Spinning Ninny

Productivity Abound!

2012-01-30T07:04:00.000-05:00

Such a productive weekend:

Taxes - done and filed!
Seeds - started!
Bread - baked!
House - tidied!
Laundry - done!
(Hated) Grocery Shopping - accomplished!
Impromptu baking - finished with flying colors thanks to my neighbor's butter!

The Classic French Bread that I tried...was maybe not so classic. I accidentally used whole wheat flour instead of bread flour. I'm not sure how I did it, but I did. I think they turned out just fine, but ultimately it produced a coarser texture than I had wanted. That being said, I'm glad I tried it and I will be doing the recipe again the correct way later this week. Blerg.

Who doesn't love a little added productivity to their lives?!? Later this week, I'll be traveling to NYC for work. I had thought about tacking on a day so that I could look at wedding dresses from two designers that are based in NYC. Money's a little tight for me to be dropping $150 to change a flight and stay up there for an extra day. Looks like I'll be making another trip up to NYC sometime soon for that purpose.

And last, but certainly not least, on a whim last night, I decided to bake a chocolate cake. We probably didn't need additional baked goods in the house, but sometimes, you just need a pick me up. Mid-evening, with no sweets in the house, I found out that I'd missed National Chocolate Cake Day. To remedy that, I found an easy recipe. The complication: I'm out of butter! Blasphemy. Mine was a little dryer than the one in the picture on Smitten Kitchen, but nonetheless, it was well received. Here's the recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/08/everyday-chocolate-cake/

Garden 2012 Commences

2012-01-29T07:30:00.000-05:00

This year's garden will hopefully be an improvement on last year's. Last year's, of course, wasn't bad, but I'd like to continue moving forward.

Yesterday, I got started with my seedlings. Neutral seeding medium, accidental purchase of several new seeds. Why can't I just be satisfied with the 50 different types of seeds I have?? I did get some stuff to work on growing beets in containers. I haven't been successful at growing beets in the past - radishes, yes; beets, no. Some googling helped me to find some good advice. This site suggests planting radishes next to your beets. Radishes germinate faster and so that helps to mark where you've planted beets. It would be easy enough to get 9 beets into a square foot in the raised beds, but I'd prefer to do them in containers. I've got a few containers ready to go for both beets and carrots. Here's hoping that works out well.

I got all of my tomatoes, peppers and eggplants started...along with a few other extras. I've streamlined the process this year. I've started them in 4packs under humidity domes and under our replica-of-the-sun grow light. Now, I will have to fight the urge to sit next to them and wait for them to grow. No, really. I want to do that.

Additionally, I started my next loaf of bread. This week, dad and I are doing the Classic French Bread recipe in order to do an Épi de Blé, which means wheat sheaf in French. I modified the recipe only in that I used active dry yeast and had to rehydrate it first. I have both types of yeast, and I'd like to deplete them evenly. The dough was ridiculously easy to do. It only took me about 15 minutes to get it together and into the frig for the cold rising. This morning, it's looking great. I can't wait to bake it! Tonight and tomorrow, I've got dinner with friends, so I'll be baking it to share with others. I hope it turns out well! I've loving (loaving - haha) baking fresh bread. It's so delicious and easy!

Initially the dough seemed a bit too dry and craggy. I added a tiny bit extra water, and I think that evened things out. Only the baking remains!

And lastly, for dinner last night, I stumbled upon this excellent recipe: Hearty Lentil Soup Recipe With Carrots, Tomatoes, & Smoked Sausage. I made a few changes - added less liquid to make it even chunkier. It was excellent. This one's going in my recipe file.

Bibliography

2012-01-28T08:06:00.001-05:00

I was up like a shot at 6:30am when Ellie came over and aggressively nudged my "dead arm" into a position that it couldn't really go into. Rather than chastise her and try to get her to go back to sleep, I just got up. We went for a nice walk, and then I fed her and coffeed myself.

Right now, I'm sitting at the kitchen table consulting many books about many things.

My dad has amazingly gotten me three different books which seem to be of the utmost importance right now. Mel Bartholomew's All New Square Foot Gardening, Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day, and Cook's Illustrated's The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles.

This weekend, I start my seeds for the garden. It's been a while since I even thought about the garden, as evidenced by the fact that we never broke it down, never cleared it and never refurbished the soil. All bad moves. I'll definitely need to re-up the soil when it comes time. In the mean time, however, I need to figure out what needs to be started now and get on it. I can't wait. Dad bought me the square food gardening book a few years ago, and I thought I'd just review it to make sure that I'm on the right page and am truly maximizing the space I have.

As I mentioned before, Dad and I are baking our way through Peter Reinhart's cookbook. We started with the Pain à l'Ancienne Rustic Bread, which you can see below. I had some trouble with it - in that, I had to let it rise out for about an hour longer than recommended in the book. The end result, well...much rising, large air bubbles and a lot of dough. I made three small ciabatta loaves, which have been delicious thus far. Recommendations from a friend for next time: split the dough into two bowls before the rise. That way, you can pull them out on different days to bake. I don't know why I didn't think of that myself, but as it was rising, I thought, "What in the world am I going to do with so much bread?" The answer: eat it!

For our next feat, we will be doing the wheat sheaf baguette. I'm thrilled. It's a beautiful loaf, and it looks so professional. Here's hoping I do it right. I've got a potluck on Monday night and I'm hoping to have time to bake it and take it with me.

As for the Cook's Illustrated Pasta book, Dad got me a pasta maker and that cookbook. I got the pasta maker a while ago, but I got the cookbook just this past week - along with a pasta drying rack! I've already made lasagna noodles and fettuccine with the pasta maker - both were outstanding. I used whole wheat flour and found that I liked the heartiness of it. I can't wait to delve into the book and figure out what recipe I'll do first!

THIS is what a baker looks like

2012-01-24T22:13:00.001-05:00

Let's just put it this way - I don't like to be bored.

Currently, I'm working on the following:
1 - working, living, etc
2 - planning a wedding
3 - recovering from shoulder surgery (and the resulting adhesive capsulitis)
4 - wanting to knit a sweater, but needing to wait to knit due to the shoulder
5 - converting to Judaism
6 - starting my garden
7 - baking my way through Peter Reinhart's artisan breads every day - WITH DAD!

Long story, but I got the long distance baking idea from a gay rabbi in Richmond. Confused yet? I think am.

I normally bake once a week. It makes for having great breads for break, dinner, snacks, Shabbat, etc. I've had this cookbook for over a year. It's great and is a good read, but I've only baked a few things out of it. I suggested to Dad that we consider jointly making our way through the book and comparing notes along the way. He was game. I'm very excited.

My dad and I have very different approaches to using cookbooks. I got straight to the desired recipe, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Dad, on the other hand, who is much more about the process and the learning than just cranking out a loaf like I am, reviews cookbooks, learns from them and truly appreciates the approach of the author.

Spring seems to be in the making here in NC. I have many bulbs which are coming up - galanthus, crocus, narcissus, iris. My hellebore is putting off a bloom - it didn't last year. I'd almost forgotten what it looks like! Hidden behind the lush new foliage is a dusty purple bloom. Additionally, I'm hoping to start some seeds tomorrow evening with Alex's help, but in the mean time...

Today's challenge: Pain à l'Ancienne Rustic Bread from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day

Value of Alone Time

2012-01-21T08:52:00.001-05:00

The value of alone time isn't something that I've always appreciated. As an only child, I longed for playmates and I always wanted more time with friends and family. I suppose at the time, and truly probably until I lived alone, I felt I lead a lonely existence. When I moved to NC, and for the first time really lived alone with few friends in the are, I gradually began to understand the value of alone time. I crafted my own schedules and rituals. No one cared if the house was clean or dirty, but I very much preferred it to be clean. No one cared what was on the TV, what I'd cooked for dinner or if I stayed up too late listening to music.

I learned what most of my friends already knew - the value of alone time.

And now, here I am living with my bearded giant. I travel A LOT. That gives him ample alone time. The travel, housecleaning, and general life stuff leave me feeling overwhelmed at times.

I am thankful for the times when I do get alone time. When he goes out with friends, when I beat him home, and when I wake up before him.

In those times, I'm able to do the things that are important to me and to relax and think ahead to what my day should look like instead of being reactionary. The last two nights and this morning, I have some time to myself to read, write, knit and bake.

Happy Holidays

2011-12-23T18:57:00.000-05:00

This past Monday, we had neighbors over for a tree trimming party. The giant got a tree that night from a tree stand that was getting ready to close for the season. We now have a gorgeous 7' spruce adorning the living room. Before we decorated it, I worked on making a handful of cookies. I'm on a refrigerator cookies or icebox cookies. I got turned onto these by an article in a back issue of Martha Stewart Living from last year. (Yes, I am that behind in my magazine reading,)

On Monday, I cranked on these:
Pistachio Cranberry Icebox Cookies (I used walnuts instead!)
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pistachio-Cranberry-Icebox-Cookies-236664
Lemony Slice-and-Bakes
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Lemony-Slice-and-Bakes-368940
Almond Butter Cookies (I added one egg white to it after reading the reviews stating that it was hard to get them to create a solid dough.)
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Almond-Butter-Cookies-232508

They were all very good. I had a frozen, leftover loaf of the Walnut Cranberry ones. The ease of pulling it out of the freezer, slicing it and baking it for a few minutes was awesome. I love the idea of being able to crank out fresh cookies at the drop of a hat.

We've had a busy week, and with our menorah and Christmas tree in place, we're looking forward to hosting some people tomorrow evening. Despite my best judgement, I went to Target twice today, along with the mall. Apparently, I'm a lot braver than I thought. When I got back, I alternated caffeine infusions with prepping more cookie dough and stretching my recovering bum shoulder. Baking of any sort is difficult these days given the lack of strength, motion and all that jazz. Using the KitchenAid has been great.

Without further ado, today, I made these:
Mocha Slice Cookies
http://www.marthastewart.com/340252/mocha-slice-cookies
Ginger Icebox Cookies:
http://www.food.com/recipe/ginger-icebox-cookies-185698
Buttered Rum Meltaways
http://www.marthastewart.com/336645/buttered-rum-meltaways
Oatmeal Refrigerator Cookies:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/470401

Thus far, I think my favorites were the Mocha Slice. Perfect with coffee.

