December 2004 Archives

I've been making some progress on that Irish Hiking Scarf and it's almost 3 feet long now. I have hope that I may someday be able to present it as a finished object. In the meantime, I will be seeing one of my very small friends tomorrow and I made her a belated Christmas present:

It's cute. She's cuter. The combination may be deadly. I'll be sure and post a picture of her with the hat if I can get one. Yarn was Trendsetter Blossom, the pattern was from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I learned how to make a pompom today. Go me.

My daughter wanted to go to our LYS yesterday after we went to the fabric store and got her a pattern to sew on her machine. She wanted to talk to the yarn ladies about a problem with her knitting. Remember, this is the daughter who previously knitted 2 scarves. Anyhow, she's working on a purse thing. In we went, and I headed for the back so I could wallow in the knitting books. She shyly approached the ladies and showed them her knitting. I heard her say "but there's all these... holes!" Yep, my daughter's knitting has holes. But the good kind! The right kind! All is well in purse-land. What a relief.

I got an email today informing me that Knitting Arts is having a holiday sale next week. I may have to go and get some more needles. After much consideration, I've decided that I love Inox needles. I have wooden needles, Denise interchangeables, acrylic needles in groovy colors, and Inox needles. The Inox are, by far, my faves. I love their feel, I love their sound. I need more. Thank goodness for sales.

I feel somewhat strange posting about such mundane things while SouthEast Asia is still dealing with so much tragedy. I gave what I could to the relief efforts - there are many worthy organizations listed on the NPR website if you haven't found one you like yet.

If you need me, I'll be over here... counting my blessings yet again.

For all my ranting during the last week, I think my favorite part of the holidays wouldn't be possible if I weren't coming down off of the total frantic pre-Christmas blitz. Running around to find just the right thing for the people I love, fighting the maddened crowds, marvelling at people's snarly ferocity during this time of celebration, all of this makes it possible for me to appreciate this week, which is quite possibly my favorite time of the year.

The week between Christmas and New Years is always, for me, a time of reflection. A time to remember what's important - what (and who) I was doing all that frantic thrashing for. To celebrate all that I have, and start thinking about what I want to improve in the New Year. Not for me, those quickie poundage resolutions. I like to make resolutions which are personally meaningful, which help bring me closer to the person I want to become. I'd love to say that I'm making progress in seeking zen mastery, but the eventual goal is so far away it's hard to tell if I've closed the gap any.

So I will make resolutions involving taking time for myself, making time for my family, lowering my general level of anxiety... read some books, cook some meals, improve my martial arts skills, knit some fabulous items. Perhaps this year I will run a road race. I haven't decided on the particulars yet, but the most important thing I can gain is perspective - and that's what I always manage to discover during this week.

And I don't think I'm the only one. As I meet people on the street, see their relaxed, open expressions, I realize that we're all caught in a universal sigh - that coming down off of the massive adrenaline rush of the last couple of weeks helps clear our vision.

So c'mon everyone... with me... let's all take a deep, cleansing breath and wash away all the stress of the holidays. Let's start the new year clearheaded so we can be the change we want to see in the world.

Namaste.

Remember how I thought I might work on the scarf yesterday? Hah. I forgot about my plans for massive cooking, and the poor scarf sat untended. I made a kabocha pie and some more sweet potato bread pudding, and we chowed on ham and other yummy stuff. I didn't manage to finish the peanut butter balls but I can make those today (they simply require dipping in chocolate). After dinner, there was a massive present opening frenzy, and the kids seemed happy with their hauls. I'm certainly happy with my haul, including an ice cream maker and some gorgeous earrings.

This morning the kids were kind enough to sleep in until *7* AM (I remember getting up at
4:30 when I was a kid) so I'm relatively awake. They loved their presents, the Wellington in the oven, kids playing a video game... I can *finally* sit down and work on the Irish Hiking Scarf. I am so ready for some knitting time.

Wishing everyone out there the merriest of holidays.

Boy, I'm sure getting some high quality holiday enjoyment time in now! Look at how restful I was over the last couple of days...

Yesterday, went back out for some 'last minute' shopping. Hit 4 stores in 1-1/2 hours and came back home. Managed to sneak in a new yarn store during this blitz, which was a tiny little piece of respite breaking up our blistering pace. The shop was nice although I prefer my LYS better. Besides, they were completely out of Kureyon. Hmph. I did get back to that bookstore and get those books. Yay me. This was 'before work'.

