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In my quest to have completed hundred and thousands of  embroidered stitches by the end of the year, and a large portion of that by my critique at the end of the week, my poor fingers are suffering. Not only is my finger skin shredded, but my finger tips hurt from repeatedly pushing into a sharp metal object.

Oh sure, you say, “Why don’t you use a thimble?” Because I hate them. They are usually too big and bulky and I can’t get a good grip on my fabric. I have tried a million different styles and none of them worked. I had taken to wrapping my fingers in bandages, which has drawbacks in that the adhesive bits stick out and catch my thread. I tried electrical tape, and although available in a variety of pretty colors, it doesn’t have the flex and stretch I require.

Desperate last night, in pain and needing to produce, I rummaged furiously through my medicine drawer for medical tape where there was none. But owing to some poor footwear choices earlier in the year in Manhattan, I had a box of adhesive moleskin for use on blisters. I cut  two round dots the size of my thumb and foreinger, stuck them on and  VIOLA! all the grip and flexibility and none of the pain. And pretty inexpensive.

Yay happy fingers = hundreds and thousands of stitches

In this time of economic insecurity, !FREE! is key, and Pandora.com offers not only free music, but free music you love. If  you don’t love what you are listening to, tell Pandora, and you will never hear it again.

There is no catch.

Here is how it works: go to Pandora.com, register (it helps to remember your password), and start creating your radio stations. For example, let’s create a station with a lot of happy poppy chick music:

1. Click on “Create New Station” button
2. When prompted, type in “Innocence Mission”
3. Pandora will create a station and immediately start playing “Bright as Yellow” or “Befriended” or something equally happy and poppy.
4. It will call the station “The Innocence Mission Station.” Yuck! Click on options and hit “Rename this station.”
5. Rename the station “Happy Poppy Chick Shit.”
6. Next, in the options click “Add variety to this station”
7. You will be prompted to type in a song, band or album. Type in “The Ditty Bops” Repeat an dtype in “Tanya Donelly”
8. This is a good start. Keep listening to your station. As each song comes up, you will notice that you will see information about the artist as well as a list of similar artists. You will also be able to tell Pandora if you like the song or not. If you don’t, click the thumbs down button.

This is where Pandora gets interesting. Pandora is the brainchild of the Music Genome Project. The Music Genome Project assigns a gene structure to every song, based on things like rhythm, tempo, vocals, instruments, etc. Songs generally have between 150 -400 genes per song. The assignments are done by actual human musicians, each song takes about 30 minutes to classify. This means that the Pandora/Music Genome database went to work when I typed in “Innocence Mission” and “Ditty Bops” and within minutes played Kim Richey and “Five2,” neither of whom I had heard of, both of whom I liked.

A few things you should know about Pandora:

• Since it is free, you will have to contend with a few ads.
• Pandora has a minimizer as well as a browser bar
• There is plenty of room for sharing with friends
• You cannot outright ban an artist from your station, but after clicking on thumbs down twice, I will not hear Mariah Carey on “Happy Pop Chick Shit” again.
• Pandora provides links to purchase the music you like through Amazon and iTunes
• You cannot repeat a song, nor can you request a song.
• Pandora has a series of genre stations you can start with and modify to your tastes.

Let me start by saying I don’t eat meat. I began dabbling in vegatarianism in 1985 after dissecting a rat in science class and reading Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” in history. I was on and off a vegetarian for a variety of different reasons, mostly based on income, as in “if it’s free, it’s in my diet.” From the early nineties until the last two months of 1999, I was a lacto-ovo (can’t live without eggs or cheese) vegetarian then for health reasons I added a weekly fish dish (makes for easier traveling) and haven’t looked back. I don’t miss meat and frankly never liked it that much (except for bacon).

I can safely say my body was a 100% bacon free zone for at least 15 years before Katrina Markoff tempted me with her Vosge’s Chocolate Mo’s Bacon Bar. She has combined deep milk chocolate (I am usually a dark chocolate snob) with applewood smoked bacon, and alder smoked salt.

Crunchy, salty, sweety goodness.

I am sure you are having a devil of a time wrapping your head around the idea of bacon and chocolate, but trust me, this is amazing.

