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Support a Local Filmmaker

A friend of mine is making a film about all the fantastic historic breweries in San Francisco. So far, he’s been funding the project out of pocket and with small contributions from the featured breweries, but making a movie is an expensive endeavor and he could use some help. Please check out his IndieGoGo page to watch the trailer, look for updates and read about the project.

Contributors get all kinds of fun perks depending on the amount including a pint glass, mention in the film credits, all the way up to a brewing session with on of the featured brewmasters! Check it out!

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Guest Post: A Birthday Surprise

First of all hello, I’m Colin, Freya’s partner. Like Freya, I’m a jack-of-all trades into all kinds of crafting and mischief. I knit, sew, cook, and brew. I’m excited to have the opportunity to post as a guest here on peculiarpurls.

When I asked her what type of cake she wanted for her birthday this week, she told me she didn’t know. After persistent questioning, she gave me some thoughts: “an almond raspberry cake, or maybe a cheesecake.” Well I’ve never made either of those cakes, but I accepted the challenge and set out to make both: an almond raspberry cheesecake! The recipe I used is adapted from Ina Garten’s raspberry cheesecake recipe on foodnetwork.

A beautiful cheesecake with a heart of raspberries on top. And a candle!

Here are the ingredients:

Crust

  • 10 honey graham crackers
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 6 tbsp unsalted butter

Filling

  • 2.5 lb cream cheese
  • 1.5 c sugar
  • 5 large eggs + 2 yolks
  • 0.25 c sour cream
  • ~1 tbsp lemon zest
  • 1.5 tsp almond extract

Topping

  • 1 half-pint raspberries

Instructions

Allow your ingredients to sit out for a while before cooking so that the cream cheese will soften. Preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit.

Pulverize the 10 graham crackers in a food processor (or by other means), and mix into 6 tbsp melted butter with 1 tbsp sugar. Press this by hand along the bottom and corners of a 9″ springform pan. Bake for 8 minutes so that the crust is crispy, and allow to cool. Raise the oven temperature to 450° Fahrenheit.

Mix the cream cheese and sugar together on high speed in an electric mixer for about 5 minutes until the consistency becomes light and fluffy (and delicious). Wisk together aggs and yolks in a separate bowl. Slow the mixer to medium speed and add the eggs and yolks a bit at a time. When this is mixed, add the sour cream, lemon zest, and almond extract. Pour this mixture onto the crust and place into the oven (carefully! I was worried the pan would overflow so I put some aluminum foil on the rack below).

Bake at 450° for 15 minutes, then drop the oven temperature to 225° Fahrenheit for 1 hour 15 minutes. When the time is up, there are a couple of options. If you want a perfectly beautiful cheesecake, leave it in the oven with the door open for about half an hour before cooling for an hour at room temperature, and later move to the refrigerator to set overnight (or at least for several hours). If you care less about the aethetics, you can  put it in the fridge earlier, but expect the top to crack. When you’re ready to serve the cake, rinse the raspberries and make a nice arrangement on top. I chose a heart for mine, and since this is a birthday cake, it had to have a candle. And here is what you get when you make a tasty cake for a pretty girl:

A pretty girl blowing out a candle.

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Here fishy!

I really loved Sesame Street when I was little and a little part of me still does. This particular clip has stuck with me over the years, much like the two aliens (yup yup yup) and the tap-dancing snufalufagus.

Now, I  live out those Sesame Street musings with Kitty Sharkey at Lake Temescal in the Oakland Hills and after nearly half a dozen trips to the water with her, I finally had my first catch!

Who knew a little fish could be such a pig!

This greedy little sucker swallowed two lures and hooks and tangled the lines, but that just meant a sure catch. We spend almost all day on the lake and brought enough fish home for a dinner for four with creamed leeks and roasted potatoes with rosemary. We even came up with a complimentary cocktail!

Homemade feasts are always so satisfying.

