Because...Lasagne

From 2015, I never got around to posting this.

Lately, though, dairy has been more unfriendly than usual to my gut so we haven't made this recently. Definitely time to make the sauce again, though, because it is soooo good.

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Many friends are aware that Kent and I follow a strictly (or almost strictly) no-sugar-no-grains approach to food. Kent follows more of a strictly Paleo diet that I do but at home you won't find one speck of rice, wheat, etc, in our cupboard. We allow ourselves to wander off the reservation, so to speak, under certain circumstances - say, when waffles are on offer at Chris & Irene's, or for a tasting menu at fancy-pants starred restaurant. Let's be clear: we don't have allergies. I have a few sensitivities, and we have made lifestyle choices - and we choose to ignore them when confronted with something like Michel Roux's menu a couple of weeks ago because we can afford, and choose, to not substitute ingredients. 

This is all just to say: we have made choices, and pasta-in-it's-gorgeous-semolina-goodness has been absolutely verboten. I love pasta in all it's forms. Flat, ruffled, stuffed. And I've found a substitute for flat thanks to three special people. Long-ish story. Settle in, chaps.

Special Person #1: Mom, who introduced me to zucchini-noodle lasagne during her visit last year and started me on this adventure of reintroducing ragu back into our world. Slicing up zucchini is a great option! For my taste, it has to be roasted first to dry it out a bit. We have such a tiny oven that this really does take several rounds of roasting. The zucchini shrivels up so you have to do quite a lot to get the right amount for a proper lasagne. 

Special Person #2: TS, a lovely woman who was my first real friend here in London, introduced me to a few of her favorite places in Camden. One of them was a vegetable shop, Parkway Produce (Parkway Greens? I can never see the writing on the awning), has 95% fresh produce and 5% other. There are veg I've never laid eyes on in this place. They supply local Camden restaurants with goods. They are constantly moving, busy, boxing up produce, unboxing produce. Best prices on unwaxed lemons in town. Best looking lemons in town. Best lemons in town. Anyway, TS told me about celeriac. Whaaaa? I've never used it. She gasped and said "Oh, you MUST try it. Such a lovely mild flavor. Mash it or slice it into matchsticks and put it into salad." (Note: right across the street from The Tiniest Whole Foods Ever)

Special Person #3: Mark Sisson, of Mark's Daily Apple. A few days after this discovery of Parkway Produce, I was reading on Mark's website about his version of lasagne, where he uses celeriac (celery root). 

Hm. This obviously got me thinking about how I could change up my lasagne. I make my own bolognese sauce for it, a riff on two sauces in Stanley Tucci's family cookbook, so I'm already spending a great deal of time on that. I didn't like how much more time the zucchini takes to roast. Celeriac, eh? Great big monster of an ugly root. You have to carve the outside off. It's very firm and a little difficult to slice, but easier than a butternut squash. Mark parboils 1/8" slices in batches of four or so - whatever fits in the pan, so that's what I did. Worked great! Made BEAUTIFUL if somewhat wonky "noodles" for lasagne. I did a crappy cutting job - very uneven - but DH loved it. It has just the right consistency - firm enough to layer but soft enough to cut through with a fork. But oh mercy standing in front of the stove parboiling slices of celeriac...MANY slices of celeriac...in my tiny galley kitchen...not my favorite thing to do. But I did it a few times because...lasagne! Then I read somewhere about steaming it. Maybe on the BBC food website. Maybe somewhere else. 

Okay, what the heck, I try that. 

Success! I can steam half a head of celeriac slices at a time! Woohoo! And, I can steam another set of slices to freeze for next time. Oh, yes by the way, it freezes lovely. Thaw it in the fridge for a day, use it in lasagne that night or the next day. Yummy.

Fine, it isn't the best photo but it's in a proper big American Pyrex casserole dish,
you know what I'm talking about.

Then Kent ponders: "I wonder if we can spiralize it and use it as...spaghetti?" Well, shit yes that actually works too. Steam a head of spiralized celeriac for about 9 minutes, drain it, salt it, cover it with sauce and sprinkle with parmesan. It works. You could just boil them in salted water, too, and it would work just fine. I've read that it's good to add a little lemon juice to prevent it from going brown (might be for storage in fridge) but that hasn't been a problem for me. That spiralizer we bought two years ago has finally come in handy. 

