I'm late, I'm late!

Jan Meng's studio at Hungry Holler


First of all, my apologies. I’ve been quite remiss with my blogging and commenting of late, but I will catch up with you all real soon. My arm is finally on the mend, and this week I have been frantically trying to catch up with the housework, and shopping prior to the holiday. And, as most of you know, if you don’t find me here, you’ll find me slaving over a hot stove at my other blog, Range Warfare. :-)

I hope everyone has had a very happy Thanksgiving. It’s not an English thing, but we’re certainly not averse to the time off. I am often asked what we do in England at Thanksgiving. My answer is always the same – nothing, because we have bugger all to be thankful for in England. Only joking folks. :-) Personally, I think I won the lottery of life being born British.

But I did cook us a roast dinner, not turkey though, as we like to have turkey at Christmas. We had roast lamb, and Mick made some mint sauce to go with it. It’s the first lamb we have had since we moved to Oklahoma 4½ years ago, it just doesn’t seem to be a very popular meat here. We bought this lamb joint on a recent trip to Missouri, but we have since managed to talk a local butcher into getting some for us. We also had roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, veggies and lashings of gravy, so basically, a traditional English Sunday lunch.

On Thanksgiving Day, the weather was absolutely perfect, sunny and about 68°F. Today, is quite a different story. I awoke to snow this morning! Temps are now in the low 40’s, and below freezing at night. Brrrrr! I’m not complaining too much, as I would far rather be cold than hot, and it’s a good reason for a log fire.

Also, if you’re interested, you can find my latest article for Oklahoma Living magazine here:

http://www.ok-living.coop/Feature_3.php

Oh, and btw, the typos are not mine, that should read wander/wandering.

The article is about a recent visit to a local arts center called, Hungry Holler, home of renowned artists, Jan and Marc Meng. Jan is a self confessed gourdphile, who creates beautiful works of art from homegrown gourds. The article shows some of her work on exhibit in their small rustic gallery. If you’d like to see more, check out their web site at: http://www.hungryholler.com/



A Gourd decorated with recycled bottle caps


Marc is known as the Zen Spoonmaster as he lovingly handcrafts cooking utensils from woods such as maple, wild cherry and walnut. Each spoon he creates is totally unique and will last a lifetime. Also the spatulas are made for right and left handed cooks.



I have begun my own collection as you can see below. I really enjoyed my visit to Hungry Holler and will certainly be making a return trip.

On a little side note. I posted about this article on Range Warfare and several people asked me where the spoons were, as it seems they have disappeared from their web site. When I checked it out, I noticed that they have updated the site, and I have e-mailed Jan Meng to find out what’s happened to the spoons. I’m sure it’s just a temporary glitch, and I’ll get back to you about it as soon as I hear. But check out the gourds anyway, they are fabulous.

Also a big Thank You to Sarah, I just noticed your comment about the award. I'll post about this real soon.

I hope you all have a good week.

Toodle pip for now.