29 December 2008
Crisp shadows on the bare hardwoods and bright sun raking the frosty grass…which yesterday was basking in 62 degrees of winter warmth…enough to bring three canary yellow dandelions to blossom…
Category: Musings
Solstice Soup
21 December 2008
So I got an email this morning from Maureen…
Hi Heather and Pat,
Just wanted to let you know I received the birthday chocolates in the mail. What a treat, having treats delivered! You can never have too much chocolate.
I have also been trying to plan a Christmas meal for Peter and I that is a good vegetarian meal that we don’t usually eat. I thought of the mushroom barley soup Peter said you used to make that he loved. I have made the one in the Moosewood cookbook and I was wondering if you used that recipe or a different one. If you have a minute today or tomorrow could you send it along?(if your share recipes!!!) We would love to have it is a new Follansbee tradition (the kids will probably never eat it but who knows!) Thanks.
Have a great holiday – stay all cuddled up and warm. We are planning to do the same.
Love,
Maureen
AND…as so often happens in this wonderful life…our worlds, and in this case our cuilinary spirits, weave through and around each other in a delightful dance…
Hey there Maureen,
we were mostly proud of ourselves for remembering when you said that you always wished for them…made us happy.
And, your timing is perfect ! I have a refrigerator full of ingredients to make that mushroom soup tonight…in honor of the longest night of the year.
Hoping that Paul Winter might be doing his Solstice concert in the newly renovated Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC tonight….if the radio covers it that it would be a wonderful evening.
I just spent the morning going through my favorite Vineyard cookbook planning out something simple and yet elegant for our day after with our kids. This year there will only be 4 coming and one is a strict vegan so she’s bringing her own meal.
OK the soup.
The king of memory has perhaps confused my soup with another because I never added barley…although it would be a very nice tree-hugging addition.
I’ll give you the basic recipe, at least what I aim for, and you can wing it from there.
It will take you longer to read this than to make it.
Prop up your feet, pop a chocolate cherry in your mouth, and off ya go…
Heather’s Mushroom Soup
Mushrooms ( lots, can’t have too many…I’d say at least 6-8 cups sliced…right now I have two of those big containers from the grocery store, and if you want to add some of the wild and wooly kind that are certainly available in your neck of the woods go right ahead…just don’t let the kids pick them. AND don’t wash them ! They are little sponges and you will have a watery mess in a soup. Just wipe off the biggest clods of dirt…the rest is good for ya )
Leeks ( 3 or 4 depending on the size )
Shallots (don’t really need them and they are expensive right now so I didn’t get them this time but they do add a lovely layer of rich flavor)
Butter
Flour ( can use whole wheat if you want but it does make it a bit grittier )
Chicken or Vegetable stock (now adays I use the ones that are organic and come in a juicy juice kinda box)
Cream ( and here I show my age and use the gift from the gods…fat free half and half…. though you wouldn’t know it to look at me….it is my favorite new diet food ingredient…guilt free and creamy !)
Prepare the ingredients….
this part takes the most time and involves some knife work so you might want to send Papa and the babes out for a long walk.
You probably have a favorite way to clean your leeks. I just cut the roots off, cut the tops off…leaving as much of the green as you can if in good shape, then I slice it in half lengthwise and rinse the hell out of it. Chop it all up into little pieces.
Slice all those mushrooms up. Same sized pieces. 1/8 ” wide. I know, I know…there’s the time factor. Put on some good music and it goes faster.
Slice shallots if you’re feeling rich…same size.
Get a big pot.
Put about half a stick of butter in and let it melt over medium heat.
Throw in the leeks and shallots and saute over medium heat until soft. Don’t be tempted to turn up the heat just to make this part go faster…you want the juices to come out slowly and blend into the butter.
It’s all about the butter.
When you got them good and limp but not burnt…add the mushrooms and let them do the same thing…release their moisture and soften but not cook all the way to mush.
That whole sauteeing bit might take 20-30 minutes.
When it looks like they are congealing nicely you sprinkle some flour over the mixture…maybe 1/4 cup but not much more…and stir that in and let it cook a little bit.
