domestic scientist

New Experiments

2012-02-07T05:42:00.000-05:00

My life has undergone quite a sea change since I last wrote. First, I left reasonably stable employment as a studio technician and teacher to go back to school. Second, and slightly more dramatically, after a mad summer of dyeing, knitting, canning, pickling, gardening, farming and craft-fairing, I left my friends, family and ninety-nine percent of my possessions behind and moved to London, England, to begin a master's degree in textiles at Chelsea College of Art and Design. This venture had been contemplated for some long time, and pondered with my typical amount of vacillation, hesitation and constant what-ifs. Now here, I sometimes question how this could be my life - living in London - but I consider myself very fortunate to be given the opportunity to devote this kind of focused time to my studio practice.

I have always been seduced and bewitched by colour, how it is made and its significance to human culture and history. The origin of colour and how it is used is endlessly fascinating to me. So while the focus of my MA project is actualy natural dye printing and unlocking the secrets to its processes, at the heart of my research is colour. After many years of experimenting with using natural dyes for immersion dyeing, I had only been trying to find the time to try printing with them. As a printer I love working with dyes because of their luminosity and transparency - they work on the cloth like watercolour - but recently I have become increasingly concerned about the adverse health and environmental effects of working with synthetic chemical dyes over many years. Further, the more I work with natural dyes, the more I find myself favouring their colour palette.

Over the next six months I will be sharing my MA research here and I hope this documentation of my process will serve to show that natural dyes can be used in ways very similar to those used with fibre-reactive or acid dyes for textile printing. One of the lofty aims of my project is to foster the use of natural dyes as an alternative to conventional dyes in craft production.

I shall explore varied ways of applying the colour to the cloth, via different print pastes, pre-treatments, mordants and assistants, as well as attempting to discover all the possible permutations of colour by adding colour-shifting acids, alkalis and mordants to the dyes. In the meantime, I am doing lots of reading into the rich history of our relationship with plants, particularly those used for dye, and sharing some of the cultural history of those dyestuffs here. I am also researching how natural dyes were used in industrial production prior to the discovery of synthetic colour in the mid 19th century, and how the move to synthetic dyes changed the world - this is not a melodramatic statement - this shift was at the very crux of the Industrial Revolution.

colour swatches in progress

To begin, I am testing the variety of colours that can be obtained from the various commercial extracts easily available from several suppliers. I have begun by working with those from Pure Tinctoria and the partnership between Maiwa & Couleurs des Plantes. Extracts are powdered dyestuffs that are soluble in water - the colour has already been extracted from the plant source. To make a print paste, I add thickener to my solution of water and extract. I will discuss the exact process in future dispatches. I intend to use my print pastes for screen printing, but at the moment, I am only sampling small swatches of colour, so I am applying the colour by stencil instead. I have chosen to work on linen, hemp and wool fabrics, as these are the historical fibres of Europe, and the dyes should react differently to cellulose and protein fibres.

applying the extracts to both mordanted and unmordanted wool

Above are some colour samples before steaming - these colours will be very much brighter and lighter once steamed and washed. Shown below are the very beginnings of my colour tests, recently steam-set and washed, to see if the colour would hold, and it did. In a momentary lapse of planning, I did not photograph these samples before steaming, only after steaming, before and after washing. Before steaming, the colours are more subdued and less vibrant than you see them here. The chemical reaction that releases the colourants and bonds them to the fibre does not occur until steaming, as heat is required for the reaction to happen. Happily upon washing, while the print paste, which has a slightly yellowish cast, washes away, leaving behind beautiful, brilliant colour.

after steaming, prior to washing

Now that I am deep into my research, I see everything through a the lens of colour, plants and history - I am truly a nerd about it! I promise to also share selected adventures of lovely things in London, like my frequent pilgrimages to the V&A, weekly walks along the Regent's Canal and other discoveries while I'm abroad. I hope to hear from kindred spirits as I go along, so please do comment and/or contact me.

after steaming and washing: vibrant hues from annatto, madder and coreopsis

Obsession: Rhubarb

2011-05-25T07:30:00.003-04:00

My Obsession for the Month of May is Rhubarb. It is such a beautiful vegetable. Perhaps one cannot really call it a fruit, but it is the first true fruit of spring. I currently have about five plants going, which seems like quite a few, since rhubarb plants are large, but if you are canning or preserving the rhubarb, it is easy to dispatch with what five plants can produce. Putting down, or putting up the rhubarb is the task I address today.

The simplest, and very fast method for preserving rhubarb is to wash, chop, measure, and then freeze the stalks. Simply throw them in bags in the freezer. I always measure it first, and then label the bag with the amount inside. This simplifies things later when you go to use it.

First, both with my beautiful forced rhubarb, and my regular rhubarb crop, I made rhubarb compote, using the recipe from Alice Water's Chez Panisse Fruit:

1 lb of rhubarb
zest of 1 orange (valencia or other juice orange)
1/2 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice

Combine ingredients together in an ungreased baking dish. Bake covered for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove cover and bake for another 5-10 minutes, or until rhubarb is soft, but still in pieces.

This compote is lovely on ice cream, creme fraiche or yogurt, or eaten on its own. It would also be nice with meat. I find it best if you leave it for several days before eating so that the flavours can really meld.

The orange zest beautifully tempers the tartness of the rhubarb. The first batch of compote that I made with the forced rhubarb was eaten fairly immediately - 1 and 3/4 jars full. There they are, in the refrigerator beside last year's dill pickles. It is a beautiful bright pink colour.

For the second batch, I multiplied the recipe six times to make enough to preserve in jars. I harvested six pounds of rhubarb! I applied the same method as above, but after placing the compote in jars, I processed the compote for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath. This ensured that my jars would properly seal. Six pounds of rhubarb yielded 4 quart jars.

Notice that the compote made with this rhubarb is different in colour, made up of of the red and green parts of the rhubarb stalk. To achieve a pink colour, you can exclude the green parts of the stalk, using only the red, but I do not like to waste any part of a good stalk of rhubarb. I like the odd green colour of the the compote.

