Travelcraft Journal

February 23, 2014February 23, 2014

The world over dinner

We have a world map over our kitchen table. It’s not on nice canvas or even framed. It’s covered with all these little white arrows pointing to different locations. People coming over the first time often ask if all those arrows point to the places we’ve traveled. I wish! They span much more of the globe than Phillip or I have ever visited.

world-map-3

In college, Phillip took an anthropology class called Peopling of the World. The final was a long list of places you had to find and label on a world map. This was pre-Google maps, so even as an open book test, it was surprisingly difficult. I barely knew Phillip at the time, but my roommate was in the same class. I remember her map stretched out across our living room floor, and Serenity furiously searching through a stack of books and notes to figure out where her little multicolored Post-it labels should go. Phillip printed out his list of places at the one of the school computing labs and cut them into arrows.

world-map-4

When we moved into our current home and he hung it up over our kitchen table, I wasn’t sure about it. I liked the world map, but did it need to be right there in our dining room?

But it grew on me. We find ourselves dreaming over Sunday morning coffee about places we’d like to visit. Or breaking a quiet moment at the dinner table with, “Did you know all of India is north of the equator? Why did I think it was farther south than that?” Or “Spain really does come close to northern Africa.” And we’re geeks so this gets us talking.

So, the map has stayed. One of these days, maybe we’ll even get around to framing it.

February 12, 2014January 4, 2018

6 Sweet + Simple DIY Valentine’s Day Ideas

Maybe all you need is love. But adding a few special ingredients – like a nice meal and a thoughtful surprise or two – never hurt. Here are a few simple DIY ideas for celebrating whoever warms your heart this Valentine’s Day.

1. Chocolate: This easy 2-ingredient recipe for homemade Kit Kat Bars comes from the brilliant minds at A Beautiful Mess.

2. Wine: Have you tried making my Super Sangria yet?

3. Flowers: Make paper roses with this tutorial from Dozi.

4. Love notes: Fold up a mini envelope (like I did for the Craft Hack flyer) and tuck a tiny card, a few conversation hearts, or some small sentimental mementos.

5. Ambience: You can make a fun heart backdrop, like this one on designlovefest, from some 1 x 2s, chicken wire, and paper napkins! (Seriously!)

6. Dinner for two: To avoid crowded restaurants, pack a picnic! Maybe head out to a scenic spot outside of your normal stomping grounds. Wherever you go, this washi tape and paper bag utensil holder from Making Home Base is a super cute way to keep forks and spoons in place. (You know I love brown paper bags, but red ones would be fun too!)

Happy Valentine’s Day, friends!

February 6, 2014June 2, 2014

4 Ingredient Super Sangria

The Super Bowl party invite said to bring a beverage to go with wood fired pizza. I took that as my cue to make sangria.

My sangria-making habit started after my semester in Spain. My friends and I used to go to this Chinese restaurant that had the best sangria in town. (Yes, Chinese food. In Spain. With amazing sangria. You with me?) We developed kind of a routine of stopping in every week or two, starting with a pitcher of sangria, improving our Chinese food in Spanish vocabulary while looking over the menu, eating a meal that tasted strikingly similar to Chinese food back home, and then my friend would finish off the fruit at the bottom of the pitcher. By the end of the semester, I was hooked on sangria and excellent at ordering Chinese in Spanish.

These days, I think of sangria as a summer drink and usually make it with more citrusy and peachy flavors. But we had a delicious apple and pear sangria when we were in Tucson last month (I’d link to a post about that, but it’s not written yet), so when we got the party invite, I was ready to try making a winter sangria.

I kept it simple with just four ingredients: apples, pears, red wine, and blood orange Italian soda (yep!). The soda had a very light flavor, so it wasn’t overpowering. It also contributed the bubbles, extra sweetness, and a nice clear glass bottle to make the sangria in, so our friends wouldn’t have to remember to return a pitcher to us later.

I poured most of the soda out of the bottle to start with, added the other ingredients, and then added some back in after tasting.

In the meantime, I started slicing apples and realized the slices were just a little too big to easily fit through the opening of the bottle, so instead I did kind of a chunky matchstick cut. “Chunky matchstick” may not be an official culinary term, but it might make a good band name and pretty much describes the way the fruit was cut in our Tucson sangria.

I slid the pieces in the bottle one at a time until it started looking like there was a whole lotta fruit in there. Then I poured in the wine through a funnel, so I wouldn’t spill it all over. But I almost did that anyway, because I was taking photos while pouring. (Blogger problems.)

I filled the bottle part way, so I’d have room to adjust my ratios after a taste test.

That’s probably about the time I realized I had all these produce stickers on my elbow. And the waistband of my hoodie. Because I am awesome.

Also probably because I stuck them all on the counter before I washed the fruit. (Am I the only one who does this?) Then I’m guessing I leaned right on them while I was taking photos of apples.

See what I go through for you guys?

Anyway, so after tasting, I added a little more of everything, then tasted and adjusted a few more times until it was just right. I had looked at a recipe, but then I didn’t really follow it. It’s more authentically Spanish if you don’t follow a recipe. Drinking wine while you make it helps too, ~~even~~ especially if it’s only lunchtime.

