Giving Thanks

Sometimes it feels hard to believe that I've already been in Toronto for more than a year, yet here I am passing milestones for the second time: labour day, the first day of school, Nuit Blanche, and now Canadian Thanksgiving.  I still find that this latter event (celebrated this weekend, with the official holiday falling today) comes at an odd time in the calendar year, being used to American Thanksgiving, but after the past week it seemed like the stars had aligned to remind me to be grateful for my many blessings.

It's not that the past few days have really been horrible; in fact, many wonderful things happened to counterbalance the bad.  And even the negatives, when viewed contextually, have a bright side.  Two family members took ill, but thankfully--though the mishaps or diseases are serious--they seem like they will recover fully.  Some of the other misadventures seem perplexing, but even these frustrations have been assuaged by opportunities which may turn out to be more beneficial in the end, both in terms of career and also in terms of my personal growth, than what I had originally hoped might transpire.  Funny how our desires may indeed be less salubrious than our response when we feel they are thwarted...  Finally, it's just good to remember how blessed I am to have such friends and family and music in my life, and that even when some of these things seem to have gone awry, the reason I notice is because I am lucky to have them there in the first place.  It's hard to complain about that.

The festive dining room.

Comrade M cooked and baked an excellent Thanksgiving dinner, per usual.  The turkey was divine, the stuffing scrumptious, the kale salad refreshing, the sweet potatoes creamy, the vegetarian option ironically to-die-for, and the mashed potatoes fluffed to a T.  And the desserts... all I can say is that the pumpkin pie should become a standard.  It's amazing!  And the apple and cherry rustic tart, baked in a cast iron pan and with a ginger cookie topping, was as delicious as it was beautiful.

Boiling potatoes

Kale for the salad 

Pumpkin pie

Apple and cherry tart

With fewer people this year (i.e. just one extra) there was less to prepare and thus less for me to do--except, of course, borrow Comrade M's nice work camera and take pictures of everything!  Comrade M used some of my homemade bread for the stuffing, something I baked last weekend with spent grain from Ryan's brewing, but I hadn't even been planning to cook anything myself until I found an email from Smitten Kitchen in my inbox with a recipe for pumpkin cinnamon rolls.  Now with something like a recipe for pumpkin cinnamon rolls, you'd think there would be little to improve upon--and of course since I only made the recipe once, it's hard to tell if I improved anything.  So instead we will say that I did some characteristic fiddling and made the following adjustments:

• Rather than using active dry yeast, I substituted my very own wild yeast sourdough starter.  (I've been growing it for the past week and this was my first experiment.)  I wound up using 1/2 cup of sourdough starter to replace the yeast called for in the recipe.  Consequently (and also due to the oven being occupied by the bird) I also allowed the buns to rise for several hours rather than the time she calls for.  I can't really tell if the sourdough starter influenced the flavor, especially due to the following point...
• ... which is that rather than using brown sugar (since I had run out) I replaced the 1/4 c brown sugar in the dough with 1/4 c molasses.  This yields a strong molasses flavor, which I like but which perhaps overpowers the pumpkin and other flavors.  Ryan likes it, though.  I might stick to brown sugar next time to see how it compares.
• Rather than just brushing the rolled-out dough with the butter (these are by no means healthy), I also added a layer of pumpkin puree.  Ryan and I roasted our own pumpkin (he had an extra one lying around after making a pumpkin beer a few weeks ago) and we had/have a lot left over.
• I also added a few tablespoons of pumpkin puree to the cream cheese frosting rather than adding milk to change the consistency (and ultimately used two times the amount of cream cheese because I found it too sweet with two cups of powdered sugar).  In retrospect I would have just halved the amount of sugar since the recipe yields a ton of frosting no matter how much cream cheese you include.  I guess I'll have to freeze the leftovers for the next several time I make these cinnamon buns...
• I also sprinkled the buns with pepitas before baking, though if/when I make these again I'd also include the seeds inside of the rolls.  I just didn't think of it until I had finished.

Rising rolls

Finished rolls with some glaze

And some without

Now it's Monday and Comrade M and I are embarking on a painting project.  First up?  The dining room, in "semolina" yellow.  It already looks beautifully bright and sunny!  I'm so excited.  

