Old Habits Die Hard!

I didn’t quite realize just how busy this whole graduate school think was going to get. Then again, I didn’t actually get to choose my classes for this semester. If I had, I’d have known that choosing two art-heavy classes that met three times each week, back to back, was a very bad decision. As it is, I’ve got a veritable ton of drawing to do this semester. Which I’m going to force myself to be optimistic about—at least I’ll have a killer chance to improve! Combine that with the fact that I’ve always been a procrastinator (I like to call it “working best under pressure), and it just means that this whole “writing practice” thing about the blog might not be updated as much as I would like. I thought maybe the responsibility of being a graduate student might help me kick this procrastination habit, but nothing doing yet. Frown.

At any rate, things have been going well down here in the south. I’ve heard some scary stories on the news and from friends living in other parts of town, but out here in the ‘burbs, life is good. Nothing to report except for the fact that I saw an opossum for the first time on our back porch last night! I’d seen them before, of course, but they’d always been dead. On the side of the road. Usually missing bits. =/ This one was very much alive, and was locked in a staring contest with Scherzo (who was looking out the screen door) until I got J to go shut the patio door and close the blinds. Of course I didn’t have enough foresight to take a photo. I’m a terrible blogger, right?

Speaking of blogging, which usually includes photographs, I’ve got one--

That’s right, it’s my new computer! I came home from work the other day, and J had brought it in and propped it up for me to see as I came in. The delivery itself was a bit stressful, actually. I knew it was going to be delivered on Tuesday. I knew J would be home all day Tuesday, since he works from home. Not a problem, right? Wrong—he got a phone call from a job he’d interviewed for weeks ago, and they wanted him to come in. That day! Super fantastic for him, but just the previous day, an item I’d ordered online had been “delivered” at my doorstep, but we couldn’t find it anywhere. Not sure if it means it was stolen, or if there was an error in the FedEx system, but we didn’t want to take a chance with a computer. Luckily, he had planned to leave at 1:30pm, and the delivery man arrived at 1:26. Hurray!

 

It’s really pretty—and I should have taken a photo of it closed when I had more light. Not only is it fantastic internally (6GB of ram!), that wood-looking stuff on the palm rest and touchpad is actual bamboo, and the entire lid of the computer is bamboo too. It’s gorgeous, which was just a nice extra touch for the designer-y side of me when I was picking it out. =)

On another note, I’ve been doing a lot of cooking lately. Many of my friends have started blogs that I follow, not to mention I ogle recipes on Pinterest all the time. I’ve made my friend Heather’s banana bread, used Becky’s method for a red wine reduction sauce for steak, and I’m making Josh’s carbonara tomorrow for a late lunch/early dinner (I’m pretty sure that’s what time the main meal of the day is supposed to be eaten on a Sunday, right?). Making recipes that I’ve gotten from/eaten with my friends is one of my favorite ways to not feel so darn far away down here in Memphis, so I figured maybe I’d share my favorite pot roast recipe. Granted, this is not MY recipe by any means. I found it somewhere on the web a while back, and finally got around to making it today. After it turned out fabulously, I figured it would be best to share it with everyone.

It was so tasty, and smelled so good, that we had to eat it immediately, and I only thought to take a picture after it was packed up into the tupperware, ready to be leftovers for lunches this week. Whoops!

That aside, and without further ado, I give you the best pot roast I’ve ever made:

• 1 pot roast—beef shoulder or a boneless chuck roast will work best, since they have more marbling. Look for one that’s around three pounds. I think ours was slightly under.
• ~1 TBSP olive oil—I use EVOO, but whatever you have on hand will work. Heck, canola, veggie, or even butter would probably work well, too. You just want something that can quick-sear the meat.
• 1 yellow onion—chopped, sliced, or diced; you want big pieces, of whatever shape you prefer.
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped or grated.
• 1/2 cup of red wine
• Carrots, potatoes, or whatever other vegetables you’d like to add!
• salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning to taste.

Preheat oven to 175 degrees. If yours doesn’t go down to 175, 200 will work, but keep an eye on it to see that the liquid doesn’t evaporate.

The most important part of this pot roast is to use a thick-bottomed pot that’s oven safe and has a heavy, well-fitting lid. I used my 12” Calphalon Everyday Pan (oh, how I wish I was getting paid to advertise!), and it worked really, really well.

