Cèilidh Nam Freumhan

Author: TartanVegan

  • The Garden Experiment is Winding Down

    Well, the current garden experiment is coming to a close! With the growing season winding down, I have only tomatoes and peppers left in the garden.

    Unfortunately, I got behind on my garden commonplace book and really should try to catch up before I forget everything I’ve learned along the way.

    This year has definitely been an experiment. Some things worked, some things didn’t, and some things left me scratching my head. But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?

    One of the things I enjoy most about gardening is that there’s always something new to learn. Just when I think I’ve figured something out, a plant decides to do something completely unexpected. And of course, what works wonderfully one year might not work at all the next.

    I had quite a few plans for the garden this year, and I certainly didn’t accomplish everything I wanted to. But I did learn a lot, and I think that’s worth something.

    Now I need to sit down with my commonplace book and document what I can remember. What grew well? What struggled? What would I do differently? And perhaps most importantly, what do I want to try next time?

    I suppose that’s one of the nice things about gardening. There’s always another growing season, another experiment, and another opportunity to figure things out.

    For now, though, I think I’ll enjoy whatever the tomatoes and peppers have left to offer. And maybe actually catch up on that commonplace book. Hah!

    Not my garden but it kind of looks like this…
  • Pantry Pasta

    Pantry Pasta

    I was at a loss the other night trying to figure out dinner. I had originally planned spaghetti, but we had spent most of the day loading and unloading wood, furniture, etc., so the thought of hot food was not appealing.

    Pasta still sounded good, though, so I looked through my pantry to see what we had lying around. I ended up making cold spaghetti noodles, then added olive oil, red wine vinegar, a bit of Dijon mustard, granulated garlic powder, salt, and black pepper. I was going to add dried basil, but I forgot. Next, I added some chopped kale and some tofu, then mixed everything together.

    It turned out to be quite delicious! I usually end up not putting enough oil in dishes like this, which makes them rather flavorless the next day. But I had pretty good proportions this time.

    Spouse was happy, I was happy, and dinner was taken care of without heating up the kitchen any more than necessary.

    Since I made this up as I went along, I didn’t measure anything. But I’ve put together an approximate recipe below. Feel free to adjust the dressing to your own taste!

    Cold Spaghetti Salad with Kale and Tofu

    Servings: Approximately 4
    Prep time: 10 minutes
    Cook time: 10–12 minutes

    Ingredients

    • 8 oz dry spaghetti
    • 8 oz firm or extra-firm tofu, drained and cubed
    • 2 cups chopped kale, stems removed
    • 3 tablespoons olive oil
    • 1½ tablespoons red wine vinegar
    • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
    • ½ teaspoon granulated garlic
    • Salt and black pepper, to taste
    • ½ teaspoon dried basil (optional, and only if you remember it!)

    Instructions

    1. Cook the spaghetti according to the package directions.
    2. Drain and rinse under cold running water until the noodles are completely cooled.
    3. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, garlic, salt, and pepper.
    4. Place the cooled spaghetti in a large bowl. Add the chopped kale and cubed tofu.
    5. Pour the dressing over everything and toss until thoroughly coated.
    6. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Add more olive oil or vinegar if needed.
    7. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to eat.

    Notes: This is a very forgiving recipe. The dressing quantities are approximate, so start with the suggested amounts and adjust according to your preferences. If you’re planning to have leftovers, you may want to add a little extra dressing before serving, since pasta tends to absorb it as it sits.

  • Practice is Passable

    Practice is Passable

    Normally, I don’t post something the day I actually do it. But today, I was especially frustrated because I don’t feel like I’m making progress.

    I bought some chipboard so I could try working with a more professional material. I’m still using printer paper for now, as I want to get this down before I start using my nice paper.

    I made six signatures with five sheets of paper each. I wanted to make sure the stitching was visible, so I got out the waxed thread that came with my upholstery repair kit and threaded a bookbinding needle.

    The waxed thread is very difficult to manage. I couldn’t keep tension, and I think it’s just too thick for bookbinding. I got to the third signature and realized I wouldn’t have enough thread for the other three, so I decided to just sew on the cover and call it good.

    And of course…I was about 1/2″ short.

    Then I got out some embroidery floss, which is too thick for the bookbinding needles. I was able to thread a curved needle, which seems like a great option for this type of binding. However, I haven’t worked with a curved needle before, and I kept dropping it.

    I made sure I had plenty of thread this time. So obviously, it got tangled, and I had to start over for the fifth time. (I left out some retries because they’re really not important in the grand scheme of things.)

    I finally got four signatures plus the cover secured. Yet even though I blamed the waxed thread for the tension issues, it was me all along.

    Thus, the cover lies flat, but only because the stitching is so loose.

    I started this blog because I wanted to share the learning process, which includes days of frustration and failure. Though I suppose nothing is truly a failure if you manage to learn something along the way.