Katrina has built a business around her unusual chocolate pairings. Here are a few samples…

     Black Pearl: ginger + wasabi + black sesame seeds + dark chocolate, 55% cacao

Calindia: Indian green cardamom + organic California walnuts + dried plums + Venezuelan dark chocolate, 65% cacao

     Naga: sweet Indian curry + coconut + deep milk chocolate, 41% cacao

     Oaxaca: guajillo & pasilla chillies + Tanzanian bittersweet chocolate, 75% cacao

     d’Oliva: dried kalamata olives + Venezuelan white chocolate, 33% cocoa butter

     Red Fire: Mexican ancho & chipotle chillies + Ceylon cinnamon + dark chocolate, 55% cacao

My favorite is Mo’s Bacon Bar, second is d’Oliva (white chocolate and olives) and third is Naga (Curry and chocolate). Although I might need to have another go round and taste them again…

Chocolate bars start at $2.50 for a mini bar,  $7.50 for a regular sized bar, and $8 for a Day of the dead chocolate skull. (The website doesn’t tell you the weight of the product.) This is not cheap chocolate, but it is delicious. Go to their website www.vosgeschocolate.com and check out the truffles, flying pigs and all the fun!

Cozies are not just for tea. We have seen the appliance cozy, the car cozy, and now, thanks to JacquelineKnits of Ontario, we have apple and pear cozies. Jacqueline Dufresne, a mother of 12 year old twins, calls them “jackets;” she also makes totes for teabags and coffee sleeves.

I originally found Jacqueline’s work on Rose and Radish.  If you don’t need anything at all, you should check out Rose and Radish, you are sure to find something you won’t be able to live without

I bought The Art of Embroidery  about a year and a half ago. This term it has been assigned for a graduate level Stitch class I am taking. Hello, old friend. (It’s a lot cheaper now.) Originally  published  in France by Francoise Tellie-Loumagne, the rich evocative images need no translation (but the text is in English).

Tellier-Loumagne takes the reader on an embroidered journey through the natural world.  She presents a striking photograph next to her stitched interpretation: a field of daisies, lichen on a barn wall, even a moldy orange. The deconstructed images are recreated, some as stitches in paper, others as three dimensional wearable art, as in the cabbage leaf transformed into a ruffly scarf, or a flower pot reimagined out of yarn and thread to look like moss.

Mimosa’s replicated in beads, boulion knots, and seed stitch.

More eye candy than instruction, this book won’t teach you how to embroider. You might add a new stitch to your repertoire, but if you are looking for basic instruction you might be disappointed. If, however, inspiration is what you are after this is an investment, especially if you are looking for ways to challenge yourself or slip out of a rut.

I suspect we will be having a few assignments similar to this. Stay tuned.

I remember fondly late August lunchbox shopping. Standing in front of the sale rack at the First National Supermarket trying to determine what my academic persona will be for the upcoming year based on my choice of character lunchbox. Am I the Bionic Woman? Or do I succomb to the sweet nostalgia of Smurfs? Or maybe I am Princess Leia? In later years, I wanted to be one of the kids who was too cool for a lunchbox and nonchalantly sported a brown bag. After all, the advent of the juicebox and it’s uber packaging negated any need for the bulky thermos which came in the lunchbox.

Thirty years on, I am not a parent, but am somewhere in the second half of graduate school  and I do have to do a kind of back to school shopping. I have my new red cruiser bicyle, a few dresses from the vintage shop and am expecting some boots delivered today. My transport and sartorial needs are accomodated, but I still require supplies.
I don’t feel I have outgrown the need for a Trapper Keeper, but don’t want to cycle around with their bulk and my art supplies. I want something a bit more streamlined, although sophistication is not a requirement (I will shortly cover my notebooks in Wacky Packages stickers). I have a writing class, which will require lined paper, and an embroidery class which I would prefer plain, smooth sheets. Standard notebook sizes are too big to fit the array of handbags I will use, and wirebound sides have a tendency to catch on anything within a 7 foot radius (please note afforementioned embroidery class and the threads, yarns, needles and fabric that has the potential to be destroyed).

All of these requirements lead me to one option: Moleskin.

