More Mincemeat

Ok, so green tomato mincemeat? Actually fairly tasty. I admit, I was a bit dubious when I read the recipe. 4 cups sugar and a ton of sweet spices and a goodly amount of salt, ok. But my eyes bugged out a little when it came to the tsp of black pepper. But really, it worked out ok. A bit too sweet for me. You'll have to excuse my attempt at gluten-free tart crusts. They taste good, but they crumble easily.

I collected my acorns today. Red oak, so they're going to take more leeching to get the bitterness out. Shall I roast them like chestnuts or grind them into meal for grits or pancakes?

 I'm waiting on the persimmons to ripen, and will update on my food adventures in a week or so.

Green tomatoes, persimmons, and other food adventures

Somehow another couple of weeks have gone by. That Chinese-Art Deco fusion work of art turned out to be a modern painting mimicking traditional art styles. Halloween is well underway. An early frost and a hungry groundhog forced me to pick all the tomatoes that were left on the vine, most of them green. I started looking for ways to deal with them, since several pounds of fried green tomatoes is Waaaay too much of a good thing.

Understand that I am a foodie. Or perhaps I have settled for being a foodie. I would like to be an adventuress. Visit all kinds of fascinating places, have unique experiences, eat unusual foods, read all the books in the world. Yes, book adventures count. But I'm on a super-budget, so I often turn my attention to making unusual foods, foods that you can't buy anywhere.

So, several pounds of green tomatoes. What to do? Internet searches turned up a number of suggestions, some of them very strange indeed, or very inventive.

Green tomato jelly: Sounds fun, except that the ingredients are green tomatoes, sugar, and raspberry gelatin. If I'm using green tomatoes, I want it to have the flavor of green tomatoes, and not raspberry jello.

Green tomato pie: I made this last year. It tasted a lot like tart apple pie. If you like apple pie, I can recommend it. But I've done that before, so it's not much of an adventure.

Pickles: Not just for cucumbers! You can pickle just about any vegetable with salt and vinegar (have I ever mentioned my grandma's pickled watermelon rind? Sounds weird, tastes delicious).  I took the little cherry-sized green tomatoes (too small for anything else) and fresh dill and made a quart jar worth. I go for refrigerator pickling instead of hard canning, so I will know how those turned out in 3 days. They probably make good bread & butter pickles because of their tartness, but I have to limit my sugar, so I went with sour dills.

This left me about 6 cups of green tomatoes (and 5 large ripe ones, which made a lovely tomato soup)
So I kept looking.

Picalilli: some kind of Southern relish. It's probably like chutney. Not sure what you put it on, actually, and I couldn't find the recipe again. Or spell it, which is probably the problem.

Green tomato mincemeat: SOLD! It's weird, sounds disgusting, and I'm pretty sure you can't buy it even in the most country of country stores. THAT is worth my time and effort. I mean, the store-canned mincemeats are disgusting, but I'm hoping it's like fruitcake, where the home-made ones are really delicious. At the least, I'll have something to talk about (Ew, this tastes terrible! Here, you try it!)

That's why they're food adventures.

So I need to scale down the recipe from a peck (12 lbs) of green tomatoes, and buy some things I don't keep around the house, but I will get back to you with the results.

But that got me started on other ideas. It's acorn time, and I know the Native Americans ate acorns. If I can steal some from the squirrels I might experiment with them as well. I don't expect them to taste good, but the bragging rights will be worth it.

I also have an American persimmon tree in my yard. The fruit isn't ripe yet, but when it is I have recipes lined up for persimmon jam, butter and puree. There are recipes out there for bread, pudding (in the bread pudding sense), cake and cookies, and even persimmon fudge, but they're all full of gluten, except the fudge, which is loaded with sugar.

Doing something with the loads of mint from my garden is really just an afterthought.

What can you do with mint besides dry the leaves for tea, or make mint jelly?
Inquiring minds want to know.

A mysterious painting

I didn't feel like I had much to say when I updated last night, but guess what!
A mysterious painting arrived in my office today! It's a beauty, isn't it?

It appears to be a watercolor portrait painted on fabric (likely silk) and is nearly as tall as I am. It isn't signed, in any language.
The outfit looks like traditional Korean or perhaps Chinese. It isn't Japanese or Thai. I don't know enough about other nations to know.

The traditional Asian portraits I've been looking at generally have no border or background, and include calligraphy. The subject is usually an Emperor or an ancestor (usually a middle-aged man). Is this person one of the thousand Chinese gods, or is this the son (or daughter) of a wealthy family? It's not typical for a girl to carry a cane, is it?

