Gripping song, ever time I hear it i'm amazed

 

Feeling Creative

Ruby Ann Peterman

So yeah... I've been busy! I made this little creative piece last year. June 29th to be exact. Ruby is definitely my best work so far ;).  She is six and a half months now and I'm feeling antsy and ready to add on my next challenge. There are some exciting things coming up for the One Night Only Project and I couldn't be happier to see where ONO 2014 takes Julien and I.

I'm ready for new music, lots of it. New beats, new musicians, and concerts. I recently traded in my old Djembe drum (serious hippy African drum that was fun at a lot of parties) for an acoustic guitar! So lessons are in my future. Plus I'm really in need of new inspirational music too.

With this new year, I'm looking for a new career change. I have my resume's out and I am trying to meet cool folks and hoping to make a good decision on where to plant myself for awhile. I'm looking to learn, use this creative energy and meet inspiring people. 

Other fun goals: Gardening, interior lighting, becoming a baby food making pro and traveling!

Don't let the audience distract you, this is good.

I agree with some of the comments below this video that say that the audience members are too easily impressed and vocal about it, but one thing to remember, this was at a poetry slam where the audience is suppose to react as part of the experience.

Her words are so well chosen. Fantastic imagery and very telling of women and image.

Because happiness takes all forms...here is a nice dose of it today

If you can hold out till the end... you must see the pit bull in the hammer head shark costume...

   

Do you remember your first bowl of Pho?

Courtesy of my brother's phone :)

Pho sure!... And I also remember my second.

The first time was on accident. It was at least fifteen years ago in Pioneer Square, downtown Seattle. The small Vietnamese restaurant isn't even there anymore. I ordered what sounded like a delicious noodle soup, naturally it was cold and raining here in Seattle and it seemed the perfect thing to order. The owner of the restaurant was quite pleased that my friend and I had ordered this specific soup and began to bring out a tray of condiments to accompany our choice. Hoisin sauce, chili paste, a stalk of fresh basil leaves, fresh limes and bean sprouts. It was all quite exciting. When the soup arrived it was dark, brothy and beefy delicious and had the aroma of cinnamon, cilantro and onions. I didn't really think it needed messing with, but the owner was persistent to explain how pho works. With smiles and enough hand gestures, together, my dining mate and I learned how to eat pho.

Second time was a couple years later at the Than Brothers on Broadway. The main reason for going there was because I had heard it was so cheap. Being right out of college- eating something filling for $5 is worth seeking out. Plus, you know a place is going to be okay when they only serve one thing. The Than Brothers are also famous for their mini cream puffs they give you before your soup is delivered to your table, which if you have been to a pho restaurant recently, your soup comes out within a couple minutes of ordering it. This light and airy dessert before your meal is just an added bonus. Cream puffs, baguette Banh Mi sandwiches with pate and pho are actually all a major part of Vietnamese cuisine which we can attribute to French Colonists as far back as the 18th century. The base for pho soup is a consomme, a classic French style soup made clear by a clarifying process using aromatics, egg whites and usually a meat raft. A meat raft sounds pretty gross, but it's like a magnet, collecting impurities and particles in the broth and catching them all into one big aromatic meatball that is discarded once the broth is clear. If you think about it, there is quite the process to make quality pho.

And now, I'm on a quest for just that. My husband loves the tripe and pig hearts you can get when you travel up north on 99. He asks the servers that he wants what they eat when they eat pho, something that's not on the menu. But it's not so much what's in the soup- I'll gladly take soft tendon, fatty flank and meatballs, it's really all about the broth for me. A trip to pho is never complete without a few un-phogettable puns and a reminder to wear your pho-jacket, as you will be wearing it's perfume long after you leave the restaurant.

Feel like making it yourself? Here's a couple awesome recipes, one from Steamy Kitchen and another from Allrecipes.com.

The Seattle sensation, Macklemore also has a fondness for the rice noodle soup- in fact, Bon Appetite just interviewed him about it and who knew that pho was part of the Seattle hip hop culture? Check out

Bon Appetite Magazine's interview of Macklemore's love of pho and this incredible song by Sabzi- another Northwest rapper who loves pho.


 

A life in pictures from summer to winter 2012

Just a small selection of fun pics from last year...I'm sure I'll be adding to them as I find them.