Then you add the stock.
Anywhere from 3-6 cups and I know that’s a wide spread but it depends on how many of the leeks and mushrooms you start with. Remembering that you will finish this off with some cream, and that it will reduce down…it’s much easier to add more than take some away.
NOW you can turn down the heat and walk away…or clean up the mess you made so far.
Let that simmer for 30 minutes to an hour. Don’t boil it though. You are just reducing the liquid and melding the flavors all together.
Then, here’s the tricky bit.
IF you have a cuisinart, and I still have my original one which has been much abused but is a trooper, you will now transfer the soup from the pot to the food processor in small batches and chop.
IF you do not have said processor you could use a blender but you don’t want baby food here, just a fine chop.
IF you have neither then don’t worry about it. Same exact taste. It’s just a texture thing and I usually make an unholy mess at this stage anyway so you can absolutely save yourself the trouble and go on to the last step.
Return whatever mixture you decide on to a medium heat and…
Add cream.
As much as you want without it getting too thin. 1/2 cup to 2 cups. ( I like a super creamy soup so I usually add less stock in the beginning (more like 2-3 cups) and add more cream in the end…but Pat doesn’t like it too creamy so once a year I go for the cream and otherwise thin it down )
Serve with some kick ass bread and cheese.
That’s IT !!!!
When you go to reheat just make sure not to boil. Nuking is ok but I prefer slow warm ups on the stove top.
But then I don’t have those beautiful children clinging to my apron strings.
We only got a spitting of snow…ugh…but we are snuggly all the same and tonight I will head home on the early side to make soup and sit by the fire with my babe…and if I’ve left anything out I will email you an update tomorrow. It’s all in my head so you never know.
Love to all your sugar plum fairies…
Heather
Morning Treasures…and a mystery.
1 December 2008
We have had a couple days of rain here along the little Conewago Creek. And the water is rising.
Gulliver and I were up early and tiptoed out of the cabin and over to the studio for our morning ritual walk to secure the perimeter… when I spotted a streak of yellow in the muddy leaves. Then another, and closer to the fireplace…several more. We followed the trail and came up with 15 or 16 feathers…and it looks like a near miss because these were the only parts to be found.
It was about this same time last year when I first received a gift of feathers from this same bird.
Then, there were two or three and they were beautifully layed out a thin crust of new snow. I didn’t recognize any winter birds with that much brilliant color so I gave one to Zola so we could both investigate which bird had offered them up.
The longest in this batch is 5 1/2 inches and the smallest is a very mish 1 1/2 inches. ( If your monitors are unreliable, the yellow is a true canary yellow and the black is raven.)
And now, it would seem, another … rather stronger… message. This bird is seriously trying to get my attention. So, I am throwing it out there to you all. I eagerly await hearing from you experts…Who is she ?
Meanwhile…back on the easel…I am struggling through the beginnings of a large portrait of the camp on the bluff and am relying on the continuing saga of Russell and Holmes to take my critical self away and free up my right brain to do its thing. We have finished our romp on the Moors and have now opened the door to a stranger…or is he ?
Ah… the mysteries.
HN
Still Sobbing
6 November 2008
It’s probably the new hormones.
But I heard an interview yesterday with an American Citizen abroad in Mexico who said she had been in Grant Park 40 years ago under very different circumstances and that she was experiencing waves of powerful emotions after Obama’s election and speech there on Tuesday. She said if felt as if she were letting go of decades of pain and shame and anger. Tears wouldn’t stop coming and there were layers of grief woven through the elation.
I understand me tears in a new way now and it seems like there aren’t enough.
And just when I got myself under control… I got this email from our friend David, one of our favorite humans, which included a video he shot from his apartment in Union Square NYC right after Obama’s acceptance speech…. it captures an amazing moment…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a5148tVba8
…and there I go again.
Be well,
Heather
I lift my glass.
5 November 2008
Yes we did.