There is almost nothing better than a big plate of spaghetti with homemade bolognese and sprinkled with fresh parmesan cheese after a run (you knew I had to mention that somewhere, right?) - made with ingredients that are consistent with our dietary choices.

Life is good. 

The Skirt, Part 1

This story is as much about sewing as it is about weaving. It is possibly even more about project planning. The things I learned, since I am not an expert sewist, were decidedly in the planning and sewing stages. I found the weaving to be easiest with one glaring exception (the beat) and which I didn’t especially appreciate until it was too late.

This project was driven by a long-standing desire to construct my own clothing. I wasn’t interested in making any political statements or return to some mythic “simpler time” but rather more practical reasons: I’m 5’1” with bust, waist, and hips, and finding well-fitted clothing is a challenge from both a height and shape perspective. As every woman who is shaped outside the normal distribution knows, the off-the-rack clothing industry doesn’t design garments for curvy women.

I was first seduced by a sexy deflected doubleweave (DDW) pattern I found in a back edition of Handwoven. I had to try it but it was a few years before the stars aligned and I had enough nerve to potentially waste some of my precious Jaggerspun Zephyr wool/silk blend fiber. My first attempt went brilliantly right up until I sent it through my front-loading washer, thinking it was gentle enough. The result was beyond disappointing: it shrunk from 7’ x 11” scarf size to 3’ x 6”cravat size. It’s a very warm cravat and I actually do wear it on the very coldest days of the year. Lessons learned! But, I knew what to do – and what not to do – to wet finish this piece of work. I played with color combinations and generally had a lot of fun with discovery.

A year or two before this first experiment with DDW, a very close friend and the woman who played Robin to my Batman -- let’s call her Kerry because that is her real name -- one day tossed four cones of 20/2 cashmere in I my direction and commanded me to weave her something beautiful in dark blue, dark green, burgundy, and ivory. At the time, more than two colors scared me and I promptly parked that beautiful fiber in the stash. The cones followed me on a move to England where they sat in a project box for 18 months.

Back to the future: You get a lot of time to think while you are weaving and I just knew that the DDW pattern would be the right one for her and something she wouldn’t weave for herself. In part because it’s too fiddly and in part because I have more shafts at my disposal and my pattern requires eight. In a moment of inspiration I drew a fifth color from my stash, a BFL/silk blend, hand-dyed by Cheryl at Sonoran Desert Dyed Fiber and I found a way to mix the yarns into a plaid-ish DDW. That first DDW was only three colors. Now I had five!!

Fast forward a few weeks and voila: I was cutting off an beautiful DDW scarf from the loom which I vigorously wet finished by hand. It was fine enough to double over as a scarf without creating bulk. I road tested it around town and took an action picture of it near Tower Bridge.

I was satisfied that as a scarf it was brilliant. I wanted one of my own.  Nonetheless, the scarf went to Kerry, the majority owner of the fiber content; an 18” sample went to Cheryl so she can show off what her fiber could do. We even entered that scarf in competition at Maryland Sheep & Wool and got second prize in the category, and I agreed with the judges comment that it was still a little flimsy. It needed a closer sett and another round of hand-fulling.

Next time: Part 2, Planning the yardage and selecting a skirt pattern

Returning

No, not to the US, sorry Kerry & Cheryl & Mom!

Returning to the blog. It's had a long nap. Also returning to Complex Weavers, my membership now renewed. I miss my extended tribe of weavers, spinners, and fiber enthusiasts. In renewing my membership, I joined the Designing Textile study group. It's led by a weaver I have a lot of admiration for, and it's membership is comprised (to my delight) of some wonderful weavers. I'm excited to be in their company. I approach this as designing textiles for a purpose. My purpose has been for clothing, and I've promised to write up my first adventure in weaving cloth for clothing. Stay tuned.

