October

But first today, right now...

It is spectacular outside. 

 As you may have heard, last weekend Philadelphia had a surprise snow storm. It dumped on the city during the Eagles game. Which thankfully they won - quite handily as well. (For those of you reading who are not USians, the Eagles are the (American) Football team of Philadelphia.)

Then it snowed again on Tuesday and as of today it has not warmed up much at all. The white blanket of snow has stuck around. I bought a Christmas tree that had real icicles on it. Today we got another good blanket, which turned into freezing rain. 

 We had to go out to walk Pedro's dog, Mildred so I got to see all of the beautiful icicles.

 Rittenhouse Square 

 I hope this person isn't planning on going anywhere, the entire bicycle was covered in ice. 

Mildred wanted nothing to do with all of this mess. She tripped down the stairs, did her business right in front of the building, while Pedro and I discussed which way to go. As we finally decided to follow Mildred's lead, she finished, turned around and walked right up the stairs and poked her nose at the door knob. And that was that.

But October... 

October was spent in a mad panic trying to finish up work for my show at Press and very little Pedro time. But he was very patient and sweet about the whole thing. Sometimes when you are working so hard though, you do need a diversion. The garden provided a little bit of that.

The mustard greens went to seed again and this time I just let them grow where they wanted to. The result was a beautiful plateful.

I also had an abundance of Nasturtiums in the garden. One of Ellen Emlen's pickle recipes is for pickled Nasturtiums. It took a bit of figuring but it turns out that the pickled Nasturtiums are the seed pod, not the flower. They are also called Poor Man's Capers. Mrs. Emlen's recipe is actually a bit unhelpful. Put them in white wine vinegar (helpful) with such spices as you see fit (not helpful). 

Thank goodness for the interwebs.  I googled for a recipe and found several. It seems farely straight forward. Brine them first, then vinegar, then add a bayleaf. The recipe called for 2/3 cup of seeds. Not too difficult.

I have not tried them yet. I gave Melanie a jar as well and she hasn't tried them either. We'll see what happens.  Maybe I need to cook some fish or something...         

But the main push of course was the show. I made two new pieces that I am pretty happy with.

   Jacques helped.

I also showed some previous work which was nice to see again. With the generous help of Andy and Jonas, I installed the last week of October and the opening was October 31st.

  

I also enjoyed the generous hospitality of Melanie and Doug at their beautiful home.