Asheville Arts and Crafts

Asheville has a fantastic arts and crafts scene. We had a blast admiring urban sculpture and listening to all the street musicians, often right next to each other:



One of our favorite art locations was Woolworth Walk. Remember the old Woolworths stores from years and years ago?



This one has been converted into a location for local artists to display and sell their art. Very cool. What a great reuse of space!



And they even preserved the soda fountain!



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Of course, there is little I love more than fiber. And there was certainly no shortage of it in Asheville!

First we went to the legendary Earth Guild. I oggled all the looms, then bought a spindle to replace my broken one and some bamboo fiber as well as silk brick to spin during vacation. Although my brother was very patient about my fibery addiction, after a little while he excused himself to explore the stores next door.



While David and our son checked out a toy store and my brother went to say hello to a friend in a comics shop, I checked out another yarn store--Purls:






The store is gorgeous and hip. Sensuous yarns arranged by color are beautifully arranged. I bought some stunning handmade pottery buttons--square, glistening, and as of yet with no destination.

I left the store and met up again with the boys. On our way to dinner, my brother reminded me of the story he and his girlfriend told me earlier in the day: they had gone in a store with both yarn and handcrafted items and tried on hats. Although my brother had liked one hat very much, he had refrained from purchasing it because he thought I might be able to make one for him.

SO...looks like I had to go to just one more yarn store....

What sacrifices we make for our loved ones!

We walked over to a small shop in Grove Arcade, Asheville Homecrafts. One side of the store was full of hats and scarves and the like, many of them knitted from handspun and some felted. Lovely. The other side had an astonishingly varied assortment of yarn given the size of the store.

And here's the hat he would like:



I've got some ideas about how to knit it--but I'd love any tips or thoughts any of you have!



Isn't my brother a handsome model?

Eating Local--in the mountains of NC

On Saturday, we drove into Asheville just in time for lunch. We parked in the garage and, admiring all the bumper stickers, immediately knew we were in the right place:



We decided to have lunch at a beautiful vegetarian restaurant, Laughing Seed Cafe, with a posted menu that looked so fantastic that we couldn't pass it up.



Even before we were seated, we realized we had made the perfect decision. As we walked to our table, who should we run into but my brother and his girlfriend! They had no idea we'd be in Asheville, and we had no idea they would be. What a wonderful suprise!

As we chatted and caught up a bit, I sipped a basil martini garnished with a cherry tomato. How perfectly seasonal, and utterly delicious as well as beautiful.



The Cuban tempeh sandwich is to die for, as was the watermellon gazpacho. Much of the produce, especially on the daily specials menu, comes from local farms.

We spent the afternoon with my brother while Rebecca attended her friends' wedding. We toured around Asheville and its art-and-fiber scene (more details tomorrow) as well as luxuriated at one of purest time sinks of all time: a great independent bookstore, Malaprop's.

We thoroughly enjoyed our day in Asheville. All my passions seem to be shared by the entire city--even gardening. The planters next to the side of the road are filled with edible and beautiful delights like rainbow chard:



Eventually, we were ready for dinner at another of the city's cool eating establishments, the Early Girl Eatery.



This is a restaurant entirely based on the importance of local food--meaning food grown locally as well as food cooked in a local style. As they say on their website,

The menu relies heavily on the high quality local produce grown in the area by family farms and community-supported agriculture (CSAs). Our cheeses and some of our meats are also produced and raised locally. The menu changes periodically with the seasons, while the specials change daily. This enables us to better utilize the local ingredients available. We believe local food tastes better and sustains a healthy community. Made from scratch is the motto at the Early Girl, and our recipes reflect our background in southern cooking as well as our vast experience with vegetarian fare.

And on the menu:



For dinner, I ordered sweet potato pone, cabbage, and black beans...



...while David had local trout served with a green-tomato/blackberry sauce. Goodness gracious!



My brother ordered pork chops, which came with potatoes as well as a mixture of green and yellow beans.



(Hint: Not in Asheville but drooling nonetheless? Check out Early Girl's free online recipes!)

One Local Summer #6

Due to arthritis in my hands, I have done next to no knitting or spinning for a while.

But we have been gardening, visiting farms, doing some experimental food preparation, and packing for a long vacation! Details about all coming soon. This summer has been busy and draining for me, and I promise to get back to blogging regularly as soon as we return from vacation.