At lunch, I went to my favorite LYS and got a few items there, swung by the sewing center to pick up some notions (rest and relaxation, there's a notion!) Was so harried I forgot to ask about Kureyon. Then we thought we might run by the game store (which is near the mall) to see if they had something my dad was looking for, but I got paged with a case and we had to head home. What a shame :-)

Picked up the kids from their various activities (bouncing and painting) and took them to a friend's house to decorate cookies, ran back home to work. I imagined that during this time I might work, wrap presents, do cards, and get dinner prepared. I got some work done. Then it was time to go. No presents were wrapped, no cards were addressed, no dinner was prepared. I was a bit puzzled at this... I wonder if perhaps intent isn't quite enough...

Martial arts class for the family, then I picked up a rotisserie chicken and headed home to, uh, catch up on my chores. I don't remember why but for some reason these things remained undone before I slumped dreamlessly into bed.

See how much more relaxing my life is now? So, about today...

Had to call to make an appointment for my sick ailing kitty... looks like he's majorly diabetic and he's got to spend a couple of days at the kitty hospital. My husband dealt with the particulars but it's a sad thing indeed :-(

Took the Boy to bouncing, then went to breakfast and swung by ToysRUs to get some supplemental items needed for the Santa Stuff. Fortunately the Girl did not press me on the reason for these items. Nor did she insist on seeing what they were.

Then we had 3 leisurely hours at home before we took the Girl to art. Work was blissfully quiet so I put the Girl to work addressing Christmas Cards while I scribbled some kind of personal-ish message in each one (Next year, everyone's getting a form letter. Deal with it). Surprisingly enough, after I actually started writing in them and putting them in envelopes, I got all of them done in a couple of hours. Infinitely more than when I was just, you know, looking apprehensively in their general direction. During this time I did get a few support requests, mostly from fanatically desperate engineers who were sure they would receive no support on this wishy-washy work day. They were very relieved that I helped them.

My husband took the Girl to art, so my dad and I bravely set up the present wrapping area and got to work. 2 solid hours of wrapping, and here are the presents (pre-finishing):

Maybe I exaggerated a little when I said there were 76 presents. Or maybe I didn't.

We basked in the glow of the mighty present pile for a few minutes before we headed out to get the kids and grab some dinnerl, then swing by the grocery store for more Sweet Potato Bread Pudding ingredients, and come home to do 'finishing work' on the presents - you know, ribbons, bows, stuff to give the presents some personality. Now the poor tree looks like it's trying to hatch an enormous batch of square eggs:

So, we're done, right? We had just a couple more errands on our list for tomorrow, which wouldn't have been too bad. But lo, a lone spark fires in my overloaded brain. Isn't the mall open until midnight tonight? Spurred by an adrenaline rush brought on by being so close to the finish line, at 8:30 we headed out to finish our list. First to Kmart to get a couple of booster seats since my mother-in-law had accidentally boosted one of them (heh, heh) during her last visit. Then we headed for the mall again, blazed through Gottschalks and finished off my dad's list, and *almost* made it home in time for my husband to get out and see his movie. Pretty close. He probably just missed some previews...

In any case, now the cards are sent, the presents are wrapped, work is pretty much closed for the weekend. Tomorrow morning I'll run out and grab some foodish stuff to get us through 'till Sunday, but that's it! No more leaving the house! Hey, maybe I can work on that Irish Hiking Scarf or something...

Every year I think that I'll get my shopping all done by the end of October, and every year I'm frantically driving around 3 days before Christmas while trying to simultaneously work.

A little taste of the last 24 hours of my life:

This is a fabulous looking and very tasty breakfast treat, again based on a recipe from Cuisine at Home magazine - you can do all the preparation the night before and then just pop it into the oven in the morning. It tastes as good as it looks, and it's very easy to prepare.

Ingredients:
- 1 box puff pastry dough
- 2 T. unsalted butter
- 1 cup frozen shredded or cubed hash brown potatoes
- 1/2 cup onion , diced
- 2 T. minced fresh chives
(the above 2 ingredients can be substitued by 1 T. onion powder)
- 1 cup smoked ham or smoked salmon (optional)
- 12 eggs
- 4 oz. cream cheese, softened
- 2 T. orange juice (if preparing ahead)
- 1 T. water
- 2 T. Parmesan cheese, shredded or grated

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, thaw pastry according to package directions (around 30 minutes)

Melt butter over medium-high heat in a largish skillet. Add potatoes and saute until slightly browned, about 10 minutes. Stir in onion, saute until soft, then add ham/salmon.

