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Little Artist

I have an assistant today.

my life as a slide show

Peace Rose

Peanut Butter Noodles (sort of like Pad Thai)

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger root
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons peanut butter
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons hot chile paste (optional)
3 cloves garlic, minced
8 ounces Udon noodles
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped peanuts

DIRECTIONS
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add noodles and cook until tender according to package directions. Drain.

Meanwhile, combine chicken broth, ginger, soy sauce, peanut butter, honey, chili paste, and garlic in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat until peanut butter melts and is heated through. Add noodles, and toss to coat. Garnish with green onions and peanuts

Chris’s Jambalaya

Chicken, Andouille Smoked Sausage and Tasso Jambalaya

From “Hot & Spicy Recipes”

[My (Chris') comments are in brackets.]

Ingredients:

3 tbsp. unsalted butter
½ lb. tasso or other smoked ham, diced
½ lb. andouille smoked sausage or other smoked pork sausage cut into 1/4 inch slices [I like to use ground sausage]
¾ lb. boneless chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp. Chef Paul Prudhomme’s “Poultry Magic”
1 cu. chopped onions, divided
1 cu. chopped celery, divided
1 cu. chopped green bell peppers, divided
1 tbsp. minced garlic
½ cu. canned tomato sauce
1 cu. peeled, chopped tomatoes
2½ cu. chicken stock or water
1½ cu. uncooked (converted ) rice

Directions:

- Melt butter into a 4-qt. saucepan over high heat. Add tasso and andouille sausage; cook until meat starts to brown, 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently and scraping pan bottom well. [Many Jambalaya recipes say that the little burned parts of sausage, chicken, and other ingredients that form on the bottom of the pan and get scraped into the mix add an authentic cajun flavor to the dish. If you have a well seasoned, cast-iron pot this adds a lot to the flavor of the dish.]

- Add chicken; continue cooking until chicken is brown, 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently and scrapping pan bottom as needed.

- Stir in bay leaves, Poultry Magic and ½ cu. each of onions, celery and bell pepper; add garlic. Cook until vegetables are tender, about 6 to 8 minutes, stirring and scraping pan bottom frequently.

- Stir in tomato sauce and cook about 1 minute, stirring often. Stir in remaining onions, celery, bell pepper and tomatoes. Stir in stock and rice; mix well.

- Bring mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, over very low heat until rice is tender but still chewy, about 30 minutes. (If you prefer to finish the dish by baking it once stock and rice are added, transfer mixture to an ungreased 13×9 inch baking pan and bake, uncovered at 350º F until rice is tender but still chewy, about 1 hour).

- Stir well; remove bay leaves. Let sit, uncovered, 5 minutes before serving. [Many Jambalaya recipes advise to let the Jambalaya sit in the fridge overnight in the pot to let the flavor develop more fully and to permeate the rice.]

- To serve, arrange 2 heaping ½ cu. mounds of rice on each serving place for main dish; allow heaping ½ cu. for an appetizer. Makes 6 main dish servings or 12 appetizer servings.

Bandstand Sculpture

This sculpture sits atop the bandstand at Davis Park in Charleston, West Virginia, (across from the BB&T building).

My camera is crap. It’s about 6 years old, and has been used and abused quite heavily. The viewfinder’s gong out, and I have to smack it to get it to come back on. I will get it fixed and use it for a backup, but I ordered a shiny, new one, and it should be here early next week. I am so excited! Squee! This one’s got all the bells and whistles, too — including a much bigger zoom lens, which I’m pretty excited about.

Back to this sculpture…

It’s stuck right atop the bandstand at Davis Park like a weather vane. It looks like it should spin with the wind, but it doesn’t. When I was younger, I used to imagine that it would spin to find people playing music somewhere in the city. That would be an interesting animation, wouldn’t it?

John Fluharty Exhibit

Boy and Monastery, Tibet
by John Fluharty

There is an exhibit of John Fluharty’s photography at the WV Cultural Center until October 29. It’s fabulous! The photos are from his travels in Tibet and Egypt, 2005-06.

I reviewed the exhibit for the Gazz. I’m not going to post the entire review here, but you can follow this link to read my review, if you’re so inclined.

Annie Liebovitz in Newsweek

There is an interesting article about Annie Liebovitz in the current issue of Newsweek. I have always loved her work, and it’s interesting to read about how she juggles parenthood and art (something I know just a little about, myself!) The article is to promote on her new book, A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005. I can’t wait to read the book.

* The rights to use her photos online seem to have run out. If you want to see the photos in the Newsweek article, you’re going to have to get the magazine.

Perfect for Artists — Moo Mini Cards

Check out these cool business cards by Moo! They’re mini-sized — as wide as a normal business card but skinny. You can put any image on them from your Flickr account, and you can get as many images as you want in your package. They look and feel nice — sort of plastic, but not super-glossy. The colors come out nicely (a little dark on a couple images, but not much.) It was about $20 for 100 cards, and they shipped turbo-fast.