Solow writes.......

BASSET ACTION By Solow
A basset mind is a terrible waste
I’d rather chase a rabbit
Than Google, cut and paste
Thinking is not my habit
I’d rather run in haste
After that crazy rabbit
The one I almost faced.

Steve Snyder In His Own Words.......presented by Joyce Oroz

Steven W. Snyder is a 59 year-old photographer & printmaker from Aromas, CA. He is an invaluable member of the Aromas Hills Artisans, an outstanding self-taught photographer and an all around nice guy! Steve specializes in giant, colorful canvases of microscopic worlds found in nature such as rocks and ice. He has mastered landscapes, seascapes, Yosemite, oak trees in the mist and so much more.

It is my great privilege to share Steve's story with you today…….while he vacations in Death Valley in the middle of winter! Did I mention how dedicated to photography Steve is? Here is Steve in his own words………

……..my desire is to make large canvas prints that look like detailed paintings. Examples of my work can be seen at the Framer’s Corner in Prunedale and the Dragonfly Gallery in Aromas.
Since I love bold colors, I search for scenes rich with color and contrast. Although much of my photography is of local landscapes such as Point Lobos State Reserve and Big Sur, my most recent work involves microscopic pictures of polished stones (macro landscapes). Most viewers think these macro photographs are abstract paintings.

I purchased my first digital camera in 1997. The digital camera’s instant feedback renewed my interest in photography and allowed me to experiment without worrying about film and developing costs. Upgrading to professional digital cameras and high quality lenses improved picture quality enough to allow for making very large prints.
In 2002, my acquisition of a large format Giclée printer and hours of labor making test prints, resulted in a big canvas print that met my high expectations. With the encouragement of family, friends and co-workers over the next 2 years, I made and displayed many canvas prints and joined Aromas Hills Artisans. I began publicly selling my photos on canvas in September 2002.
Steve Snyder’s work has been displayed in shows like San Juan Bautista Open Studios, Black Sage Gallery, Cherry Bean Coffee shop, Sand City Westend, Bargetto's Winery, Aromas Day, San Juan Bautista Art and Wine and Popular Photography (contest)

Look for Steve's work at the Dragonfly Gallery in Aromas!

Thank you, Steve for sharing your story and your talent with us today!

Kan't Fail Kale......by Joyce Oroz

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you greenery, better known as vegetables. Your Mama pushed them on you, your doctor pushes them and your grocer peddles them. I recently met a new vegetable friend … rather stand-offish, deep green and curly. Turns out—lots of people have run into my friend, kale. In fact, these people have convinced me that I should eat kale for good health. Great. How does one eat Kale? After a bit of experimentation, I came up with a delicious way to prepare this new mineral-packed vegetable. Here is my recipe for Kan’t Fail Kale………makes two servings—double it if you want more.

3 cups leafy kale, chopped
2 cups grated zucchini
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
4 tablespoons grapeseed oil (or olive oil)
1 tablespoon water
Salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in sauce pan, cover and simmer until kale is limp—five to ten minutes.

Kale Basics
In Season: Kale turns sweeter in cold weather, so it's at its best from mid-fall through early spring.
What to Look For: Choose kale with firm, deep-green leaves, avoiding any that are wilted or have yellow spots.
How to Store: Keep kale in the coldest part of your refrigerator, loosely wrapped in a plastic bag. Though it seems like a sturdy vegetable, kale will quickly wilt and turn bitter

J O Phone Home.....by Joyce Oroz

Remember when phones were expressly used for verbal communication? Wow, I just dated myself. Actually, I can still remember the wooden-box-phone hanging on the wall at my grandfather’s house. It was the phone that didn’t work because years ago Grandpa told the phone company he didn’t want a new-fangled phone so they cut off his service. He left the old phone on the wall, maybe thinking Mr. Bell would be hard up for money someday and hook up his phone again.
There is no time for human nostalgia over phones these days. We barely have time to learn about the various apps and such before it’s time to turn the thing in for a newer model that does twenty more unnecessary things, that is, if you can learn to do them before the next trade-in.
I am obviously speaking from the mature and seasoned adult view. Young people are free to explore all the wonders of a little pocket phone. They use their phones to text, take pictures, check the mail, order pizza, look at life on Mars and even talk on the phone if they wish.
I have to admit I like the phones photo feature and love to share my pictures with you—especially when it’s a picture of my grandson taking a picture.