Second, I made rhubarb jam, which is something I have never tried. I always make strawberry-rhubarb jam, but this year I was inspired by my newest culinary obsession, The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook, a birthday gift from my dear mother. The book's author, and proprietor of the Blue Chair Jam Company, Rachel Saunders, praises the purity of flavour of plain rhubarb jam:

"One thing that always mystifies me is the difficulty of finding rhubarb cooked on its own; we always seem to succumb to the temptation to combine it with something else. Yet rhubarb's unique flavour and texture set it apart from other early summer ingredients, and a really perfect rhubarb jam is hard to beat."

The recipe contains only rhubarb, sugar and lemon juice. Lemon juice brings out the flavour of the fruit. It is an ingredient in all of Rachel Saunders Blue Chair jams. The jam was everything promised in this beautiful cookbook - intense fruit flavour, tart and wonderful. I ate it for breakfast this morning.

Recently, while reacquainting myself with The Victorian Kitchen Garden, I learned not only of the technique of growing rhubarb in a forcing pot, as I did this year, but also of raising it in a heated, darkened forcing shed to bring on the growth of rhubarb in the winter. In the north of England, they once had whole buildings devoted to this purpose. Rhubarb forcing factories! Now that I've seen that, I wondered if it is possible do so in one's basement. My suspicion was confirmed by Dick Raymond of Garden Ways Joy of Gardening. This is possible. More on this later!

Perhaps we are tired of hearing all about rhubarb, but this will not be the last you hear of it from me. I have yet to extoll its virtues as a useful natural dye plant and mordant!

Accidental Collections: Needles and Threads

2011-05-18T07:00:00.002-04:00

Another collection of haberdashery related objects I inherited is this collection of assorted needles, spools of thread and empty spools. These needles are as they were left by my grandmother, who kept them all in an old cheese cracker tin. I am certain that some of the needle packets and the fancier threads were rescued from the sewing rooms of the two great houses she worked in later in her life. My grandmother was a strictly utilitarian seamstress.

The box of darning needles is an old cardboard package of hypodermic needles, that likely belonged to one of my great-grandmothers, who was a diabetic. In the days before disposable needles, she sterilized and reused the needles she used to inject herself with insulin.

Many of these empty spools are from thread companies and stores long gone by, such as Belding and Eaton's - the spool above must be from when Eaton's still had a haberdashery department. There are also spools from Zeller's, Corticelli, Peerless, Trimtex and J & P Coats (the only company that I believe is still in operation). If you look carefully at the labels you will notice that some of the spools say Made in Canada. I love some of the labels - Dewhurst's Sylko "Three Shells" Machine Twist. And yes, that is Butler's unwaxed dental floss, on a wooden spool!

There is an array of different types of thread: darning silk, silk-like nylons, mercerized cotton, and the dreaded 1950s invention, polyester. Below is an array of coloured threads in varying weights for machine sewing, darning silk, button-hole twist, rayon thread, embroidery and crochet cotton and silk.

I use these threads quite sparingly. I keep them in glass jars in my studio organised according to colour because I just like to look at them. The thread seems so special when it is wound around a wooden spool.

Weekend Whirlwind

2011-05-10T23:20:00.001-04:00

It was a beautiful weekend full of activity. Saturday afternoon, Kate, Erick and I attended some Doors Open Hamilton locations - Dundurn National Historic Site - specifically the William Reid Cottage, and the Kitchen Garden, as well as the Mohawk Trail School House (but I'll save that for later!). We would have liked to go inside the Castle but the line up extended out the door and around the corner. We were impatient and did not want to queue.

Sir Allan MacNab's very own cock-fighting pit.

Dundurn, the home of Sir Allan Napier MacNab (one of Canada's first premiers), was one of my favourite historic sites to visit as a child. Our family vacations were always educational, comprised of trips to museums, historic homes, forts, archaeological sites, natural wonders and pioneer villages, but Dundurn Castle was my hometown historical house and I am so familiar with it that I could probably give a guided tour of it myself. My favourite part of the house as a child was upstairs with all its finery, but I am now more interested in the below stairs part of the house, with its kitchen, laundry, scullery and food stores.

A dormant, not yet in bloom, hedge of lavender.

In recent years, there has been an exciting addition to Dundurn as they have begun to restore the Kitchen Garden, and there are plans to begin restoration on the home of the head gardener, William Reid. The garden is a wonderful place to visit at almost any time of year, because it is always in continuous state of growth and flux.

The garden pump.

They have been carefully recreating the garden based on historical research, and populating it with heirloom and historical plants. Last fall when I visited the garden, I was surprised to discover that the Victorians were growing such diverse foods such as ground cherry and tomatillo. Exciting things were happening this spring. The Victorians preferred to eat their asparagus white, and would blanch them under specially-woven baskets stuffed with straw.

The Victorians did as much as they could to extend the growing season for fresh produce, employing cold frames and greenhouses. They built hothouses where they grew cucumbers, peaches and pineapples indoors. Many years ago, I remember watching a series on TVOntario, The Victorian Kitchen Garden, that documented the recreation of an English Victorian estate garden, and the astounding measures that gardeners undertook to put food on the tables of the great houses. It was an era when a gardener could be dismissed for sending an unripe melon to the dining room!

I am increasingly interested in historic practices of housekeeping and gardening and how these activities can contrast with contemporary approaches. There is so much to be learned from how things were done, with such ingenuity, in days long ago. I will be posting further here, and on the Beehive, about the Kitchen Garden, and the activities below stairs at Dundurn.

From Doors Open to our very own gardening venture, up at the Buttrum farm. It was Kate and Erick's first time up to the farm, and they plunged right in. We worked hard for a few hours, finishing Gabby and Courtney's work planting strawberries, and then planting 150 rhubarb plants. Rhubarb and strawberries are both perennials, and will take at least a season to get established before we can begin harvesting. Strawberry rhubarb pie and jam will have to wait a while.

