Public Phone

Public phones these days. I found this one in San Francisco.

modern phone

Elles from Centre Pompidou at SAM

First of all, must SAM use the word "seminal" to describe a show (Elles) by women? A show with a number of radical feminist women artists? What's wrong with getting a thesaurus and finding another word? I won't object too much to the use of "seminal" in other situations, but in this context? Why not fertile (if you must) or influential or...innovative...or fundamental...there are so many words...

Semantics aside, it was really great to be in a major mainstream museum and to be surrounded by the works of so many women, to see multidimensional images of women - strong, rebellious, ugly, beautiful, messy, grotesque, masculine, feminine, funny, sad, willful, etc.

Au Bord de la Mer
by Romaine Brooks. 1914.

It was also interesting to see some sort of chronology of art by women. It had an archival quality to it, especially the outdated and poorly made videos and photo collages. I am just being honest here, but some of the art only works as archival material. Yes, women also made futuristic art (Natalia Goncharova, for example) but not all of it was good and some of that bad art was at this exhibit. It wasn't clear to me why it was there...But bad is subjective, right?

There were some gems at the exhibit. Au Bord de la Mer by Romaine Brooks was riveting. In 1914 this was an unconventional way to depict a woman. The moody weather, the moody expression on her face, her androgynous (for 1914) look and the greens and blues locked my gaze for a while.

For the most part, however, the exhibit did not inspire. Most of the works seemed second hand. For example, while I was looking forward to seeing Nan Goldin and Cindy Sherman, their works in the exhibit were...well...the boring ones. They seemed like they were there only because of the names attached. Orlan's photograph, Artist's Kiss, taken out of context did not really communicate the awesome weirdness that is Orlan.

At the entrance to the exhibit, you were handed these phone-like recorders to listen to experts talk about the art. Great potential to contextualize the work. Most of the recordings were so obvious, however, that they felt insulting. For example, I was told by a prerecorded art professor that the self portrait of Claude Cahun, with short hair and wearing a suit shows the artist playing with the notion of gender. Um, okay. Maybe someone needs to be told this, but that is a sad commentary that borders on performance art itself.

I am still glad that I went to see the show. It was worth it for the experience of being there with so many women - both via art and in the audience. But the exhibit fell short for me. Despite its intentions, it felt like any other de-contextualized ghettoisation of women as "women" artists. The feminist critique was dulled by the lackluster descriptions and by the depoliticized space of the museum. Some of this art is only really alive in the streets and in unexpected locations. Some of the art just wasn't the best work, even if anchored by familiar names. Some of it needed a deeper historical context. The exhibit feels disjointed and does not really do what it promises - it doesn't show how these women were influential in the art world. But it doesn't mean that you won't be inspired by some of the art and that you won't learn something new. I did. Just bring your notepad so that you can take notes and look up some of the artists later.

Feast with mom. dad, and Julia

Spring 2012 - strange bee behavior

It's finally summery warm and the bees seem to be loving it. This morning, I took out the tar paper from inside the hive at Beck's house on Bethel street. I had put the paper into the hives to partition off empty space, so that the comb would stay warmer. Towards the end of the day today, they were forming a beard on the hive porch as if they were scheming to swarm. It might be the heat. The tar paper had some comb built on it and they also built comb on the vent bar, which I moved all the way to the back. They were running out of space. Hopefully the additional quarters will keep them from splitting off.

 At my house, the bees were also acting strangely. They suddenly all flew out of the hive at once. I was trying to pull out the bottom board and it was stuck. I went into the shop to get some tools and when I came out, the bees were pouring out of the hive like a bee tornado. It looked like all of the bees came out and there were a lot of them. There was a cloud of bees up in the sky.

My neighbor told me that he saw them do the same thing earlier in the day. No idea what's going on...This is not swarming behavior as far as I know. They flew around for a short time and then came back in.

Extracting Wax From Old Honeycomb

I was dreading this process because I read about how messy it is, but it wasn't that bad at all.

This weekend, I finally decided to do something with that bucket of old honeycomb that was sitting in my shed. Here are the tools that came in handy:

1. 3 gal aluminum pot ($5 at a garage sale)
2. ladle ($2.50 thrift store)
3. 3 gallon plastic bucket (free from the back of a restaurant)
4. 3 gal. paint strainer cloth ($2.50 hardware store)
(I also got a plastic sieve, but ended up not needing it because the paint strainer cloth does the job just fine)

I filled the large aluminum pot half way with hot water and brought to a boil. Then I added all of the honey comb. I then waited until all of the wax melted. A lot of dark brown stuff came floating to the top. That's slumgum. It's good for compost and also for starting fires or using in a wood fueled camping stove.

