Eastern European Food Project

As it is Autumn I decided to start my new Eastern European cookery project. It seems appropriate for  the newly cold weather. I am using the Mamushka book by the brilliantly named Olia Hercules. This concentrates on Ukranian food with forays into Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Ossetia, Azerbaijan, Bessarabia, Tartar and Moldova so maybe this is more FSU.

My first recipe was the classic chicken soup with dumplings. You make a basic chicken stock with chicken pieces, onion, carrot and bay. After an hour of simmering, remove the bones and shred the chicken into it, add spring onion, dill and carrot slices and then boil the plain dumplings in it. Great for a cold night.

Next up the classic borscht...

Papal Tower

If you love architecture, look up! Roofline of Blairs College near Aberdeen.  A spectacular crown style tower top with a papal crown on it just for good measure. The New College was completed in 1897 in the baronial gothic style.

Art Update

Apologies, no picture as I have been working all weekend, but now get weekends off until April!

So a brief update on my art doings...

I signed up for a new art evening class in Printmaking. The first one is on wednesday and I am very excited to be trying something new. I have not done any printmaking for many years but I always enjoyed it.

Also treated myself to a lovely art book: The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St Clair. A fascinating book on the history, science, psychology and art uses of all the named colours and pigments. From soothing pink for prisons to poisonous green wallpaper. Highly recommended.

Vegetarian food

Yes, I know it’s only a photo, sorry. Yesterday we went out for lunch at Wagamama and I had this delicious ramen soup with crispy spicy silken tofu, which I had not tried before but was nice like savoury blancmange.

This week also features unusual vegetarian food in the form of spinach and mushroom pie and pasta with potato, green beans and pesto. 

Autumn flowers

I’m not sure what these hero flowers are but they have been flowering for months outside our flat door and on the dust like soil that you get on a site that used to be a bus depot.

I love painting abstract type plants in bold colours, crowding in the picture. This is a small, square picture in goache, which I like for small, neat work.

Autumn fashion and so on.

Autumn is here! I really love autumn with the colourful trees and berries and the long crisp summer days.
I have also replenished my wardrobe for autumn with:

A 1970s brown pencil skirt with pockets from eBay (why do clothes these days not have pockets?)
A chunky white 70s style jumper from Sainsburys sale(a Scandicrime themed jumper)
A neon yellow/green cashmere jumper from John Lewis sale (fun bright colours for the cold)
Orange nail polish by Essie from Boots (I like to seasonally theme my nail polish)

In autumn I feel drawn to wearing the colours of autumn; brown, grey, orange, cream, yellow, red.
I think psychologically they are cosy colours which evoke warmth. And I love warm, chunky and woolly fabrics, big boots, coats and tailored jackets. This year I have pretty much renewed my whole wardrobe, retaining only a few very favourite items. In general my wardrobe has become more casual, more different colours and more practical and relaxed. I feel these days you can also combine things fairly freely in an avant garde way.

Trades Hall

I suppose this is part of my series on challenging modern buildings. This is the new Trades Hall on Holburn Street, Aberdeen, seen from the waiting room of my dentist.

The outside is uncompromising, if interesting in concrete. The inside is a set of beautiful top lit spaces. They reused the original stained glass windows.

It occurs to me you can design a building starting from what you want inside and express that on the outside, or design the outside and then fit things into it. I assume it is generally a case of compromising the two.