Dave's mother lamented to me that they had all kinds of tomatoes on the vine...but they were all green and firm as all get out.  I jumped at the opportunity for fried green tomatoes.  Here is a picture of the lovely unripened heirloom tomatoes I picked.

I know I've written about fried green tomatoes before, but I'd never fried heirloom tomatoes and I thought they were so pretty once I sliced them.  I ate very well last night.  I always season each side of the tomatoes with Kusina Gold, dredge them in flour, dip them in beaten egg, and then dredge them in cornmeal.  Num num.

I have to feel like I cheated Joann Fabrics.  They had a 60% off coupon for any regular priced item.  I did our household's needed items shopping at Target and then headed over to do the grocery shopping.  I had to go to the bathroom really bad so I stopped in at Joann's but I also had that coupon burning a hole in my pocket so I wandered around to see what I could see.  I found this Takumi knitting needle set and it wasn't on sale.  It cost $170.  With my coupon it would cost $68.  I ran for the checkout and got a great deal!  The coupons stipulate that you can't use them for irons, sewing machines, scissors, Cricut machines, etc.  I wonder how long before they say you can't use them for this needle set.  My cashier even told me that I was the highest saver she'd had that day!

Home Adornment

I've slowly been working on this foreclosure house to make it into a home.  We did a lot of painting in the downstairs this spring and I'm hoping we can do the same in the upstairs living areas this fall.  I'm daunted by the area over the stairs but I think we'll be able to tackle it with the right equipment.  In the meantime, Mother encouraged me to frame one of the prints I bought in St. Petersburg years ago.  This is Bargemen On the Volga by Ilya Repin.  I just loved the picture and the colors.  All the men are so dark, pathetic, dirty and ragged but there is a blonde light colored boy in the center of the composition.  I was just sure there was a story behind the painting but all my research says it is just a bunch of men pulling a barge on the Volga.  Alrighty then!  I have to put a punt in for Joann's because I got the frame on sale with a coupon and then got the custom matte with a coupon.  You can get coupon mailers or have coupons sent directly to your Smartphone.  Between using those and waiting for sales, you can do a lot at Joann's!

This is the deco in the downstairs bathroom that I painted this spring.  I got this $80 shelf for $20 after it went on clearance and I used a 20% off coupon at Joann's.  This hangs over the toilet.  I had a French savon metal sign that I hung up on one wall and then put all my Frenchy souvenir nic nacs on the shelf so now I have an official French powder room!  Here it is decked out for Halloween.

I shouldn't call this an adornment but in a way it is.  This is the door frame out to the garage.  We painted the entryway, the hallway and the family room this 'gadget gray' color in the spring and now that we had a finished wall, I could finally hang my mezuzah.  It is a holder for a traditional Jewish prayer and house blessing (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21).  I am Lutheran but if you believe in the Old Testament, you share heritage with Judaism.  I had mezuzah's in my old apartment, but I forgot to take them with me.  I literally sat up in bed one night shortly after I'd moved to Minnesota when I realized I'd forgotten them.  Not only were they mezuzahs, but they were souvenirs from trips I'd taken.  I was just sick about it.  I am happy this one will be in place for years to come.  I have another beautiful brass one I got in Poland and I'm very excited to hang it next to my front door once we get it painted.  Every room other than bathrooms should have one but I will need to amass a lot more before I can do that.  I really like the idea of remembering a thankful prayer every time I leave the house to get into my car. 

#&@$!!!

I spent most of Friday knitting in the waiting room of Ray's Maplewood Auto Service having 4 tires replaced and aligned and new brakes and master cylinder replaced.  It needed doing (because I just paid the car off--go figure!) and I'd been putting it off.  I found this garage in early summer and was immediately impressed with them.  The gal at the front desk obviously has mechanic experience in addition to great people skills.  I think what impressed me so much was that they sit down and EXPLAIN things to you about what is going on with your car and repair options and prices.  They do what I do with my patients in the hospital and I find you get a much better response when you know WHY things are the way they were.  Ever since, I bring my business and my knitting for any car repairs.  I thought their sign was pretty funny that day!