We spent time in Montana last week visiting my husband's cousin on her organic farm. We did very touristy stuff: horseback riding (wonderful, and came away with sore sit bones!), fly fishing from a boat on the Bitterroot River (more of this, please), hiking up to Blodgett Overlook Trail (longer but less arduous and not as high as hiking up Mt. Teide). My sister-in-law Leslie and I ran the Lake Como trail, though I would have to categorize it more as run-walk-stumble-wade through running water. It's about 8 miles, really beautiful with some drop-dead gorgeous waterfalls, but we were there after a week of heavy rains so it was wet. The trail itself was mainly rocky, at times was a small stream, lots of large puddles, and in one case washed out by a small waterfall which we had to walk through. Also, we were admittedly a little anxious about meeting bears. We didn't, but toward the end of the trail we started hearing things and we were completely soaked and ready to be done!

Also in Montana I attended a pipe ceremony. This isn't something I'd normally sign up for but it was scheduled on the farm to celebrate solstice. So, when in Rome (Hamilton, actually)...I'm proud to say that my urbanite self wasn't entirely closed off to the ideas shared and the woo-woo nature of the entire thing and I found myself hit with inspiration for the 2018 study group topic ("write about a specific object or experience that has inspired you to transfer it into your own weaving, and how you translated it"). So in the middle of this pipe ceremony, the smudge smoke told me it was the object of my inspiration.  I wasn't high, it was just sage mixed with some other grassy/herby stuff, nothing hallucinogenic, and the smoke didn't actually say anything. But it was while each person in the circle was being "blessed" and I was staring into the smoke coming from that smudge stick thing that it popped into my head that the smoke and the objects on the "alter", for lack of a better description, should be my inspiration. And to be fair to the ceremony, it was a strong inspiration and there was absolutely no doubting it. 

I jumped on it right away the next morning in my journal, jotting ideas. In fact, I think the finished textile really popped into my head already formed; the brainstorming is mainly about how I'm going to execute it. 

As with all things, I'm limited by the width of my loom, so nothing goes on wider than 20". Technically, I'm also limited to 8 shafts but the ground cloth structure can be a "simple" plain or twill weave, and I sketched this on the plane coming home. It's the smoke that is the complicated part, and I've been googling this for inspiration on how to incorporate it. It needs to give a sense of lightness and movement, of dancing across the cloth.  I want to see curves. Supplemental warp, damask, inked images on the warp before weaving, ribbon sewn onto the warp after weaving - these are all potential approaches and all are on the table, even the damask if I were to construct a drawloom-thing. It's not out of the question. At the moment my browser is full of tabs on these topics. Today my running brain (the part that isn't putting feet to pavement to make sure I stay upright) will be put to work solving these design mysteries, and I've pulled out all my weaving books and CW Journal past issues for inspiration. As Fox Mulder says, the truth is out there. 

Right now, the dominant colors are dark grey and black/near black with occasional yellow (there was a guy in a bright yellow rain coat) and dark red (there was a dark red bandana on the "alter" which quite stood out against the greys and near-blacks), and then the light grey representing the smoke. 

I currently have two weaving projects wound into chains, but they'll just go in the weave queue. I don't want to put anything on the loom until after August 7, our move date. When I do put this project on the loom, it'll be a sample length proof of concept. Due in December, I have a few months to figure this out, weave/finish, and write about it. 

-E

It doesn't look like much

But it's a LONG way from St. John's Wood to Battersea Park and back. The rest of the running club ran 10 to Greenford via the Canal, but since I didn't have that "I know where the public toilets are" peace of mind, and this was an important run for me, I elected a route I've done before. The first time I did it, though, I only went 9 miles, then bussed the remainder back home. This time...I did the whole enchilada and I'm completely thrilled beyond words. And my calves ARE SO SORE.

Two days after this run, on March 11, I massacred something in my hip (it was my glute medius tendon at my hip joint) after only 3 miles and it stopped me dead in my tracks. I was devastated! The first two weeks I couldn't walk without a cane. The next two weeks-ish that followed was an enjoyable and relaxing tour through Denmark and Norway with my brother and his family. There was a lot of relaxing, self-massage, and kinesiology tape involved. Fortunately for me, The Nieces walk slowly so I was saved the embarrassment of being THE slowest one. I was only the slowest some of the time. That trip is a whole post on it's own to come. At any rate, then I came back and started a tiny bit of running and met with a doc and had an MRI done to make sure there wasn't a stress fracture. He injected the tendons with corticosteroid last Friday and I tried to take it easy over the weekend. That stuff stings.

