Timeless Frost-ing

This past weekend, the guys and I watched Until the Light Takes Us, an awesome documentary about the aesthetics and infamy of Norwegian black metal. For those not in the know, this includes murders, church burnings, and making necklaces out of your dead friends. This includes, above all, being an EVIL MOTHERFUCKER (really NSFW, but crucial):

Okay, so not like that. But it IS equally exciting. I kind of wish I'd seen the movie before we planned our film series on identity performance, or I would have insisted on its inclusion. According to the elaborate mythology surrounding black metal, these guys are basically committing hate crimes, but it seems to be more out of an escalating game of one-upsmanship more than any strongly-held ideology. I don't know enough about the history of metal (Laine is much more knowledgeable on this subject) to give this much other context, but I assure you that the film is worth your time.

Immortal is one of the bands that, you know, didn't kill people. Although a few of their members have gotten in trouble after leaving the band, they (as far as I can tell) seem more involved in painting their faces than going around being dicks. Which brings us to Joel.

Today marks the birth of Freakin' Joel, my boyfriend's roommate and one of the most adorable people I know. To celebrate his existence, I made him a cake. Joel is fan of many things, but the three that spring to mind first are God, sandwiches, and metal. Of these, I thought the last would be the most fun to illustrate in confections. I've been wanting to try this tutorial for a while now, so I thought I would do my best at representing the guys of Immortal...

...in chocolate.

To achieve this, I melted three shades of chocolate (semisweet, semisweet+white, and white) and used them to trace a reversed version of the above image in three stages.

Here is the image, topped with parchment and taped to a clipboard:

Here is Stage 1:

While these were chilling in the freezer, I baked Joel's favorite, yellow cake. Then I moved on to Stage 2:

And after they'd had time to chill again, Stage 3:

While they were chilling one more time, I topped the cake with chocolate frosting, then made Shaun take pictures of my outfit. If you are going to bake a metal cake, it's important to wear attire that is practical and thematic. Here's what I picked:

Dress: Hand-made vintage

Socks: Xhilaration
Shoes: Where via Urban Outfitters

I can only wear this dress so often, for obvious reasons.

No one really knows what kind of creature this is supposed to be...

...or why these pockets are here.

But, hey--take a look at these SHOES!
For the first time, there is a pair that fit my (giant) feet and not Laine's.

I'm not trying to rub it in, but usually it's the
TOTALLY HEARTBREAKING other way around.

And then, the unveiling/flipping/placing on the cake!

Not too bad for a first effort, eh?

If I had the time or inclination to do this over again, I would probably add more white chocolate to the midtone color, and I would try to figure out some way to prevent the bleeding that happened between colors here. Still, I'm pretty happy with the final results, and I think the birthday boy was, too.

Spring Costumes, or Green to Match My Spleen

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately. Spring means school is insane. I'm panicking about finishing term papers. My students are panicking because they should have cared about their grades earlier in the semester. The literacy program for which I'm a co-director has a big final event in Helena. This year, however, I'm trying to finish a comprehensive film catalog of the anthro department's holdings and, last, but certainly not freaking least, I'm trying to finish my master's thesis. I generally "work well under pressure," but the words just aren't happening lately. I've never had a problem writing before. I can always just sit down and make it happen. Not so this time. I blame a lack of fiction in my life. I've always been an obsessive reader. Obsessive, literally. I've had boyfriends who were jealous of how much time I spent reading. I love books. I love the smell and the texture and the look of them - ordered neatly, piled up haphazardly, but mostly shelves upon shelves of them in used book stores! My favorite birthday present in recent memory is CB I Hate Perfume's "In the Library," from Christian this past year. 

It smells quite a lot like books, but sweeter and spicier. If you have ever wondered what I smell like, this is usually it. I smell good.

In any case, now I rarely read for fun. I read for a living, and my reading mostly consists of theory and ethnography. I love these - it's not as if I don't enjoy it. It's just that I rarely lose myself in narrative anymore, and this has profoundly affected the way that I think. I've lost something very important, and it's become detrimental to how I write. I need to figure out a balance.It's terribly ironic, because what I study concerns how narrative shapes identity. Should my grad school experience count as fieldwork, then?

