domicile

Real Live Art

  camilla engman in hallway 
  Originally uploaded by emira

One of the first big purchases Martin and I made together as a couple was a piece of art. We fell victim to two things: first, too much wine at the opening and second, it was a gorgeous piece of art that touched us both immediately. That piece was an original by a local Vancouver artist Jude Griebel and it now hangs in our livingroom. (Incidentally the house the painting now lives in was our second big purchase together, we take baby steps). The piece is called Further Towards the Forest, and you can see it here if you're interested. It tends to illicit strong reactions from folks. Many people don't like it. We adore it. But you already knew that.

Since we bought that piece we've slowly collected pieces from many of our favourite local artists. Among them Mia Hansen, Lori Joy Smith, and Renee Gouin. We typically pick these pieces up at openings and sales in town here and, with this new fangled contraption called the internet, we've been adding to our local art collection with some truly awesome pieces from a few webstars like Camilla Engman (that's one of her prints kind of poorly photographed there in the photo) and Abigail Percy. I fear I'm liable to get a bit Etsy happy and go overboard one of these days, though we've still got plenty of walls to fill, so I'm probably safe for a while yet. I recently snatched up a set of Camilla's prints, and while they're not exactly originals I just can't recommend them enough as they're a screaming deal (in my opinion) and boy do they make me super happy every time I see them. (Imagine how much I'll like them when they're actually framed!) I grew up with a lot of original art on our walls, most of it done by a close friend of the family, and while Martin and I are certainly not experienced collectors by any stretch of the imagination, it's a wonderful way to bring stories, beauty and friends into your home. If you've got a favourite local/rising star of an artist or count yourself amongst the talented, let me know. I'm always on the lookout...

And speaking of tempting beautiful things, Megan/Not Martha is a guest blogger over at Design Sponge right now. Among other things, she's got a piece up about window film. Megan has the Strossel geranium pattern in her kitchen which I much adore, and has used window film to great effect in her own place to block out nasty neighbour's walls while keeping light in a space. We keep meaning to do this in the kitchen so we don't have to watch the frat boy neighbours constantly trying to start their broken down cars while doing dishes. And as I think about it, this might be a good idea for Miss P's window which looks out on the neighbour's less than beautiful vinyl siding.

New Fall Shoes

  new shoes 
  Originally uploaded by emira

When I was a little girl my mom used to take me to the children's shoe store on Oak Bay Avenue for a new pair of shoes. They were always Buster Browns, they were always Mary Janes, each year I had a choice between black, navy and one year I believe there was a burgundy option. While I loved this ritual -- the new smell of them, the sticker and hard candy they always gave you at that shop, the anticipation that perhaps this year there would be something more exciting in the selection than last year -- I can't say I totally loved the shoes themselves. I believe I had a keen eye for the delight in the cut of cloth and pairings of colours that fashion and fabrics bring me today at a pretty young age. And, so, it kind of surprised me when I realized this Fall I was on the lookout for a pretty conservative/practical pair of mary janes to round out my shoe collection.

I'm not sure if it's just the change in the tides of fashion (certainly when I was a university student/raver in the mid-nineties these would never have passed muster), or perhaps the influence of my new love for all things flamenco (many have commented that these look like flamenco shoes), or a resurrection of childhood nostalgia but I'm rather smitten with the humble mary jane this season. That said, this particular pair have a flair that my five year old self would have given her baby eye-teeth for what with the flowers and all. The best part of these shoes? I didn't have to leave my house to buy them. Actually, that's not really the best part because I honestly love boutique shopping. But after scouring boutiques both in town here and in Victoria I still hadn't come up with a pair of shoes that met my current requirements for: pretty, comfortable (meaning a little heel was fine, but nothing over 2 inches and must have decent arch support), and laced with a hint of 5  year old mary jane nostalgia. This pair are from Zappos who finally, finally, ship to Canada. (How did I not know this by the way?) The convenience combined with the sinking American dollar/rising Canadian dollar meant my resistance faltered and the shoes were acquired. And my how I adore them. Though, they notably did not come with a sticker or a hard candy.