Since the mid-1700s, Chinoiserie seems to come into fashion every few decades. If this was European I'd say it was done in 1910-1920s Art Deco style, imitating traditional Asian art. Looking at the face, however, the portrait style is not Westernized.
Perhaps looking at portraiture wasn't the right place to start. It may have started life as part of a screen or wall hanging that was later framed. I don't like to base appraisals on guesses, so if anyone has a background in Asian art history, I'd love to hear from you.

Oh, and the donor commented that the frame was quite valuable. It looks quite average to me, so I'm not sure why... It's modern. She may have meant "framing it was expensive" which I'm sure it was. Since the truck crew know nothing about art, they couldn't pump her for information the way I would have.

Well, that's my little mystery.

Visiting Union Terminal in Cincinnati

I haven't felt like I have much to say for the last couple weeks, but I don't want this blog to fall by the wayside.

I was in Cincinnati over the weekend, and took my husband to the Museum Center at Union Terminal. My very first job was there, back in 1996-97. It's an amazing building, truly huge, and there is even more space behind the scenes than most people comprehend. Hidden space behind the fabricated walls. Blocked-up tunnels. Perhaps a few secret passages. I was a fervent Phantom of the Opera fan, so of course it all seemed awesome. There's a catwalk that goes over the 100' half-dome rotunda. I've been on it. They give that tour twice a year. Contact the museum for details- but only if you're not afraid of heights.

Anyway, if you can spare any time from checking out the paid attractions, there are two freebies you should take advantage of.

Climb Tower A, which overlooks the railyard, where you can watch the trains come and go. The tower is packed with railroad artifacts, and railroad enthusiasts itching to tell you about them.

There is also a free tour of the building; which, if you like architecture and historic preservation, is truly amazing. You go up to the second floor catwalk for a closer look at the murals. Then they take you to the building's original offices, beautifully restored to their Art Deco glory. The building was derelict for several years, so restoring them was no mean feat. The guide could see our interest, so he took us pretty much everywhere he had keys for, pointing out little details; the clamshell elevator; the room where men waited for the train; the fine dining hall with murals on the ceiling, the phone booths. I haven't seen a phone booth in years. The 30 minute tour stretched to over an hour, but it made our day.

For more about Union Terminal, accompanied by stunning photos, go here.


 

I fell in love with 7 notes of music.

Ah, children.... The charades are cute....
So long as you don't think too hard about what she's saying, it's all good, right?

Was wondering today what one wears to a wake. It's not a funeral, it's a party, so I don't know if black is in, or out.

Ah, I got nothing to add, so let me share my new favorite song:
Prince Rupert's Drop, from the Oscar & Lucinda soundtrack



 

Tintype, Marlboro Man, and antique camera parts; pieces of my life.

Today at work I was handed a coat ("just leave it on that stack of boxes over there would you?")  and told it was THE coat worn by Marlboro Man in the old ads. I have no way of knowing or proving whether this is true, but it made a fine story.

I reassembled a set of fancy Victorian candleholders dripping with crystal prisms, threw up my hands at a Ferris Wheel Erector set, sorted through a cart of this-and-that, most of which was chaff, but a few things were worth my time. The first was a 1860s tintype photo of a woman in mourning clothes. The other was a cigar box filled with PARTS from turn of the century cameras. Talk about "they don't make these any more"!

And I fell in love with the soundtrack to Oscar and Lucinda. I haven't seen the movie, but after reading the synopsis, I might have to.

Fair at New Boston (2)

The Fair was glorious, I have a sunburn, and somehow my face made it onto the Springfield News website as I was examining at an 18th century apothecary kit.

I hope they roll it back to the 1700s next year, as I just don't find the Jane Austen era costumes to be all that appealing. Also, they can't go any later in time without losing Tecumseh, who was killed in fall of 1813, and it would be a shame to lose him as a speaker.

The food was nicely authentic, and what's more: mostly gluten-free. You have no idea what a blessing that is to people like me. I had turkey leg, chicken legs, garlic mushrooms in wine, New Boston stew, corn chowder, and ham&beans. Had to pass on the bread&butter, gingerbread, and peaches with pound cake, but I'm sure they were also amazing.

Of all things, people seemed most fascinated by REAL LIVE ANIMALS. There was a falcon in the Shawnee village who was drawing most of the attention, a Shetland pony carrying crated hens, and a goat tethered under a tree that the owner milked, as well as the usual horses and oxen.

Last year at the Fair, I discovered the pleasure of Bohea tea, a loose leaf black tea whose leaves are smoked over a fire. It tastes nicely smoky with milk and perhaps a little honey. I have never found this tea anywhere else, so I stocked up again this year. If you like a smoky taste, I recommend giving it a try.