depicted.
Good view of the Hudson River.
European-style herb garden in the courtyard of one of the monasteries.

It’s a good place to take your parents 🙂

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Last year’s birthday dinner!

For my (N’s) birthday last year, we ate at Claro, a Oaxacan restaurant in Brooklyn. I was originally interested in them because they make their own masa (and downstream products, like tortillas) from specially-sourced heirloom corn and use some amount of local produce and meat. They aren’t fully vegetarian (unlike For All Things Good) but do have a good selection and a fair amount of seafood.

J liked the idea of going to Claro because they have a Michelin star.

I don’t really remember what we got. One salad offered that we didn’t get had ground grasshoppers in the dressing.

Claro has custom handmade ceramics.
Ceviche
Mushroom memela (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memela)
Rice pudding — really good!
Mole cake (spiced chocolate cake) — really really good!

Everything was really good! We also got to sit in the restaurant’s nice backyard garden.

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Inherited quilt projects

I have a couple quilt tops (the decorative bit that you see which made up of a bunch of different fabric scraps sewn together) from my mom’s mom. The less fancy one has what I’m calling a “dogbone” pattern (I don’t know what the official name is). We don’t know where the quilt top came from originally; my grandma didn’t quilt, so it must’ve been a gift of some sort.

~65″ x70″. Almost square which could be a little awkward.

The fancier top was a wedding present to my mom’s parents in 1952. This one is more finished, with a border and everything.

~75″ x 92″

I put these through the laundry to pre-shrink them, make sure the colors don’t bleed, and find any weak seams, but I was too rough on them… so I’m currently repairing frayed seams. I was hoping to go straight to assembly and quilting.

While resewing seams, I’m thinking ahead to what border and back to add to the dogbone top.

  • Blue fabric is scarce
  • A little more yellow in person
  • A little more purple in person
  • There are some hand-me-down white squares, too

I could also combine borders or do two rows of border. What do you think looks best?

I was thinking a lime green patterned fabric would look really good, but there’s nothing like that in the stash.

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Sources of fancy masa

This is a partner post to the bean search. I discovered recently that fancy masa is available. It can be heirloom, direct-trade, single origin, organic, etc, all those normal fancy food options.

I was inspired to search for fancy masa after J and I went to a (vegetarian!) Oaxacan restaurant in Brooklyn that makes their own masa using fancy corn. They use the masa in their food products but they also sell it fresh (I got some). Going to Brooklyn all the time for fresh masa isn’t super convenient, though. Fortunately, the company, Masienda, that supplies the fancy restaurants also sells direct to consumers!

Somewhat sad tortillas I made with the fresh masa

While researching them, I came across a couple other fancy masa stores too. These are the options I found!

  • Masienda – dry masa in several colors, as well as several heirloom bean varieties and lots of varieties of heirloom/single origin whole corn. They have supplies for doing your own nixtamalization.
  • Alma Semillera – very similar to Masienda, but with smaller selection. Many if not all products are also organic, so overall a bit more expensive.
  • I Love Mole – even smaller selection of beans, masa harina, and whole corn. This company mostly sells mole mixes and other seasonings.

None of these companies is particularly local to me (in New York). I believe they’re all based in California, although most of the beans and corn are grown in Mexico.