Chitchat and the occasional in-depth analysis about fiber, knitting, spinning, crochet, cooking, feminism, self-image, and a modicum of personal blathering.
Still having trouble keeping up with the blog for some reason. I think there are many reasons, or excuses if you want to call them that.
I'm having trouble with my eyes. My glasses are overdue but my insurance only pays for a pair every 2 years (or pays their paltry contribution to what a pair costs) and my two years isn't up until November. Being on the computer gives me eye strain and I'm really trying to avoid that. Plus, working all day on the computer, doing pretty intensive data entry, makes it less than appealing to spend more time on the computer at home. Plus my computer is getting more erratic by the day, to the point that I actually bought backup space online so I didn't lose all my photos in the inevitable meltdown when it happens.
So. I've been knitting...
spinning...
knitting some more...
seeing fireworks...
tasting wine... (at Kavic Winery, highly recommended. Good stuff)
and cooking, and sleeping, and working, and surviving. And taking photos.
Hopefully, more soon, but I can't promise anything.
I made up this recipe on the fly. I wanted to try bulgur wheat and didn't want a hot dish in our 85 degree summer, plus the thought of crunchy bok choy and lemon juice and olive oil and fresh tomatoes in combination was pretty appealing.
1 cup uncooked bulgur wheat 1-2 cups chopped bok choy 1 medium shallot, sliced thin. 1/2 cup crimini mushrooms, sliced 1 large tomato or equivalent, diced 1 can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed (optional, but gives the dish a nice protein kick for vegetarians.) Olive oil Lemon juice Balsamic vinegar (white) Sea or Kosher Salt Black Pepper
Cook bulgur wheat by bringing to a boil in two cups of water then simmering covered until done. Set aside to cool. In a small saute' pan, coat bottom with olive oil, add bok choy, mushrooms, and shallot. Cook until bok choy is wilted but still crunchy.
At this point you can set everything in the refrigerator to cool off and walk away for an hour or so. I made the mistake of combining everything while it was still warm and it got a little mushy, as you can see in the photo below. Still tasted good, but not so aesthetically pleasing.
Once ingredients have cooled, mix everything together, adding more olive oil as needed. Add tomatoes and kidney beans, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and white balsamic to taste. Toss everything together and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Tasty, hearty, healthy, and easy to make ahead. Just not so photogenic.
It ended up being about seven feet long. I haven't done an official measurement yet but it's a big MFer.
There are a ton more pictures of both shawls on flickr-see the link on the sidebar.
My next project is another Annis out of the alpaca I spun for last year's Tour de Fleece. And I have a spinning project in the works, with this.
I split it evenly down the length (no idea how I did that, total luck as the weight is only off by one gram) and I'm going to spin as fine as possible then chain ply it and knit socks out of it, one going from yellow to purple and the other from purple to yellow. I love that combination.
In other news, Dylan got his wheelchair and is learning how to use it. We're also learning how to get him in it so it's right. It's a learning curve for all of us.
Here's a video of Dylan before the cart. It's kinda sad. Hence the cheerful music.
And here he is in the wheelchair, doing much better.
He was going to try to roll on the ground and we were all "NOOOOO".
Sorry for the jerky video, it was on my cell phone while I was walking. He really likes the cart.
Bob and I went to Fallingwater on our anniversary weekend, which was last weekend. Loved it. Haven't been there since I was a kid and it's awesome.
Of course while we were down there, we had to stop by Ohiopyle and see Cucumber Falls. It made me depressed that I couldn't go down the hill and walk around closer to the water, though.
By the time we got there I was done in, physically. It was a good day, though, topped off by a great dinner at La Cucina Dolce, a place I've been wanting to try.
Bob had trout with mussels and clams
and I had gnocchi.
The food overall was delicious. The beans and greens appetizer was outstanding. The crabcake appetizer was good, but pretty small for the price. The gnocchi dish I had would have been improved by not having some very assertive green olives battling the pancetta in the sauce for taste domination-I'd recommend they use a milder olive or a milder meat but it was really, really good. The service was good and we got a reservation a half hour ahead of our arrival so that was nice.
That's about it. It's hot and steamy in Pittsburgh this week and I'm broke, so no arts festival yet again this year. Maybe next time.
I love making this beet dish and everyone who has tried it loves it too!
When you select your fresh beets, make sure you get ones with good greens attached. Make sure the greens are free of holes and in good condition.
