I returned the next morning to catch the exhibit and I was not disappointed. Unfortunately, photography was prohibited and I cannot share the genius of Dali’s artwork.

Dali’s famous piece, ‘Persistence of Memory’ is known to all as the one with the melting clocks. I expected the piece to be huge and so I was surprised to find it is about the same size as my MacBook. Dali is a Surreal artist but after viewing this exhibit, I find he was an innovator of art. He experimented with 3 D painting, incorporated physics with religion, and may have started the modern art movement. ‘The Tiger’ is another amazing artwork that displays his technique in visual illusion. When the piece is viewed afar, it is of a tiger and within a few feet, it is of Lenin. During the 1950′s, Dali was fascinated with physics and also at the same time, he returned to Catholicism.  After the atomic bomb detonation, he believed physics supported the existence of God. Dali translated this belief in a series of Madonna paintings and in other paintings with religious symbols during this time period. Besides being a noted painter, Dali was considered a great graphic artist. He found that graphic art reprints were so much quicker to complete than one piece of oil painting. Dali’s reprints had sold well and in jest, he was quoted, ‘After breakfast, I like to start the day by earning $ 20,000′. His pen and ink series of Don Quixote was something. In one titled ‘Don Reading in His Cave’, Dali used an octopus dipped in ink and used it as a ‘brush’. And in others, a loaf of french bread was used. It is funny the ‘tools’ this artist used and it reminds me of Modern artists use of experimental mediums.

With his art techniques and his interpretation of existence through art, Salvador Dali was certainly an innovator of art, IMHO.

My nieces and I are starting to knit again. My nieces joined Ravelry, a great site to organize your crafty projects online, search for patterns, and make knitter connections. Some patterns are free and some are not. JJ has said that free patterns are downloaded and then re-sold for a fee somewhere else. There should be a copyright protection law for knitting patterns? I’m looking to knit slouchy hats and found some good and simple patterns on Ravelry.  Yep, they were free.  No, I am not going to repost the pattern to sell for a fee. I joined Ravelry when it first started and this site has changed since then. I love the library feature where downloaded patterns are stored, among many other cool features. Here’s the link to Ravelry – www.ravelry.com

My nieces and I bought yarn from www.knitpicks.com. We pooled our purchases to get free shipping. I ordered yarn to knit some light weight slouchy hats to wear in Georgia, where the weather is generally warm. But it hasn’t been warm lately. There was snow last month. Around 4 inches of snow that did not stick to the ground. I kind of missed snow, having lived in NYC for many years. We recently visited family in NYC in February for Chinese New Year. NY had 2 or 3 days of snow by the time we arrived. It was a welcome sight for me and I did not mind the dirtied snow. In the city, the sidewalks were cleared as if it did not snow. I met up with a few friends in Korea Town for lunch then met my family in Manhattan Chinatown. I wrote Manhattan Chinatown to distinguish it from the other Chinatowns.  There are several in the outer boroughs – there’s one in Flushing, Queens and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. There are 2 other Brooklyn neighborhoods with small Chinatowns – Avenue U and 86th Street from 19th Ave to 23rd Ave. We walked from Chinatown to Soho and onto Japan Town in the East Village. Then we walked back to Chinatown to have dinner. Since it was Chinese New Year, we ordered a dish that was the restaurant’s special for the New Year.

As I’m writing this post, James Morrison is singing ,’Once When I Was Little ‘ in the background. I love his voice – raspy and strong, very similar to Rod Stewart. Mr. Morrison is an Englishman and his song,’ You Give Me Something’ was a worldwide hit in 2007. Where have I been to have missed this? On U-Tube, I watched an interview where he says his fans love his music because of the honest lyrics, and I think this is so true. One can hear the honest lyrics in the song,’ You Give Me Something’. Here’s one verse from the song:

You already waited up for hours
Just to spend a little time alone with me
And I can say I’ve never bought you flowers
I can’t work out what they mean
I never thought that I’d love someone
That was someone else’s dream

I don’t know why but I like the two lines about never having bought flowers because he doesn’t understand the meaning of it. These two lines is a shout out that he’s a guy who is not sentimental and yet he understands love. No nonsense lyrics, all right. He has been compared to Stevie Wonder and one can hear the similarities. He looks a little like Chris Martin of Coldplay, you know striking blue eyes and a little nerdy but attractive nerdy. Is there such a thing? Well, I don’t know but I do know that my niece-ys and I are knitting again.

I am staying at a place located in the middle of suburbia which given my city upbringing, is like visiting a foreign country. First, a car is required to get anywhere. No MTA or EL here. A car is treasured in the suburbs as someone pointed out to me how some folks keep their cars/trucks well maintained in appearance. Shiny, spic and span with decorative decals. Having a car certainly is convenient. Don’t have to waste time to wait for public buses. Someone said to me it took an hour to go the nearest shopping mall by bus when it’s 10 mins by car. Second, the area is so unlike a city in landscape and in the people. I see greenery wherever I am driven in the area. The place is spotted among the greenery with office complexes, warehouses and new business and residential developments. We recently needed to visit a plumber and we drove to  a converted house, umm, office located, and I really mean, in the woods. I was lucky or cautious not to have gone into the office but my companions who were also apprehensive about entering the office, needed a flow valve. Afterwards, my brave companions said that the plumber and his assistant were true country folks. I am wondering what the plumber and his assistant said about my companions.