Then I took my operation outside to avoid making a mess in the kitchen. On a level spot in the back yard, I stretched the paint strainer cloth over the plastic bucket and poured the whole mess through the paint strainer. Then I tied off the paint strainer and hung it up over the bucket to drain.

It took hours for the mixture to cool off, but in the end a beautiful golden 1" layer of bees wax hardened on top of the brown water beneath. I lifted the wax out and set on newspaper to dry. The leftover water went in the garden (bees are attracted to the water because it smells like honey. So cover it up if you plan to let it sit outside, otherwise bees will drown in it).

Fresh Has Arrived

Target was having a promo cooking show in the background of Occupy Seattle. It was surreal.

Kitzel's needs you!

Our deadline to keep that awesome deal on the space is this Monday morning. We still need a few thousand dollars to sign the lease. If you plan to donate or buy a membership, please do it today or tomorrow and use Paypal (on the right side of this page) or personal check because of time constraints. Thanks!!!!

click on Fundraising for more detail

or call irina  2o6-4o3-31o6

Kitzel's Deli Social Networks

Going social network crazy over here! Trying to fund raise to open our Deli! Take a look at our indiegogo page or use paypal directly on our website or read more about it on our blog or Twitter page or Facebook and we're on Flickr too!

whew!

New Mural - More Blue Water

A new mural is going up on the side of the China Clipper.



I never cared for the one that was there before. It seemed too silly. When I mentioned it to the artist, he pointed to his painting buddy (sign painter Ira Coyne) and said "he painted that one. I hated it." Ooops. Me too...kind of. I didn't hate it, but it never made any sense and I found it irritating.

Ira was good-natured about my faux pas and said that he meant it as an ironic commentary on the kinds of murals that people like - whales and other cute animals. Hmmm. I, personally, don't like being mocked as an audience, but I can appreciate the rebelliousness.

Here is what the old one looked like.


The old China Clipper mural by Ira Coyne

The artist of the new mural (whose name I have yet to learn) painted another downtown Oly mural that I love. It's in the alley behind the Alanon club. I love the rusty colors of it.




I agree with Ira's sentiment that the cute animal theme is kind of meh because it tends to be overdone on murals, but it's more about the colors than content with some murals. It's the same reason that I loved the Orcas on the side of State Theater. The blue painting was so huge that it felt like a perpetual clear sky even on rainy Olympia days.



The old Orcas mural, now gone, on the side of the State Theater on Washington st.

New Class

excited to teach this class in the summer

Our Jewish Deli

Check it out here, new blog for the deli!

Bees and Honey

Rooting for Truffles

H and I went truffle hunting last Saturday and found 6 of these Oregon Black Truffles. It was a foray organized through the South Sound Mushroom Club. A guy named Ken led us to a spot. He looks up forest maps to find groves of Douglas Fir that were planted between 6 and 20 years ago. we drove south and met at a truck stop restaurant for a 7:30am breakfast. Then drove some more and headed into the Doug Fir groves.

Hunting for truffles was easier than I expected. You look for fresh holes dug up by critters under the canopy of the tree. The truffles grow on top of the soil under the forest duff. I was using a little garden hand rake to dig through the pine needles. Others were using long handled rakes. Ken said that March 5 is pretty much the end of the season for truffle hunting. None of us expected to find this many truffles.

And turns out that there is a whole truffle society! They have recipes, truffle pics and other truffle related stuff.

Honey from my bees

Honey Harvest

my bees died, but i harvested a lot of honey. see the pics here.

filling up, originally uploaded by from here

Free Documentaries

SnagFilm is pretty awesome. Here is my playlist of documentary films to watch. free online.
Watch more free documentaries

i dont get it...

unfinished mural in SF

advertising in the Castro



sign outdated or cool?

please feel free to interpret!

Chalk Animation

The first time that I saw chalk used for animation was when Italian street artist Blu, posted his work on YouTube. Here's another amazing job done by Shynola for a Coldplay music video. Makes me so happy.

Gaudy Furniture

I'm setting up an instructional research area in the library and need to get some furniture for it. Went downtown to Furniture Works and found these. Ugly handsome? For sure comfortable, with plenty of room to put a pile of books on the arm rest, and the section of the back pulls down and turns into a foot rest!

Collecting honey!

Harvested my first honey a few weeks ago. Extracted honey from the comb by pushing it through a sieve. It wasn't the easiest way to do it. Here's a really great idea on how to separate the honey from the wax.

Macarena at Aqua(rd) Faire

class was fun this semester

Summer firsts

dinner outside

harvest

Kohlrabi

I got a kohlrabi in my CSA last week and have been unsure what to do with it. It sort of looks like an asteroid that fell to earth from outer space. Turns out you can even eat its green tail. I found a bunch of recipes here. I think I'll try the pickled one.