Whisk 11 of the eggs together with the chives. Add them to the pan and scramble just until set. They should still be 'wet' - at this point, stir in the cream cheese and juice until blended. Refrigerate the egg mixture while you prepare the pastry.

Unfold a pastry sheet on a sheet of parchment paper. It almost always cracks at the seams, so wet your fingers and press at the seams to fix them up. You can roll it on a floured surface until it's longer (about 12x10) to get a longer pastry, but it works fine unrolled as well. You need to trim and pre-cut it so it looks like this picture:


Glop about 1/2 of the egg mixture onto the pastry and start braiding:


After your pastries are braided they'll look kinda funny. Don't worry about it...


At this point you can refrigerate the prepared pastries in the refrigerator - lightly cover them with plastic wrap to prevent drying.

When you're ready to cook them, combine the remaining egg and water, brush over the tops of the strudels. Sprinkle with parmesan and bake 25-30 minutes, or until golden. Enjoy!

This is a fabulous looking and very tasty breakfast treat, again based on a recipe from Cuisine at Home magazine - you can do all the preparation the night before and then just pop it into the oven in the morning. It tastes as good as it looks, and it's very easy to prepare.

Ingredients:
- 1 box puff pastry dough
- 2 T. unsalted butter
- 1 cup frozen shredded or cubed hash brown potatoes
- 1/2 cup onion , diced
- 2 T. minced fresh chives
(the above 2 ingredients can be substitued by 1 T. onion powder)
- 1 cup smoked ham or smoked salmon (optional)
- 12 eggs
- 4 oz. cream cheese, softened
- 2 T. orange juice (if preparing ahead)
- 1 T. water
- 2 T. Parmesan cheese, shredded or grated

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, thaw pastry according to package directions (around 30 minutes)

Melt butter over medium-high heat in a largish skillet. Add potatoes and saute until slightly browned, about 10 minutes. Stir in onion, saute until soft, then add ham/salmon.

Whisk 11 of the eggs together with the chives. Add them to the pan and scramble just until set. They should still be 'wet' - at this point, stir in the cream cheese and juice until blended. Refrigerate the egg mixture while you prepare the pastry.

Unfold a pastry sheet on a sheet of parchment paper. It almost always cracks at the seams, so wet your fingers and press at the seams to fix them up. You can roll it on a floured surface until it's longer (about 12x10) to get a longer pastry, but it works fine unrolled as well. You need to trim and pre-cut it so it looks like this picture:


Glop about 1/2 of the egg mixture onto the pastry and start braiding:


After your pastries are braided they'll look kinda funny. Don't worry about it...


At this point you can refrigerate the prepared pastries in the refrigerator - lightly cover them with plastic wrap to prevent drying.

When you're ready to cook them, combine the remaining egg and water, brush over the tops of the strudels. Sprinkle with parmesan and bake 25-30 minutes, or until golden. Enjoy!

This is a fabulous looking and very tasty breakfast treat, again based on a recipe from Cuisine at Home magazine - you can do all the preparation the night before and then just pop it into the oven in the morning. It tastes as good as it looks, and it's very easy to prepare.

Ingredients:
- 1 box puff pastry dough
- 2 T. unsalted butter
- 1 cup frozen shredded or cubed hash brown potatoes
- 1/2 cup onion , diced
- 2 T. minced fresh chives
(the above 2 ingredients can be substitued by 1 T. onion powder)
- 1 cup smoked ham or smoked salmon (optional)
- 12 eggs
- 4 oz. cream cheese, softened
- 2 T. orange juice (if preparing ahead)
- 1 T. water
- 2 T. Parmesan cheese, shredded or grated

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, thaw pastry according to package directions (around 30 minutes)

Melt butter over medium-high heat in a largish skillet. Add potatoes and saute until slightly browned, about 10 minutes. Stir in onion, saute until soft, then add ham/salmon.

Whisk 11 of the eggs together with the chives. Add them to the pan and scramble just until set. They should still be 'wet' - at this point, stir in the cream cheese and juice until blended. Refrigerate the egg mixture while you prepare the pastry.