Instead of reading in my spare time, I'd rather be trail running with my dog or gardening or anything where I can be outside moving.  In fact, it's the gardening that's become my obsession lately. For the past three weekends, we've been working on a garden that we're sharing with our neighbor, Jenny (who is one of my favorite people). Growing up in a fairly small south Arkansas town, I was lucky to be surrounded by home gardens. I grew up helping family members and neighbors care for them. I can't begin to count how many hours I've spent shelling peas and shucking corn. I've never started a garden from scratch, though. So, as it turns out, it's pretty damn labor intensive. Disclaimer here and a promise: I will not turn blog posts about my garden into soapbox posts about one of my subjects of study, food politics, social hierarchies, and moralizing. Yeah, yeah - the name of this very blog comes from Mary Douglas's famous work on just that, but this blog is for fun and not for things I do for a living. I have to think about social structures in relation to food politics for a living, and maybe I could do myself a favor, maybe make some contacts or something by writing about it here, but, like I said above - I need to figure out a balance. I need to read things that don't have to do with my work, and I need to write things that don't have to do with my work (or be in the format of my work! Look at all this stream of consciousness and "innovative" punctuation! Take that, Chicago Manual!!). I love my work, and I'm thankful that I even have the opportunity to do it - but, you know, balance and all.

SO, ok, here's the patch of lawn we started with, between our house and Jenny's house. 

 

And here are some of the seedlings I started. Some of these are plants that are to be sown directly into the garden, but I thought I'd hedge my bets, since it's my first time 'n all. 

 

Li'l buddieeess!

 

Tineh purple basil!

Turns out that the transition from "piece of lawn" to "lush, hospitable garden plot" is a real pain in the ass. It took us two full (FULL) days of labor to just turn the soil about 6 - 8 inches deep, even with Dolly helping on the second day. 

No, no, of course that's not my gardening outfit. We took this after we got back from the movie we treated ourselves to at the end of the weekend. Unfortunately, it was the new Clash of the Titans. It gets me all angry to think about it very much, so all I'll say is teal & orange and Harryhausen monsters > CGI monsters.

Dress: Gift from Hannah Withers, owner of Little Bread Co. I should do a whole blog post about LBC sometime, because they are AWESOME. 

Headband: Dark Star Visuals

Scarf: Target

Socks: Sock Dreams

Blue Velvet Boots Dr. Martens that have been through hell and high water (and a few obvious run-ins with some creative bleaching in college) with me since my sixteenth birthday

Carved bone earrings SanFranBlissCo

All righty, so turning the soil was a one weekend, then composting and tilling was another. But first, lunch!

I recently did a spring lunch for some friends. The menu was salmon, asparagus, purple potatoes, and salad, with banana bread and blueberry sorbet for dessert.

I always aspire to some lovely mise en place photos a la Tony Tahhan or even Luxirare. Realistically, though, I'm more interested in getting the food done than taking pics, and besides, our kitchen is tineh, tineh. My mise en place usually looks like this: 

 

Not so aesthetically pleasing. But you know what? Even so, I'm good about getting things organized to come out at the same time, and that's the important part. 

 

Blueberries, gruyere, and sparkling shiraz for an appetizer.

Smashed purple & red potatoes with green onions, lemon zest, olive oil, salt & pepper. No recipe really, just season to taste.

 

Spinach, rainbow chard, shallots, sunflower sprouts, dandelion greens, nasturtiums, roses, snapdragons. Lemon and olive oil to taste.

I didn't actually snap a pic of either the salmon or the asparagus before they got nommed, but here is a picture of salmon anyway. This is exactly what mine looked like, so you can pretend that I cooked it. 

