Lunch for the week 10/29/17

There is a farmer's market in the area that I've gone to since I was a kid, with a dairy store next to it that has excellent food).  It's late in the season for fresh "summer type" veggies, but I found the makings for salad, and cheaply too, end of the season lettuce.

This week's lunch

With the end of the season the farmers are wrapping up summer and lettuce and corn and tomatoes in favor of eggplant and apples and pumpkins, I saw butternut squash, and may get some, there's a recipe for soup ...

But back to last week's shopping expedition.  I found red leaf lettuce and romaine at one of the booths and got some, wash some leaves, throw them in the lunch cotainer, add microwaved chicken bits, croutons, dressing, and pseudo chicken pCesar psalad.

The lettuce is fresh out of the ground, and beause it's the end of the season, some of it's wilted or limp, so I had to make sure to wash and tear off what's not edible.  It ended up being about a third in the garbage, but it's the end of the season, make do with what's left.

It still managed to make a decent salad, and a good lunch.  I can't make all four lunches and store them in the fridge, so it's going to be a challenge to get up and make it for the next three mornings, but I think it'll be worth it.  I like this kind of salad, though it's usually just the romaine lettuce, the red leaf just look so appealing on the table.

What I would change

More lettuce, and probably toss a dessert into the lunch bag.  The salad was a little light for a 10 hour day, and I don't want to start digging into the holiday candy because I've got the just got home munchies.

Lunch for the week 10/22/17 (yeah, late)

Posting this week's lunch was difficult, yesterday's work time was lacking in empty time not otherwise spent.  Last night was more of the same, and I am never going to be able to post on Monday during working hours, even if I felt comfortable bringing my personal laptop in to the office and getting onto social media.

Mondays at the job do not have enough time to breathe, never mind goof off.

This Week's Lunch

It was supposed to be shrimp and chicken fried rice, but a co-worker forgot to bring her lunch and decided to order Italian delivery.  I've always had a weakness for fried calamari and marinara sauce.  I did have a little bit of the fried rice I made, but .... 

batter dipped inner tube slices!  It was delicious, and it was gone very very quickly.

The source of this was a visit to the local Aldi store, they offer a wide variety of foods as well as household stuff.  They had frozen packages of chicken fried rice and shrimp fried rice.  I cooked them up with an extra scrambled egg and some chopped onions.  The chicken bag had a separate sauce added after cooking, the shrimp was all mixed together.  They were officially 2 servings each, but they filled the frying pan and then some, and I'm using the 3 cup containers for the lunches.  It's a rather large meal.

What I would change

Not doing this again, the two dishes don't mesh well together, there's edamame in the chicken fried rice and it's got probably too much sodium but it's oddly bland.  They'd probably be better as separate meals, not lumped together.  If I try something like this again, only one package of pre-made stuff, and more adulteration.

Well, some experiments are failures.

A Leather Table Carpet (inspiration and examples)

I was a bit wrong, and a bit right. When the book came in, I located the relevant section, only to find I'd mis-remembered the story of the burned leather carpet.  The story is in the The Connoisseur's Complete Period Guides (to the Houses, Decoration, Furnishings and Chattels of the Classic Periods), page 239