Crunchy Caraway Kraut....by Joyce Oroz

I recently learned about the health benefits of homemade sauerkraut. And it just happens to be delicious! Luckily I had a daughter and granddaughter to teach me how to make the stuff. We chopped up five cabbages and dumped it all into a plastic bin (slightly bigger than a breadbox). We added one and a half tablespoons of pickling salt and a small handful of caraway seeds. (fennel seeds are good too) We took turns kneading and scrunching handfuls of the mixture for about twenty minutes—until the batch became “watery” and shouted, “Uncle!” We stuffed the mixture into three canning jars—two medium and one large. We pressed down on the cabbage over and over until the liquid rose above the cabbage. A plastic lid was placed directly on the cabbage with a bottle of water weighting it down. A couple hours later we put tops on the jars and waited three days before opening the jars to burp them (open and close the lid to let air out). The jars rested at room temperature (ideal is 67). We sampled our work a week later to see how the kraut tasted. The sauerkraut can take from one week to three weeks to arrive at perfection. Just taste it now and then and when you like it, put the jar in the fridge. It will still be good a year later! It is not only delicious and good for digestion—it’s indestructible!

I am including official instructions in case I forgot something.

Things You'll Need
Mature cabbage heads
Pickling (non-iodized) salt
Crock
Large mixing bowl
Table spoon
Large sharp knife
Kraut cutter or Cabbage shredder
Measuring scale
Large plate
Jars of water - weight
Muslin cloth

The Recipe: Sauerkraut is a mixture of 3 Tbs salt and 5# cabbage.
The salt frees cell water from the shredded cabbage leaves. The cell water and the salt forms a brine that aids in fermentation and preservation. Batch size is limited only by krock size!
Remove the cabbage outer leaves. You want a clean firm head. Quarter the cabage. Cut out the core.
Shred the cabbage. This can be done with a sharp knife. Large amounts of cabbage can be quickly shredded.
Weigh the cabbage. (Remember to deduct the weight of the bowl!) Add (3) Tbs of pickling (noniodized) salt for every (5) lbs shredded cabbage. Mix well.
Place salted cabbage in the crock. Pound down thoroughly. You can use your fist, a potato masher, or the end of a baseball bat. Be sure whatever you use is clean. Brine should begin to form as you pound down the shredded cabbage.
Repeat this process until your cabbage is gone or your cabbage is 3" - 4" from the top of the crock. You should now have a layer of brine 1" - 3" deep on the top of your compacted, shredded cabbage.
Press a large clean plate into the top of the cabbage. The plate should be an inch or so smaller than the crock. The idea is to force the cabbage down below the surface of the brine. The brine protects the fermenting cabbage from the air.
Add a weight to the top of the plate to hold it down and keep the cabbage submerged. Any clean heavy object will work. Grandma used a nice smooth stone she kept just for the purpose. We use (4) quart canning jars filled with water.
Cover the top of the crock with muslin cloth to keep it clean. Fermentation will begin in a day or so. Bubbles will form as the cabbage ferments. Skim off any skum that forms every day or two. After 3-4 weeks the bubbles will stop. Your sauerkraut is complete!
Sauerkraut can be stored in the same crock in which it was fermented. This is how the old timers stored sauerkraut. We process ours into canning jars.

Tips & Warnings
· Good sauerkraut starts with good cabbage. Mature, firm, dense, clean heads make the best kraut. Be sure to remove any damaged areas.
· Be sure to use canning or pickling salt. Canning salt does not contain iodine. Iodine can make canned products mushy and discolored.
· Take the time to mix your salt thoroughly with the cabbage to insure uniform distribution.
· Spoilage is rarely a problem if the cabbage is properly submerged below the brine. However, discoloration or mold is an indication of a problem. Discard this material. The remaining material is fine in our experience. (Mold can form on the surface of the brine if you wait too long between skimming.)

Tina Baine's article....

Tina Baine writes a very interesting column for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. She searches out and talks about new and unusual "how to projects." Whether it's painted, taped, glued, sewn, hammered, quilted or knitted, Tina is trying her hand with great success. She especially likes to turn old materials into new useful items. Tina just happens to be a valuable member of the Aromas Hills Artisans. Today I am posting one of her recent articles where she talks about three craft books. I hope you will join her on her blog, tinablaine.blogspot.com and enjoy her colomn in the newspaper. Tina writes......