Planting the tiny strawberry plants involves making a hole in the earth with your hand, tucking in the plant and gently but firmly, closing in the soil around the strawberry's roots. This was made easy, as the soil at the Buttrum's farm is sandy, loamy and very soft, perfect for growing vegetables!

I took a few rhubarb roots home with me, where I will add them to my backyard patch. Rhubarb roots are bizarre looking, but a very useful part of the plant. Rhubarb leaves and roots are rich in oxalic acid, which is poisonous, but also a good mordant and dye for natural dyeing! You can also use oxalic acid to make your own cleaning solutions...

We spent Sunday at the farm planting onion sets for bunching onions, and I also finally harvested my forced rhubarb and made a lovely stewed rhubarb for Mother's day dessert, which I will post about tomorrow!

Accidental Collections: Belt Buckles and Other Closures

2011-05-05T20:09:00.001-04:00

Another collection inherited from Grandma Blanche: an assortment of celluloid, metal, mother-of-pearl and plastic belt buckles. These were saved from garments long since gone. Grandma kept these in wooden box. I would say these are from a time period ranging from the 1920s to the 1970s. One of these, the very tarnished, possibly silver-plated, rectangular buckle in the centre is a man's belt buckle monogrammed with the letter 'E'. It must have belonged to my grandfather, Edgar, known as Ed.

I do not have an array of stories or eloquent things to say about these objects; I simply wanted to share these photographs of these beautiful things.

The colours of these old celluloid buckles are lovely - so rich and fruity. There is a depth and translucency to the colours that you do not find in today's plastics. The red prism shaped piece on the bottom left has a hook on the back that would fit into the belt holes.

The large circular blue piece on the top right is actually a button, but I liked this composition of blues. On the top left is a sort of bar closure, perhaps for a sweater or jacket.

Two very elegant leafy buckles. The bottom buckle is brass. The top buckle is quite exquisite - it is brass, and carved wood.

This black and white floral celluloid buckle, of perhaps poppies, was always one of my very favourite buckles. It hooks together, though the mechanism is not visible in the photograph. It must have come from the belt of a dress or coat; there is also a set of matching buttons.

Accidental Collections: Knitting Needles

2011-05-03T12:03:00.000-04:00

After last night's election, I feel the need to focus on light, pragmatic things. Vacuuming. Cleaning the bathroom. Making a pot of soup. So today, a new feature post for Domestic Scientist: Accidental Collections.

Shuttles and yarn holders.

I have collections of many things, mostly domestic objects. While I might easily be accused of being a pack rat, I defend myself on that charge in that I have inherited most of these things from my Grandma Blanche. As I've mentioned before, she kept everything. She worked as a domestic servant in two households for elderly people, seeing these people through the end of their lives. When the estates were being dispersed, the children of my grandmother's employers saw little value in the wares of the kitchen or the sewing room, so my grandmother was permitted to take whatever she liked. I believe that this is the primary source of her stash of especially sewing notions and haberdashery.

Multiple, mostly unopened packages of double-pointed knitting pins. I love the graphic paper packaging.

There is such worth in these practical, useful objects. Many of these items are so well made that they have truly stood the test of time. They now represent to me a new era where we are slowly beginning to understand again the value of ordinary things as we revisit once again working with our hands. Think of these tools and how they relate to the work we do, and the work that was done with them.

Blanche's knitting needles.

Today I share some images of knitting needles and related tools. I adore the colours and shapes of these cellulose knitting needles so much, that I have added to my collection. Who will love these objects if not me?

Needle gauges.

When I was little I used love to take all these objects out of their boxes and look at them - beautiful colours, shapes and textures. I think I can trace my love of textiles, colour and vintage objects back to these treasures.

I found this collection of knitting needles at a thrift shop. If I hadn't rescued them, they might have languished there forever, gathering dust. Better that they come home with me, where they are appreciated!

Rainy Days, Silver Linings

2011-05-02T12:52:00.002-04:00


The mud puddle that is my vegetable garden.

I have been so dismayed with our weather of late. It seems every rare sunny day lands during my work week. It has been raining so much that even when it we do have a dry day, it has been too wet to work in the garden. All this spring rain means farmers are delayed in planting their crops, and so too am I.

When I awoke this morning I was so disappointed to find it was raining again; I felt like staying in bed. I decided to get up and go outside to check on the progress of a few things, to remind myself that despite the weather things are happening out there...

Outside on the porch, the plants I planted for the farm's new dye garden are starting to come up. This year, as part of our co-operative farming venture, we have decided to plant a dye garden. I have my own dye garden out at my family farm, but I hardly have the chance to get out to it. The farm garden will be a lot closer, and we'll have more hands to care for it.

I ordered seed from Richter's Herbs and finally planted them last Sunday - and some of the plants, especially the safflower, are already quite big! We'll have Goldenrod, Dyer's Broom, Lady's Bedstraw, Marigold, Tansy, Dahlia, Zinnia, Coreopsis, and Weld. We're also trying out Indigo and Woad, which yield beautiful blue dyes. I'll transplant down from my farm some Madder plants. Madder is historically one of the most important dye plants in the world. Madder root can produce colours ranging from orange to rust, brown to pure red.

I'll be posting more the dye garden here, and on our Beehive blog, all summer.

Last Saturday, I direct sowed some vegetable seed in the garden: lettuce, spinach, arugula, mâche, beets, turnips and radishes. It has rained so much this week I was worried that maybe my seeds would be washed away, but here they are, tiny arugula and turnip leaves.

The wire you see over top of the seed bed is to protect my vegetable from the rabbit who has been visiting my yard all winter. Last year he ate all my bean plants!

Under the cold frame, my eggplant and tomato plants are suffering a little from lack of sun, but the forget-me-nots in the frame are pretty content.

Asparagus spears are poking up their heads as well.

My rhubarb is pretty happy with this cool, wet weather. So there are many things to be cheerful for. But perhaps most exciting of all is what grows hidden beneath this large upturned planter.

