Food & Origami

Thursday October 13, 2016

Tonight I had my second Stained Glass class. I was the only one who purchased glass. I kind of thought I should since our teacher was supplying all the tools & I wasn't sure she was going to be bringing her boxes of scrap glass. This way you also get the colors you want.

In the interest of time, I decided to trace all my pattern pieces on the glass (using a Sharpie marker) before I attempted to cut anything. Then I figured I would cut each square in half to try and minimize waste. Needless to say I wasn't eager to start cutting!

Last week my biggest problem was getting the glass to break where I scored it. This week I had lots of problems just doing the scoring. Half the time I wasn't sure I had even made contact since I couldn't hear it or feel a line. Hence, I did what you're not supposed to do, which is to go over your score line more than once. It's not surprising that I only had limited success. At the end of class I only had one color finished and another started, so certainly slow progress!

Since we have no class next week (due to a special event being held at the Rec Centre) our teacher was kind enough to loan us her tools so we could get more cutting done over the next couple of weeks. I took her up on her offer and borrowed a large waffle plate (which is what you do your cutting on, and all the small shards should fall into the little square holes. I decided to buy my own cutting tool and running pliers so I wouldn’t have to keep borrowing hers. She also offered to buy any unwanted tools off of us if we changed our minds about taking up stained glass as a hobby. Hence, I might get a refund for the $20 I just spent.

Saturday October 15, 2016

BREAD FESTIVAL

First annual Bread Festival in Dublin. The festival planners lucked out and had a gorgeous day for the event with a sunny day and temperatures in the high 70s with a brisk wind. Also, since the Buckeyes don’t play until the evening, that means sports fans have most of the day to come down and check out the festival.

After walking around the somewhat limited festival site, it would be more accurate to describe the event as more of a street festival since the amount of food trucks and miscellaneous vendors far outweighed the amount of bread-related things.

Near the entrance a man named Cyril (I think) was creating a second bread sculpture to compliment his first one which was on display. Andrew said he thought it was nice, but when he saw the glue gun come out, it was a little off-putting. Of course there’s edible glue you can use, but this appeared to be more like standard adhesive.

There were six cultural booths including a Japanese one where demonstrations of a Japanese tea ceremony were being held until 3pm. The other booths represented India, Mexico, Ghana, Germany, and Dublin City Schools English Language Learners. I believe there was also a booth from somewhere in Scandinavia (sponsored by a local automotive company) that had pots of tea and what looked like traditional loaves and pieces of bread from Katzinger’s Deli.

My only non-food purchase was a couple little owls I purchased from the Japanese booth. The lady running the booth said her mother made them and asked if she could photograph me with them to send a photo to her mum in Japan. I was happy to oblige.

Then I started sampling some of the food, which included pieces of various homemade organic bread, jellies, honey and powder mixes to make your own bread and brownies. I bought a peanut butter banana loaf from the JNA Bread Bakery, and then after agonizing over all the various flavors of infused honey from the Bluestem Apiary, went with the vanilla (there was also lavender, lemon, and rosemary).

We were spoiled for choice as there were no less than eight different food trucks. If nothing grabbed you there, you could also get chocolate/coffee from Winan’s or pub grub from the Dublin Village Tavern, not to mention several other restaurants all within walking distance. I had a pineapple bun (chicken and pineapple drizzled with Siracha sauce served in a  sweet bun) from Aloha Streatery while Andrew selected a bowl of rice/rice noodles w/ chicken & lettuce, from Cupzilla Korean BBQ. For dessert we selected some chocolate treats from Winan’s, then decided to skip the shuttle and just walk back to our car to work off some of the carbs (stopping at our bank on the way to get more cash for the evening tailgate at St. Brendan’s).

TAILGATE AT ST. BRENDAN’S

Tonight was the first ever (at least since I’ve been going to St. Brendan’s) Tailgate Party after church in the northwest parking lot adjacent to the ball fields. Because it was such a nice night to be out, they had a pretty good turnout from what we could tell early on. Although the food truck selection wasn’t as ethnically diverse as what was at the Bread Festival, we still managed to find something we liked and ended up having sandwiches from either Bob’s Backyard Barbecue or possibly Paddy Wagon, not sure which since they had similar menus. We skipped the Kettle Korn and ice cream (we still have ice cream in our freezer) and headed home before the game started. I know we’re party poopers, but I had stuff to do at home, and wasn’t too bothered about the game (though we did check on the score periodically).

Sunday, October 16, 2016

ORIGAMI IN THE GARDEN

Today we went to Franklin Park Conservatory to see the Origami in the Garden exhibit which has been there since late spring. Since the weather was so nice (sunny and about 80 degrees) we figured we had no excuse not to get out and see it.

It was worth the drive as the various paper sculptures were quite impressive, though really it was only about a half a dozen different designs in varying sizes spread out throughout the museum and grounds. According to their website, “Monumental sculptures created by artist Kevin Box tell the story of origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. The exhibition includes large-scale installations, gallery works, Box's own compositions as well as collaborative works with his wife Jennifer and world-renowned origami artists Robert J. Lang, Te Jui Fu, Michael G. LaFosse and Richard L. Alexander.”

There was a station where you could try your hand at origami with instruction sheets to create a boat, a plane, or a crane (and whatever else). I thought I’d give it a go, but was stumped after only the fourth fold. Andrew, having a more analytical mind than me (and previous experience at folding lots of paper airplanes) grabbed a sheet. About 20 folds and 20 minutes later he had created a crane he was quite proud of and photographed in the Japanese garden. At one point it seemed to try and fly away while Andrew lunged for it to avoid it ending up in the koi pond.

Of course we took a break for a cup of tea and to split an apple scone and have a quick look around the gift shop (I got some great deals since quite a lot of things were 60% off).

All in all a lovely afternoon out, and we feel blessed to have had such warm weather this weekend (likely to continue for about another three days or so).  

Have a good week everyone!