Cattywampus

When life gives you lemons...

Preserve them!

The best Christmas present I got this year was a tagine.  Isn't it PURTY??

I was hesitant about putting it on my wish list, they are a bit pricey, and I was worried that I wouldn't like it or use it or understand it or whatever, but OMG, I have to tell you, it's amazing!!

The first thing I made in it was lamb with dates, apricots, and almonds and ooooohhhh buddy was that amazingly delicious.  One of the things I like so much about Morrocan cooking is the way they use spices that we associate with desserts in savory cooking.  The way the lamb tastes like cinnamon and cardomom with a hint of sweetness from the dates, but still with that savory undertone...mmmmmm.

One thing that the author of the cookbooks go on and on about is preserved lemons and I can't find them anywhere, so I decided to give it a whirl.  I meant to photograph the process, but it went so fast I sort of forgot.  Basically, you sterilize a jar, you wash the lemons, make sure everything is dry, then you cut them, stuff them with salt, jam them in a jar, pour lemon juice over them, and let them sit.

I have no idea what to expect, but the description of the way they taste, how they can transform a dish, and how integral they are to Morrocan cooking, I just HAD to try it.  I'll let you know if it works in a month or so...

And making them got me thinking about how some of the most delicious, integral parts of cuisine are the way they are because of the lack of fresh produce and meat year round.  Lemons in high season?  Preserve them so we can have them year round!  Time for slaughter?  What to do with all that pork...proscuitto, bacon, ham, pancetta, cured sausages...all things smokey and delicious.  Cured olives.  Marinated peppers.  Hard cheeses.  Polenta (dried ground corn).  Tamales (same).  Anything made of dried ground anything - mmmmmmm, hearty breads made from nut flours. Oatmeal!  

What of your favorite foods are the way they are because they had to be kept through the off-season?

 

Let's begin at the beginning

We moved on Octover 29th, there, was a hurricane, there was complete chaos at work, then there was a gala.

I knit a shawl for the gala:

I have to say, after the series of events, I don't think I was a charming conversationalist for the actual event, but I showed up, I drank, ate, and applauded in the appropriate places, and there it is.

Then I bought a Moroccan cookbook and decided to make non-instant couscous.  Who knew that a couscoussier was a real thing?  I'll give you a clue:  Not Me.  So I made one with a pasta pot and cheese cloth. 

And this: 

Turned into this:

And if you're inclined, I have to say it was the best couscous I've ever had outside of a Morrocan restaurant.  It wasn't hard, exactly, it was complex and it took about 2 hours, but I assume it would be less work each time I did it.  So, I'll probably do it again, and make much, much less.  Much less.  Next - Tangines!

Then I used my gorgeous new kitchen

to make yeast rolls (seriously, yum, why had I never tried these before?)

And I learned that my new oven cooks extremely unevenly.  Eh.  What're you gonna do?  I'll have to adjust.  My pecan pie was almost burnt on top and not quite done in the middle. (but it tasted fine!)

We stayed home for Thanksgiving and spent the weekend doing things around the house.  I have a love/hate relationship with Lowes at this point...but I cooked us the whole Thanksgiving meal, I couldn't NOT do it and the leftovers more than made it worth it.  

Pixie enjoys the new house quite a lot - she loves the windows.

And I love that she has something to watch all day.

While I was in the madness, I started a blanket for the new living room, I used a square shawl pattern, Manzanita, I used Palette yarn double stranded.  

I knit and knit and knit and knit in circles for a month, this was a lifesaver.  I couldn't possibly have done anything more complicated, and the color changes gave me motivation to keep going when i might otherwise have stopped.

And I am very pleased with the finished product.  In fact, I might just have to make another one for another room.

Very poor lighting in here first thing in the morning, but it matches the green on a pair of chairs (my new living room, btw), and the blues and browns match the other colors in the room nicely...and it is soooo cozy and warm.  

There it is, the last 4 weeks of my life.  It's been a whirlwind.  I have some gloves to show you too, and I am casting on a beret to match later this evening...and hopefully this is the end of the 1/month blog posts.  I really am going to try very hard to do at least one a week going forward - maybe I should do a resolution, except I never do resolutions because if you're going to make a change you should just make it.  So, there it is.  I'm going to try to make a change.

A Columbus Day list

1. I went to Denver for a conference.  It was pretty there, the food was good, and we found a fabulous yarn store where I purchased too many things.  (Not THAT much, but considering I didn't need ANYTHING, it was too much)  They had Mini Mochi...I've never seen it in person before!  SO FUN.

