This, That and the Southern Thing

Well, it's taken me a few days to get back here after the blog hop last week (which I hope you enjoyed, by the way.) On Thursday and Friday, I had to fly to Louisiana in the midst of massive flooding here in Central Pennsylvania. Luckily, the travel part of it worked out fine - I got there and back safely, and had an awesome time in between.

Since I got back, I can't stop frying up green tomatoes. They're not exactly a typical food here in PA, but every time I head south of here, I seem to regress into some kind of fried green tomato obsession. Luckily, I have an overabundance of them in my garden. The tomatoes never really got ripe this year, which I'd been lamenting up until now. On Sunday, I pulled a recipe off the internet, and it turned out to be a fantastic one. They turned out just like the ones I had in Baton Rouge, so I've decided to share the recipe with you.

BEST FRIED GREEN TOMATOES (from AllRecipes.com)

Ingredients:
4 large green tomatoes
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 quart vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

1. Slice tomatoes 1/2 inch thick. Discard the ends.

2. Whisk eggs and milk together in a medium-size bowl. Scoop flour onto a plate. Mix cornmeal, bread crumbs and salt and pepper on another plate. Dip tomatoes into flour to coat. Then dip the tomatoes into milk and egg mixture. Dredge in breadcrumbs to completely coat.

3. In a large skillet, pour vegetable oil (enough so that there is 1/2 inch of oil in the pan) and heat over a medium heat. Place tomatoes into the frying pan in batches of 4 or 5, depending on the size of your skillet. Do not crowd the tomatoes, they should not touch each other. When the tomatoes are browned, flip and fry them on the other side. Drain them on paper towels.

To memorialize my fried green tomato obsession, I even created an Etsy treasury (because Etsy treasuries, of course, are currently my way of procrastinating when I don't want to do anything more productive.)



Delicious, eh? And perfect for September. While we're at it, I also made this one on the same day, and then realized that I'd coincidentally made two treasuries named after old movies, neither of which had anything to do with film:



At any rate, fall is definitely in the air here. It has been for awhile now, but to be honest, there's only one thing that ever makes it sink in for me that fall is really here - the return of all my TV shows. This week starts most of the CWTV shows, including one of my very favorites, the Vampire Diaries. The end of True Blood this past Sunday night will be ameliorated by the return of Elena, Damon, Stefan, Caroline, et al. Last season ended with a huge bang, so I can't wait to see what happpens this year - and is anyone else excited to see Damon finally step up and be the "good" vampire for a change?

Anyway...

The last thing I have to mention tonight is that I've recently been featured over on Artsnark's Artifacts.  As you know, Stacey, otherwise known as Artsnark, is one of my very favorite Etsy artists and has contributed significantly to my growing ACEO collection.  She has been kind enough to feature an interview with me and to host a giveaway of one of my items - a pair of snowy owl lace earrings perfect for Halloween.  So be sure to check out the interview and leave a comment to be entered into the giveaway!

ACEO

As you can probably guess from my previous blog posts, I am someone who really likes to be surrounded by art.  I have a collector's mentality when it comes to beautiful things... I want them in my possession, and on display, and if they happen to be rare or unusual, then all the better.

When I was an attorney, collecting art (and other stuff) was no big deal.  I was never rich, but I made enough to get by and to spend some money on the things that I felt were important.  When I made the decision to stop practicing law, I knew I'd have to give a lot of things up.  Unfortunately, there's a huge difference between giving up fancy highlights and Chanel nail polish (ok, maybe I didn't give that up so much as space out my purchases a little more) and having to give up a hobby or a creative pursuit.

That's why I was really excited when I discovered ACEOs.  ACEOs are these little cards, the size of baseball cards, that artists make and then trade with each other or sell for a couple of dollars in places like Etsy.  Here's the official definition from the Etsy ACEO Street Team:

ACEO stands for "Art Cards, Editions and Originals". They are 3.5 x 2.5 inches 6.4 x 8.9 cms - the size of a trading card. They can be created using any medium.

Art Cards were originally traded between artists. While artists were happily trading cards, the general public was left out in the cold, having no Art Cards to trade. A group of artists realized this, and quickly made their cards available for sale! Artists from all over the world are creating, and selling these little works of art in different mediums and subject matter. You can use ACEO's as traditional art and hang them on the wall in frames, or you can place them in an album for a unique coffee table book. Extremely collectible art, you can't stop at just one!

At first, I didn't really see the point of ACEOs - what was I going to do with all these tiny trading cards?  Then I bought one... just one... and I was hooked.  Not only are they cute when framed and hung on the wall in big bunches, but the key thing that I realized was that with ACEOs, I could have any art that I wanted.  It was like shopping at Target instead of Prada, and the only potential obstacle was the artists' willingness or unwillingness to produce their artwork in ACEO size.

After collecting for a couple of months, I couldn't resist - I had to try my hand at making my own.  I did some mixed media collages first, and then decided to return to a favorite medium of my high school years... oil pastels.  I hit upon the idea of incorporating my own handspun yarn, and the "Art of Yarn" series was born!

So when a fellow Time Traveler, agentofchaos, suggested a team ACEO swap, I jumped on the project.  Agent held signups and then put all of our names into a random number generator.  We each sent out three ACEOs, and got three back in the mail.  Although everyone's ACEOs totally rocked, I really did score in that the three ACEOs I received were from artists whose work I really admire and would probably have bought eventually anyway:  poppydreamz, kuhlwhip, and amth13.

From left to right: Poppy's card, Amth's card, and two cards from Kuhl.

Amth's card is entitled "The Moon" and it came with a wonderful message: "The moon encourages us to listen to our intuition and pay attention to our dreams."  Now how did you know, Amth, exactly which inspirational message I needed to hear at this moment?  :)

I encourage everyone to visit these three artists' fabulous shops, and to explore the possibility of ACEO collecting.  If you need some suggestions, here are three more shops that have a wide selection of amazing ACEOs from which to choose, as well as excellent customer service:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheVenusCollection
http://www.etsy.com/shop/meliafroggy
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtSnark

If you want to try making your own ACEOs, you can cut your own blanks out of cardstock, or purchase blanks in a variety of paper types at art supply stores or in general craft stores like Michael's.

Please comment and let me know if you're already an ACEO collector, have recently discovered them or made some of your own, or if ACEOs are entirely new to you.  I'd love to hear how others collect and display these awesome little works of art!