well i think it’s fair to say it’s been an awful week. two (widely publicized) mass shootings in the past handful of days, kids in cages are back (they’re good this time, or at least “the best we can do” now), deportations are up. as we (those of us who survived - not a guarantee) begin to stumble out of the dark woods (hopefully ahead of the
newer deadlier virus variants but also no guarantee on that) we’re feeling some sunlight on our faces. but that sunlight is also warming the blood of some of the more traditional horrors this country has to offer us. some of them were kind of sleepy and sluggish for the past year or so but boy they are up now and their guts are clawing once more with hunger.
i have some thoughts on all that stuff and “gun control” in particular but who cares. everyone has thoughts. people with similar politics to mine have articulated their thoughts better than i will here. as usual i think you should be incredibly suspicious of anything that gives more power to law enforcement, even / especially if it’s well intentioned. but like i said, that’s not for this venue.
in general: there are some deep currents dragging all of us along and i would say the larger the boats we put ourselves in and the more we synch up our strokes, the a better chance you and i and everyone we know and love have of making it to shore. and in general: think about what that shore looks like to you. maybe there are some people headed in that direction who would love to have you in their boat even if you’ve never touched an oar before.
so take that for what you will and think about who if anyone you’re paddling with currently right now at this very moment yes you. and go from there.
and in the meantime check out this week’s newsletter. here we go.
1. painting
not much really to say about this one this week. had some other ideas floating around but my heart wasn’t really in any of them so i decided to head on back to my comfort zone.
areas of focus on this one: lines and how they work with the rest of the piece. slightly adjusting how i work with lines in relation to other ways of showing edges and detail. also i have been recently digging the look of some old Oscar Droege block prints (not sure what that blog is but artists that old, sometimes, i don’t know where to actually link to their stuff that isn't just “check them out on pinterest.”
i used to dabble in block printing a little bit and did not take things too far, but his work is great. the gradients and the subtle tone shifts as they recede into the distance. Tsuchiya Koitsu is another person who does amazing block prints that don’t feel like block prints.
rough sketch. you will notice the clouds did not end up that crazy.
on the left is where i stopped after a couple hours straight the first session. i set it down and came back to it and noticed some of the linework and tones i wanted to adjust. and i also made myself add some people in the foreground.
on the right, not only did i revise some of the linework etc, i’ve added 3-5 layers of light color washes and overlays to adjust the overall tones and bring everything into slightly more harmony. and to add some texture too. the magic of digital art, baby.
2. poem
“kitchen poem” - spring 2021
i wouldn’t ask: have you seen those sidewalk weeds
they say they can split concrete
i wouldn’t say: and what did you mean by that?
we have enough for one more each
we have a stool in the corner
you’ve made a life of floating through other people’s kitchens,
wine-drinker -
glowing like a guest bedroom.
3. ravioli
ok i actually made some good food this week. please clap.
yum! i posted some pics of this as i was making it and i got a surprising amount of comments like “i’ve always wanted to do that!”
well good news: it’s very easy to do this exactly as well or slightly better than i did. doing it “correctly” maybe that’s harder, i don’t know. but to hit “Very Good” is easy. give it a shot!
first up i am making ricotta. i’m using cashew milk and i tried two methods - one that’s basically just, uh, some kind of cashew hummus i guess, and one involving soaking and straining and chilling and setting and those kind of steps that i believe are involved in making “real” cheese.
soak the cashews for an hour or two. then blend all this stuff (lemon juice, salt, nutritional yeast, onion powder, pepper, salt, water, you can use some vinegar too) together in a “high speed blender” (i used my normal blender, idk what speed it is but it’s not the fancy one i see foodfluencers using a lot"). then you let it chill for an hour in the fridge and boom:
vegan ricotta. nice and fluffy and creamy! this will be the filling base.
roasting some garlic and shallots for the filling. roasted garlic is very good and very easy right up until the part where you have to get the cloves out. you would think they would slide right out and some of them do. but not a lot of them.
