Eggplants come in all sizes and shapes at the farmer’s market right now. Delicious. The King of the Garden, this member of the Nightshade earns its many names in European cooking, especially Italian, with good reason. Guinea squash. Pea Apple. Eggfruit. Brown Jolly. The most fun is Apple of Insanity. Throw some basil, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and slice up an onion with some olive oil on the stove. Yum. It’s also really easy to grow for beginning gardeners. First garden last year in which half the plants died due to lack of knowledge, the Black Beauty just trucked on through even on poor mulch soil though they are doing much better this year with added fertilizer and time. Still not...
You occasionally run across a book that you think would make a great modern tv show or romantic comedy movie. For 2025, personally it’s Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton which is a love letter to NYC Jewish theater/restaurants combined with Italian cooking tourism by one of their top chefs who grew up as a theater kid to run her own place: Prune. The bisexual female Jewish lead gets married for a decade to an Italian Catholic aristocrat lawyer and his lovely family after some creative backstory and girlfriends makes for funny antics. It’s messy, complicated, and interesting mixing both modern and conservative worlds and generations colliding in a major city and Italian countryside. There’s these little gems of...
After wearing Gold Toe and Hanes cotton socks for 20+ years, this year trying linen as they are supposed to be cooler and gardening outdoors in North Carolina August is just brutal. The cost is similar to wool at $4-10/pair or under $30 for a multi-pack, but there’s definitely a lack of color and design selection which is puzzling given linen dyes so well and uses less water than cotton. Oatmeal, cream, off-white…pick your poison. It’s all the same "natural" color. Zero sense as you can get linen yarn in colors super easy. Maybe some organic boutique hosiery start-up is going to latch on to the idea for hot natured husbands or a knit craft shop will start carrying dye...
Had a great week running indigo linen dying tests. Theater people are obsessed with linen and given it seems to use 2-3 times less dye and the color is much darker, any fashion shop can see why it’s so beloved by costume designers trying to create environmentally friendly looks on a budget. Ironing aside, it’s a great fabric to work with. Easy to sew, etc. My DMC linen thread finally arrived for the last test as the shop is trying to transition to using more linen which is classic Ren Faire. Linen embroidery thread is available from all over the world and you can find $25-30/make-in-take kits at places like the Snuggly Monkey in Durham if you’re interested in trying...
Finished building the compost pile before today’s rain hit, so it’s off to explore the wild wacky world of whole grain bread. There’s no good scifi or psychological fiction films due out this summer although F1 will probably be a financial goldmine. Apple does have Foundation Season 3 coming out which has potential, but won’t finish til mid-September so we’ll wait to see how well Asimov does. If you’ve ever read his book series, as a Russian Jew, it seems like a retelling of traditional Jewish myths. Egypt/Rome might be considered the Empire while the Foundation part might be the Queen of Sheba and Seba which in English means Queen of Seven or Queen of Apples. For anyone who hasn’t...