So fun that I got two colors...  :-)

2.  I started a sweater for Scott for xmas, Rene by Anne Hanson, the v neck pullover version.  I am knitting it in Berroco Vintage because he thinks 100% wool is hot, and this way he can wash it without fear of ruining it in some way, which I think will allow him to wear it more.  I got about 7 inches done on the way to & from Denver.  Considering we're in October, I'm happy with that.

I have made him two other sweaters, but more at the beginning of my knitting and this one should look quite a bit more "ready to wear" than homemade.  He does wear the others around the house, but not out - but I don't wear the sweaters I knit 5 years ago out either...so we'll see.

3.  The Swirl is coming along.  Here it is a week or so ago.

And here it is now.  

Progress is happening, and it's AMAZING how fast those 300 stitch rows go compared to the 600+ stitch rows at the very beginning!  I am a bit concerned about yarn usage, but nothing to do but keep on knitting and keep my fingers crossed.  Also, it looks a little small, I assume extreme blocking will happen because of the laceweight in there, but still...a little nervewracking.

I am having SO much fun knitting this that I already bought yarn to make one of the other Swirls in the book (see Denver yarn shopping above).

4.  It is fall in the Poconos.

Fall is just so very pretty in the country, in the city it doesn't look like much at all.

5. Duke is still hanging in there.  Right now we seem to be at an uneasy truce with the cancer.  His lymph nodes are not getting any bigger (he is on a chemo regimen that we give at home), and he is still himself and not in any pain (as far as we can tell, he acts like normal other than a few side effects from the drugs he's on).  We've been here for 4 months, and they had given him 6 months 4 months ago, so I assumed he would be starting to decline by now.  

The vet says it is possible, but unlikely, that we can hold the cancer at bay for a year or more, it all just depends on how his particular cancer responds to the drugs.  

So, I am taking nothing for granted, watching him like a mother hen for signs of Something Very Bad happening, but so far, we're just status quo.  I am too worried to let my guard down and think that we are in the unlikely set that can fend off the cancer indefinitely, but I am accepting that for now, he's comfortable, happy, and enjoying life, so I can stop being SO very anxious until he gives us a sign that he doesn't feel well anymore.

A buddy pic:

6. Cream cheese ice cream is amazing.  Thanks to Jodi for posting it as a suggestion.  I added cinnamon and allspice and a bit of vanilla extract to make it sort of apple pie flavoried, then I served it with crumbled graham crackers on top.  YUM.

7. I have Jury Duty tomorrow.  I don't mind it AS LONG AS I don't actually get picked to serve.  In a big place like Philly it's a pretty organized and crazy system, about 400+ people show up in the morning and get taken to a court for the selection process, then whoever isn't chosen gets bumped back to the main pool of people and the whole process starts over.  So in a regular 8 hour day I might get to sit through jury selection on as many as 3 or 4 trials.  It's interesting to be part of the process, and I get a lot of knitting done, so fingers crossed I don't actually get picked, and it won't be a bad day at all.

8. Christmas is just over 2 months away.  OMG.  Commence panic and planning.

9. I have a quilt ready to go, my not enough energy to complete it.

Maybe in a week or two.  I love the way quilt tops look with light behind them, all sort of glowy and luminscent.  It helps get a good sense for the color values too.

10.  Finally, a book review:  (it's been quite a while since anything has been good enough for me to post)

Carrion Comfort, by Dan Simmons

This book is very good, Simmons has a lot to say about the nature of evil and human nature and how those two things play both with and against each other. It was a little long for me, one too many "the bad guy isn't really dead" scenes, but he's really an extraordinary writer. One of the few authors I've run into who actually expands my vocab (along with China Mieville), it's nice, for change, to read a book isn't written for the lowest common denominator.

If you haven't read any Simmons, I would recommend checking him out, he has other books & series if this isn't to your taste.

 

A book review, some cooking, still no knitting

Over memorial day weekend we celebrated our 5th anniversary...I really can't believe it's been 5 years!!!  For our anniversary dinner I made a sausage and rice timbale and it was phenomenally delicious.

I'm not sure how all timbales are constructed, but this one was made by cooking risotto rice, mixing it with egg and cheese, and packing it around the edges of a spring form pan, filling the center with a sausage tomato sauce & then packing more rice on top and baking to set. 

I was really amazed at how well it held shape after I took off the spring form pan.  It was fun to make, creating the rice structure was very much like making a graham cracker crust for a cold pie, in other words...it involved much playing with my food. 