Leather Hangings

Conspicuous among the furnishings of the richer homes in Tudor times were the so-called 'Spanish leather' hangings. Although originating in Spain, perhaps as early in the eleventh century, this type of decorative leather, varying in detail, was eventually made in all the principal European countries. England apparently excelled in the making of gilded, embossed and painted panels for mural decorations,  (Fourgeroux de Bondaroy in a report to the Academy of France, Descriptions des Arts et Metiers, 1762) but there is no record or any organized craft of leather gilders. It therefore appears probable that only a handful of craftsmen were concerned with this somewhat exotic product; and those not much before the early years of the seventeenth century. Earlier hangings must therefore have been imported, probably chiefly from France and the Low Countries. Leather hangings were not purely decorative: they were esteemed because they were not affected by damp or insects, could be cleaned by sponging and retained their brilliance indefinitely. An article in the Illustrated London News for 11 October, 1851, states: 'About 1531 or 1532, Henry VIII built a manor-house near Eastham Church in Essex, with a high square tower, that during her sort of year or probation, Anne Boleyn might enjoy the prospect of the Royal Park at Greenwich. This tower had hangings of the most gorgeous gold leather, which remaining until fifty years since, when the house coming into the hands of a proprietor with no especial love for the memory of the Bluff Harry, nor the sad hauntings of the fate of Anne Boleyn, nor the old art and workmanship of leather decoration, but a clear perception that in so many yards of gilt leather there must be some weight of real gold, had the tapestries [sic] torn down, sent to the goldsmith's furnace, ad some £60 gathered from the ashes.' Whilst real gold-leaf was undoubtedly used on occasion, usually the effect was produced by covering the leather with silver or tin-foil and then applying successive layers of yellow varnish. The decline of leather hangings seems to have resulted in part from changing fashions, and in part form the introduction of the cheaper embossed paper embossed paper wall-coverings, to the earliest of which the leather gilders turned their hands.

I cannot verify the Illustrated London News story, there are no local archives, and their online archives are behind a paywall.  The Connoisseur Guide was a periodical before it was collected into book form, the copyright years are 1956, 1957, 1958, with "First published as one complete volume 1968"

There is however, very little in the way of surviving exemplars, later in the same section (p. 240) is a reference to another one that serves as the inspiration

Plate 84(a) from The Connoisseur's Complete Period
Guides (Tudor Section) - "The only known example of a
leather 'carpet', probably a bed cover, forming part of the
seventeenth-century furnishings of the Queen's Room, Ham
House (discarded in the eighteenth century).  Of shaved
hide, silvered, embossed and painted, the background in
opaque light grey, flowers and foliage in transparent glazes
through which the silver still gleams.  This particular example
is probably of the mid-seventeenth century, Dutch, but leather
carpets are mentioned as early as 1423.
Ham House, Richmond, Surrey"

... Leather 'carpets', that is to say overs for furniture such as beds and tables, are mentioned as early as 1423 in an inventory of the wardrobe of Henry VI, being made of Spanish leather. But no example was known to have survived until one was found in the attics of Ham House, Richmond, dating from the Restoration period. ... The technique employed for ornamentation is interesting and unusual. Natural (undyed) sheepskin was placed over patterns cut in relief on wooden blocks, and subjected to a rubbing, probably with a wood or bone 'slicker'. This bruised the surface of the leather where there was contact with the raised design below, leaving charming patterns in brown on the biscuit-coloured leather. Gilt leather piping and tassels enhanced the effect.

from the Marble Dining Room, Ham House, Surrey

Having found an examplar, I went looking to see if it had survived into the modern day.  It had.  Ham House is now part of the National Trust, and there are color pictures, though unfortunately, not as detailed as I like.  The ornamentation does say "Jacobean" to me, more than Tudor/Elizabethan.  According to this link, leather hangings were used in dining rooms because they did not retain smells. 

I now had a search term, "Leather Hangings" dropped into assorted search engines got me a link to the Cooper Hewett museum, and a leather wallcovering from circa 1750, also Dutch.  Looking for other items classified the same way, the Cooper Hewett has 16 examples of "leather, stamped, painted, silvered" dated from 1680 through 1750.

Additional links:

Patrick Baty, gilt leather

Description of repairing/replacing A Leather Wall Covering at Cheverny, a seventeenth century french chateau

From the V&A, a leather panel from between 1500 and 1600 (4" by about 6") the museum has more examples, but this is one of the oldest

From the Cooper Hewett Museum

Lunch for the week 10/15/17

This Week's Lunch

The lunch for today fell victim to "darn, I was hungry" so the picture is an empty bowl.

Deal.

I went to an oriental market last week where they had something called "Singapore Curry Gravy.  (Value added picture of an empty jar, at least the label is readable.  Cooked it up with sliced onion, chicken, peas, and served over rice.  Think Singapore style (spicy!) fried rice or mei fun (chinese narrow noodles).  It's spicy, but the flavors manage to blend quite well.

