Fat Tuesday

Long-time readers know I am devoted to the notion of Fastnachts for Fat Tuesday.  This year I made them the night before since I have to be on the road by 7am.  I was not about to get up at 3am to make them.  The one year I got up at the butt-crack of dawn to make fastnachts they did not turn out well.

This year a big bag of fresh, greasy fastnachts to share with coworkers helped grease the social machinery though.  It's been hard to get to know folks at work since my time is split between two large buildings and communication is somewhat lacking.  Three of the teachers in close proximity to the library have been kind and supportive so I shared with them and with the crew of ladies I am a part of who gets to do cafeteria duty every morning.  We have to herd 600 kids through breakfast in half an hour...no easy task...and generally thankless....not to mention rather revolting at times.  Fastnachts for all the ladies seemed to be an appreciated little treat during that duty. I've appreciated the ones who have been kind to me.

I had to giggle when on of the cafeteria ladies who speaks very little English came chattering at me animatedly in Spanish.  One of the other ladies asked me if I understood what she was saying.  I said more or less that I was getting that she thought they were rich and yummy and even though I offered sugar to shake them in she was happy without it.  The one who would translate smiled and gave me the thumbs up.  Food bridges language barriers pretty nicely sometimes.

Later in the day I had a young student come to me and say in halting English that he had a Valentine for me.  It was a little package of conversation hearts.  Well, shucks....then it was time for me to be surprised.

Better Late Than Never

You may recall how I sewed a quilt for Diana before she went off to college. Well, although Calypso is not in college this year she is away from home.  Christmas 2011 I gave her the fabric for her own quilt.  Given all the insanity of 2011 It didn't get done in time for her graduation....or for her departure to the internship program she is in....or...uh...even for Christmas 2011.  It did get done for this past weekend though in a great final push of sewing, clipping, washing, and drying.  Here is the evidence.

It was the same pattern as her sister's, just a different color scheme.  This is only the second quilt I have ever made in my life so I decided to stick with what worked in terms of the pattern.

A close-up of the texture.  Unlike really traditional quilts this is a rag quilt made of flannel and with exposed edges intended to fray.

Calypso approved of the finished product even if she was kind of annoyed by the photo shoot.

Isaac has begun asking when he will get a new quilt. He's a sophomore. Maybe I should start now to have it done in time for graduation...

Slice of Lime-Strange Traditions

Some families have lovely sentimental traditions which bind the generations together. Other families eschew tradition altogether. Then there are those which observe some rather strange rituals year after year.

Case in point, my brother and I were not taught that there was such a thing as an Easter Bunny. Judging by the bananas we are holding it would seem the Easter Monkey came to visit us. I believe my brother is actually taking a call from him.

I know this next tradition may come as a surprise to you all because every picture I have ever posted of myself is one of restrained and quiet dignity but I have enjoyed making ugly faces at cameras since I was small. there's a shot in my mother's photo album from when I was 4. My parent's were celebrating something and wanted a nice family picture. I got very tired of sitting nicely and waited for the photographer to tell us, Say cheese!" At the moment the picture was taken I stopped smiling, stretched my face into a grimace with my fingers, and stuck out my tongue. The photographer suggested that when I was all grown up I'd regret ruining the picture. Either I have yet to grow up at the tender age of thirty-eleven or the photographer was just W-R-O-N-G because I still laugh when I look at that picture.

Anyway, my mother-in-law bought my kids their Easter clothes every year until about 3 years ago. She asked for a nice picture of them in the clothes in return. I always met her request but typically we'd take one or two nice shots then I'd let the kids act like lunatics for the rest of the roll (back in the film days). Here's one of my favorite years.

Here is last year. There was a certain lack of enthusiasm among some individuals for either smiling or grimacing last year. Ennui seems to be the new grimace.

Finally, here is a tradition that stretches back to the days when my great grandmother filled the baskets. We'd all get the standard basket fare of chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, malted milk ball eggs and.....decapitated marshmallow peeps. To this day my kids know better than to expect an intact marshmallow peep in their baskets.