FO: Maze & Chevron Hat

2011-12-10T16:15:00.001-05:00

Pattern: Maze & Chevron Hat

Size: Adult
Yarn: Stitch Nation Full O'Sheep in Clementine and Aquamarine
Needles: Size 6 and Size 8
Started: 11/13/2011
Finished: 11/16/2011

Loved this pattern. The brim rolls despite blocking, but that's my only gripe.

Norwegian Star Stash-Busting Hat

2011-11-13T13:21:00.001-05:00

Pattern: Norwegian Star Earflap Hat

Size: Adult
Yarn: Stitch Nation Full O'Sheep in Black Sheep and Poppy
Needles: Size 5 and Size 6
Started: 10/10/2011
Finished: 10/13/2011

I needed something quick to knit and I wanted to do a hat. I've got so many random skeins of yarn. I was hoping to do something with chevrons, but I ended up finding this cute fair isle pattern, which was free!

It knits up pretty quickly. I used smaller needles because I used thicker yarn. I ended up with a very thick and very warm hat. I can't wait for an opportunity to wear it!

FO: Shalom Cardigan

2011-11-10T10:32:00.001-05:00

Pattern: Shalom Cardigan

Size: One size, but I modified to make it bigger
Yarn: Cascade 220 - White (8505)
Needles: Circular 10.5
Started: 8/6/2011
Re-started: 9/29/2011
Finished: 11/9/2011

I had three skeins of Cascade 220 that I was trying to get rid of. This seemed like the perfect opportunity - and I didn't have a white cardigan of any sort. I started knitting the only size that the pattern offers, only to find that there was little to no chance that it would fit me.

I frogged it, and modified the pattern to fit an...adult? Yes, an adult. I cast on 30 for each front panel, 53 for the sleeves, 77 for the back. I cranked along and knit nearly the entire thing in a week and a half. Then, I started knitting something different and just never finished the last 2 rows. Last night, I sat down, busted through the last 2 rows, sewed in my bits and set it out to block. Whew. It's been FOREVER since I last finished a knitted item. The last thing I finished knitting was the Aviatrix baby hat...which I STILL haven't blocked and sewn in the ends. Someday soon...

Crockpot Apple Squash Soup

2011-11-08T10:22:00.001-05:00

Ingredients:
1 butternut squash, skinned, seeded and chopped
1 medium apple, peeled, cored and chopped (I prefer granny smith.)
1 medium onion, diced
1 carrot, chopped
2 T butter
3 C vegetable stock (or 3 C water and veggie boullion)
1 1/2 t curry powder (your choice - mild or hot)
pinch each cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper
1 C heavy cream/half & half/milk (optional)

(alternate spice options - omit curry powder, add 2 cloves minced garlic, add 1 t cumin and 1/2 t nutmeg)

-- Place all ingredients in slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper.

-- Cook on high for 3-4 hours, cook on low for 6-8 hours. If your squash is frozen, cook 8-10 hours. Vegetables should be tender.

-- Turn off the heat and allow to cool slightly. Using a food processor or immersion blender, process until smooth.

-- If desired, stir in cream/half & half or milk.

-- Warm the soup through again, season to taste and serve.

Autumn Panzanella

2011-11-03T06:30:00.000-04:00

After carb loading for a couple of days accidentally, I was looking for an excuse to use up a number of fall vegetables and a couple of late harvest veggies from the garden. I had an itch for panzanella, but didn't have the summer veggies to accomplish that. This is my own take on a couple different recipes that I found...and using the ingredients I had at the house.

Ingredients:
Croutons
2-3 Cups cubed, day-old bread
3 Tbsp butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp thyme
3 Tbsp tablespoons shredded Parmesan, plus more for garnish
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Salad
1/2 medium onion, sliced thinly
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tsp sugar
Sea salt
2 cups peeled, seeded, and diced butternut squash
1 red pepper, diced
1 jalapeño, minced
1/2 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped sage or thyme
Freshly ground black pepper
8-12 small to medium sized Brussel sprouts, end trimmed, and quartered
1/2 medium apple, cubed
1/2 package frozen chopped spinach, thawed

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Soak the sliced onion in the sherry vinegar, along with the sugar and a pinch of salt for at least 10 minutes. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and thyme, and immediately add the bread cubes. Toss to coat well. Add most of shredded Parm stir. Transfer bread to a cookie sheet, sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Bake 10 to 15 minutes to allow the cheese to melt an become crisp.

Heat a large saute pan over medium high heat. Add 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil in the pan. Saute the squash until tender. Season with salt and pepper. Add the Brussels sprouts and apples. Add red pepper and jalapeño last. Cook until soft. Add spinach and cook until warm. Set aside.

Into the reserved red onions and vinegar, whisk in remaining 1/2 cup olive oil. Season with pepper.

In a large bowl, combine the roasted squash mixture and croutons. Add the vinaigrette and toss. Garnish with grated Parmesan and serve immediately.

Cold Weather-Baking

2011-11-02T23:43:00.000-04:00

In rapid succession, I've been taken over by all of my cold-weather hobbies.

First, crockpotting.

Second, knitting.

And now, baking.

Last week, I made some of one of my favorite breads from Inside the Jewish Bakery, for which I was a test baker two summers ago. I've got a copy in hand, and yes, I am in the acknowledgements. Woot!

This weekend, I made a spinach strata (which I've made before and love) from Smitten Kitchen. But savory is always my thing.

Last night, for the first time in AGES, I started working on some sweets. Prompted by the post of a Facebook friend, I decided that I should try the Apple Pie Cookies off of Smitten Kitchen. Not to be out done, I even went so far as to use a pumpkin shaped cookie cutter, which I think can definitely pass for an apple. With the leftover pastry and apples, I made a tiny little apple pie. Squee! Even though I love baking, I hate getting my hands dirty...which is hard if you're working with dough at all. I definitely missed baking, and I think the giant did too, but he never misses an opportunity to blame me for changes in his waistline.

The Knit Report

2011-11-02T10:53:00.000-04:00

It has been forever since I actually blogged about knitting. The last finished object that I blogged about was in August 2010. Fail.

Here's a little update for you.

Anais
I started the Anais with some random yarn that I had purchased on a whim. Of course, my self-perception of myself is that I am a 34" bush, which isn't entirely true, especially when you factor in my line-backer shoulders. Alas, I got nearly finished before I realized that the finished product would most likely not fit me. I'm resisting the urge to frog and re-knit, but that is ultimately what will happen.

Aviatrix Baby Hat
I finished the Aviatrix in August 2010, but never blocked it. As is, it's sitting in a pile of items to be blocked. It's gonna be cute - as soon as it's totally finished and has had it's own photo shoot.

Cobblestone
Ah, yes. Another long time UFO (for the un-initiated, that's Unfinished Object.) The Cobblestone and I have been through quite a bit together. I started it in October 2009...and and to frog it soon thereafter when it turned out to be sized for an entire family rather than the bearded giant. I nearly finished it this summer, but since, I've had it on the back burner. I need to sew in the ends and block it. Those tasks, I'm planning on doing this week. I want the giant to FINALLY enjoy that damn sweater. It will be my first finished adult sized pullover.

Blue Vest
I started knitting this in October 2009. I frogged it this month - October 2011 in favor of using the yarn for something else. I was hoping that the vest I'd started (from Fitted Knits) would actually fit me, but alas, 'twas not to be. It would have fit me back in 1999... MAYBE.

This picture was taken in October 2009...at my old apartment before I bought the house... Whoa.

Liesl
The Cascade 220 from the Blue Vest is being used for one of my current projects - a lace cardigan designed by Ysolda Teague. I'm not 100% certain that it will fit me, but I just needed to use up the yarn. If it doesn't fit me, I'll be gifting it to anyone who's interested in a small cap-sleeved Duke blue lace cardigan. The only other bad thing about Liesl, is that it reminds me of The Sound of Music...so, for the last few weeks, I've been humming Sixteen Going on Seventeen.

Shalom
I started this in August 2011, so that's relatively recently. I knit the pattern as written and ended up with a child-sized cap-sleeved cardigan. I frogged it and restarted it in late September 2011. As of now, it's almost done. It's waiting to have the ends sewn in and to be blocked.

Of course, there are other projects lazing about waiting to be finished, but these seem to be the closest to completion or at least the most satisfying...

End of Season Harvest!

2011-10-27T10:50:00.003-04:00

It's officially the end of the gardening season today. Our HOA has sent folks over to pressure wash our back deck and fence. I have no idea what they're washing with, but my guess is that it's not plain water. We, of course, had to clear off our deck of the dozen container plants that were living up there - strawberries, tomatoes, lots of hot peppers, mint, eggplant, flowers and a handful of other things including furniture. By we, I mean the giant.

With scissors, a bag and a sinus infection (that I've had since late September), I headed outside to harvest the last of our goods. The corno di toro, orange wonder, scotch bonnet, thai orange fogo, red mushroom, rooster peppers have all recovered from the summer's heat. They've gone into overdrive with production. We just harvested a substantial bag full of peppers. And the chocolate habaneros. I'd started a couple of seeds last spring - one seedling went to the neighbors, one for us. The neighbors has been incredibly healthy and has spent the summer trying to conquer the world. Ours...was...less inspired. Until now. Fall has come and our chocolate habanero is spending time playing catch up.

As I surveyed the garden from the deck, as the bearded giant schlepped heavy metal patio chairs down to the yard, I realized a few things.

I tried hard to manage my tomatoes differently this year and simply repeated what I'd done last year.
I need to cut back on the cherry tomatoes in favor of some larger beefier tomatoes.
I need to plan out my garden more carefully this coming year and grow a fraction of what I did this year.
I need to pay attention to what my neighbor throws into my yard (in humorous way). I've got a whole additional tomato plant growing out of a planter on the fence. And it's not one of mine. I didn't really have any tomatoes that size that could have reseeded or started growing there. They're MUCH bigger than the sungolds that surround it.

I'm not much of a fall planter, so this was it for us. I'm sad that it's over, but as always, I'm excited to be back to knitting and planning for next year. Hopefully, in my next post, I can share some knitted goods with you.

As for the garden, next year, I'd really love to do some canning instead of having to consume all of those recently harvested goodies. It's one thing if it's a pile of sungolds...it's another entirely if you know they are hot peppers that can make people weep.

