Recent reading, crafts fair, and stuff
Nov. 22nd, 2006 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunrabSleight of Hand, the latest by Kate Wilhelm in her Barbara Holloway series. I'm getting a bit tired of Barbara's waffling on personal relationships - the mystery and law parts of these books are still wonderful, intricate, intelligent, but Barbara as a person, well, she's grating on me.
Starwater Strains, a collection of short stories by Gene Wolfe - not my favorite author, and most of the stories are so-so to my taste, but the one about the dog who's pictured on the cover is pretty funny.
Nail Biter, latest in the Home Repair Homicide series by Sarah Graves - it's good except for the end, where first she kills off a continuing major character in a particularly unlikely fashion, then she suddenly throws in a touch of the supernatural from out of left field.
Screaming Science Fiction: Horrors from Out of Space by Brian Lumley, another short story collection, some OK stories, some I skipped over after the first page or two.
This past Sunday I sold hats and shawls at a crafts fair in Columbia. After last year, when the kitty ear hats sold out by mid-afternoon, I made lots of kitty ear hats for this year. Not a one sold. And only a few regular hats. But the shawls, which were an experiment - they sold well, 5 of them, which since they were $20 to $30 each, that's a goodly number to sell, at a crafts fair where most stuff is in the $2 to $10 range. The booth next to me was jewelry, and apart from a couple of pairs of small earrings, she sold only one necklace, and the one other knit/crochet booth, a woman selling scarves, sold only a couple, even though they were only $10 and $15 each. (Just garter stitch knit, but with 2 yarns in each, one a fancy yarn. Stuff I could do in my sleep and wouldn't really bother - especially since she sold fewer than half a dozen.) I did get a couple of commissions to make hats, to specifically match scarves that people bought from her! And I have a commission to make hat and scarf sets for a guy at the car dealer - the one we bought the Mazda from last December, where several of the salespeople bought stuff from me. When I bring over the commissioned pieces, I'll bring over a few odds and ends of hats and shawls, too, and see if anyone else there wants to buy some.
Rehearsal Monday night: Bel Air. I'm not playing the Bel Air concert on December 10, because it conflicts with Montgomery Village, so we're splitting it:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
squirrel_magnet will play with Bel Air, since they need him more than they need me and more than MV needs him; I'll do the MV concert, since they need me more than they need him, and they need me more than Bel Air needs me. There are three other tenor saxes at Bel Air right now. However, after Christmas that may change - one of them is a Harford Community College student taking band for credit, so he probably won't continue to play after the semester's over, and then Bob, our section leader (as distinguished from Bob, the bari sax player, and also Bob, Bob, Rob, Bobbi, and Bob in other sections) is beginning to lose it due to age; he has real trouble finding the place these days, coming in on time, distinguishing cues from regular notes, etc., and he's beginning to even realize that he's got a problem.
Rehearsal Tuesday night: Baltimore. I've got to woodshed a bit more on "Santa Claus comes to Dixieland" 'cause I've got a couple of real exposed duets with one trumpet, and while I have most of it down, right at the beginning it's not great. There are several other jazz-type arrangements, too, which have the sax section playing the melody. This is fun, being needed, and heard, and important! Now if only there were adequate parking spaces at CCBC-Essex where we rehearse, I'd be a really happy camper.
No rehearsal tonight. I am making roasted veggies to bring to dinner tomorrow at my brother G's place, and I've already finished the no-sugar, low-fat, no-cholesterol pumpkin pies. The pumpkin part will taste fine, but the pie crust is an experiment, so I don't know how it will come out. It uses low-fat ricotta cheese instead of butter or shortening or lard. We shall see.
Roasted winter vegetables :
1 small bag pearl onions
1 bulb garlic
1 butternut squash
1 sweet potato
1 leek (more if you like)
one pound of parsnips, preferably in the form of a couple of large parsnips rather than 4 or 5 small ones
1/2 pound brussels sprouts
olive oil
fresh rosemary leaves, stripped off the stem
fresh thyme leaves, stripped off the stem
Peel the outer layer off the pearl onions, and trim the tops and bottoms if they are conspicuous. Peel the garlic bulb, and then peel half a dozen of the individual cloves. Cut the top and bottom off the squash, cut it in half laterally to make it easier to handle, scoop out the seeds, and then peel it. Then cut it into 1" cubes. Peel the sweet potato and cut it into 1" cubes. Scrape/peel the parsnips, trimming off the ends, and cut the thin end into 2" slices and the thick end into 1" slices. Wash the brussels sprouts and peel off any wilted leaves.
Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a shallow pan, sprinkle the leaves into it, and then a bit at a time, toss the veggie pieces in the oil to coat them, and then put them in a large casserole dish or roasting pan. Place a few more leaves of the rosemary and thyme sprinkled across the top. Bake, uncovered, for about an hour, at 350 to 375 F.
Starwater Strains, a collection of short stories by Gene Wolfe - not my favorite author, and most of the stories are so-so to my taste, but the one about the dog who's pictured on the cover is pretty funny.
Nail Biter, latest in the Home Repair Homicide series by Sarah Graves - it's good except for the end, where first she kills off a continuing major character in a particularly unlikely fashion, then she suddenly throws in a touch of the supernatural from out of left field.
Screaming Science Fiction: Horrors from Out of Space by Brian Lumley, another short story collection, some OK stories, some I skipped over after the first page or two.
This past Sunday I sold hats and shawls at a crafts fair in Columbia. After last year, when the kitty ear hats sold out by mid-afternoon, I made lots of kitty ear hats for this year. Not a one sold. And only a few regular hats. But the shawls, which were an experiment - they sold well, 5 of them, which since they were $20 to $30 each, that's a goodly number to sell, at a crafts fair where most stuff is in the $2 to $10 range. The booth next to me was jewelry, and apart from a couple of pairs of small earrings, she sold only one necklace, and the one other knit/crochet booth, a woman selling scarves, sold only a couple, even though they were only $10 and $15 each. (Just garter stitch knit, but with 2 yarns in each, one a fancy yarn. Stuff I could do in my sleep and wouldn't really bother - especially since she sold fewer than half a dozen.) I did get a couple of commissions to make hats, to specifically match scarves that people bought from her! And I have a commission to make hat and scarf sets for a guy at the car dealer - the one we bought the Mazda from last December, where several of the salespeople bought stuff from me. When I bring over the commissioned pieces, I'll bring over a few odds and ends of hats and shawls, too, and see if anyone else there wants to buy some.
Rehearsal Monday night: Bel Air. I'm not playing the Bel Air concert on December 10, because it conflicts with Montgomery Village, so we're splitting it:
squirrel_magnet will play with Bel Air, since they need him more than they need me and more than MV needs him; I'll do the MV concert, since they need me more than they need him, and they need me more than Bel Air needs me. There are three other tenor saxes at Bel Air right now. However, after Christmas that may change - one of them is a Harford Community College student taking band for credit, so he probably won't continue to play after the semester's over, and then Bob, our section leader (as distinguished from Bob, the bari sax player, and also Bob, Bob, Rob, Bobbi, and Bob in other sections) is beginning to lose it due to age; he has real trouble finding the place these days, coming in on time, distinguishing cues from regular notes, etc., and he's beginning to even realize that he's got a problem. Rehearsal Tuesday night: Baltimore. I've got to woodshed a bit more on "Santa Claus comes to Dixieland" 'cause I've got a couple of real exposed duets with one trumpet, and while I have most of it down, right at the beginning it's not great. There are several other jazz-type arrangements, too, which have the sax section playing the melody. This is fun, being needed, and heard, and important! Now if only there were adequate parking spaces at CCBC-Essex where we rehearse, I'd be a really happy camper.
No rehearsal tonight. I am making roasted veggies to bring to dinner tomorrow at my brother G's place, and I've already finished the no-sugar, low-fat, no-cholesterol pumpkin pies. The pumpkin part will taste fine, but the pie crust is an experiment, so I don't know how it will come out. It uses low-fat ricotta cheese instead of butter or shortening or lard. We shall see.
1 small bag pearl onions
1 bulb garlic
1 butternut squash
1 sweet potato
1 leek (more if you like)
one pound of parsnips, preferably in the form of a couple of large parsnips rather than 4 or 5 small ones
1/2 pound brussels sprouts
olive oil
fresh rosemary leaves, stripped off the stem
fresh thyme leaves, stripped off the stem
Peel the outer layer off the pearl onions, and trim the tops and bottoms if they are conspicuous. Peel the garlic bulb, and then peel half a dozen of the individual cloves. Cut the top and bottom off the squash, cut it in half laterally to make it easier to handle, scoop out the seeds, and then peel it. Then cut it into 1" cubes. Peel the sweet potato and cut it into 1" cubes. Scrape/peel the parsnips, trimming off the ends, and cut the thin end into 2" slices and the thick end into 1" slices. Wash the brussels sprouts and peel off any wilted leaves.
Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a shallow pan, sprinkle the leaves into it, and then a bit at a time, toss the veggie pieces in the oil to coat them, and then put them in a large casserole dish or roasting pan. Place a few more leaves of the rosemary and thyme sprinkled across the top. Bake, uncovered, for about an hour, at 350 to 375 F.
