weeping/weaving/

4 minute read

I play tested an escape room yesterday, it was extremely fun. Big thanks to Harry Lee Shang Lun for the invite. I don't remember a great deal about it, only that I had a big grin the whole time.

beef chilli

I spent most of the morning cooking a beef chilli. I didn't follow a recipe, just went with my general intuition around chilli and slow cook gravy beef. Here's a go at typing up the recipe:

Ingredients

whole spices (I'd like to do as many whole spices as possible, this is what I had)

• Tbl coriander seed
• 3 cloves
• 10 fenugreek seeds
• 2 dried chillies
• 1/2 Tbl whole pepper corns

powdered spices (like I said above, whole spice is nicer as you can toast it first)

• Tbl ground cumin
• Tbl smoked paprika
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp of cinammon
• salt to taste

food

• 500g gravy beef
• 1 Onion
• 1 Garlic clove (use as much as you like)
• 1 stick of celery
• 1 tin of black beans
• 1 tin of red beans
• 1 tin of cherry tomatoes
• 2 Tbl tomato paste
• 1 Bay leaf

Method

• Dice the onion, thinly slice the celery and thinly slice / chop the garlic
• Cut the beef into chunks (as big or small as you like)
• Toast the whole spices in a pan, then grind up
• Add the remaining powdered spices to the spice mix
• Heat a large sauce pan to medium high with a Tbl of oil
• Cook the onions for 5 min, stirring, until they soften and begin to brown
• Add the beef and cook for a further 8 min or until the beef gets some nice brown edges. If too much juice comes off and it looks like it's just poaching, tip the juice out into a small bowl and save for later.
• Add the garlic and celery, stir for 5min.
• Add the spice mix and tomato paste, cook for another 5 min.
• Drain the red beans and add
• Add the black beans with the water from the can, and add the reserved meat juice if you have it.
• Add the cherry tomatoes with the tomato juice from the can.
• Rinse the tomato can out with a little water and add that too.
• Bring to a boil, stirring.
• Reduce heat to low and cook stirring occasionaly for at least 2 hours.
• Taste as you go, after about the first hour you might want more salt.

I had this with roast cauliflower steaks, yoghurt, some leftover parmesan and garnished with lemon. The photo looks pretty bad but it tasted awesome.

weaving continues

I really wanted to go to a gig in the evening, and had planned to do so up until I got home, had a coffee, and felt a lump in my throat. Over the next hour it got worse, becoming recognisably "symptomatic". My flatmate's been a little sick over the last couple of days, and he said he had the same throat feeling. I had to, unfortunately, call off the gig visit :(

when God closes a door he opens a window, into more time for weaving. I made small but special progress - I've started adding the white thread for the outlines of the weeping lad, a more delicate and complex piece of the design. I am trying to keep the 'stroke' width as uniform as possible, but there will be variations and any straight up-and-down edges need to be interwoven with the black weft to maintain overall stability (probably not entirely necessary, but I want this.) Initially I was bugged that I won't get sharp clean edges, but I came around thinking about the nature of the medium, and the compromises an amateur must make working in "crafts", where the work knows more than the artist about how it's going to sit.

I've thought about this before, how the higher fidelity in a piece the higher the pressure on the design and craftsmanship to support a piece that feels "right". Handmade ceramics for example can be made pretty poorly and still be charming and feel like a heartfelt and human act of creation, whereas an amatuer photo printed in high gloss at A3 can be dismal.

Typing it up now I think my theory needs a little more work, but there's something there about medium, compromise and human spirit that I'd like to figure out.

All this late night weaving resulted in me dreaming about weaving. The work never ends. Having woken up nice and early I will continue today, expecting all my other chores to be done by mid day.

Vou tentar aprender mais

I want to do extended portuguese practice, I'll finish my homework for writing phrases with "cada" and "tudo" then try watching a movie and typing up any words I don't know. Later I'll look for some material for self guided language learning, I think a road map would be a good idea.

what else?

Snapped a spooky pic of the demolition crew outside finding a body working on some hazardous material

I took my film from the Optima 1 to get developed and scanned at Work in Progress, excited/nervous to see how they come out.

I managed to go both ways in one climb on the black climb on wall 2 at Burnley bouldering wall

listening to

• The episode of "Off Menu" where they interview Jaimie Oliver
• Cookii, Lonelyspeck & Hearteyes - METAL FLAKE

Questions

• When will I stop being sick in one way or another
• When's the best time in the day to read