 

Mix half a cup of Greek yogurt with 2 tbs finely chopped fresh dill, 2 tbs finely chopped fresh parsley, 2 tbs Dijon mustard, salt and pepper to taste. Spread over salmon fillets (we had four, but they were ginormous) and bake at 450 for anywhere from 8 - 20 minutes (depending on whether you're using fillets or a side of salmon). Garnish with dill sprigs & lemon. 

Combine 2 cups all purpose flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, cream together 1/2 cup butter & 3/4 cup brown sugar. Stir in 2 eggs and 2 1/3 cups of overripe, mashed bananas. Stir in to dry mix til just moistened. I also added sliced almonds, and cinnamon & cardamom. Pour into greased 9x5 loaf pan and bake at 350 for about an hour. Have to admit that the blueberry sorbet is store-bought. 

And here is my hostess costume.

 

Navy velvet blazer: J. Crew

Green silk dress: Idea2Lifestyle

Socks Sock Dreams

Boots: Y-Not?

Belt: From Josh Meadows when we were in high school - I harassed him 'til he gave it to me. He also happens to be the same kind soul who lent us his time and his truck to get a rented tiller to our house. What a guy!

After lunch  (and a nice break), we put about 560 lbs of compost on the garden and tilled it in. Again with the backbreaking labor. 

We decided, upon my landlady Ana's advice, to go with beds instead of rows, and we finally got to the planting!!

 

My li'l buddies goin' in the ground! I hope they make it!

Kind of looks like we've been hiding bodies. But there are not really people in there. The real inventory is: 

Broccoli

Artichoke

Brussels sprouts

Okra

Lettuce 

Spinach

Straightneck squash

Zucchini

Green beans

Tomatoes

Purple carrots

French breakfast radishes

Purple potatoes

Purple onions

Rhubarb

Asparagus

Raspberries

Blueberries

Rosemary

Kentucky Colonel mint

Peppermint

Calendula 

Lavender

Marjoram

Lemon balm

Oregano

Thyme

Chamomile

Jalapenos

Bell peppers

Banana peppers

Basil

Purple basil

 

Aaaand back to struggling with thesis writing. But what a lovely place to do it. It's nice to have a dog who's so supportive. It's nice to have a pyromaniac boyfriend (who also does things like help me cook, clean, and plant a garden from scratch). It's nice, too, to have a roommate who'll make me pink drinks and mow the lawn, even when the bees attack her in the face.

Oh! The "green to match my spleen" thing is something that Zorak said on old episode of Space Ghost. I think of that quote every time I wear that green dress. " I want green to match my spleen."

Gin for Everyone!

My dear friend Lady Z and I have collaborated on many mottoes, but here is the most salient one for this post:

Gin for summer, whiskey for winter,
And beer for all the time.

I've been enjoying whiskey and some good dark beers for a few months now, but the motto's about to come full circle. Although it is not yet summer, we are in Arkansas, where it IS officially the beginning of outdoor drinks season. To celebrate, Laine and I decided to use this weekend to explore the culinary possibilities of our favorite outdoor liquor, gin. Gin is an acquired taste, to be sure, but it is a friend to everyone from Winston Churchill to Snoop Dogg. (Note: James Bond is known for popularizing the term "shaken, not stirred" in reference to martinis, but I will not sully the name of gin with this madness, as he was probably drinking either crappy vodka or a badly mixed drink. Click through for an explanation and bonus West Wing content!)

Many interesting savory possibilities came to mind--most notably, our friend Cell Member's idea to coat some whitefish in a gimlet-inspired marinade. In the interest of time, however, we decided to stick to drinks and desserts. None of the ideas below is particularly hard to execute, but I've tried to lay this out in a graded scale of sorts so you can replicate as you wish according to your inclinations and the amount of time that you have.

Grade I (Easy): Pink Gin
I love most gin drinks, to be honest, but for me nothing tops a good ol' Pink Gin. Maybe it's because I am a huge fan of bitter flavors, or maybe it's because most of the places I've been were at some point taken over by Britain, but whatever the cause, I'm sold.