Unfold a pastry sheet on a sheet of parchment paper. It almost always cracks at the seams, so wet your fingers and press at the seams to fix them up. You can roll it on a floured surface until it's longer (about 12x10) to get a longer pastry, but it works fine unrolled as well. You need to trim and pre-cut it so it looks like this picture:


Glop about 1/2 of the egg mixture onto the pastry and start braiding:


After your pastries are braided they'll look kinda funny. Don't worry about it...


At this point you can refrigerate the prepared pastries in the refrigerator - lightly cover them with plastic wrap to prevent drying.

When you're ready to cook them, combine the remaining egg and water, brush over the tops of the strudels. Sprinkle with parmesan and bake 25-30 minutes, or until golden. Enjoy!

We had some early Christmas deadlines this week - the kids were done with school for the year as of Friday so they had to get their presents done for their teachers.

My son (who is 5) and I knitted a scarf together (he drove the needles, I drove the string). It's kind of short because, well, his attention span isn't terribly long and there were only so many times I could get him to work on it. But she (the teacher) loved the final product anyway.

That's him modelling it. I swear that my son is not possessed. Well, I'm pretty sure... ok, maybe he is, but it's his sister who's really scary.

Being 7, she made a scarf for her teacher, start to finish all by herself (ok, I did help with the casting on and binding off, but she did 99% of the thing). She used giganto needles so that the scarf would be sufficiently long - notice how cleverly she picked a yarn that matches the school colors on her uniform. Her teacher was also very grateful for the thought and the gift.

Here she is, modelling it. Note the angelic expression. Don't be fooled. She's way scarier than her brother.

My mom loved the scarf I made for her. She wore it all day today and got lots of compliments, even from the random woman selling knitted stuff and pottery by the side of the road. Made my head swell up something fierce. I think I'll recover, though.

In other news, it looks like the Christmas gift frenzy is officially underway! The kids got their first presents of the season from Grandma because we won't see her again until next year. An electric guitar for the boy, some art stuff for the artsy girl.

I had a great birthday yesterday. We went to my favorite dinner spot and had a fun meal, and then we came home and had some cake which my fabulous husband baked for me (because you can't get a bakery to make yellow cake which is my favorite):

Why yes, that is a Barbie candle. No, I'm not 5. I just felt like having a Barbie candle, whaddya wanna make of it? In any case it was a prescient candle for the rest of my birthday.

I got a bunch of cool stuff in a 'pink' motif - a pink cashmere sweater from J. Jill (with pink chenille socks), some fabulous earrings in pink mother-of-pearl with rose gold, and from my amazingly crafty and cool friend made me the most wonderful birthday present:

My name, and "Domestigirl". Stitched in Pink! It is just so cool. That thing dangling down from the (pink!) ribbon is a yarn cutter - she pointed out that if you have scissors, people tend to 'borrow' them and you never see them again. This yarn cutter is a very specific tool and you can't do anything but cut yarn, so everyone else leaves it alone.

After my stressful week, I'm tempted to call the Mobile Yarn Sales lady and see if she has any yarn that I need. It sounds so decadent, having someone bring yarn to my house to feed my addiction. I could lie on the chaise, being fanned by my husband, eating peeled grapes, and have her bring my yarn right to me. Or, you know, I could just get back to working on the Irish Hiking Scarf. We'll see...

It's been a really hard day, lots of work and family stuff to do, including a not-very-fun meeting at my kid's school bringing more to worry about, and I still haven't gotten our Xmas pictures printed out... so I'm pretty stressed out.

On the bright side, I found this fabulous yarn at my LYS called Gedifra Byzanz and just had to knit some of it up for Xmas for, uh, someone (can't say, she might be checking my blog). I tried a few different stitches and ended up with:

- Size 15 needles
- Row 1: K across
- Row 2: K1, yo*2, K1
- Row 3: K across, dropping the extra yo's
- Row 4: K across
- Row 5: K across
Repeat rows 2-5 until you have a scarf. I started last night and finished this morning during a phone meeting with work (might as well get something done during that downtime). I used 3 balls of the stuff, and it's beautiful:

In the quest to get our holiday checklist under control, last night we tried to get pictures of the kids in front of the Christmas trees so we can send them out with our cards. Their school pictures will very helpfully be arriving sometime mid-January. I'm not sure why the photographer thought that was a good arrival schedule, but it left us high and dry with no Christmas card photos and I'm sure you can imagine that the withdrawl symptoms are not enjoyable when the relatives don't get their cards before the actual day of Christmas. Waiting until January was not an option, so we went with Plan B.

