my sewing machine

Twenty five years ago, Grandma Ryan gave me a sewing machine for my birthday. She actually recruited our friend Mary to get one in Seattle, so as to save on shipping costs, and Mary took me along so I could help pick it out. We went to a cluttered sewing machine/vacuum cleaner store in far-off Ballard, where  the man recommended a Dorina Hobby 541. 'It's made by Pfaff, and has the durability and quality of a Pfaff, but is much cheaper.'

I waited till after my birthday to try it out, as I'm a stickler for doing things at their proper times. I took it around to Annie's, and she warned me as we set it up that I should have signed up for lessons at the vacuum cleaner shop. 'But it's all the way in Ballard,' I protested, 'and my sewing machine is too heavy to take on the bus. And the man at the store really didn't look like a seamstress!' 'Well, we may never be able to figure out the tension', she said. 'It can be really hard to get it set up at first.' We followed the instructions in the booklet for winding the bobbin and threading the machine, and tried to sew a seam. It sewed about one-and-a-half stitches, then made a terrible grinding noise and stopped. 'That's the tension,' Annie said. 'You'll have to go to Ballard.' I gave up, told Grandma I loved my present, and had Annie sew her a little book cover (pretending it was made by me with my present) to hide her trashy novels. My sewing machine has been at Annie's house ever since.

Rachael's been expressing an interest in sewing lately--she wants a hobby and doesn't really like knitting--and I decided to try to figure out my sewing machine's tension so Rachael and I could have fun sewing times with it. Surely, with the internet, it couldn't be too hard to figure out without going all the way to Ballard!

(this is a pincushion Rachael made me in Family Life in the sixth grade)



My sewing machine had been in Annie's closet for many years, then gotten lost for a while before resurfacing in the basement, so its outside had gotten pretty dirty. I washed it off and looked it over. The case had protected it from dust pretty well, and the only obvious thing it needed was a replacement for its broken needle. I got it a needle, set it up, and tried to sew. It made a stitch-and-a-half, then a terrible grinding sound! Its instructions were nowhere to be found, but I managed to find a free low-fi PDF  (nice printed copies were at least $20!). According to this, the problem was most likely that the bobbin tension was too tight, and I should loosen a little screw in the bobbin case.  I did this and tried again.



It worked! I decided to make a patchwork dog for which I'd bought the material and even cut out the squares fifteen years ago, but abandoned at that point. I'd originally intended to sew it by hand, but it would provide a valuable opportunity to practice making many, many seams with my sewing machine. It was a litlte tedious, but I got it done. Here he is right after I finished the sewing:

 

and here he is a few days later, after I stuffed him:



I think he turned out pretty well! His name is Celestin.

a happy birthday

Today is Rachael's 23rd birthday, and she didn't want a big party so we had the aunties over for lunch. The menu was a qualified success; Rachael wanted Asian food, and the aunties have conservative, western palates. We had rice, mapo tofu (with hardly any chile but with the rest of the seasoning intact),




kai-lan (AKA gai lan, Chinese kale, or Chinese broccoli),




an apple daikon salad modeled on a salad I liked at Bako,




and clementine cake with chocolate sorbet (I forgot to take a picture till the party was over).



Everyone liked the rice and, somewhat surprisingly, the tofu, but the long pieces of kai-lan were a little hard for the aunties to manipulate and neither had heard of daikon so didn't want to try it. Rachael liked the kai-lan, though--she thought it was vastly superior to the baby bok choy I'd initially planned to make. 'Mommy, you could just substitute this whenever a recipe calls for bok choy!' We also both liked my salad, so I'll record its recipe in case I want to make it again.

Apple Daikon Salad
serves 4-6, depending on what else you're having

a medium, red apple, quartered, cored, and thinly sliced
about 12oz of daikon, peeled, halved lengthwise, and thinly sliced
2 celery stalks, thinly sliced on the diagonal
3 or 4 green onions, thinly sliced on the diagonal
2t yuzu juice or 1t each lime and orange juice
2t peanut oil
1t toasted, crushed sesame seeds
salt

Mix everything together in a big bowl, then transfer to a pretty platter to serve.

an excellent use for your stripy pan

I've made this recipe twice lately, because it's so easy and good! Rachael especially likes it, and always wants seconds. It's by the ever-inventive Yotam Ottolenghi and can be found here. I made it exactly as written except that I used 1lb of broccolini (AKA baby broccoli) instead of the called-for 550g of purple sprouting broccoli. I've never seen purple sprouting at a store or farmer's market around here, and think it's probably only available to those who grow it themselves. Anyway, if you have stripy pan you really should try this recipe!