In the works...

Meanwhile, Ryan was concentrating on his latest batch of beer (this time with a holiday twist).

One man's trash

I spoke to many people when I was trying to decide which school to attend for this degree, soliciting opinions about teachers and facilities, about the merits of staying in America or moving to another country, about anything anyone had to offer.  An overwhelming majority of those spoke rapturously about Toronto: "If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be there!" "Such a nice city!" "You'll love it!"

I have to confess that my opinion after one year is almost... "meh."

Toronto is nice enough, for sure.  Maybe--most likely--it's that I don't like cities.  Maybe it's that I don't live in a particularly beautiful neighborhood (sorry, neighborhood).  Maybe it's that I don't have a bus pass.  Maybe it's that the city is so spread out, the subway service is so minimal, and the traffic is so bad that getting from point A to point B seems even more daunting.  Maybe it's that the sun sets at about 4:30 PM all the overcast, grey-brown winter long, and I live in a basement.

Despite these misgivings, there are things I really do like about this city--especially now, with the long, sunlit evenings and green trees.  This neighborhood is actually kind of pretty at the moment: gardens are blooming, houses seem cleaner and less littered with trash, people sit out on their porches and watch others go by.  The weather is so nice (except when it's pouring rain) that I am happy to hop on my bike any moment and ride away.  Riding is a joy now, and I love using my legs to get around.  The longer ours of sunlight make me feel safer, too, both when riding my bike and generally being out in the city (let's ignore the man in my neighborhood who's been grabbing people at night).  I've finally had the time to explore some areas of Toronto that had been out of reach, either due to time or weather.  There's the West Toronto Railpath just a few blocks from my house.  It's sort of like a smaller, less-cool version of the High Line, but it's nice all the same. I've finally been to High Park, the large city park a little bit like a smaller, less-cool version of Central Park.  There are new places opening up in my neighborhood, coffee shops and restaurants, as it gentrifies.  And, of course, there's my favorite place of all (except for school): Economy Fruit!

But really what I wanted to write about in this post is the somewhat unique practice of giving things away that seems so integral to Toronto.  Instead of taking their unwanted belongings en masse to thrift stores, many people leave them outside their houses (especially, it seems, in my neighborhood).  I know they do this all around the world.  Montreal is known for September 1st, when many people change apartments, and the city apparently becomes one giant free bin.  I'm sure that other cities have their own traditions; even in Davis some of us would go collect things the UCD students were giving away or leaving for trash.  Still, in Toronto it seems like it's a way of life.  Sometimes it's something big (furniture) and sometimes it's a box of small things.  Sometimes it's stuff you really don't want (used mattresses) and sometimes it's exactly what you've been looking for.  Most of our place seems to be furnished with found objects.  A few days ago, the Comrades brought home a bookshelf that some people had left down the street.  It fits perfectly in the living room.  Ryan and I found a beautiful white armoire with golden handles that now serves as our pantry.  Comrade M found a big teal-blue desk/table back in June, replacing a less-satisfactory table that had been in the craft room for sewing, when she was out for a run.  She got a friend to bring it home, but we didn't have a chair to fit.  I had a rehearsal at a friend's house a few days ago and when leaving I noticed a wooden blue chair sitting on someone's front yard.  I couldn't take it with me to school but returned later in the afternoon to check if it was still there.  Sure enough it was, so I brought it home, cleaned it up, and put it in the craft room.  When I sent Comrade M to see the surprise she didn't even notice it at first because the color matches so perfectly.  The list goes on and on: cast iron pans, a weird piece of art, a microwave, a newer microwave to replace the old microwave, a toaster oven, a panini press, a nice metal basket that holds our fruit, a book I'd wanted to read, a dish to hold coins, a pink lamp, a toy piano I gave to the neighbors with young children...

