golden courgettes

How to make a simple and refreshing salad:

Start with a yellow summer squash.

  And a handful of basil leaves.

Use a vegetable peeler, mandolin or the large slot on a box grater to cut the squash into very thin rounds. Tear the basil in small pieces over the courgette.

 Add lemon juice.

 Add a Serious Amount of olive oil. Grind over black pepper and toss with flaked salt (for extra crunch and flavour).

 

Yum!

Extra good with a dusting of grated parmesan or over sliced fresh mozarella. I like to use mini bocconcini, torn into pieces.

Summer food!

new purse!

This wonderful new purse came for me in the mail this week. It's small and cross-body, the perfect replacement for my big, floppy purse that I was quite tired of always holding on my shoulder.

Now is the time to show you what's in my purse!

• a couple of fresh hankerchiefs
• flash drive
• a little zippered pocket for holding cards
• sunglasses, my beloved vintage Ray Bans
• The best pink lip gloss
• tictacs
• violet pastilles
• my metropass and student id in a Mumin card case
• my iphone
• cash and coins wallet. I found it at a flea market in Dortmund, Germany where I was practicing my great German bargaining skills, which consist only of saying "I'll give you that price for two of those!"
• I usually have a compact mirror somewhere too... 

I take everything else I might need in my school tote bag, which I'll show you another time.

♥

Amaranth, and garden eating

I harvested a handful of massive amaranth leaves for my dinner.

I mentioned before that I had never heard of amaranth until I began growing it this summer. Now I love it. It grows so quickly, doesn't mind the heat, has been bug-proof (knock on wood) and despite being eaten down to the quick by rabbits last month, the plants are now all about 30-50cm high and covered with big leaves. If you garden, grow amaranth! I have only a few plants, in a tiny area, but they are so vigorous that I seem to be getting a large harvest anyway. You can eat the young leaves like lettuce, which is great now, at high summer, when lettuce is a bit fussy about high temperatures, and cook the large leaves like spinach, good for when the spinach is not yet ready (at least mine isn't).

Amaranth is popular in all around the world. I found and made this Indian curry recipe (the first one on the page). Try it with spinach if you don't have amaranth. Yum yum yum.

Of course curry doesn't exactly 'go' with the insalata calabrese I served alongside it. That's just how it is with garden cookery. Sometimes you simply have a basket of rapidly ripening tomatoes, a basil plant that's longing to be eaten, a small jungle of amaranth needing to be picked, and a serious craving for buffalo mozzarella all in one day. Of course there are surely ways to work all these things into a single cohesive meal, but I don't have anything against a mismatched salad and main course. After all, it's just me I have to please!

A thoroughly modern Thursday

My tennis practice was rained out for the second week in a row, so I did what any modern, 21st century girl would do. I sat down and hemmed some handkerchiefs instead. (and waited for a sunny day to photograph them, of course!)

I use cotton or linen, 1 foot square (30x30 cm). With cotton I usually machine-hem them, but with soft fabrics like linen it's almost as easy to hand-roll the edges, and it looks so elegant. I prefer white, because it's so easy to wash all your white things at once and stick them in the sun to dry. Otherwise I like to use fabric scraps from cottons I've sewn with, as in these green ones. Sometimes I initial or monogram them, but I don't always get around to it. The pattern for these initials comes from an old book of my grandmother's.

Handkerchiefs are one of those things I love because they are so perfectly practical, as well as being a little bit old-fashioned. Not to mention their versatility as an accessory. But I love things that are perfectly simple, designed to suit one purpose very well, and with no superfluous bits. Things like Converse sneakers, white t-shirts, and sturdy handkerchiefs.

It doesn't hurt that they are reusable, and it's so much nicer to pull one out of your purse or pocket than it is to use a kleenex!

I spent the summer wasting, the time was passed so easily

Sources:
1. 2.   3.  4. 5..  6. 

I just don't understand how summer days can be so short. It's not that I really want to do so very much. Just the usual, you know, have a couple of good meals, watch a film or an episode of something, get work done for my thesis, and have time for a shower and reading before bed, and some time to sit outside, listen to music, sew, draw, read books that aren't about Roman slaves. That's not to mention weekend days, going to the city, dancing, seeing friends - things it seems a thesis student is meant to set proudly aside.
If anyone has some time-management tips, or better yet, knows of some magical or scientific ways to make a day two times as long, or reduce the need for sleep (and I like a whole ten hours) I'd be glad to hear them!

Hej!

Working in the library on this sunny day! I am reading about Roman freedmen, it's interesting at least!

♥

lounge

I took the life-affirming decision this morning that even a girl with a thesis to write can have a lazy Sunday now and then. I'm not sure I can call this a conscious decision. When I saw that I'd slept in almost two hours past my dutifully set alarm, I took it as a sign and kept my pyjamas on, lounged around and listened to Radio Deluxe with John Pizarelli, the jazz guitarist, and Jessica Molaskey.

I sewed these a while ago from a vintage pattern. They have this beautiful yoke and little puffy bloomers.

Yesterday I dried my white laundry in the sun. There's no feeling like sleeping in fresh pyjamas in a freshly-aired bed. These ones make me feel like I fell asleep in the 60s and just woke up, which is a sensation I like to cultivate whenever possible.