FO Friday: A noteworthy notebook

In lieu of an FO that is knit, I can offer one that was written and drawn, one of my notebooks in the notebook swap.

The owner of this notebook has a particular fondness for genealogy as a subject and trees as iconography.  She also expressed a preference for a pot roast recipe over my usual sweet baked goods.  So after filling in my first single page with a little about me essay, I used my two double-page spreads to give her something I hope she'll like.

First, I offered up two recipes that make me think of family.  To save on space, I printed the recipes themselves out to about the size of index cards and inserted them in an envelope.  Then on the right-hand side, I drew sketches of the dishes and wrote a little spiel about what they meant to me:

The two dishes are:

• Svickova na smetane, which is a beef dish covered in a creamy root vegetable sauce.  The sauce is sopped up with deliciously squishy bread dumplings.  There is usually a garnish of whipped cream, some cranberry sauce, and a slice of lemon.  To me, this is like Czech Thanksgiving, comfort food at its best.
• Toad in the Hole, which is impressive but so simple.  Sausages are browned and then baked into a Yorkshire pudding.  Another comfort food, I actually made this with my mom this past holiday season, but my memories are of eating this for a sunny Sunday lunch with family.

Next was a forest of three of the trees I grew up with.

What you can just about see above is:

• Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' cypress tree has been with me since elementary school.  I've seen the painting in person twice, once in high school on a touring exhibit in Houston, where I promised it I would see it again in New York as a student of Sarah Lawrence College, my then-dream school.  And then, obviously, the second time was indeed as an SLC student.
• 'Ferngully' was one of the few non-Disney animated movies that I loved as a kid.  Along with flying and breathing underwater, the ability to 'help it grow' is totally up there on my list of desired superpowers.
• The other week, while I was working on this notebook, I found a book of Czech...proverbs?  Sayings?  I'm not sure, but it had black and white drawings in it, and one included a forest.  So I included it, even though I didn't grow up with it, it's been on my bookshelf, or a bookshelf near me, for years.

The notebook has now moved on to another link in the chain of swappers, and I'm working on more pages in another notebook.  I can't wait to get my own notebook back, full of pure imagination!

For more crafty FOs, check out Tami's Amis.