Every few days, something new will show up.  If you wait long enough, it seems that the things you've wanted most will appear.  It reminds me of a story I once read, though I can't remember where.  In it, a journeying man comes to a place where the people are poor in possessions but not in spirit.  They set up nets in the stream and collect everything that comes to them, sorting and piling and holding for future use what they cannot value immediately.  Sure enough, the stream always seems to deliver what they're looking for: not just because they need it, but also because they know how to see value in what others toss aside.  It's not quite like that here, but some of the same principles apply.  Every time I pick something up, I feel grateful that someone else left it for me to find.  It makes me wonder about its story, about why it was discarded and about what replaced it.  (Usually these items are worn but not broken.)  Ultimately it makes me think about what I don't need, and what of my possessions someone else could use.

So, to those who have shared with me, thank you!  I hope to someday give you something of value.

... and I thought that you readers might be interested in checking out my new website!

Babies!!!

It seems that all of a sudden many of my friends, ones who are only slightly older, are having babies or getting married.  I'm not sure I can count how many have tied the knot or started hoarding pacifiers just this summer, though that could also be due to the difficulty I have counting... once I reach a certain point I just start saying numbers out loud which may or may not have anything to do with the preceding digit.  I wonder if this is related to my difficulty walking up and down stairs? Does anyone else get stuck in the middle?  Or perhaps that's a discussion best saved for another day...

Anyway, a friend of mine recently announced she was pregnant, so after being really excited, and then some thinking and exploring and cooing over the cuteness of little tiny things (Ryan had to save me by sending me pictures of ugly babies to counteract their charm) I decided on a free dress pattern from the blog Made by Rae.  She had originally designed something for a small newborn, but another blogger (Amber) resized it for a 2T-3T.  Now, everyone tells me that new parents consistently receive clothing for their newborns, who subsequently outgrow them and then they are faced with naked children or have to go shopping or something.  Thus I am always advised to get clothing that's a little bigger.  What confuses me is that everyone always says that parents have too much newborn clothing--so isn't everyone giving them clothing for the next year?  Who out there is causing the glut in newborn onsies?  Anyway, I decided to go for the 2T-3T because what if it's a really big baby?  What if they already have 500 little tiny shirts and little tiny dresses and little tiny booties and little tiny hats and sweaters?  Ooohh... focus... focus... (I almost got stuck in the Baby Gap I visited for inspiration--all those super adorable pea-pod patterned tiny garments?  Who could resist?)

I already had the fabric because I'd gone to Jo-Ann's while at home in California and picked up some bits and pieces during their July 4th sale, some of which was just perfect for a little child.  What I lacked  was a selection of notions for binding or piping, but I figured I could easily make those myself with another coordinating fabric.

After reading over the patterns I decided I liked them a lot, but that it would be that much cuter (and not that much harder) to make it completely reversible.  I also added a wider band of material at the waist to join the bodice and skirt rather than deal with piping, and then added that as binding for the bottom hem.

So, my instructions for the "fully-reversible-not-so-itty-bitty dress" are as follows:

Print and construct your super easy pattern, either for the 2T-3T or for the newborn.  Also, you might want to download your instructions from Made by Rae (only found on the newborn pattern), though I'll provide my own here.  But I'm not used to writing instructions, so perhaps they'll be a little opaque.

Cut out four sets of the bodice, two in each color you plan to use.  (For cutting purposes you may be interested to know that the bodice is symmetrical on the vertical axis.)  If you want to cut everything now, you can also cut two pieces of fabric that are 36 x 15 for the skirt.  I actually did mine in four 15 x 18.5 pieces and pieced them together because of the pattern and size of my fabric, but really what you need are two big rectangles that are about 36 x 15.  You'll also need three strips of a contrasting fabric.  Two are twice the width of the bodice (the long flat edge) long and three inches wide.  The other is a long strip of 36 by 3 inches.

My cutting station, the floor (I did vacuum first).

Let's start with the bodice.  Make pairs with one of each color.  Pin right sides together and sew the curvy edge of the bodice, from armpit over the sleeve ties and neck to the other armpit, with 1/4 inch seams.  Turn and press each pair.  Then, to attach the "front" to the "back" of the chest part of the bodice, sew like fabric to like fabric, right sides together, along the sides (the short straight edges).

You can see the bodice turned inside-out here, with pins to sew the two fabrics together.  When you flip it right side out (and press), you'll have...

Ta da! Finished bodice! What's hard to see in this picture is that the inside and 

outside parts of the bodice aren't attached together so you can slip the skirt inside.  

