Note to Self Regarding the Cuisinart and Marunchinos

The next time you want to mix the cardamom and rose water into a batch of marunchinos by hand, remove the dough from the Cuisinart beforehand. Because there is a sharp stainless steel blade hidden under the almonds and sugar and egg whites, and it's not fun to dig tiny pieces of almond and sugar and egg white out of a deep slice in your finger. Don't forget!

Marunchinos
Sephardic Almond Macaroons, Iraqi style

based on several recipes found online and in cookbooks, including Gloria Kaufer Greene's The New Jewish Holiday Cookbook

2 cups whole, raw almonds
2/3 cup raw organic sugar
2 large egg whites
1 tsp rose water
1/2 tsp ground cardamom

Preheat oven to 325. Line a baking sheet or two with parchment paper.

Using your food processor, pulse together the almonds and sugar until you have a very fine mixture - Don't overmix to turn the nuts into butter, though.

Add the egg whites, rose water, and cardamom and pulse until the dough forms a large, sticky ball.

Wet your hands and form dough into rounds about 1 1/4 inch wide. Press each down with a wet palm.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until cookies are set but only browned the slightest bit along the edges. Slide parchment paper off of cookie sheet onto a rack, and let cookies cool completely before peeling them off. Store in an airtight container, if you have any left.

Optional: You can leave out the rose water and cardamom, substituting almond extract for the rose water, and using lemon zest in place of the cardamom. And if you like whole nuts as decor, top each cookie with a whole almond, or just a slice/sliver of one, pressed down into the dough. Personally, I hate a whole nut getting mixed into things, but I know others feel differently.

Long-Lost Foods

Taste is supposed to be our strongest sensory memory, and my taste buds sure do seem to beat my mind when it comes to recall. In the early 1990's, I lived for a while with a very welcoming and lovely Saudi family in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. While I was there, we went out for Indian food in a swanky restaurant, where we had Umm Ali for dessert. It was creamy, it was sweet, it had pistachios and sultanas and rosewater, and it tasted so incredibly perfect. I have had such a craving for another taste of this, it was the first thing I searched for when I got online for the first time, to no avail. Happily, the internet has finally caught up, but now I need a gluten-free version. Voila! It won't be the same, but I think it's worth a try. I'll post my version of the recipe as soon as I've had a chance to cook up a batch.

Do you have any long-lost foods that you crave but cannot find a recipe for?

Chava's Mixed Media Gallery & Homeschool Update

Untitled, watercolor




Garden plan, colored pencil




Parts of a flowering plant, pen

"The sea ice is a bad place to lose a dog", colored pencil
(inspired by Jan Brett's The Three Snow Bears)

Untitled, colored pencil



"Brownies at camp", pen

Chava has been drawing maps, food chains, food webs, specific plant and animal life cycle charts, and people. People are a relatively new addition to her imagery. In the past, she has been much more interested in drawing animals, machines of her own creation, and the other things listed above. She would draw a person if cajoled, but only rarely of her own volition. The other day, much to my quiet surprise, she cranked out a series of girls wearing fancy dresses; they were drawn out in computer-esque format, as a series of possible options for any interested party to choose from. The first girl even had a menu of options in boxes - Eye color and wardrobe choices. This is what happens when your father has just found employment with an MMORPG (that's Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game for those of us who aren't so much geeks), and your father has been showing you how to create your own ass-kicking elf.

Chava's Brownies troop started meeting this week, and she has been working on a series of drawings of the campground she plans to build for her troop on a private island. I especially like the way she draws their brown vests; the fabric is so stiff, they really are boxy, and must not be all that comfortable in real life, just the way they appear in her drawing.

We've also been working on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Chava likes the Oak Meadow mathematic process elves, and has been working drawings of those into the pages of "math sentences" she writes. Arrays are also a hit - All those tidy aligned rows and columns of items; what's not to love in such order and precision?

Mimzy's Watercolor Gallery

"China"

"Wild West: Palo Verde tree, water, and Saguaro"

"Cowgirl riding her horse Flame"




"Watercolors are fun to paint in"
(watercolor and Aquarelle pencil)

Mimzy and I had a chance to hang out just with each other today, and we decided to give watercolors a try. Chava loved watercolors but disliked crayons when she was about Mimzy's age; Mimzy had been the opposite. Today, though, she grasped the wash-your-brush-between-colors idea, and she had a great time.