When you cut it open it looks like this:

And it was absolutely delicious!  According to my husband it tasted like high end restaurant food (he's no dummy, he knows how to go for the big points).  I don't know what level of food it tasted like, but it tasted realllllly, realllllllly good!  Basically I guess I'm saying that you shouldn't be intimidated by this (or any!) complicated recipe, it wasn't hard, it was pretty fun, and it was SO worth it!

Book Review:

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Like all of Jasper Fforde's series this world is filled with random rules that don't make sense to the reader and form a bizarre landscape that the main character is fighting his way through, making decisions that make no sense to the reader but make perfect sense in the world Fforde has created.

Fforde uses very little exposition and I really enjoy the way he drops the reader into the middle of these rather bizarre worlds and forces the reader to fend for him/herself in understanding the rules and preconceptions that the world is built upon.

Fun & enjoyable, forcing you to adjust the way you look at the world.

However, if you haven't read any Jasper Fforde before, I much more strongly recommend his Thursday Next series.  The first one is The Eyre Affair.  This series centers around a main character who is a literary detective because in this bizarre world people can go in and OUT of books, so characters escape from books and set themselves up in the real world but then are missing in all the copies of the book, sometimes she has to go INTO the book to solve some sort of crime or problem and she is written into the story...if you enjoy literature, bad puns, and puzzling your way through things that create paradoxes (paradoxi?), you will really enjoy this series. 

 

Practice, practice

When learning new things there is nothing to do but practice, as much as it pains me to admit it, it is indeed the truth.  None of us, or very few of us at least, are good at anything in the first go.  It takes a certain amount of persistence to keep going until you consider yourself at least competent at whatever it is you are trying to learn, and a good bit more to become proficient.

I consider myself reasonably proficient at knitting, but quilting I'm still working on.  I have been meaning to learn free motion quilting for quite some time, I finally picked up the right foot last weekend and I set out today to see if I could make that happen.

So, I did like the book said, and did a 'sampler'.

Certainly not great work, but enough for me to get the general idea.  I finished piecing a wall hanging this weekend, so I decided to dive right in.  Stippling, a sort of meandering stitch, seemed like the easiest thing to start with, so off I went.  I did okay.

On the right you can see where I tried the small, tighter stippling and did that half in separate squares, that was the first half, then I did the piece on the left, then I did the little loop-d-loops on the outside and sashing.  

I still have to put the binding on, but I ran out of steam to do that this weekend.  I was so obsessed with sewing that I didn't knit at all this weekend, so I think it's time to sit down and do that.

All in all I am relatively pleased with my first attempt at free motion quilting.

Something else that required a bit of practice this weekend:

We went on a segway tour of Philadelphia, one of those things we got for half price on groupon, it was quite cold for the tour (30s), my knitwear came in handy and even still my toes felt like little icecubes by the end of the tour.  They spent a good 30 minutes teaching us how to use them before we started on the tour, thank goodness for that.  Once I had the hang of it and we were on our way it was insanely fun, I would absolutely recommend it if you ever have the opportunity!  

I have this quilt ready to be quilted, but I am leery about moving from a wall hanging to this giant thing, maybe I'll work on on a friend's baby quilt next, that seems like it would be a good inbetween step before I get to this one.

Sorry, it's a little blurry, I just can't tell that they're blurry on my phone until it's too late.

Something completely random, cinnamon bun french toast!  It's just like regular french toast, except you use cinnamon buns sliced in half so they are the thickness of thick bread.  YUM.  

A list of sorts

I'm a bit manic right now because of some things going on at home & at work (all good, no worries, but I'm running in circles), so I'm going to fall back to the list format.

1.  Look Mom, I sewed!  I haven't had my sewing mojo for quite some time, it seems that when fall term starts and the students come in waves that I just lose all my energy for sewing, spring and nice weather bring it back.  Go figure.  It has happened 3 years in a row now, so at least I can be comfortable that there is a cycle and if I don't feel like sewing, it's okay, I will again soon.

I made a cover for my nookcolor!

I adore that fabric.  I bought the pattern on etsy from birdful stitches and I would recommend it, easy to follow and a lovely finished product.

The only thing I did differently was to use an elastic hairband in place of the fabric loop to hold it closed. 

It is most excellent, I do not have to take it out of the cover to do anything with it, and did I mention how happy the bright, flowered fabric makes me???

2.  It is theoretically possible that I will finish this Christmas quilt before next Christmas, but nobody hold their breath.