Crockpot Season

2011-10-09T11:01:00.001-04:00

A little over a year ago, I decided I needed a slow cooker. I think the majority of my friends think that either a) old women or b) southern stay at home moms use crockpots. Not true. Because I'm away from the house every day for 8+ hours, I'm always looking for ways to cook a tasty, healthy meal without having to stand at the stove as soon as I get home.

I spent $7 on this crockpot at the Goodwill down the street. At the time, I wasn't entirely sure if I was buying an old dejected crockpot that wouldn't work, or making out like a bandit. I've worked hard to scope out new recipes and work to perfect some of the recipes that I've found. It's hard to know when you're assembling ingredients if your meal will be delicious, bland or over-flavored. I've hit the jackpot a couple of times. I've listed links to a couple of my favorite recipes below.

On Stephanie O'Dea's blog, A Year of Slow Cooking, I've found a ton of great recipes, as well as a many modifications to recipes that really help me to manage cooking in the slow cooker. The majority of recipes for the slow cooker are for pork, beef and the occasional whole chicken. Not all of the recipes are meant to sit for 8+ hours, which has limited my interest in trying them. Twointeresting suggestion from A Year of Slow Cooking: use frozen chicken to prevent it from completely falling apart and layering your crockpot. The second one I would never have thought of - assemble your crockpot, put down a layer of foil, and put some baked potatoes or corn on top of it. The best advice Stephanie had though, was to use frozen chicken - that way, it won't disintegrate by the time you get to dinner time.

The crockpot has saved the bearded giant and I from cooking after work on a number of occasions. In fact, it's freeing up a ton of time this weekend. I used it yesterday and today - and I'm hoping to use it this week as well.

Have any recipe suggestions that I might like??

Apricot Chicken
(I used 4 bone/skinless thighs and halved the amount of preserves.)Solstice Bean Stew (I used black beans because I had them.)
Coq au Vin
Black Bean Soup
Butternut Squash & Black Bean Chili (added all ingredients to slow cooker, used only 2.5 C broth, cooked 6-8 hours on low)
Moroccan Chicken & Vegetables (used 6 bone/skinless thighs, cut the water in half and substituted chicken broth, served over couscous)
White Chicken Chili (used 2 cans white beans, added a diced onion, 3 cloves minced garlic, 2 teaspoons cumin, 1 teaspoon dried oregano, 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper)
Creamy Curried Vegetable Soup
Provençal Chicken Stew (I used broth, fresh chopped tomatoes, NO tomato paste, olives, garlic, potatoes and a LOT of herbes de provence)
Corn and Chicken Poblano Braised Chicken (used bone/skinless chicken breasts - loved this! added queso fresco to the finished product and ate both over rice and in tortillas)
Squash and Apple Soup (there are a hundred of these out there, this is one of a couple that I consulted when assembling my own - I added a teaspoon of curry powder)

Autumn? Is that you?

2011-09-08T14:46:00.000-04:00

The temperatures have finally started to cool off a bit. I don't want to jinx us, but I'm starting to feel like we may be inching toward autumn, but it could also just be the numerous hurricanes and tropical storms which have come through town.

Either way, I'm feeling happier, cooler and more like cooking at home!

I've been on a tear with the crockpot this week - Butternut Squash Soup and Provençal Chicken Stew. Both were excellent. I really love not having to cook in the evenings. I'm hoping I can find a few more health-ish recipes that are vegetarian or have only chicken. That would be ideal. And next, who knows - maybe I'll start baking again soon!

More Time Away From Home

2011-09-04T17:28:00.000-04:00

When you're traveling nearly half the time, blogging becomes difficult.

Although, here I am to update you on a few things!

I spent the weekend in my hometown visiting with my best high school friend, Julie. Julie's engaged and will be getting married next summer. We spent the weekend getting started on the wedding dress process. It's bit of a painful one. Trying on many dresses, and figuring out what looks best on your frame can be both time consuming and exhausting.

We're off to a great start though. Now that I'm back home, I'll need to spend some time planning out her Bridal Shower and Bachelorette Party. I can't wait!

The creation of love and sadness

2011-08-07T10:01:00.000-04:00

Upon returning from Rhode Island, I got a call from a local dog rescue for whom I agreed to foster dogs a LONG time ago. Having never been called, I was surprised to hear from them, and even more surprised that I was being called in as an emergency temporary foster. A dog named Bear was surrendered in Wilson County, NC. He was covered in dredlocks, having not been brushed or groomed in ages. For the last year, he had been living outside, as his family could no longer properly care for him due to severe medical problems and financial constraints as well. In addition to the dreds, he had worms, ear mites, and the potential to be aggressive.

I picked him up less than 24 hours after getting the call. He was clean shaven, shaken and a bit tentative. I put him in my car and he happily came home with me. After 18 hours with Bear, we had discovered a few important things. He wasn't neutered, and he wasn't housebroken. That's a recipe for him lifting his leg to pee on furniture. He had no idea how to walk on a leash, and the pads of his feet were so soft, it was obvious that if he did once know how, he had long forgotten. He knew commands, was food motivated and eager to please me. I spent several hours with him working to build trust, playing fetch with him, cuddling him and working to further solidify his commands. He also did not like the bearded giant. At. All. In fact, they couldn't be in the same room together. Knowing that I was going to be heading out of town for a long weekend in Virginia with friends, I got the process started to find him a new foster home. As we are a household that relies heavily on having both of us take care of the animals, having Bear around wasn't good for us and it wasn't good for Bear.

Because of his aggression, I was directed by the dog rescue folks to have him evaluated by an animal professional. The woman that I took him too said that he was borderline - he could either learn to be a well adjusted animal or become more aggressive and untouchable.

Armed with that knowledge, we sought a new foster home. Bear seemed to be fine with the woman who picked him up to foster. She agreed that if he could get along with her dog, she could keep him past the weekend. Less than 3 hours later, she was on the phone calling to say that he had growled at her. She was truly shaken, and I understand her concern. He is a terrifying guy when he wants to be. At this point, I was starting to see how the story would end. I spent half of the drive to Virginia sobbing. Bear was sweet and kind to me - but only me. And I had abandoned him, as his family had, and here I was starting to see that he may, indeed, be untouchable already.

She had called both the foster coordinator and myself, we both directed her to keep the dog crated for the duration of the weekend, only bringing him out for minimal bathroom breaks and for food. She wasn't comfortable with that at all. At this point, an emergency all call to the foster network went out. We needed to find a foster home for Bear that was willing to work with him ASAP. No one responded.

The conversation quickly turned to finding a place for boarding the dog for the weekend, but at noon on Saturday, there are no places available. In hopes that we might find a place, I started thinking of ways to get them Bear's paperwork and rabies information, which I had with me. The conversation turned yet again to simply taking him to the SPCA, Humane Society or the like, where he would certainly be marked for euthanization. We pleaded with his new foster mom to, again, just keep him in the crate or to try feeding him pill pockets with half of a Benadryl in it. A sleeping dog can't be ferocious.

In the end, he did get to stay the weekend with his new foster mom, but she wants him gone, no one will take him. He is one very damaged dog. There are a number of not so good breeders around and he may or may not have come from there. Or, he could have been damaged by the behaviors of his owners and his previous experiences. We're not to know or understand, just to cope with.

This is one of the hardest things that I have ever gone through. I'm exhausted, stressed out and very, very sad. I wanted this to work out and have a happy ending. If Bear had not been terrifyingly aggressive to Alex, we might have kept him as our own. He is great with Ellie, the cats and me.

If anyone reads this and has space in their home, heart and life for a damaged English Springer Spaniel, please let me know. Otherwise, I already know how this story is going to end.

Ninny & Giant's Rhode Island Adventure

2011-08-02T19:22:00.001-04:00

I've been gone from work for 7 days. And I feel great. I'll head back tomorrow...and I'm willing myself to feel refreshed and renewed and all that jazz. However, the bottom line is that when I return from vacation, I'd really like to have a couple days at home reintegrating myself into reality. I normally try to have at least a day on either side. I had today off. We flew home early from Providence, RI and headed straight to the vet where Ellie was boarded. My first handful of experiences boarding her have left me weary come pick-up time. This time and the time before have been strangely uplifting and reassuring...and just in the nick of time. We arrived at the vet's and she was happy and well-adjusted when we got her back. She wasn't the normal, nervous, stressed-out, soft-stooled girl that we'd gotten back. No. She's been fine. In fact, I'm having some trouble typing around her sleeping, snoring head.

A few hours into the day, I got a call from my local branch of the English Springer Spaniel rescue. They have a four-year old male named Bear who is going to be coming into foster care, and they needed a place for him. According to them, he's sweet and kind and well-adjusted, but is coming from a family with some substantial health problems. The bearded giant and I talked and we're going to foster him for a bit. I think this will be a good trial for us to figure out if we want/can handle a second dog.

And a little more about our trip, we've just come off of a lovely vacation in Rhode Island. We spent some time in Providence, Newport and the giant's hometown as well. He also drove me all over the northwestern corner of the state...which took hardly any time at all...well, because it's Rhode Island. Everything is fairly close. The down-side of driving all over the place, my back is bothering me. The upside - LOTS of knitting. I'm finishing up working on a Norah Gaughan top called Anais. I've started swatching for my next project. Woo! And, of course, I finished the giant's Cobblestone sweater.

One of my favorite parts of our trip was heading to Woonsocket. We checked out an adorable knitting shop called Yarnia, which is in an old yarn mill. Very neat. I accidentally bought more yarn. Damn. I guess I can store it in the giant's pillow, as that's about the only place left to store stuff.

And, although we are close to my birthday, I was surprised when the giant's mother had a little soiree with delicious pastries and gifts. The giant's father's birthday is also this month, so it was a nice little family-type celebration. The pastries were good - especially after crab cakes. The bearded giant's mother (who is not bearded) made me a lovely shawl, which was put to good use on the freezing cold plane this morning!

I'll share some pictures once I've been reintegrated into real life.

Happy Fiscal New Year!

2011-07-01T10:51:00.000-04:00

It's been a long few weeks, but our fiscal year end at work is done and I couldn't be happier. Not only did we surpass our annual fund goal, but we blew it out of the water. In addition to that, the head cold that I had brewing has held off until after the FYE, which is good. I would have been completely unproductive if I'd felt this crappy while making calls and reminding people to get their gifts in.

