Green Onions?

one little green onion, ready for chopping?

 A few days ago, at the end of a day of exploring the town, Dan and Orit came over to the house bearing gifts!  ... A chocolate coconut cake (kosher for passover!) and a big bunch of green onions.  

I was a bit surprised at the onions, since Orit really hates them.  Well... maybe it goes beyond hatred... i always thought she was exaggerating about her dislike of onions until that one fateful evening in Battlecreek, Michigan, when I invited her over for dinner, and served my very favourite soup in the world, "West African Peanut Soup" (you can find it in the Sundays at Moosewood vegetarian cookbook).  It does take a full two cups of chopped onion... but the soup is blended, so you cannot find the smallest piece of onion to let you know they are there. 

Sure enough, I was right!  She loved the soup (as I knew she would), even asking for a second bowl.  It was only an hour later, when she was crippled with inexplicable stomach pains, that I confessed my sin.  Ah well....a bit of time bent over the toilet, and she was right as rain.  (and has subsequently forgiven me).  On the positive side of things, she no longer has to tell people she doesn't like onions; now she can truthfully say "Onions make me sick"


So... i was surprised at the big bunch of green onions.  .... until Dan told me they were daffodils.  Ah!  OK....  though they seemed a bit disappointing as far as blooms go. Still, I followed his instructions to snip off the bottoms and put them in some water. 

Dan's happy dance at the daffodils



Apparently Dan shared a few of my concerns about the thin blooms, and so you can only imagine his delight when he arrived back at our house the following night to find the onions had begun to transform themselves.  I only caught the tail end of Dan's happy dance of delight. 

And the miracle just kept going.  By this morning, the onions had been transformed into a glorious burst of springtime.  The whole kitchen is fragrant with the scent. 



the onions, two days later...



Lovely!  

I am going to pick up another bunch of 'onions' once this bunch fades....





Tate Modern and Southwark Theatre with Orit and Dan

Orit and Dan are in town this week!  (he via Ann Arbor, she via Israel).  Yesterday, I spent the morning at home working while they explored St. Paul's, and then went to join them in the Tate Modern.  When I finally got there, it looked like they were getting close to 'the end' of a happy time with modern art.  :-)  

I do agree that there are only so many hours one can spend in a museum before one hits the space of overload.  My own goal is generally to come away with 2 (or maximum 3) things that I find interesting.  So, here are my picks from the time spent on the 5th floor of the Tate, in the "Arte Povera and Anti-Form" section (all about art where artists from the 60s were exploring the idea of energy, and the process of making things).


Peone, "Tree of 12 feet"



First, I loved "Tree of 12 meters" by Giuseppe Peone.  I know they just look like two dead trees, but you have to get up closer. 

He has taken two industrial pieces of timber, and then he had taken a chisel, and followed the knots in the wood, carving away the various rings to reveal 'the tree' that is actually still in the centre of the log. 



closeup view of the 12 foot tree...



You can get a better view of it in the close up shot.  Indeed, close up, you really can tell that he has carved anything away.  it just looks like a tree that has been stripped of its bark.

I liked it when Dan pointed out that one of the two trees seems to be 'upside down' (that is, the artist left the uncarved portion of the log near the upper branches rather than near the base of the trunk). 

 

me, altering my relation to the art...



My second pick was Carl Andre's "Steel Zinc Plain".  Basically, it is a set of silver and black squares laid in a checker board pattern in the middle of the gallery.  According to the artist notes, it "represents a territory or a space as much as an object. By placing it on the floor rather than on a plinth and allowing it to be walked across, Andre alters the viewer's relations to the work of art."   

It was quite fun standing beside it, watching people walk around it, and then sticking my foot on and off the metal plates as people passed: you know... seeing which people are or are not quite ready to be altered by the art (and am still trying to sort out whether the experience has left me transformed, or was merely a transitory bump!) 



Orit pretending to be a piece of modern art...



It was about this time that I realized Orit was ready to go. 

I got the hint when I saw her sitting against the wall, posing as her very own work of art.