That's why the last step was important!

Next, we'll work on the skirt.  Take your giant rectangles and sew a 1/2 inch seam along the side of each.  Press the seams open.  Then, fit them together, right sides out, and pin along the top/waist edge.  Since it's currently just a giant rectangle we want to put in some gathers to make it fit the bodice.  With the sewing machine making the largest stitches possible and with the tension on its loosest, sew one seam 1/4 inch from the top of the skirt.  When you're done, carefully tie together the threads from one end of the seam and then take one thread from the other end, pulling gently until the skirt gathers to the same size as the bodice.  

See those easy-peasy gathers up at the top of the picture?

At this point I start diverging from the Made by Rae pattern.  See, I didn't have any piping and I wanted  to make my dress reversible, so I figured that a band of fabric around the waist, concealing the join, would help.  I used the pattern for the bodice to measure out the length of a strip wide enough to go around the entire dress (so two bodice widths) and cut it three inches wide.  Then I made another for the other side of the dress.  I then folded each so that the two edges joined down the middle, pinned, and pressed it to stay.  See the photo of one above.

Next, I wanted to attach them to the bodice.  So, unfolding one side, I pinned it to be ready to sew along the crease (just like attaching binding tape!).  Sew like this on both sides of your bodice, being careful not to sew your bodice together.

After you're done you'll want to press the seams away from each other on both sides, as in the picture above.  

Now, there's probably a better way of attaching the skirt to the bodice that involves no visible seams, but I was feeling a little unsure of myself and the whole reversible thing, so I simply folded the bodice so it was right side out, matching the skirt fabric with the bodice fabric as I desired, and carefully inserted and pinned the skirt between the two layers of bodice fabric.  Then I sewed close to the edge along the bottom of the waist band and then along the top (about 1/8 inch).  

And now the dress is almost done!  The only thing remaining is a hem for the bottom.  I wanted to have it bound in the same fabric I used for the waist, so I took my strip of 36 x 3 inch fabric and turned it into wide binding tape.  (Which means I folded it in half and pressed, and then folded each edge in toward the center to fold it in quarters lengthwise.)  I then pinned and sewed just like regular ol' binding tape.  (For a tutorial on binding tape see this link, also featured on my last blog post, but know that I didn't bother with making it actual bias tape, so it's just a regular strip of fabric.)

Sewing away, with the other side of the skirt featured.

And that, my friends, is it.  So easy!  And hopefully it will fit my beautiful friends' beautiful baby... in a couple of years!  (Maybe it was weird to make something so big?)

Side one and...

... side two!

I did this over one evening and one morning, with probably about 2.5 hours of work each time.  Part of what took so long was deciding on the fabrics and figuring out what I wanted to do with the pattern, so it might not take so long if you were all decided ahead of time.  I had originally wanted to use another yellow for the skirt on side #2 and have a blue top, but unfortunately the pattern with the animals showed through on the other side of the fabric and you could consequently see it through any of my lighter colored fabrics.  I hadn't wanted to pick a dark color because I'm worried it might create some problems when doing laundry, but hopefully that won't prove to be the case!  

A tart by request

I was having fun coming up with slightly off-color titles for this post about the rosewater tart pictured in my last blog entry, but then I felt terrible about reinforcing the subjugation of women... so, my apologies, and here is a link to a New York Times discussion about legalizing prostitution which you should all read.

And now back to fruit pastries!

Way back in July, some girls from school came over and we had a big feast of... well... fried chicken... and other things.  (See, there's this new fried chicken place in my neighborhood.  One day Comrade MM saw a famous rapper going there with his family, so we figured if it was good enough for a famous person and his family, it would be good enough for us.  And it was pretty tasty, though fried chicken is really a once-every-few-years kind of thing.)  Anyway, I decided to make this tart I'd seen in the New York Times for dessert since it sounded delicious and there were lots of berries on sale at the supermarket.