I'm absolutely terrified of going too far too soon, which is probably the thing that got me in trouble in the first place. I had doubled my weekly mileage, quickly, instead of going with a slow steady increase. The urge to "keep up with the gang" is strong. I also didn't allow myself enough rest.

This is now a running reboot, and today I did 3 miles without pain using Jeff Galloway's run-walk-run approach. So far, so good. Will I be able to do the Hackney half-marathon next month, which I paid for the day of my wonderful 10-miler? To be completely honest, probably not. Right now, ten more miles of this morning's run - without pain - doesn't seem possible. There's always the Royal Parks Half this autumn, for which I will shortly be begging for donations. It's a lot further off, and offers enough time to do the slow steady increase I need.

In other news, I made that ivory warp my bitch.

I know that sentence only makes sense to a weaver, but I stand by it. I measured out 12 yards of warp using miscellaneous natural-colored natural fibers from stash, then tied it on to the previous honeycomb-threaded warp, got the little knots through the heddles with less breakage than anticipated, and started winding the little bugger onto the warp beam. I got several yards on before I gave up on that insanity. Kerry's first warp was 12 yds. It, too, was insanity. I was there for it and I don't know how she did it. Also, I ran out of packing sticks.

This warp turned out to be fiddly in a way that I loathe. I did the weaving in this image before my hip went wonky. After the wonky, I had to reduce my weaving to more plain weave so I could use one leg (right) on the two plain weave treadles. The first section is approximately 20 inches. The next section is also about 20 inches, but I included some weft inlay for fun. But that's not the fiddly part. The fiddly part is having my warp threads break so regularly!! The warp beam is so decorated with cones it looks like a Christmas tree. If I only have fifteen minutes to weave, I don't want to spend five of it messing with broken warp threads. I've decided on the use for this warp, though, and it's to be a gift so I can't show anymore of it. 

I also used some mill ends that are lovely in a weft but complete rubbish as warp. Very breaky-breaky. I also used a bit of Lopi which would be beautiful in a weft but it's just not strong enough for warp, and it frays like crazy. My plan all along had been for a rustic monochrome weave and to use up odds and ends that have been in the stash for some time, and I've succeeded. It's rustic. It's monochrome. I used odds and ends. It will make lovely whatchamacallits (I'm not saying). I think I'm the "get it on the loom and go" type of weaver, though. The inlays are fun and pretty, just little random blocks of colors, but they slow things down a great deal. 

I know what is going onto the loom next and I think I'll start measuring it out this week. Mwahaha. Another secret!

Can We Be Frank?

(Yes, and don't call me Frank.)

(Yes, it's not perfect but I had to do it.)

(Also, fair warning: topic is about gross and disgusting things today, like poop)

There is something that I never hear other runners talk about in polite company, but many of us (and especially those of us with digestive disorders) have experienced: running-induced gastrointestinal distress. Diarrhoea, as it is spelled here in Sunny England. By the way, this is where you should either stop reading or carry on at your own risk. 

Some of my running pals have probably dealt with it at one time or another. We don't really discuss it. I carry a small pack of anti-diarrhoeal on every run, especially runs greater than 6 miles. Just in case. Primarily for myself but I'm happy to share if anyone else should find themselves in a pickle, because I know what it's like. If I get hit, however, I'm sidelined until the anti-diarrhoeal du jour kicks in. For me that's about 90 - 120 minutes. Most recently this happened on a hill run and I camped out at the O2 "mall" on Finchley Road for almost two hours before I was able to finish the run. 

IBS-related diarrhoea is another story altogether. I can usually tell shortly after my first sip of coffee in the morning if I'm going to have an issue during the first few miles of my run - or before. Once or twice I've been surprised, but most of the time my gut lets me know. No two IBS sufferers are alike: coffee doesn't bother my gut. 

For me, running-induced diarrhoea is compounded by IBS, and it's more likely to occur if I've eaten something questionable within 24 hrs of the run. There is generally a small window of opportunity if I'm going to be nutritionally naughty - by which I mean, for example, eating anything with yeast, grains, or chocolate. On the other hand, I'm not bothered by my gels which contain a small amount of cocoa. There are certain combinations of foods that I've just discovered my gut doesn't prefer. Eggs + Xylitol are a problem. 