My favorite version of this is, admittedly, not as manly as the traditional one, which is less diluted. Still, this one gets the job done, and it tastes a lot better. Here's what I usually do:

Danger
Dispense 7 drops of bitters into the center of the bottom of a glass, then rotate the glass upside down, then sideways so the glass is coated. The traditional choice--and my preference--is Angostura bitters. The name Angostura comes from a town in Venezuela, although today the bitters are produced in Trinidad and Tobago. They were originally sold as a tonic, then eventually used to mask the taste of quinine in tonic water, which colonialists used to prevent malaria. (BTW, malaria prophylaxis is a pretty good excuse to get wasted if you are in any place tropical.) Anyway, I digress: there's a shortage of Angostura bitters right now because of a factory flood. For this project I used Peychaud's, which were originally produced by a Haitian apothecary who lived in New Orleans. The result was a little fruitier and sweeter than what I normally drink, but it was still delicious.

Next, add two shots of good gin. I tend to go with Tanqueray London Dry, Boodles, or Bombay Sapphire; these can all be gotten for somewhere around $20 per 750 ml, and all are are quite easy to drink. For everything in this post, I used Bombay Sapphire, because we thought the botanical notes in it would be nice for sweets.

Finally, top with tonic water--use about two parts tonic to one part gin, or just fill up your glass.

Stir, then sip daintily like a good imperialist.

Here is my White Colonial Vampire Housewife Costume:

Shirt: French Connection, hand-me-down

Ribbon: Found
Bermuda Shorts: Banana Republic
Socks: Xhilaration
Shoes: Capezio

Purity
If, like Laine, you simply cannot abide the taste of bitters, this drink can be made in a slightly girlier format: simply substitute Cherry Kijafa for the bitters. Alternatively, you can sub cranberry juice and grenadine to make a Ruby Tuesday.

From left: Purity, Precious Moments Chapel shot glass (via Anne and Chris), Danger

Grade II (Intermediate): Gin and Juice Granita

This dessert is perfect for when it's hot out and you've got a little time to spare. It's basically a dressed-up snowcone for grown-ups.

Here's what you'll need for the granita itself:

3 ruby red grapefruit
1 lemon
1/8 c sugar

Before you do anything else, peel one whole grapefruit VERY thinly. Avoid as much pith as possible. Place the zest (the stuff you're removing) on plate; you'll need it later. Thinly peeling a grapefruit is a lot more difficult than it sounds. My strategy is to tilt the side that I'm working on at a steep upward angle; that way, there's less opportunity to bear down on the pith. You're going to need a small, sharp knife and some awesome grapefruit peeling music. For this task, I recommend my friend Derek's Vintage Soul Mix, which can be gotten here.

When you're done, you should be looking at something a bit like this:

After you've accomplished this, juice all three grapefruit and the lemon. Strain the juice to remove residual pulp, and pour it into a big glass bowl. Next, mix in 1/8 c sugar until it is well-blended. Put the bowl in the freezer and let it sit for 45-60 minutes. Stir well with a whisk once every hour for another 3-4 hours. (Around the last hour, put a few glasses or bowls in the freezer, too, so it won't melt immediately after you serve it.) The ultimate goal is to have something that is fairly snow-like in consistency; by the end it should also be sort of granular.

Now, for the finishing touch: a nice caramelized garnish. Find that plate of grapefruit rind you set aside earlier. Slice the ring into very thin strips; it should be as close to julienne as you can muster.


Next, dissolve 4 tbsp of sugar in 4 tbsp in a skillet over medium heat. Once the sugar and water are adequately mixed, add the strips of grapefruit rind.


Allow the sugar mixture to bubble and reduce until all you see is rind. This should take about 15-20 minutes. When the rind is ready, it will be translucent, flexible, and covered with a light brown coating. Also, it will be hot. Really hot. No matter how delicious it looks, do not touch it or I assure you, you will be sorry. If you'd prefer a softer final product, remove the rind a bit sooner--just make sure it's translucent. Use a fork to transfer the rind to a piece of parchment paper rolled out on a pan or cutting board, and let the pieces cool. Once they're cool, seal them in an airtight container until you're ready for dessert.