    Maybe I’ll do a Tunisian crochet thing next…even though I know I have tension issues there, too!

    Practice makes passable for now.

  • How Does Baseball Fit Into All This?

    I am obsessed with baseball. With one team in particular, but that’s not important right now.

    One of my commonplace books is solely about baseball — some stats about my favorite players, pictures of their various World Series wins, and the best part: mapping out different pitch types, from what they look like from the batter’s box to what they look like from the side.

    I grew up watching my dad play baseball, and honestly, I sure was sick of it for a while. Then, a couple of years ago, I happened to turn on the Friday night Apple TV game. Immediately, the noise of the crowd and the game itself calmed my nerves.

    I had forgotten how soothing it was.

    So I dove back in full throttle.

    I love studying stats and trying to figure out what might happen based on current numbers. One of the things I like about the Apple TV broadcast is that they show cool stats like “probability of reaching base” and things like that.

    Though if I were the batter, it probably wouldn’t feel great to see “probability of a strikeout: 60%.” Hah!

    I dedicated an entire section of my 2026 planner to my team. I wrote out the schedule, where I keep track of wins and losses. I have a roster that I update when players are injured, sent down to AAA, called back up, etc.

    I even made a reading tracker that looks like a scorekeeper’s book: single = 1 star, double = 2 stars, and you can figure it out from there. I write a “K” — which signifies a strikeout — if I hated the book but finished it anyway.

    I am sorry to say I have few home runs this year, but several strikeouts.

    But that’s the game.

    And apparently, there is no crying in baseball!

    As you can see, I was entirely too heavy-handed with the mildliners…
  • Another Attempt at Japanese Stab Binding

    Another Attempt at Japanese Stab Binding

    I try to use what I have on hand, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get a good template because everything I had was either too flimsy or too much.

    I have some waxed thread, but it’s meant for upholstery repair and gave me a lot of problems between the wax and the thickness.

    I also have a ton of embroidery thread, but it’s too thin to work with on its own, and I kept shredding the covers.

    I had purchased cardstock, but I didn’t get the right finish, so it looked like I had made a construction paper notebook for my third-grade dinosaur project.

    I want to make A5 notebooks, as well as traveler’s notebook-style notebooks, but A5 paper, being slightly different from letter size, somehow costs far more than letter paper.

    So…I found some letter-sized chipboard and decided to try again with printer paper and some embroidery floss that arrived today.

    Here is the setup once I got all the paper cut and the holes poked through:

    The next problem was that my bookbinding needles don’t have eyes large enough for embroidery floss. That seems like something a bookbinding needle should be able to handle, but what do I know?

    I finally found a needle that would work—from my upholstery repair kit—and of course it broke after going through the first hole.

    I found another upholstery needle that did work, finally.

    This attempt went much better than the last, especially because I bought a paper guillotine and wasn’t cutting every page by hand. Clearly, I like to punish myself by cutting single sheets of paper one at a time…

    I’m pleased with my second attempt, knowing I still have a long way to go.

    I also need to remember to hinge the front cover before I sew everything together. Preferably with the Teflon bone folder.

    Hence the awful crinkles on the finished product.

    I present:

  • When Motivation is Low…

    When Motivation is Low…

    My last post discussed hitting a creative block, which in turn has caused a bit of an internal struggle. I want to keep creating, but I also don’t want to force myself—nothing kills my passion faster than feeling trapped.

    Today, I told myself I had to do something. I decided to bind another pamphlet, since it really doesn’t take a lot of time or effort (at least, minimal effort for my current skill level).

    I had a file folder lying around that I thought would make a nicer cover than the card stock I had been using. I also wanted to try out my Teflon bone folder.

    The folder was a little larger than the paper when folded in half, so that removed the “trim the paper” equation entirely. However, I have not mastered scoring yet, so when I folded the file folder, it still ended up with some weird creases.

    I also wanted to try the other thread that came with my upholstery repair kit. That thread is more like regular sewing thread, so I had to tread carefully. I had been using the thicker waxed thread, but it didn’t tighten well and ended up looking really messy.

    I made the holes in the paper, and they were a bit off-center, as usual. I plan to make a book-piercing stand at some point, but since I am still practicing the binding itself, that can wait a bit.

    The sewing went faster this time since it wasn’t my first try, and I am happy with the overall look.

    I love that the thread is unobtrusive.
    From the outside, the file folder made a much nicer cover than I expected.
  • Sometimes You Have to Regroup

    Sometimes You Have to Regroup

    I have hit a bit of a creative wall lately. I have approximately 9,000 things I want to make, write, cook, bind, grow, or otherwise obsess over, and somehow that has translated into…doing very little.

    So naturally, I have found myself a new project.

    Before I was vegan, there were a lot of foods in New Orleans that I loved. Mostly beignets. I could have eaten beignets all day.

    Unfortunately, Café du Monde is not particularly concerned with my vegan beignet needs.