That was a signal that it was time to head to the coffee shop up on the 7th floor! 

We spent some time up there chatting, looking across towards St. Paul's, and watching people stroll to and from the south bank along the Millenium Bridge, and the clouds similarly wanders across the horizon.



View of the Thames from the Tate Modern



sitting in the 'foyer' of the vaults before the show



After that, it was off for an early dinner, and then to the theatre!   We all know my weakness for musical theatre, but Orit is made of sterner stuff.  There was no convincing her to try for some moments of levity and song:  things with happy endings seem to bore her.

So instead, we went to see "Black Battles with Dogs" at the Southwark Theatre.



the vaults at the Southwark Playhouse



I really do love this theatre.  (Alex and I went there last month to see their production of "Shivered".)

The theatre operates in the vaults below platform 1 of the London Bridge Railstation.  So you are not only in these arches brick vault spaces, you can also hear a rumble as trains go by from time to time.  It is totally atmospheric, and really contributes to the sense of being in some other space.

And the play?  It was perfect! (no happy endings!)  :-) You can click here for a short interview with the director, and a glance at the cast and the space.  All in all, a perfect day....

 

Saying "Goodbye" to Canada....part 1

They say it is 'the journey', right? Not so much the destination, but the adventure of just 'getting there'? Because it does feel like most of the action so far has been in the process of getting this sabbatical year on the road! Our tickets had us flying out on Sunday. So, of course, me and the boys arranged to have one last party on Friday night! One last night of potluck, friends, and keroke! I loved having people over for one last party, and the Kareoke machine ran late into the night. On the food front, Duncan and I managed to make 4 batches of homemade mints for the last hurrah! And for those of you who want the recipe, here it is:

Classic Old Fashioned Mints
Take 1 package Knox unflavoured gelatin, and sprinkled over 1/3 cup of cold water (in a small saucepan).  Heat gently til gelatin dissolves (water will look clear again).  Add food colouring, and peppermint extract  (2 capfuls for medium minty... more or less to taste).  Then pour into a large bowl, and start stirring in icing sugar until you get a dough you can knead (it takes the better part of a bag of icing sugar).  Roll into 'snakes' (as if you were playing with playdough), and use scissors to cut into bite sizes (they look like little pillows).  Leave on a cookie sheet to dry.

But back to business....  After the party, we (which really means "I") spent the next 1.5 days trying to figure out how much we could fit into our "2 suitcases each" without going over the weight limitations.  I could say "2 suitcases" rather than "1suitcase" because we were flying with British Air rather than Air Canada.  But this also meant that we needed to fly from Vancouver rather than Victoria.  No problem.  One last ferry ride.  Fania agreed to drive us over.  Great.  plus... I really do love the ferry.  I thought about booking a place, but figured that the traffic was not going to be high on a Sunday afternoon (and was too cheap to pay another $20 bucks), so didn't bother.  I will admit that my panic level was shooting through the roof as we reached the ferry terminal with the sign above saying "possible one ferry wait".  ARGH!!!  Here is a photo of us in the line up for the ferry.  But we were in luck... the 8th from the last car to make it on the ferry.  Woohoo!

I do love the ferry.  And the last crossing this year was fun in all the usual ways.   It is so.... well.... 'westcoast'.  :-)   There was some naturalist on board giving a free lecture on the top deck.  Walking outside in the sun, on the way to hear the lecture, we walked past one guy sitting on a chair playing a Nirvana song on his guitar, another woman with a yoga mat spread out (and resting in some contorted position that did not look the least comfortable to me), and a group of people napping beside their coffee cups.  Just perfect.  And that naturalist was great! We learned about octopus, and glass coral, and rock fish.  I learned, for example, that they now know that rock fish can live over 200 years (compare this to 5 years for a Salmon).  They also now know that rock fish don't start laying eggs until after they are 40 years old (adding a whole new meaning to "The 40 Year Old Virgin).  This is relevant because they now know that for years, fishermen have been harvesting rock fish before they have had a chance to reproduce (which explains why the fish have been in decline).  There you go.  New piece of information to me!