Friday: The Week in Review

This has been a busy week!

I brought home a pile of fabric [my favourite sight: a bundle of new fabrics] and have been sewing a great deal. Shorts, dresses, blouses. I'll do a post soon.

My favourite sight: a bundle of new fabric

I finally got new tennis shoes. I love them! Super light, super comfortable, and they have tiny Michelin Men on the heels. ♥

My garden has been growing like crackerjacks and one morning for breakfast I had nothing but a big bowl of blueberries and strawberries, floating in milk. Heaven.

I work as a research assistant for a post-doc at York, and this week he gave me an interesting assignment. He's writing about an experimental film that remixes clips from old Andy Hardy movies, and he wanted me to find out the source of a particular scene in the film. I had heard of Andy Hardy, but had never seen any of the movies. It's a film series starring Mickey Rooney from the 30s and 40s, and is considered the first 'sit-com', though in the form of movies, since they predate television somewhat.

I've been trying to narrow down which of the movies this particular scene could be from (there are 16 of them) and have been downloading them. So far I've watched two. At first I thought I would just skip through the film on fast-forward, trying to spot the scene, but they are strangely compelling and once I start watching I can't seem to stop. It's like a mystery case, I've become completely wrapped up in trying to track down this little clip, and I have a feeling I'll have seen all 16 Andy Hardy movies before the week is out.

♥ Dawn

tennis

What a weekend! I saw Aziz Ansari do standup, picked and ate two pea pods - the taste of fresh-picked peas is like nothing else - went to a barbecue at Allison's, and am now watching my favourite Roger Federer play the Wimbledon final and having multiple heart attacks as I wait for him to win.

I love tennis but if I care about the outcome I can barely watch it. I don't know what it is. You'd think I would want to watch and enjoy a close, well-played match but it's unlike any other sport for me. If I am supporting a player, I want desperately for them to win, unlike other sports where I just hope they'll make it. It makes it very difficult to sit still and watch a match without rolling around on the floor, jumping up and down, burying my face in the couch cushions, etc. I just love Roger so much. He looks and plays like a fairy tale prince. How could anyone possibly think they can beat him?

This rain delay shall end shortly, and in no time at all I'll be back with either glee or sorrow.

it's saturday!

♥ Dawn

breakfast

Yoghurt with brown sugar and strawberries from the garden, toast with gooseberry jam, water and tea.

Those strawberries were so lovely but I kind of wish I had saved them for tomorrow, so I could have a proper strawberries-and-cream breakfast-with-Wimbledon Saturday morning! Perhaps some more will ripen by Sunday.

♥ Dawn

översättning: min frukost: yoghurt med hemodlade jordgubbar, te och rostat bröd med krusbärssylt.

Summer lunch

I grilled a steak for lunch today with caper sauce and a lettuce salad. It felt so luxurious, but was so simple and delicious. In principle I don't eat a lot of meat, but a good rare steak is better than almost anything.

The best cooking trick I ever learned is how to check if meat is done without cutting into it. The trick is to learn how to judge the meat be feel, by gently pressing it with your finger or a utensil. If it's raw, it's squishy, and if it's medium-well done, it feels like pushing on a mattress. Rare meat has a feel somewhere in-between. Another way to think of the texture is to compare it to the fleshy bit between your thumb and first finger. When your hand is held loosely, that spot is soft, like raw meat. In a loose fist, your hand will feel like rare-medium, and a tight fist will show you what well done meat feels like. I've had good luck with this technique with every kind of meat, from chicken breasts to pork roasts and steaks.

The caper sauce is easy as anything. Saute a quarter or half an onion, chopped, in butter and olive oil until it is lightly browned. Add a few spoons of capers (I like lots) and a big splash of red wine and let it putter for a few minutes. I also added fresh thyme from my garden. The sauce is fast, but make sure to start chopping the onions and getting your ingredients out before you put the steak on the grill, since it won't take very long to cook, if you like it rare. You can also pan-fry the steak, just let the onions cook for a minute or two and then put the steak in with them. Extra steak flavour in the sauce is always good.

mums and dads

On Saturday I went with my dad to a barbecue at our family friend's house. Their daughter was turning thirty. She is just a few years older than me and when I was around 11 we spent the summers together, as she babysat me quite often. We haven't seen each other since I started high school. It was so exciting to meet again, and to find out that she grew up into the nicest person I think I've ever met. 

Our families have known each other for longer than anything. In fact, my parents met because our mums were co-workers, and our dads good friends. So I have to credit them with the fact that I am alive, really! It's quite an odd and nice feeling to be able to trace your existence back to such a specific occurence. I learned this weekend that my mum used to get in trouble for going to work in bare feet.  Hippie mum, she makes me proud.

seeds

 

After a marigold blossom starts to die back, I cut it off and let it dry out for a day or two. Then I can open it up and take out the seeds inside, which look like small black-and-white needles, and plant more, or save them for next spring. Some people don't like marigolds because of their smell, but I think they are beautiful, with their orange and red and gold ruffles, and they help protect the other plants from being eaten by insects. They're one of my favourite flowers!