Several weeks ago, when the rhubarb was just beginning to come up, I put this large black fibreglass pot overtop of the emerging shoots. Traditional rhubarb forcing pots are made of terracotta, but any large pot will do - this one is very large, about 24 inches tall, by 18 inches in diameter. The small hole in the bottom of the pot allows a little light inside, and the pot creates a warm little house to bring the rhubarb on more quickly. The stalks will reach toward the light, growing tall and straight, keeping the whole stalk bright red.

Is it not just beautiful? I'll pull some of this lovely rhubarb soon. The rain has stopped, the sky is brightening, and the birds are chirping. It's election day, and it's time to go vote!

There are some creatures who love this wet weather!

Signs of Spring: Rhubarb Custard Meringue Pie

2011-04-28T08:44:00.000-04:00

I adore rhubarb.

My rhubarb plants are coming along nicely outside in the garden. I have a huge planter tipped upside down over one of the plants to force it (more on this soon), and it is going to be beautiful. In the meantime, I decided it was time to clean out the freezer - so I decided to thaw out the two remaining bags of rhubarb I froze last spring.

If you are lucky enough to have outdoor space, and fortunate enough to have your own rhubarb plants, freezing it for later is easy. Simply pull the stems and discard the leaves, then was the stems, chop into 1" pieces and throw into freezer bags. I had very little time last spring to process much of the rhubarb in the backyard, so instead, I have been able to enjoy it all winter. Frozen rhubarb is easy to use in cobbler, pie, stewed or baked. It is best to allow it to thaw completely if you are going to bake with it.

I let the rhubarb thaw in a colander placed over a large bowl to catch the all the juices as the rhubarb melts. This is a combination of juice and water, but it is tasty to reserve for later use in jello, if mixed with other fruit juice.

I decided to make a recipe from one of my longtime favourite cookbooks, Classic Canadian Cooking, by Elizabeth Baird - Rhubarb Custard Meringue Pie. If you ever see this book at a garage sale, I highly recommend you pick it up, as this book is out of print. I particularly like this book because it is organised according to the seasons, and has lovely menus for different occasions, and many recipes are based on historic or traditional Upper Canadian cooking.

While the rhubarb thawed, I prepared my pie crust. You need only a bottom crust for this pie. Mix the rhubarb with the flour and sugar mixture. This recipe has a little bit of mace in it, which is a lovely, but unusual flavouring. Separate your eggs, reserving the whites. Whisk together yolks, cream and melted butter. Spread the rhubarb mixture in the prepared pie crust. Pour the egg mixture over top, and place pie in 450 degree oven. Reduce heat to 350 after 10 minutes. Bake 35- 40 minutes, or until custard is set.

While the pie is baking, whip the egg whites with vinegar and salt until they form stiff peaks. Add sugar and vanilla. Elizabeth Baird's recipe uses three egg whites, but I only used two as to not have a leftover yolk (her meringue would be higher than mine). Spread meringue over pie. Sprinkle with sugar and bake for another 4 minutes at 425 degrees until golden brown.

Et voila. Allow to cool, and serve as soon as possible. Meringue does not like to be kept waiting! It gets weepy if you're late for dinner.

Rhubarb Custard Pie, adapted from Classic Canadian Cooking: Menus for the Seasons, by Elizabeth Baird, published 1974 by James Lorimer & Company.

Filling:
2 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb
1 cup white sugar (I used about 3/4 cup)
2 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon mace
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup light cream or milk
1/4 melted butter

Meringue:
3 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon vinegar
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons white sugar (I used about 3 teaspoons)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon white sugar (to sprinkle on top of meringue)

Family Recipes: Part II

2011-04-17T10:36:00.001-04:00

In a second series of embroidered pieces containing family recipes, I used yet more recipes from my Grandma Blanche's recipe books. Some of the recipes are odd; who would need a recipe for making cheese toast? Here again, I translated all the marks on the page onto the cloth, all punctuation, underlines and page breaks, but I made each piece the size of a recipe card. Each recipe is then approximately life size.

With this second series, I embroidered the pieces on two layers of discharge silkscreen printed cotton organdy. (Discharge being a printing paste containing a chemical that strips the colour from the cloth). Of course you can barely see the print on the pale yellow organdy.

My Grandma Jean was not a domestic doyenne, though she had five children and ran an efficient household. She was much more interested in the outdoors and intellectual pursuits. She prefered extremely simple cooking. I remember once she had made Date Surprise Muffins - the surprise being, she said, "I was too lazy to chop the dates, so I poked a date into the middle of each muffin. Be careful of the pits".

However, she did have a small repertoire of famous baked goods - waffles, molasses cookies and square bales in particular. See above her recipe for molasses cookies written in her perfect school teacher script. These are a drop cookie, soft, cakey and chewy. Molasses was a favourite of my grandfather - he liked to put blackstrap on his oatmeal.

Grandma Jean liked to give imaginative names to different foods - perhaps a way of convincing my father, his two sisters and two brothers to eat their meals. Cream of wheat was Snow Porridge, cornmeal porridge was Sun Porridge. Square Bales were simply brown sugar oat squares, but living in the rural setting of our family farm, where hay and straw were taken off the fields every year, the name Square Bales seems more romantic and appropriate.

Cherry Tarts

2011-04-10T11:20:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a sunny, perfect, spring day. I dried some washing on the clothes line for the first time, and put my little tomatoes and eggplants outside in the sun. They'll now be going outside everyday. I also put a large forcing pot over one of my rhubarb plants - more on that later.

Last night was a going away party for a friend and we had a potluck dinner. Predictably, I usually bring dessert. It was nice to have an excuse to make some fancy tarts.

Pie crust recipe written in the back of an old edition of the joy of cooking in my mother's handwriting.

Sometimes I use other pastry recipes - like pâte sucrée, pâte brisée or sourcream pastry, but usually I use Grandma Blanche's 'No Fail' pastry recipe. I think it is pretty common pastry recipe, so perhaps it's your grandmother's recipe too. Her recipe calls for 1 lb. of lard, but I use butter instead. I have made the recipe successfully with lard as well, which makes for a much flakier pastry, or half lard and half butter. I like butter pastry best.