* * *

For our sixth meal of One Local Summer, we tried out our new, homemade solar cooker! After cutting out cardboard, covering it with tinfoil, and taping it together, we filled it with shredded newspaper and a painted-black cake pan sealed in a cooking bag. We checked the temperature after setting it in the sun: about 325 degrees.



We filled a mason jar with garden tomatoes, summer squash, and zucchini, and stuck the jar in the cake pan for several hours.





When it was finished, we had a summer stew to serve over rice, alongside garden kale and store-bought black-eyed peas. What a feast!

One Local Summer #5

For our fifth meal of One Local Summer, we had some friends over for gazpacho...



...beer we bought while in Pennsylvania one weekend...



...homemade pumpernickel with sour cherries...



...and blueberry-peach crisp for dessert.



The gazpacho was a mix of cukes and lemon verbena from the garden, tomatoes and peppers from our CSA, and garlic scapes from the farmer's market. It had a little nonlocal olive oil and cider vinegar in it, too, along with salt and pepper.

The bread, made with nonlocal wheat flour as well as nonlocal yeast and cocoa powder and molasses, had local rye in it.

Both fruits in the crisp were from the farmer's market, as was the sweetener (maple sugar)--but the oats were not local.

Lovely weather, wonderful friends, and way way way too many mosquitoes!

University of Michigan Scarf

A gift for our neighbor, about to begin her freshman year:



David, Son, and I all knitted on it. Using Malabrigo yarn, we cast on more than two hundred stitches on a size 10 1/2 needle with an extremely long cord. Knitting in seed stitch, we changed colors every third row.



A great family project!

One Local Summer #4

For our fourth meal of One Local Summer, we staged a dinner on the grill.



The center were burgers made of ground beef from our dairy co-op formed into patties with zucchini and chard from our garden. I added an egg to help the mixture hold together well, but I don't know if it was necessary. We served the burgers on buns made by a local bakery with tomatoes from our CSA.





Along with the burgers we had farmer's market corn grilled for about 20 minutes then shucked and gobbled down...





...zucchini and yellow squash grilled in wedges, and cukes marinated in cider vinegar (one of my Granny's favorite sides).

To drink we made mojitos with non-local rum and lime juice, mint from the garden, and local maple sugar. Tasty!



And dessert? Our favorite: simple grilled peaches (from the farmer's market).



Just as we finished eating, the rain began after an absolutely gorgeous evening. We quickly took in our plates and grabbed the laundry drying on the line, running in with our mojito-infused laughter.

From the Garden

Figs:




Cukes:



Beans, not green:



Squash, to be picked maybe Sunday?:

One Local Summer #3

Summer Supper

It has been too hot to contemplate eating much of anything--much less cooking an elaborate meal. All that seems appealing some days is salad. Today, though, we managed to have a low-heat culinary adventure: making goat cheese!

After reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, we were inspired to try out a lot of traditional processing--from planting a larger garden, to renewed commitment to canning, to dehydrating, and to cheesemaking.

On her advice we checked out Home Cheese Making and got to work. First we tried mysost, a Norwegian whey cheese--which turned out extremely well. Watching the last episode of Frontier House sold us on trying goat cheese next.



The process is amazingly simple. Heat the milk slightly, add the cultures from the little cultures pack (or you can even use vinegar or lemon juice!), and let it sit overnight. Drain. Season and eat. Really--it is that easy. And the results? Awfully tasty.

For this week's supper in honor of One Local Summer, we ate our own goat cheese (made from local goat's milk), mixed with a pinch of salt and a lot of chives from our garden. We spread it on top of non-local French bread along with garden cucumbers. Cool and delicious!





We finished the meal with clafouti using Julia Child's basic recipe but replacing the sugar with local maple sugar bought at our farmer's market and the wheat flour with locally-milled rye flour sold at our food co-op. The milk and eggs came from our dairy provider and the cherries from the farmer's market.



Next experiment: making mozzarella!

Due to an intense period of work and then a complete shutdown as I recovered from that work, blogging and even knitting have taken a bit of a back seat.

The hemp lace is progressing, albeit slowly. After only a few rows, my hands are spent and ready for a change.

Mystery Shawl 3 got some attention in the middle of the night when I could not sleep--and the next day, I had to spend at least as much time trying to fix my mistakes. I tried dropping down several rows and reknitting just a section, but I got quite tangled.



Eventually I wound up tinking back about 10 rows and starting afresh.

