Happy Birthday Tasha!

The Rolls for Special Occasion and the Butterscotch Rolls are in the oven for a very late tea, because today we are celebrating the birthday of New England's Tasha Tudor, beloved illustrator and author of children's books. She died this summer and today she would have been 93. Unlike most, I have not grown up with her books and I just stumbled across her a while back. A couple of blogs announced a celebration of Tasha Tudor and I decided to learn a bit more and requested a multitude of books through the library. My mother has been collecting picture books as long as I can think and Tasha Tudor would fit in beautifully, but the books are much less a focus for me, it is more her way and view of life. I am incredibly inspired after reading so much about her and I am in awe about how much she is a kindred spirit. I'd like to attempt an explanation.

In a way Tasha Tudor reminds me of my roots, like the picture of my great great grandmother at the spinning wheel and the way she dressed like my old great aunts when I was little. I am sure that is a big part of the appeal of her life, her art work and her practiced anachronism (Hey, kind of like our visit to Sturbridge below). We live in such a crazy, fast paced, modern and ugly world that we all yearn for the simplicity of times gone by. Of course the apparent simplicity came with a lot of hard work. As Tasha Tudor said: "Don't look for shortcuts; all good and worthwhile things take time and effort." I think that has been the mantra of my mother and my grandmother. I grew up part time in the agrarian world with harvesting, pickling, baking bread, hooking rugs, getting up early to milk the cows, feed the pigs, tend to the garden and so forth. Even though I am not part of this anymore, it made me who I am and I grew up self reliant and with a lot of freedom to do whatever I wanted to do.

Already when I was quite young, people characterized me (lovingly and teasing) as somebody who plants flax for fiber, then weaves it into fabric for a table cloth to be decorated with self cut stamps and home-brewed natural dye, just to adorn a table built from some trees I cut down. Yes, I like making things from scratch. If I look at my mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother; the women in my family have always been like this, may it be arts & crafts, cooking, baking, gardening, landscaping, woodwork, any textile art or whatever else comes to mind. Like Tasha, the women in my family are industrious, the hands are never idle and we take great pride in the work and tasks we do.

Harry Davis asked Tasha to sum up her life in as few words as possible and she said "I was always tired". That made me laugh out loud, because I can absolutely emphasize. People often ask me when I do all my sewing, carpentry, gardening, kitchen arts and so on and I always reply that I do not sleep. I am sure there are a lot of people out there, that feel the same. But I see some other similarities too. When I spoke to my mother today and told her about Tasha Tudor and why I like her so much, she reminded me with a chuckle how I always thought I was born into the wrong time and really belonged to the 19th century. Harry Davis speaks about her dark side also, how she could be a procrastinator and how she could be mean, stubborn, imperious and unforgiving, by her own account. I admit to the very same personality traits.

Even though I did not make it into art school, I always did illustrations and graphic design on the side or full time. I yet have to put some efforts into my own children's books, which have a hard time to actually materialize, partially due to my own business with crafts, textile and paper arts. Tovah Martin says about Tasha Tudor that all the parts of her life work comfortably together - which just this year has become one of my main goals and is part of this blog. I think it is interesting how Tasha despised the word craft and I think I understand why. If you know german, the word 'Kunsthandwerk' is much more appropriate, but it is difficult to translate meaning something like artistic craft, for the lack of a better translation.

The easiest way to connect to Tasha Tudor is in the kitchen. Being the daughter of a chef, I am quite comfortable there and like my mother and Tasha Tudor, most of my recipes start with "melt butter and saute onions" and I use imagination instead of measurements, much to the chagrin of people that ask me for recipes. I absolutely love the idea that she grows her wheat, thrashes and grounds it and after drinking tea for thirty years, I wholeheartedly agree with the importance of tea time. Tasha Tudor made soup every week, huge pots that can feed an army and she pointed out the importance of seasoning and flavor. If you have been to my house, you know soup is a cornerstone of my cooking.

In no means do I claim to be like Tasha Tudor, she was so unique and wonderful and a national treasure - and I don't even have a corgi - but I hope I was able to show why I think we are kindred spirits and maybe allowed a glimpse of why I am so inspired. I like to close this with one of my favourite Tudor quotes that shows up in the recipe for Raspberry Syrup: "I advise reading a book while stirring so as not to waste time."