Along with true country folks, there’s quite a contingent of Koreans living in the North Side of Atlanta, and I understand other Asians are moving into the area as well. I remember visiting the area about 5 years ago, and there weren’t many Korean businesses as there are now, and now there are plenty of Korean food eateries as well. I’ve tried a few Korean restaurants and there are two that stands out for me. I like Tofu House located in the H-Mart shopping center where I had a bowl of cold arrowroot noodle soup with asian pear slices. Lovely and refreshing on a sunny day. Banchan or side dishes were pretty and plentiful. At another Korean restaurant, TTO TTO Wah Catering House, I had bim-bim bop with a side bowl of mung bean sprouts in clear broth. It was delioso! 

Buffet places were kinda new to me simply because buffet places were not common in New York City where I lived for many years. Oh, there were some in NYC but prices were at the high end, and the okay food quality and poor selection did not justify going. When I visited the area five years ago, we had a fun time sampling buffet places because of the unbeatable pay one price for all you can eat. There is even a KFC buffet here, something a city would never have because of two words –  No Profit.  Some buffet places from back then are still around, and one that is new and that I like is Sweet Tomatoes that offers a soup and salad buffet. Fantastically healthy and reasonably priced at 7 bucks for lunch and 9 bucks for dinner. 

It seems I write more about my ramblings than our knit-along. Afraid there is no update to the Paris Jacket knit-along. I will attempt to write the reason for this blog next time, fer sure!

JJ and I discussed that the Paris Jacket is pretty simple in design and seems impossible how the 3 knitted rectangular pieces can be assembled into a wonderfully cute jacket. From the back view of the jacket, you can see that there are 3 pieces involved: collar, bodice, waistband. JJ has selected a bouclé yarn for this jacket and is in the midst of knitting the bodice. Hope she’ll upload pics to show us.

PARIS JACKET

Thanks for the previous post, my niece-y! The flan looks delicious. Alas, I can only imagine eating the sweet and smooth flan. Mmmm…Virtual Delicioso. Next time that Guurlfriend makes it, think about changing the flan recipe by adding green tea? The flan reminds me of Chinese egg custard tarts and I have seen them come in different flavors in some NYC’s Chinatown bakeries. The egg custard can be egg white only, green tea or almond flavor. I have tried them and they have the same taste as the original yellow egg-y ones. Not that I have good taste buds in the first place to differentiate. So think about changing the recipe for next time. Guurlfriend can also make panna cotta which is another milk dessert. I think it is really easy to make, but I have not found the time, then forgot about it. I was going to use soy milk and add green tea powder that I bought in Kyoto to flavor it. Ask Guuurlfriend to make!

For July 4th, I went to the Taste of Chicago Festival to sample food from participating local restaurants, and to see the fireworks display. The Taste is an annual summer event that takes place in Grant Park and is free for everyone to stroll along and browse the food stalls set up by Chicago-land eateries. The admission to the Taste is free but the food is not. Food ranged from 4 tickets to 10 tickets, where a strip of 12 tickets was 8 bucks. Pretty expensive. There were all types of cuisine such as African, Indian, Southeast Asian, and Italian. I wanted to try them all but allowed myself to purchase 24 tickets. So my plan was simple: Taste the sample portions that cost from 3 to 4 tickets each, and hopefully can sample 6. Well, that plan did not work. I like sweets and caved in to buy a slice of cheesecake with strawberries for 6 tickets. Yes, eating desserts is first for me. Then I was good, and purchased 4 tickets worth for a taste portion of vegetarian soul food. It is called BBQ Twist which is just gluten with yummy barbecue sauce. Next was another taste portion of toasted cheese ravioli with marinara sauce for 4 tickets. I passed Chinese food, then another Italian, and was tempted to try African fare but hesitated because of its goat meat menu. I’m new to Chicago and in exploring the city, I came across a specialty market for African food. In the market, I saw goat heads, and I mean WHOLE heads and other goat parts for sale. The image is burned in my head and so I shivered in remembrance when I passed the African food stall. Afraid goat meat is not for me. Onward as I forged through the crowd, until I saw lobster tail and garlic potato plate for 10 tickets.  I had exactly 10 tickets left and I was tired of fighting the crowd and sprang for it. Then I was free, free from the crowd to roam the rest of Grant Park and waited for the fireworks display.

Overall, the Taste is a good way to while away time but this year, the event was marred by gang-related shootings. I saw an emergency vehicle carrying away one of the shot victims, and at one point, I saw scores of youngsters running away from something, perhaps a shooting. The Mayor has stated that the shootings were isolated incidents and won’t hurt Chicago’s Olympic 2016 bid. Hmmm, I don’t know about that…Shouldn’t the Mayor be more concern about the high crime rate and not about the Olympic bid?

VEGGIE BBQ TWIST

CHEESECAKE

FIREWORKS!!

Looks delicious… oishi sou…

Flaaaan

can’t wait for her to come back and make it for me! <3

haha!

The finished apron did not turn out well. Sigh! There is this gigantic hole in the skirt that I had not noticed before. It’s located on the side and anyone with a sharp eye can see it. Or not – after all the mohair is quite fuzzy and is good in hiding mistakes. The choice of substituting mohair yarn was not good. The fuzziness added thickness to the apron which in turn, makes me look fat! Certainly some lessons learned here. Hmmmff. Yep, what are they? Hehe ^_-

I knitted fiercely this past week while watching some tv shows such as Samantha Who?, Eli Stone, Men In Trees, and Lost (exciting episode). That was a lot of tv for me since I’m more of a movie person. So my next step is to knit the bib. Hopefully, I can finish knitting it this coming week. I was looking over the design of the apron, and not liking the ties going around the neck. I may change the ties to loop around arms instead of neck. The reason is that the mohair yarn is itchy and kinda don’t want my lovely neck to feel the itch.