.......I decided to seek my own artistic inspiration from some unlikely sources. I chose three new books as my point of departure, and created three crafty projects. Here are the books—all of which I highly recommend—and the results:
"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web."—Pablo Picasso

Book #1: PARIS PORTRAITS by Harriet Lane Levy
When she died in 1950, Levy left the San Francisco Museumof Modern Art a trove of art, including La Fille aux YeuxVerts (The Girl with Green Eyes) which she bought fromMatisse in 1908. I used Web images of this painting and severalothers to create Matisse-inspired pendants on Scrabble tilesor in small frames.My favorite movie of 2011 is Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” in which Owen Wilson’s character is magically transported back 100 years to a romanticized Paris where he meets and hangs out with the likes of Picasso, Matisse, Degas, Dali and many other artistic giants of the era. San Francisco native Harriet Lane Levy had her own real-life close encounters with Matisse, Picasso and other legendary artists when she and Alice B. Toklas, joined their friend Sarah Stein in Paris in the summer of 1908. Levy recalls her 2-year Paris adventure in, “Paris Portraits: Stories of Picasso, Matisse, Gertrude Stein, and Their Circle,” a beautiful little memoir that has not been published in its entirety until now. In it, she recalls the eccentricities of her Paris friends, her regret at not buying a $50 Picasso from Sarah Stein, and learning to love modern art—Henri Matisse’s paintings in particular. Like Woody Allen’s movie, “Paris Portraits” is an enchanted portal to a time of unequaled charm and luminosity.

Project #1: An audacious pendant
When Harriet Lane Levy died in 1950, she left the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art a trove of art, including “La Fille aux Yeux Verts” (The Girl with Green Eyes) which, when her friends declined it, she bought from Matisse in 1908 while in Paris. Like Harriet Levy, I didn’t initially take to Matisse’s modernist style; but the joyous, audacious color in his portraits of women gradually won me over. So, I made pendants using printed images from Matisse and Matisse-inspired paintings, reduced to a size tiny enough to fit on the back of a Scrabble tile. There are several websites and YouTube tutorials that show you how. Just Google “Scrabble tile pendant” or “resin jewelry” for instructions.
"The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Book #2: JUST MY TYPE: A BOOK ABOUT FONTS by Simon Garfield
Simon Garfield likes to tackle topics that make people wrinkle up their nose and ask, “How could that be a good book?” Among other historical topics, he’s written about postage stamp collecting and the color mauve. Reading his latest book “Just My Type: A Book About Fonts,” I found myself unexpectedly absorbed in the history and evolution of the ampersand, the controversial switch by Ikea from Futura to Verdana, and a typeface called Gotham, that has been embraced by both President Obama and Sarah Palin. Fonts carry a wide range of subliminal messages that go way beyond mere words, and Garfield has wisely included lots of visual examples to demonstrate the subtle powers of type.
“Retrofonts” by Gregory Stawinski is a good follow-up that allows you to simply bask in the lovely inventiveness of over 400 classic 19th and 20th century fonts. It includes a CD with 222 featured fonts, although many of these can be downloaded for free from the internet.

Book #3: TRASH ORIGAMI: 25 PAPER FOLDING PROJECTS REUSING EVERYDAY MATERIALS by Michael G. LaFosse and Richard Alexander. Origami can be complex and intimidating at times, but the projects in this book are refreshingly simple and practical. The authors show you how to make useful objects such as boxes, checkers sets, photo cubes, bowls and envelopes out of found papers. At a time of year when calendars, catalogs, gift wrap and greeting cards are quickly filling up your recycling bin, Trash Origami offers these paper products—and just about any other kind of waste paper—a great second life.

Will Solow's party ever end?.....by Joyce Oroz

Just because Solow is still celebrating the new year, doesn’t mean we should be happily looking forward to 2012 with no regrets. Josephine is still stressing over the mistakes she made in 2003. True, she doesn’t always make the best choices, but she spends a good deal of time worrying over them later.
Josephine loves to read Winnie the Pooh stories to Solow, who understands Pooh’s message. Pooh exhibits less stress and more trust, less struggle and more giggle, less strife and more friendship, less worry and better sleep. Josephine read the stories, but Solow “got it.” So, party on, Solow, and have a very happy new year.
If you are wondering about the mistakes Josephine makes, just read a copy of “Secure the Ranch” or “Read My Lipstick” or “Shaking In Her Flip Flops,” by Joyce oroz