"These colors are so beautiful!" was the first thing she said, and she quickly filled up all of her papers and wanted more, more, more. Her vocabulary of representational images is growing quickly, and this amazes me...Chava was more of an abstract artist, and has only just recently drawn people of her own volition. Mimzy is drawing the classic round people with stick arms and legs, and she has also started to write her own name, both forwards and backwards, across every paper she finds.

Sukkot 5770

Someday, I'll get back to blogging. For now, some photos of our sukkah. This is the best Sukkot weather I can remember, and this sukkah is making me very happy.

Up To Speed

What I've been up to since New Year's Day:
-cooking
-cleaning
-laundry
-tried to keep my feet warm on these icy floors during a long winter
-2 trips to the zoo
-1 family birthday party for Mimzy
-1 school party for Mimzy (really just delivery of GFCF chocolate cupcakes, easy-peasy)
-facilitated a school-wide vision meeting
-served as point person for Chava's school open house
-1 school project fair with Chava (she exhibited the film of her Greek myth plays)
-separated from my husband, year-2000 style. google "bird nesting" for more info
-met with a social worker at our local community services organization
-partially filled out the DSHS application supplied by the social worker
-turned 40
-completed will, finally
-baked a really good pie (Fuji apples, frozen blackberries, picked at the park last summer)
-took a trip to the mountains with the girls and my own mother
-got a haircut

Not necessarily in that order.
It's been a bit busy around here.

Lost Photos Found

L.C, L, R

Sapphire & Opalescent Glass Choker

Detail, Sapphire & Opalescent Glass Choker

Freshwater Pearl & Vintage Crystal Choker

Detail, Freshwater Pearl & Vintage Crystal Choker

Vintage Gunmetal Glass, Hematite & Freshwater Pearl Necklace

Detail, Vintage Gunmetal Glass, Hematite & Freshwater Pearl Necklace

One of the fringe benefits of setting up my studio after several years away from my workbench has been unearthing forgotten items and photos. I found these last night and have been missing my friends on this New Year's Day. I always get a bit melancholy when a new year begins, while I'm also excited for the future and what will be revealed. I hope there is a great year in store for all of us.

I started my jewelry business in 1991 with my best friend, L.C. We used a $5,000 loan to grow our business from a weekend market-only thing into full-time employment. L.C. moved back to her desert town after the first year, and it took our friendship a couple of years to recover from the strain of running a business together. Luckily, we salvaged the important things and we reunited years later for joint trunk shows. Then we came up with a group project with L, another jewelry designer friend: We each picked one grouping of materials, which each of us used to make one piece of jewelry. L.C. picked gunmetal glass and complementary materials, L picked white pearls and clear crystal, and I picked sapphires, opals, and opalescent glass.

We used these sample pieces to apply for a summer show and had a great time putting together our booth. It was a great show, and so much fun to spend the long weekend with each other, drinking lemonade and selling each others' work. L.C.'s work is heavy, intricate - Her pieces always remind me of archeological finds, treasures from some lost civilization. L's work is delicate, and for this collection she wove pieces as an ode to her Grandmother's lace work. My own pieces were part of my experiments with chokers using two rows of cold-forged metalwork or intricate loops of chain - I like the complex puzzle of planes, having to get things just-so in order to make solid metal encircle the neck gracefully and with comfort.

These photos are my versions of the three material groupings. It's too bad L.C, L and I live so far away from each other. I miss our collective, I miss working alone-but-connected with such creative women.

Sleepover = Studio

workbench

storage area - now with wall shelves!

raw materials, organized by color

Chava & Mimzy are sleeping at my folks' tonight, their very first mama-free night ever. I hope they're asleep by now, but my parents didn't feed them dinner until 8 pm, so who knows what's really happening. I feel a little like I did the first time I dropped Chava off at preschool. She was happy, waving goodbye to me, and I spent the first minute driving slowly because everything was blurry through my tears. Then I felt dangerously free, untethered from reality, like I might just float away without the weight of the diaper bag on my shoulder and her hand in mine. Instead, I went to the bakery and had a decaf Americano with cream.

Tonight, instead of floating into the cold cloudy sky, I am setting up my studio. I have found forgotten treasures, and things not forgotten but thought lost. I am surprised - I thought I might be done making jewelry, but I'm excited. I have some non-jewelry work in mind, too, but first I want to wrestle up some new pieces to wear and to sell.

That's a relief. I was a little worried I'd need to find a new path to work-bliss, but I think this one is still worth treading.