Mummy's Boy

Happy Halloween

Autumn's Bounty

Since word is out that I cook, I get a lot of food related gifts, from snapping turtles to homemade wine. A couple of weeks ago, a truck pulled into my drive way and Dina carried in 3 enormous bags of apple and 6 equally enormous bags of pears. I immediately stared making preserves. I cooked and cooked.

I made apple jam with Chinese 5 spice. I made apple butter. I made apple preserves with Bourbon soaked currants.


I pear preserves with white balsamic. I made pear and ginger preserves.



I went to DC for several days and left a huge pile of apples and pears that I didn't get to. Even after the raccoon came in and at his fill of apples, I still have more to do. Clearly I need a big old commercial kitchen!

Women Reading

Simone de Beauvior by Gisèle Freund, 1952

Dora at Doe Run Farm

I am a big fan of Dora Carrington as well as the Omega Workshops. One day I was flipping through a book of Carrington's art and came across a small woodcut illustration she had done at the Omega Workshops. The woodcut was done for David Garnett, whom she later painted.

David Garnett by Dora Carrinton, 1919

The woodcut was for David Garnett's honey.


I later found another version of the woodcut, this one printed in two colors.




We make honey here at Doe Run Farm... actually the bees make the honey and I just watch. I wanted a nice label for our honey and when I saw Carrington's label I knew I wanted it for our honey. So we appropriated the Garnett label as our own.



It is our homage to Carrington and to our bees.

Reddress

While we are talking about The London Design Festival... during the Festival The Finnish Institute in London installed Reddress.

Aamu Song & Johan Olin are Company, a Finnish firm of artists artists designers. In 2004, Aamu Song designed Reddress.

The gigantic dress is made of over 600 yards of Kvadrat’s classic Divina wool fabric. A performer climbs a hidden staircase and is fitted into the bodice of the dress to perform. the skirt, reaching 65 feet in diameter contains 238 pockets. Audience members climb into a pocket in the folds of the dress and become a part of the performance. Here Aamu Song discusses Reddress.

A View From The London Design Festival

In 2003 The London Design Festival was founded. It is a free flowing call to view design in a large way. Cultural as well as commercial, it has all the things a good festival needs including posters and t-shirts. The other major element of the Festival is a selection of "Landmark Projects." These are large commissioned works that spring up during the Festival. Two caught my eye.

Credit: Dennis Gilbert

The first was produced by AL_A, some say the leading architectural firm in England, helmed by Stirling Prize-winning architect Amanda Levete. Levete was chosen to build new galleries for the Victoria & Albert Museum. For The London Design Festival AL_A produced Timber Wave, a three story lattice cascade that, according to Levete, "respond[s] in some way to the entrance of the V&A. For us it was about making very explicit the London Design Festival residency there. We wanted to take the V&A out onto the street."

Credit Stephen Citrone

The second was by John Pawson. I admit from the start that I have very mixed emotions about John Pawson. At times his minimalism strikes me as kind of a joke, like a giant white box with a single chair and tiny vase. And sometimes, his work seems magical. Mostly, my attraction to Pawson came from a cookbook he did with Annie Bell, Living and Eating. I liked the book, though not Pawson's kitchen.



For The London Design Festival, Pawson teamed up with Swarovski to created a meniscus – the largest lens possible to manufacture. Pawson sets the lens Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece, St Paul’s Cathedral. The installation entitled, "Perspectives," shows off the rarely seen Geometric Staircase. The meniscus sits on a reflective hemisphere at the bottom of the stairwell. Suspended in the tower’s cupola above the stairwell is a spherical convex mirror.

Credit: Dezeen

According to Pawson these optical devices create an extraordinary composite image of the view up through the tower for visitors gathered around the hemisphere at the base, allowing them "to see beyond the level of the naked eye."

Credit: Philip Sinden

For Pawson, "It has never really been about what we put into the space, so much as how we enable people to see what is already there."

Bag'o Meatloaf *Update*

We do like to be on the cutting edge.
Yesterday we posted about using The Paper Chef's bags.
Today... The New York Times posted about them.
Plus, our readers have some additional ideas about using these cool little bags.

Bag'o Meatloaf

I had a revelatory moment in the kitchen. I was thinking I would like to have a meatloaf sandwich. The problem was...I didn't really want to have eat the meatloaf before it became the sandwich. Then it hit me. Why didn't I just make a planned over meatloaf and cut out the "dinner" part of the meatloaf experience.



Since I cook a lot on Sundays, it seemed natural to stick a meatloaf in the oven and then just throw it in the fridge. But then there is the problem of cooking meatloaf. Even though I have one of those meatloaf pans that supposedly holds the meatloaf out its greasy residue, it is a pain to clean. Then I had a second revelation. At the big Food show in D.C. I was given some "en papillote" bags. It seems that The Paper Chef took the difficult origami out of the "en papillote" and just made paper bags suitable for cooking salmon. I had been looking for a way to use these nifty bags and then I thought, why not bag my meatloaf. The paper bag would make nice sandwich sized slices and the paper would wick away most of the fat. I would be left with a baking sheet to wash and a cold meatloaf without that congealed fat issue.


I made my meatloaf. I took The Paper Chef Bag and gentle pushed out its square corners to give me a more rounded loaf. I put my meatloaf mix in the bag and shaped it a bit. The length of the bag allowed me to just wrap it around and place it on the baking sheet, also providing extra paper to wick away the fat.

I baked it and then removed it to a rack to cool and allow any residual fat to drip off. I too some extra paper towels and dabbed the meatloaf. When it was cool, I just wrapped the whole thing in foil and tucked it in the fridge. the next day I unwrapped the foil, removed the bag and sliced the meatloaf.



I don't think I will ever make meatloaf any other way.

While The Paper Chef might take exception, I am sure a plain brown paper bag would work, or just plain parchment, it you wanted to wrap up the meatloaf and tie it off with string. Either way, it makes a great sandwich.

Women Reading

Girl On a Red Carpet, Felice Casorati, 1912.

Teddy tries "dear" hunting

It has been very Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings here at Doe Run Farm, as a yearling has made the backyard her home, showing up every afternoon to munch on acorns and an occasional tree limb.

Recently we posted a photo of doe by the run, Doe Run, the name of the farm. Our reader, J.W., has been following Teddy's exploits as a hunter and wondered if he had tried to take down a doe. Well, J. W., recently he thought about giving it the old "college try."

As I was enthralled in taking fairly poor photos of the yearling, I noticed that we had company.

Teddy began creeping up, closer and closer.

I yelled at him and he retreated.

Acting all innocent.

Only to pick on Kitty Carlisle.

But our yearling was safe.