Once the granita has chilled and become the right consistency, spoon it carefully into chilled glasses or bowls. Pour in about a shot of gin (or not, I guess, if you have children or other people who want to ruin the party) for each serving. Garnish with your carmelized grapefruit rind, and voila:

Grade III (Advanced): Gin and Tonic Almond Cake with White Chocolate Ganache

This is for when you're feeling fancy, you've got quite a bit of time on your hands, and you've got plenty of people to feed.

Here's what you'll need:

Cake:
1 box angel food cake mix
(Yes. Because I'd rather pay a buck than try to mess with getting ANYTHING this fine without making a big mess.)
1 1/2 tsp almond extract

Soaking Solution:
1/3 c lime juice
1/3 c simple syrup
(You can make this really easily by heating sugar and water as shown above; just take it off the stove about when you'd put the grapefruit rind in it in the last recipe.)
2/3 c gin
1 1/3 c tonic

Ganache:
9 oz white chocolate baking chips
1/2 pint heavy whipping cream
2 oz sliced almonds

Mix together the cake batter as described on the box; this will entail adding some water. Stir in the almond extract, and follow the instructions to the letter. I'm not kidding. Normally I'm all for experimentation, but an angel food cake is serious business. Our angel food pan was a little smaller than the size the mix I had called for, so I didn't fill it all the way up. This kind of thing is really important, because angel food cakes are prone to puffing up and menacing New York if you aren't super careful.

While the cake is baking, mix together all the ingredients listed under Soaking Syrup and chill the resulting liquid.

Your angel food cake, meanwhile, is in your oven plotting against you. No matter how tempting it seems, do not remove it until it fits the instruction descriptions exactly. I don't care how golden brown and cracked it is; if the top is remotely sticky, LEAVE IT BE. Seriously, go grade papers or something. You really, REALLY don't want to have to deal an undercooked angel food cake.


Once the cake is baked, it's going to have to cool a bit before you can cut it out of the pan. Still, don't let it get too cool, because you want it to soak up as much liquor as possible. Once you're able to get at the thing, gently brush all surfaces of the cake with the soaking syrup. Use the remaining syrup to drench the cake, first from the bottom, then from the top. This will involve some careful, strategic flipping.

While the cake is getting good and soaked, melt the white chocolate chips. You can do this in a double-boiler (if you're Classy), in an improvised set-up using a small pot and a big pot with some water in it (if you're Crafty), or in a microwave in 20-30 second bursts between stirs (if you're Lady). When that's done, heat the cream to its scalding point--medium heat on your stove will usually do the job. Turn off the burner and immediately blend the melted white chocolate with the cream until the mixture is glossy. Drizzle the resulting ganache as artfully as possible over your now-boozy cake, and sprinkle sliced almonds over the top before it cools.

Here's what mine looked like:

At last, a meeting of both NOM and NONK!

And here's what I wore for our Paschal Gin Celebration:

Dress: Calvin Klein, via TJ Maxx

White Fishnets: Hue
Shoes: Mudd

And now it's late, so I suppose I'll let Bessie round things out:

Selvage Ethnography: Fashion in the Fray

One thing fashion bloggers never seem to talk about is function. There's the Teacher Costume blogs, of course, and all sorts of Rescued Clothes and Work Outfits, but what about clothes that have to look good AND put up with a lot of wear? And what do you do when the wear is just a little too much? This post is my first attempt to step in that direction--toward Pretty Clothes That Survive.

Once upon a time I was buying clothes for fieldwork in Belize. My Belize wardrobe consisted of cheap shirts and my two trusty pairs of Banana Republic bermudas (two pairs, in khaki and black, long-since dubbed my Jungle Pants) that have made it around the world and back more times than is probably fair to them. The key in finding clothes for the kind of work I was doing was to find some balance between Oh Lawd, It's So Hot I'm Melting and For the Love of God, Have Some Shame! If you're trying to convince people to let you interview their children, it's not like you can just wander around the beach in your Daisy Dukes.

