Sometimes they come back

I'm so excited! My african violet that hasn't bloomed in at least 2 years is making a comeback! Yay! There's something about having happy little violets in the kitchen window sill that makes me smile. When I think about it, my mom always had them in her kitchen too, and as they say you become more like your mother as you get older. As I listened to my mom snuffling through a random attack of hayfever on the phone earlier this morning the same way I'm sniffling now, I'm beginning to believe that that old adage might just be true. I still don't buy the bird in the hand and the two in the bush thing - what is that about anyway?

Autumn Fare

It's officially soup season. It was 3 degrees last night, I still can't work out what that means in American (a.k.a. Fahrenheit) without looking it up online...... that's 37 degrees to you and me. Brrr.... It's time for chopping firewood, for covering the kitchen garden with frost-fleece, and it's time for snuggling. More than anything, it's time for soup, tasty, hearty, warm-you-to-the-soul-like-an-iron-and-wine-song type of soup.

Today, I taught a River Study course out at the country park I work at to a bunch of unruly, though mostly on the verge of their best behavior, 12 year olds. It was freezing, bless them! Well, not freezing officially, since it was 8, or 46, degrees, but bitterly windy and frozen fingers and cherry cheeks cold. To their credit, the kids kept their whinging to a minimum save for one strapping and bullyish young lad by the name of Liam who would've complained had I given him tickets to a world cup game. That said, we spent a good 6 hours together, slogging through the chilly, albeit dry, day at the mercy of mean mother nature, my mate Liam complaining all the while and occasionally sucker-punching other unsuspecting 12 year olds. By the time I got home, I was in dire need of some soup.

This is what I would have made, if I'd had enough time after work..... The BEST FRENCH ONION SOUP EVER. I don't take my French Onion Soup lightly, it's by far one of my favorites, only because I love the cheesy crouton on top. In fact, anything involving cheese is usually in my good books. Especially if it involves cheese AND bread at the same time. (Note: the English don't take their French Onion Soup with a delicious, cheesy crouton. In fact, my poor husband delighted in his first crouton experience only when I made this soup over the weekend.) Before I found this recipe and made this soup myself, I would have had to have given credit to the Kodiak Kafe in Anchorage, Alaska as having made me the best bowl of French Onion Soup, despite the ridiculous alliteration. Followed, closely in second place by the Salmon Bay Cafe in Seattle, Washington. Maybe you've had the pleasure of patronizing one of the above mentioned cafe's, you've tried the soup, you thought mmmmm...... Well, here's your answer to the question: how do I make a French Onion Soup to die for?

The following recipe (and the photos on this post) was adapted from one in a cookbook I found in a thrift store last month called simply and aptly, The Onion Cookbook by Brian Glover. The good Mr. Glover is kind

enough to impart us with a brief history of onions and other alliums throughout history. I found this particularly interesting, since it's never once occurred to me that eating onions might be considered an underground or rebellious act. God forbid, eating alliums (onions, garlic, leeks, chives, shallots, etc) be prohibited!! But in 17th century Britain, the unthinkable happened. Quote the diarist John Evelyn who wrote a treatise on salads, (who would write a treatise on salads today? I'll endeavor for my own treatise in a future post....) "Regarding garlick, we absolutely forbid it entrance into our salleting, by reason of it's intolerable rankness..... to be sure it is not for ladies' palates, nor those who court them." Anyone who's ever courted me, knows that the way to my heart is by means of garlic.

Further to the history of alliums, who here knew that Chicago was named after the Illinois Indian name for "the place which smells of onions." Chicagoua - the plant that gave Chicago it's name, was a form of wild garlic. (I wonder if Sufjan Stevens could've worked that into a song?) And to the Egyptians, thankfully, alliums held a place near and dear to their hearts. Onions were placed in tombs as food for the journey into the next life, laborers were fed onions, leeks and garlic as these were believed to keep them fit and well, and it was a sign of fertility to smell onion on a woman's breath.

French Onion Soup, itself, has something of an interesting story behind it. Traditionally, it was served as a sustaining early morning meal to the porters and workers of Les Halles Market in Paris. It's served in my kitchen to warm us up from the inside out during a cold snap. The secret to success with this soup is the long slow cooking of the onions. Give yourself a couple of hours, because if the onions brown too quickly the soup will be bitter, and nobody wants that. Another tip: To keep from crying when chopping onions, don't open your mouth! At least that's what my mother told me and it seems to work for me. Unfortunately, it seems like a really great song inevitably comes on while I'm chopping them and I have to fight myself from singing along and just end up doing this stupid restrained humming thing that my husband makes fun of me for. (Currently, Cat Power's The Greatest has been resurrected and is back in high rotation.) Here's how to get started with the soup:


Ingredients/Shopping List:
1/4 c butter
1 tbsp olive oil
4 1/2 lbs (2 kg) yellow onions (yes, you have to peel and chop all of them)
1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tbsp (or more!) balsamic or sherry vinegar
6 1/2 c (1.5 L) of good beef stock
1 1/2 tbsp plain (all-purpose) flour
2/3 c dry white wine like chardonnay
3 tbsp brandy
salt and pepper

For the croutons!
thick slices of day old baguette
1 garlic clove, halved
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 cup thinly sliced Gruyere cheese
2 tbsp finely grated parmesan or romano cheese



The Process:
Melt the butter and the oil in a large soup pot. Add the onions and stir to coat. Cook over a medium heat for 8-10 minutes or long enough for the onions to begin to soften. Stir in the thyme.

Reduce heat to very low, cover the pan and cook the onions for 30 minutes, stirring frequently, until they are very soft and golden yellow. Uncover the pan, and increase the heat slightly. Stir in the sugar and cook for 10-15 minutes, until the onions start to brown.

Add the balsamic vinegar and increase the heat again, continue cooking while stirring frequently until the onions turn a deep brown - this could take up to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring the stock to a boil in another saucepan. Stir the flour into the onions and cook for a couple of minutes, then gradually pour in the hot stock. Add the wine and the brandy, making sure to give the cook a quick sip, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.



While the soup is simmering get the best bit started, the croutons. Preheat the oven to 150 C/300 F Place the slices of bread on a greased baking tray and bake for about 15 minutes, until dry and lightly browned. Rub the bread with the cut surface of the garlic and spread with the mustard. Place the slices of Gruyere on top and sprinkle with parmesan or romano, or both!!

Preheat your grill or broiler on the hottest setting. Ladle the soup into oven proof bowls. Float the croutons in the soup then grill until the cheese melts and becomes ooey gooey, bubbly and brown. Serve immediately!!

Finished ObjectThursday!!

Everyone....this is Olivia. Olivia meet.... Everyone!

Okay, so I'm cheating a little because I actually finished this cutie patootie softie about this time last year when I first found out that my best friend back home was pregnant with her first child. But she's just so cute, I couldn't stand keeping her from you. She's based on Kate, the kitten in britches, a design by Jess Hutch and you can find the pattern here
you can find out more about Jess Hutch by clicking on her name above or there's a tab on the left side of this page with blogs I'm obsessed with. She makes the greatest ever robots, that's right ROBOTS, and the greatest ever. So Olivia ended up with a bit of a rounder, bean shaped profile than the one in Jess's pattern, mostly because I messed up a little, and started reducing stitches too soon and it made Olivia's head a lot smaller than Kate, the cat in burgandy slacks's.Since I was making her for a newborn, I decided not to risk those baby hands pulling off any buttons and choking on them or getting accidentally scratched by them, and embroidered Olivia's stunning features instead of sewing buttons on. I'm midway through Olivia2, though sadly, she's been at the bottom of my to-do pile for quite some time now.... Someone else will just have to breed so I finally have an excuse to finish her!! (Note to Amy: the pinafore I promised you is at the top of the to-do pile.)

Garden Pic of the Day!

I sort of forgot about pansies. I get so distracted by the more glamorous autumn varieties, paper lanterns and ornamental chillies and the like. I forgot about how much I loved the simple lion faces of the pansy and just look how gorgeous they look in the long afternoon light!

Jam Jar Lanterns!!

Okay, so I've been saving jars for months now for no known purpose other than I might use them for storage someday.... or something. The two bulging shopping bags of clanking glass even made the journey from our old flat in Coventry out to the country house and immediately lost rank among the boxes. The other day, while searching for a better place to store some left over cans of paint, I came across the clanking bags in the back of the garden shed and thought, oh yeah, The Jars. Struck by the image of some kind of jam jar lanterns I saw in a magazine once, I was hit by random inspiration. I headed down to the local craft shop, bought some of the cheapest plastic beads I could find, a bit of wire and string and headed home.

When I went back to the states last winter, I saw my sister using these crazy glue dots for scrapbooking and I thought they were amazing. So, I tried using them as a less fuss, no mess way to glue the beads to the jars and it actually seemed to work. I bought some of the dots labeled 'permanent', and aside from pulling on my skin a bit, the dots were really handy. A lot easier than a glue gun, and since they didn't need electricity, I could enjoy a rare sunny day in the garden.


One thing to point out if you're thinking of attempting this yourself, is how to secure the jar to the hanger. Here's what I did, but somebody please tell me if you have a better way to do this!! I measured the rim of the jar with the wire and then added a couple of inches. I made a circle with the wire and twisted the ends of the wire together until they wouldn't pull apart. Now that I had a circle I set about making some loops on either side to attach the hanging wire to. To do this, I wrapped the wire around a screwdriver and twisted until it made a loop. The tricky bit was to get the loop on the opposite side to be in about the same place so that when it was hung it would hang evenly. A few of them were a bit off, and hung a little off-kilter but I decided that just added character and wasn't too bothered about it at all. I used 20 gauge wire to hang them, and found that anything smaller was too flimsy to accept the weight of the jars.




As you can see I had all the essential gear at hand (note the pinot grigio)! I picked up a couple pairs of wire tools when I was at the shop. The obvious bit of kit was the wire cutters. But I also picked up two pairs of pliers, one with round tongs, the other with flat. The round tonged pliers were handy for making twists and spirals, while the flat ones were good for gripping and bending the ends of the wire. This is probably obvious to anyone who's ever worked with wire, but was graciously pointed out to my ignorance in the craft shop. In the end, I decided to use some old sequins and some mother of pearl buttons and hemp twine, as well as the beads, to good effect I think.




Now, I just need a nice warm night to string them out. Fingers crossed for one last summery night! ---The Queen Bee

Village Pic of the Day

It's hard to believe that summer's finally over, not that we had much of a summer in England this year. Saying that, we did have a good 30 days without rain this September....even if didn't exactly shine everyday. But even though the days are getting shorter, and the nights are getting colder (we even had frost the other morning!!) there's not much I love more than yellow leaves against a blue autumn sky.

Work in Progress Thursday

This will be amazing when finished! It's a scarf. It's a shawl. It's a hoodie! The pattern is by Cheryl Niamath and can be found here
I'm using Rowan Kidsilk Haze in Fern and have squirreled away some pretty pink and rusty orange silk ribbon which will be a delicious contrast when worn as a hoodie, if I do say so myself.

To live and die in L.I.

I couldn't wait for our village show. I'd seen a programme on TV recently about the Royal Show where Prince Charles and Camilla went around tasting jam and measuring Britain's longest carrots and crowning the "wool princess" with as much fanfare as the dire pair could muster. I was just dying to see this side of British country culture. So when the L.I. newsletter arrived in our post box, advertising the upcoming event, I could hardly contain my excitement. I pictured stalls from local farmers and artisans, livestock and tractors, herding dog and horse jumping demonstrations, maybe some musical performers. Next, the hand painted signs starting going up on every flat surface in the village. Show, show, show!!! Blame it on the Alaska State Fair of my youth, but I couldn't wait to see some BIG VEG. You know the monstrous pumpkins and zucchini that defy logic and gravity by taking on a alien enormity of size. The Matanuska Valley of my childhood was reknown for producing 75 lb cabbages and tomatoes the size of your head, I wanted to see how Warwickshire would measure up.