In celebration of both Independence Day and the FYE, the giant and the dog and I will be joining my lovely friends up on Smith Mountain Lake. I'm all packed and ready to go - I've got a doggie life vest for Ellie, a pint of my homegrown sungolds for me, and GPS for Alex so he can drive us there while I knit.

Go team.

The garden has been incredibly productive, my knitting has been incredibly productive, and I've been working out and taking yoga classes. If you're looking for yoga classes of any level in the Raleigh area, definitely check out y Respira Yoga Studio. I love the owner and I've been feeling a lot better since I started taking classes. There are all levels of classes, and there are 3 locations in addition to their studio which is right downtown next to Port City Java.

Hopefully, when I come back from my weekend, I'll have at least one finished knitting project to share with you. Until then, have a great weekend!

Pepper Report

2011-06-21T10:43:00.002-04:00

Last night, we used one of our first hot peppers in a stir-fry. It was delicious! It’s an Orange Fogo, which I thought would be blistering hot. I was completely wrong. It’s only about 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units. (Habaneros are between 100,000 and 350,000; Jalapenos are 2,500 to 5,000; Bell peppers are 0.)

We have 3 Orange Fogo plants. One has about 30 peppers on it, the second has about 15 and the third has 5. Glad our most prolific will be delicious!

✓ Orange California Wonder Pepper - 0 Scoville Units
✓ Gypsy Pepper (Hybrid) - 0 Scoville Units
✓ Corno di Toro Pepper - 1 to 1,000 Scoville Units
✓ Orange Fogo Chili Pepper - 1,000 to 5,000 Scoville Units
✓ Fish Pepper 5,000 to 30,000 Scoville Units
✓ Rooster Spur Pepper 5,000 to 30,000 Scoville Units
✓ Chocolate Habanero Pepper - above 30,000 Scoville Units
✓ Red Mushroom Pepper - above 30,000 Scoville Units
✓ Scotch Bonnet Pepper - above 30,000 Scoville Units

In other growing news, we've harvested several Gypsy peppers, some orange fogos, a pint or two of sungolds, blueberries, a ton of basil, some malabar spinach and a couple eggplants! I am loving this year's growing season. It's good to know which things have the best success rates!

Awesome Thai Orange Fogo Plant!

Knitter in the Weeds

2011-06-13T13:11:00.000-04:00

My garden is out of control...and I believe has been finalized. I won't need any more additions, that's for sure. I've got 10 tomato plants in beds, 4 in pots. I've got 10 hot pepper plants. I've got 4 sweet pepper plants - and we just added 2 more sweet pepper plants. I've got chives and basil galore.

This weekend, the giant and I rehabbed our last remaining raised bed and added to it a very tall azalea (more of a tree than a shrub), some dahlias, a gardenia, and an ajuga (we'll see how that goes, it's a bit of a weed).

Last night, for dinner, the giant and I had made homemade pesto out of nearly 4 cups of basil from the garden. We also added some sugar snaps, an eggplant and some sweet peppers from the garden as well. It was delicious!

In light of the garden being...well, finished and simply growing for the rest of the season, I've taken some time in the last week to get back into knitting.

On Wednesday, the giant and I went to see Mumford and Sons at the Raleigh Amphitheater. There was quite a bit of idle sitting while the two openers played. I thought to myself, "Next time, bring knitting." Fast forward to Saturday, we found ourselves once again at the Amphitheater for the Decemberists show. We had lawn seats, so we watched at a distance and I got started on a new knitting project. I've spent so long working on the giant's sweater, that I was excited to try something smaller...and, obviously, more portable. I started knitting Norah Gaughan's Anais, which one of my knitting friends knit a while ago and I had admired. I am knitting mine in a mottled red color, which is called Lobster. I'm happy to be getting back into knitting - if only a little bit. I will be heading to NYC for work tomorrow and I'm glad I'll have a project to stick in my purse to carry along. I also spent sometime figuring out where I was in the pattern for the giant's sweater last night. I won't be carrying that with me to NYC - it's a bit to heavy these days.

Birth-State of Aviation

2011-05-25T15:41:00.000-04:00

How is it possible that I am simultaneously resistant to change and longing for it? Sometimes I confuse myself. Recently, I've been having moving pangs. Today, while planning out a future work trip to NYC, I looked at a large cartoonish map of the 5 boroughs and thought...I'd LOVE to just move up there and explore.

Move up there? Me? NYC and I are like oil and water. We can coexist peaceably for 48 hours - much more than that makes my ankles swell. Literally.

Owning a house, mooning over my dog, my garden and my bearded giant are all lovely wonderful things, but occasionally, I long for adventure. I'm nearing the 4 year mark living down here in the birth-state of aviation. I love it, but I do ache for a change occasionally. Maybe sometime soon...

Bad Dog

2011-05-24T10:23:00.001-04:00

Apparently, Ellie has also learned to play with toys...

Ellie has been surprisingly good recently, despite the increased travel with my new job. We boarded her a few weeks ago when we took a long weekend vacation. I was concerned coming back to pick her up at the vet. Normally, when I retrieve her from the vet, she won't speak to me. I'm not delving into this too deeply - I mean it. I put her in the back of the Subaru and she ignores me. For a normally obsessive dog, that's quite the coup. When I reach to pet her, she pulls her head away. I have even resorted to getting Chik-fil-a, and had it turned down. TURNED DOWN - by a dog who eats everything, including 2 socks and a bra in the last week.

After my last long weekend away, I drove to the vet to pick her up with trepidation. She'd been groomed, she'd been boarded and I'd abandoned her for 3 days.

Upon arrival, I chatted with the vet techs...who said that she'd been great on her stay. She doesn't love to be groomed, but she seemed to enjoy the weather a lot more when shaved. According to them, she made lots of doggy friends and spent lots of time romping around and playing.

What?!?! Playing? Happy? Fun? Well-adjusted?

I looked closely at Ellie...Were all her spots the same as before? Had they substituted in a look-alike? Was this really my dog?

On the way home, Ellie tried to cuddle with me from the back seat. She snorfled and snuffled and pawed and nuzzled me. We got home, and she was happy, energized and for once, very excited to meet other neighborhood dogs. Since then, she's been as close to "normal" as we've ever seen that poor little shelter dog. It's great. The vet even suggested that we consider getting a second dog to keep her company...

Somethings never change...

Gardening before the heat...

2011-05-22T09:53:00.000-04:00

Boy! As busy as I am with this new job, I'm not really able to find time to blog these days!

Things have been good and busy and I've been around the country since I last blogged. I've been to NY, DC, Chicago, San Diego, LA, Williamsburg and am currently preparing for my first trip to Atlanta. Whew.

Also, since I last blogged, and since my last post about my gardens and plants, I've had great successes with my garden. When my mom visited in March, she helped me build and assemble an additional raised bed. I now have 5 raised beds, one of which is currently unused. I abandoned it once I realized how much work rehabing my beds from last year was. They were inundated with roots from the tree behind the house, so I had to spend hours hand sorting through that and pulling out the matted clumps of roots. This weekend, hopefully, I'll have some time to sort through that unused bed...before the heat gets really bad. We've had incredibly mild temperatures, but it's going to be in the 90s all this coming week.

I now have a ton of sugar snap peas, 10 tomato plants, 12 pepper plants (both sweet and hot - mostly hot), a purple tomatillo (thanks to my neighbor), 3 eggplant plants, 5 or 6 basil plants, 2 borage plants, a handful of cucumber plants and one single patty pan squash plant. To remedy the loneliness of my squash, I planted some additional squash seeds this morning. It's a little late in the season, but I'm hoping that it will work. In an additional pot, I have a sunflower paired with some vining malabar spinach. On my deck, I have last year's strawberries - which are going gangbusters. Also on the deck, several smaller pots - 1) mint and chocolate mint, 2) hot pepper, chives, radishes, 3) mild decorative edible pepper, chives and basil. It's all looking pretty great.

The newest raised bed seems to have the healthiest plants. Three tomatoes in that bed are taller than I am - and I'm 5'10". I've also started getting little tomatoes and little peppers. Of course, everything has had blooms on it for a good long while, but not all of them have set to fruit.

Top row, left to right: pots on deck with peppers, chives, basil, and mint; hot peppers on stairs; vining spinach and sunflower sprout; borage.
Left side: clematis; eggplants.
Middle: strawberries.

Right side: yarrow; baby tomatoes.
Bottom row: coleus in front beds; jasmine and catmint next to blueberry bush; new raised bed with 5 tomatoes and 5 peppers; raised bed with 4 tomatoes, 4 peppers and basil.

As if tending to all of that weren't enough, I've also forced the bearded giant to help me at the worst possible task ever - digging up the entire back yard. Between Ellie running all over the yard and peeing back there, the grass was only half alive anyway. The actual soil content was pretty terrible - red clay with a lot of rocks. So, slowly, one patch at a time, the giant and I are digging up chunks of the back yard, and amending them with compost and sphagnum moss. And then reseeding. It seems to be working pretty well. The sections of lawn that were done a month ago look great. In fact, with the crazy rain that we've been getting, even the grass that was planted fairly recently is looking lush and healthy. And, amazingly, it does seem like the yard is draining a little bit better, which was also a concern.

Of course, I'd like to spend each evening relaxing at home and just counting my tomatoes before they've hatched, but I don't have time for that. I've been all over the map in the last few years about grad school, but as I continue to get older and my job continues to allow me the opportunity to meet many interesting people with varied professions and backgrounds, I continue to want to go back to school. I've put together a bit of a set of exercises for myself to help keep me thinking about what I want to be when I grow up and how I'm going to get there.

And lastly, on the relationship front, in the interest of full disclosure, I must inform you that the bearded giant is no longer an accurate nickname. However, I do not intend to change it. The giant has modified the facial hair, but goateed giant just doesn't sound as good.

Ride to End Rape

2011-04-22T13:56:00.001-04:00

My friend Luke is awesome. He made a cross country trek last year...just to do it.

This year, he's doing it again...with purpose.

He's riding across the country to end rape and sexual violence. From Luke:

"This summer, I’m riding my bike around the country to advocate, educate and reach out to communities about becoming free of sexual violence. Each mile I ride, I will be raising money to support Our VOICE, the local rape crisis intervention and prevention center in Asheville, North Carolina."

His goal is to raise $10,000.

Please consider helping. Luke is fully funding the cost of the trip himself - all money that he raises will go directly to Our VOICE, the rape crisis center in Asheville.

