Sewing notes ...

One of the things I did this spring was sew three linen shirts for Dr. Mike of the Detached Hospital. The first one was 90% hand sewn. In the interest of actually, you know, getting them done, I took some shortcuts on the other two. And I swear by all that is good and holy, that I took pictures.

I must have dreamt it, because there are no pictures. And I was rather proud of some of the detail work, too.

Anyhow … here are my observations for those that aren’t OCD or are sane enough to not want to do the whole thing by hand.

1.       Use quality linen. Using cheap linen means all of your hard work falls apart sooner. If you can tear your linen, find something else. As I understand it, this means the fibers have been chopped up to work on equipment used for spinning and weaving cotton. One of the major features of linen is the long staple length which means it will last forever.

2.       Go ahead and do all the long interior seams on the machine.

3.       Go ahead and do the side slits and hem on the machine. I thought it would bug the hell out of me, but unless the recipient is waltzing through camp in nothing but a shirt, nobody will see it. And even then, it didn’t bug me nearly as much as number 7.

4.       Made sure all the finishing details, like the top stitching on the collar and cuffs is done by hand. Ditto with the front slit and the openings in the sleeves. People see these areas. It’s subtle, but it makes a difference.

5.       Make sure the cuffs are narrow as in no more than an inch wide.

6.       Gathers … I didn’t notice a big difference between the ones I gathered and sewed by hand vs. the ones I gathered and sewed on the machine. This tells me I need to work on the gathers I do by hand.

7.       Oddly enough, the thing that bugged me the most was overcasting the interior seams with a zig-zag stitch. I figured nobody would see it, it wouldn’t matter, but it really changed the way the garment ended up being shaped. Go ahead and flat-fell your seams.

8.       Buttonholes: The fastest cheat? Do them by machine with the narrowest stitch you can, and then re-do them by hand. I did the first set by hand, and the linen was so coarsely woven, they pulled out, so I had to sew over that by machine, and then over that by hand. Again.

In other news, Sweet Daughter got two new shifts made out of cotton muslin. (The 18^th century kind, not the modern kind.) She really, really likes her shifts to be as light as possible. These were all sewn by machine except for the neck opening, the sleeve hem and the flat felling of the sleeves which were all done by hand. All the interior raw edges were overcast with a zig-zag stitch on the machine - oddly enough, this didn't bug me like it did on the shirts. I think it was a matter of scale. The shifts were a lot smaller, and made of  much lighter material. The hem was blind-stitched on the machine – I even put the growth tuck in by machine. I figure that nobody will ever see those details. And the hems by her hands and face were done by hand, and that’s all anybody sees. And as a result, these were knocked out in two evenings.

Your mileage may vary of course, but when pressed for time, this is what worked for me.

Last Saturday

Hi! I'm still here. I've been sewing a lot. When you bend your English steel needles because the callus on your needle-pushing finger has gotten so thick you don't notice the needle not moving ... well, maybe it's time to take a break.

Last Saturday was the annual Easter egg hunt at Stratford Hall. Each year the local FOP sponsors an egg hunt and grills hot dogs. One family bakes cupcakes and the local grocery stores donate drinks.

Lining up...

The kids are divided into age groups, with each having a large roped-off rectangle. Every age group has its own golden egg. This year, it was mayhem -- there were twice as many participants as usual.

 

The late spring meant the grass was still short and the eggs were easy to find. Once the signal to start was given, it was all over in a matter of minutes. At least it didn't snow on top of the eggs like it did a few years back. THAT was a real challenge.

 

 

Sweet Daughter, who took second place a couple of years ago, didn't do so well this time.

 

And then there was an additional hazard ...

For the first year ever, the squirrels got into some of the eggs.

The FOP grilled 500 hot dogs, and one family made 340 cupcakes.

SD found a patriotic one. She was thrilled.

 

We may have gotten a little silly.

 

We enjoyed the few brave daffys that were blooming in spite of the fact it was STILL COLD.

And, on the way home, we stopped by the little beach on the Potomac river by Washington's Birthplace and hung out for a while. It's a lovely spot, and we even got to see some bald eagles.

 

 

 

All in all, it was a lovely day.

More Stewed Pears

Been busy. Really, really busy. Two shifts for Sweet Daughter, three linen shirts, all hand-finished, leather binding on my stays, and tonight I'm trying to get my documentation together for the cooking competition at MTA this weekend. While looking through the 1781 version of Hannah Glass, I saw the "Pears Stewed Purple" recipe that I am NOT using.

To Stuff a Chine of Pork

Make a stuffing of the fat leaf of pork, parsley, thyme, sage, eggs, crumbs of bread; season with pepper, salt, shallot, and nutmeg, and stuff it thick; then roast it gently, and when it is about a quarter roasted, cut the skin in slips; and make your sauce with apples, lemon peel, two or three cloves, and a blade of mace; sweeten it with sugar, put some butter in, and have mustard in a cup.
 
Hannah Glasse, "The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple"

Modern adaptation here.

Since the chine is the backbone, and those are hard to come by, I went with the suggestion of using a pork loin.

"Take your pork loin and unroll it with a knife as you slice it lengthwise about ½ to ¾ of an inch thick. You should end up with a long rectangular piece of meat."

Uh, this sounds suspiciously like "foodie" territory. But I gave it a shot.

 

"In a large mixing bowl combine the bread crumbs, parsley, thyme, sage, nutmeg, pepper, salt, shallots and bacon. Blend these well with your hands."

 

"In another bowl, whip the eggs, and add it into the bread crumb mixture. Mix well with your hands until it is a stiff 'stuffing' consistency. If it is too dry, add another egg."