3. Pixie is fuzzy and cute.  Wait, that wasn't one of my things.  Sorry.

4.  Deep fried oreos with homemade cookies and cream icecream.  Judge if you'd like, but I finished every bit and I would order it again.

5.  Thanks to a recommendation from Jodi, whom I trust in this matter implicitly because she lives in a much colder, snowier and windier place than I do, I purchased a pair of Sorel snow boots.  Because I finally have practical snow boots, it will not snow another inch this year, and actually that's okay with me.

And they're cute too, toasty warm with cute shoes, what more could a girl ask for?

Something New

I picked up one of my personal sock kits this weekend, found that it was the Kenkyo pattern, and I came really close to putting it back and picking up a different one.  

I love this sock, I think it's gorgeous, and I bought the pattern a year or two ago, but every time I picked up the pattern to try to knit it I found the whole thing so overwhelming that I put it back.  

The reason is this:  in order to knit this sock I had to learn Japanese twisted cable stitches.

But this weekend, I didn't put it back, I sat down with the all knowing interwebs and my pattern determined to learn how to do this.  I think I've said this before, but I'll say it again, sometimes being really stubborn turns out to be a very handy personality trait.

And voila - here it is, I messed up a bit at the beginning, but I certainly wasn't going to go back and fix it.  I am loving it, it requires complete concentration and it is insanely fiddly, but it is FUN.

I hope you can see the detail, it is much clearer in real life, I'm not sure why it is so obscured in this picture.

A random recipe:  Pecan Pie Muffins.  I think they're only called muffins because they're not iced.  They would be amazing with cream cheese icing.

These are soooo easy and sooooo good, like somehow someone poured pecan pie into a mini cake form.  Totally YUM.

Thanks for your feedback regarding book blurbs/reviews, I will start to post them here as well. 

I will leave you with some beauty from our snowstorm this past week.

Of Puppies, Goals and other things

Duke has had all his bandages removed and is doing fine.

He thanks you very much for your good wishes. We went for the visit with the oncologist last week, his prognosis is much better than we were originally told.  I cannot possibly express how much joy this brings us both, and Pixie too, tho she has no idea what's going on.  His cancers both came out 'clean', so no radiation therapy, they are mid-level dangerous, so they are being sent off for additional testing to determine if chemotherapy is recommended.  And where they had originally told us 3-6 months, now they are telling us 2-3 years with a watchful eye for any new tumors that might pop up.  I am incredibly grateful for advanced veterinary care!

In my effort to buy less yarn this year I managed to stymie an impulse purchase yesterday.  I was intending to go to Vogue Knitting Live with friends, but that got canceled at the last minute because someone was feeling under the weather and we decided it would be more fun to go to NYC together at a later date than to leave someone behind this weekend.  So of course I had been planning on buying yarn there, my thoughts immediately turned to buying yarn HERE.  Instead I redirected myself to find something fun in my stash and cast on for an impulse PROJECT, much better than an impulse BUY.

The impulse project was a pair of socks  for DH (who I am fairly sure gave up on reading my blog last year some time, if he didn't, um...SURPRISE!) for Valentine's Day.  He had asked for another pair of socks, but the idea of another never ending pair of fingering weight socks was not appealing to me at all, so I found this SPORT weight yarn from Briar Rose and decided they would make a seasonally appropriate Valentine's Day gift.

Once I started knitting they were sort of addicting, this is a broken rib stitch, my favorite go to stitch for socks, it breaks up the color just enough to prevent flashing or pooling.  I knitted them bottom up to get the most mileage I could out of the yarn and used the Widdershins heel.  The Widdershins heel allows you to put a slip stitch heel on toe up socks, it's reallllly clever.

The reason I decided that he did, in fact, deserve another pair of socks this winter and shouldn't wait until NEXT winter is that my final Christmas present arrived in the mail this week.

He had told me there was something that was delayed, but he had already been really generous so subconsciously I was expecting something small, a book or something, but what he handed me was this.

This is two skeins of Sweet Georgia laceweight cashmere silk blend in Blackberry.  This is NOT an afterthought gift.  

It was on my wishlist, he didn't come up with it on his own, but still, he is SUCH a sweetheart.

800 yards of gorgeousness.  I am considering making this lovely stole called Evening with it, but I'm not going to jump into anything, I want to make sure I pick just the right pattern to go with this lovely yarn.  

