Etsy!

I love Etsy! You never know when someone is going to pluck you out of the crowd.
Thanks to LaMo Designs for picking one of my bags for her treasury!

Greetings!

How did we get to the end of July? Things are moving so fast I'd like to take a moment to say hello to all you busy readers out there buying houses, harvesting veggies or hitting the road for a summer adventure. Wouldn't it be nice if we could gather for a long weekend? Spend an hour just staring up at the trees and sky or watching the camp fire flames dance. Summer used to be time for doing things like that. I hope that wherever summer takes you it's someplace worth gazing at.

Here are some pics from recent gallivanting, crafting and summer gazing.


this is me at the Presidio in San Francisco. The rest of the photos are from around SF on vacation with my Mom and Sister. To see the rest of my photos go here. For my sister Holly's pictures go here.








A new purse! I finally made something with the New York fabric from Purl




New cards are now available in the shop.


New quilt! (sewn and hand quilted by Pam Clark) I just fell in love with this quilt. It was the only hand quilted one that I could find and all the fabric is lovely and oh so vintage.


More Quilts ( part of the South Perry Street Fair and the Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery fund raiser)


Superman lives! Wow look at those muscles. Also part of the South Perry Street Fair



Sky gazing on a hot summer night in Spokane.

Cooking for Karina, a food blogging event

Karina, of Gluten-Free Goddess, recently discovered that it's not just gluten she should be free of but a whole host of other ingredients. For most of us the elimination of just one of the foods on her list would send us into a culinary nervous breakdown. But we bloggers are here for Karina who has given us so much good food and a good amount of her spirit in the process.

The blog Gluten Free By the Bay is hosting Cooking for Karina, a food blogging event. A challenge to find recipes free from all allergens on Karina's list and hopefully a good resource for all those who are challenged with multiple food allergies.

So Here's to Karina a true inspiration!

Mom's Chocolate Cake (gluten, soy, dairy and egg free)

1 1/2 cups rice flour
1/3 cup cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup cold coffee or water
2 tsp vanilla
2 T cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 375. Oil 8" square or round cake pan and dust with cocoa.

Mix together flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and sugar. In another bowl,
combine oil, coffee or water and vanilla. Pour liquid ingredients into dry
ingredients and mix until blended and smooth. Add vinegar and stir briefly.
The baking soda will begin to react with the vinegar right away, leaving
pale swirls in the batter. Without wasting any time, pour the batter into
the prepared baking pan.

Bake for 30-35 minutes.

This is a delicious moist cake.
I'm not sure where the recipe originated, I think it's from The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day cookbook. This is the original non-gluten-free recipe.

It's delicious with warmed pie cherries or your favorite berry

Sorry there aren't any photos, it's just too hot to turn on the oven.

Enjoy!

Lucky me!

Big thank you to Marita Dachsel for mentioning my cloth grocery bag on her 'sweetest things' list on sweetspot.



I am so lucky!

Getting the Word Out

Hi, I've had enough of that 'bad day'. How about you?

Richard and I have been reading Barbara Kingsolver's new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. In the book she talks about farming in the American culture but her main focus is the story of how her family decided to grow their own food and what they can't grow they get locally.

Maybe it's just because I have been reading this book but I have noticed an 'Eating Locally' movement. I'm sure this philosophy is one of those that has been refurbished for the next generation and is in no way 'new' in fact it's old, so old it's new. Many people never think about where the food they pack into plastic bags and haul home every week actually comes from let alone spend one minute pondering the energy usage, ingredients, treatment of animals or health value related to their purchase, it's sad. Anyway, I thought I'd jump on the band wagon and share some sites and posts dedicated to eating locally.

• a flickr post by Soulemama
• a whole blog dedicated to One Local Summer : this includes a great list of resources.
• my fabulous sister eating her balcony
• life begins at 30
• check out the crafty Etsy gardeners!
• BlackStar Jewelry (and mighty fine gardener!)
• 100 Mile Diet, thanks Laisha!
• love this idea from The Kissing Knees Craft
• My local CSA
• Eat Local Challenge
• Local Harvest
• New Farm
• a great way to save the earth and your body BIKE! This is a local blog but I'm sure there are many just like it where you live.

Enjoy!

My garden went in very late this year so we are a little behind. Thankfully there is an abundance of farmer's markets to keep us in produce until ours, hopefully, emerge.

Here are my cucumbers


and radishes


tomatoes, lettuce, eggplant etc... still growing but not photo worthy.

I'd love to hear how other people are trying to stay local and add you to my links list.
Bon appetite!

Yes ok, it was a bad day

But ice cream and blueberries make it better!



I thought of a lesson I learned when I was a totally ignorant teen. OK, I had some moments of non-stupidity. Let's just say I learned a lot of lessons the hard way. Anyway, I was coming up from the Metro in Montreal and I remember seeing this man, he looked sort of disoriented and then I realized that he was blind. Without thinking, I tucked my hand into his arm to help guide him away from the crowd of people he was in. Shocked by this, the man sort of flailed his arm in the air and screamed something at me. Of course I was shocked too, why wouldn't he want a total stranger sneak up behind him and grab him by the arm? I was going to help him and he didn't want it.

I think of this stupid thing that I did and it reminds me that even when you have the best intentions of helping someone, they aren't always ready or even needing your particular brand of help. I try to remind myself just to have compassion and not to dole out advice at every turn. I said 'try', sometimes the advice and unsolicited 'help' just can't be stopped.... like right now ... sorry.

Here's a good article in case you feel like reading about yoga and gratitude. Or you could go curl up in a box and sleep