Visit his website and make a donation today. Gifts of any level can make a difference.

http://www.ridetoendrape.com/

Blooms

2011-04-17T00:06:00.001-04:00

Today was a hell of a day in central NC. A handful of tornadoes tore through the area, which was surprising and terrifying. I thought that little Ellie would crawl up the walls, and that the giant's cat would never come out from under the bathroom sink. We all did manage to weather the storm just fine, and I was thankful that I haven't put all of vegetables out in the raised beds yet. They would have been damaged or drowned for certain.

Tomorrow, I'm meeting a fellow Mary Wash English major for brunch, and then I'm planning to spend the day planting vegetable seedlings and coleus plants in the yard.

My frontyard has gone through several iterations of blooms. I had snowdrops, the yellow crocus, then purple crocus and now daffodils. Soon enough, there will be some Eye of the Tiger Dutchc Irises too. Two out of my four coreopsis are preparing to bloom. The phlox looks amazing. I've a handful of fritillaria sprouting, as well as some lilies. There's no sign of my dwarf fountain grass regrowing, but I'm hopeful.

Crocus round one; round two and the daffodil.

In the backyard, I've got a lot going on as well. I added another raised bed a while ago, with the help of my mother when she was last in town. Now, I've got a good number of sugar snap sprouts coming up. The might actually take over the yard if I'm not careful. I've also got a number of good things happening in the backyard as well. Clematis is blooming, climbing hydrangea is creeping all over the place. I've got yarrow on the verge of blooming, some lovely lupines.

My hellebore hasn't bloomed this year, but the new growth is out of control. It looks amazingly healthy, and I'm thrilled with it.

On the left, you can see the tiny sprouts. Several months later, those sprouts are taking over the world!

Last, but of course, not least, my lovely little strawberries. So many blooms ready to turn into delicious little berries, which my dog will undoubtedly try to eat.

Around the Country in 80 Days!

2011-04-14T09:19:00.000-04:00

Well, not quite, but almost. My travel schedule has been crazy lately. I've just gotten back and I have a few weeks off before I get going again.

It's hard to believe that it's been a month since I last posted to my blog. I'll try to do a couple updates this week...

My travel schedule looked something like this:
Week of March 21st - Boston
Week of March 28th - Southern California
Week of April 4th - Chicago, then board meetings in Durham
Week of April 11th - NYC (See Bear/Lamp statue by Urs Fischer)

Traveling every week isn't quite what I want to do. I'd much rather be on an every other week schedule, but the California trip was rescheduled from the previous month and threw things off. Thankfully, the Chicago trip was canceled, which gave me a bit of a breather.

I have a few weeks off and then I get started AGAIN. Whew.

The new job has been going well, but with this much travel, it's hard to feel grounded and well-rested in between. Poor little Ellie has been suffering because of the traveling too. She has stress colitis, so when I'm gone, she gets stressed out and all hell breaks loose in her gastrointestinal tract. Last week required two visits to the vet, lots of pills, a change of dog food and a lot of cooing to a very sick puppy. She's definitely well-mended now, and I think that we've been able to take some preventative measures for this week's travel.

Thoughts on LGA

2011-04-13T13:40:00.001-04:00

1. It's a hole.
2. The people are bitchy. And unhelpful...or maybe that's just the folks who work for American.
3. The ceiling is leaking all over the place.
4. I don't like mice. They are sort of cute but I really don't like hanging out with them. I definitely don't like having them running around while I'm awaiting my flight.

Tipsy Pots

2011-03-17T07:22:00.003-04:00

One more garden project accomplished!

From bottom to top: Thyme, African Daisy, Candytuft, Speedwell, and another African Daisy!

Locks of Love

2011-03-16T06:05:00.004-04:00

I always liked having my hair short. It's easy to manage, doesn't require being blown dry, doesn't get in my eyes and mouth when it's windy. It was always very functional for playing rugby.

I met Misha in 2006. For some strange reason, she wanted to know what I'd look like with long hair. At her promoting, I accepted the challenge to grow it out. I knew that there were bound to be some awkward hair styles in between. Because I'm not a fan of having long hair, I decided that I should grow it for a purpose - I decided on Lock of Love.

Four and a half years later, I've managed to grow my hair out to donation length. There have been points that I've loved my hair, and points that I've hated it. The longer it's gotten, the more unwieldy it's gotten. I spend the majority of the time now with my hair up in ponytail or bun.

I am happily donating it to Locks of Love. There's a salon in Raleigh that gives free cuts and styling for folks donating to Lock of Love. My mom will be accompanying me this week to Salon Moxie to have my hair cut for donation.

Top to bottom - 2006 to 2011.

Beware the Ides, or, On Spring

2011-03-15T10:54:00.002-04:00

The stormy March is come at last,
With wind, and cloud, and changing skies;
I hear the rushing of the blast
That through the snowy valley flies.
- William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

Mr. Bryant clearly wasn't from North Carolina. He was, instead, a New Englander with roots on the Mayflower. He spent his adult life in New York City working for the New York Evening Post, a newspaper that was started by Alexander Hamilton, and has since morphed into the tabloid paper The New York Post. In any case, he's not from the south. If he was, he'd know about our Marches, which are normally warm and wet and green and bright with color. Our March is New England's late April.

This year, it's been bone dry until recently. The recent rains have sprouted new life into trees, flower beds, bulbs and birds. After comparing notes with my mom, it does seem that some of the flowers down here are a little off on their timing. I'm used to snowdrops and crocus blooming first...and early - same with hellebores. Here in NC, nearly all bulbs they are coming to full bloom simultaneously.

crocus and anemone.

My gardening projects are never finished. I proudly reorganized my garage, so that all of the garden related items are close to the front and are on shelves. I spent time planting summer bulbs that I'd never heard of before (bletilla, persian buttercup, liatris), along with yarrow and delphinium. Alex pulled up the dead rosemary bush, and I can't wait to get some additional flowers into that spot. I planted a self-pollinating blueberry bush in a giant pot with a couple different types of thyme to keep it company. Now, I just need to find time to create my tilted pot (or tipsy pot) display for the back yard. Awaiting planting in that, and other locations are astilbe, African daisy, candytuft, speedwell, lavender, and, of course, grass seed. The giant and I will most likely be digging up the backyard in order to have a better response rate from our grass seed.

Looks messy, but is a marked improvement.

And a little gratuitous food fun - I baked the giant a Chocolate Stout Cake for his birthday.

Chocolate Stout Cake with coffee ganache.

And lastly, we had salads last night which were largely from our own home grown lettuce!

Homegrown, baby.

At this point, I think the only thing to beware of on this Ides of March is the whirlwind of gardening that ensues whenever I'm at home!

Grow Lights - a How-Not-To guide

2011-03-10T12:28:00.000-05:00

I was supposed to be in California this week, something that would have been relatively new and exciting for me. I've never been to CA for work before, and I've really only been to San Francisco. Sadly, the work trip didn't generate enough appointments, so it was canceled. That's bad and good. It's bad because I really need to get there sometime soon, and rescheduling is sort of a pain in the butt. It's great because I won't be traveling over the giant's 30th birthday.

Happy Birthday, Giant!

Tuesday night, the giant was out and about doing what giants do, and I stayed home and played spinster gardener. I hadn't been tending to my seedlings quite like I should have been. One of the bulbs in my tiny, expensive grow light burnt out, I dawdled replacing it, thereby leaving a portion of my seedlings leggy and sad. Upon attempting to purchase a non-hard-wired 2' shop light, I found out that they don't really sell them - at least not affordably and not at your standard home improvement stores. A person or two has told me that they stopped selling 2' hanging shop lights because they were being used for the cultivation of some illegally cultivated substances. The only hanging shop lights...are 4' long. That's a big big for my tastes...and for the giant's. Online, I could purchase what I need for $200+ and I wasn't interested in the wait, the shipping and handling or the pricetag. So, I went to Lowe's and bought me some non-hard-wired grow lights, which can be cabinet mounted. With no cabinets from under which to mount them, the giant and I were struggling to come up with a good way to hang them.

I went first. I thought to myself. Well, I have some scrap wood at home. I'll just put the two lights parallel. Then, I'll hang two pieces of wood perpendicular to one another. I can simply hang said contraption from the curtain rod and have it push out from the wall. I thought, most likely, it will just push off from the wall, worst case scenario, I can just have the long ends be supported in the blinds. Wrong. All of it was wrong. Every part. I'm, of course, not an engineer. And, I was in a hurry. And, I was overly optimistic and desperate to get this finished. The end result:

It, of course, did not work. It wouldn't balance against the wall. It couldn't be stabilized using the blinds. And, it really wouldn't hang.

Then, it was the giant's turn. We went to Lowe's with out any measurements, without any preparation...oh, and after a few beers. He walked into Lowe's like he owned the place. While I puttered among the seeds, he headed directly for the wood. When he emerged 10 minutes and $12.00 later, he had wood, some metal thingies and some screws. We headed home. I went upstairs to the bedroom to work on scaled drawing of the backyard and my plans for where everything should go. He set to work. Rather than measuring in advance and having Lowe's cut the wood for him, he opted for a more DIY approach. He had the grow lights, a pen and a tiny hand saw with a blade smaller than some of my Henckels. For about 30 minutes, I could hear sawing in the garage. Then, he migrated to the kitchen for "construction." Upon hearing swearing, I came for the initial viewing. It wasn't a horrible idea, but the end result was neither able to hold the grow lights, nor able to stand on its own. At that point, without speaking, we went to bed.

Today, upon the recommendation of a friend, I called one of our local garden stores, and they have many, nay, a plethora of different grow light options. My normal garden store didn't, but this mecca, well, they do. I will be buying one of their 2' hanging grow lights for an arm and half a leg. Logic finally prevailed.

Beginning of blooms.

2011-03-01T13:56:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure that I'm 100% convinced, but it seems like spring has hit North Carolina. The weekend weather was wonderful. Saturday, the high was 60s; Sunday the high was 81°; Monday, the high was 81°. It's chillier today, and will get below freezing tonight. That little taste of spring is definitely having a positive impact on me.

Sadly, I was under the weather this weekend, which what seems to have been the flu. I missed work yesterday, and managed to sleep nearly all day. It seems that while I was reliving my inner teenager, and sleeping the days away, the bearded giant, was busy helping me get ready for spring. He started cleaning out the garage, which included boxes upon boxes of unorganized crap. He made great headway getting through those and starting in on some housework.