Hands Across the Sand

This is from Hands Across the Sand, an action that took place around the globe and in Olympia on Saturday, in support of protecting our environment.

Learning from the Bees

They arrive
They came in these boxes. Dave drove them up from California. 350 orders of bees. Each order is a box of 3 lbs or about 1200 bees, including one queen. That's about 420,000 bees that Dave escorted north. One box is enough to start a hive. But starting two hives is better, in case one hive becomes weak. The time to start new hives is in spring.

The queen comes in a queen cage. To get her out, we replace the cork with queen candy. By the time the bees eat through the candy, they are used to the queen's pheromones and won't kill her.


The queen rules the house...sort of
One time in her life, the queen mates with about 10 drones. She arrives sperm filled from that adventure. That is the only time that she mates and the sperm lasts 2-3 years. When the sperm is gone, the worker bees kill her. Meanwhile, after arriving in a box with stranger bees, as the only egg layer she will soon become surrounded by her own offspiring since the worker bees die off every few weeks.

The queen lays her eggs in the center of each cell. You can see the tiny eggs in the image below. She fertilizes some eggs with the sperm and they turn into female worker bees. Some eggs, she leaves unfertilized or haploid. They become the male drones.

The drones' only task is to mate with a queen bee. After mating, the drone's endophalus falls off and he dies.


The queen is reared by nurture not nature. She is born out of a regular larva and becomes a queen because of special treatment. When the bees want to leave the hive, they make a peanut shaped queen cell around one of the larvae.

Nurse bees feed special royal jelly to that lucky maggot and she grows into a royalty (royal jelly is not as tasty as you would expect, it tastes kind of like yogurt). That privileged rearing makes the queen grow longer than other bees. My queen was inked with blue paint for easy spotting.

If the bees start making a queen cell when their colony is still new, the cell must be removed - cut off with a knife. If you leave the cell on the comb, the hive will swarm. The old queen will leave with her bees. This is how I got to taste royal jelly. Cut off the cell and pop in your mouth. That's how the beekeepers do it.

They must have enough food
Soon after the queen lays the eggs, they hatch and turn into larvae. The bees must get enough food to feed their brood and themselves to get enough energy for work. They store pollen and honey in the combs. Usually the brood is in the center of the comb and the outer edges are filled with honey and pollen.

Since the bees in the top bar hives must build their own combs, they need extra energy. If it rains and stays cold for too long after they arrive, they may starve. You will notice that their honey supply in the combs is very low or gone. You can feed them sugar syrup 1:1 ratio of sugar to water or 2:1 if they really start to starve and you find dead larvae in front of the hive. When the bees are desperate, they may eat their own larvae (like Saturn). This happened to my bees. In the picture below, the dead larvae that I found seem to have their heads chewed off.

To make it easy for them to get to some food in the rain, you can mount a jar of syrup on the front of the hive, like this:

This is an emergency, so you can also give them some honey inside the hive and for some protein, you can feed them pollen.
Spinkle it on the landing strip in front of the entrance. They will roll it into the hive or rub in it to collect it onto their bodies, mix with nectar and place into pollen sacs on their legs for transport.


Bees can be pirates
Putting the syrup jar in front of the hive, may encourage robbing behavior and the stronger hive will steal all of the honey from the weaker hive. This happened to my hives too. I noticed clusters of bees fighting in front of a hive entrance and then saw a steady stream of bees flying back and forth from the weaker hive to the stronger one.

To fix this, we switched the hives by putting the weaker hive where the stronger hive stood and vise versa. Then the thieves "returned" with food to the weaker hive which now stood in place of their old hive. They didn't notice, because they know their home by location. Since they were carrying food, the weaker hive took them in and the bees didn't fight. We also took one honey filled and one brood filled comb from the strong hive and placed it in the weak hive. Two empty combs from the weak hive went into the strong hive. This equalized the hives and stopped the robbing.

I removed the syrup jar from the front of the hive and put it inside the weak hive instead. To help the bees defend the strong hive that was now in the robbed hive location, the entrance was covered with a piece of wood, leaving only an inch or so of the opening. I then had to check both hives to make sure that the queens were still in their homes and have not been killed by the pirates. The bees were very aggravated when I opened the hive and I should have been paying attention.

You have to pay attention
I have been trying not to wear protection. I find looking at the bees, without protection, meditative because I really have to be relaxed and stay tuned to their mood. If they get aggravated, I freeze for a while. The only times that I got stung was when I accidentally grabbed a bee with my hand or kneeled on one. This time, the bees were aggravated after the stress of being robbed. They were in a defensive mode. I was tired from work and was too impatient to be careful. I held up a comb to peer at the queen and ignored the warning buzzing. Protecting her queen and honey, a guard bee went right for my eye. It hurt.

a smoker helps to calm them and

sometimes a veil is a good idea.

a test

a test
Originally uploaded by irooshka

testing the new flip camera

New Favorite Breakfast

Fresh oysters from the Oly farmer's market. Pink grapefruit and a free-range egg, over easy, from the Oly co-op. B&B coffee.