News seasons. New Beginnings.

  narcissi bulbs 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Last weekend, in the pouring rain, I tried to put my I'm-a-rugged-west-coaster / it's-better-than-working face on and plant my fall bulbs. I managed to get them all planted and did a none-too-shabby job of cleaning up the flower beds, before I gave up and went in for a long hot bath and some tea. By the time I was done I had that kind of wet cold where water is actually seeping up your jeans, and your wool sweater wears twice what it did when you started. My gloves were also so slippery with mud that I couldn't get them off my hands (too slippery to hold onto!) and I actually considered for more than half a second (officially too long) the option of grabbing a very, very muddy glove in my teeth to pry it off my cold fingers. I ended up using my feet. Whining and winging aside, I did actually kind of enjoy my time out in the garden for a number of reasons beyond that perverse feeling of having accomplished something despite my strong will to go inside and snuggle. Mostly, I have to admit my internal rhythms seem forever tied to the school year more than the calendar year and fall seems to bring with it a sense of renewed possibilities. As I was out there digging wee bulb holes and trying to envision what everything will look like next spring, I couldn't help but get hopeful for the chance at a little renewal (the metaphor was right there for me to grab onto afterall), cuz frankly I could use it right about now.

Making Dishes

  just some of the afternoon's dishes 
  Originally uploaded by emira

When I'm riding a wave of stress (and have I mentioned lately just how very stressed/busy things are? yes? oh good) things tend to go in two phases. Phase 1: abandon all sense of domesticity, eat out for lunch at work and forage from the fridge/eat out for dinner, cease all laundry habits and let piles of cat hair take up residence in increasingly conspicuous locales. Phase 2: freak out about total lack of domestic comforts, begin to make lists on bus rides/in my head while cycling of foodstuffs that will ground me, gently prod the lovely Martin to vacuum the house and say a silent prayer of thanks when he also tackles the laundry. This weekend Phase 2 began in earnest, and Sunday many, many loads of dishes were washed in our sink as the following items piled up in the fridge/freezer:

• Heidi's life changing lentil burgers. I do not jest. As a vegetarian I have made my share of veggie patties over the years and typically they take a long time to make, require too many ingredients and then fall apart when you cook them. Not these. No sir. They were seriously done before I knew it. Required ingredients which were already in my kitchen and now comprise my lunches for the week, while also leaving me enough to put in the freezer for a few weeks from now when I find myself in a similar time crunch. Oh, and yummy. For the record, these are similar to the garbanzo version in her cookbook, which I can definitely see in my future.


• Also from Heidi's cookbook I had made a batch of the roasted tomato/paprika soup earlier in the week, and at my friend Sarah's suggestion didn't add water to use it as a sauce. I took the remains of that (which for the record I didn't add paprika too), added some fresh sage and popped that into a pyrex freezer dish with some made-by-the-local-Italian-ladies spinach canelloni from my favourite deli to make a canelloni meal to pull out of the freezer and pop in the oven later this week. I whipped up a simple wholewheat breadcrumb/garlic/fresh herb topping thing to go on that too, with some somewhat sacreligious (to Italian cooking purists) hempseed nuts thrown in for extra protein.


• At this point in the day I started roasting some veggies for veggie quesadillas for our dinner that night. The recipe comes from the Rebar Cookbook and includes lemon zest, fresh basil and chipotle pepper with the roasted veggies (actually stirred into the veggies after roasting) which I think is lovely.


• Once the veggies came out of the oven I quickly attempted recreating the tofu sesame snacks they make at Capers (a local organic market) here in town. I've always loved them and consider them a kind of perverse hippy/veggie/healthy person treat to get each time I go. We recently brought some on a beach picnic with Miss P and she adored them and requested them for her lunches. Not wanting to pass up a chance to add something that simple and healthy to her lunches I decided to give it  a whirl, by simply using all the ingredients listed on the deli packaging. Turns out that works. The not-so-secret ingredient? Cumin. In about 15 minutes I had a whole tray of them. Next time I'll make two bricks worth as I couldn't stop Miss P from eating them over the day.


