Visits, leather, and cooking

Leather class has been a lot of fun. So far, I've made the simple little wallet (turned out GREAT), and I'm currently working on a leather kindle case. So far it looks really good; I should have it finished by mid-next week, and I'll put up photos of all are early artistic endeavors. Yesterday we went down to tanneries to check out the leather making process and buy leathers/supplies. Percy, one of Cesar's friends/students, is here for a month from Mexico to visit his girlfriend, and wanted to stock up so that he could continue his commercial leather projects over in DF. His specialty is leather backpacks, and he has a really cool rucksack that I'm going to try to copy... Robin bought some purple leather to make her mom a big, and we bought some goat skin suede to use for bag linings (about 8 bucks for a piece of suede maybe 1.5 m x .7 m). I'm going to go back next week with Cesar to buy some dark brown leather for a briefcase/attaché I want to make. Maybe I'll see if I can get some shell cordovan to use too... that could be fun, depending on prices.

The tanneries were the foulest-smelling things I have ever visited in my life. Think chopped liver left on the counter for years and years and years. Didn't make me become a vegan, though. I'm just glad that I don't have to work down there.

Speaking of food, Robin and I have decided to resurrect an idea that we were kicking around a few months ago: an underground/pop-up restaurant run out of our apartment along the lines of this place, though instead of Indian food, it's just going to be "random recipes/cuisines that Jerry decides to try." I'm thinking of trying some soul food for the first installment. Any recipes you want to kick my way?

Lastly, my brother's visiting us next Friday! Hopefully we'll have some good pictures to post from that trip.