Shucking is a little hazardous to your fingers but it's pretty easy to do. The secret is - don't use force and understand the anatomy of an oyster. Put the hinge end in your palm, then gently but persistently work the shucking knife between the shells into the side (towards the front) of the oyster. Once the knife is in, don't pry. Move it up and down scraping the top shell to cut the muscle that holds the shells together. Once you cut that, the oyster opens up on it's own.

Red grapefruit. My friend Iole showed me how to peel it in such a way that all of the bitter peel comes off. Take a sharp knife, put the fruit on a cutting board and just cut the skin off of the whole thing. You'll get the hang of how deep to cut after you do it a few times. Then cut out the wedges.

Oscars at OFS

The little movie star was walking towards the giant Oscar who was buying a candy bar.

Razor Clam Season

I am on my knees on the edge of the ocean with my arm deep in the sand, barely hanging on to the tip of a clam shell. Frothy waves splash over my back and I yelp but hang on and slowly wiggle the mollusk out.

Washignton beach in winter. My jeans are soaked and my wool sweater sleeves are covered with a coat of sand. Jeff M. is barefoot with rolled up jeans and Jerm is in soaked tennis shoes and a hoodie. We are laughing, digging in the sand and pulling out the huge bivalves, surprised at each successfull operation.

There is an old woman, calmly poised by the water's edge, thrusting her custom made steel clam gun into the sand and pulling out mollusk after mollusk without hesitation. A curly haired boy watches her and eagerly holds a netted bag, collecting the catch.

The three of us are flailing near by. We are new to this hunt. We have a hard time seeing the tiny holes made by the siphons attached to the clam bodies. We stalk any little irregularities in the sand and pull out rocks. But we keep trying and our eventual success is a reward for persistence.


The WDFW opens Washington beaches to Razor clamming about 15-30 days a year. Last weekend, the beach was open on Sunday. Clamming started about two hours before the 6:16pm low tide.

The Tools:
Clam gun digger - I was going to make a clam gun because they look so easy to make, but when I found out that you can buy one at Olympia Supply for $16, I just bought one. If you want to make one, this site explains how to do it out of PVC. Pretty simple.

Shovel - it appears that in the clam digging culture, this is the macho way to dig for clams. Most people use clam guns with amazing dexterity but the burly dudes in clamming gear tend to have the shovel.

I got both for comparison and I pretty much agree with the burly dudes that the shovel method is superior. There is something satisfying about getting on your knees and digging into the sand with bare hands for your catch.

Cleaning:
Cleaning is truly the worst part of clamming. Even though I can suck down live oysters, gutting live clams is tough. You have to take off the shell, cut open the clam, take out the guts and then separate the digger from the siphon. Here is one video that shows how to do it. My goal is always to do the deed as fast as possible. Their muscles continue to spasm even after they've been gutted. I try to detach my mind as much as I can. "No brains, no pain" I say to myself.

Eating
Well, the cleaning is worth it when you are finally eating.

Razor Clam Ceviche
this is best when clams are super fresh

1. Finely chop siphons of 4 razor clams.
2. Juice 3 limes and pour over chopped clams. Let sit for at least 20 minutes.
3. Finely chop up all things that would taste good in ceviche, such as tomato, pepper, some onion, avocado, cilantro or parsley, radish, etc.
4. drain the clams leaving a little lime juice and add to the chopped veggies.
4. mix it all up and add salt, pepper and hot sauce if you like.
5. eat with tortilla chips and a cold beer or chilled Proseco.

Razor Clam Bok Choy
this is a simple recipe that really lets you taste the sweetness of the clams.

1. wash and chop a couple of bok choy heads.
2. fry bok choy in a pan with a little bit of water and then add some oil, lime juice, soy sauce and crushed garlic.
4. slice 4 razor clam diggers into strips and add them to the pan when the bok choy is close to done. cook another 2 minutes. do not overcook the clams.
5. make sure to have some bread to soak up the salty juices from the pan.

Fried Razor Clams
take out three bowls

1. mix 1C flour and some salt and pepper in one bowl.
2. beat an egg in another.
3. put a cup of Panko bread crumbs in the third.
4. heat some vegetable oil in a skillet.
5. dry 4 calm diggers on paper towels.
6. dip in flour then egg then bread crumbs.
7. put in the pan and fry 1.5 minute on each side, no more or they will be tough.
8. put on a paper towel on a plate.
9. eat with some cold beer.

Feasting on ceviche, fried clams and nettles.