Thank you for your time, I hope it was not wasted :)

I have enjoyed this week:
The Tasha Tudor Cookbook
Tasha Tudor's Heirloom Crafts
The Art of Tasha Tudor by Harry Davis
Tasha Tudor's Old-Fashioned Gifts

P.S. The Butterscotch Rolls were quite yummy! And though they are not exactly health food, Tasha Tudor also said: "...once a year will not hurt you, and life is too short not to enjoy a few treats."

Mischief is my middle name

A friend of mine put me up to take the 'What Kind of Flower Are You? Quiz' at This Garden is Illegal and it showed that I am a Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus). I am relieved, since they are quite so lovely. Here is what that says about me: "Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh."

I think that is very interesting, because it is true, if anything characterizes me, it is how many friends I have and how much I make them laugh with my odd stories. What this has to do with Snapdragons, I do not know and there is not as much mischief left in me as was once. What I do know is that they are very hardy and can withstand a heavy frost, even thought they came from the Old World - the Mediterranean to be specific. Well I am hardy too and I deal with winter pretty well.

I am just really happy that I am not a Canada Thistle: "You are a mean spirited, ornery cuss. People try to get rid of you and you just keep coming back." You should see the 9 foot tall thistle out there in my yard, it is impressive and ugly.

The best day of summer

Yesterday was our last day before the new school year. Our summer break went by too quickly, just like everybody I have been talking to and there was no unscheduled time at all, except for yesterday. So we all slept in and just decided during breakfast what to do with that lovely and beautiful Monday. Our library has a great program of museum passes and we checked availability and decided on Old Sturbridge Village. We had been wanting to go for quite a while anyway, since the kids have been on a kind of american history trip and they had their old fashioned dresses all ready from our pioneer party the day before. We packed our picnic basket and filled our water-bottles and headed west.

A few years back we made our way out there on a cold January Sunday and got so cold between the car and the entrance, that we opted out. Yesterday was the perfect day though. OSV (Old Sturbridge Village) is offering a plethora of activities and demonstrations on any given day and we decided right away to just do a few houses and things and come back - come back often! We watched a demonstration of dying wool and then of handling a musket. The poor man showing that must have damaged ears for sure. After a brief stop in the tin shop, we headed for the old school house and on the way tried some shuttlecock and trundle rings. At the old schoolhouse we encountered a wonderful and funny young lady teacher, the children absolutely enjoyed it. Our next stop was the potterer and the children had never seen somebody working at the pottery wheel and their faces lit up like candles, they thought that was the most amazing thing they had ever seen. Having tried and failed the pottery wheel, I was just as amazed.

Next on our agenda was a demonstration of broom making, followed by a stop at the bake shop, trying to milk a (plastic-) cow and a break on the playground, where they were working on their skills of playing Graces. This was followed by a hands-on craft making a tin candle holder, which was not as elaborate as the girls had hoped. S being a lover of horses needed to have a horse drawn ride around the mill pond, actually she wanted more than one, but we were in desperate need of lunch, as it was already tea time. We headed to the tavern, got some uninspiring modern kids food and then concluded our visit with two women filling paper tissue balloons with hot air over an small charcoal oven and letting them fly into the sky. S. did not want to stop watching all the failed attempts due to the breeze sweeping down the common. Only a visit to the village bookstore and gift shop could get her moving. We bought a game of graces, though we really loved the trundle hoops too, and they each got a candy stick to sweeten the way home and saying good-bye to summer.

On the way home J. remarked, that this has been the best day of all summer for her and this would have been a lovely ending, but of course S. literal to the bone, had to point out, that the day was not over yet and J. would have to wait with such a statement until the day was truly over. Since it is over today, we can say that it was the best day of summer!

The evil water bottle

Last Monday I went to pick up S from soccer camp. All the fields were littered with water bottles - discarded water bottles, some of them even almost full. Interestingly, a lot of them were the Poland Springs eco bottle. When I first saw that commercial a few months back, I could hardly believe it. Poland Springs is trying to make people believe that they are actually doing something environmental by buying the eco shape bottle and I think this is bordering on green washing. Isn't it great that the bottle is lighter and - wow - even the paper label is 30% smaller. This does not take away from the fact bottled water is absolutely out of place in every day life and actually only belongs to special circumstances. The fact that so many children just leave the bottles on the field is a whole other topic, that I do not want to get in here now.