I'm a proud owner of a clam gun.

Long Beach, WA 7 am Easter 2012 "Razor Clam Hunting"

Bull Whip Kelp

Mark and one of the first Razor Clams! 

We caught 19 Razor Clams in two Days

Family photo Long Beach WA

Green lake Celebrity

A romantic trip to Catalina Island, CA

Wrigley Botanical Garden on Catalina Island

My Birthday - We rented a Hot Tub boat! It was awesome.

On our way back from Katy's wedding, we indulged in Yakima's finest peaches

One of my best friend's wedding, Katy and Adam Christopulos!

Two of my favorite people in the world: Aunt Rae and Uncle Steve cruising around in his Chris Craft boat, Mambo

Prunella stretching at our campsite outside Yakima, WA in September

Having fun wine tasting in Zilla, WA I'm sporting a new dress

Hundreds of stacks of apple boxes lined up downtown Yakima

One of my favorite pics. Mark caught a fish within minutes of casting. Taken in September 

And here's one of them! What a hog!

One of the spaces Julien and I discovered while searching for spaces for the ONO Project.  Very Edward Scissor Hands. Not suitable for dinner, but cool.

Here's one of the spaces that we had  Mark Fuller's ONO dinner at- a winery spot in South Lake Union  August

A gorgeous picture of a dish from our first ONO project with Brandon Kirksey, June 

Some really fun heels that I bought. Took this at the office- October

Fermenting Cabernet with oak chips 

Mark and I crushing Cabernet Grapes with the 36th ave Winemakers September

Juice!

Mark and I made fresh pasta in our kitchen...was pretty good!  Fall

At our Friendsgiving Party, we decided to roast TWO large birds. We ate turkey for weeks... November

Christmas Carols at the December Wine Bottling Party with the 36th ave winemakers

Making my mother's licorice caramels.... a Christmas Tradition

Prunella in her reindeer sweater and christmas lights!

One of the best ads/art pieces that I found in Pioneer Square.  November

A Lot Can Happen in One Night...

Onoproject.com
Facebook/OneNightOnlyProject
@theonoproject
info@onoproject.com

Shiitake, Gouda, Chard Omlette

 

A Tribute to my Mother

One of my best friends gave me this card when my father passed away in 2010. I keep it on my dresser as a reminder to myself that when things seem like they could not get more bleak, hopeless or feel more rock bottom, something will break and the sunlight will just come flooding in. I've really learned that there is beauty in tragedy and so much strength inside us all.

Steve was going through a couple of my mother's books and magazines and came across the most lovely list my mother had written in 2007 titled, "Things I love." I have scanned it here.

Doesn't it just make you smile? I mean, #4 "My Chickens and Their Songs," That's enough to melt your heart right there. She really loved the simple pleasures in life.

My mother holding "Turkeena" her adolescent midget white heritage turkey

My mother weeding the flower beds with one of her 12 chickens

My mom shooting a gun off her deck New Years Eve 2011

She will be missed tremendously. What might be the biggest loss is for the people who never had a chance to really know who this person was.

This is ther eulogy I wrote and read at my mother's service:

Never, Never, Never , Never give up is  a saying by Winston Churchill and also my family’s motto. Our father Jim used to like to say this about everything difficult in life and we had this message framed for him for his desk. When my father became ill, and then my mother, this mantra became the driving force in which to keep our close family nit going.

Never giving up describes who Candy was as a person. She was also incredibly selfless, compassionate and kind. I always felt proud to have Candy as my mother.   She truly was one of these people that was just as beautiful inside as she was outside. I realize all of us here have lost a mother, sister or a dear friend but what I might be most sad is that there are so many people who will never get to meet who she was, laugh hysterically with her or feel as good as she could make you feel.

When you think of Candy, you think of her 1000 watt smile and that gorgeous red hair. She was a beam of sunlight when she walked into a room . Candy was always cracking jokes and making faces and making up songs.  We spoke on the phone every day, sometimes multiple times a day. We were closer than mother and daughter. She was one of my best friends.

