I’m going to admit right now that I’ve shamelessly copied Amanda’s post by adding this video to my own blog, but it literally brought a hitch to my throat and a tear to my eye. Growing up on a small farm that’s been in my family since it was settled, and for which the future is uncertain, this gorgeous little animation hit a visceral note for me.
I know I know it’s for a giant fast food chain, but still. Well done. And who doesn’t adore Willie Nelson?
Several weeks ago at work I coordinated a little film shoot in collaboration with the CBC as part of their 75th anniversary celebrations, to bring together a group of artists at OCAD to remember the influence of the late, great Mr. Dressup (Ernie Coombs) on us all as kids. The spot turned out beautifully (and yay! I don’t sound like a blathering idiot!).
I don’t normally bring in my work life to my blog here, but this is one of those lovely moments that I had to share. This is why I do the work that I do. I must keep reminding myself. Enjoy!
A couple weeks ago our friends Cass and Liz and Chris and I all piled into our Jetta wagon and headed on an epic road trip to Madison Wisconsin. Why Madison you say? Well. Wisconsin only has some of the best craft beer in the world. And we had a plan to get our hands on it.
Farmers' Market around the capitol building
Gorgeous garlic
Said beer is from a special brewery that will, for now, go unnamed. That will be saved for another post for in say, a month from now. After a certain wedding takes place. You see, this beer is so famous among true beer geeks that we need to keep it top secret until after the fact. Or risk crashers. Seriously.
Let me also add that our little party of four went through some harrowing experiences to get said beer. And that I’m lucky to be sitting here bragging about it. Again. A story for about a month from now.
Sunflowers for sale
So back to Madison. Besides it’s amazing beer, it’s also a beautiful city — sitting on an isthmus between two lakes. The city is centred around its stately capitol building, which is itself a thing of beauty. One of the most amazing things we experienced was the Saturday morning farmers’ market, which sets up around the edges of the capital square, with what I estimate was a few hundred vendors — that’s right, a few hundred. There was a lot of repetition among vendors but clearly, they get the business to support it. And everyone walks around the square in the same, clockwise direction, as the sidewalk is pretty tight once you have the vendors in there. This was the most impressive non-permanent farmers’ market I’ve ever seen.
Community veg garden in the square
I want to find me some of these jars
But sadly, we couldn’t really buy much of anything, because we weren’t equipped to cook it. We did have some cheese curds of course though. And we ogled everything! Wisconsin is also known as the cheese state, and we sampled so much cheese. Every restaurant and pub serves local cheese. And beer-battered deep fried cheese curds. Chris even had a burger with them on it (thinking when he ordered it that it was just topped with regular, unfried cheese curds). And also sadly, we cannot bring cheese or produce across the border so we had to leave it all behind. So eat we did, but shop at the farmers’ market we didn’t.
Great Dane taps
Great Dane casks
Taps at Brasserie V
And maybe because there is so much cheese (and so much good beer?) the city is full of very active people. Runners, walkers, and cyclists. Toronto could learn a thing or two about being a bike friendly city from Madison. They had just gotten their own version of the bike rental system (like Toronto and Montreal’s Bixi system), only launched a few days before we got there but already well in use. So many streets have bike-only lanes. Everyone bikes everywhere.
At Brasserie V; I don't even remember what this was (it had been a long full day of drinking by then) and I don't think the name on the glass is right, but it was divine.
Chris with his sampler at Great Dane
Now Madison wasn’t all perfect — there is a lot of labour unrest in Wisconsin and there were a few protests, all very polite, going on. And a lot of homeless people sleeping in the very well-manicured gardens and on benches all around the capitol building. It was often disturbing to happen across groups of homeless (mostly men) lying about in places that I think in Toronto they would have been run out of. I’m used to seeing homeless people — Toronto has plenty — but it was as if there were no shelters for them to go to at night in Madison. In Toronto at night, I think homeless people tend to either find a shelter or go to rough encampments or other places that tend to be out of sight. I don’t really know for sure but it seemed different somehow, and it made me sad to see.