This recipe makes enough for 2 generous two-crust pies. Start with your dry ingredients in a large bowl:
5 cups of all purpose flour
1 tablespoon of granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of salt (or use salted butter)
Mix with a fork.

Then add 1 lb. of cold butter. You need to cut the butter into small (1cm) pieces with a sharp knife, and then cut it into the flour with a pastry blender. If you don't have a pastry blender, or if you want to save time, grate the butter into the flour with a cheese grater using the large holes. This is a trick I picked up when I was working at a tea room where I had to make large quantities of pastry everyday.

If you grate the butter, you do not need to cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender. The pieces of butter are already small enough - just mix to incorporate with your hands. You might want to break apart any large chunks, but leave the butter in pea-sized pieces. The pieces of butter will melt when your pastry is baking, creating airholes and a flaky pastry.

It should look chunky like this.

Next, add your wet ingredients. In a measuring cup, place:
1 beaten egg
1 tablespoon vinegar (or just a splodge, don't ask why, but the acidity helps balance the pastry)
1 cup cold water (if the weather is hot, you can add ice cubes to make it very cold)

Add the wet ingredients to the flour, but do not add it all at once. Depending on the humidity of the air, you will need more or less liquid. Use your hands to incorporate, adding just enough liquid to moisten the flour, but not as much liquid as to make the pastry sticky. If it is too sticky, add a little more flour. When it starts to come together, knead the pastry in the bowl to create a smooth dough. The key is not to handle it too much, making the pastry tough.

Divide dough in half, or quarters with a knife and flatten into discs. Wrap in wax paper and put it in the refrigerator to rest, and chill about 1 hour.

For these cherry tarts, I used 2 quart jars of the cherries I canned last summer. To use fresh cherries, I would have to wait until July! To use canned cherries, I strained off all the liquid (I'll save this an make jello - yum). To use frozen cherries, allow to thaw completely, and strain off liquid.

Since the canned cherries were already sweetened, I did not add sugar, but I added 6 tablespoons of flour per quart of fruit, and 1 teaspoon of almond extract. Mix well to coat fruit with flour. The flour will help thicken the fruit juice. If the cherries were fresh or frozen, I would add approximately the same quantity of sugar as flour.

Next, I rolled out the dough and cut it into 4-inch rounds. Then I fitted the rounds into 3-inch fluted tart tins and filled each tart shell with the cherry mixture. Since the tart tins I have are various sizes, some shallow, some deep, I eyeball the amount. Some of the tins are really quite old - they belonged to my great grandmother - but they're excellent tins. Better than new.

Then I cut out oak leaves to place on the top of each tart. Any shaped pastry will do, or you could choose to put on a full top, like miniature pies, but that is much more fiddly. I scored each leaf with a knife, to make them look pretty.

Ready to go into the oven. The cherries will plump up as they bake. Canned cherries always look a little deflated.

Bake in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes (this will crisp the pastry, allowing it to hold its shape). Turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake for another 20-25 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown, and fruit is beginning to bubble.

Once done, remove from oven. Allow to cool slightly. If you want to remove the tarts from their tins, it is easiest done while they are hot, but be careful not to burn yourself! (I have given myself severe fingertip burns from molten butter tart filling). With the help of a butter knife, gently and ginerly, lift tarts from tins. Cool on a rack.

I like to sprinkle them with a bit of white sugar.

Share with friends, or eat every single tart yourself. If you don't tell anyone, no one will know.

Family Recipes: Part I

2011-04-04T23:33:00.000-04:00

This recipe for drop-cookies is from Grandma's neighbour, Mrs. Myrtle Allwell.

These embroideries are part of an on-going series of work based on my collection of recipes belonging to my grandmothers. I have original recipe books from both my maternal grandmother and her mother, and copies and scans my aunt made me of my paternal grandmother, her mother, and mother-in-law. Some are recipes I have made myself, or tasted as a child. Others, I've never tried, but just like the sound of them, or not at all.

These three embroideries are from Grandma Blanche's notebooks. She traded recipes with friends and neighbours, and sometimes the name of the lady who gave the recipe is written on the page. Some are written in Grandma's hand, others have been given in the hand-writing of the friend. I love the scrawl of old handwriting, and it was important to me to translate the handwriting and punctuation exactly. I embroidered the handwritten text onto pieces of old tea-towels and tablecloths.

In another series of embroidered pieces, Family Albums, I created portraits of family members I had never met, but only knew through photographs or stories told to me as child. In one piece, I used my great-grandmother May's recipe for doughnuts as her portrait. My mother remembers eating these delicious doughnuts.

I have a scrap of paper on which May wrote the recipe in pencil. Someday I would like to try making these doughnuts, but Grandma's recipe does not provide any instructions - only ingredients, and even then, there is the vague direction for the amount of flour - "flour as for cookies".

More variations on the recipe series to follow.

Embroidered on a piece of an old apron with the pocket still attached.

Detail of my great-grandmother's signature. I love the holes and stains in the fabric.

Grandes Dames: Grandma Blanche

2011-03-31T21:05:00.000-04:00

Circa 1930s, in front of the perennial border.

This is the first in a new series of entries about the ladies and men who have played a formative role in shaping my thoughts on domestic activities. There is no greater influence in my life in this regard than my maternal grandmother, Blanche.

Born in 1904, she grew up on a farm near Lynden, Ontario, where one of her designated chores was to hold the chicken still while her brother chopped off its head. Her father's farm was typical old-fashioned mixed use farm. My great grandfather Frank grew a variety of vegetables and other crops, raised animals, made his own sausage and sauerkraut, and grew his own fruit. He was also an amateur photographer and he processed his own film and photographs. (More on him later).

Images of early life: the old farm house, Blanche's brothers, Leo and Frank, and a favourite photo of mine, my grandmother and her sister Winnie, peeling potatoes - at work from an early age.

Blanche and Winnie on the beach at Port Dover. 'MBM' is how my grandmother referred to herself: Mabel Blanche Mannen.

I love these old photographs of family and leisure life. The family at the beach. The photo on the bottom left shows Blanche and Winnie again.