Beets with Wilted Greens
1 bunch fresh beets (Golden beets make this a particularly attractive dish) One shallot, sliced thin. Balsamic vinegar Olive Oil Fresh Ginger (optional) Sea Salt Black Pepper Skillet or Saute Pan with a lid that fits.
Remove greens from beets and set aside in water. Scrub beets well and cube. Add enough olive oil to a skillet to cover the bottom and add beets and shallot. Toss and saute', adding salt, ginger, and pepper to taste. Cover until done. Add balsamic vinegar to taste when beets are almost completely cooked. (If you're using golden beets, I recommend white balsamic but it probably doesn't make that much difference.) Making sure your greens are very clean, remove stems and cut leaves into bite-sized pieces. Rinse and drain well. Add to pan with beets and cover. Leave on medium heat until greens wilt. Toss once or twice then remove from heat and serve.
Last weekend, friends invited us to a thai-inspired cookout for Memorial Day (US). I wanted to bring a dessert with a twist, so I made this traditional pie with an updated flavor combination. It was delicious!
Coconut Ginger Cream Pie (with optional pineapple)
Process gingersnaps in food processor until all crumbs. Add butter and process until mixed. Remove and press into 9 inch pie plate, being sure to go all the way up the side. Bake in a 350F oven for ten minutes, remove from oven and cool.
Filling: 3 large eggs 3 cups half and half 1/2 cup flour 3/4 cup sugar 3/4 cup coconut 2 tsp fresh grated ginger 2 Tbsp candied ginger, diced 1 tsp vanilla extract
Combine half and half, eggs, flour, and sugar in a medium saucepan and on medium heat, bring to a low boil, stirring almost continuously with a wire whisk. As it starts to thicken, stir more. Remove from heat, add coconut, ginger, and vanilla and stir. Pour into pre-baked crust. Chill.
If desired, once pie is chilled, layer chopped fresh or drained canned crushed pineapple on top then top with whipped cream. Garnish with toasted coconut and mint leaves if desired. Chill and eat.
I stablized the whipped cream using this method- 2 cups whipping cream 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar 1 packet Knox unflavored gelatine 1/4 cup water
Sprinkle gelatine on water and bring to a boil in the microwave. Mix well and put in the refrigerator to cool.
Beat whipping cream with sugar until it starts to stiffen. Add COLD gelatin (Make sure it's cold but still liquid) and beat until stiff peaks form.
Janelle Monae is gaining popularity, and if this live performance on Letterman is any indication, she's going to be a huge, huge superstar.
I'm listening to her "Archandroid" CD now and it is blowing me away. And I don't say that lightly. Between her and Lady Gaga, I think there is hope for women in popular music yet.
Just some photos. We've got a late spring flower explosion going on.
Columbines-magical.
Giant freaking peonies.
Sage
Yarrow. Actual colors, no manipulation.
Roses and yarrow. (and weeds, ok?)
Iris
After having punked out for two or three years, it looks like our irises are coming back. I don't understand it, but I'll take it.
Wegelia. I cut this bush down practically to the ground about every other year and it comes right back. It's already to a size that bears watching.
That's about it for now. I'm back into the last section of the honeybee stole and hoping this is for real this time. This time next week, we might have finished object pictures.
This fine fellow was right up in the window all weekend ordering me to put out more birdseed.
Handsome bird, total bad-ass.
Yesterday, I was spending some time laying in the hammock reading a book, and I heard a weird "CHUFF! CHUFF!" noise. I turned my head and there were three big tom turkeys not ten feet from the hammock, at the edge of the woods, taking turns fanning out their tails and doing the CHUFF thing sinking their heads into big ol' puffed out chest feathers. They were strutting around while one hen pecked around in the grass ignoring them. I never wished for a video camera so much. It was hilarious.
I do a lot of thinking about gender and gender traits as performance and choice and taught behavior rather than inbred behavior. I think in the world we live in now, it's way more optional to perform the gender you were born with. One reason I'm so fascinated with drag queens and gay culture. I think it goes back to feeling a need to be a total bad-ass myself, much like that turkey, in order to survive. Being a weightlifter and someone who is mechanically inclined and very physically strong and able to fix stuff yet being a mostly heterosexual woman and certainly cisgender, I think it very interesting how people choose to use and subvert gender roles.
I would be happy to live in a world where the role of gender was up to the person and not up to a general societal judgment. Where certain qualities were not assigned to gender but were taken on by individuals as things that are right for them, like fashion sense or mechanical aptitude. Where the designation of masculinity and femininity did not trail along so much baggage with them, where they were more choice than obligation.
