This last weekend, my daughter and I went to the area Folk Life Festival, and enjoyed traditional techniques, settings, activities that are based in the Blue Ridge mountains, where we are based. We watched horse pulls, sampled apple butter, and saw a tradional log house in use, including the bread over-- and a Dough Tray! in action, holding yeast breads as they rose, before they went into the bread oven. And then we visited Glendon Boyd as he made traditional haying forks and rakes. Glendon, at 85, still makes the doughtrays that his great grandfather made for the community we live in. It was wonderful to see all these things in action, in their place!
]]>We have a lot of young families in our area, a lot of new babies born every year, and I, of course, give baskets to the new moms. Not because I have so many lying around, but because they are so genuinely useful! I always give our double handled French Market Basket, with a baby blanket, some tea- an assortment of little things for mom and baby. But the basket always becomes a staple, next to mom and baby through the early weeks, and then out and about to the store, filled to the brim. I see my products in action every day. I am proud of seeing them still in use years later, genuinely loved.
I wish I had a good formula for being a working mom- I know women have been working on it for years! I love having the flexibility to be with them, and bring them to work, but I still always feel like something is suffering in the process-- too little to go around. But we keep chipping away at it, keep working for the things we feel are important, and keep trying to build a world we want for our kids.
Happy Momma's Day!
]]>We are setting up for NY Now this weekend, getting ourselves ready for our big wholesale trade show. The show is massive, with every imaginable design and medium on display in the midst of the Jacob Javits convention center, in the midst of New York. I feel like a very small fish in a big, big pond, especially after the sleepiness of our mountains. And I also feel more quietly connected to the sources of our products- everyone is looking for a hustle, for the name and the buzz and the catchword to sell their widget, but that hustle is just window dressing, catchwords to dress up whatever they are trying to sell.
The fact is, there are real people with old skills behind the finest things, whether they come from the Appalachian mountains or the Moroccan desert. I think the integrity of a product is the heart of it. Made by actual skilled hands. We are all looking for that connection, as things change and untether- not a thing made to LOOK like a thing, but actual things, fashioned by hand, using skills pulled from deep knowledge, limited in their production to what is possible to make, not what is demanded to be made; and made to suit a functional need, not a whim.
We all find arrowheads on our mountains- there are tons of them. Things, made from deep knowledge, used for their purpose, time spent to fashion them. I am sure Manhattan has buried tons of them beneath mountains of concrete and steel.
]]>INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon loose Chinese gunpowder green tea
5 cups boiling water
3 to 4 tablespoons sugar, or to taste
1 large bunch fresh mint (1 ounce)
Special equipment : a 1- to 1 1/2-quart teapot
PREPARATION
Put tea in teapot and pour in 1 cup boiling water, then swirl gently to warm pot and rinse tea. Strain out and discard water, reserving tea leaves in pot.
Add remaining 4 cups boiling water to tea and let steep 2 minutes. Stir in sugar (to taste) and mint sprigs and steep 3 to 4 minutes more. Serve in small heatproof glasses.
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