• What next? Ah yes, lemon squares. This was another Miss P request, though since she had mentioned it I had been overwhelmed with a craving myself. I realized I didn't have enough cornstarch as I was finishing up the recipe so used arrowroot powder instead. It didn't seem to set quite right and required extra baking, so the bottom crust ended up a bit tough. Oh well. Still lemony/tasty.


• Somewhere in there I made a pot of lentil soup as well, but looking back I'm honestly not sure how.

And with all that stocked and stored in the fridge, plus some red pepper pesto I taught Martin to make on Saturday night we've now got a fridge/freezer bursting with easy/tasty food so that even my actual time at home is precious, I can feel more grounded (and well fed) while I'm there.

Home Alone

  wee dress 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Well it's been a week now since we handed in our final draft of our book to the publishers and I'm just starting to feel like I've got some energy back. I spent this Sunday/Monday home alone (and took an extra day off) as Martin and Miss P went down to Seattle to visit with some friends and do some back to school shopping. This was the first time I've been alone in the house for an extended period of time, and while I love the two of them to pieces, I must admit I was kind of giddy at the thought of it. As the summer wore on I kept a little mental list in the back of my brain cataloging all the things I might do with my expanse of solitary home-time. That list included things like having a gaggle of girls over for champagne on the deck, undertaking a new garden project, starting to paint the house, countless dormant craft projects, and on and on. In the end, I flaked. Hard core. There were bubble baths (one day I even took two), there was tea, there was pie (store bought!), I plowed through a mindless novel, ate tofu and brown rice (Martin is allergic to the former and not particularly fond of the latter), and even went so far as to indulge in some truly vapid nostalgia (only one disk though). It was great. I certainly didn't "accomplish" all I had hopes of, but as I say I'm beginning to feel whole again.

I did get one project started: my gorgeous god-daughter's birthday gift. The photo you see there is of the dress I made her, and the rest of it (which will remain a surprise to the internets until it is safely in the mail to her and her mama) is well on its way. I feel like a bit of a nitwit that I hadn't yet thought of making little girl dresses out of some of the gorgeous contemporary quilting cottons out there. I think that's partly because many of the ones I've seen around have been a bit more crafty in design than I would be up for in an evening project. But earlier this summer I was at a very chic kids boutique and fell in love with a little girl's dress, that like this one here was a very straightforward pattern, but used a bright colourful print. I resisted buying it, as it was a long way from cheap, but this little number took almost no material and about an hour and half to make including hand stitching the hem. Ah the joy of little pieces of clothing. So much quicker. I hope it will fit her, I made it a bit big so she could grow into it, and if she outgrows it I figure she can wear as a tunic.

Anyway, now that I'm rejoining the world of the living I do have a number of domestic projects on my mind. Too bad summer seems to have up and left us, rather rudely. Perhaps it will come back for September.

You know what the internet needs?

More cat videos. For sure.

But seriously. Mr. Pluto is such a part of this here home, and while photos may come close to conveying his dashing looks, no still shot can capture his voice. And what a voice it is. He's a talker. Have I mentioned that before? Folks often don't believe me, just how much he talks. My dear friend (and old roommate) who gave him to me used to joke that she got him for me as a conversation partner so I could stop wandering around the apartment talking to myself. When I used to work from home, I regularly had clients ask me if I had "a baby that needed to be attended to" in a voice of thinly veiled concern.

As Mr. Pluto was an SPCA kitten, we had no idea he would grow into the mighty flame point siamese wonderkitty that he is. And so, we also had no idea he would have such a mouth on him. Anyway, for those of you who are curious click away. Now I just  need to try to get a video of he and Martin snoring together on the pillow in the morning, then the internet's cat archives will finally be complete!

the internet: now with more cats from domicile and Vimeo.

Oh red striped sweater. I miss you.

  my dutch bike! 
  Originally uploaded by emira

I can not for the life of me figure out where I left/lost my striped red sweater. And I so want it back. Or some version of it. Here it is in the basket of my dutch bike in Holland last Fall. I know I brought it back. I'm sure I've worn it since. But sometime this Spring it up and disappeared. It was among my most favourite accessories.