I also just cast on for another project, a two-color surprise for a babysitter/neighbor about to go to college. David and I are working together on this one and hope to have it ready for the camera soon.

A couple of exciting tiny projects won't be getting any screen time for a while, but I do hope to share them with you eventually. I'm producing a couple of items to be incorporated into my friend's Big Project. Very exciting--and almost all is stuff made with luxury yarns to boot! (On the swift? Tilli Tomas in a lovely pale pink-and-green variegation!)

* * *

Last night I had the opportunity to do some stitching and bitching face to face with a couple of women I'd never actually met before but who feel like old friends. Details coming soon!

For David:

And be sure to check out The Little Giant for the original posting of this one:



We had so much fun making these videos!

One Local Summer #2

For this week's meal in honor of One Local Summer, we made Garden Crustless Quiche.



The custard was made from goat's milk and eggs from our Amish dairy provider. For the filling, we went really local: it was all from our garden. We picked the last of the broccoli, the first of the squash, some dinosaur kale, some rainbow chard, and lots of parsley. On the side we served a lettuce and cucumber salad with a little minced lemon verbena, all picked minutes before eating.

For dessert...



...we had honey ice cream made at the dairy (with only their own milk, own eggs, some local honey, and a pinch of non-local salt and vanilla), served with fresh spearmint-and-lemon balm herbal tea.

There is something awfully special about eating food you have grown yourself. Now, if only Takoma Park would let us keep chickens and a goat in our postage-stamp backyard!

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You may remember that last week I copied Liz's One Local Summer meal after having my own kitchen mishap. This week, I had not even seen her post when I put this meal together. Obviously, great minds think alike!

Silk Adamas

Off the blocking wires:




Adamas Shawl by the incomparable Miriam Felton, knitted with Claudia Hand Painted Yarns Silk in the subtly-variegated "Ink" colorway, made with size 3 needles.

I plan to wear this when my book is released!



This is my second Adamas, and I enjoyed it just as much as the first. From the beginning, the pattern clicked in my mind enough that I could do it without much thought. But it is never boring to knit. The look of the stitches is orderly and rigorous rather than romantic or overly ornate--which definitely suits my style. I can imagine knitting this shawl yet again at some point....

Impatient and Undisciplined

After finishing the first clue of the Mystery Stole, I was somewhere between disappointed and honestly relieved. Knitting it is an absolute blast, but I was a little too, um, obsessed focussed....

And I have several unfinished objects I should work on, as well as a shawl to block and some spinning to finish. Having a little respite from the new shawl promised me a few days to go back to these.

And then there is the book proofs that arrived in the mail a few days ago that we've been checking and starting to index. (YIKES-- what an intense job!) Not mooning over a new project might be a really good thing.

But...



I am weak.

The UFOs all have thick wool and lots of sweater in my lap. Not right for the season.

And anyway, I am too stressed about the index to be without lace, my drug of choice, to help me through. I cast on a Forest Canopy Shawl with some hemp lace-weight yarn I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool this spring. I knit while looking up citations, making sure interviewees who want to be anonymous are anonymous, and chasing down obscure grammar rules for the book.

I love the easy-but-not-mindless pattern. Knitting with hemp is a lot like knitting with linen: hard on the hands because of both its roughness and its lack of stretch, but also cool and crisp in the heat of the summer.

Bad knitter! Bad knitter!

One Local Summer #1

In honor of Pocket Farm's One Local Summer as well as the beginning of Crunchy Chicken's Local Food Month, may I present a local meal:



Using an adaptation of Barbara Kingsolver's recipe, we made pizza dough with whole wheat flour (not local) and rye flour (local, according to our co-op).

We topped it with local mushrooms from the co-op, tomatoes from the farmer's market, along with the most amazing feta cheese spiked with herbes de Provence. We sprinkled the whole thing with basil and lemon verbena from the pots on our deck.

We added to our plates a salad of farmer's market arugula salad topped with CSA radishes. Delish!

Let me admit that Liz's post about her own local meal helped us overcome what was an unexpected change of menu. After we spent the morning stewing chicken carcass to make stock, I drained it into a bowl in the sink. Thinking that the still-cooling bowl was the full-of-water dirty bowl he had used to make the morning's gorgeous whole-wheat blueberry pancakes, David unknowingly dumped out the liquid and cleaned the bowl. Just this once, sparkling-clean dishes in the drainer was not the ultimate source of domestic bliss...!