Shepherd's Pie and Cookbook

Several years ago I came across a cookbook entitled Cooking for Madam, Recipes and Reminiscences from the Home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The author, Marta Sgubin, was John and Carolyn Kennedy’s Italian governess in the 1960's.

The book had great recipes, as well as lots of information about the Kennedy children and their upbringing. Both John and Carolyn (Kennedy) Schlossberg gave their permission for Ms. Sgubin to publish this book, along with the photographs of them as children.

Marta Sgubin came to the United States in 1969 as governess to Caroline Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, Jr. She regarded the move as temporary and was secretly planning to return to Europe very quickly.

After the children left for boarding school, Marta stayed on with the family. Her role, naturally, changed and evolved from governess to housekeeper and, finally, to friend, until she became an indispensable part of the household. She ran everything, but she shone especially as a gifted cook. Whether it was birthday parties for Caroline and John over the Thanksgiving weekend in New Jersey, a barbecue on the porch of the beach house on Martha's Vineyard, or a fast but elegant dinner on Fifth Avenue.

Twenty-five years later, when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died, Marta was still with her...from the cookbook (1999)

One of the recipes in that book was then "John-John" Kennedy’s favorite dish, Shepherd’s Pie. I copied that recipe and use it frequently for leftover pot roast, and when we occasionally have lamb left-overs. (My husband made Shepherd's Pie last nite; it was delicious.)

I could not find exactly the same recipe as is in Cooking for Madam, but one similar to Ms. Sgubin’s can be found here: Shepherd's Pie Recipe.

Just add a little dried rosemary, and it is even more fragrant and tasty!

PS: If you buy Cooking for Madam or anything through Amazon.com and use the link on the extreme upper right of this blog (web button with book image), the Ravelry organization gets a small cut from the sale. (Ravelry is a great tool for knitters and people who crochet, as well as for knittners.) Thanks for your support of Ravelry through this means.

Growing Geraniums (Or Not)

Geraniums are one of my fav flowers in backyard pots. Mixed with perennial groundcover, the splashes of vivid colors brighten up the entire area.

Each year, I have tried to “save” my geraniums over the winter. I have tried wintering the plants by hanging the bare roots in an outdoor shed (no luck). And I have tried several times trying to save the plants in the garage (also no luck). Maybe they did not get enough water, light or heat out there, or maybe they just did not want to survive.

But this year, lo and behold, one pot of roots that was relegated to our garage for the winter FINALLY made it! And it is large enough to make a visual impact this week in our potted plant area of the patio.

Gardeners often like to experiment and keep over their geraniums from year to year. This is possible by taking cuttings in late August and rooting them … Plants can also be dug, trimmed back to one half their original height, repotted and placed in a sunny window for the winter months. Some people also save geraniums by digging them, removing soil and hanging from the rafters in the basement on hooks. In general this method will work under high humidity, 85 to 90 percent and cool temperatures of 50 to 55 degrees F, but modern homes are too dry, thus causing dehydration of the plant. Because there is no sure way of knowing if this method will work in your home, try it and if successful you will have plants next spring.

This information is from Ohio State University.

We put out about a dozen new geraniums this spring. We’ll see if they can survive the summer of 2008 and into the winter of 2009!

Dyeing with Kool Aid

Kool Aid as a dye intrigues me. Kool Aid has many pleasing properties when mixed with sugar as a drink. But I never knew it could be used for dyeing purposes until I started researching a bit into the fiber world.

Each color of Kool Aid will produce a differing hue on yarns. One "color chart" of Kool Aid colors is shown in the picture at the left. It comes from this site.

I decided to dye some hand spun wool to see how it might work up. Of course, I Googled various sites and came up with this information from Knitpicks:

Getting started dyeing with drink mixes: All you need is a microwave, a selection of unsweetened powdered drink mixes, canning jars or microwave safe glass containers and small skeins of yarn. To get your yarn ready, wash it lightly in mild soap and then let it soak in the sink while you mix up your solutions.

Mix up your solutions: A good rule of thumb is 2 packages of unsweetened drink mix per 50 grams of yarn. Empty your packages of drink mix into your microwave-safe dish with some water. Stir to dissolve. Add your yarn and enough water to cover it. Heat and set your color. Zap your yarn-filled dish for two minutes. Let the yarn rest for a few minutes, then zap it again for another two minutes. Continue this process until the yarn takes up most of the color leaving the water nearly clear.

Finish your yarn:Let the yarn cool in the container. Then, rinse it thoroughly in water the same temperature as the yarn. Wash the yarn in mild soap, rinse again and let dry.

Ok, so after reading the above, I decided to do the dyeing in a simpler manner. I decided that blue would be a safe color, because any hue would turn out to be satisfactory for coloring wool. Here is how I did the dyeing:

1) Wet the yarn thoroughly (uncolored wool in picture at right);

2) Dissolve two packages of Berry Blue Kool Aid in about 2 qts. of boiling water;

3) Let the yarn soak in the Kool Aid for about 30 minutes. All the colored water is absorbed by the yarn, and the water has just a hint of blue left in it since all the blue dye is absorbed by the wool.

4) I put about a cup of vinegar in the rinse water, then wrung the rinse water out of the yarn;

5) Final step: I drained the yarn in a colander and let it set out to dry thoroughly.

The resulting yarn was a very nice blue! I can use it for scarf-making in the fall. And the whole process took less than an hour.