I've now officially given up hope, and on the top of my Fall wardrobe wishlist is a replacement. If you see one somewhere, do let me know will you?

Is this the face of a mouser?

  mr. pluto 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Normally, Mr. Pluto, like most of his feline brethren, is a hedonist. This translates into much lazing about, official sleeping, snuggling, purring, cuddling, eating and late evening strolls through the neighbourhood on warm summer evenings. When we go to bed, Pluto generally comes with us and chooses his favourite spot for the night. He has a few -- and like all cats he does maintain his right to change his mind on a whim -- but typically he can be found: curled up on top of the covers in the crook of my knees, curled up on top of the covers on the small of my back, or laid out "human-style" on the edge of martin's side of the bed wee cat head on the pillow. For real. Here he will generally remain until one of two things happen: 5:38am rolls around and he decides it's time to eat breakfast, so he begins his insistent siamese meow at my head, this routine always ends with me getting out of bed and putting him in the basement for roughly 30 minutes until I do get up; alternatively, he lucks out and I get up before him and then he can trot behind me to the kitchen, exclaiming his pleasure at my decision to wake and feed him. This routine is not regularly interrupted.

And so, it was that I was a bit surprised to be woken at 3am-ish earlier this week to the sound of my beloved cat wreaking havoc along the baseboards behind the bed. I tried, in vain, to call him back to bed and then tried, again in vain, to continue sleeping and ignore him. And so, to the basement he went until a more reasonable hour. Not sure what had caused the stirring I thought it might be a mouse, but hoped for a large moth or something a cat would enjoy chasing. The next night: same thing. This time I decided to investigate a bit more and discovered that Pluto was steadfastly focused on the crack between the baseboards and the floor (we still haven't replaced the quarter round in much of the house after sanding and refinishing the floors). Were it not for the fact that I outweigh him by 7 or 8 times (he's a big kitty) I would not have been able to get him to move from that spot. And, as I sat there observing him I heard a scutter behind the baseboards. Pluto sprang into action to see what was up. I determined that yes indeed, that was no moth that was a mouse. So, I decided he was better on active mouse patrol than locked in the basement and tried to get back to sleep. When I woke up three hours later he was still glued to his post  in the corner and could not be coaxed back to bed. He was reluctant to leave his post for breakfast. Clearly a mouse was in our house.

I'll admit my first thought was to call someone. I don't want mice in my house. At all. The internets all say that you need to find the hole the mice are coming in via and plug that up. But honestly, with our house? Which hole do you plug? Really, if we're counting holes that mice can get through we'd need to wrap up the entire house in steel wool I think. Martin, who grew up in the country and has more of a let nature take care of itself attitude than I sometimes, suggested that we just let Pluto deal with it. I figured I'd give it one more night.

That evening when we got home from work, Pluto was still in the bedroom at the baseboard post. By this point it was entirely possible he had not moved all day, though he showed increasingly less interest in it over the evening. I was on constant alert for "gifts" in the form of dead mouse carcasses throughout the house. Since then, no nocturnal bedroom hunting and he's been back to his usual sleeping arrangements. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nature has indeed won out here, and that the mouse either took off, died (though hopefully not in my walls!) or became a mid-afternoon snack.

I have many stories of Pluto's failed attempts at mousing in past basement suites and apartments of mine, but he has also had a few successes. Last night, I was in bed drifting off, while Martin was up watching a movie. Pluto wasn't sure if he wanted to stay on the couch or come to bed with me so was pacing between rooms making up his wee-cat mind, when Martin noticed one of those massive moths in the livingroom. "Get it Pluto!" he cried. And, judging by the whoops of delight and praise coming from Martin, he did. Sauntering into the room he jumped up, caught it in his mouth and proceeded to ... well eat it. I could hear Martin exclaiming from the livingroom, "nice work, our cat's a ninja!" which is surely the greatest praise Martin could give. So, perhaps he did catch the mouse after all. I just hope he's letting the other rodents in the 'hood know he means business.