 

Since I wasn't roasting this, I went ahead and pre-cooked the bacon.

"Spread this stuffing over the loin to cover the entire surface of the pork. Don’t worry if it isn’t perfect."

 

 

"Gently roll up the pork from one end to the other. Tie it with cotton string in three or four bands around the meat. Place it in a greased baking pan."

 

 

Here's where things changed. The recipe says to roast at 350 degrees and baste with butter. What's not to love? Except that I'll be doing this over an open fire and I'm not sure if it's going to be raining (read: Will I have coals for a bake kettle?).

 

So, I wrapped it up in a linen pudding cloth, tied it up with string and boiled it in apple cider.

 

 

This worked well. Really, really well.

 

 

Add the seasoned apples or the mustard, and you have a winner!

EDITED to ADD: If you make the "sauced apples" I suggest you substitute nutmeg for the cloves, and maybe cut back on the amount. The cloves completely overpowered the pork and stuffing.
 

 

Stewed Spinage and Eggs

Pick and wash your spinage very clean, put it into a saucepan, with a little salt, cover it close, shake the pan often, when it is just tender, and whilst it is green, throw it into a sieve to drain, lay it into your dish. In the meantime have a stew pan of water boiling, break as many eggs into cups as you would poach. When the water boils put in the eggs, have an egg slice ready to take them out with, lay them on the spinage, and garnish the dish with orange cut into quarters, with melted butter in a cup.

Hannah Glasse, “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy”

Thoughts …

1.      Wow. Make this again. Fast, easy and good.

2.      I put a very little water in with the spinach and figured it was done when limp but still bright green.

3.      Spinach always cooks down more than I expect.

4.      Drain the spinach well.

5.      My egg poaching skills need work as far as pretty whites go, but even with guessing on the time (just waited for the whites to get good and opaque) it all worked out okay.

6.      Melted butter across the top is good. So is fresh orange juice.

 

Loaf Spanish-Fashion

Cut off the tops of six rolls, take out all the crumbs, fill them with a ready made [chocolate] cream, and cover them with the tops that were cut off, soak them in sweet Spanish wine, about a quarter of an hour; then wipe and flour them; fry of a good colour, and glaze them with sugar.
George Dalrymple, The Practice of Modern Cookery adapted to Families of Distinction as well as to those of the Middling Ranks of Life, Edinburgh, 1781

Here is the modern adaptation.

Let me just say that the chocolate custard is so fantastic by itself, I thought the wine-soaked, deep fried, sugar-strewn rolls took away from it. Yes, the chocolate is that good. Since I'm going to be making this over an open fire in as yet unknown weather conditions, I think I'm just going to stick to the custard.

Here are some of my amateur observations:

If you let the rolls sit out for a day, it's just about impossible to grate the crust off, at least with the microplane I have. Instead, I grated them and hollowed them out and then let them get good and stale.

I think soaking in wine is a bit of overkill and made them soggy. I just dipped them in a bowl of wine, and still thought they were too soggy. I would actually do this step first, and give them more time to drain, or I'd sprinkle them with wine and let it soak in slowly.

Deep frying in a saucepan (because all I'm going to have at the event is a spider) is not my strong point. Especially with cup-shaped, hollowed out rolls. And deep-frying in the rain doesn't sound like fun.

YMMV, but I think I'll just stick with the custard.

To Make an Onion Soup

To Make an Onion Soup

Take half a pound of butter, put it into a stew pan on the fire, let it all melt, and boil it till it has done making any noise; then have ready ten or a dozen middling onions peeled and cut small, throw them into the butter, and let them fry a quarter of an hour; then shake in a little flour, and stir them round; shake your pan and let them do a few minutes longer; then pour in a quart or three pints of boiling water, stir them round; take a good piece of upper crust, the stalest bread you have, about as big as the top of a penny loaf cut small, and throw it in. Season with salt to your palate. Let it boil ten minutes stirring it often; then take it off the fire, and have ready the yolks of two eggs beat fine , with half a spoonful of vinegar; mix some of the soup with them, then stir it into your soup, and mix it well, and pour it into your dish. This is a delicious dish.

Hannah Glasse, “The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy”

Color me skeptical, but I thought this looked awfully … bland. The modern commentary on it claimed that “the English recipe uses an egg yolk liaison and a splash of vinegar to add richness and depth.” I’m no foodie, but I figured what the heck. I’d give it a try, but I decided to just make a half batch.

This turned out to be a good decision.

Melted butter? Good. Onions (BTW, a “middling onion” was probably about an inch and half or so across) frying in the butter? Better. It was all good until I added the water and the bread crumbs. “Season with salt to your palate.” Okay. Now I am 1/16th (I think it is) Norwegian, which seems to have manifested itself in my cheekbones and tastebuds. My mother was from the upper Midwest where “whitening agents” were regularly added to food to make sure they were bland enough. My palate is calibrated to where I find Taco Bell with NO added sauce quite festive, thank-you-very-much. I tell you this so you understand when I say this was bland, I know what I’m talking about. Even with salt, it was tasteless, so I added a period pepper blend. Now it was simply insipid. I thought that maybe the vinegar was the magic bullet it needed, so I added the egg yolk/vinegar “liaison”. The improved it to a point where I’d be comfortable calling it “weak”.

Good enough for a cooking competition? Eh. I’m sure a foodie could find some way to put a positive spin on this and sell it to the judges, but I can’t do it. My commentary would have something to do with the fact that every bad British cooking joke can trace its origins to this dish.

BTW, I added chicken bullion, kielbasa, brown rice and some leftover black beans. It may not be great, but at least it will have some taste. And I’ll have lunch for the week.