Dessert was more orange quarters, Cara oranges from the same oriental market, and soft noodle cake.

What I would change

I think next time I'll see if I can plan ahead for a package of broccoli in addition to or instead of the peas, and see about making noodles (ramen noodles?) instead of picking up a container of cooked rice from the local shop rite.

On a semi sadder note, last weeks oranges did not get turned into candied orange peel, I'm afraid I misjudged the candying portion and it overcooked.

But, hey, look, an uneaten lunch!

A Leather Table Carpet (gathering materials)

Before Research, gathering materials.

There is something intriguing about falling down a rabbit hole.  This one has two sources, a copy of "The Connoisseur's Complete Period Guides to the Houses, Decoration, Furnishing and Chattels of the Classic Periods" and a friend with a club membership for Tandy Leather that he would allow me to make use of.

I bought a deer hide and some leather-friendly paint, to see if it's possible to make something out of it.  Not gloves (though the leather is butter soft and almost hole free.

Many years ago I bought a book, a compilation of the styles in furnishings in the years between 1500 and 1860 reading in the section about the Tudor (1500-1603) and Stuart (1603-1714) I read about a leather tablecloth/covering/carpet that someone of a later age threw on a fire for the gilding on it, the person who did it got, if I recall correctly, 5 pounds gold (I don't know if it was the monetary unit or the weight).  Feel free to creeble, bemoan, or curse the destruction of something unique, I'll wait.

Not the copy I bought,
(mine has no dust jacket)

By the way, in the early 19th century, people used to take medieval ecclesiastical vestments and pick the gold embroidery off of it, because it was just old stuff, and hey, gold!

I've not found any other reference to leather table-coverings in the Tudor era or earlier, and I've misplaced the book, so before I wanted to start making anything, I went hunting on Amazon.  The book cost less than the shipping.  Not bad considering the copy I had many-many years ago was more.  A lot more.

Lunch for the week 10/8/17

This Week's Lunch


This week I went Middle European.  Polish to be more exact, Kielbasa and Cabbage Stew, another slow cooker dish.  I'm blaming on Walter Staib and A Taste of History.  It's showing locally in hour long bursts and it's one of my "nothing good on but this is fun".  He had on an episode featuring Tadeusz Kościuszko and that was ... sort of, one of the featured recipes.  I did not have the spices the recipe called for (no thyme, no basil, just pepper), so I used a bit of pizza seasoning.

I cooked it up Friday night and taste tested it Saturday and it doesn't suck.  It's a bit of a variant of Polish Hunter Stew (Bigos).  The cabbage has a lighter taste than sauerkraut, but for lunch at the office I don't want something as smelly (if yummy) as sauerkraut, bacon, beef broth and assorted cooked meat chunks.

Dessert is orange quarters, because candied orange peel.

What I would change

Not much,  though I'd like to go full on Bigos (this link or the recipe I found many-many years ago in Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets' a Gift to Young Housewives).  It's not likely the husband doesn't like the smell of sauerkraut and it is a smelly dish.  I'll see what inspires for next week.

It may be another batch of this stuff, I have enough leftover chopped cabbage, cubed potatoes, and sliced carrots for it, or a batch of very vegetable soup, if I get some onions.  Or maybe cole slaw.  

The vote has been cast, it's coleslaw, but probably not for a day or two.  

Lunch for the week 9/30/17

This Week's Lunch

My work week started on Saturday, this time (I wanted Sunday off) so the date's off by one.  This week's lunches features cold cut sandwich wraps.  Overslept yesterday so I grabbed everything and stuffed it into a lunch bag to assemble in the break room.

Cold cuts this time were cheese, ham, and turkey breast cooked with chile.  The last tastes like turkey, but the chile means it has a really nice afterburn.  The lettuce ended up being boston lettuce, because it was less expensive than romaine.  Sun dried tomato sandwich wraps (burrito size) instead of bread.  Yesterday's lunch was yummy, though I hope I have time to assemble them before I leave for work, not on the job.

What I would change

Get up earlier in the morning, so I can remember to pack the potato chips I bought to go with this.