A Tale of Two Weekends

We had our Canada Day long weekend this past weekend and contrary to all weather predictions that forecast rain, it was a gloriously clear and warm weekend. I'm running pretty close to empty these days, trying to balance a busy work schedule, working with Lauren on a near final round of book edits, rehersing a choreography that is kicking my but for an upcoming flamenco show,and dealing with some fairly draining personal stuff that is occupying both Martin and my minds lately. In light of all that, I'm frankly awed that Martin (whose life is no less full these days) had it in him to build a deck this weekend. Me, I made cupcakes. And I didn't even do that by myself.

I made the cupcakes with Melanie, while Martin and Mark worked on framing the deck Sunday afternoon. The cupcakes, which were delicious by the way, were for a fireworks watching party at their place later that evening. Martin and Mark managed to get the deck well framed in that afternoon, and Melanie and iced cupcakes over a wonderful cup of tea. Today Martin was up and ready to finish off the joists while I struggled out of bed after having had a particularly awful sleep. By the time I made it to the kitchen with my cup of coffee, he was nearly ready to head back to Rona to pick up the deck surface planks. Over the course of today, he worked on the deck, managing to finish off the surfacing in time for us to eat a kind of picnic dinner out there, while I puttered about baking bread, tying up my tomato and pea plants, watering the garden and making some soup. Now it's near dusk and he's still out there cleaning up and sorting the remaining lumber so he can start on the railings tomorrow.

This is the first big reno task we've undertaken that I've been so very absent for. It feels very strange to not be out there with my hair full of sawdust and an aching back, though I'm so grateful to have had this weekend to take it easy. I know I'm only delaying my own part as I'll likely take on treating and painting the deck, but as I sit looking at it out the kitchen window I'm so happy to have been able to sit this one out so far.

Meditions on Baking Bread

   
  Originally uploaded by emira

Two years ago when we bought our house, I took one look at our stove and thought: I should learn to make bread. A stove like that practically screams out "bake bread in me" what with all the 50s kitsch and the fact that is has a warming oven perfect for raising dough/warming yeast sponges in.

So, like the foolheardy overachiever I aspire to be, I went and took out several tomes on bread making from the library. And after redoing all the floors in the house and reading everything I could about the mysteries and wonders of breadmaking I became totally overwhelmed. And I put that hobby aside. But, I'm currently in need of some kind of meditative/relaxing hobby and bread making seems like it might be a good fit. I've read and heard endless accounts of those who love the task waxing about the quite joy of kneading bread in the morning before the house wakes, or the comforting smell of fresh bread enveloping a home, and that sounds about as close to paradise as I'm likely to get in the next few months.

I nearly hopped on the whole "no-knead bread" train a few months ago, but I don't have the right size of dutch oven and frankly it seems silly to me that with all the bowls, spoons and pans in my kitchen I couldn't make something as simple as bread without buying a new tool. And, really, at this juncture I need the ritual. I want to be forced to slow down a bit and "get a feel" for something rather than rush through life ticking tasks of a never ending list. So. I'm going to dive in. This weekend I think.

I've found a multigrain recipe in one of my existing cookbooks that seems straightforward enough. And I've been given a few pieces of sage advice from bread making mentors in my life. Now I just need to let go of any expectations that my first loaf will be the most awesome loaf of bread ever. My mother once told me that you should never make pastry when you're stressed out. And she's right, whenever I'm rushed or peeved my pastry turns to sheetrock. I'm guessing that even if I reach the point of bread mastery, there will similar times. I need to really try to get comfortable with the idea that it may take me months to make a decent loaf of multigrain bread and years to feel any kind of mastery of this skill. And really, that's where the challenge lies isn't it? In being willing to make bad, or even failed attempts, but still go back to it again and again.

Before I get started though, if any of you have any advice out there on the best pans for baking bread, ideal approaches to yeast, the best bowls to mix in, certain music you play while you make bread etc. bring'em on. I'm all ears. And of course, I'll let you know how it goes.