The production, transportation and consumption of bottled water wastes resources and energy and pollutes our environment. Millions of barrels of oil are used to make plastic bottles and more is needed to transport them, some even across the ocean. The vast majority of bottles end up as rubbish in landfills, even if they are recyclable. Can you imagine 30 million plastic water bottles a day? Or the bottles get burned and release toxins into the air. On top of it, it takes a lot more water in the process, than actually ends up in the bottle. Let's not forget that water is actually a precious resource, too. Some might argue that the oil used for the plastic bottles is minimal when compared to transportation of other food or drinks. Even though that might be a valid point, I cannot consider it, because changing from bottled to tap water is something everybody can do easily. Orange juice has to come from somewhere other than New England (which is one of the reasons we do not buy it regularly anymore), but I have a lot of faucets. Bottled water is unnecessary and as a consumer I can make a decision that is responsible and not selfish.

Some people think bottled water is safer, but in truth, municipal water underlies stringent EPA testing requirements. The Natural Resources Defense Council did a four-year review of the bottled water industry and concluded that "there is no assurance that just because water comes out of a bottle, it is any cleaner or safer than water from the tap." 70% of bottled water produced and sold within states is exempt from FDA regulation, and a good 1/3 "of tested bottled water brands violated, in at least one sample, an enforceable standard or exceeded microbiological-purity guidelines." Additionally, plastic bottles leach chemicals, which is why that have the warning not to reuse the bottles. So I can filter my water at home and use something safer to store the water. If I am in doubt, I can have the water tested to make sure there is no contamination like lead or something else.

We are a convenient society and buying bottled water seems so convenient, or is it? Somehow my life does not seems more complicated and stressful because I fill up my children's bottle with our charcoal filtered tap water. Filling our bottles and taking them with us has become a habit, we do it automatically. I think that filling up our own bottles is cheaper, safer, more convenient and definitely better for the environment. I am not a fan of plastic for food and drink - just think about BPA - though I make some exceptions. We are using non toxic and eco friendly SIGG bottles from Switzerland. One of my SIGG bottles is about 20 years old and is starting to look beat up, truthfully none of them look pristine, since they are meant to be used. So the only drawback to them lasting so long, is that when I see a new print design, I really have no reason to get a new one.

Think about this: there are some cities in Canada, that have a bottled water ban.

Solitude

This is the second weekend in a row, that my husband was so nice to take the kids and give me space and time by myself. Most of my life I have been by myself. My mother and I were a small family unit of two and as a necessity stemming from her working 2 jobs and being very independent, I was raised very early to be self reliable and spent much time alone. I am and was not a loner though, anybody who knows me, can attest to how social I am and how I love to be with friends. As most things in life, there needs to be a balance though between shared and alone time. Solitude is a basic need for me. On one hand it recharges me and readjusts my being back to it's true self and on the other it enables my creativity by giving me rest and energy at the same time. Having a weekend to myself is incredibly freeing, peaceful and constructive.

With the birth of my first daughter, I was propelled into a world completely deficient of solitude and quiet and it took me a while to realize how important it is and that I need to cultivate it. Strange enough though, becoming a mother also made me very lonely. Loneliness is quite opposite from solitude. Solitude is the choice to be alone without being lonely, Loneliness is not a choice and can occur without being alone. I have often experienced the feeling of loneliness while being with other people, feeling out of touch and emotionally isolated.

I do not know if my love for solitude is circumstantial or inherited. My mother and grandmother both were individualistic people that craved it. Maybe it is part of the psyche of creative minds. All my life I have loved to go on long walks, especially by the water or to sit at dusk and just be. Communing with nature rather another person is a state of mind that feels like being one with the world and internally content. In today's world it can be difficult to reach that. We are never out of touch and can be reached anytime and anywhere, have entertainment in our pockets and calendars and to-do-lists that take every minute of our lives. So I have decided that I will try to have a block of time once a week that I spent in solitude and I hope that it can balance the craziness of the other days. So if you cannot reach me on my cell phone, I might be experiencing quiet solitude at Walden Pond, which is a bit closer that this beautiful lake in Maine.