While he was busy working around the house, I napped in bed...and here:

My ENO hammock was one of my favorite things that I added to my outdoor collection last year. While Ellie sniffed around the backyard and slept in the shade, I napped on my hammock. It was lovely. Listening to the birds was so relaxing. My only complaint about spending lots of time outdoors - with the redbuds in bloom, the forsythia on the verge of exploding and the Bradford pears just days away from creating snow covered tree tops, allergy medicine has become a necessity.

It's crazy to think that we've got flowering trees about to burst forth and some of our bulbs are hardly up. Only in the sunniest of locations in the area are there some flowers blooming. I've just started hatching some of my own:

You can see here that my crocus, galanthus, narcissus and irises are peeking through and in some cases blooming. Being surrounded indoors and outdoors by green is making me very happy!

Additional supplies that were recently added to my collection - pots, compost, window boxes, a blueberry bush, pansies and phlox. There were a fair number of additional spring-plant bulbs that made the ride home too.

The phlox got planted and looks springy and cheerful. And the pansies are in window boxes to be hung from the deck!

What American Feels Like

2011-02-24T16:41:00.000-05:00

Photo from Albert on Flickr.

I'm not talking about being an American. I'm talking flying American.

I like Southwest...maybe it's because I'm poor, maybe it's because it flies to all of the places my friends and family live, maybe it's because I'm aggressive and like to fight for my seat, maybe it's because it's the easiest (for me) to earn free flights on. I just don't know.

Since starting my new job, I've been flying American. I'd love to be able to romanticize my relationship with Southwest, but I won't. Instead, I'd like to tell you what flying American feels like. Often, I fly between Washington, DC and Raleigh, NC on American's ERJ-140. In between those two cities, American feels slow, exhausting and loud - not from screaming children, because I think they'd count as a gate-checked carry-on, but from the roaring, nay, whining engines.

American feels like a flying charter bus for nearly expired men. It feels like being surrounded by over the hill business men with egos and sense of entitlement that probably should have been gate-checked, but weren't.

American feels like I forgot something. It wasn't worth checking a bag on a puddle jumper the size of a maxi pad and waiting 45 minutes to retrieve said bag. Instead, I left at home my contact solution, lotion, allergy medicine, as well as a comfortable pair of shoes, because I was afraid of overloading the plane with one more inconveniently checked bag.

American feels like sitting next to an over the hill business man who seems to think he's got testicles the size of grapefruit. Due to this unfortunate condition, my window seat just got smaller as his elbow and knee invade my personal space. Thank you again, American.

Photo from av8pix on Flickr.

I fly Southwest because I can sit anywhere the hell I want. While 13 is my lucky number, I don't want to sit in row 13 when there are only 16 rows. Statistically speaking, if a plane were to go down, I'd be safer in the back. But if the plane goes down, I want to make sure that I don't have to spend 15 years as a vegetable without arms and legs.

I fly Southwest because their planes are big, filled with real people with normal sized egos, and because I don't hit my head on the ceiling when I stand.

American feels like heaving sighs and substantial eye-rolling, but mostly like being trapped in a tiny seat by grapefruit-balled men.

Mold.

2011-02-21T13:33:00.000-05:00

Four Fridays ago...maybe I shouldn't admit this here...after a margarita or two with a friend, I spent the later part of the evening repotting seedlings. Some of my lovely little seedlings were finally getting large enough that it was time to move them over to real pots and real soil. This is the first year that I started my seeds in a germination tray, so scooping them out and getting them into bigger pots was quite a process.

Then: Pretty little basils all in a row.

I was successful at getting them nestled into their 3" plastic pots, which had been soaked in a 9:1 water/bleach solution. Not two days later, I notice a fine film of mold growing on top of each little patch of soil. And not just on the little seedlings! I also repotted some of my coleous rootings and they were moldy as well. I was crushed! Here, I've worked so hard to create strong and successful plants only to be thwarted by a mold that I can only assume came from unclean reused pots despite my having soaked them in bleach.

Wrong.

As I prepared for the drastic measure of repotting my recently repotted delicate seedling, I opened a second bag of Sta-Green Moisture Max. The first bag had been completely depleted during Friday's repot-o-rama. I open the bag to find that the soil is COVERED in mold. COVERED. WTH? It wasn't expensive, but I really do expect more when I purchase things from Lowe's. I realize that Lowe's isn't the best place to get everything, but for a place which many would consider their "go to" for gardening stuff this is crap. Needless to say I was disappointed.

I was happy to attempt to turn my frown upside down.

On a whim, I did something I NEVER do. At 10pm on a Monday night, the giant and I went to Walmart. I hate Walmart [insert rant about destruction of small town America, killing of local businesses, etc]. Walmart had a GREAT organic Miracle Grown potting soil which was far higher quality than that Sta-Green shit. (Don't get me wrong - I don't have a problem with Sta-Green, it's the improper storage of the soil that most likely lead to the mold problem. I blame Lowe's.)

In a tizzy, two weeks ago, on Monday at nearly midnight, I repotted 8 previously potted seedlings (sun gold tomatoes and borage), and I potted 6 cherokee purples and 3 basils.

Things are looking up in the Ninny-Giant household. I'm happy to report that two weeks later, there's not a trace of that mold, or that Sta-Green potting soil...it got returned to Lowe's.

The seedlings have since been relocated upstairs to the office...and wrapped in a foil tent. The giant is slightly embarrassed and has predicted that the neighbors think that I am trying to prevent aliens from reading my thoughts. But, no, that's not the case. In fact, I am working hard to simply increase the light that my little green family is getting. It's working too. My tomatoes are huge and so is my lettuce!

Lovely foil tent!

Brind'Amour

2011-02-19T13:05:00.001-05:00

Last night, the bearded giant and I went to watch the Canes play on a very special night. Last night, they retired Rod Brind'Amour's number from the Canes. It is an amazing sentiment - no player who joins the team will ever wear #17 again. I wasn't ready for Brind'Amour to leave the team when he did. And after he'd left, I was hopeful that his knee injury would heal and that he'd come back and steer the team again. Not the case, of course. It was an emotional night and I was thankful that we were sitting next to some diehard hockey fans, but sad to be sitting in front of some douches who talked through the game and didn't know a thing about hockey.

I hate to be judgmental about the fans at Canes games. There are definitely the good, the bad and the ugly. Word to the wise: if you go on a night when they're honoring one of the most accomplished leaders that the team has ever had, you should probably just watch the game with reverence and shut.your.piehole.

That being said, it was an anxiety-inducing game where players who have been going through the motions stepped up, shaped up and looked great. Cole and LaRose were on fire last night. Skinner, who looks pretty green on the ice...and a little too graceful for my tastes, picked up the pace and seemed a bit in awe of Rod the Bod. They were all playing a little harder and their lines looked a little better. That being said, every time we had a Power Play, we blew it. Rather than shooting over and over again, we puttered around, taking our time and sometimes not even taking shots...

In the end, we prevailed 3-2 over the Flyers. And while sometimes winning matters, what mattered last night was that we got a little bit of the fire back.

All Star Hockey Weekend

2011-02-14T11:15:00.000-05:00

I know, I know...All Star Weekend was two weekends ago now. Things have been busy at work, things have been busy at home...

The giant and I had fun playing with tens of thousands of other hockey fans in the Raleigh area. He took a million pictures, and I couldn't really narrow it down to just one or two great ones. I went ahead and just did a few here. I loved the skills session. In addition to seeing some damn cool hockey skills, the mascots played in their own hockey game, and then walked all over the RBC Center. Highly entertaining. We had a blast.

The Hockey Times

2011-02-02T12:01:00.000-05:00

I'm almost glad the weekend is over...and I'm exhausted. This was the NHL All-Star weekend in Raleigh. The city was packed with NHL folks, with players, festivities, red carpets and overall hockey madness. It was excellent. Friday night, I went to a signing and got my Canes jersey signed by Tim Gleason. Saturday, the giant and I went to the RBC Center for some of the red carpet festivities before we headed into the All-Star Skills Session. The skills session was almost like a team bonding experience for Team Lidstrom and Team Staal. It was a lot of fun to watch. Of course, the actual All-Star game was on Sunday and while, Staal's team didn't win, they played a (mostly) good game. As the giant and I kept saying, All-Star weekend is the only time that we'd ever consider cheering for a Bruin, Penguin or Cap.

Last night we went to the Canes/Bruins game. And true to form...there was NO cheering for the Bruins. Not when Chara shot a puck at Skinner's ankle, and not when they won the game. Miracle of miracles, Jamie McBain (who's been a bit of a disappointment to me this season) scored one of the two goals. I'm pretty sure it was an accident. I'm pretty sure it just happened to ricochet off his stick. Whatever. I'll take it. I was amazed that the game was sold out - and I was psyched that we had awesome seats.

In other news, I am trying to tone down my plant-love. Aside from having been accused of plant attachment parents and being called a helicopter parent, another friend (and blog reader) called my plants my pseudo children. A brief update - they're all fine, healthy, and getting very tall.

Growth, expansion & internet purchasing.

2011-01-27T18:53:00.001-05:00

These past few weeks have been busy ones, I switched jobs and I'm still getting accustomed to the new one. I very much like the folks I'm working with, and the students that I've met thus far (mostly who've been asking for directions) have been lovely. I spent the day today reading through the files in my office and the files on the network, trying to figure out where we've come from and where we're going. It's always nice at the end of a day to have something nice to come home to - like doggies, kitties, seedlings and...well, I'd say the giant, but he's in bed sick with a cold. Poor fella.

Yesterday evening, while trying to focus on my taxes after 2 gin & tonics, I stumbled upon a delightful blog: Hitchhiking to Heaven. As yet, I haven't fully had the time to explore and learn from it as I hope to, but even the first post that I found was helpful. A few things about the blog - winning points, I think - the blog's author is a prizewinning jam maker and she outlines some helpful "don'ts" of gardening. In one short reading of this blog post and the comments, I learn a lot about what I'm doing right and what I could be doing better. After all, I've only had a garden for one year - before that it was all container gardening. Best ideas yet: surround your seedlings and grow light in foil to intensify the light AND put an oscillating fan near them to immigrate the wind and strength the seedlings. Great ideas. I just need to drag my oscillating fan down to the kitchen and I can get started! (At right, much like Hitchhiking to Heaven mentioned, I started to get a little bit of a mold problem, stemming from my bamboo fork markers.)