Available in a wide variety of sizes and shapes, Moleskin papers are all acid-free. The extra large (7.5 in x 9.5 in) Cahier (kaa-yay) is my favorite. I buy them in buff colored three packs ($17.95 for a set of three). With 120 pages, I have more than enough sheets for a 10 week term, or to assign them to thematic projects. The last 16 pages are perforated and there is a flat pocket tucked in the back. While many of their other books are “book bound”, Cahier books are saddle stitched, so they are much thinner (fits in overcrammed bag more easily), and they open flatter for sketches on the full two pages.

Among Moleskin’s other offerings are Japanese books (open accordion style), ruled books, tiny books, graph books, watercolor books, art books, reporter books and date books.

I am pretty sure handsome husband thought I was joking when I said we would be eating brown rice and broccoli all week, as a favor to our bodies after a few nights of beer, pizza and potato chips. Granted, it isn’t the most romantic meal for a wedding anniversary, but there was a lot of love in those veggies.

I don’t recall where I first found Arora Creations, an Indian spice blend, but I can’t create Indian food without it. The Bhindi Masala was perfect last night when I wanted to cook not-so-fresh green beans and I wanted them to have a lot of flavor. The spice blends come packaged in a flat pouch, each enough to make one side dish–about a pound of veggies.The packet says it serves six, but only if you had other dishes.
    
You won’t find dehydrated onion bits or super-pasteurized shelf-life food, these packets are nothing but magic spice dust. It doesn’t take that long to make an authentic Indian dinner, the rice cooks itself while you do the hard labor of chopping onions and the veggie of your choice. Two of the dishes, punjabi chloe (chick peas) and rajmah (kidney beans) require little more than canned beans.

Arora Creations also has an organic line as well as spice blends for meat (Chicken Tandoori and Chicken Tikka Masala) and fish (Goan Fish Curry) dishes–these work equally well on tofu and tempeh. All the blends are vegetarian.Some are a wee bit spicy, so where the directions say to use the whole packet, I would recommend staring with half and added more to taste as you go along.
Dhiraj Arora first played with his mother’s spice blends as a college student in Ann Arbor, MI. He had such a hit on his hands, he decided to take a stab at a flavorful entrepreneurship after graduation, instead of a lucrative temp job or further education.

I paid $4.95 (gulp) for my Arora spice blend yesterday at a local health food store. The same mix is $2.99 at AroraCreations.com, the organic mixes are $3.99 online. The website will also direct you to where you can purchase them locally for dinner tonight.

My very first cookbook, a gift from my parents after a trip to visit me on Block Island, was the Moosewood Cookbook. A classic, and a perfect introduction on how to feed myself without meat. I quickly saved my money and gobbled up the Enchanted Broccoli Forest, also by Molly Katzen and published by Ten Speed Press. Originally published in 1977, Molly Katzen re-edited the Moosewood to reflect heathier eating practices and it was rereleased in 1999.
When she wrote them, Molly Katzen ran the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York. It quickly became mecca for vegetarians all over America, (I haven’t made it there yet).  She has since moved on, but Moosewood still exists as a collective and they  still pump out great cookbooks regularly, but nothing stands up to the original, which was inducted into the  James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame (kind of like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for cookbooks) .

    
Each hand lettered recipe is accompanied with equally charming  drawings. The book begins with a discussion demystifying vegetable soup stock (many great vegetable soups are rendered unvegetarian by the addition of flavorless chicken stock) by saving certain veggie scraps (carrot peels, onion ends, and yes, apple cores) but not others (peas, broccoli) in a bag in the freezer and dumping them into a stock pot with water  a few other additions. This is still the method I employ today–after 16 years of professional cooking, I haven’t found a better way! The soup recipes span the globe as well as the palate–offering everything from creamy winter purees to light chilled summer soups. This book turned me into a soup lover and a great soup maker. (There will be more on soup when the weather is less than 95F all the time.)

From there you travel a wholesome journey through great veggie pastas, stir fries, casseroles, dips, side dishes, breads, and desserts.
Even non-vegetarians could gain a lot from their own dog-eared Moosewood; especially in our current food climate when even the pit bulls of carnivorism know the dirty secrets and devastating impacts of our current meat industry and economy.