We crammed the protesting kids into the matching jammies and tried to pose them cutely in front of the tree. After many, many shots featuring outthrust bottoms and tortured expressions, we managed to snap one that was pretty cute.

Even after my minor holiday victory, I'm still anxious, always more to do and tons of people coming for the weekend... Resorted to Hamburger Helper for dinner tonight so that I can go to martial arts, and I feel marginally guilty about that. Ah well, can't be supermom everyday, I suppose. At least I have a cool scarf to look at!

We never did get to the Stitch 'n Bitch, darn it. I had to finish up my Sweet Potato Bread Pudding for dinner at a friend's house so I couldn't get down there. Nevertheless, I did get some more work done on the Irish Hiking Scarf... I dragged it along to breakfast, I invited it along to our friends' house, I pretty much took it everywhere because, good grief, Christmas is approaching pretty darned quickly. It's a little over a foot long now... I'm very proud of it for my first real project. I was a leetle bit unsure whether I'd be able to pull this off, but I think I'll officially join the KnitAlong now. It still seems to be pretty slow going but I've got 2 weeks so I'm optimistic, especially now that I've stopped serially frogging the thing.

Took a break from the scarf today to make a hat from some funky novelty yarn. My cat Stormy is quite pleased with my new hobby. Anything involving yarn and sitting in the recliner is ok by him. Fortunately he's old enough to be able to resist the siren call of wiggling yarn, or we'd have to have some serious words.

The thing whizzed by and was done in a couple of hours... Here's my daughter modelling it - fortunately her head is pretty much exactly the same size as my mother-in-law's, and it fits just fine. Woo! The thread was some Linie 191 Maxima acrylic chenille, on size 15 needles. I cast on 42 and knit in the round for 7 inches and then reduced somewhat randomly - about K4, K2tog and then sewed up the middle from the inside. And voila, a hat perfect for someone who loves flamingos and other such quirky things.

In other weekend project news, my husband finally put up our cool magnetic dry-erase board thing. It's totally cool... and now we can see the front of our refrigerator again. I got the idea from Real Simple, gotta love that magazine.

Gotta run, I hear some iced tea calling my name!

I find lots of my favorite recipes in magazines and recently I've become very enamored of Cuisine at Home. Of the 10 dishes I cooked over Thanksgiving weekend, 3 of them came from their November issue, and one of them was so popular I've made it for every gathering this year, always to rave reviews. The tang from the orange and cranberry combine with the sweet potato and streusel to create a wonderful alternative to the yam-marshmellow side dish at holiday gatherings. This dish is popular even with people who don't care for sweet potatoes.

For the Pudding -
Whisk together:
- 1 cup sour cream
- 3/4 cup milk
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 T. baking powder
- 2 t. vanilla extract
- 1 t. ground ginger
- 1/2 t. kosher salt
- 1 cup dried cranberries
- peel of 1 orange

Mix this together with 4 cups of french bread, chopped into fine (1/2 inch) cubes.

Soak overnight (or for as long as possible)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, coat a 1-qt. casserole dish with nonstick spray.

Cook and puree, then fold into bread mixture
- 1 lb sweet potatoes

For the streusel, combine and stir together:
- 1-1/2 cup pecans, chopped
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup all purpose flour
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted

If you like a finer streusel, throw this in the cuisinart and blend until it's the consistency of cornmeal.

Pour the pudding into the casserole dish and cover with the streusel. Bake for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Enjoy!

I find lots of my favorite recipes in magazines and recently I've become very enamored of Cuisine at Home. Of the 10 dishes I cooked over Thanksgiving weekend, 3 of them came from their November issue, and one of them was so popular I've made it for every gathering this year, always to rave reviews. The tang from the orange and cranberry combine with the sweet potato and streusel to create a wonderful alternative to the yam-marshmellow side dish at holiday gatherings. This dish is popular even with people who don't care for sweet potatoes.

For the Pudding -
Whisk together:
- 1 cup sour cream
- 3/4 cup milk
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 T. baking powder
- 2 t. vanilla extract
- 1 t. ground ginger
- 1/2 t. kosher salt
- 1 cup dried cranberries
- peel of 1 orange

Mix this together with 4 cups of french bread, chopped into fine (1/2 inch) cubes.