Here's a link to Melissa Clark's description of her recipe; you can find a link to the recipe itself on the left: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/dining/a-fresh-fruit-tart-perfumed-with-roses.html?hp (her photo is also really beautiful)

In her introduction she says though berry tarts are traditional and delicious, she never makes them because they are so clichée.  Well, I never make them because I think that pastry cream is weird and usually doesn't taste very good.  I like pie, but tart is just usually too sweet and squishy for me.  However, the rose flavor just sounded too good to pass up.  If we grew roses here I would have just steeped my own rose petals, as Ms. Clark suggests, but we don't.  I found some rosewater at the local organic food store, though, and it was quite inexpensive.

Since I made only a few changes to the original recipe, I've copied it here in her own format and then added my little tweaks.  Most of my changes were to make the cream a little less sweet and a little more rosey.  I'll put my comments about the success of the recipe at the end.

MELISSA CLARK'S ROSEWATER TART, PLUS OR MINUS A FEW THINGS

COOK TIME

1 hour 30 minutes, plus chilling and cooling.  Tart shell must chill for 4 hours, plus time after baking, and the pastry cream for an hour, so beware that this recipe takes some time to put together.

For the tart shell

• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup raw almonds (or almonds of another form if you so prefer)
• 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
• Grated zest of 1 lime (or lemon)
• Pinch salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cubed
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

For the pastry cream

• 2-3 tablespoons of rosewater, to taste (M. Clark calls for 1/2 tsp, so I'd recommend beginning with a small amount in case mine--though very fragrant--is somehow lacking and then adding generously after you discover it doesn't taste like roses)
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 5 large egg yolks
• 1 to 2 pints berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, you name it.)
• Lime juice to taste (or lemon)

Preparation

1. For the crust, place 1/4 cup flour and the almonds in a food processor. Run until the almonds are finely ground, about 1 minute. Pulse in remaining one and a quarter cups flour, sugar, lime zest and salt.

2. Add the butter and pulse until a coarse meal forms. Add the egg and pulse until the dough comes together. Press dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and chill for 4 hours or up to a week.

3. To make the cream, pour milk into a heavy saucepan and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and stir in the rosewater.

4. In a medium bowl, whisk flour and sugar. Slowly whisk in the hot milk. Return mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture just starts to boil, 1 to 2 minutes.

5. In a large bowl, whisk yolks until pale and thick. Whisking constantly, pour the hot milk mixture into the yolks. Return the mixture to the saucepan. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until custard is thick and smooth (170 degrees on an instant-read thermometer). Add lime juice to taste (I found it to be too sweet).  Do not let the mixture boil. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve if it looks chunky.  It may not; I don't think I strained mine in the end because it seemed smooth, plus straining custards/curds is somewhat irritating. Chill 1 hour before using or up to 5 days.

6. To bake the tart crust, first preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Roll the dough out between two sheets of plastic/waxed paper to a 3/8-inch thickness (it's very fragile).  Do not roll too thin!  Remove plastic/waxed paper and line a 9-inch tart pan with the dough; chill for 30 minutes.

7. Line the tart shell with foil and fill with baking weights/a slightly smaller pie tin. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the foil and weights. Continue baking, uncovered, for 5 to 10 more minutes, until pale golden. Allow tart shell to cool completely before filling.

8. Spoon chilled pastry cream into cooled tart shell. Arrange berries over the top of the tart. Ms. Clark says to serve within 2 hours for the best texture; I found it to be just fine a day later.

So.  I thought that this was generally delicious, especially after I tweaked the recipe to suit my tastes.  Aside from adding a lot more rosewater than Ms. Clark indicates (about six times as much) I also decided to use lime instead of lemon.  I like fruit salads with lime, and I thought it might make for a more complex flavor than the more expected lemon.  Unfortunately I think I made my crust too thin, and it was ultimately too crispy for the consistency of the filling; next time I'd make sure to both roll it out thicker and bake it for a shorter period of time.  All these issues are really quite easy to overcome, so my one serious reservation is the number of egg yolks required.  It's not so much from a health standpoint, since one only eats so much dessert at a time anyway, as a practicality/what-will-I-do-with-five-egg-whites standpoint.  A whopper batch of macarons?  I like those, but recipes usually call for three egg whites and that already makes a large number of delicate, time-consuming cookies.  Meringue?  I hate that, so not for me.  Maybe an egg white omelet, for those who like such things?  At any rate, it's a recipe that requires both a fair amount of time to prepare and also a modicum of planning to use up the egg whites.  On the plus side, it's not a difficult recipe and the results are really beautiful and different, and would be well suited both to an afternoon tea and maybe even a dinner of Indian food (or, in my experience, fried chicken).  It's also light enough to work well in the summer but complex and creamy enough to lend itself to heavier food later in the season.  So perhaps I will give it a whirl later on this year--we shall see!