Each day when I come home from work, I'm consumed with adoration for my little seedling friends. I say to the giant (who always reminds me that I say it everyday), that I could just spend all day watching my seedlings grow. I've been so thrilled about their progress, that I'd nearly forgotten that I'd ordered some additional seeds and some gardening accouterments. I ordered from two different websites and the first has arrived. I normally try to get seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. They're located in Virginia not too, too far from where I grew up. I feel confident that their suggestions of what will grow well in the mid-Atlantic area will do well here. Thus far, I haven't been too wrong. I an anxious to start planting the peppers, tomatoes and herbs that arrived today!

I spend so much time peering at my seedling dirt that I think I might pull an ocular muscle. Thankfully, today, I have something to show for my intense peering. I'm also starting to get some healthy second sets of leaves on my tomatoes and lettuces.

Now that I've had some time to play with the garden, I'd better get out and walk that dog before she starts planting unmentionables around the house.

Dolce Vita Basil Blend.........................14 seedlings
Borage....................................................2 seedlings
Oak Leaf Lettuce Blend.........................MANY seedlings!
Cherokee Purple Tomatoes....................7 seedlings
Sun Gold Tomatoes................................6 seedlings
Long Purple Eggplant............................1 seedling
California Orange Wonder Pepper
Orange Fogo Thai Chili Pepper.............1 in the process of emerging (see above)
Chocolate Habanero Pepper
Red Mushroom Pepper...........................1 in the process of emerging
Scotch Bonnet Pepper............................1 seedling!
Gypsy Pepper (forget about this one)....4 seedlings!

Ongoing Seedling Excitment.

2011-01-26T08:15:00.003-05:00

Ok, ok. Fine! I'm a doting, obsessive helicopter parent.

Dolce Vita Basil Blend.........................14 seedlings
Borage....................................................2 seedlings
Oak Leaf Lettuce Blend.........................MANY seedlings!
Cherokee Purple Tomatoes....................7 seedlings
Sun Gold Tomatoes................................6 seedlings
Long Purple Eggplant............................1 seedling
California Orange Wonder Pepper
Orange Fogo Thai Chili Pepper
Chocolate Habanero Pepper
Red Mushroom Pepper

Scotch Bonnet Pepper............................1 seedling!

Gypsy Pepper (forget about this one)....4 seedlings!

helicopter planting

2011-01-25T17:08:00.001-05:00

The giant accused me of being a seedling helicopter parent yesterday.

I think that's taking a bit far.

Dolce Vita Basil Blend........................14 seedlings
Borage..................................................2 seedlings
Oak Leaf Lettuce Blend.......................MANY seedlings!
Cherokee Purple Tomatoes..................5 seedlings
Sun Gold Tomatoes..............................6 seedlings

Long Purple Eggplant............................1 seedling!

California Orange Wonder Pepper
Orange Fogo Thai Chili Pepper
Chocolate Habanero Pepper
Red Mushroom Pepper
Scotch Bonnet Pepper

I am just excited. Can you blame me? Everytime I turn around, I've got another seedling popping up!

Gardening in 2011

2011-01-23T12:28:00.001-05:00

I love planning my garden. Thankfully, with the help of resources like Dave's Garden, the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange seed catalog, and the agricultural resources of NC State University, I think I've got a great plan on my hands.

As I mentioned before, I've started my little seeds under a grow light. They seem to be doing well. I have more seeds to start soon, but I wanted to get started early in order to see how viable some of my seeds were.

Dolce Vita Basil Blend........................13 seedlings
Borage..................................................2 seedlings
Oak Leaf Lettuce Blend.......................MANY seedlings!
Cherokee Purple Tomatoes..................3 seedlings
Sun Gold Tomatoes..............................6 seedlings
Long Purple Eggplant
California Orange Wonder Pepper
Orange Fogo Thai Chili Pepper
Chocolate Habanero Pepper
Red Mushroom Pepper
Scotch Bonnet Pepper

The earliest that I would expect to see emerging seedlings from the eggplant or peppers would be around the end of this week. They all seem to take around a minimum of 10 days to emerge.

In addition to these seedlings, I have a table full of coleus plants. You can propagate coleus by taking clippings and putting them in water. After a few days, they'll start producing roots. I did that months ago now (with the help of my mother). As a result, I have 15 coleus plants which I moved to 3" pots a month or so ago. I've got a good variety - they range from bright green to deep red, and I'm very anxious to get them into the garden.

After my never-ending front flower bed rehab last fall, I'm excited to enjoy a verdant landscape. Because coleus isn't free or all that cheap, I decided that I'd go ahead and just root as many as I can. If I have too many, I can share them with neighbors. Just below here you can see my plans for my front bed. Everything is already in place except for the Phlox and Coleus.

My biggest goal with my overall gardening this year is to increase the productivity of my veggie garden by also increasing the pollinators that I attract. I have a mason bee house which I plan to hang out back. I've also worked to plan out a garden that could (if all goes according to plan) do wonders for attracting butterflies as well. I have planned out a handful of plants that are nectar plants for butterflies, as well as larval plants for them.

Nectar:
Mint
Parsley
Coneflower
Yarrow
Sweet Alyssum
Lavender
Globe Candytuft
Sunflower
Phlox
Coreopsis
Aster

Larval:
Parsley
Hollyhock
Aster

I've also ordered all of the remaining tomato seeds that I need to get this party started. Soon, the vacant section under the grow light will be filled with even more tiny adorable seedlings. I'll keep you posted.

The Beginnings of Garden 2011.

2011-01-19T13:24:00.001-05:00

This past weekend, my dad came to visit for a long weekend. I'm pretty sure it's the longest we've spent together since 2001. He drove down from Virginia along with some family furniture, Czechoslovakian crystal and other miscellaneous goods. We had a great time moving furniture, visiting my favorite garden store and introducing him to my neighbor-friends. I was sad to see him go on Monday afternoon, but I had a lot of tasks ahead of me.

The giant had been away for the better part of the weekend, and returned on Sunday with a stomach bug. Quarantined in the bedroom, it left me ample time to do something I'd been hoping to do - namely, start my seeds for this summer's garden. I know it seems early, but for peppers, basil, lettuce and tomatoes, it's just right! I wanted to start early to give myself some opportunity for error. If things don't grow, or don't look strong enough, I can always start another set of seeds, or if worse comes to worse, buy some seedlings.

Much to the dismay of the giant and my mother, I bought a grow light in December. Right now, that grow light is helping me to start some chocolate habenaros, orange fogo chili peppers, scotch bonnet peppers, orange wonder peppers, red mushroom peppers, cherokee purple tomatoes, sun gold cherry tomatoes, borage a variety pack of basil and some oak leaf lettuce. The bulk of those seedlings will get potted in larger pots once they've got some good leaves on them, but the basil and oak leaf lettuce are going to be put into pots to be grown indoors and to be consumed sooner rather than later.

I'm also going in with some neighbors to work to have a wide variety of different veggies this year. I'm been blessed with a neighborhood full of amateur gardeners.

I'll keep you posted on the status of my seedlings!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful.

2011-01-11T09:28:00.001-05:00

I seem to have reverted back to the early 2000's. I spent the weekend watching the intermittent snow flurries, and watching Charmed (I know it's not good, but I like it.) It was all for a good cause - I've been working diligently on the giant's Cobblestone. Realizing, of course, that I started this sweater in the fall of 2009, I still feel the urge to finish this while it's still cold out.

I love this pattern. It's such an easy pattern, and it looks like it's going to be so perfect for him. The giant likes to wear button downs underneath sweaters, so I am hoping that it will get a lot of wear. I'm finally done with my concurrently knitted sleeves. After that, I am hoping that I can get it finished in a day or two. Yay!

Now, I'm up in DC for work (new job!) and I'm looking forward to some stationary airport sitting time. I've just joined the sleeves to the body. It wasn't the most intuitive thing. Thankfully, there were a few posts about it on Ravelry. I don't know what we knitters did before Ravelry. What an amazing resource - all patterns, yarns and projects are cataloged and searchable!

I've managed to miss the snow in Raleigh...but I may not escape the related delays. It looks like a ton of flights were delayed and canceled in and out of Raleigh this morning. The snow is going to be hitting the DC area right around time for my flight home this afternoon. I'm hoping I'll escape just before anything starts collecting here.

Wish me luck getting home!

Confusion in the Space-Time Continuum

2011-01-06T08:25:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I was last at work - a week ago today, to be exact.

The giant and I had a lovely staycation. We had hoped to do some traveling up to visit his family, but flight costs and booked kennels got the best of us.

Much to his chagrin, we spent the last 5 days selling a ton of our belongings on Craigslist. Among the spoils: a sofa bed, a loveseat, 2 tables, 6 chairs, a pressure cooker and a blender. There are still things up there, but the good stuff went quickly. With the cash from our sales, we have purchased a mahogany antique china cabinet, a mahogany antique buffet and an a walnut antique dining set. The china cabinet and buffet are exactly what we wanted. The table is close but not quite. The giant and I have very different taste in furniture. I like delicate and refined; he likes pieces that look fit for a Medieval castle. Never the two shall meet, so we compromised. I'm thrilled with our purchases and I can't wait to fully integrate them into our household.

I also spent a good deal of time working on the giant's sweater. I started it AGES ago, but had trouble with sizing and then just couldn't motivate to do the sleeves. Thanks to my friend Jess, I am knitting both sleeves simultaneously, which prevents me from catching second sleeve syndrome. I'm truly hoping that I can finish the whole kit and kaboodle this weekend. I will keep you posted.

On the less positive side, I have to go back to work after days and days and days off. In fact, I am shocked to say that including today, I have only 5 business days in my office before I switch jobs. Very intense.

On that note, off to work!

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-28T19:19:00.001-05:00

Man, this past month has been incredibly hectic. In addition to traveling for work and finalizing the giant's move into my little townhouse, we've also had a couple holidays and a killer party. :) The weekend before last, my mom came into town for our own little Christmas. She came down last year right after I bought the house, so it was great having her here again on my house's birthday.

Mom and I in front of this year's tree.