These days I do have the luxury of waiting it out. No job to get to (yet), and today no appointments. It's a game of trial and error. I've landed on a nutritional approach that seems to work for me 90% of the time although I think I need to tweak it again. I know where most of the clean public bathrooms are on my run routes. Today was supposed to be a track run and fartleks in Regent's Park. It still can be and I'll tackle it on my own because my gut just wasn't ready when the club run was scheduled this morning.

Maybe now it's safe to leave the flat...

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UPDATE on the presentation for Company Not Named: they elected to go with someone else. There were eight (!!!) people in that presentation, not including myself, and the feedback I received from the recruiter was that the majority felt my perspective was too "big business." I just shake my head. Fine. There were two red flags that popped up that day in the prep meeting with COO and HR.

• Red Flag 1:  The focus of the role would not in fact be the integration of the three software platforms they'd been talking about throughout the interview processes, but basic management software and platforms internally. Wait, whaaaaat? I had prepped myself for a month on the former! 
• Red Flag 2: The COO had not briefed the folks in the room about the scope of the role, which kept getting bigger and bigger. Tieing up eight high level people to be on a panel interview for an hour without briefing them IN ADVANCE on the scope of the role, and giving them a chance to ask questions of the COO themselves, is a huge miss and a waste of everyone's time, including mine.  

I have mixed feelings about not getting this job but it was probably a good thing they thought I didn't have enough small business perspective. But dammit. Lessons learned. 

What does pork smell like?

Well, not much, turns out. Not ground pork, anyhow. No wonder there are mass quantities of seasonings in the meatloaf cooking away in the oven. Pork mince (in Brit parlance). Onions. Shrooms. With bacon on top.

Ah. Bacon. Bacon. A perfect food. Everything is better with bacon. I get Homer Simpson-drool going on when bacon is cooking. Today I put "lashings" of bacon on top of ground pork meatloaf or, as Nom Nom Paleo calls it, Super Porktastic Bacon-topped Spinach & Mushroom Meatloaf. Fun blog, awesome recipes, and oh damn I forgot the nutmeg. 

Crap, I forgot to add the nutmeg! I can't even blame my martini for that miss because that happened waaaay back before noon. And it's now waaaay past noon. Shoot. Well, probably it'll be okay without it. 

"Lashings." I don't really even know what that is but it is also a decidedly Brit word which seems to indicate some kind of schmear of something, or stripes or strips of something. On my meatloaf I have strips of bacon across the top, which I think qualifies as "lashings of bacon." Meh. 

I might forever associate this meatloaf with writing a presentation on what I can do for Company Not Named. Next week I am to do a panel interview (as in, the subject is ME and the panel is several of the company execs) in presentation (PowerPoint) mode. I'm not particularly thrilled and I'm totally anxious and the presentation isn't done and I'm pretty sure I've completely overthought this and I have one day to rework it before we go out of town. I want it DONE by the time we get on the train. So. Ugh. I keep asking myself "how badly do I want THIS specific job?" It happens that I'm a pretty good fit. But if, after all this, I don't actually GET the job, "do I want to bother continuing to look?" The first interview as January 14. Start date is April 1. 

So, pork smells like my presentation to Company Not Named. 

As Kerry says: le sigh. 

Mo' Running

Yes, it has been some time since I posted, and I'm not going to make excuses. I'm just gonna jump right in to it. Can I keep it up? Maybe, maybe not, we'll see.

Mo' running, mo' running, mo' running. I'm up to about 20 miles per week. It's an astonishing milestone for me and one of which I'm incredibly proud. It feels good. Feels right. Feels like I could tack on a few more miles on a 4th day, especially if I'm mindful about massaging my achy calves after the Friday hill run with the running club. 

Speaking of the running club, I owe all my miles to them. I don't have words for how grateful I am for their support and encouragement. Many of the women are training for a half-marathon in April, in Italy. Groovy! I'm going to a half-marathon a few weeks later, closer to home, and decided to train alongside because, hey, it's a PLAN. I like a plan. Plus, I'm six months overdue for a half-marathon because of the move across the pond and not getting to run in the Rock 'n Roll Virginia Beach Half. 

I'm anxious that once I'm working again I won't be able to allocate as much time to running as I have been for the past two months. I'd like to say "I'll deal with that when the time comes" but those who know me know that I just can't let it go at that. I have to have a PLAN! At least the outline of a plan, at any rate. 