Heat the oil in the pot over medium-high heat. While the oil is heating, sprinkle and rub both sides of the roast with the salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. I just sprinkled a few shakes of the seasoning, and a few grinds each of the salt and pepper on each side. Be creative! When the oil is hot, carefully place the roast in the pot and sear for 3-4 minutes on each side. Don’t move the roast while each side is browning, or it won’t get that nice crispy sear.

Once the roast is browned, carefully lift it up and add the onion and garlic to the bottom of the pan. Rest the roast on the onions, then add the 1/2 cup of red wine. The specific type of wine isn’t terribly important, but it’s usually a good rule that if you wouldn’t offer it to a guest, don’t cook with it. That being said, I used the last of the bottle I’d used for Becky’s red wine reduction sauce. It was good, but just a little too dry for my taste.

Bring the wine to a boil, then transfer the whole pot, covered, to the oven. Cook for 4-5 hours, or until meat is tender. Add the vegetables somewhere about halfway through your cooking time, so they don’t get too mushy. Turns out I waited too long today (I only allowed the carrots an hour to cook), so I had to simmer the carrots a bit longer on the stove once I removed the roast.

The neat thing about this roast is that you really, truly, only need the 1/2 cup of wine. Don’t add any water, broth, stock, or anything else. If you don’t want to use wine, 1/2 cup of beef broth would work, but do not use more than the 1/2 cup of liquid! Apparently, cooking the roast at such a low temperature, along with the tight-fitting lid, allows the meat to release a whole bunch of liquid. I’d venture a guess that the liquid more than doubled throughout the cooking process, and there was even more once I added the carrots. Because I didn’t add water, the juices were crazy flavorful. Trust me. =)

And that’s it! I realize now, after writing out a recipe, that I have a lot of extra commentary, so I’ve bolded the important bits. Don’t bother with the non-bolded stuff unless you’re truly interested—although  this disclaimer is after the fact, so I’m not sure how well that’ll work…

Anyway, this is a delicious pot roast, and I think that you’ll want to make it all the time after you try it once, so enjoy!

And then tell whoever you made this delicious roast for that it’s their job to wash the dishes…

Ciao, all!

Design School? Awesomesauce.

Wow. This whole design school thing is pretty rad. Tonight, I spent the evening watching J play video games, and drinking a nice red wine my aunt gave me. Oh yeah, and I was drawing his hands and feet. Maybe that sounds creepy, but I was working on proportion studies. The hands and feet in my renderings always need a bit of work, so this was a good exercise for me. I love that my homework involves watching J play video games and drinking wine. Hurray for grad school!

I started off with his feet, which, if you know him very well, you’ll understand that it was torture for him to hold his feet (mostly) still for an hour. The top of the toes is a little too square, but I’ll blame his movement, and call this one halfway decent. That and the fact that I was sitting next to him and the foreshortening thing with his leg just wasn’t jiving for me too well. (Also? the work “jiving” has THREE dotted letters, and looks very silly on screen!)

Next I moved on to his hands, which turned out a bit better, considering they were moving much more than his feet were! He was playing Borderlands on his Xbox with a friend, so his thumbs were all over that controller. I did my best. =)

Last I tried working on my own hand, which is what I think we were supposed to be doing from the beginning. This was exceedingly difficult, since I use both of my hands to draw, and I’m usually keeping my kneaded eraser warm in my left hand while sketching with my right. So yeah, not my best, but it’ll do.

In the shop this week, we got off to a pretty slow start, but now I’m patterning a bustle petticoat! I worked up a preliminary pattern for it yesterday, and started my mock-up today. The pattern needs a little work, but I’ve got a little over a week before it needs to be finished. Once I get it done, we’re going to be giving it to our beginning sewing construction students, and they’ll be sewing them to use for Phantom of the Opera in February. Crazy! I won’t say where we got the petticoat to begin with, but I will say that it’s a nice garment, and I’m glad we won’t be paying that much for the rest of them once I duplicate it.

At any rate, grad school is going really well. I have some finished renderings of the hat and shoe I designed last week, but they’re at my office, so I’ll need to bring them home to scan so I can upload here. I honestly can’t believe we’ve only been down here in TN for six or so weeks. It feels like I’ve been here a year already! I’m loving the cooler weather we’ve been having on and off this week—I had my screen door open all day today, and it feels divine in here! Plus, there’s nothing like an electricity bill after you can turn off the central air for a few days—yay!