Blanche was the third of four children spaced four years apart, two boys and two girls. My grandmother had only a ninth grade education because her parents could only afford to board her at Brantford to attend high school for one year. She spent much of her life working hard, in ways that I can only imagine, as a domestic servant, maid, store clerk, housekeeper, waitress. She worked upstairs and downstairs in grand houses. She worked in the dining room at Ridley College in St. Catherines. She worked at Eaton's department store. She worked at the Majestic Restaurant in downtown Hamilton. She worked hard, and she was pragmatic and sensible.

She was the sort whose hands must always be busy, never sitting down. When she did, she liked to watch tennis on television. She read murder mysteries and crime fiction. But she was usually busy - cooking, cleaning, gardening, tending to hundreds of houseplants (African violets were a particular favourite), sewing, baking, canning, pickling. She was happiest when she was busy.

Perhaps typical of her generation, she saved everything. Scraps of cloth. Lengths of string. Thread. Yarn. Bits of paper. Buttons. Postcards. Hardware. Nails. Screws. All of these things carefully organised into envelopes, tins, jars, and boxes, all carefully repurposed. Much of which, I have inherited.

She baked mean pie crust, and made amazing lemon meringue pie. She was also a clotheshorse. More to follow on Blanche, her collections and her pie crust, in the weeks to come.

Spring Forward.

2011-03-29T21:13:00.004-04:00

Eggplants with their seed leaves.

In winter, I hibernate. Hence the long silence from yours truly. In spring, my energy returns, and so does my enthusiasm for things domestic. Last week, it snowed. Nevertheless, now is the time when I begin to plan for outdoor activities later in the spring. Namely, beginning the garden, which starts with seeds.

Back in February, I made a trip to Tregunno Seed Co. on Catherine Street North to pick up potting soil and pots. I ordered my tomato and eggplant seeds online, from The Cottage Gardener and The Cook's Garden. The Cottage Gardener is a family owned nursery near Port Hope, Ontario, that specialises in rare heirloom varieties of tomato. They have a vast selection of tomatoes, but also grow many other heritage and unusual varieties of other vegetables. The Cook's Garden is an American seed company. They have a few varieties of tomato and eggplant that I like and have not found anywhere else.

Seed Packets.

Every year, I like to try a few new varieties of tomato, along with my favourites. I love tomatoes, and in summer time, I eat several tomatoes everyday. I also like to can whole and stewed tomatoes to eat plain and to cook with - San Marzano. Last year I also grew a variety called Principe Borghese, an Italian variety grown for sun-drying. These are repeat for this year. My ultimate standby is the powerhouse tomato Brandywine, a huge, beautiful, flavourful red fruit. Wonderful for eating fresh, cooking and preserving.

This year, I may have slightly lost my mind as I decided to grow 11 different varieties. 2 varieties will be for preserving - canning and drying. The rest will be for eating fresh, and canning as well.

This season's other players are a multi-hued cast ranging from white (White Queen) to yellow-orange (Jaune Flammee, Nebraska Wedding and Valencia), to multi-coloured (Big Rainbow), to red (Rose de Berne and Bloody Butcher) to purple (Black Krim).

Seeds are amazing. An enormous tomato plant will grow from each of these dry little seeds!

Once I have the seeds planted (3-5 seeds per pot), I water them, and place them inside these plastic domes in a sunny window until they have germinated. Once the plants start coming up, I will begin rotating the trays - the plants seek sunlight, so will lean toward the light - unless rotated daily, you will have spindly, crooked plants! Once the plants are about 1-2 cm tall I remove the domes. If the weather is warm, I will put the dome-covered trays outside. In the sun, the trays become like mini greenhouses.

Tomatoes toasty and warm in their little greenhouses.

Three weeks ago, I planted 5 varieties of eggplants, and I now have little seedlings. Soon, they will need thinning, but I am waiting until they start to get their second leaves. As soon as the snow melts, I will begin putting them outside in the cold frame during the day.

My darling eggplants. Are they not adorable?

After danger of frost, I will plant my babies out in the garden -by my Grandma Blanche's rule of thumb - after the May 24th holiday, or when the black walnut trees begin to leaf.

The Fruit Cellar of Miss H...

2010-10-19T20:09:00.003-04:00

Today, more photographs of my installation, The Fruit Cellar of Miss H... in the Project Window at Harbourfront Centre. The exhibition continues until Sunday November 7, 2010.

I was an artist-in-residence in the textile studio at Harbourfront Centre from 2006-2009. I always enjoy installing pieces at Harbourfront because their wonderful installation crew is immensely talented, and because the Visual Arts and Crafts curators, Patrick Macauley and Melanie Egan are a such pleasure to work with. You just want to please them.

Below, I have included my artist statement from the didactic panel at Harbourfront Centre. Not included in the panel information was the materials I work with - a lot of cotton organdie (I love the pliant nature of it, how it responds to being shaped so obediently) and all sorts of wools, some silk, some linen. Much of the fabric I dyed using natural dyes - Queen Anne's lace, goldenrod, Lady's Bedstraw, madder, logwood, black walnut, pomegranate, cochineal - and some of it I screen-printed using discharge paste, earth pigments and gold leaf. All of the screen printed imagery is taken from old recipes, photographs and ladies' magazines from the 1930s. All the fruits and vegetables are hand-stitched sculptures. The majority of mason jars (the Crown jars) were my grandmother's, the rest have been acquired at flea markets and antique markets, especially Aberfoyle.

The work is difficult to photograph as it is behind glass, and directly across from a brightly lit window.

Artist Statement

Preserving. Formerly, this household task occupied much of summer and autumn, in order to conserve fresh food for consumption during winter, when it was a scarce. The filled shelves of a cold cellar afforded a sense of accomplishment, virtue and security. This pursuit, so representative of ‘old fashioned values’, is lately experiencing resurgence as we place more importance on the provenance of our food.

Each year, I can fruits, pickles and jellies. This is an inherited habit. A few jars put down by my grandmother still remain after a quarter century. In particular, one treasured jar of her pickles has become like a votive from her to me. This seemingly mundane object acts as a time capsule of seasons and places past, preserving her memory.

