aprons
Do you wear an apron when you’re cooking or involved in other domestic occupations? When I was a child it seemed that all mothers wore an apron over their clothes. If they weren’t wearing an apron, one was hung on the hook behind the door.
Although I remember wearing aprons when I was first married at some time I stopped. I don’t remember the reason or even when this occurred.* Now I often wear one! If I’m cooking or even working in the garden I’ll probably wear an apron. I think rediscovering aprons was motivated by bread making. No matter how careful I am, during the process of measuring, weighing, mixing, resting and kneading the loaves, I will get flour, or worse, dough on my clothes. Now I always put an apron on. I have quite a few.
The word apron comes from a Medieval French word for small tablecloth, ‘naperon’ which eventually was shortened to ‘aprons’. Aprons aren’t just for domestic activities. They are worn as parts of uniforms, in trades and for rituals. Aprons are made from a variety of materials, including cotton, linen, PVC, rubber, canvas and leather. They can have a bib top covering the front of the wearer, or a half apron, or a wrap-around with crossed back straps. I prefer aprons to cover the front of what I am wearing.
Neither cooking or gardening but actually removing paint from a metal screen.
If I’m going out into the garden I will probably wear an apron. I snip and trim, so keep secateurs in the apron pocket, I re-pot, I add fertilizer to pots and beds. I wipe my hands on the apron and drop it in the laundry when I come back inside. Recently I was doing a project involving paint stripper, rust retardant, primer and paint. I wore a wrap around apron which successfully covered me from top to bottom! A big pocket is good, too.
* My husband says I stopped wearing aprons when we moved overseas. Sounds right.
flower arranging
Many roses grow with a central bloom and three, four or five buds around it. The central flower blooms first, sometimes days before the others. I cut these out of the cluster, resulting in a short stem, then bring them inside. Due to their short stems they’re hard to arrange in a vase.
The central rose on each cluster blooms days before the surrounding flowers. I snip them out of the cluster but they have short stems. My solution is rubber bands! I make a grid using bands slipped around the vase. If I’m using a bigger vase I make a grid to create small squares. This means putting bands across then from front to back. The flowers are held in place and look lovely for days. By then the buds originally surrounding the middle bloom are ready to pick on a much longer stem, so they don’t need support.
The rubber bands don’t really show up on the vase.
tiny eggs
Our dear neighbour delivered a dozen sweet little eggs. She has Dutch Bantams and Japanese Bantams, which are quite petite so the eggs are tiny, too. After I’d admired them for a while, I decided to make a tortilla. Also known as a Spanish Omelette, Spanish Tortilla and Tortilla de Patatas this wasn’t just the usual egg, onion and potato tortilla but an easy way to use up a carrot, red cabbage and green cabbage salad mix I had in the fridge. I was thoroughly sick of chewing and chewing . I’m keen to increase the number of fruit and vegetables we eat each week but this mix required way too much chewing and a lot of dressing to make it appealing. Decided to cook it.
I fried the onion then put it in a bowl, fried the carrot and two cabbages and added them to the onion and then fried three very finely sliced, peeled potatoes and added them, along with the other fried vegetables, to the twelve beaten little eggs.
Scraped the whole lot back into the pan and cooked it until it was nearly set then put it under the grill to brown the top. The red cabbage looks rather unattractive in the photo but actually tasted really good in the tortilla. Meanwhile, I’d peeled and deseeded a butternut pumpkin and roasted it in a tray.
Served the tortilla with roasted pumpkin and peas. Seven serves of vegetables. Good.
making cards
For the past three weeks I have been going to a class where we learnt about Japanese and Chinese brush painting. Firstly we explored bamboo and leaves, the second week was flowers using ink and then paint and this week we focused on painting flowers which we then made into cards. I actually did lessons with the paining master in China but whatever I learnt there has long gone. I really enjoyed working with the tutor and have been to other classes she’s run in the past. I enjoyed focusing on a new technique and learning new methods. The class was often about ten people so it was comfortable and a bit chatty, too. I also liked the cards I made!
remembrance day
Today, the 11th of November, is REMEMBRANCE DAY. We stand for a minutes silence at 11am to remember those service men and service women who have served in all wars and peace keeping missions.
LEST WE FORGET
Image Pexels
I always wear an apron, I only have one for the kitchen. It is very old and rather stained now but rather that than all my clothes!
Another apron fan! Good. Apparently there’s lots of us secreted around the place. I like denim and linen but now I know friends who prefer clever slogans or pretty florals. I never knew. Yesterday was masses of tidying up in the full spring garden, three loads of washing and cooking a dish for dinner which also means the same thing tonight and another meal for two in the freezer, all done wearing a denim apron.