I finished up the second attempt of my jacket front side in their waiting room.  It is a Drops pattern.  They are a fabulous company with an entire library of free patterns...but they waste no verbiage in their patterns.  The instructions for the front side piece is one small paragraph that sounds like, "Cast on this many stitches, then every other row, increase this many stitches on the marked stitch.  At the same time, every 8th row increase this many on the right side and do this 4 times every 6th row, then 3 times every 4, and then twice every other..."  I have to write it all out and keep track of my rows and make tally marks for each thing I'm supposed to do.  Long story short...

 

...I was writing out my instructions for the other jacket front...and realized I'd screwed up AGAIN on the first jacket front!  I'd done my outer side increases every 4 rows instead of every 8.  In the piece on the right of the picture, you can see where the jacket widens and then is knit straight to the bottom edge.  It should have been a longer more gradual widening.  I could have done the same increases on the back pieces to make the jacket meet up, but I opted to start over yet again so the jacket doesn't have such a swoopy  increase at the hips.  The piece on the left of the picture is the THIRD attempt of the jacket side front with the more gradual increase.  I read a list of knitting tips and advice years ago and I've learned this to be true from personal experience:  If you find a mistake, always go back and rip it out and redo it as soon as you're aware of it.  If you don't, you will regret it more and more the further your work progresses.  This is so very true.  Take three....

I know it is fall and the official fragrance and flavor is pumpkin spice.  I kind of beg to differ.  I say if you want your house to smell awesome...just boil a chicken carcass!  Dave's birthday was this week and I cooked him a full roasted chicken dinner on Friday complete with a yellow cake with chocolate frosting as requested.  I love that his birthday is in early fall so I still have plenty of fresh herbs to work with.  The bird was rubbed with butter, rosemary and sage and roasted on a bed of onions, carrots and celery which all pave the way for a flavorful chicken stock!  So the stock is developing on the stove as we speak and the house smells great!

I done messed up!

I've been hammering away at my blue striped jacket.  The piece on the right is the first piece I started knitting.  The more I worked on it, the more I thought it wasn't right but I soldiered on anyway.  It seemed to be too wide and not long enough.  I got to the end of the increases and my stitches didn't count out the way they should so I put the piece on a holder and started the other front side piece. 

This jacket is knit in garter stitch and shaped with a mitered corner so the left and right front pieces are in fact the same thing.  As soon as I started working on Take Two, I realized that I'd started the first piece backwards from the get go.  The piece pictured on the left is the evolving new side, while the one on the right is the mistake piece.  They are laid out in what should be mirror images of each other, so you can see how much I screwed it up!  I'm slowly unraveling and cannibalizing the mistake piece and knitting it up into the new piece.

Here is a picture of my fabulous new IKEA sewing room shelf!  The shelves are very deep and I was able to cram all manner of things in there.  I'm still monkeying around with how I want it.  I love that it is tall with space on top so I can use the entire space on that wall.

My sister sent me this beautiful garlic that they GREW in their garden.  The bulbs are so colorful with firm plump cloves.  My garlic press is getting a work-out because I've been putting it in everything lately.  Anything we can't eat up relatively soon I will pickle.  Num num garlic!  She said I could plant it too.

Speaking of canning...here is my darling new vinyl tablecloth.  I'm a little overprotective of my wooden dining table and try to have something protective on it at all times.  This design is what I'd call 'whimsical' but I just love it with all the canning that happens here late summer.  They are nice fall colors too and goes nicely with some of the fall decorations I put out today!

Great Minnesota Get-Together

We survived the state fair twice this year.  Last Saturday was 78 degrees and fabulous fair weather.  This Saturday was 88 degrees with 83% humidity.  It was awful.  The second time we went with my parents and Freya and John but we'd already seen and eaten most of what we were interested in on the first trip.

 I got these 2 skeins of yarn and some roving from the Minnesota wool producers the first time around.  I stop by their booth every year and always find something. 

 I hadn't used my spinning wheel since we lived in the apartment.  I spun and plied the roving single with a single spun from a gray wool/mohair blend I got from the now defunct Austin's Mohair Farm.

 I got about 370 yards of a worsted weight yarn.  I have no idea what I'm going to use it for but I am very happy with how it turned out.  Love those blues!