Succulents for sale at the market
We did a lot of drinking of course, checking out places like The Old Fashioned, Great Dane Brewpub, Brasserie V (where the bartender was unbelievably kind, buying us drinks after waiting 20 mins in the sweltering heat for a cab — just a note that cabs are not easy to obtain in Madison, likely because most people bike!), Alchemy, Brickhouse BBQ, and The Cooper’s Tavern. We had great food at most of these places, as well as at Graze, which specializes in locally produced food. I didn’t find their atmosphere terribly spectacular but their menu was incredible. I know Cass is planning a full review for either Free Our Beer or The Bar Towel, so I’ll let him tell the story of the beer and rate the pubs. I liked them all.
Inside the capitol building
Inside the capitol building
It was blisteringly hot there, as much as it was here, and I was about ready to die of dehydration when we happened upon a street festival late on the Saturday, where — yes — they had a mobile beer trailer serving right from the side of the vehicle. By this point however I opted for a water break.
We also did some driving in the countryside, but this is where I have to leave the story and tell the rest of the tale another time. In the meantime, enjoy some photos (there are some hints in the photos of the story yet to be told)!
One of our home reno projects this summer was to finally, finally paint our bedroom. We did that in May, and there’s still the odd little finishing touch to be done. A few weeks ago Chris got the trim on the windows finished and I painted it (we haven’t had trim on the bedroom windows since I’ve lived here, over 4 years). The radiators still need new trim and we need to replace one of the switches for the light/ceiling fan combo. And there’s no art on the walls yet either. But… I finished a pillow!
New pillow for the bedroom
This is the Mosaic Floor Pillow quilt design by Elizabeth Hartman. I made one of these already for Adria’s birthday but this time I followed the pattern a little more closely on the assembly of the patchwork. It worked out very well — I’m very pleased. There are a whole bunch of fabrics used from all over the place so I’m not even going to try to sit down and figure them all out. I know some people really love to track that stuff but I’m less concerned about that.
The smaller pillows are ones I got at Winners for a steal, and they match the room really well, and now I feel like the bed at least is complete. We have an enormous (and so comfortable) king-sized bed, and now with these three pillows on it, it looks a little less enormous.
Last week after getting home from a weekend at the cottage I inspected the beet patch to see how things are going. Low and behold I had gargantuan Chioggias coming out of my ears. I should have known, as they are the earliest of the beets I like to grow. I also have some Detroit Reds and some Detroit Goldens on the go. I’m afraid to see how big they are. Between the very gregarious patch of Rainbow Swiss Chard I have going (I am so sick of chard!!) and the beets, I can barely keep up.
Pickled Chioggia Beets
Chioggias (aka candy cane beets) are a little unconventional for pickling as they tend to bleed out all their lovely candy cane striping, but I love their unusual look all the same. As you can see each jar is a little different depending on which jar got the beets with more red in them.
I’ll probably can some more pickled beets with the Detroit Reds to get some more traditional looking ones. I eat these things like candy. Its the one pickle I make that I can be sure I will always eat tons of. I might try pickling some of the Goldens too — I’m curious how they’ll look in the jar.
Read my pickled beets recipe…
Over the last week we’ve finally had a decent dose of rain. It’s not enough — we need a lot more — but I won’t complain. Today was a very misty one, and everything is pleasantly coated with little drops of dew.
Soaked Smoke Bush
It’s incredibly sticky outside now though, because while we’ve gotten some rain, the heat is still hanging around. Not like it was last week though. I’ll take the rain and a little humidity over 38 degrees C and a lot of humidity any day of the week. I’m just pleased that my rain barrels have refilled again. I’m not sure what the official rainless stretch was but it was easily a month if not more.
We’re mostly all finished with the wedding planning — in fact, I had pretty much everything figured out for it around the end of June. Now it’s simply a matter of booking everything, paying deposits, etc. It’s been going very smoothly and overall it’s been a pretty chill experience.