    The same goes for pralines. I used to have a favorite praline company, and their entire philosophy appears to be, “What if butter, but more?”

    So now I want to see how many of my old favorites I can recreate without making them quite so dependent on dairy.

    Gumbo should be easy enough. I used to make a pretty good one, and since I have always hated seafood and shellfish, I was already halfway there.

    Beignets are the one I really want to tackle. Vegan donuts exist, of course, but nobody around here is making vegan beignets—and frankly, I am not looking for a donut covered in cereal, bacon, or twelve other things that have absolutely no business being on a donut.

    I just want fried dough covered in an irresponsible amount of powdered sugar.

    So that’s the next experiment.

    Hopefully, in the coming days, I will have some new recipes to share—and, assuming I remember to stop eating long enough to take them, some decent photos of the process.

  • Payoff is a…Really Amazing Thing!

    Payoff is a…Really Amazing Thing!

    Notice the calendula bottles just keep going right off the photo…

    My calendula-infused oil and yarrow tincture are finally finished and in tiny brown dropper bottles. I have been waiting what feels like an eternity and now the waiting is over.

    One thing I learned: I don’t need to fill up 3/4 of a pint jar with olive oil. I ended up with four dropper bottles and a massive mess on my kitchen counter.

    The yarrow was a lot easier to transfer because I had steeped it in a generic spice jar like you get at a grocery store. A quick pour later and it was settled into its own dropper bottle.

    Please don’t take my words as any kind of suggestion, but I’m kind of hoping I get a bug bite or something so I can test these out. Totally normal reaction, right?

    At some point, I’d like to turn some of that oil into a salve but right now, I’m just enjoying the row of brown dropper bottles.

    *Disclaimer* The evidence for herbal remedies is mixed. I don’t consider my experiments medicine, and they’re definitely not a replacement for actual medical care.

  • My Interests are Taking Over My Desk

    My Interests are Taking Over My Desk

    I believe I have mentioned before that I find a topic, obsess over it for a while, then totally forget about it.

    Right now, it is Baldur’s Gate 3.

    I bought the game right after it came out, along with a Steam Deck, played for about three weeks, and then my Steam Deck sat untouched until about a year ago. So obviously, now that I am obsessed with Baldur’s Gate 3 again, I started playing it on my PC instead. The Steam Deck is busy with my other game.

    I have been reading the D&D Player’s Handbook for the past week so I can get a better idea of how to set up my character in BG3. I also bought Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide because there is some lore I am lacking.

    Have my notes evolved into yet another commonplace book? You bet they have.

    In a week or two, I will probably be able to rattle off any number of feats, backgrounds, classes, and spells. In two months, I will be focused on something else entirely. It’s just how it is with me.

    This is, of course, happening right after I bought a new desk with about twice as much real estate as the old one. My monitor is pretty big, so before, there wasn’t room for much besides a keyboard and mouse.

    Naturally, I am already covering the new desk.

    I started more Jewish studies, so that notebook is sitting on top of the related binder and my current book. Then there is my garden compendium. I 3D printed two desk organizers. Of course I also had to make room for my cat Post-It dispenser.

    And more pens. Always more pens.

    I also have a hankering to make some notebooks, but I am waiting on a Teflon bone folder, which should arrive tomorrow. Given the current state of my desk, what I clearly need is more notebooks.

    In the meantime, my paladin has work to do.

    Photo by Stephen Hardy on Pexels.com

  • Why Did I Start Making Study Guides?

    When I was working on my master’s degree, I also had to learn how to use Chicago/Turabian citations. Before that, I’d had classes that required MLA and APA, but Chicago/Turabian turned out to be a whole different beast. No matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to lose a point or two because I’d gotten something wrong.

    When it came time to write my thesis, I decided I wasn’t dealing with that anymore. Every time I accessed a source, I wrote down everything about it: title, author(s), publication date, publisher, and anything else I might need. Then I wrote down the correct format for the first footnote, subsequent footnotes, and the bibliography.

    That meant that when I was actually writing, I could just write. I didn’t have to stop every few minutes to figure out how I was supposed to cite something and potentially lose my train of thought. And when the paper itself was finished, dealing with the citations was a whole lot easier.

    A few months ago, I found myself thinking, “I wish I’d had something like this way back when…” And then the lightbulb went off. Why not make it? If it made my life easier, maybe I could save someone else from suffering through the same thing.

    As it turns out, making the templates took more time than learning Chicago/Turabian in the first place.

    I had to jump straight into the deep end with Scribus, the open-source design tool I’d found. I have to admit, I said some fairly offensive words to Scribus during the process, but luckily it’s not a person I’d have to apologize to later.

    I can’t say that I’ve beaten Scribus, mastered it, or even reached anything resembling ease of use, but I at least remembered to save my completed pages as templates so I don’t continue to tear out my hair.

    Photo by Eli Sommer on Pexels.com