Soak overnight (or for as long as possible)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, coat a 1-qt. casserole dish with nonstick spray.

Cook and puree, then fold into bread mixture
- 1 lb sweet potatoes

For the streusel, combine and stir together:
- 1-1/2 cup pecans, chopped
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup all purpose flour
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted

If you like a finer streusel, throw this in the cuisinart and blend until it's the consistency of cornmeal.

Pour the pudding into the casserole dish and cover with the streusel. Bake for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Enjoy!

I find lots of my favorite recipes in magazines and recently I've become very enamored of Cuisine at Home. Of the 10 dishes I cooked over Thanksgiving weekend, 3 of them came from their November issue, and one of them was so popular I've made it for every gathering this year, always to rave reviews. The tang from the orange and cranberry combine with the sweet potato and streusel to create a wonderful alternative to the yam-marshmellow side dish at holiday gatherings. This dish is popular even with people who don't care for sweet potatoes.

For the Pudding -
Whisk together:
- 1 cup sour cream
- 3/4 cup milk
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 T. baking powder
- 2 t. vanilla extract
- 1 t. ground ginger
- 1/2 t. kosher salt
- 1 cup dried cranberries
- peel of 1 orange

Mix this together with 4 cups of french bread, chopped into fine (1/2 inch) cubes.

Soak overnight (or for as long as possible)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, coat a 1-qt. casserole dish with nonstick spray.

Cook and puree, then fold into bread mixture
- 1 lb sweet potatoes

For the streusel, combine and stir together:
- 1-1/2 cup pecans, chopped
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup all purpose flour
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted

If you like a finer streusel, throw this in the cuisinart and blend until it's the consistency of cornmeal.

Pour the pudding into the casserole dish and cover with the streusel. Bake for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Enjoy!

My friend posted in her blog yesterday that domesticity was the New Black. Seeing this brought up a bunch of forgotten emotions left over from my teenage years, which I spent feeling like I was feverishly running in a hamster wheel, trying unsuccessfully to catch up with the Cool Kids, constantly riding the back end of every trend (I had some leg warmers which I desperately loved, but were purchased, alas, 6 months after the trend had passed).

So now here I am, enjoying the heck out of domesticity, and it turns out I'm in the MIDDLE of a new trend, embracing the things we mocked in our parents and grandparents. GenX folks are used to instant gratification - spend money, get what you want, but it leaves a somewhat empty feeling. On the other hand, spending several hours in the kitchen to prepare a feast, or knitting an item for a friend, feels great ... I feel like I'm putting a bit of my soul in the gift I'm giving to them. While I'm in the process of making these things I'm thinking of them, and they know that with the gift, they're getting my time and love along with it.

It turns out I'm not the only one... I was infected with the knitting bug over Thanksgiving Weekend (to add to my cooking passion) and then a few days later, while sitting at the doctor's office reading Stitch 'N Bitch, the nurse mentioned that she was a knitting fanatic herself and handed me her card. "Mobile Yarn Sales"... it read. Yikes. Like I need to have someone bring yarn to my house and feed my burgeoning addiction... and at the bottom it had my favorite line "Knitting Crisis Counselor". Well, excellent. I'm sure I'll need that sometime soon.

My daughter and I may get to go down to the local Stitch 'n Bitch this afternoon, so we can bask in the glow of other cool knitter folks. I'm kinda bummed that I won't be able to go to the last minute knitting party at Knitting Arts on the 20th - my dad will be visiting and it would be rude. But it sure does sound like fun...

Apparently I'm part of the new domesticity. How cool is that?

The day I decided to start knitting (because my visiting friend was so enthusiastic) we went to one of the LYS's around here, The Golden Fleece. It's a pretty nice place, but they're remodeling and their book section was a little parched. I bought some nifty cotton yarn and 3 books there, including one called "10, 20, 30 minutes to Knit." This innocuous little book seemed, to my untrained eye, pretty cool, and it had a couple of washcloth patterns which sounded rather doable. So off I went to learn to knit and purl to get ready for my Dishcloth Debut.