Rainbow Tammy

  • 2oz. Gin
  • 2oz . sweet lime juice
  • 3/4 oz. sweet vermouth
  • 1 tangerine (quartered)
  • 2 tsp. lavender blossoms
  • Tonic water

In a shaker, muddle tangerine and lavender. Add ice, gin, sweetened lime, and vermouth and shake thoroughly.  Strain through cheesecloth or a tea strainer into a chilled glass with a little ice and fill off with tonic. Garnish with a tangerine twist.

Sweet and tangy and quite refreshing!

**ANNOUNCEMENT: Look out for a guest post by my partner, Colin, coming up on April 11th.**

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Where the Horn of Plenty Grows

Salt Point State Park is known all around California as one of the best mushroom hunting spots in the state. Its damp coastal climate and rich soft soil create the perfect breeding ground for numerous fungi both fascinating and fit for the table. The Boy and I spent all day meandering up the coast making various stops along the way to admire the locales, but eventually found our way to Salt Point. We’d only just arrived, and were paying our day-use fee when I had already spotted the first handful of woodland delectables.

Cantharellus Tubiformae -- Winter Chanterelles

After having lunch and watching a pair of ravens snack on the crumbs left by other visitors, we gathered or shrooming gear and water bottles and headed up the trail to try our luck. On the way up the hill, we ran into a generous hiker who pointed us towards some hunting grounds he’d noticed.  After that bolstering chat we were all revved up and marched double time up the hill while scanning the woods along the trail. The Boy made our first score: Black Trumpets!

Black Trumpets also known as the Horn of Plenty Mushroom

This choice edible grows in clusters on the ground and prefers heavy pine and oak duff over sandy soil. As a result of the conical shape and its habitat, this is often a messy mushroom and cleaning is necessary. In order to remove any sand and dirt, I cut open the trumpet lengthwise and used the tip of my paring knife to carefully scrape out all the grit, then rinsed gently under cool water. These mushrooms have an incredible flavor when fresh, but it improves when it is dried (some say it resembles that of black truffles), so they all went into the dehydrator at home. I’m looking forward to several risottos and pasta sauces with these delectable finds!

Another great find was the plentitude of hedgehog mushrooms I collected by scrambling through brambles and bushes. They seem to prefer the duff under huckleberry bushes above all and I got pretty scraped up, but the haul was well worth it.

Our Hedgehog Haul (Hydnum Repandum)

We saw many other beautiful shroomies. Check out the gallery to take a peak at what we saw.

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Check out whats going on over on my Etsy!

As promised, I posted four new hats for sale today! I hope you love them. I’m also taking custom orders and have already filled two orders that the clients have been positively thrilled with! Click images to go straight to the listings.

Meer is inspired by the spirit of the sea and was created with intention to invoke the spirits of the west, of fluidity, memory and emotion.

Silvan hearkens to the spirits of the wood and was created with intention to invoke the spirits of the north, of earth, stability, fertility and growth.

For more listings go to peculiarpurls.etsy.com

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An Important Comparison

I’ve mentioned before that mushrooming can be tricky business. Knowing what you’re picking and the key differences between look-alikes can spare you a lot of grief and sometimes even save your life. A little while ago I went mushrooming and found both Chanterelles and Jack O’ Lanterns, a frequently mistaken look-alike.

Note the color difference between Chanterelles(left) and Jack O' Lanterns(Right)

One differentiator between Chanterelle and Jack O’ Lantern is the color. Jacks have an olive-y tinge to the cap and more so on the gills. It isn’t always as obvious as it is here, especially when you’re only holding one of the other, not both. However, when cut, Chanterelle flesh is always white, while Jack O’ Lantern flesh is never white and usually a brown or grey tone though very fresh specimens sometimes lean towards golden brown flesh.

The gills on Chanterelles(left) and Jack O' Lanterns(right) are very different

Though at first glance the gills on both kinds of mushrooms don’t appear to be a great distinguishing characteristic, second inspection shows that Chanterelles (left) have dull, shallow gills which sometimes crisscross or end short. On the other hand, Jack O’ Lanterns have blade-like gills which run deep and while they do branch, they don’t cross.