This body of work imagines the fruit cellar as a storehouse of memories. From season to season, the contents of each jar are imbued with vestiges of the past, triumphs and regrets, joys and sorrows. The vessels are an investment in the future as much as they are reliquaries of the past. The fruit cellar acts as a hope chest of both realised and unrequited aspiration.

Home Economics (2009)

2010-10-05T00:26:00.001-04:00

Home Economics is an installation piece that I showed at Harbourfront Centre in summer of 2009 as part of the Building for the Economy exhibition in the Architecture Space. Home Economics considers the earliest origins of the term which suggests the importance of the home as the centre of human life. It offers a cautionary tale that recalls eras such as during the Great Depression where recycling was second nature and maintaining the essentials of life was the cornerstone of every home.

installation view

For several years, I have been collecting monogrammed household linens. I have always been obsessed with language and etymology and the preoccupation we have with labeling our possessions. When the wealthy did not always have their linens laundered at home, monograms served a practical purpose of proclaiming to whom the article of cloth belonged. It also, of course, denoted status. I have used the individual letters here on these hand towels to spell out commands associated with good management of household resources. I used what letters I had, and where they were missing I embroidered the monograms on blank towels to spell out 'scrimp' and 'save', etc. I plan on rearranging the pieces various other compositions exploring household language.

I love the dictionary, and consult it first when researching new ideas in the studio. You can read the 6 individual words below; each is a colloquialism of the word 'economize'. Read below for an excerpt from my artist statement on the piece.

HOME ECONOMICS

home economics, plural noun [often treated as sing. ] cooking and other aspects of household management, esp. as taught at school.

The word ‘economy’ alludes to thrift, prudence, restraint, and frugality. Its origin is French (économie), via Latin from Greek (oikonomia), meaning ‘household management’.[1]

Home Economics recalls a time when housekeeping, which included preserving and canning, laundry, sewing and mending, was achieved without the conveniences of modern appliances and supermarkets. The homemaker was tasked with creating a comfortable and attractive home while living within one’s means, making do with resources at hand, and planning for the future. This was often accomplished with do-it-yourself spirit, and personalized embellishments were done by hand, reusing and repurposing old goods. This installation suggests imperatives that urge us all to consider the necessities and excesses in our own lives.

[1] economy |iˈkänəmē|

noun ( pl. -mies)

1 the wealth and resources of a country or region, esp. in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services.

• a particular system or stage of an economy : a free-market economy | the less-developed economies.

2 careful management of available resources : even heat distribution and fuel economy.

• sparing or careful use of something : economy of words.

• (usu. economies) a financial saving : there were many economies to be made by giving up our offices in Manhattan.

• (also economy class) the cheapest class of air or rail travel : we flew economy.

adjective [ attrib. ]

(of a product) offering the best value for the money : [in comb. ] an economy pack.

• designed to be economical to use : an economy car.

PHRASES

economy of scale a proportionate saving in costs gained by an increased level of production.

economy of scope a proportionate saving gained by producing two or more distinct goods, when the cost of doing so is less than that of producing each separately.

ORIGIN late 15th cent.(in the sense [management of material resources] ): from French économie, or via Latin from Greek oikonomia ‘household management,’ based on oikos ‘house’ + nemein ‘manage.’ Current senses date from the 17th cent.

The Fruit Cellar of Miss H...

2010-09-26T16:54:00.001-04:00

Sweet Pickled Onions. Fruit Cellar detail, 2010, Cotton organdie, linen, Queen Anne's Lace dye, discharge and earth pigment screen print, stitch, vintage Crown Imperial Pint jars.

Our Domestic Scientist has been on hiatus the last few weeks. The beginning of the school year is always a whirlwind, and this year is no exception. I've been at work sewing and dyeing. For the past six months I've been working on a large scale installation piece for the project window at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. I just installed the piece, The Fruit Cellar of Miss H... on Friday. Here are a few detail shots of the pieces. Photos of the installation to follow soon.

Gherkins. Fruit Cellar detail, 2010, Cotton organdie, pomegranate dye, discharge screen print, stitch, vintage Crown Imperial Pint jar.

Good Books: The Joy of Cooking, 1953

2010-08-29T23:48:00.001-04:00

I have a large collection of both new and old cook books, amongst them, two different editions of The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer. One (1936) belonged to my great-grandmother May, and the other (1953) to grandmother, Blanche. I have two copies of the 1953 edition. Grandma's was falling apart, so when I saw a more pristine copy for $10 at an antique store, I scooped it up.

It is a bit of an old chestnut, but this truly is a good cook book. It is a faithful, basic guide to all kinds of cooking, and I refer to it often. The 1953 edition was a complete kitchen manual, advising the homemaker in all aspects of meal-preparation, menu-planning, nutrition, food-preservation, nutrition and the latest kitchen technology. The Joy of Cooking gives precise and concise instructions on everything one could reasonably expect to want to know how to cook in 1953, and offered hints about how to run a kitchen, especially helpful to the uninitiated 1950's bride. It even tells you how to clean up!

The newest household appliances: the electric mixer, the blender and the pressure cooker.

Mrs. Rombauer serves up all manner of charming (and timely) advice:

'Serve hot food hot from hot dishes. Serve cold food chilled from chilled dishes. Keep calm even if your hair striggles and you drip unattractively. Brush up before serving. Your appearance and the appearance of the food are important, but eating in a quiet atmosphere is even more important to the family's morale and digestion.

A meal represents effort and money. It is worthy of a dignified hour.'

This book emphasizes the true importance of the kitchen as the centre of the home. Some of the instructions, such as those for canning, are now outdated compared to today's standards, but this book also contains information not found anywhere else.

Canning instructions illustrate how to use different types of canning jars and lids.

I love the illustrations in this edition.

How to prepare artichokes and steam asparagus.