 Speaking of yarn, we saw this yarn bomb at the state fair!

 My parents were here this weekend and I always DVR episodes of New Scandinavian Cooking on tpt for them.  Andreas Viestad is our favorite host.  I love watching the show but they cook a lot of seafood which I don't have much experience with.  I was inspired to cook some Minnesota walleye from my freezer that Dave caught.  Unlike Andreas, I cooked this on our deck on a real grill and not an improvised outdoor setting like he does.  Seriously, check out the show.  You will yearn for Norge.  We stopped at the tpt booth at the fair and America's Test Kitchen was airing while we were there.  I'll proudly admit that I think Minnesota public tv is better than Iowa public tv and I luuuurrrrvvvved IPTV when I still lived there.

 I salted and peppered the fish, threw on some dill sprigs and sliced lemon and then folded it up inside parchment paper.  The packages went on the indirect heat side of the grill for 10 minutes and it was dee-LISH.  It was so flaky and not at all dry.  I will be making this again and I didn't even have to heat up the house.

 I used my dill earlier to make open faced sandwiches with mayonnaise and shrimp on home baked bread--also inspired by Herr Viestad.  I ate this with my cousins in Kvitsoy years ago.  Num num!  Can you see in these last two pictures why Scandinavian food is known as "white food"?  Very pale but tasty food.

 I got a huge IKEA shelf for my sewing room which replaced this little white shelf.  Dad moved it downstairs to my laundry/store room so I can put all my canning on it.  I just LOVE it!!  I can see and reach everything easily and now I have somewhere to put all the jars as we empty them out this winter.  I think I'm done canning vegetables for now.  I want to do applesauce again this year but they won't be ripe for another few weeks.

We had a whole week of hot humid awful weather and it is supposed to start cooling off.  I reluctantly let Dave turn off the A/C today and I know there's plenty of people who would tar and feather me for saying this...but I can't wait for cooler weather.  Now that fair season is over, I can knit whatever I want and even get busy in my sewing room.

Cool

We had some thunder, lightening and rain last night but nothing too bad.  Today is glorious and cool, almost chilly.  I wore my long lounge pants around the house and actually closed all the windows and lit a candle.  It was a lovely day to bake so I made a loaf of chocolate zucchini bread and a loaf of French bread.  I picked everything out of the garden that was ready...including the first eggplant!  There were 4 tomatoes that needed to be used up so I dinked around in the kitchen all afternoon and made a fresh marinara sauce to go with the breaded and fried aubergine.  I used my new Greek seasonings and just swooned as I ate it.  Self control was exercised because I ate only half of it so I can have the rest for lunch tomorrow.  I'm going to poach some eggs in the leftover sauce and make toast from the French bread for Eggs In Purgatory.  Num NUM.  I've been so busy and anxious lately with the new job and it felt so good to just play in the kitchen for an afternoon.

Dave was a good husband today and last weekend for driving me to the state fairgrounds and waiting in line with me.  Today we dropped of some kringlas I entered in the baking competition and last weekend I took in my knitting.

We were there 10 minutes after the place opened and this was our place in line.  You can see Dave standing there and the line goes halfway down the block and around the corner of the Creative Activities Building.

This is the view of the line behind us!  Can you believe that?  I only entered one thing and if we'd arrived any later and saw the line at it's fullest, I would have opted to just decline and not bother for one kringla entry.  At least the weather cooperated.  It was a lovely blustery sunny day so it was tolerable.  Last weekend it was so hot I had sweat rolling down my back and all I was doing was standing.  I baked the kringlas yesterday and was thinking to myself of all the people across the state who must be baking in preparation for today.

On the subject of food, look what came in the mail yesterday!!!  This is a spice blend made by a woman from Mason City.  I used to buy it from her at the farmer's market when I lived there.  I bought 2 big jars last summer when I was home visiting Melissa and Brenda.  So far I haven't been home this summer and was almost out so I called the lovely Dilo Johnson.  She mailed me two big jars worth of seasoning less the cost of the glass jars and labels.  I make foil-packet grilled veggies all summer with this seasoning.  Fried green tomatoes and eggplant aren't worth eating if they don't have this on them.

I keep forgetting to post these pictures and I've been busy starting a new job and haven't blogged in a while.  Here's the latest update on the mailbox yarn bomb at my local Cub store.  This was the spring/St. Patrick themed bomb.

The most recent bomb is a summer/4th of July motif.  I enjoy checking this every time I'm there.

Baptismal Towels

 My dear friend Melissa is making plans to baptize her daughter and I volunteered to make the baptismal towel.  My mother made up this pattern for the towel and the embroidery motif.  She used to make all the baptismal towels for our church and when I was in Jr. and Sr. high school, I made them as part of my community involvement for 4-H and NHS. 

 I hadn't done hardanger in a coon's age and I can tell my eyes are changing!  Holy cow!  Hardanger is not difficult, but you need to be able to SEE where you are stitching!  My mother has all but retired from hardanger (she does beautiful work) due to eyesight and gave me a banker's box full of hardanger fabric.  I've made a couple of these and am listing them in my Etsy shop.

And I don't think I've formally introduced you...this is Zak.  He is my brother's 3 legged beagle we are fostering for a year or so until they build a house and get out of their townhouse in Duluth.  He is a sweet dog and we've all made the transition from 1 dog to 2 fairly well.  Fortunately, we are kind of halfway between Duluth and the rest of the family so he sees his old family quite a lot.  Here he is watching them drive away out of the front dog window.  Unlike Lopi, who would just try to lick and play with an intruder, Zak is a watch dog.  Any unusual sound or people walking on the sidewalk across the street or activity outside and he is loudly baying.  He keeps a close eye on things which is nice when you're home alone.

Herbs

 I am really enjoying my herbs again this summer.  They did well last season but I kept them in the downstairs screened in porch and the slugs would get after them.  This year I'm keeping them up on the deck.  They are getting great sunlight so I have to water them every day but they're doing great.  This location is great for cooking because I can just pop out onto the deck instead of running downstairs for them.

My basil is doing AWESOME now that I know how to pick it properly.  Last year I didn't know what I was doing and picked it all wrong so it never bushed out and I had almost a dozen spindly little basil plants.  This year I'm having to make an effort to use it in things because it is doing so well.  I hope I can keep some through the winter.

I love love love the combination of fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil leaves.  The greatest and simplest panini you'll ever eat contains all three.  When skewered onto a toothpick together, they are a great snack and an elegant appetizer.  I salt and pepper my tomato pieces, assemble them and then drizzle some garlic oil over them.  Num NUM.  These are store bought cherry tomatoes and I can't wait for garden fresh. 

I tried my hand at our first 2 quarts of spicy garlicky pickles yesterday.  Brenda would always send these home with us and I'd have to hide them from Dave for 2 weeks so they'd have time to actually pickle in the jars.  I used the same brine as the pickled green beans.  Each jar has 4 cloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes and 1 small sprig of dill weed from the garden.  Brenda used sliced jalapenos and never used dill so we'll see how they turn out.  These cucumbers are from our garden too.

Dave drove me to the Axman so I could look for some glass bottles and that store didn't disappoint.  I think these are blank Heinz ketchup bottles but they're just perfect.  I made some flavored vinegar with white wine vinegar and rosemary sprigs from the deck.  The herbs have been in there a little more than 24 hours and you can smell the rosemary.  I'd like to try dill or maybe a garlic variety.  These bottles would work well for infusing olive oil with garlic too I think.

Mindekirken

 When my parents were here, we all attended the 11:00 service at Mindekirken.  It also happens to be the service conducted in Norwegian.  I haven't seen my dad that excited since we drove to Decorah to see Kong Olav in 1987. 

The church itself is not far off I-94 so I think even I could drive myself with my Garmin.  I haven't seen that much rosemaling, hardanger, klostersomm or photos of the Norwegian royal family in one place for a long time.  It was utterly refreshing to hear Norwegian candidly spoken throughout the church.  We met the pastor before services and visited with several parishioners, many of whom were native speakers.  We enjoyed the service which included music from Grieg and Scott Joplin.  We stayed for coffee afterwards and visited with more churchgoers and some visiting native Norwegians.  In Iowa it is guaranteed the reigning King will always visit Luther College and the Vesterheim, but in Minnesota, he will always visit Mindekirken.