Apron Tutorial

Whoa there, Nellie! Where has the summer gone? I wrote this post back in mid-July, intending to publish it after I gave the present that is described below... but then I forgot... I guess I was busy at Orford and then Lake George, and then I plumb forgot. But never fear--I shall post this tutorial and then shortly one for the cutest little baby dress you ever did see, which I made just since coming home after my long peregrinations, and maybe that will be enough to get me back in the swing of things.

So, here goes!

The finished apron with the spoils of apricot picking.

Recently it was Comrade MM's birthday. When I was home in California I was trying to find her a birthday present, but I couldn't come up with anything that seemed right. I did remember her admiring an apron a little while back, though, and she has been spending even more time than ever in the kitchen, cooking up a storm, so I thought that I might be able to make one for her.

I did my customary search for free internet patterns and came up with this one for a "retro/vintage-style" apron. I really liked it, but thought that it might be a little bit involved for the amount of time I had at home. Still, the pattern and tutorial seem really easy to follow and the product is super cute! Someday... Anyway, that afternoon I poked around the Davis SPCA thrift store, hoping I might find an interesting garment to modify into a cute apron. I only had a few minutes before they closed so I only had time to pick out a blouse. That evening I went up to Jo-Ann's, shirt in tow, to try to find some complementary fabric. I purchased two yards of a green ruffle, some extra wide double fold binding tape, and 3/4 yard of a twill-like heavier weight fabric.

I had initially planned to double the fabric for the apron skirt in order to make it sufficiently heavy duty, but the fabric was heavy enough already that I decided to cut it in half, making it 3/4 yard wide and a half bolt high. If I had chosen a lighter weight material I think I would have doubled it. Using my colorful binding tape I put a border on the sides and bottom of the skirt. For some really helpful tips on how to do the corners, see this tutorial.

Look at that nice corner!

Next, I determined the length of shirt material I wanted based on my approximation of MM's height and the placement of the darts from the shirt. I decided to keep the shirt doubled up, sewing the front and back together, in order to give it enough heft. I cut off the bottom of the shirt with a few inches to spare and used the iron to mark the desired hem (about a half inch). I next removed the sleeves using a seam ripper and cut off the top of the shirt in a straight line a few inches below the shoulder so that it would hit above the bust. I then straightened the edges of the shirt, folding in the seams until there was a relatively straight line from the waist up. I pinned and ironed everything and then sewed down the sides of the shirt to keep the front and back together, leaving about a half inch at the bottom in which to insert the skirt.

In order to make sure that the apron skirt would be roomy enough when worn, I wanted to give it some gathers. Using my machine set on the lowest tension and widest stitch size I sewed two parallel lines over the unadorned top part of the skirt. Then, I knotted together the two bobbin (bottom) threads on one side and gently pulled the bobbin threads from the other direction until it reached the appropriate width. I wanted the skirt to be almost the same width as the bottom of my shirt, with a few inches on either side of straight fabric to extend the skirt a little wider. Positioning the skirt so it was centered to the shirt and inserted between the front and back, I sewed the sandwich together, tacking the edges with some vertical stitches (to keep the gathers from coming apart). I then opened up the two inches of material I left on either side to extend and prepared to sew the ruffles on top.

I had purchased this pre-made green ruffle that was attached to binding tape but didn't have a use for the binding tape material, so I wound up sewing two parallel lines with a contrasting thread, one to close the tape and the other along the preexisting seam, from one end of the two yards of tape to the other, including over the front of my apron. Later I hand-tacked the extended side of the skirt to the ruffle so that it would all lay flat and no stitches would show.

Requisite hand stitching.