yummy, yummy tofu

If you're in need of a quick pick-me-up and have some tofu handy, you should try this super-quick scrambled tofu. It takes less than five minutes to make, from decision to in-your-bowl!

serves one
a little bit of olive oil
1/2 a carton of firm (not extra-firm) tofu, 3.5-4oz
1/8t each black salt* and turmeric
a couple of grinds of black pepper and a couple of shakes of garlic powder (I like Spike Garlic Magic)

Heat your frying pan over medium heat with a little olive oil in it. Squish the tofu through your fingers directly into the pan (you needn't wait for the pan to heat up), then add the seasonings. Stir around to get everything mixed together, then stir occasionally till it's all warm and steamy. Transfer to your dish and eat.

*You can get this at your local Indian or Pakistani store, or from Amazon.

yet another hippie dressing

If you're fond of tahini-based salad dressings, as I am, you'll probably like this one as well as my Goddess and Woodstock clones. It has an east Asian flavor profile, and would likely overwhelm a plain lettuce salad, but it nicely complemented the seaweed Waldorf salad I made recently and is also good with heartier greens like cabbage and kale.

Creamy Gingery Dressing
makes about a pint
1/2C tamari
1/2C tahini
1/4C sesame oil
1T agave nectar (or honey or maple syrup)
1/4C apple cider vinegar
fresh ginger, about 1 1/2T, peeled and roughly chopped
1/4 oil (olive or canola)
juice of half a lime

Whiz everything in your blender till smooth. It will be pourable at first, but thicken up as it rests.



My seaweed Waldorf salad is made with about 20g mixed dried seaweed, rehydrated in cool water, along with a banana, an apple, a couple of green onions, a couple of stalks of celery, and some finely shredded cabbage, all mixed together with about 2T of Gingery Dressing.

The below-pictured coleslaw was made with half of a small green cabbage, finely shredded, along with a chopped apple, a big handful of briefly-soaked-in-tea sultanas, and maybe 3T of Gingery Dressing. Both salads keep well for a couple of days, so are good for work lunches.

a light wintery soup

Mushroom Soup
serves 3
10g dried porcinis
2t olive oil
a medium red onion, julienned
2 medium carrots, diced
250g creminis, or a mixture of fancier mushrooms if you like, thinly sliced
marjoram, thyme, urfa biber (or similar mild chile), a big pinch or two of each
2t of a light miso, like chickpea
2t black vinegar or sherry vinegar
1/2C chopped parsley

Cover the porcinis with water and let them soak while you prepare the remaining ingredients. Heat the oil in a big soup pot over medium-low heat and add the onion. Stir occasionally. Dice the carrots and add them. When the onions are well-done and the carrots are beginning to brown a little, add the sliced mushrooms and turn the heat up to medium. When the mushrooms have gotten nicely limp and are beginning to brown, strain the porcini soaking water into the pot and add enough additional water to cover everything generously. Slice the softened porcinis and add them to the soup along with the marjoram, thyme, and urfa biber. Bring to gentle boil, turn down the heat, cover the pot, and let simmer for about ten minutes. Take of the heat and add the miso (using a miso-koshi if you have one) and vinegar. Stir thoroughly, then taste for seasoning. Does it need more salt than was provided by the miso? More vinegar? Finally, mix in the parsley and serve.
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tuna-safe tempeh salad

I made this tempeh salad for my work lunch a couple of days ago, and thought I'd better chronicle it here so I don't forget about it. It's really quick and easy, though not very fishy-tasting.  Next time I'll try it with some stronger-tasting seaweed like hijiki, even though it will be less attractively pink than  it is with dulse.... I had intended to eat it with crackers but was too lazy to make the crackers so ended up making little lettuce wraps. That was good too, though maybe not quite as satisfying as the cracker would have been.

Tempeh Salad
serves 3
8oz tempeh, cut into little 1/4-1/8" cubes
a handful of seaweed
a medium avocado
1 1/2T Vegenaise
juice of 1/2 a lemon
a small dill pickle, minced
a smallish shallot, minced
2 stalks of celery, thinly sliced
1T soy sauce
2t seedy mustard
1t vinegar (whatever kind you like)
1 clove of garlic, crushed
pepper

Steam the tempeh for 10 minutes and put the seaweed in a cup and cover it with water. Meanwhile, scrape the avocado insides into a big bowl and mash it thoroughly with the Vegenaise and lemon juice. Mix the remaining ingredients in, then add the tempeh. When the seaweed's soft, drain it and squeeze it, then chop it finely. Stir it in, and then let everything rest in the fridge for at least an hour before serving.