How to Justify Extra Pie and a New Appliance

Saturday was Pi Day. Even though I've never been a strong math student we celebrate Pi Day by making pie (because I am a dessert enthusiast and all I need is the flimsiest reason to justify dessert). This year I decided to make my aunt's Graham Cracker Pie recipe. I gathered all the ingredients, made the crust, cooked up the pudding from scratch and was all set to begin whipping the egg whites into meringue. Lo and behold my mixer was no longer working. The thing is 20 years old and has been used hard so I didn't feel as if I had been somehow cheated. However, it meant I would now have to whip up the 4 eggs whites into meringue...with a whisk...BY HAND. I was less than thrilled.

Could I have just left the pudding in the pie shell and had meringue-less pie? Yes, but I had already gotten my taste buds primed for a proper graham cracker pie and I had already used the yolks to make the pudding and had the 4 eggs whites sitting expectantly in the bowl. To have a meringue-less pie would have been sadly incomplete and disappointing and it would have wasted the egg whites. Yes, I know that amounts to perhaps 10 cents worth of food and no I really don't need you to point out that I shamelessly tossed 10 cents of graham cracker crumbs into the trash. This was now a challenge from the universe that I was compelled to rise to. Besides, I figured the caloric expenditure of whipping that dang meringue by hand would easily justify a second piece of pie for me.

So, if you don't mind please take a minute and marvel over the gorgeousity that is my meringue (with graham cracker crumbs sprinkled on top as per the recipe). So light and fluffy. Look I even made sure it had pretty little peaks to get all toasty brown in the oven.

Mmmm....doesn't that look yummy?

Better get some while the gettin's good.

If celebrating Pi Day isn't geeky enough for you, I took my mixer apart to get at the cord which snapped where it exits the body of the appliance. I'm geeky enough to know how to fix it but I think, given the life span of the old hand mixer and the amount of baking I do, one of these is called for as a replacement.

Slice of Lime-Time to Make the Fastnachts

DISCLAIMER: Viewing of the following video clips may be a hazard to your health. Creating them was certainly a hazardous undertaking considering the sleep deprivation endured and the presence of boiling oil. Do not attempt to recreate these scenes at home. The filmmaker is highly untrained and just look what happened to her! Viewing these scenes or overindulging in fastnachts may result in delirium, tics and twitches, brain damage, simple chronic halitosis, acne, psychosis, beri beri, tingling in the earlobes, severe nostril cramps, and terminal nail fungus. Erections lasting over 4 hours should be referred to the blog author immediately.


As you know, on Tuesday I got up well before dawn to fry up Fastnachts for Fat Tuesday. If that's not shocking enough to those who know how much I hate early mornings, prepare to be amazed. I also filmed the process in segments all so you lovely people could bask in the horror of my very unlovely 4 am self. Of course I am assuming you all are fans of horror. I apologize to those readers/viewers possessing a more delicate constitution. There are 5 videos because I have no idea whatsoever how to edit them into a single clip but don't worry, they are all mercifully brief. So without further ado...



Good grief, check the bags under those eyes...and the squint. Look away!

Next, the rolling and cutting.

Such eloquence, really. And I am sure Grammy did not use a New York Giants Pilsner glass being the temperate woman she was.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, she fires them. This is a truly death defying feat as she scoops fastnachts into the hot oil with one hand and works the camera with the other. What was she thinking? It was before dawn...she wasn't thinking at all...except perhaps, "Oh, my bed would feel sooooo nice right now." But on the upside, she's finally got more than dime slits for eyes.

Little did I know any nausea induced by the camera work would be far exceeded by the wretched indigestion after eating a bunch of these for breakfast and throughout the day. I now know what it feel like to digest bricks.


Here is the 25 second clip that will horrify the well mannered everywhere.
I demonstrate the edibility of the fastnachts and talk with a mouthful. That Lime, she is one classy chick.

In defense of my sense of decorum, I at least put a bra on before coming into the kitchen. I could say it was for the sake of propriety but really it is because the pain associated with accidentally deep frying my nipples if I leaned over the frying pan was a greater motivator.


Finally, after I was awake for a few hours and had a chance to make myself presentable I evaluate the results. Basically I figured if I was going to put up those earlier and far more horrific clips I had to end with something where I at least looked like a member of the human race.

To add further commentary, the excessive number of fastnachts I consumed wound up sitting in my gut like doughy bricks for the rest of the day. It was generally agreed at House of Lime that this was not a highly successful Fat Tuesday as les bontemps did not rouler when it came to fastnachts. Live and learn...