My fashion inspiration in all of this was a line from Julia Alvarez's How the García Girls Lost Their Accents:

"Yolanda sees herself as they will, shabby in a black cotton skirt and jersey top, sandals on her feet, her wild black hair held back with a hair band. Like a missionary, her cousins will say, like one of those Peace Corps girls who have let themselves go so as to do dubious good in the world."

In other words, I decided to keep dressing up. While it's obviously important to be aware of the complex aesthetics (and, often, economic inequalities) of a postcolonial space, I decided that dressing too far down--something many of my American friends in Belize seemed awfully prone to--would be disrespectful to the people I'd be working with. So, in the spirit of professionalism, I was determined not to be one of these girls. Since I was seeking the help of consultants ranging from upper-level educational administration to Rastafari craftspeople, the challenge was to find clothes that were breathable, modest, and passable as businesslike without being extravagant. Ready-to-wear was surprisingly accomodating that summer, but my most prized piece was a lovely last hurrah from Isaac Mizrahi for Target (RIP), a pink 100% cotton shirtdress with sturdy pockets. Pockets, it should be noted, are DEEPLY important in all things--and a rare commodity in women's clothing.

Here's a shot of me looking rather ghostly in it:

Unfortunately, the combination of rainy season and a hand-dyed bag I bought for carrying my notebooks got the better of the dress. The strap of the bag was deep blue, and it seemed that the back of my dress would also be deep blue forever. However, I loved the dress so much that I couldn't make myself get rid of it, even two years later in a fairly unwearable state.

I found the dress again when undertaking the Great Bedroom Excavation of 2010--which, by the way, I have demurred from blogging because it's going to have to happen in stages. Lots of stages. This is what it looked like:


And here is why I stopped wearing it:


I decided that it was time to put it back into the rotation, so I went to the grocery store and picked up a package of RIT Color Remover and two packages of RIT Navy Blue powder dye. (Navy Blue just seemed the obvious choice, given the color of the stain, and I figured that the Color Remover would help the final color look more even.)

I don't usually dye things. I am clumsy enough that I tend to avoid chemicals, and Laine and I do not have a functional washing machine. But this was personal. So as not to ruin any of our good cooking pots, I heated about three quarts of water in a stainless steel tureen on the stove, then put on some gloves and poured the water into our cast-off recycling bin with the packet of Color Remover. Then I threw the dress into the bin and stirred it with a big stick for about ten minutes.

Most of the color actually faded within the first few minutes.
Chemistry is awesome!

Then the dress looked like this:

I was actually pretty in love with the desaturated peach color, but Mizrahi's penchant for bright orange things still quite literally showed through. I thought it would look pretty silly to have giant orange blobs on my thighs, so I kept going with the Navy Blue dye. After I rinsed out the dress, I basically repeated the process shown above, but this time instead of Color Remover I added both packets of dye, a cup of table salt, and about a tablespoon of Forever New.

The end result was surprisingly good:

I rinsed it out as best I could (outside, of course), then let it dry on this branch overnight. The next day, I ran it through Shaun's washing machine (thanks!) and dryer. The final color is a nice purpleish blue. To test its colorfastness and to demonstrate my commitment to Pretty Clothes That Survive I incorporated it into my Chilly Weather Rainy Day Adventure Costume:

Two miles and lots of mud later...

Dress: Isaac Mizrahi for Target, dyed with RIT
Tights: Cynthia Rowland, via Gilt
Pashmina: Gift
Blazer: Old Navy, stolen from Shaun
Socks: Old Navy, stolen from Shaun
Shoes: Dr. Martens, stolen from Shaun

Over all, I would call this project a success. Two points of advice, however:

A) Don't use two packets of dye unless you want to be rinsing your garment for a VERY long time.

B) Follow the directions and use rubber gloves. I thought I could get away with using vinyl ones, but now my hands are sort of violet-colored. At least I'm matching.

And now, a nonsensical but vaguely relevant musical interlude!