One of the things I’m super excited about is being the very first letterpress customer for Amanda Keenan of Silverplate Press! I know Amanda through my job at OCAD U and have had the pleasure of working with her there while she was our graphic design student monitor. She has since graduated and over the last year or so been working towards establishing her letterpress studio. She has two letterpresses — a wee small one and a Vandercook, which can handle larger jobs — I think up to 20 x 30 inches (although I’m not sure — she’s the expert!).
She’s been chronicling the development of the studio via her blog, and just last week, with the help of her husband Justin, posted an instructional video about how to remove rollers from the Vandercook. From what I know about letterpress, which isn’t a lot, there just aren’t a lot of experts around anymore that know how to work these babies.
I’m pretty excited about what’s to come off the press, and Amanda is pretty psyched too! It’s a huge pleasure for me to be able to help her get the business off the ground — both Chris and I are thrilled about being able to showcase Amanda’s great design skills in the very special art (and design) form of letterpress, as part of the lead up to our wedding. For a sneak peek at our design, click here. Bring on the ink!
This video was sent to my work Twitter account by the good people at Toronto Standard… I’m not entirely sure why they sent it there, but it’s one of those wonderful coincidences, because this video is far more relevant to me personally. This is a lovely profile of Toronto baker Jeff Connell, of Woodlot. I’ve never been to the restaurant, but obviously I have to go check them out soon. Their bread looks gorgeous.
Oh. And now more than ever I want to build me a wood burning oven.
I think my house smelled like dill pickles for a week after this.
Dilly beans
It started with garlic dills and dilly beans.
Garlic dills
And then I bought more cucumbers for making relish. But I had way, way too many. So they became sliced garlic dills, with some added chili to kick them up a notch.
Spicy sliced garlic dills
I made only a half batch of relish last year to see how we liked it. It was so great I made a full batch this year.
Homemade cucumber relish
And for the first time this year I’ve had success with chard. I have no idea why it didn’t cooperate in the past. But this summer there is an abundance of this lovely stuff.
Rainbow Swiss Chard
Summer is wonderful.
Hello there blog. We just haven’t been finding time for each other lately, have we? It’s not that I’m not doing very interesting things. I’ve got a wedding coming up and so lots of planning and organizing has been happening there. My veggie gardens have expanded and finally the tomatoes have taken off. I’ve already done quite a bit of summer canning, and I plan to do more. I’m even doing some knitting, and I have a bunch of sewing projects on deck too.
Truth be told that each time in the last week I’ve sat down to post, I’ve been battling with WordPress plugins. My WordPress Media Flickr plugin decided to up an quit on me, and I’ve installed and test driven dozens of alternatives in the last couple days, only to become ever more frustrated and pissed off. I haven’t been this frustrated with technology for quite some time — honestly — how hard can it be to create a simple, visual interface that streams in my photos? Apparently it’s very hard. Anyway, I have found a work-around that doesn’t involve plugins whatsoever. So I’m officially back. Oh and I’ve once again been fiddling with the template. This one is rather plain-Jane but I prefer the back end capabilities to others I’ve tried, and it displays header photos very well, and gives me control over that functionality too. Perhaps I can brush up on my HTML and non-existent PHP skills (that’s what fiancés are for, isn’t it?) to spruce things up a bit.
One thing I did get to recently was editing our photos from Newfoundland. Once again we had a fabulous trip — and of course I mentioned already the getting engaged part. Having such a gap between the trip itself and editing the photos however has led to a nice re-living and appreciation of our time there. We have both agreed we’ve seen quite a lot of the island now and that we will likely try to travel to other places for a while. But as I see tweets about icebergs and whale watching come across TweetDeck, I feel the ol’ heartstrings plucked again. Never has a place gotten so under my skin before!
I’m going to try something new here — embedding the slideshow of images instead of posting only a selection of them. Here’s hoping this works. Enjoy!