Opening Day

Today is opening day of deer season in Pennsylvania. Granted this picture doesn't show hunters with anything bigger than rabbits or pheasants. The woman in the middle is my great-grandmother though. Yes, she hunted. My great-grandfather is kneeling with my uncle on the left and my grandfather on the right. I come from a family of hunters, men and women. It kept food on the table when times were tough...or not so tough. I never hunted (Mom wouldn't allow it) but I know how to handle a rifle and a shotgun and was taught from an early age to have respect for the power of a fire-arm, they are no toys.

Diana has hunted since she was 13. This is the buck she got her very first year (within the first two hours of opening day, which is a pattern she repeated every year until last year). Isaac went out for the first time last year and is hoping this year will be his turn to put food in the freezer for winter. Yes, we eat what we take. That's the point.

Quilts on Tuesday-Learning a Little

Anyone out there getting tired of this quilt series? If you are fear not, this is the last one for a while. I've showed you a lot of my mom's work that was done for me. I've shown you work by other family members and friends. I've told you how I grew up playing under quilt frames and how my mom has been willing to make the types of quilts I love even though it involves a lot of piecing which she is not overly fond of. This week I'll finish up with a little of my own work (and still more of my mom's).

This first piece is just a four block table runner. The friend who made the batik wall hanging ran a workshop to teach the log cabin technique. I was eager to give it a try. The idea of doing an entire quilt was more than a bit daunting. Doing four blocks and putting them together under the supervision of someone experienced was doable. You might ask why I didn't learn from my mom. Well, she had taught me to hand quilt and I was halfway proficient at that. I like the piecing of traditional patterns though and that has never been her thing. Here is my finished project. I don't use it on a daily basis but I do use it when I have a big meal with guests because the quilting of the runner makes it like a nice thick hot pad.

Here's a close up of one of the blocks so you can see some of the fabrics a little better. I did the quilting on this "in the ditch." That means the hand quilting goes right into the seams joining the strips of fabric so it it only enhances the piecing design as opposed to drawing attention to the design of the stitching itself. It was a fun little project and when I explained the technique to my mother she was interested in learning it herself. It was kind of amazing to me to be able to teach my mother something about quilting since I am only a beginner and she's been doing it her entire adult life.

Finally, we have the quilt mom made to replace the tattered log cabin quilt she made me 20 years ago. Once again, she told me I could choose any pattern I wanted. Once again I asked for a heavily pieced quilt. This time I found a pattern in the Amish style which means it is done in all solid. You'll notice the table runner is made of prints like calicoes and such. This quilt has only solid colored fabrics. If you know anything about me you know I like bold color. As I looked through different books this one just grabbed my eye immediately.

Mom, in her great love heaved a sigh and agreed to make it for me. She also suggested it might be fun to work on together. She agreed to do all the large and complicated blocks that you see running up the sides. I agreed to do the pinwheel patterns that go up the middle as well as the flying geese strips on the other sides of the large single blocks. I realized this picture doesn't show the flying gees so here is a picture to let you see what that pattern would look like. Pinwheels and flying geese were reasonably uncomplicated blocks for a beginner like me and if I did them it would free Mom to figure out how to do some of the crazier ones that she'd never done herself. It also makes it special to me that we worked on this quilt together.

Once all the blocks were done she assembled the entire top and did the quilting and binding. Since her arthritis has made hand quilting too painful she machine quilted the blocks in the ditch and then added some other patterns within the black strips. I didn't want the quilting to detract from the patterns of the blocks so the patterns in the strips are just parallel lines with the occasional, random mirror of either a flying geese or pinwheel pattern. The top came out beautifully with the traditional look I really wanted. The totally non-traditional part is the backing, which was as close to tie dyed as we could find. I love this quilt for so many reasons. The love Mom showed again in being willing to make it, the time we spent working on it together, the traditional top, the crazy back are all things that make this MY quilt in ways that no commercially produced quilt could ever be. Oh, and one more thing...Mom has her own tradition. She says a quilt is not complete until a drop of blood has been spilled on it. Some people think that's a bit gruesome. We're not talking crime scene spatters here, just the natural occurrence of pricking your finger at some point during the process of handling needles and such. When the minor accident happens the quilt is christened with that little drop of blood. Yes, Mom and I both "completed" this quilt in her traditional fashion.