Painting and Cooking

I'm back with the next steps.  Isn't that a gorgeous orange?!?  I bet you never thought I'd use that color, huh?  So after that last step with the turquoise paint dried, I added a mix of cadmium yellow and cad red, then let it dry.

Now it's time to start distressing it.  You can tell it stories about all the people in your life who are angry at you, or an easier way is to use some tools.  I use a combination of sandpaper and dremmel.  You can use an xacto knife or anything that will take off some layers of paint, showing color from the previous layers.  The dremmel is nice because it has a variety of bits that give different effects.  You can really beat it up, or give it a gentle, time worn look.  Be sure to wear a mask so that you aren't breathing all those paint particles.  They are bad for you.  When using the dremmel, you should use some eye protection too.  Hehemm....do as I say, not as I do.

After you tear it up a bit, just stick the canvas under a faucet to wash off the dust.  Dry it with a rag.

Add some more paint as you like.  I put the paint on, then wiped it off with a rag.  You could also apply the paint as before, let it dry and sand it some more.

While this dries, let me tell you a story about spanakopita.

Last night I had the supreme pleasure of learning how to make traditional Greek Spanakopita from a slight wisp of a woman who herself comes from the island of Crete.  My friend Terra's mother-in-law Mary is such as amazing cook.  Whenever I go to Terra's house she feeds me bits of this and that Mary has sent home with them.  I've tasted the world's most incredible banana walnut bread, homemade biscotti, pastitsio, as well as her spanakopita.  So of course when I was offered a chance to learn in her own kitchen, I wasn't turning it down.

As Terra and I were gently placing the delicate layers of phyllo, and brushing them with butter, we wondered to each other how women traditionally made the thin sheets before the advent of fancy machines to do it.  We asked Mary and she told us a story of when she was young in her mother's home.  The women would use broom sticks to roll out a dough of flour and water, then drape the paper thin sheets to dry on the beds and over pillows scattered all through the house.

I baked my "pita" this afternoon; DH just returned from Atlanta, so I fed him some welcome back spanakopita.  My my it was good.  And terribly fattening!  Now I have to find clever ways to get the rest of it out of my house.  Here's the recipe if you have a very special occasion coming up, like HallowThankMasEve as my Lalie says!

Mary's Spanakopita (this is a recipe handed down, so the measurements are not exact)
(edit:  while talking to Terra tonight, I realized that I forgot to mention the green onions.  so they are in the recipe now)
1 pound butter, melted
about a cup of olive oil
2 pounds ricotta (we used a local goats milk ricotta)
about 1 1/3 pounds feta, crumbled
1 pound spinich, chopped
1 1/2 bunches Italian parsley, chopped fine
1 bunch green onions
10 eggs
2/3 cup semolina flour
1 package good Greek phyllo from a Greek market.  don't use the stuff from the grocery store!
1 pastry brush
1 great big rectangular baking dish.  I used a regular 9 1/2" x 13 1/2" and it was rather small, but it worked.  I ended up using only about 3/4 of the filling.  Mary's pan was about 1 1/2 times bigger I think.  About 3 inches tall.  I wish I could give you better details here.

Place the eggs in a mixer bowl and whip until blended.  Add your cheeses and mix until nicely blended.  Place the chopped spinich, green onions, and parsley in a very large bowl (no, bigger than that.  you've got a lot of ingredients here!) Mix them together with your hands or a pair of wooden salad hands like Mary does.  Sprinkle the semolina over the greens, and mix it some more.  The semolina is to soak up some of the moisture that the spinich will release.  Now mix your egg/cheese combo into the greens.  Taste the mix for salt.  Some fetas are saltier than others, so you may or may not need to add salt.  Mix the olive oil into the butter (we had probably half a cup of this mix leftover.  Mary said we needed to be more liberal with spreading the butter, but when you've been told not to eat that much butter.....)

You need to set up your workspace so everything is at the ready and you can work fast.  Once you open your phyllo dough, you don't want it drying out.   Place your baking pan in front of you.  Brush some of the butter on the bottom and sides.  Put the butter/oil mix and the pastry brush within easy reach.  Place the bowl of filling nearby.  Place a large sheet of plastic wrap on the countertop. And now open up your phyllo, carefully unroll it and place it on the plastic wrap.  You are going to use half of the sheets for the bottom layer and the other half on top.  So count your sheets, divide in two sections.  Place another sheet of plastic over the bottom half, place the sheets you're about to work with on top of that.  It's very important that the phyllo doesn't dry out, or it will start breaking up.  Mary even went so far as to turn off the light that was above the sheets.  So work fast and smooth.   Place one layer of phyllo on the bottom of the pan.  Your phyllo will probably not be the same size as your pan; just arrange the sheets as needed.  Brush generously with butter.  Then put the next sheet on; brush with butter.  Keep going until you've used half the phyllo.  Spread the egg/cheese/spinich mixture over the phyllo.  Now uncover the other half of the phyllo and keep going.

Cover the pan with plastic wrap and chill it for at least an hour.  Preheat the oven to 400˚.   Before baking the spanakopita, score the top with a knife, into the size and number of servings you will want.  Insert the knife down through the top layer of phyllo (not just the top sheet.  go down to the filling).  Bake at 400˚for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350˚and continue baking for about an hour.  You want the top to be golden brown and crisp.  Remove from oven and let cool.  You may now use the baked spanakopita to do weight lifting exercises to help burn off some of the calories you are about to ingest.