Another difference between these two mushrooms is that Chanterelles grow in duff while Jacks grow on dead wood. This is not to be relied upon as a key difference however, since dead wood can often be buried and may not be visible despite still being the host for the Jack O’ Lantern’s mycelium.

I am not a mushroom expert and I don’t pretend to be, but these two indicators of a look-alike can go a long way to save you several days of serious misery when it comes to hunting for and consuming wild Chanterelles. Both sets of mushrooms pictured here were collected on the same day on Mount Tamalpais. They grow in very similar areas, and both smell sweet and mushroomy, but they are distinguishable with practice and careful attention.

*Please note that I am not an expert at mushroom foraging. Please refer to the links in the text along with the book Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora  for more comprehensive information on mushroom identification and collection. Thank you.

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Gone Fishing… Or Rather Birding

I’ve been joining Kitty Sharkey for fishing at Lake Temescal a few days in the past month. The last time, we were ambitious and opted to try our hand at crabbing on the Pacifica pier. We got out there and were immediately amazed by the local wildlife.

I felt so blessed getting to see this bird up close.

This gorgeous Grey Pelican was accepting herring and mackerel from the men on the pier and was even alright with being pet, though like any curious critter, just kept looking for another treat. I later found out from one of my classmates that this friendly pelican’s name is Harry and he spends almost every day on the pier begging for spare bait and small catches from the fishers there. Such a spoiled bird! I’m sure he gets more fish in 5 minutes on the pier than he would all day out on the water hunting.

Harry the pelican

Kitty and I settled in after Harry took off, but didn’t have long to wait until another bird came our way. No one saw just what happened, but suddenly a gull came plummeting to the ground. The big bird got its footing but when it tried to take off again it was clear that it had a badly broken wing. Kitty and I, animal lovers that we are, immediately grabbed the fishing net, wrangled the bird and used my hat to hood it and calm it down.

We nicknamed him Crabby

We called around and finally found an animal rescue that would take our injured gull. We drove south to the Peninsula Humane Society in Burlingame where they determined that our injured friend would not be able to recover.  Unfortunate, but I think the peaceful end he found in the hands of the vet tech was much more comfortable than the drawn out one he would have suffered on the pier.

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More Natural Dye

It’s been a frighteningly dry fall and winter so far which aside from the obvious problems, also means that mushrooms aren’t flourishing either. For Xmas, Colin got me David Arora’s two mushrooming books and so I had to head out to Mt. Tam after only one day of rain. It looked like other shroomers had beaten me to everything edible, but fortunately, I can be contented with collecting some of their color yielding cousins.

Phaeolus

Among the treasures I picked up were a big basket full of more Phaeolus and a grocery bag of Omphalotus.

One cluster of Omphalotus

Another interesting find was an abundance of small coral fungus. I brought a couple samples home, but even after over an hour with my books was unable to positively identify the cool little shrooms. One thing that Arora notes in his book is the difficulty of identifying coral fungi. There are so many kinds which are microscopically distinct, but macroscopically indistinct that it is a challenge which the amateur mushroomer is unlikely to gain any proficiency in. Fortunately, this type of fungi are usually unpalatable, so I can be content to just admire their fascinating structures.

Unidentified Coral Fungus

After returning home with a dyer’s bounty, I immediately took to dyeing with my finds. See below for descriptions.

Naturally Dyed Fibers

From Left to Right:

  1.  Norwegian Wool dyed with Carrot tops in an Iron pot
  2. Merino Wool dyed with Carrot tops in an Iron pot
  3. Norwegian Wool dyed with Omphalotus exhaust and a small amount of Phaeolus in Aluminum pot with copper/vinegar mordant
  4. Merino Tencel Blend dyed with Omphalotus in Aluminum pot finished with copper-vinegar dip
  5. Norwegian Wool dyed with Omphalotus in Aluminum pot finished with copper-vinegar dip
  6. Norwegian Wool dyed with Omphalotus in Aluminum pot
  7. Merino Tencel Blend dyed with Omphalotus in Aluminum pot

