My efforts at outsourcing my production is not going as well as I had hoped. The first dies produced by the Partagos were held up in customs by the Hatkwickie Federation in sector 344.A9 of quadrant D. Something about graven images. I had to hire a Zipetto lawyer to spring the goods loose, and as you know they never take NO for an answer. The Hatwickie commercial councilor emailed begging me to call off my attack dog. Ruuuf! You all have been very good about putting up with delayed shipments.

Maori Style Mask - sm
281-008H

kudos and brickbats

After the retreat, The Hun and I drove north to Zion National Park and hiked the river and high pools. The river was great as the high walls provided plenty of shade and the cold water (snow runoff mostly) cooled us off. The high pools required us to be out in the open and it was 118 degrees. As we get older the hikes the park service mark moderate move up the scale to difficult.

It turns out that Barry of Rubber Poet lives in Springdale, Utah at the entrance to the park. I haven't seen Barry in several years and it was great catching up. BTW he said to tell one and all he is alive and well, and still pressing rubber.

up coming shows and classes ta ta!

Cheryl and I will team teach (two for the price of one and lots of personal attention) three classes at The Creative Palette in St. Marys (for those of you who are picky, yes, they do not use an apostrophe), GA. in February 2005. Keep checking the site, for the schedule. You can also go there to make room reservations.

We will be teaching two classes that revolve around gourds. Yup, the ones that grown in your garden. Gourds provide a great creative vehicle for using stamps, paints and anything else you can do on paper.

One all day class will create an evening bag. Each participant will receive a cleaned and prepped canteen gourd. We will use wood burning techniques, paint, texture mediums, foil, beads and stamps to embellish the gourd and turn it into an incredible evening bag. The project will be completed in the class.

The other is a half-day class using a gourd shard (waste not want not!) to make a pendant. In the third class we will introduce an ancient beading technique developed by the Huichol Indians of Mexico. This is so cool - you will not have to thread a needle for this class and yet it uses seed beads. Here we will bead a trinket box.

Lisa Ohmer has asked that I again teach the Amulet Bag project at Artiscape, (in Coshocton, Ohio, April 2005), to accommodate those who could not get into the class last year. You might remember that the class sold out very early as I can only accommodate 12 participants due to the need for much hands on instruction.

My other class will be Face to Face, or Polymer Clay 101. This is a terrific class for those with minimal, or no experience with polymer clay. Emphasis is on molding faces, making faces from scratch, surface decoration of clay and adding embellishments with wire and beads. Participants will leave this class with two or more pins.

Pima No. 3
282-008H

goodbye kerchunk! hello skybluepink!

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saddle up!

I will now (again) offer retail mounted stamps for those of you who want them this way. Just tell me which way you want your stamps when you order.

Texture Border 1
280-003L

pewter update

Background Texture
280-002H

bistro hun

A word here. There is nothing like a homemade stock for terrific flavor. And you know just what went into it and can control such things as the salt content. And they taste so much better than store bought that there is no comparison. I have a 20 quart pot that I use which yields about ten/twelve quarts (counting the displacement for the flavoring ingredients and evaporation).

I went to the big box store and bought a mess of good quality plastic storage containers and freeze the stock in four to six cup batches. Not only do I have many quick soups available at a moment's notice (sweat some chopped onions, add your chicken stock, split peas, some chopped ham, some cut up carrots – cook 30+ minutes until the peas and carrots are done, puree one half or more with a blender (to thicken the soup) and serve with a dollop of sour cream or creme fresh). Forty minutes total, five minutes work.

Also a good stock is the basis of a quick pan sauce. After sauteing something (fish, chicken, hamburgers), deglaze the pan with some stock, Add a tablespoon of prepared mustard, tomato puree, or cream if you are in a risque mood, and reduce.

There are four basic stocks; poultry, meat, fish and vegetable. Although I always make turkey stock after Thanksgiving, I stick to chicken the rest of the year. I rarely make fish stock as I use bottled clam juice or chicken stock with my fish dishes. Vegetable stock is so flavorful you will wonder how you ever did with out.

There are two basic ways to make a meat or poultry stock, brown or white. If you roast the bones or carcasses until very dark (400° for 45 minutes to one hour) and then cover with water, bring to a boil skim and simmer - you will get a brown stock, dark and luscious. Boil it down. Way, way down – like a gallon down to a half pint and you will have Glace de Viande, a thick paste that is the essence of the flavor and the stuff the fancy food shops charge $20 for a thimble full. One teaspoonful and your sauce will taste like Chez Hun and the dish will not cost $28 to boot. It will keep for weeks in the fridge.

For great chicken stock get a really big pot, wash six to ten pounds of cut up chicken, cover with water. Add some washed but unpeeled carrots (big chunks), a mess of parsley, stems and all, an onion, halved, unpeeled, with the cut face blackened over the burner. Thrown some whole peppercorns and two cloves in (wrap in cheese cloth if you can). Bring to a boil and turn down to a simmer. Skim, skim, skim for the first 30 minutes. N.B. NEVER keep a stock at a boil as the boiling action will homogenize the stuff you want to skim off and incorporate it into the stock, like the fat.

After cooking all the flavor out of the chicken, we pull the meat from the bones and feed it to Winnie, our princess poodle, who thinks she died and went to heaven.

Next newsletter, great vegetable stock and some words on vegetarian cooking.

That's all for now!
Roberta