Almond Shortbread Raspberry Jam Sandwiches

2010-08-22T22:21:00.002-04:00

When I was in university, I worked in an English tea room, and I had to make hundreds of tarts, cookies, and scones every week. It was then that I became truly at ease with baking and making pastry. We used to make several pounds of butter pastry at once (by hand, without an electric mixer!). I learned lots of tricks and was introduced to many handy tools working in the tea room kitchen.

These cookies are a hybrid between Empire (or Belgian) cookies and shortbread. At the tea room, we always iced the Empire cookies with almond icing, and they had raspberry jam in the middle. When I make these at Christmastime, I cut them into star shapes or trees, or hearts for Valentine's day. You can use any kind of jam, but I like raspberry best.

Shortbread is one of the simplest types of cookies to make. The basic recipe of butter, sugar, salt and flour can be adapted with any flavour simply by adding various extracts, fruit, nuts, sugar or chocolate.

1/2 lb of soft butter (1 cup)
1/2 cup of white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp + almond extract (I add extra sometimes)
1/2 cup ground almonds
1 tsp sea salt or kosher salt
2 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar together. Add the remaining ingredients in order listed. Mix together until dough is smooth. This time, I used an electric mixer, but it is easy to do by hand. In fact, the dough is easier to handle if you mix it by hand. Form dough into a ball, flatten it into a disc, and wrap in wax paper. Chill 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Use flour as needed to prevent dough sticking. I like to roll my pastry and dough directly on the counter. This gives you lots of space to manoeuver. My rolling pin belonged to my great-grandmother. It is a great pin; it's heavy hardwood, and moves really smoothly. My favourite part of it is the scorch mark on one end where it was left too close to the woodstove.

Cut into desired shapes, and place on cookie sheet. Chill in the freezer until cookies are stiff. This will help them keep their shape while baking. Bake cookies 15-20 minutes, or until edges are just golden. Cool on rack.

When cool, spread a generous layer of raspberry jam on the bottom of one cookie and top with a second cookie. Gently press together. If you let them sit for a bit, the jam will set a little, and they will be less messy.

Enjoy with tea.

A Peachy Day and a Spicy Evening

2010-08-16T22:40:00.002-04:00

Canned Peaches: Halves and Slices

4 3-quart baskets of Red Haven Peaches

4 hours of peeling, pitting, slicing, cooking, jarring and processing

7 jars of peach halves and 4 jars of peach slices

Method:

I used a combination of the open kettle method and the 'recommended' method.

The Open Kettle Method is an old fashioned way of canning, and the method my grandmother would have used. You cook the fruit until it is entirely cooked, and then put it into sterile jars and seal with sterile lids and bands, with no further processing.

Safe food handling guidelines no longer consider this method safe. For peaches, it is recommended that the peaches be canned either raw pack (putting uncooked fruit in jars) or hot pack (partially cooked fruit), and then processed for 20 to 30 minutes to complete cooking the fruit and sealing the jars. I find this method troublesome because I find the fruit always floats (which results in air discoloring the fruit). Always searching for perfection, I have tried cooking the fruit through, and then processing for ten minutes to ensure proper sealing and safety. This still needs some experimentation, but the results this time were pretty good. And delicious.

I cooked the peach halves and slices separately in the honey syrup left over from canning the apricots, cooking the fruit in boiling syrup until it is quite soft.

Then I packed the jars very full with the peaches, trying to fit as much fruit in a possible. This is much easier with the slices than the halves. Cover the fruit with boiling syrup. Use a kitchen knife to release bubbles trapped under the fruit, and top up the jars with more syrup if necessary. Seal jars. Process 10 minutes in boiling water bath.

Enjoy these peaches in wintertime in yogurt or over ice cream, or all by themselves.

Start by scalding peaches to remove skins.

Peaches awaiting peeling.

To prevent discoloration,

cover peaches in water with a bit of lemon juice.

Cooking the peaches in syrup, one jar full at a time.

Filling the packed jars with syrup, and sealing.

Peach halves in the canner, after processing.

Voila!

Et voila!

Peppers galore.

Pickled Peppers

The hot peppers at the farm are just starting, and already there are nearly too many to eat fresh or sell. So I decided to pickle some. I used a recipe by David Lebovitz. You can pickle any kind of fresh, thick-fleshed pepper, or mix several varieties. I used jalapenos.

If you are brave, you can eat the pickled peppers whole, or use them in cooking like you would fresh hot peppers.

Fait accompli!

Canned Apricots

2010-08-15T23:30:00.002-04:00

Lovely apricots from Hamilton Farmer's Market

I have spent time each summer since childhood canning fruit, and making pickles and jam. When I was young I was my mother's assistant in this task, and later we worked together. Now I do much on my own, but Mum and I still work together on labour intensive tasks which involve lots of peeling and slicing, like canning peaches.

When I canned apricots in the past, I removed the skins, and they were cooked, the delicate fruit turned to mush. This time I left the skins on, which is not only easier, but appealing, since the skin is the most beautiful part of the apricot.

This time I decided to use a medium honey syrup, using half honey and half sugar. Medium syrup is about 2 parts water to 1 part sugar, so 4 cups water, 1 cup honey, and 1 cup white granulated sugar. The syrup smells and tastes wonderful.

Note: many of the methods I use are the same as those my grandmother used. Many of them follow the open kettle method, which is now not recommended to use by safe food handling guides. I use these methods because they have never failed me, and I like the results from them. It is, however, extremely important to be scrupulously clean when preserving food. All tools and utensils should be clean and jars and lids should be sterilized carefully.

Method:

Wash apricots. Cut fruit in half lengthwise and remove pits. Measure fruit to determine how much syrup to make. Pint jars will require 1/2 cup to 1 cup of syrup.

Make syrup: in a large saucepan, bring honey, sugar and water to a rolling boil. Stir to dissolve sugar

Add apricots. Return syrup to a boil. Stir very gently, as to not damage the fruit. Simmer until apricots are soft, but not falling apart.

Gently ladle apricots into hot, sterilized jars, and cover with boiling syrup. Seal jars with snap lids and rings. Let cool.

Apricots cooking in the syrup.

The finished product, with lots of left-over syrup. I will use this up when I can peaches this week.