There was a good mini-doc on Logo this week called "the butch factor". A host of qualities given to be indicative of what a "real man" is or does included things like being honorable, or being reliable, or being honest. Why are these given as masculine traits? Because all the women I knew growing up were also honorable, reliable, and honest. As well as tough. And this is where I learned it. And this is why I'm sometimes perceived as mannish or intimidating. If those things, which are good human traits, are masculine, then does that leave dishonor, duplicity, and flakiness as feminine traits? Or am I being too dualistic? Because that's what we've got here, a world (in the west, at least) steeped in dualism and black-and-white thinking, in everything from politics to gender roles to food choices to art and everything in between.
Am I making any sense? Black and white dualism helps nobody and seems to hurt a lot of people.
I'm moving right along on the honeybee stole, and I'm also making socks from a skein of the legendary Wollmeise yarn. And I've got two spindle spinning projects and a wheel spinning project going so I'm busy, craft wise. I'm keeping up with the 365 project too. I've got too many to post individually, so here's the slideshow to date.
Most of my knitting attention over the last month and a half has been devoted to one project, the honeybee stole by Anne Hanson. I've had my traveling socks of course and I do have another pair cast on and I also have a complicated sock barely started but mostly, it's been this.
I had several false starts. The needle size was all wrong. Because the pattern was written for laceweight yarn and I was knitting with a somewhat variable fingering weight, I needed to upsize obviously but it took me a few tries because of my inexperience with lace to determine where exactly I should be in terms of gauge etc. So three different starts until I settled on size 8 needles.
Then there were the mistakes. Thankfully I did not have to rip back to ground zero with any of them but I did have to tink back almost 20 rows once, in the car, while we were on vacation. (the vacation itself may be another post but basically we went to Pigeon Forge TN to see my younger daughter. It was an adventure.)
So things were going well. I had a few scares when I picked up the center stitches to continue from the middle to the other side but after agonizing over it for a few days and much careful laying out and aligning and looking I determined it'd be ok after blocking. Not in a delusional "oh, that giant glaring mistake will block out" way but in a realistic way.
This shawl has three sections. You knit all three sections twice. You start in the middle, do the honeycomb bit, do the swarm bit, do the hive bit, do the edging and cast off, then pick up the middle from your provisional cast-on and repeat.
I was on the last 2 (out of 10) repeats on the last section on the second side when I decided to take the stole to a spin night at a local yarn store for show and tell.
I guess there's really something wrong with my eyes, or the light in my living room, because I had several opportunities to see where the problem was, and I did not see it. Can you see it?
No? How about now?
Now?
That really needs a dramatic "DUN DUN DUN" sound effect.
All I can figure is I did a lot of this knitting during hockey games and I simply did not see it at the time. Plus, we use CFL bulbs and maybe I didn't have quite enough light when I was knitting.
How did it get into the yarn? Well, one of my bobbins had one ply of the pink and orange sock yarn I spun not long ago and I guess I just went ahead and plied that off with the new yarn without noticing at the time. You think I'd at least notice the texture of merino vs border leicester, but no.
So I considered my options, but I knew what was going to happen. Dyeing it might work but I would always know. Ignoring it was not a good idea because, seriously? A big pink stripe? No. I came home from work last night, stuck a long circular needle into the section just below the second swarm section, and frogged it. (there were some knitting errors in the first repeat of the second swarm section that I could have ignored, but I figured in for a penny, in for a pound etc.) I picked up the stitches without further drama and got the offending pink yarn out and got moving on it. I got a repeat done last night while listening to "My Dinner with Andre" which was a movie for which I was definitely not in the mood.
I just didn't want it to suck. And hopefully, now it won't.
It was really embarrasing, though, to pull that out of my knitting bag at the LYS and have everyone going OOH and AAH and then seeing that stripe and the EWW and the UGH (not from them, from me) and the feeling of utter FAIL that happened at that moment.
I hope to start blogging again more but who knows. I'm chairing the Mensa gathering here again and I think I'm going to be pretty busy with that as well as work wearing me out what with this new project I'm on etc. So I can't make any promises.
Don’t wait until some arbitrary goal is reached to start living. You deserve to live now. And you never know when you might run out of time. Stop dieting-it doesn’t work. Start living your life on your own terms. Don’t hate your body-love it. Rejoice in it. Adorn it with finery and thank it every day for carrying you through the world. Eat when you’re hungry, drink when you’re thirsty, and above all, love yourself.
