Farallon Islands

Here's Rick getting ready to board the Salty Lady on Sunday morning. We were about to venture out to the Farallon Islands with Robin and Paul on an Oceanic Society expedition.

Don't you get the idea from this picture that it is going to be a perfect day to see whales and puffins? Let me just say that the trip was so exciting (and eventful) that this is the last picture that I took on the entire trip.

As we left San Francisco harbor we saw over 20 harbor porpoises and 3 miles out, we saw our first whales, humpbacks, a cow and her calf. As we approached North Island, we found ourselves in a "garden" of whales: 5 humpbacks diving for food and 9 humpbacks spouting, diving, breaching, and showing their flukes. We saw one humpback spyhopping: lifting its head about 6 feet out of the water.

We also saw California sea lions, northern sea lions, harbor seals and a variety of sea birds: western grebes, elegant terns, Forsters' terns, northern fulmars, pink-footed shearwaters, sooty shearwaters, western gulls, brown pelicans, red-necked phalaropes, double-crested cormorants, pelagic cormorants, Brandt's cormorants, pigeon guillemots, common murres, Cassins' auklets, and tufted puffins.

It was a never to be forgotten experience.

My new favorite

I'm really excited about this set. I must decide whether to cook or dye.

And now for the semi-neutrals

More pretty colors

Today would have been a perfect day for dyeing. It was hot, hot, hot! Instead I prepared some fabric for my next set and tried to sort out my results.

These are the pieces from using fuchsia, lemon yellow, and turquoise as primaries (I think). I'm not certain because the red doesn't seem right. I didn't repeat the red-orange, orange, or yellow samples because I already had them from the first set. It probably would have been a good idea to at least have swatches of those dyes (the darkest, if not the mediums and lights) from this run. And I messed up on the yellow-greens.

I was trying to get more solid (flat) colors (less "crystallization" of the colors) and I think my results are pretty good. Still, lots to learn.

I used Dharma print cloth (mercerized).

Julie & Julia: Croutons or Toasts?

I loved the movie. I would see it again. I am not trying to quibble, but this, a crouton (or is it a toast?) is in the book.

This is not.



It looks delicious and you can almost taste it in the movie.
It seems okay to have it in there because Julia did live in the south of France. But it's not in Vol. 1 nor is it in Vol. 2. In fact, neither book has much at all on tomatoes. So if you go to see the movie and it's a matinee, you will be walking out and everyone will be wondering what's for dinner. And somehow boning a duck will not seem very do-able. And that roast chicken looks excellent, too! But...

This seemed much easier. I couldn't resist trying Julia's method. You will need to clarify some butter. Then slice some 1/4-inch thick rounds from a nice rustic loaf of bread. We used a Semifreddi sour batard but a baguette would have been better. Heat the clarified butter and saute the rounds on each side until very lightly browned. Then, to be authentic, just eat it or treat it as a canape and top it with some diced garden tomatoes, a little fresh basil. Now go see the movie!

Pretty colors

The G6 (or some of us) had a dye day last weekend. I've been bitten by the dyeing bug. I'm dyeing color wheels (plus some values) using primaries. This one is with Dharma dyes: Lemon Yellow, Sky Blue, and Fuchsia. I'm working on a new one today.