The Garden and the Snail, originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca.

Happy Halloween!

The Encyclopedia, unpacked, originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca.

I was on the editorial board for this new reference work, and wrote about 25 entries for it, and compiled a lot of the timeline dates, and the “common quotes” feature too. It’s really nice to see it finally in print.

Scene, grocery line. Express lane, after 5pm, crowded. I’m with Jake, who’s in a good mood and chuckling because he enjoys crowds. In front of us, a mother facing forward, and two little ones facing us.

“Mom,” one boy tugs on his mother’s sleeve, “What is he?”

(Usually kids want to know if he’s a baby or not. They can see enough details in both categories to be confused.)

The mother turns around, smiles at happy Jake, and says, “Oh, he is laughing.”

Yes, at that moment anyway, Jake was laughing. By quickly reaching for a gerund rather than a label, she turned the definition question (which isn’t so helpful) into a “what is he… doing right now” question. Cool.

(I wonder if this switch made more automatic sense for Spanish speakers–which they were–because of the ser/estar distinction? If so, score one for bilingualism.)

A few modest milestones I’ve recently hit elsewhere online:

1.  Three of my Flickr Galleries have had over 20 comments–pretty cool for a feature that’s only been public for a couple weeks.   Galleries allows you to curate a collection up to 18 Flickr images, but none of them your own.  My most popular Galleries so far are “I Am Superman” (over 2100 views, 28 comments), “Moleskinerie” (about 1200 views, 32 comments), and “Art in the Cemetery” (just over 1000 views, 20 comments).  Weird combination of topics to be the top of the list, isn’t it?

2.  I just hit 100 listeners on blip.fm.   Blip.fm is kinda like twitter, but with music–so it’s crowdsourced online radio, kinda?  You can just set up your own playlist; but the fun part is subscribing to a bunch of other DJs’ playlists, and seeing the mix that falls out, and the commentary and interplay (you can also reblip, and give props).  Completely works for me and my fondness for the random mix.   Anyway, I’m pennamite on blip.fm, too, if you’re curious.

3.  I hit ten sales on Etsy last week.   I’ve sold more than ten purses, but some of them never made it to Etsy–they were custom orders or they just sold before I got a chance to list them.   Is Etsy “social media”?  Well, it is in the sense that you can make it social, with favorites and treasuries and chat and such.

Slapende vrouw in strandstoel / Sleeping woman in beach chair, originally uploaded by Nationaal Archief.

This would be me, if I ever went to the beach. Black layers and sturdy shoes and all. (I might go more often if these nifty wicker beach chairs were still waiting.)

Consider this “My Appalling Birthplace:  Seventh in an Infinite Series.”

This clip is old, it’s from the campaign last fall.  But we actually saw it last Sunday on a rerun special.  We happened to be at the end of a WEEKEND IN SCRANTON, in horrible hot sticky weather, in a hotel room that smelled like old fried food was being stored under the beds.  When he says the line, “You couldn’t stand to spend a weekend there!” (when there’s about 5:45 left in the clip) well… it was a real highlight of our trip, to see the Scranton tirade IN Scranton.

Taken by a Stranger, originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca.

We participated in the Chalk Art Festival at Redondo Pier again today, because we had so much fun last year. We had fun again this year! Didn’t win anything this time, but our square seemed to be a favorite of the little kids, which is pretty sweet too. The theme of the festival this year was “Dol-Fun,” which is why we ended up doing a dolphin in a ballpit with a party hat. But Nell insisted we do an Amazon River Dolphin, because she liked their long snouts and that they’re sometimes pink.

Slice of rustic tomato tart, originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca.

Even in a tiny driveway garden like ours, the week comes when there are way, way more tomatoes than two people can eat (especially if only one of us likes gazpacho; ahem). This is a great recipe for the days of unlimited tomatoes–I’ve been baking it for years, just baked it last night. SO delicious, very easy (really), and adaptable (we added onions last night, because we had some to use up; and we used a lot of fresh oregano for the herbs last night, because that’s also in peak supply right now in our garden).

“Rustic Herbed Tomato Tart with Parmesan Crust”
From LA Times Magazine, 7 June 1998, but adapted by Penny

Pastry:
1 cup, white flour
half a cup, whole wheat flour
1 stick (half-cup) cold butter, cut into five pieces
half a teaspoon salt
half a cup, Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
zest from half a lemon
a quarter cup of ice water

Filling:
2 tbsps Dijon mustard
2 tbsps Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
2 tbsps fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped
1 tbsp Italian parsley, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
6-8 ripe tomatoes (about a pound and a quarter), cut into quarter-inch thick slices
1 tbsp olive oil
1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tsp water

To prepare pastry:
In food processor fitted with metal blade, combine flour, butter, salt and Parmesan cheese. Pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. With motor running, add lemon zest and pour water through feeder tube in steady stream. Process until dough begins to bind. Remove dough and shape into 12 inch disk. (The dough can be used immediately or wrapped in plastic and refrigerated. When ready to use, remove from refrigerator and let soften to room temp, about half an hour.)

Preheat oven to 425 F.

On lightly floured surface, roll dough into 12-inch circle. Transfer to lightly oiled baking sheet. Using pastry brush, paint pastry with mustard, leaving a generous inch or so border all around. Sprinkle parmesan cheese evenly over mustard.

In a small bowl, combine basil, thyme, parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper. Arrange half of the tomato slices over mustard-cheese layer on pastry. Now sprinkle herb mixture over tomatoes. Cover with remaining tomatoes.

Fold pastry border over tomatoes to enclose sides of tart, gently draping pastry over tomatoes and folding it into soft pleats every few inches. Pinch any cracks to seal pastry and prevent tomato juices from running out during baking. Drizzle olive oil over tomatoes. Using pastry brush, paint dough with egg wash.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until dough is golden brown (not always very easy to tell with whole wheat, but there’s a lot of leeway here). Remove tart and let it cool for about ten minutes, serve warm.

All the purses so far (7/6/09), originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca.

All but one, technically–the first prototype that I carried around for a while–but it would have made the mosaic uneven. (Yes, it could have been 7×3 to accommodate 21. Didn’t like that shape.) Some of these are still for sale in the Etsy shop; some are sold, or donated, or swapped; some never appeared in the Etsy shop, because they were custom orders, or because I’m using them myself.

Stay tuned, more to come!

Recent projects, June, originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca.

This looks sparser than other monthly mosaics, but one reason is that my camera’s acting up–so, some projects didn’t get photographed, like the 27 bottle-cap pendants I made for the Hands on Art docents at Lincoln (wearing one of those right now, in fact). Or the Mother’s Day cards I mailed without scanning. But the stuff I did photograph was all good fun too!

In blogging news, I set up a new blog/website for South Bay Hands on Art, which I’ll be co-chairing next year.  And I’ve joined the team at Indicommons, which is a blog about the Flickr Commons crowdsourcing project I’m obviously (and happily) addicted to.  My first post is about using Commons images to make simple greeting cards.  Thinking about making the next crafty demo post about freezer-paper stencils…. hmmmmm…..  I know, because I need to be juggling six or seven blogs right now.  Sure I do.