meanwhile pasta dough. i used semolina flour, 00 flour (not sure what that means but it’s what people recommended - might be the grind or something), some sugar, and some water. this is all cobbled together a bit from various places and my still-developing intuition, but a lot of it comes from this dude’s recipe, which, if you are not following him already and you like vegan recipes, i would get on that.
you have to knead this for like 10 minutes.
take the roasted garlic, all extracted and food-processed up with the sage and thyme and shallots, and mix it into the ricotta along with some quickly-cooked spinach. that’s the filling. the ricotta is pretty neutral so you could go kinda nuts here if you wanted i think.
ok so at this point, i would like to point out that you really should probably use a pasta machine if you have one. they are actually surprisingly cheap - i thought they would be like 150 bucks or something but they’re more like 50. still a lot for something i won’t use much so i didn’t pull the trigger but it will absolutely get you better results than a rolling pin.
check out that bottom noodle piece. folds, wrinkles, the whole deal. ugly!
you brush water on the bottom noodle and drape the other noodle over. somehow smoothing and moving slowly and carefully and gently pressing and trying to get all the air out and just seal in your little filling pockets.
mixed results on that. but it mostly worked.
then you slice out your ravioli squares with your fancy slicer.
boil them for just a few minutes, then put them in a medium-hot pan with some oil and garlic and sage and stuff, to crisp up the outsides.
add some mushrooms and stuff and boom! ravioli.
this was very tasty! and i have a bunch of “ricotta” filling left over too. i’m never sure how long vegan stuff like that lasts (probably could google it) but i plan to use the rest of it to try and make some lasagna this week. it seems like it wouldn’t freeze very well so i better use it up.
fish sticks update: if you recall the disastrous banana blossom fish n chips from a couple weeks ago you may recall that i thought that although they didn’t really work for traditional fish n chips, they would be good if you food processed them up and formed them into fish stick shapes and breaded them up and fried or baked them and ate them that way. well, i thought wrong. it was not good. the banana blossom texture is just not something i have found a way to make pleasant to chomp into.
4. notebook check
here’s a look at all the notebooks in my active rotation.
arranged left to right in order of use they get.
Lists: this is where i write all my grocery lists. i take it to the store with me and X things off as i put them in my basket. kind of a fun life hack. i also use it to write down recipes or food thoughts so they’re easier to refer to when i’m actively cooking, and so i know what i tried and what (likely) didn’t work.
Work notes
Sketches / Words (Fall 2019 - ???): sketchbook originally, now a combination sketchbook and poetry book. i like this size a lot because it fits very well into the back left pocket of my size 34/32 levi’s 511 jeans
Organizing notebook: all the notes i take during meetings of various orgs i’m involved in. currently this is full of architecture lobby personal meeting notes.
Sketches (2021 - ???): fresh sketchbook just for sketches
four things: why it’s the notebook for this very newsletter of course!
planner: this was an incredibly aspirational decision that i almost immediately abandoned. google calendar is just too easy. sorry, ted kaczinski.
i started adding better labels to these, primarily to get the years on them, because i keep all my sketchbooks now, and i still have a very fond memory of flipping through all the old ones one night on the couch with someone who was very special to me at that time. (that person may be reading this, i actually have no idea, but if that’s the case - hey, what’s up, how are you, how’s it going?) none of them were dated so it was kind of possible to slot them into different eras of my life, but only approximately. the better record-keeping i think is good.
also worth noting that for a lot of these, the act of writing things down is actually more important than being able to go back and look at notes later. not the case for the sketches of course. or the work notes. but putting things on paper sometimes helps my brain focus on them better. this is a semi-recent development that i am one thousand percent certain is borne out of the damage that my brain has suffered due to spending a year indoors.
okay, well, this was a long one. hope you all have a good week. see ya next tuesday. bye.