The only thing remaining was the top! I remembered I had a ruffle from a skirt I modified a few years ago, so I cut off a piece long enough to run along the top, folding the edge back behind the ruffles to hide it. I also took the remaining piece of binding tape, sewing it shut as I had with the ruffle, to use as the neck strap. Not knowing how long to make it, I left it very large; Comrade MM will just need to a tie a knot to make it the correct length. Like the skirt, I inserted the top ruffle and the neck strap ends (being careful not to twist the material) in between the two layers of shirting and then sewed one seam to close the sandwich. Because of the placement of the button on the shirt I was not able to sew completely across the front; I later went back and handsewed that little segment.

Last, but not least, I wanted to have a pocket. I think what had inspired me most about this entire project was the idea to have a pocket made out of a sleeve. So, taking one of the sleeves I removed earlier, I cut it to a hand's length and, after ironing the seams, I pinned it to the skirt to attach. Because I used a blouse, I was able to unbutton the sleeve and open it wide enough to sew along what became the back of the pocket, and then sew on top of the other three sides. I made sure to reinforce the upper corners.

The sleeve-pocket.

Et voila! That's it! It was so much fun I made another one that someone among you readers will be getting for Christmas. At least I hope she reads it! And if she doesn't, it will be even more of a surprise...

Next up, a suuuuuuper cute and easy baby dress!

But first, a really beautiful rosewater tart (also made by me, perhaps with recipe to follow. It's easy but requires a lot of eggs):

Update, part two

Here follows an update to what I started yesterday. Perhaps this sort of diary doesn't make for such an interesting read (I find it a little boring myself), so I'll try to finish quickly.

After the concert at the AGO, I participated in the school's next New Music Ensemble concert. This one took place at school in Mazzoleni Hall, one of the two concert halls on the property aside from Koerner. In addition to reprising the Saariaho work from the COC Amphitheatre concert I premiered a piece by composer So Jeong Ahn called COOL!. It was scored for voice, flute, horn, viola, bass, percussion, and electronics and was a setting of Gwendolyn Brooks' poem "We Real Cool."

Here's a photo of her from Encyclopedia Britannica.

If you go to this website you can hear her talk about and then read the poem. It's pretty delightful.

We worked with Ms. Ahn individually over the course of the semester. The first meeting consisted of a lot of improvisation on my part, experimenting with sounds and textures that were often tangentially related to the text, and each time we met we continued to work to get the material exactly as she wanted it. While I've performed works with electronic components before, especially Anna Lindemann's compositions, I'd never done anything that was as dependent on the live interaction of the performer and the electronics system. In this situation, all of us had a small microphone attached to some part of our instrument (mine was by my mouth, as you might expect). The microphone picked up my sound and fed it to an interface, which was attached to my computer and to an amplifier. Then, when I depressed a pedal, it passed through a filter controlled by program called Live-Elektronik Patch (I think it's a German program) and then out of the amplifier. At different points in our scores we had indications to depress (and release) the pedals and to press a space bar changing the filter that would modify the sound. The one downside to performing with electronics, at least in our setup in a broad semi-circle across the stage, was that it was hard to hear what the ensemble sounded like as a whole because of the position of the amplifiers. However, I think that the piece had a good reception! The experience was quite interesting and it was a delight to work with Ms. Ahn, who is very creative and kind.

At the beginning of finals week the school set up mock auditions for those of us in the Artist Diploma program. For our half-hour auditions we prepared five arias and brought in the typical audition package of headshot, CV, and so forth. After we sang the panel, composed of people representing different facets of the musical scene, gave us verbal feedback about the audition. Though I never find auditions to be the highlight of my musical experience, it was so helpful to have the chance to go into this sort of situation with the same sort of nerves and worries that one might in any other audition and then to have immediate input about both successes and shortcomings. I'm so glad that we had this opportunity.

The following days were filled with final "exams" (actually concerts) and preparations for my recital, plus staving off whatever chest cold was getting me down with some oil of oregano. That stuff works, let me tell you! My recital was the following Sunday. I learned a lot from preparing this program, particularly about the amount of time and effort it takes to organize a large ensemble, which I needed for the Handel motet Silete Venti that I performed as the second half of the concert. Now that it is over, I wish I could do it again! It is always hard to put so much work into something and only have one chance to do it--but I guess that's what the future is for. I'm already cooking up ideas for the next one...