Then I started actually trying to knit one of their dishcloth patterns and I would probably have stopped knitting forever if I were less stubborn - what a crappy pattern. 18 different rows (there were diagonal bumpy parts) so it was really hard to get into any sort of rhythm. Yuck. So I decided the book was lame but remained somewhat intrigued by the washcloth idea and committed to knitting stuff.

When I was at my fairly fabulous other LYS (The Yarn Place) the other day, I mentioned that I had been working on a washcloth to practice my stitches, and she said "That's what God made washcloths for!" Which hadn't occurred to me, but it made perfect sense. Who cares if your stitches are completely even if they're going to be scrubbing pans or wiping hands. What a fabulous notion!

My washcloth plan was reignited, and I went web-hunting for dishcloth patterns. Sure. Dishcloth patterns. Who would create a site for something so mundane? But there's a place for everything on the internet... The Dishcloth Boutique. It's actually really cool! With excellent java navigation allowing you to quickly browse the choices. I've got tons of cotton yarn to work with so my stitches should be beautiful in no time and I'll have some fabulously fun looking dish/wash cloths for my guests to admire.

But right now I really need to finish up that Irish Hiking Scarf and then the funky hat I'm planning, and then, and then... well, who needs sleep. Enough messing with my blog template, back to some actual work coding, then I have to prepare for the Girl Scout meeting, and then maybe tonight I'll get to knit some more.

Here's a picture of the turkey from Thanksgiving taken by my FriendWhoCallsMeMartha. I'm very fond of cooking for large groups because it gives me a chance to try new dishes. I go with a CYA approach which involves cooking enormous numbers of recipes so that if one of them doesn't work no one goes hungry. In this case I think there were 10 things on the table for 10 people... maybe overkill but everyone looked blissful at the end, and I didn't have to pull my hair out over the soggy weird polenta sticks.

I was very proud of the turkey, I brined it following my bizarre practice of finding 2 similar recipes (in this case I tapped Alton Brown and Cooks Illustrated) and morphing them into a mutant fusion, creating something totally, completely (well sort of) my own. I bought a funky little ceramic trash can labelled 'RUBBISH' for the brining because I didn't have anything big enough and also because I thought it was cute.

I'll share my recipe because it took me a long time to come up with, so maybe one of you can profit from my research.
The recipe kinda went like this (for a 20 pound turkey).

1. Clean out the turkey inside and out, stick it in the RUBBISH can
   
2. Make 2 gallons of brine
   
   
   
   1. 3 cups kosher salt
      
   2. 1 cup dark brown sugar
      
   3. 2 gallons water
      
   4. 1-1/2 cups apple juice (the actual recipe wanted frozen orange juice but I didn't have any)
      
   5. turkey
      
   6. ice to fill the container
      
   
   
3. Brine for 6 hours
   
4. Dry completely and place in the refrigerator on a drying rack stuck inside of a cookie sheet (uncovered) - this gives you an incredibly crisp skin
   
5. Cook it on its back for an hour at 425 degrees
   
6. Turn the oven down to 350, turn the turkey over
   
7. Stuff turkey with superheated stuffing because... if you cook a turkey with stuffing it means you have to increase the time, leading to dry meat. Who wants dry meat? If you superheat the stuffing and add it after the turkey is already partly done, you minimize the impact on the turkey and still get yummy turkey-flavored stuffing.
   
8. Cook until it's safe turkey temperature according to my digital thermometer
   
9. Let it rest for an hour because the turkey carving guy wasn't here yet

   
   

Here's a picture of the turkey from Thanksgiving taken by my FriendWhoCallsMeMartha. I'm very fond of cooking for large groups because it gives me a chance to try new dishes. I go with a CYA approach which involves cooking enormous numbers of recipes so that if one of them doesn't work no one goes hungry. In this case I think there were 10 things on the table for 10 people... maybe overkill but everyone looked blissful at the end, and I didn't have to pull my hair out over the soggy weird polenta sticks.

I was very proud of the turkey, I brined it following my bizarre practice of finding 2 similar recipes (in this case I tapped Alton Brown and Cooks Illustrated) and morphing them into a mutant fusion, creating something totally, completely (well sort of) my own. I bought a funky little ceramic trash can labelled 'RUBBISH' for the brining because I didn't have anything big enough and also because I thought it was cute.

I'll share my recipe because it took me a long time to come up with, so maybe one of you can profit from my research.
The recipe kinda went like this (for a 20 pound turkey).