 After services and lunch, we ventured over to Norway House which is a new cultural center on the same block as Mindekirken.  The traveling exhibit is festdrakter-not to be confused with bunads-by Lise Skjak Braek.

 These are not bunads.  Let there be no mistake about that.  They are beautiful dresses based on bunad design but are not in fact folkedrakt.

 I was excited to see the exhibit because I bought a book of hers years ago on Ebay, "Brud I Tiden". 

The exhibit also featured paintings by Anne Langsholt Apaydinli.  They also featured dresses based on bunads and were colorful and surreal.

All the dresses were available for sale.

Garden Goodies

 My parents stayed with us over the 4th and Dad is always so helpful with garden and yard work.  He is quite the gardener himself so his input is always welcome.  It was ungodly muggy and hot on the 4th and I went out to pick peas for our lunch.  I wasn't even exerting myself.  I sat on a 5 gallon bucket to pick them and had sweat RUNNING off me and my glasses fogged up.  I hate this weather!

 We picked enough for a dish full for lunch.  I sauteed a chopped onion with some cubed ham in butter and then steamed the peas with them in the same pan.  Dee-lish.  We only really had enough for a large serving that one time.  Since then I've picked the fat pea pods as they develop and we just open them and eat them raw.  This year I put in dowels with wire running between them for the peas to climb but they just fell over and we had lumps of pea plants.  Next year I'm going to set up some metal edging fence when I plant so they are held up.  I was recently watching a BBC Tudor special and learned that before the potato was introduced to Europe, they would plant fields of peas and that was their main starch.  I don't know how they survived after our fussy crop of peas!  I love those BBC recreation shows by the way.

 Beans!  Pickled dilly beans!  I have been dying to make these for months!  My childhood best friend was Alitza Rueber and she and I were 4-Hers together.  One year she took dilly beans to the fair.  I can remember eating them for lunch when I'd stay over and I liked them but they were a little too dilly for me.  In the last few years, my dear friend Brenda has been fooling around with canning and she inspired me to start dabbling in it myself.  She makes AWESOME spicy garlicky homemade pickles.  Why couldn't I try the same with green beans for a hot version of dilly beans?  I used this recipe and hastily canned my first single pint of them.  It seemed like a waste firing up the canner for a single pint jar but I was working all the next week and wouldn't otherwise have time.  I picked all the viable beans so they wouldn't develop into monsters by the time I had days off and canned my first jar. 

I had enough for a pint but not enough to completely pack the jar which was OK.  My sister sent me a packet of dill seeds for my birthday and I'm growing it in containers on my deck.  I used the tiniest sprig for my first attempt.  The heat comes from dried red pepper flakes but Brenda uses sliced jalapenos.  The recipe calls for a full teaspoon of pepper flakes per jar but I used 1/2.  It also says to wait a full week, preferably two, before opening the jar.  We opened it 6 days later when the John's were here because I couldn't wait but also because I wanted to test the recipe.

They were delicious and even with half the red pepper flakes, they were still plenty ha-cha-cha!  Dave's parents sent over a bunch of beans from their garden and I picked all the new viable beans in the garden and canned 3 pints before my weekend night shift nap. 

Here is my awesome niece Annika trimming the beans for me.  She helped me with a lot of baking last week while they were here.

I love the view from the top of the jar.  The dill looks like seaweed.

And raspberries!  Beautiful plump ripe raspberries! 

 We've been going out and picking the ripe berries every day and storing them in the freezer.  Let me rephrase that:  I pick and store the berries but Dave EATS them!  ;)  We already have 1 1/2 pints in the freezer and tons more still developing!  The Ramsey County Fair starts on Wednesday and tomorrow I'm taking all my knitting and sewing and Wednesday morning I have to get up early to bake and then take that to the fair.  I am taking those raspberry hand pies in the "other" lot of the pie category.  I'm gambling on that because it will either be a refreshing unique pie entry...or it will be disqualified!  We'll see!