Craft Corner: Spider Silk Thread

Just in case you have a lot of free time on your hands and a handy supply of 3-5 foot webs in your yard, Boing Boing featured an article today on how to spin your own silk from spider webs. If I had the time (and the source material) I would totally do this. Spider silk is stronger than steel and can stretch to 40 times its length. Plus, imagine the Goth cred I would get for a little black dress woven from spiderwebs?

Here's the Instructables page that details the steps:
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-Spider-Silk-Thread/

And, even cooler, people in Madagascar have actually woven a piece of silk that looks like something from the set of "Lord of the Rings":
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/spidersilk/





The AMNH article discusses how the spiders like to weave webs between telephone lines in Madagascar. This phenomenon also occurs in Viet Nam. I saw enormous webs spun between power lines all along the highway from My Tho to Can Tho. The picture is below. The spiders in the webs were large enough to show up in the picture and at the distance I was from the power lines, that makes them at least 4 inches across.

Craft Corner: Spider Silk Thread

How to find your photo uploads with the CForms Wordpress Plugin

I love the cforms plugin by Delicious Days just as much as the next Wordpress devotee, but there are a few things that (like too many WP plugins) are just left up to the user to figure out. After a client requested a form that let a user upload a photo to their website, I thought; "No sweat, there's a field to add an upload box." Half true. There is an option for a file upload box when you add a new field to your form, but there's some configuring that needs to be done on top of that. When you have a form with a file upload box created, there will be a File Uploads dropdown menu added to the settings menu below the forms in the cforms "Form Settings" dashboard. I've configured it like so:


I changed the absolute path to read:
/home/topdirectory/public_html/yourwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads

and the relative path to say:
/wp-content/uploads

Then, it's important to specify the maximum file number in kilobytes or the upload won't work. I said 400 here.

But, when I checked the form that was sent as a test run, no photo was there! Where do the pictures actually go??

Turns out, they go to your uploads folder in your wp-content directory. So, if you know you have a form submittal with a photo, go to this url:

http://yourwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/

and you will see a listing of the photos as files.



Another tip: If you don't want your form to display the "Cforms by Delicious Days" underneath, go to Cforms>Style and in the stylesheet you've chosen for your form, go to where it has the classes for ".linklove" and set it to display:none;

How to find your photo uploads with the CForms Wordpress Plugin

Ice Box Cook'n: White Trash Key Lime Pie

The past few days may have been hot, but thank your god(s) that at least it's a dry heat. Below the Mason-Dixon line this is what's considered "mild" (spoken with 2 syllables of course). Hence the need for the Icebox recipes in Ernest Matthew Mickler's classic, "White Trash Cooking". I found this recipe in the "Sweet 'Pones, Puddins 'n Pies" section and it's been a hit at a few barbeques up here. All the ingredients y'all need are pictured up above.

Take the can of sweetened condensed milk and combine it with the large container of "dairy" topping and the thawed Limeade. Beat it at high speed for about a minute and then pour the mixture into 2 graham-cracker pie shells. Cover the pies and place in the freezer for at least 5 hours until thoroughly frozen.

Note: Whenever I tried to make this in the past I always ended up with way too much filling left over for one pie. So, make 2 and then fill in the gap between the top of the filling and the top of the crust with whipped cream if company's coming.

Ice Box Cook'n: White Trash Key Lime Pie

Vegetarian Viet-American Stir Fry with Vermicelli

I had a hankering for Vietnamese food today. Maybe it's the heat. Unfortunately,even though you can't swing a dead sea gull on the North Shore without hitting a Chinese/Sushi or Thai place, Vietnamese cuisine is tough to find (one notable exception is Sugar Cane in Peabody). So, I raided the pantry and scraped together enough ingredients to make a reasonable facsimile of rice noodles with vegetables and tofu. I call it Viet-American since yellow squash and portabella mushrooms are North American.

Ingredients

1/2 package extra-firm tofu, cut into oblong pieces and drained on some paper towels
1 sweet red pepper diced into medium pieces
1 or 2 portabella mushroom caps, cut into strips
1 medium yellow squash cut into 1/2 inch rounds
2 green onions, diced
1 clove crushed garlic (if desired)
2-3 tbs Canola oil for frying the tofu and vegetables
1 cube vegetarian bouillon (try Rapunzel from Whole Foods)
3/4 cup water
1 teaspoon of your favorite kind of curry paste. (I used red curry)
soy sauce (to taste)
Sriracha hot sauce (to taste)
Fresh basil and cilantro leaves to taste
1 package "rice stick" vermicelli
(It makes such a mess to try and separate them while dry that I tossed the whole package in a big pot of boiling water. After taking them out after 3 minutes, I rinsed them in cool water and just took what I needed and put the rest in the refrigerator for later.)

The Steps

Step 1: Heat a few tablespoons of oil in the wok until hot but not smoking then put in the drained tofu and fry until golden on all sides.

Step 2: Add the vegetables, one type at a time, stir frying in the hot oil until cooked then pushing aside for the next batch.

Step 3: Add garlic if desired and stir in with the vegetables and tofu.

Step 4: Clear the center of the wok and add the water, then the bouillon. Let the bouillon cube dissolve in the boiling water and stir everything together.

Step 5: Season to taste with the curry paste, soy sauce and hot sauce.

Step 6: Add some of the cooked rice vermicelli to a bowl and spoon in the vegetables and tofu along with some of the broth. Garnish with the basil and cilantro and enjoy!

Vegetarian Viet-American Stir Fry with Vermicelli