Craft Supply Lust

Gotta cut back on sewing beasts, I'd been thinking. Too distracting. Too labour-intensive. Too ... well, goofy.

Then my good neighbour Jocelyn pranced over with a score from Value Village: a heap of candy-coloured embroidery floss, just for me. A few days later, an art teacher gifted me old buttons to die for. And worst of all--she gave me a sumptuous mohair jacket, too. It's furry even. Yellow. (See photo.) For some reason, wool items in good yellows are rare. I covet them.

I sorted floss and buttons. After a speedy laundering, I chopped up the jacket into ready pieces for sewing new beasts. I'm so done for.

Nice, uh, Vegetable Garden You've Got There

Look what the Ontario Science Centre grew this year!

The harvest will be back-breaking, and oh, the canning and preserving! Does anyone have Mason jars we can offer them? Come on. Let's all roll up our sleeves and help these poor, overburdened farmers.

Talk about biting off more than you can chew ....

Latest Read: I am the Messenger

I love Markus Zusak's sentences. His paragraphs, too.

Short.

Bittersweet.

I am the Messager is a young adult novel I enjoyed even as a middle-aged adult. Ed, 20-ish year old cab driver, receives playing cards. Aces. With hand-written names of people he is chosen to rescue, whether from fully loaded oppression or from lack of icecream.

Ed is great but his dog Doorman is spectacular. Doorman drinks coffee and stinks. He's the opposite of Audrey, Ed's female objet de longing. You're supposed to read the novel to find out who sends Ed the messages. I read on to find out whether Ed and Audrey unite. He's a self-professed sexual midget after all. Go ahead. Find out for yourself. The novel was published by Knopf in 2002 and has a big silver stamp of approval on the cover.

I'm aching to post the book's cover image but new concerns about copyright infringement are holding me back. Instead, here's an illustration of me chirping book recommendations to you.

Mystery Vegetables

Guess what kind of vegetables these are. No, really. Guess.

Not melons.

Not bald kiwis.

Give up?

They're lemon cucumbers. Lemony in shape, and cucumbery in other qualities. And you never have to deal with English cucumber leftovers. They're just the right size for a salad.

Lemon cukes are growing in my backyard garden, lovingly tended by the Young Urban Farmers. Given the cucumber-growing protagonist in my novel, I have a tender spot for these vegetables. She tries to ditch her dirty drudgery--crazy girl. Who could leave behind these summery-cool, crispy vegetables?

Freedom Clothing Collective Delivery

I made a bunch of drawings and took them to Freedom Clothing Collective on Monday. http://www.freedomclothingcollective.com/ Drawings as products, I figure, housed in retail-style packaging. I also brought in beasts now up for adoption and made from upcycled materials. The owners were great and friendly, and cooed happily over their new pieces. The store shows work from independent designers who like re-use materials.

Harvest Updates

I always thought zucchinis were long and green. Ha! Check out this bounty of pear shapes and flying saucers ("patty pans"). I think the green orbs are called "eight balls". As you can imagine, I'm searching for ways to cook up these guys. They've snuck into cake, pizza, lasagne and stir fries.

The purple hanging things are peas--a prettier colour off-screen. I don't find them as sweet as green peas, but they're easier to find. Once again, thanks to the Young Urban Farmers for growing cool veggies in our back yard. Did you hear Chris on CBC radio on Friday, spreading the word about city growing?

As the harvest comes in, I wait for results from the macro edit of my novel. The latest draft is with my editor at Great Plains Publications. Unless I have major work to do, we'll move on to the fussier micro edit soon. Growing a vegetable garden is a year-long project. The novel has taken five!

More than Great Food at Terroni

Woman cannot survive on homegrown vegetables alone. She needs restaurants too, and we love Terroni http://www.terroni.ca/ on Balmore Ave, Toronto. The pizza was a thin-crusted expanse of cheesy terrain. It had hunks of basil that could point and laugh at the prim garnishes of less confident dishes.

But that's just the pizza. The menu at Terroni opens with a foodie comic. True love.

Someone cares.