1. Clean out the turkey inside and out, stick it in the RUBBISH can
   
2. Make 2 gallons of brine
   
   
   
   1. 3 cups kosher salt
      
   2. 1 cup dark brown sugar
      
   3. 2 gallons water
      
   4. 1-1/2 cups apple juice (the actual recipe wanted frozen orange juice but I didn't have any)
      
   5. turkey
      
   6. ice to fill the container
      
   
   
3. Brine for 6 hours
   
4. Dry completely and place in the refrigerator on a drying rack stuck inside of a cookie sheet (uncovered) - this gives you an incredibly crisp skin
   
5. Cook it on its back for an hour at 425 degrees
   
6. Turn the oven down to 350, turn the turkey over
   
7. Stuff turkey with superheated stuffing because... if you cook a turkey with stuffing it means you have to increase the time, leading to dry meat. Who wants dry meat? If you superheat the stuffing and add it after the turkey is already partly done, you minimize the impact on the turkey and still get yummy turkey-flavored stuffing.
   
8. Cook until it's safe turkey temperature according to my digital thermometer
   
9. Let it rest for an hour because the turkey carving guy wasn't here yet

   
   

Here's a picture of the turkey from Thanksgiving taken by my FriendWhoCallsMeMartha. I'm very fond of cooking for large groups because it gives me a chance to try new dishes. I go with a CYA approach which involves cooking enormous numbers of recipes so that if one of them doesn't work no one goes hungry. In this case I think there were 10 things on the table for 10 people... maybe overkill but everyone looked blissful at the end, and I didn't have to pull my hair out over the soggy weird polenta sticks.

I was very proud of the turkey, I brined it following my bizarre practice of finding 2 similar recipes (in this case I tapped Alton Brown and Cooks Illustrated) and morphing them into a mutant fusion, creating something totally, completely (well sort of) my own. I bought a funky little ceramic trash can labelled 'RUBBISH' for the brining because I didn't have anything big enough and also because I thought it was cute.

I'll share my recipe because it took me a long time to come up with, so maybe one of you can profit from my research.
The recipe kinda went like this (for a 20 pound turkey).

1. Clean out the turkey inside and out, stick it in the RUBBISH can
   
2. Make 2 gallons of brine
   
   
   
   1. 3 cups kosher salt
      
   2. 1 cup dark brown sugar
      
   3. 2 gallons water
      
   4. 1-1/2 cups apple juice (the actual recipe wanted frozen orange juice but I didn't have any)
      
   5. turkey
      
   6. ice to fill the container
      
   
   
3. Brine for 6 hours
   
4. Dry completely and place in the refrigerator on a drying rack stuck inside of a cookie sheet (uncovered) - this gives you an incredibly crisp skin
   
5. Cook it on its back for an hour at 425 degrees
   
6. Turn the oven down to 350, turn the turkey over
   
7. Stuff turkey with superheated stuffing because... if you cook a turkey with stuffing it means you have to increase the time, leading to dry meat. Who wants dry meat? If you superheat the stuffing and add it after the turkey is already partly done, you minimize the impact on the turkey and still get yummy turkey-flavored stuffing.
   
8. Cook until it's safe turkey temperature according to my digital thermometer
   
9. Let it rest for an hour because the turkey carving guy wasn't here yet

   
   

After growing up pretty much completely uninterested in anything domestic, I have turned into some kind of domestic fiend. In the hopes of sparing other people from my fate (or easing their transition into it), I'm going to join the infinite online blogverse and add my $0.02 to share all the fabulous insights (and dumb mistakes) I make as I stumble through my life.

Just to get started, here's a picture of my current knitting project, from the Irish Hiking Scarf Knitalong. It's a fun pattern and not too hard (I haven't been knitting very long) although I did frog the thing 7 times before getting it to this point.

I'll list a bunch of factoids about myself so you know something about me... the idea was borrowed (with gratitude) from the Yarn Harlot.Actually, it's not 100 things. I'm not that interesting...

I pointed my other site to this site so I thought I should probably do a quick update on how I'm doing with my lap band. My lap band was inserted on 7/27/2001. In the first year I lost 72 pounds. I got down below 200 but have since regained back up to 220 (I was very sick for several months, not related to the lap band but resulting in some weight gain). I am not currently focussed on weight loss - I'm happy with my size 16/18 body and I am very active. In the last year, I have: