We will really have to go somewhere else in New Jersey soon, because I keep showing you images from our wonderful trip to Allaire State Park (if you click on that link, you’ll see all my posts on Allaire). There is a fun train ride called the Pine Creek Railroad at Allaire, and I had fun using the Live Trace tool in Illustrator to come up with the above image. I used Photoshop to get the train conductor’s face to look not posterized, by putting the photo under the Live Trace image and erasing the Live Trace layer on his face.
Another version: this one shows more color and detail, especially of the foliage behind the train.
And here’s the caboose at the train’s end, turning the corner.
“If I put something
in the water,
I can make Birthday Soup.
All my friends like soup.”
– Quote from Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik
– Illustration by me, inspired by Maurice Sendak
I did this illustration (ink and watercolor on paper) for an upcoming soup post (thanks to everyone who shared a post of a soup recipe – soup post is planned for Wednesday), and later this month I plan to do a post on book illustrators.
Do you have a favorite illustrated book or illustrator? Please leave the name in the comments. Thanks!
The happiest flowers in my garden in this cool autumn are the marigolds. We also have mums, white alyssum, snapdragons, rudbeckia and a solitary pink rose. The last of the summer impatiens died this past week.
I saw a neighbor had red and pink carnations that were still showing color.
If you take the dried up marigold buds, open them to reveal the seeds, then sprinkle them in your yard, next spring you will have a renewed treat.
What do you see in my daughter’s drawing? I can only guess myself. I will consult with her by Monday to find out what she was trying to depict. Have fun with this.
Farmer's Market, Highland Park, New Jersey
I decided to play a bit with the Live Trace tool in Illustrator and came up with this version of one of my photos of the Highland Park Farmer’s Market. I want an illustration for my upcoming soup post, though this one won’t be it. But the tool has potential for other projects.
Mushroom Barley Soup – featured on this month’s Kosher Cooking Carnival
Ah, autumn. A wonderful time to review one’s soup recipes.
I originally learned how to make mushroom barley soup from Mollie Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook. Here is my current one-pot recipe, which I prepare now by heart without consulting Mollie:
Ingredients
Mushrooms
1 onion
1/2 cup barley
Flavoring: I use a tsp. of miso. You can also use soy sauce and/or 1 tsp. of red wine.
Shiitake mushrooms: make the soup all the more healthful and flavorful by using shiitake mushrooms
Preparing the Soup
Saute the chopped onion in a bit of olive oil at the bottom of a large pot. When the onion turns translucent, add the barley. Add more than enough water to cover the barley – about one inch higher in the pot. Cook for about 1/2 hour until the barley is almost tender. Add pepper and salt to taste. Add optional ingredients of carrots, other root vegetables, garlic and celery; add the mushrooms. Pour in one cup more of water. Cook until the vegetables are tender. Add optional kale, dill, other herbs and/or other fast cooking greens. Add soy sauce or miso to give the soup taste. Serve warm.
Coming soon (next week?): a list of soup recipes from around the blogosphere. Also, some suggested soup ingredients. If you have a favorite soup recipe that is on a blog, feel free to leave the link in the comments (thanks to Mrs. S., who last week did just that).
Allaire State Park - Re-enactment of vote of 1836
Yesterday we had the fun of visiting Allaire State Park in Farmingdale, New Jersey, including the historic village and the train ride. The historic village featured Election Day 1836 – should women get the vote? The man without a hat was arguing with the women suffragettes to his right that that was a ridiculous notion.
The actors played their roles with great oomph and and in an impromptu fashion – they talked directly to the audience (there was no stage, and we were part of the show). The boy on the right was handing out blue ballots for his party, and he handed them only to the men in our party (my husband and a friend), but not to the women. I joked that I could influence my husband’s vote by telling him for whom to vote. My daughter and her friend, however, wanted the pink ballot party to win, no matter what the agenda, so they kept sneaking into the building to cast ballots for the pink party. They succeeded once or twice, but they also got caught and got a good “scolding” – all in good fun.
I wasn’t allowed to photograph the insides of the Allaire Village buildings – too bad, there was a lot of good history. We took the short train ride near the village at the end of our day. I’ll post the train another day, but here’s a great ghoulish guy at the train stop. He’s just there around Halloween time, have no fear.
For more photos with a little red or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