J’s still looking for a new job, and I know he’ll find one that’s perfect for him, but it’s a little stressful. He’s got a couple of great leads, though, and I can’t wait for him to has a job he enjoys again.

In other news, Penske, the moving truck company we used, finally sent us some money to have our dressers refinished! I have a pair of mid-century dressers that were my grandparents’, and they were damaged pretty badly during the move after the truck leaked. The water got under the veneer, and then once we hit the hot weather down here in TN, it bubbled up and was not very pretty. It’s been a six-week-long ordeal, but the refinishing company picked up the dressers this morning, and I can’t wait to see how they’ll look once they’re done! It’s going to be another three or four weeks, but I can wait, now that I know they’re being worked on. I’m also hoping to purchase a new computer in the next week or so, so hopefully that’ll make the blogging/photo-uploading process a little easer, and I can get away from the cell phone photos. Hurray!

There’s a festival in the “Historically Hip” neighborhood of Cooper-Young this weekend (it’s their term, not mine!), and I’m excited to go. It’ll be lots of live music, as well as artsy/crafty events. I hope you all have something equally enjoyable to do this weekend! For now, though, I’m out.

Ciao, all!

First week of classes, complete!

I can’t believe we’re already finished with the first week of classes, and that week number two, which is short because of Labor Day, starts tomorrow! Classes are going really well, but I can’t believe how much outside of class drawing/sketching work I’m going to be doing this semester. I have two classes back to back on MWF: Theatrical Rendering and Costume Design. They’re great classes, and they’re both essentially art/drawing classes, but they are two totally different concepts! Rendering (right now, at least) is about drawing from what we see, not from our imaginations, so our renderings become more true-to-life and representative of what we’re trying to portray. Design is the total opposite, and we’re currently just sketching up quick thumbnails from our imaginations. The fact that they’re back-to-back is driving me a little bonkers, since I have to make a huge mental shift artistically in the ten minutes between classes.

Never before have I done a still life. Can I admit that? That being said, it was incredibly intimidating when she set up this pile of things in front of us and basically said, “Draw it.” I don’t think I did too terribly, for a first time still-lifer, and I’m particularly proud of the shading on the hat. Again, forgive me for the terrible image quality. Still haven’t gotten the camera setup figured out since the move, but that’ll be coming soon.

The rest of my drawings for that class have been in this vein. Lots of cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones.

I’ve done a few assignments in my design class based on the above image. It’s some hanging wisteria in a garden in Japan, and I love the colors and the texture! One of my fellow grads, Megan, actually found the photo for me online, and I’m super grateful.

One of our assignments was to design a hat, and I really like the idea of using French net to mimic the trellis, then using a piece of black wire mesh as an anchor for the flowers trailing down off the pillbox. I need to do a final rendering of this, though, since this is just a rough sketch with some colored pencil.

Next is a shoe I’m really excited about—I wish I could actually produce it! I don’t have any color in it yet, but I see a dark grey silk dupioni as the base, with some black mesh over the front, and purple faux flowers trailing down from the heel area. I still need to pull together some rough sketches for a couple of period outfits, a haute couture outfit, and a surface textile. I took a little bit too much of a break over the weekend, so I’ve got a lot of drawing to do tomorrow to have these ready for Wednesday’s class, but I’m really excited to do the work.

Speaking of things that have kept me busy, my birthday was last Thursday! We have a chalkboard in the grad office where we have all of our birthday written, so on Thursday, my friend Randall circled the date, and drew a star next to my name so everyone would notice. (The fact that I brought in homemade cookies for everyone didn’t help at all… nope…) When I came in the next morning, I found this on the chalkboard:

I’m still not entirely sure who wrote it, but I think it’s super cute, and it made me smile. =) We’ll see how long it stays up there….

I got quite a few nice gifts, along with some money I’m really excited to put towards a new computer that’ll be a little bit better suited to my design work. I also got some gift cards to some of my favorite stores, so I hope to have these in my wardrobe in the next couple of weeks:

I’ve been looking for a pair of boots to fit my skinny calves for ages, and I think I might have found a pair—wish me luck! Also, this “vegan leather” jacket from Express has been on my wish list forEVER!

At any rate, classes and life are treating me pretty darn well, I must say! I’m a little bummed that J didn’t get the role he was auditioning for recently, but he had a fantastic audition anyway, which is always something to be proud of. And now I’ll leave you with a photo of the dog Jesse got me for my birthday, since we’ve both wanted a puppy forever…

Ciao, all!