As a random sidenote, I made bread this afternoon (the artisan bread in 5 minutes a day kind) and I knew something went wrong, it took WAY too much additional flour to get to the right consistency, but I couldn't figure out what happened.  Finally, about an hour into its rise I realized that the odd thought I had when filling the measuring cup the second time 'huh, is that right?  seems like a lot of water' that led me to double check the recipe, was because I was using a 2 cup measuring cup, so instead of putting 2 3/4 cups of water in, I put 3 3/4 water in, so presumably another 2 cups of flour, but the amount of yeast, salt, and other ingredients for the regular amount of flour and water.  I am not optimistic about this bread dough, but I can't bring myself to throw it away without at least trying it first.  Sigh.  

The last float in the FO parade

And rounding things up nicely is Kerrera aka George.  (as in, I will love it and pet it and I will call it george).  This is pear tree yarn, oh sooooo squishy and soft, I'm not sure it will hold up very well and I absolutely don't care.  (I say that now, wait until I have to get the little pill shaver thing out)

This pattern was wonderful to follow, any mistakes are my own idiocy (like forgetting the short rows in the hood).  I did have that little button band issue, but I'm chalking that up to a gauge problem, I went back and picked up 2 out of 3 stitches all the way around and used a needle one size smaller and it came out perfect.

I made it a bit shorter than the pattern called for b/c I'm a bit shorter than your average person (5'2"), and I think it's a good thing I did b/c I only had about 1/4 of a skein left.  Yeesh!

Now, when is going to get cold enough to really wear it????

My mother came to visit this weekend, we had a wonderful if very short visit, and we made these little apple pies.  There is very little in life that is better than homemade apple pie.

Sadly, my mother had to leave this morning, but I have apple pie left to have for lunch, so I'll take that as my consolation prize.

I am enjoying a day off today, a day to do laundry and get caught up around the house before the work week starts again.  And of course, a day to knit!

Pictureless

Work has been busy lately, we're on quarters so we just started last week.  I feel like my summer disappears in orientations and then registration, and finally by the time classes start it's fall and I the last thing I really remember, it was June.

This weekend was a weekend of recovery.  I could use a week of recovery, but who couldn't?

I spent a lot of time knitting.  Knitting a button band that is probably wrong (pictures with explanation at a later date b/c I'm sure as heck am not ripping it out BEFORE I block it on the very slim chance it's actually right), fixing another pair of socks, weaving in endless ends (ha!) on my fingerless mitts.

Ooh, not pictureless, I have a picture of them!

I adore these.  They are Minnesota Mittens from the Folk Mittens book, double stranded except for the fingers & thumb, and I really hope they do a better job of keeping my digits warm this winter.  They also match my hat, in a non-matchy sort of way.  They are slightly different sizes because I made one last winter and one last week, you can tell if you look at the cuff, the one on the right is longer than the one on the left, but they're mine and I defy anyone to walk up on the subway and laugh and point b/c my mitten cuffs are two different lengths.  I will poke them with my signature dpns, and then who will be laughing???  Actually, maybe everyone, because that's a fairly amusing image.

(hah!  look, two pictures!)

And next up is a scarf that will be in the same colors, but also non-matchy. 

The only other exciting thing that happened this weekend (other than lots of sleep) is that i made Vodka Sauce for the first time.  I love that Pioneer Woman, she has some really good recipes.  I had NO idea vodka sauce was that easy.  Also, I made more garlic knots to go with it, if I'm going to cook with heavy cream, why not throw in too much butter with a side dish?  

I made the mistake of going on the Tom Bihn group on Rav for kicks & giggles yesterday and ended up back at the Tom Bihn website considering buying another Swift in Crimson.  I think Crimson would be better for fall, don't you?  Hmf.  I know I don't NEED two of the same bags in different colors, but the purple is getting slightly boring and I love the bag still, no desire to try something new.  Maybe if I destash enough stuff and just wait until I have enough money from destash to buy it.  Someone on Rav has offered to take the purple one off my hands, but I'm not sure I want to actually get rid of it yet.  It would be fun to go back & forth, and of course whichever one I'm not carrying to work would make a great knitting bag.

Speaking of, I have quite a few things in the destash if you want to take a look.

And speaking of destash, I realized last week I had sold enough stuff that I could purchase something with the money (this was before I decided I needed another swift) and have ordered some BFL sport from Lisa Souza.  A bit of a splurge, but since all the money for the purchase was from destashing, I think it's perfectly justified.  There will absolutely be pictures when that comes in, loveliness!

Happy Monday, happy rainy, sleepy, wish I had the day off, Monday.