Yesterday morning on the aforementioned Friday hill run, the lovely woman I was running alongside wondered aloud how it was that some people ran so much faster. Mentally, I dug deep into the all the reading I'd done but I couldn't come up with a ready answer. Mostly because we're all built differently, we all have different levels of cardio fitness. One thing I remember reading from Matt Fitzgerald's writing is that, among other things, distance can improve a runner's speed over time. I'm certainly proof of that! I ran my first 10k, last May 2014, at a 14:00 min pace. With no effort at increasing my speed but just increasing my distance over the last year, I ran a recent 10k this month at a 12:00 min pace. However, I was reminded this morning during some bathroom reading that aerobic fitness is another key component, and I think the two are intrinsically linked. As I am running I'm building aerobic strength. Yay! 

from "The Little Red Book of Running" by Scott Adams

So, this is one answer from one author to that question. I can accept that. I think this is the same guy who wrote that some runs aren't perfect. Accept it and move on to the next run.

Cheers, y'all!

The Little Things. For example, laundry.

Wake up. Walk five feet to the toilet. Backtrack two feet to the kitchen doorway and take three steps in. Stand in one place and pivot back and forth between the sink, counter, and electric kettle to make hot water for the coffee. Step sideways two feet to the washing machine and remove the load of whites. Do a left face and walk ten paces to the first radiator in the flat and begin hanging clothes on every vertical surface available. The size of the laundry load is in direct proportion to how much space you have to lay out damp laundry. Forget about washing machine capacity. 

And so begins life in a 560 square foot London flat. It’s slightly larger than the apartment we had in NYC two summers ago. We had a washer and a dryer in NYC. We have a washer in London. No dryer. What is up with that? Something about nowhere to vent, but…I think it’s just weird.

We’re fortunate to have arrived before most other new teaching staff, as we got early picks on items donated by families and staff returning to America. So things like mixer, blender, juicer, mini-stereo, electric tea kettle, microwave…all obtained. Part two of being fortunate is that we found a flat just a seven minute walk away from the school so carrying all those things to the flat, over four trips, wasn’t so terrible. Not even in 85 degree sunshine. Sunny London!

The weather, by the way, has been lovely. It'll be a shock when the days go short (they are soooo long right now, still perfectly light almost until 9:30pm) and grey. I'm hoping it'll happen gradually. I'm told that the lovely cooling breeze will turn into a cold howling wind. I have just the running gear for that. 

Everyone who drives does so like a maniac. Mario cart. They honk at you before they attempt to run you down, though, so there’s that. 

The public transportation is both outstanding and frustrating. Everything is handled by the Oyster card, incredibly convenient. This is your "get everywhere tap in/tap out" card that you load. Like a Starbucks card but more confusing. A bus trip or a tube ride isn’t just £2.20. There’s some kind of daily-cap-logic-depending-on-where-you-start-and-end-at-the-end-of-a-24-hr-period algorithm that I think I won’t ever understand. We have an extra Oyster card for guests because you really can’t get anywhere meaningful without one - those days where you’ve walked your shoes off and just want to sit. It’s not difficult to spend £20 a week on this. 

In our effort to minimise expenses, we walk. We walk a great deal. Five or more miles a day. And we check our Oyster balance daily.  

Kent, at the Tate Modern

Tomorrow, our high speed internet connection is activated. Weeeeee! In the meantime, there are a ton of BT wifi hotspots that we’ve been able to attach to (because we signed up with BT) and conveniently a few near the flat. Not consistently, mind you - it doesn’t take the place of a good reliable router - but it gets us by. In four days our personal belongings will descend upon the flat and we’ll spend the next year figuring out Where To Put Stuff, and all those articles on Apartment Therapy will make more sense. This is good, too, because I need a drying rack or four, and two of them are in that shipment. See above issue with the lack of dryer.

We are five hours ahead of the US East Coast, eight hours ahead of the US West Coast, you can do the math for everything in between. And yes, they move the clock ahead for British Summer Time (BST). Oh the things we're learning. 

p.s. - the visa was finally approved and finally made it into my hands. yay! I can make money in the UK! If only I had a job...