Sawadee Thai taste

What is your favorite restaurant?

This is an friendly restaurant. The food is tasty and plentiful. I still find it exotic even after going there for a few years. The owner/chef is very gregarious and cheerful.

Examples of the food we enjoy include papya and seafood salad, different types of red green and yellow curries, sticky rice, and obviously speciality Thai meals that I like but at this time of night I can’t remember the names!

When we go there we eat the food and then I wonder why I haven’t taken a photo! I’m not really of the generation that does that. OK I take photos of food I make but that’s because it’s either a recipe or I’m surprised I managed to make it.

Sawadee Thai taste is a small restaurant. It can accommodate around twenty people and will help organise parties. It’s in Stoke in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire. The atmosphere is friendly and informal. It is not expensive.

Toad in the hole from scratch

I followed BBC Good housekeeping magazines recipe for this. Vegetarians and vegans forgive me, you could use vegetarian sausages, but the batter needed eggs….

I used seven frozen sausages

2 eggs

1 small onion, sliced

Accompanying vegetables, potato, carrot and broccoli.

140 grams of self raising flour (I didn’t check which sort I needed)

Milk to add to the batter mix.

I oiled a dish and baked the sausages with some sliced onion for twenty minutes. In the meantime I put the flour in a bowl, made a dent in it and added the eggs stirring with a fork till it was all mixed together. Then I slowly poured in and mixed milk into the batter so it was like thick double cream.

I poured the batter over the part cooked sausages, and returned them to the oven on gas mark 8 because my cooker does not get very hot. I checked them over the next twenty minutes but I still managed to burn the batter a bit. I also think I should have added more milk so that it would have been moister. I chopped the vegetables up small so I boiled them on the hob for twenty minutes. Finally I added gravy granules to some of the vegetable water to pour over the meal.

I’ve never made this before, but it was something my mother made for our evening meals. I’m glad I tried. I will try and remember to make this again.

Craft fair in June.

I said I would post about this. Apart from trying to do some small paintings (see my previous couple of posts) I need to buy a small table. My pasting table was stored outside in the shed and it’s badly warped! I got it because it was cheap, too cheap unfortunately. Anyway I need something big enough, but not too big if you know what I mean. I can’t really carry anything too heavy because of my left arm and shoulder, but I need to make an effort if I’m going to try and do a few craft fairs in the future… It will be interesting to see what other people’s products are like. If its anything like the one I went to a few weeks ago I’ll end up buying more than I sell!

Reminded

I asked about ideas and my friend sent me this photo of an abstracted idea of Robin Hoods Bay in Yorkshire. It features stone block walls, terracotta tiles, blue sea and sky and a few seagulls. It’s only about 4 inches square on a little canvas. I used bright colours and strong lines to make it more graphic. There are strong outlines so it could almost be a jigsaw. It’s hard to find a balance between abstraction and realism. I stylised the smoke and the sparkles on the sea. The windows seem to float above the surface of the stone, and I’ve used white highlights to hold it together. I think it was a success.

Owlish

A small turquoise and blue painting of two owls I painted a few years ago. I want to do a few more like this, semi realistic but with a bit of quirkiness.

I’ve got a small craft table in June and I need to restock my paintings. I’ll post about the craft fair soon.

I’m asking for suggestions for small paintings, ideas for new pictures? These will be matchbox sized or slightly bigger. I need to do some paintings of bees on flowers. I painted giraffes against sunsets. I might add some metallic paint again.

I just want to get going. But I’m a bit blocked mentally at the moment. I look at me easle and think, tomorrow? But that begins tomorrow again…. Life is strange.

Gone

Snowdrops gone, daffodils fading, tulips opening… Winter is over and Spring has sprung. I hope for warm spring days and new flowers opening. Blossom on the boughs of the cherry and pear trees, open already on the old plum tree and the walnut tree is starting to transform.

There are strong gusts and April Showers. Heavy rain and lightning, but we await the warmth of the sun. Not too hot. But the garden is growing and buds are breaking. I hope the hedgehogs and frogs reappear. It’s an effort to maintain things like the pond which needs a new liner. I must take some photos soon.

Ten years?

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

In ten years, I will be riding in a sky car over a largely flooded coastline. Cars will all be electric. I will have sold every single painting and be a few thousand pounds richer. My house (on a hill) will be above the waterline.

Seriously, I don’t have any plans that far ahead in time. I hope to still be clinging on to life for a little longer, I want to see Halleys comet come back in around 2060?

Ten years from now

I will be older

I will be poorer

I won’t be free

Of gas bills

Aliens arrived

In 2029

And fell in love

With chickens

Who mutated

Into dinosaurs

Using ancient DNA

In a mad max type world

I will be

Glad if I’m free…

Abstract horse sketch

Playing with my sketching app again. This time I found my drawing stylus so I had more control over the lines in it. Although you can see by my writing that it’s not much more under control!

The pens in the app are very varied, here I used a solid flowing line, a texture and a watercolour effect. This could represent a chess piece, the knight. I like the way it’s turned out.

Bench view?

Flowers in a wreath seen on a bench last year? Was it a memorial to someone who had passed. Remembering a share time together looking at a view…. I wonder.

The bench itself is in good condition, the wood is starting to go green and will need to be replaces one day. I had a bench and the slats rotted. I went out and bought new slats but never found someone to put it back together again. I guess benches and people are similar. If they aren’t looked after they have a tendency to fall apart!