Random and Spontaneous Acts of Kindness

The other day while driving home from the Y, I noticed that the car in front of me had a tire with almost no air left. Now how do you let that person know? If you use the high beams, they just get annoyed, thinking you are telling them to go faster. I had to make a decision, do I turn to take the way home or do I follow the car and hope the driver is not on the way to somewhere far and away? If I just mind my own business and something happens to the driver? So I decided to do the right thing and followed the car. We stopped at a light and for a moment I considered to jump out, but it looked as if the red light was at the end of it's cycle and behind me were two big and powerful cars of german engineering with important -and impatient - looking men. So I kept following that slow, old, white car with the very erratic driver. To my relief the driver stopped soon in front of a store, because she was lost. I stopped right behind her and to my surprise she apologized to me for holding me up. I told her about her tire, helped her with directions and then told her where to get air for the tires.

Maybe you have seen the bumper sticker with the phrase "Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty" attributed to peace activist Anne Herbert. I love that phrase and it's message. I have always liked helping people, it is in my nature. Usually most helping out pertains to friends and family, it feels really good though to help strangers, as it appears completely selfless. Or is it? If we all put in our best effort towards strangers, we are making this world a kinder and better place and in turn we benefit from that as well. When I was a teenager, my mother and I spent one Christmas eve dinner with people from the old folks home in our community that had nobody to celebrate with. It was one of my best Christmases ever. I read somewhere to do one selfless thing a day, I think that is a great advice.

Check out 'the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation' or 'the Good Deeds Organization'.

Six Things

I got tagged by my friend Christina at Rockhound Place and I was challenged to write about 6 things that people do not know about me. This is of course a rather difficult endeavor, because usually there is a reason these things are not well known to people, especially since I am a very open and communicative person. Highlights of our past are easy to share, but what about the failures, embarrassing moments and even dark corners? I could find enough dark tales, but that would be a bit scary and very depressing. So, to have a balanced little list, I had to think for a few days to choose and also to ditch most stories having to do with drinking.

Did I mention before that my perfectionism stands in the way of successful blogging like a giant obstacle?

1.) Unusual: When I was a child - a very active child - , I held the record for most x-rays in the practice of my orthopedic doctors and I also constantly depleted their inventory of bandages and plaster. I spent so much time at their practice, that one could have thought I am part of the inventory myself.

2.) Funny: I was so incredibly nervous at my first piano recital, that I played everything way too fast, got lost and had to improvise, which nobody noticed, since I was playing soooo fast :)

3.) Scary: At the confusing age of eleven, I once misinterpreted something I overheard my mother say and consequently believed that she was trying to get rid of me. I was convinced that she had hired somebody to kill me. And so for about a year, on any given Tuesday night, the night she was always taking a class, I searched every inch of the apartment in fear and desperation while only moving sideways along the walls and carrying a big kitchen knife in my hand. I have never spoken to my mother about this and never will.

4.) Stupid: At the age of thirteen I went to a 3 week camp on an island in the north-sea (very cold and windy in March) and I had my first real straight-into-the-heart-fill-your-diary crush. At every party we danced to Blondie's Heart of Glass together. The last time we danced he tried to kiss me and I was so innocent and clueless, I did not get it, moved away and spoiled the moment. I am still upset over that one.

5.) Crime: A lot of the rich kids at school went shoplifting when we had a free period. It was just for fun and they picked random things and then threw them into the trash later. I thought that was incredibly stupid, but somehow it set the scene for me, after all I was not rich like them. I shoplifted three times and I admit that the adrenaline rush is amazing, but I could never do it ever again.

6.) Awesome: While working for the Festival of Hearing in 1990, I got to meet a few composers. One of the composers was John Cage and his personable and humble demeanor impressed me greatly. It was a great experience to enjoy the concert after meeting him.

Maybe I should have chosen more fun stuff, like that I am pretty good at catching chipmunks or that I love to eat Spaghetti with ketchup (there goes my credibility as gourmet chef...). Anyway, I am tagging Andrea at rerun and jungleclown to tell six things.