Yes, it is possible to feed yourself quite heartily on vegetables and pasta, rice or potatoes. No, you don’t have to be a hairy-legged, tie-dye wearing, patchouli scented counter-cultural hippie to do it. No, you don’t have to resort to fermented soybean in the form of tempeh (unless you want to). Yes, you can learn how to make delicious meals with simple ingredients like vegetables, cheese, eggs, milk, and starches. No, you won’t need a can opener. You just need a Moosewood. (Watch out, Moosewood Cookbooks are addicting, before you know it, you might have all of them…)

I have just wrapped up reading Michael Pollen’s latest tome on what we are putting in our bodies. The good news: I still have an appetite. The bad news: we are screwed, really screwed, overweight and unhealthy. But wait, there is more good news: we don’t have to be fat unhealthy slobs, we can counteract everything we are inflicting on our poor bodies by eating actual food and not the crap being packaged as edible “products” the food industry is selling us. The bad news: most of us can’t afford it.

Pollen explores how nutritionism and food science has replaced actual food with a series of vitamins, minerals and compounds. We have evolved from the industrialization of wheat, which removed all of the oil and protein to create a perfectly white, soft flour completely devoid of nutritional value, and enriched it with synthetic compounds to attempt to increase its health value. Now, we have a fruit flavored drink which has been enriched with vitamin C. It is cheaper to produce than regular juice, since  it is water and high fructose corn syrup with added flavors and colors. Shelf stable, it requires no refrigeration, and can be shipped anywhere.

He dissects fat in dieting trends and explains the bad science behind margarine and trans fat. Just when the book turns into a whirlwind of what we thought we knew and how bad it was for us, he posits some rules for eating. Here they are in brief:

1. “Don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”
2. “Avoid foods with ingredients you can’t pronounce.”
3. “Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot.”
4. “Avoid food products that carry health claims.”
5. “Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle.”
6. “Better yet, buy food elsewhere, like a farmers market.”
7. “Pay more, eat less.”
8. “Eat a wide variety of species.”
9. “Eat food from animals that eat grass.”
10. “Cook, and grow your own food (if you can.)”
11. “Eat meals and eat them only at tables.”
12. “Eat deliberately, communally, and with pleasure.”

I am adding this book to the list of required reading for people who eat. Best digested in small chunks, you can find the NYTimes article version here.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Things are going to be changing a bit over here at Rubistudios. But please, don’t get upset, CHANGE IS NOT BAD. Monday will be recipe day, where you get to learn how to make an amazing salad or different ways to cook eggs. Tuesday will be media review day. I will talk about a book, a website, a podcast, or something that is currently rocking my world. Wednesday I will need a break from all of that thinking, so I will post a picture of a market I have been to somewhere on this planet. Thursday is anything goes day–most likely a list (I heart lists) or a picture of a crazy food product. Friday is Rubi art day. Yes, this is a big commitment, but I think I can handle it, and dear reader, I think you deserve it.
Today’s Review:

I have been doing a lot of research lately, food and marketing oriented. Much of it is very depressing, and all points to the same place: our overconsumption is killing us and our planet. These books are all amazing and insightful, but I’ll wait for another Tuesday to discuss them. Today, we will start happy, with The Splendid Table.

The Splendid Table is a weekly food programme on NPR hosted by Lynn Rossetto Kasper. It’s okay if you don’t get NPR or if your station doesn’t carry the show, you can get the podcasts for free, and as many back episodes as you have space for.
The Splendid Table is more than a recipe show, it is a show that celebrates the culture and diversity of food. Every week features an idea, event or personality in the food arena–I hesitate to use the word culinary here. Some episodes introduce authors or food historians, others interview artists or chefs/producers who are re-inventing the way we eat. Each show also features a different real food restaurant somewhere in the US–from a bakery in Portland, Maine to a Rib Shack in Kansas City; as well as listener call-ins and lots of other tid bits.

I recommend downloading as many as you can and listening to them while cooking. Okay, start with an episode or two, and not only will you get hooked, it will move you to do something in your kitchen besides making coffee. If you are so inspired as to have a dinner party, please put me on the guest list.