I gave it a few hours to chill in the fridge.

Finally, I covered the soda label (which I hadn’t had time to remove properly) with navy blue paper, because I wanted both Seahawks fans and Broncos fans to feel free to partake. I labeled it ¡Super Sangria! (The upside down exclamation point makes it Spanish.) Then we headed out to watch the not-so-Super Bowl. At least there was plenty of wine at the party.

January 28, 2014

Taking the side streets

Phillip and I took a drive a couple weekends ago and ended up between South Mountain and the Sierra Estrellas.

We stopped for a minute to decide where to go next. I looked at the part of the Estrellas closest to us and asked how long it would take to get there. He guessed 30 minutes, and we decided to head that direction and find out.

But then Phillip spotted some some side streets he needed to explore. So we drove through this rural neighborhood, into the desert, past an abandoned building, and then we spotted a beautiful little church down a gravel driveway, just out there by itself. It was surrounded by a chain link fence, dirt parking lot on one side, mountains on the other.

We stepped out of the car. For a moment, it was intensely silent. Then this pickup truck full of laughing women drove by. They stopped just over the hill, where we couldn’t see them, but we could hear them talking and laughing and working on something.

We wondered about the church, all fenced in but not seeming abandoned. A little bird landed on top of the cross at the top of the sanctuary and decided to sing. We watched the light transform the mountains.

We forgot about timing our drive to the mountain. Or actually getting there.

It’s funny how sometimes getting sidetracked leads you to a new destination.

January 22, 2014July 28, 2022

Why I look for art in libraries (and what else I’ve found)

You might not think of walking into a library when you’re traveling, and it used to be that I didn’t either. I think it was stumbling on the Biblioteca Nacional del Perú that changed it for me.

I don’t remember what it was that afternoon during our (otherwise awesome) 2005 Peru trip that had gotten us down. Just that Lima’s big city, horn-honking, rumbling-diesel, street vendors/restauranteurs/bus drivers-shouting-for-customers cacophony had suddenly overwhelmed us, when we realized we were standing in front of Peru’s National Library. It wasn’t on the agenda, but we decided to duck in.

In stark contrast to the noisy streets, it was so quiet I was worried about the sound of my shoes on the marble floors. We took a few random turns and found ourselves in this beautifully serene garden courtyard, separated from the city by a two-story wall but feeling miles away.

We practically collapsed onto one of the benches. It was just the respite we needed at that moment. By the time we returned inside, we were composed enough to want to look around. In the center of the cavernous main room, there was this amazing Don Quijote exhibit with rare books, sketches and sculpture.

Since Phillip and I love books and art and the comically (tragically?) romantic Quijote, this made our day. I wouldn’t have thought there would be anything for non-locals at a library, but we came away from the experience with souls nourished – and with a deeper respect for libraries as places with something to offer everyone, not just cardholders.

I remembered this when I was visiting a library closer to home a few weeks ago and saw Scottsdale Public Library’s new gallery for art exhibitions. It’s currently devoted to a pretty fabulous Steampunk display (through Saturday 1/25). You don’t have to be into the steampunk scene to appreciate the artistry of the handmade costumes and props.

My own city of Tempe’s library displays art on a single wall near their cafe. They don’t list exhibitions on their site, so discovering great work from local artists John Nelson and Troy Mark Moody during a recent visit was an unexpected bonus with my coffee.

I started thinking about other libraries I’ve happened to visit when traveling and whether they put art on display.

The Library of Congress, which is kind of our own U.S. national library, has several art exhibits at any given time. Currently, they are displaying photos from the March on Washington, pre-columbian ceramics from the Americas, and cartoons (in at least two galleries).

Lots of college campus libraries display art, as well.

We noticed a small gallery in a corner during a tour of Fuller Theological Seminary’s main campus in Pasadena, California, and I found that their David Allan Hubbard Library regularly exhibits artistic and historical collections from its archives.

Although we weren’t able to get in while we were there, many of Dr. Seuss’s sketches are housed in the somewhat seussical-looking Geisel Library building on UC San Diego’s campus.

How do you find out about art on display at libraries? It’s not always publicized. Your best bet is to look for an “exhibitions” link on the library’s site, but they may not even mention them. If you’re exploring a new city and pass by the library, I’d recommend stopping in. You might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

A library can be both a respite for the weary and a window into the community. They’re open spaces you can visit without making a reservation or paying admission. In addition to art, libraries may exhibit artifacts or rare books or local projects. The Ouray Public Library has a whole display case of geodes, fitting for an area where geology is so important.

While reading too many stories of knights and giants may drive you mad, visiting libraries can put you on more solid footing.

Although I didn’t go to any libraries when I was on the man of La Mancha’s home turf, I felt I owed it to him to check in on what’s happening at the Biblioteca de Castilla-La Mancha now. I found something you rarely see in library reading rooms: performance art. Specifically, an exuberant (dare I say quixotic?) flash-mob style celebration of its 15th anniversary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCCMYDk7YmM

Libraries are full of art – and surprises.