From chinese take-out in the solidly blue state of Pennsylvania, to leftover stews in the newly blue state of virginia, and family dinners in a booth at Offshore Ale on Martha’s Vineyard, to Shopska in Bulgaria and an evening with the US Embassador in Lesotho, to Mama in her kitchen making eggplant while Papa read one more bedtime story, to chai ice cream on top of tarte tatin along the Hudson, we spent the day voting, we spent the night watching, we lifted out voices and our glasses and became the change we need.
One giant leap for mankind.
Yes.
H
Election Night THROW DOWN !
2 November 2008
T Minus 2 Days and Counting !!!
All right now !
IF, as many of you have been reporting, your households are as anxious about the next two days as we are in our log cabin (which is empty now most of the day as Herself notches up her campaign work and I bury my restless soul in the studio at the easel)…
and IF, as I know to be the case, we share the common value that one of our best diversions is a good meal !!!
Well then, I am declaring a THROW DOWN !!!
WHAT are YOU all planning to serve up on your coffee tables, in front of your flatscreens, and within reach of the internet connections… to get you through election night ?????
I want details and I want appropriate beverage couplings.
Share you menus, fears, dreams, desires and recipes by commenting below.
Hang in there … hope is just around the corner my friends,
Stay frosty,
Heather
Home away from home…and back again.
17 October
Well it’s finally been a quiet week along the banks of the Little Conewago Creek.
We have a carpet of crispy leaves on the lane and a gentle breeze last night brought in some more seasonal weather so the morning air is just as crisp…and we have weeks of memories to unpack from our annual MV fall trip. My intention was to send up a nice long post about all the goings on and the adventures we had…but since my return to the studio my focus has been fiercely on painting again and I don’t want to take the time away from the easel…soooo
I’ll just put up some photos of highlights…we spent more energy this year on people which was as fulfulling as it was exhausting for this hermit of an artiste…Noteably absent are pictures from the MV Museum fundraising dinner at the Granary where Vineyard artists were invited to a progressive dinner to meet and talk with patrons. It was a wonderful evening of fine food and conversation and we enjoyed our time with both old and new friends.
Also not photographed… but none the less adventurous…
Our first night with The Good’s in Ct and some warm family time…and on island…we had debate watching parties and art night dinners and gallery visits and lots of lunches with our friend Ted and reunions with room-mates and bluff-mates, some sunny walks on the beach and rainy days of reading and knitting and lobsters and clams and wine with all. Then we drove the long way home to stop and see Auntie Lo in her Boston digs and on to Lake Placid to see the progress on the amazing log house which Jon is building. And then full circle home again to our little log cabin.
MV Fall 08 Gallery
Now, it’s lunchtime…Herself has been to market and back and is off to spend the day at Obama headquarters where she will be every waking minute until the election….and, after some spinach pie, I will be at the easel where I hope to be every waking minute for the foreseeable future.
Stay frosty out there friends, we’re thinking of you,
HN
The Lace Reader
7 September
I’ve been saving up a few favorites to pass along and this is at the top of the list.
The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry… Many of you NPR listeners may have heard the interview a few weeks back with the author and her husband. They shared the story of their publishing phenom which rocketed this book from a self-published stack of pages to a multi-million dollar book deal. Caught my attention but the book itself is a winner. I listened to it while doing the last painting and actually read it twice to go back and catch some of the early clues that drifted away. It is a superb mystery and beautifully crafted.
I found my way to her website, and blog in which she mentions doing an interview with Diane Rehm…so I downloaded the podcast of it and listened AFTER reading. (There was a much anticipated surprise ending that I didn’t want to spoil). Not since discovering Laurie R. King and her brilliant writings have I enjoyed a novel as much.
Here’s a link to the website and her blog is there as well.
Pat is saving her copy of the book for the Vineyard next week. I can’t wait to talk to her about it when she’s finished. For everyone of my book reading, story loving friends…
No Tadpole !