Many people might not know, but Candy read a lot and if she wasn’t reading she was listening to books on tape or CD. She had to be constantly moving, whether it was keeping house, cooking or gardening, she wasn’t one to sit still. A trait instilled in all of us kids at an early age. We were never allowed to stay inside on a nice day- she didn’t make time to watch tv, it was wasting your life, bored people were boring people and by the looks of her sewing /craft room, SHE WAS NOT BORED! You would wonder when she would find time to make all the projects that she had on her list. I was jealous of her ease at sewing anything perfect, and if it wasn’t right the first, second or third time , she would rip out all the seams immediately and start again.

Candy was also an incredible cook. Besides learning secrets from Step Mother’s Dolly and Sharon, she took several cooking classes at Uwajima, falling in love with Asian flavors. Even in her last months at her home, there wasn’t a week that went by where one of us kids or family caretakers watched the Barefoot Contessa, Giada or Paula Deen whip up something delicious on the Food Network next to Candy. She would say to me. “I really miss cooking,” when I get better, I’m going to make that. She loved biscuits and gravy, watermelon, cream sauced fresh pastas and all types of seafood.  There is a running joke every time Candy cooked, it was “Candy Surprise” because she was always making some new recipe that she had never tried out of magazine or cookbook.

I use to tease my mother that she was secretly from Texas because she was always wearing really loud clothing to go with her already expressive hair color, big earrings and she loved southern-style food, including sweet tea, coconut and banana cream pies and most deep fried delicacies.

My mom use to wear this vintage A-line mustard yellow dress with a giant Pepsi bottle on it and the words “Pepsi, Come Alive!” in big bold letters. When she first acquired this dress I was mortified as a pre-teen. She would wear the dress to family reunions and to my embarrassment out in public! Now, it is one of the things I love most dearly about my mother, that dress.

Candy liked short-fat round things like chickens, hippos, Pillsbury Doughboy, pug dogs and frogs and of course, flowers of any kind.       

I think of my mother as a modern-day Peter Pan, besides being a young mother, she was an incredibly youthful person in general. I’d ask her all the time what she wanted to be when she “grew up” and she said, “I don’t know, I just like making things, but more than anything I really wanted to be a mother.”

Candy Marie Thornton-Evavold June 19th 1955- January 10th 2012

My gorgeous mother

A little break from my craziness

I just watched You, Me and Everyone Else, an odd movie that makes you uncomfortable, smile and question things. Mark would consider it, one of my arts-y flicks. Here is my favorite moment in the whole movie that you might like. Minute 1:48 is where it gets super real...that delicious uncomfortable squirmy love feeling and it's done so well. One of my favorite quotes of the movie- not mentioned in this clip is



"I want to be swept off my feet you know, I want my children to have magical powers, I am prepared for amazing things to happen."

I couldn't agree more.

Be the Jellyfish

 I was waiting for the Orcas Island Ferry in early August and witnessed this stunning jellyfish, just off the shore. I took several photos of it just riding the currents and was instantly captivated at its ghostlike form. Mark reminded me that jellyfish are an example of one of the very first nervous systems, also known as a  Medusa. Jellyfish don't have a brain, they are simply a large jelly mass of nerves, going with the flow.

I spent a little bit of time on Orcas Island this summer preparing and then actually cooking for a gorgeous country-style wedding. An American marrying an New Zealander all the way over on Orcas. It was a magical weekend and the food wasn't too bad either. 

I snapped this picture for my darling Prunella

 

A cool "urban farmer" at a Slow Food meet-up introduced me to a new flavor I had never experienced before: Ground Cherries. They are these cute paper-wrapped fruit, looking like baby tomatillos, but tasting of perfume.

I snapped a quick picture of the "cow," a manual wine bottling contraption, while bottling the Elsom Cellars Lewis Vineyard Cabernet Rose. It's a very dry, Spanish style rose. 

Getting the Elsom bins ready for harvest. (Currently in full swing of harvest- more pics to come)

A peak into blending trials. Basically take a sample of all 70 Elsom Barrels and attempt to see which barrels should blend with which. Stir and taste. Repeat. There was one barrel of malbec that tasted just like curry.

I bought this wine because I thought it read "I'm Fine."A kind of, yes I'll buy this bottle and drink it like Alice in Wonderland. This bottle will make my troubles go away and make everything fine.   It actually reads, In Fine, which means "In the End," in Latin.   I think that's pretty funny. With this power of suggestion, I should start labeling everything; "Satisfying soup bowl," "Female power pea coat," "Deepest sleep comforter." Regardless, I think I'm on to something.