And now I'm getting ready for the summer. I leave on Tuesday to go down to New York and I'll be returning to Toronto in early June for the Tafelmusik summer program.

But, I leave you with this photo as a parting memento:

Paulie (who is by now freed from his cone) and I posing as the Virgin of Guadeloupe and the infant Christ. I hope that I shall flesh out (heh) this into a series over the summer! Stay tuned...

Sigh... it has been so long that I updated my blog that not only have I forgotten much of what has occurred--and that which I remember would certainly take up more than just one blog post--but the entire blog interface has changed and now everything looks different and confusing. Such are the ways of the world.

 What has happened? Well, Calisto went up, for one! Many things changed from my initial description of the project, but the end product was just as beautiful as I would have hoped. Well, almost--they never were able to make the "fountain" spew "water" (a.k.a. dry ice fog) long enough to last through my aria about it. But one can always quibble! In all seriousness, though, getting to work on this opera was a fascinating experience. I thought about this opera and the various characters so much, but as an individual mind with freedom to apply my own prejudices to everything. When you bring an opera to life with a company, everyone enters with their own discrete opinions. Perhaps it's a bit as if everyone begins as a sphere, but as time goes on and you begin to understand your fellow cast members the edges of your beliefs begin to blur, melding with others, expanding and contracting, until it all fits together like a puzzle. I do love performing, and dressing up in my costume, and sitting in hair and makeup, and waiting backstage, but I also love the work of being in your rehearsal skirt for six hours on a Saturday and of imagining everything and trying and probing and poking and stripping away until everything makes sense.

And eventually it looks like this:

Photo Credit Nicola Betts

I was really lucky that many of my family members came to see the opera: my father, grandmother, mother, aunt, uncle, and cousin! What I didn't fully anticipate was how exhausted and busy I would be. It didn't help that I had an audition (for Tafelmusik's summer program) the morning after the final Calisto performance, or that we were still in school, or that I had a million other things I was supposed to be doing. I wish that I had more time to spend with my family and with the friends that came to see the opera. It's really neat to be able to perform for people you know, to remember that they are in the audience, and a real luxury given that I am so far away from home. This was the first time my mom had ever seen me in a staged production.

The week after the opera we had more visitors: Ryan's family and the composer John Harbison. Ryan gave a recital at the COC's Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre that Thursday, performing Mr. Harbison's two piano sonatas. The night before, he came over for dinner and I made two different kinds of curry which went with one of Ryan's beers. I didn't get the chance to spend much time with Ryan's family, though, because I was busy with a master class that Friday and a different concert on Saturday night. The next week both of us returned to the COC for another concert, this one with the GGS New Music Ensemble. Ryan was playing the orchestral piano part in this beautiful Saariaho violin concerto and I was singing a piece of hers for voice and harp called "Il Pleut." Initially written for voice and piano and utilizing the entire span of the piano's range in the single line of a slowly descending chromatic scale, it's not exactly the most luscious concoction you could imagine. Preparing the work with the harpist, Emily, was an exercise in patience. It took time to let the piece, which is sparse like the cold and wet day it describes, develop its own meaning. I think, though, in the end it was beautiful and different.

I can't really recall what happened after that. Ryan and I performed at Schubert's "Viola" at the Art Gallery of Ontario during an afternoon of performances by GGS students. Neither of us had visited the museum before, which we found to be quite beautiful and large. The AGO and the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) both feature older buildings updated by modern architects. I've written about how I feel the ROM's renovation was less successful, but the parts of the AGO that I've seen were quite beautiful. We were situated in the central court, which is mostly the old building but is intersected by a winding wooden staircase. Stained a warm orange-golden color, walking up the staircase almost feels like being in a slot canyon.

I think I'll leave it at that and sign off for now. On Tuesday I go down to New York for a performance at the beginning of June, so hopefully I'll have the chance to write more soon.

Oh! Now I remember: another New Music Ensemble concert, mock auditions, final "exams," and, of course, my recital. And that doesn't even cover all the baking I've done. Well, another day.