That Saturday, the King Bee and I devoted the entire day to our village in anticipation of the show. We went for an early morning bike ride along the canal and through the farmlands just beyond the village, where the men were already rolling the hay into those perfect wheels that look like marshmallows when they're covered up. We splurged on a gorgeous lunch at the Duck on the Pond, where he delighted in his usual the champagne battered fish and chips and I tried my luck with the steamed mussels and chicken caesar salad. After lunch we made the short walk up to the community centre where the event was to be held.

Well, much to my dismay, there was no royalty in attendance (except for ourselves, of course) but merely a small village meeting hall full to the brim with veggies, flowers and baked goods from local households. Despite my initial disappointment of the scale of the affair, I managed to get a real kick out of the whole thing and spent nearly half an hour closely inspecting all of the offerings. The kids especially came up with some really great stuff. Here are the submissions from kids aged 8-11 in the 'monsters' category. How great are these?


Who wouldn't love living in L.I.?
----The Queen Bee

To bee or not to bee a blogger......

Call me old fashioned, but I've only just discovered blogs. Literally, just. I've been at home sick from work this week with a killer head cold and out of an utter lack of concentration for my own projects, I've turned to the net to see what other people are making. You guys have been doing some incredible things!! Pure craft envy has driven me to give this a go myself.

So why blog? I make stuff. Not a lot of stuff, but a little here, a little there. I heart food and fabric and string and growing things and yarn and books about yarn and fabric and food and growing things.

We just moved to this old Victorian era house in the tiny village of Long Itchington in rural Warwickshire, England in July. No, it's not a play on words as many of my friends back home have suspected. And yes, it does make me want to scratch something every time I say it out loud. It's not quite as romantic as it may sound. In reality, living in a quirky turn of the century cottage means that you don't have a water tank big enough to fill up the bath and that the radiators don't exactly work on demand. But what it lacks in modern conveniences, is made up for in charm and it's great location. Our property backs onto a donkey farm! We have 4 plum trees growing in our back yard (Victoria plums and something wistfully called a Warwickshire Druper) and I've just started a 'salad garden'. Okay, so I just planted some lettuce, onions and radishes, but salad garden sounds so posh. Our neighbors are young and hip and friendly and we've got miles of country roads out our front door to cycle or jog along. The village itself is on the canal network, and near a laborious set of locks, and the local pub landlords have responded to all that idle time for the narrowboatsters by going gastro and with great success. We have two regional winners for best pub and BBC radio five live's number 2 pub in the country. Hmpf.

So how, exactly, does a pseudo hippie chick raised in the fishing camps of the Kenai River, Alaska end up in the decadent English countryside? She meets a great guy in a bar in Seattle. She hijacks him from his travel itinerary and spontaneously takes him unwittingly, but not unwillingly, to the San Juan Islands where she unwittingly and unwillingly falls head over heels in love. He goes home to Coventry. They keep in touch. They write letters and exchange painstakingly composed mixed CD's. He decides to come back for two weeks, but stays for six. They spend Christmas with her family. They road trip down the coast all the way to California on a whim. She comes to the UK a month later. Repeat for one year. She decides Seattle is too far away and abruptly quits her job, and unable to completely give up her independence, moves to Poland to teach English. She doesn't immediately find a job there so she travels around Eastern Europe in the heart of winter looking for work and finds it in the Czech Republic's second city, Brno. Repeat for one year. She comes to the UK in June 2006 and stays for good. They begin the happily ever after and are married by December.

And this seems like a good place for my blog to begin. --The Queen Bee