30 August
When you are 8, and your dream is to be a zookeeper, and you ordered a tadpole habitat over a month ago, and you had the neighbor come every day while you were away camping to check the mailbox so that your tadpole (which was supposed to come that week) would not bake in the mailbox…and when you came home…it had not arrived as promised…and every day for the next two weeks you skipped down the driveway to meet the maillady and came shuffling back witout the tadpole…and now you have just started back to school and have to wait until you get home on the afternoon bus to check and see if….if…IF your leopard frog tadpole has come yet !!!!!
Well I suppose then you would be so frustrated that you too would be driven to put up a sign on your front porch … 
HANG IN THERE ZOLA !!!!
MV Times Article
23 August
Took some extra grit this morning but we did manage to load up our little family and haul our sleepy selves up to the high school for the South Beach Supercharged Walk. Week 2. It’s a lot prettier than the alternating days’ exercise routine…trust me. And it does feel great to get the stiff old joints moving early in the day, come home to a protein filled meal, shower up and be charged up to get right to work at the easel.
I made a detour today to check email and found a note from friend Jen on the Vineyard,
” Congratulations once again on MV Times front page. Great article, but where’s your picture? “.
Here’s a link to that article …
Brooks Robards called for an interview last week and we had an interesting conversation about the many interpretations and definitions of REALISM in art today. She pushed me to clarify where I felt my artwork fit into that genre.
People often respond that my paintings “look just like a photograph”, but I am not a Photorealist. not as Estes, Close and Goings and others defined the genre in the 60’s. Here’s a brief definition from Wikipedia..
Photorealist painting cannot exist without the photograph. In Photorealism, change and movement must be frozen in time which must then be accurately represented by the artist.[14] Photorealists gather their imagery and information with the camera and photograph. Once the photograph is developed (usually onto a photographic slide) the artist will systematically transfer the image from the photographic slide onto canvases. This is done by either projecting the slide or grid techniques.[15] The resulting images are often direct copies of the original photograph but are usually larger than the original photograph or slide. This results in the photorealist style being tight and precise, often with an emphasis on imagery that requires a high level of technical prowess and virtuosity to simulate, such as reflections in specular surfaces and the geometric rigor of man-made environs.[16]
20th century photorealism can be contrasted with the similarly literal style found in trompe l’oeil paintings of the 19th century. However, trompe l’oeil paintings tended to be carefully designed, very shallow-space still-lifes, employing illusionistic devices such as the use of shadows to cause small objects to appear to exist above the surface of the painting. (Trompe l’oeil literally means “fool the eye.”) The photorealism movement moved beyond this illusionism to tackle deeper spatial representations (e.g. urban landscapes) and took on much more varied and dynamic subject matter.
In so far as a Photorealist is trying to make their paintings look like an actual photograph they are focusing on a two dimensional product. The craftsmanship has to be strong, the technique flawless, in order to convince the viewer, but the subject matter is static, representing a moment or snapshot in time.
This differs from my goal, at least what I am trying to aim for, which is to uncover layers of meaning and narrative and light from the subjects in my paintings which represents them in an arch of time and history.
I do use photographs for reference when I can’t sit the subject down in front of my easel, but have, sometimes, hundreds of shots that relay information as to detail, design and form. Coupled with sketches and studies over time and in many different conditions of light and space, I build a composition, especially with the still lifes, that often could not exist in the “real” world. Even with the landscapes and figurative work, elements may be altered to enhance the structure of the composition or the narrative. But, hopefully, the essence endures.
I appreciate your generous and kind words about the paintings Brooks, and you got the point that I so clumsily was trying to articulate…that that third dimension is where the difference lies…from her article, she (Heather) says, “I aim to be three-dimensional. That’s where the soul comes in. I like having several layers in a painting. You have a whole narrative going, then you step back and look at the title and get a whole other idea. There’s a sense of mystery.”
Light, mystery, the patina of history, and above all a good dose of humble humor…that’s my reality, the realism I try to represent in my work.
I’m not sure which of my artist friends has the time or inclination to read these blog entries…but I would love to continue this conversation. What is your definition of Realism, and how does it inform your artwork?
Chime in and link us to some of your artwork while you’re at it. Opening new windows is what this blog is all about.
And now, it’s time to leave the cyber world and get to the easel…
Stay frosty out there, HN