First into the pot were the Omphalotus with some Norwegian Wool and Merino-Tencel Blend (Numbers 4 through 7). I was not satisfied with the muted color and hoped I could bring out more violet tones, so I added a few glugs of vinegar to my exhaust and set in some of the fiber (Numbers 4 and 5) for a couple hours at room temperature. I removed and rinsed to find that I had I had in fact changed the blue and violet tones to green greys. Not at all the change I was going for. As it turned out I had used the vinegar which had been made into a copper mordant by accident and the copper brought out the greens instead of the violets. The change was not drastic though, and I think I’ll be carding the two colors together for some variegation in my yarns.

The exhaust bath still seemed to have quite a bit of color in it, so I tossed in more Norwegian wool and left it to sit over night. The next day I put it over heat and tossed in a couple small crumbles of phaeolus for good measure. The product(Number 3) is actually much more of a saddened green than it appears in the image above.

The 2 other greens are also much richer than they appear in the photo, more of an olive color and only a shade darker than the Omphalotus exhaust bath, though these were achieved in a different way. At the produce store, I peeked into the big waste bins and spied three hefty bunches of carrot tops. Yay! I must have looked a little crazy, digging through the bin destined for compost to extract the sprigs of greenery that no one wants. At home I set them into my cast iron dutch oven with plain water. I heated the tops briefly, then left them to sit overnight. the next day, the pot had released a rusty film which coated the top of the liquid, and the leaves had turned almost black. the water was however still very pale which had me worried. I put my fiber into a nylon mesh bag and set the into the pot along with all the plant material. I then kept it at around 120°F for a full day(the whole apartment stank of overcook carrot, but we suffered through. I let the whole pot cool overnight and drained my fiber the next day. I rinsed it to find it had taken a gorgeous olive green with some dark spots where it had been touching the iron of the pot. I am very much lloking forward to spinning up this fiber!

Speaking of spinning, I’ve spun up some of my previous natural dye projects and will be adding them to my etsy this week.

All Natural

Starting on the bottom then moving clockwise: Phaeolus dyed faux cashmere from various batches, Phaeolus dyed faux cashmere plied with phaeolus and other stuffs dyed merino, and lastly Norwegian wool dyed with red cabbage(blue), pomegranate skins (cream) and pomegranate skin overdyed with cabbage and baking soda to adjust pH(yellow-green).

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New Year, New Obsession

Welcome back! It’s been a slow winter for the blog so far, but that’s because it’s been a busy winter out in the real world! I’ve been baking up a storm, making butter cookies, jam thumbprints and pumpkin pies as well as spending an ENTIRE day juicing freshly foraged green apples for a big batch of hard cider.

I’ve also been rifling through thrift stores to  start a collection of knit sweaters for my very own Dream Coat because Colin got a serger for Christmas! His family was incredibly generous and gave him a Baby Lock “Diana” which has been out in our living room since the 25th and we’ve had so much fun playing with it!

Since we had a bunch of leftover fleece sitting in the craft room, I decided I would come up with a cool hood pattern for it. I sat and drafted for a while and eventually came up with a beautiful Elfin Hood.

Elfin Hood made from fleece scraps

Elfin Hood made from fleece scraps

Elfin Hood

Elfin Hood back view

The top panel and scarf are pieces from fleece that had been sitting around at my mother’s for quite a while without any purpose while the dark brown side panels were cut from larger scraps left over from making cloaks earlier this year. Oh, and by the way, those leaves are pockets too!

I was so excited about the project, that the next day, I went right ahead and sewed another!

Fire Sprite Hood made from fleece scraps

Fire Sprite Hood and Gauntlets

I didn’t have any more of the larger scraps, so I used smaller ones to create “flames” and even made a set of matching gauntlets. I’m so thrilled with the product and I thoroughly enjoyed sewing these hoods, so I am considering producing a few more for sale on etsy within the next couple months.