I'd like to say that we relaxed while she was in town, but the truth is that we were crazy busy. We had grocery shopping and cooking and baking and copious amounts of cleaning to be done before we were able to throw ourselves a holiday party. The giant and I both invited a lot of people and surprisingly most folks came. It was lovely. We had just over 30 people on the 2nd floor of my house, crowding my kitchen, creeping up my stairwell and noshing on lots of different food bits. The trooper that she is, my mom was able to kick it late night with us until nearly 3:00am. We were all totally exhausted the next day - Ellie included. The fun didn't stop there though - we also went to a killer hockey game (go Canes!) and for the first time in a while, the Canes actually did win. As always, it was super sad to see her go, but I know she'll be back soon.

Opening gifties, our stockings (note the giant's on the left), our tree, mom and I at the hockey game!

This past weekend, the giant and I headed out to the mountains of Virginia to celebrate Christmas with some other family members. Dad, his wife, their Boston Terrier, my uncle and my cousin were all around making merry with us. We took Ellie with us, which was relatively stressful. She doesn't do well with new people, large crowds, or other dogs - all of which she had to contend with. She did love the large fenced in backyard that was available to her....and the deer poop that she found within. Ew.

I wasn't sure what to expect, celebration-wise. There wasn't a tree, but there was a fireplace. There wasn't a Santa Claus, but there were lots of warm family opportunities. We exchanged our gifts on Christmas morn, and I was very, very touched that my recently-widowed Uncle Joe, gave me a huge box of my Aunt Anita's knitting things. The box was filled with wonderful yarns, scores of knitting needles and accoutrement that I've always wanted. With some of the yarn were the patterns that Aunt Anita had intended to knit. On the way home, I started knitting a swatch to start one of the sweaters that she had hoped to knit. Before she passed away, I remember her lamenting to me how horrible it was to realize that your yarn stash would outlive you. I hope that somewhere up there she can appreciate that she's reinvigorated my knitting and spinning aspirations.

The snow that awaited us upon our return!

One of those weeks.

2010-12-02T21:15:00.000-05:00

I hope that everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. I know that I certainly did. The giant and I spent turkey day eating with our neighbors J&J. Our turkey was grilled and we had a variety of delicious sides. For dessert, I made a Martha Stewart pie - Quince Slab Pie. It was really delicious. I followed the recipe almost exactly. After it was in the oven, I added some additional sugar and some cornstarch to the poaching liquid and came up with my very own quince caramel. It wasn't quite perfect, but it was damn tasty.

The giant and I had a second Thanksgiving alone together on Saturday. I spent the day dividing my time between cleaning, cooking and running some errands. At the end of the day, we had a turkey breast (stuffed with apples, onions, carrots, celery and ginger), gravy, mashed sweet potatoes with walnuts, roasted beets and brussel sprouts, cranberry cornbread stuffing and, of course, Apple-Cheddar Pie.

I do love cooking and baking. It's been a crazy busy week. There have been meetings, deadlines, scheduling meetings for travel, interviews, doctor's appointments...oh yeah...and all of the stuff that has to happen in the evenings once I get home. Thankfully, with the help of neighbors J&J, I'm shaking off some of this week's stress. After I'd just gotten in an altercation with a neighbor who lets her dog off the leash regularly (she argued that her dog wasn't dangerous, I argued that my dog didn't know her dog and I didn't know how Ellie would react - obviously, I'm wrong. Dogs should be allowed off leash.) and after Ellie went surfing in the litter for kitty crunchies, and after a very long day at work, I was glad to accept a dinner invitation to Dos Taquitos, especially since there's only some leftover turkey, some peanuts and a single bratwurst in the frig. I love that place.

This is one of those weeks that makes me anxious for Friday. Fridays are days to catch up on sleep, work, house work, cuddling, dog walking and baking. I can't wait for Friday.

Fall in Review

2010-11-13T14:49:00.000-05:00

I've gotten really bad about posting to the little, old blog, haven't I? Well, things have been busy. Work travel, personal travel, weddings, bronchitis. You know, same old, same old.

To fill in some of the blanks, to replace my beloved Honda, I got a Subaru Forester. It's amazing. In addition to having nearly no blind spots for me, it also has heated seats and an enormous sunroof. Win! It's super easy to just put Ellie in the back and take her for a spin. She loves it. So much more room and better visibility than the Honda. She's a silvery beige that my mom calls "Greige." I think she's on to something.

By now, the garden has mostly died off. I picked off all of the green tomatoes and I'm hoping to make Fried Green Tomatoes tonight. Should be delicious! I can't wait. I love them, but I've never made them before. Still growing out there are some fall crops - mostly broccoli and swiss chard. The broccoli looks awesome...the chard...not so much. Right after I planted a bunch of stuff out there, we had some hellacious torential downpours for nearly a week straight. That drowned a bunch of stuff, and what didn't drown was slightly damaged.

Also, since I last blogged, with the help of my mom and dear little Jiffy, I was able to actually dig up my entire front flowerbed and completely overhaul the soil. I dug out all of the rocks and gravel (and rusty nails and Styrofoam cups). I mixed some of the soil with compost and soil conditioner, and then I disgarded the remaining dirt that didn't fit back in the hole. I also moved one of my miscellaneous little bushes and added a few things. The front bed now has 4 coreopsis plants, 3 sedums, a dwarf fountain grass, an aster and a shit-ton of bulbs. I planted grape hyacinths, alliums, fritillaria, anemones, naked ladies and surprise lillies. There's going to be room for me to do some coleus and dwarf phlox once the spring rolls around. And under the Bradford pear in the front yard, I planted snow drops, crocuses, bearded irises and some daffodils. I can't wait for spring.

And below is a collage of what's been going on. In the center, the giant and I in Boston at Fenway Gardens. Starting in the top left corner and going left to right, row by row:

Church ceiling in Cambridge where my friends Sara and DT got married
Bee on Sweet Autumn Clematis in Fenway Gardens
What my front yard looked like for the better part of 3 weeks while I dug up the front bed
Goofiness at the Green Acres Corn Maze
More goofiness after we finished the corn maze
Mom and I at Trav & Kate's wedding reception
Tra & Kate at the wedding reception
Me dressed up for Halloween as a Freudian Slip
The Bearded Giant dressed up as Sweeney Todd
My carved pumpkin
My attempt at making the Cuban dish picodillo
And last, but not least, now that the giant is living with me...his cat lives here too. And as you can see, Ellie and the cat seem to be getting along quite well.

i love this.

2010-10-15T11:13:00.000-04:00

reblogged from http://kittensandrainbowsanddragons.blogspot.com

i heart mornings.

2010-10-13T07:22:00.002-04:00

I love morning projects. This morning, I contemplated recaulking the master bathtub, but decided that instead, I would install a hose hanger that I got at Lowe's a few weeks ago. I purchased it right before they put up all of their Christmas stuff, totally eclipsing Thanksgiving in the process. I sacrificed a shower (sorry coworkers) in favor of getting something done during daylight hours. The days are getting shorter and it's hard to get things done in the evenings now.

I installed my hose hanger, which much to the dismay of my neighbors involved me drilling into my deck and then using the drill to set screws into it. The hose is hung in it's place, and I feel good that I accomplished something.

I was also amazed that when I went down to the garden, I was able to harvest 2 cherokee purple tomatoes, 2 roma tomatoes (Ellie ate one and I ate one), a handful of sungolds, 2 radishes and 3 fish peppers. There are another 2 or 3 cherokee purples and probably a pint more of slowly ripening sungolds. So much for it being autumn. Looks like my summer garden's going strong.

Garden Woes

2010-10-06T06:35:00.001-04:00

I have been in the midst of my biggest garden project since I purchased my house. Sadly, the soil in Raleigh is all red clay, which isn't the best for growing much of anything. Two weekends ago, I set to renovating my entire front flower bed. It's not huge, but it's big enough to make me wish I still had that initial gusto.

As the bearded giant and my mother can attest to, I go whole hog with these gardening projects. I can't do ANYTHING half-way. I started the project on Saturday, September 25. Wielding my grandfather's wooden handled garden tools, I started digging. I dug up nearly the entire bed in order to remove the rocks, mix in soil conditioner and compost and then actually plant some stuff. The clay was so hard that I could hardly make any progress digging down as far as I wanted to, or even just getting it out of the bed. With the giant's help, I managed to get the process started. Mulch on one tarp and clay soil on one tarp, I started picking out rocks by hand. Well, it's not much of a surprise that when darkness fell on Saturday, I wasn't too far along. Sunday, I spent the day plugging along until just after lunchtime when the heavens opened and unleashed buckets, nay, barrels full of water.

It rained Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. When Saturday, October 2nd rolled around, I had to bail out the void that was formerly known as my flower bed. It's a foot deep...and at least 6' wide. It took six mop buckets full of water before it was empty. After that, I commenced de-rocking, mixing new soil and, finally, planting. I planted some of my anemones, fritillaria, naked ladies (a type of amaryllis) and surprise lillies. I also got a newly purchased dwarf fountain grass planted as well.

I'm not yet done with any part of the process. I still have a coreopsis, and more bulbs to plant in the front... And then there's the back. I've got 2 dendranthemums (perennial mum), some loiropes, some creepers for around the pathway in my backyard AND some hardy asters.

Jeez. What did I get myself in to?

Difficult Goodbye

2010-09-09T10:36:00.003-04:00

I've had two cars in my life. I've been driving for 14 years.

My first car was a 1986 Mazda 626 LX. It was high tech for that time - power windows, power locks and oscillating vents. When I would unlock the driver-side door with my key, all of the locks in the car would pop up. The only time I didn't love the power locks was when ONLY the driver-side door would unlock with the key, which was a dead giveaway that the battery was dead. I turned 16 in August, but was caught sneaking out (actually sneaking back in - REALLY poor form - at 6 in the morning) just before my birthday. I'd been hoping for a car, but that crushed all hope. On Thanksgiving day in 1996, I went on a cleaning rampage. While cleaning, I alternated talking on the phone and listening to music. I reorganized my room, vacuumed, tidied, changed my sheets - the whole nine yards. In fact, I even dusted and shook my dust rag outside the front door. What I failed to notice until nearly dinner time, was that there was a strange car parked in our driveway...with a GIANT RED BOW ON IT. My parents thought I was going crazy...or blind...

Upon seeing the effort that my parents put into surprising me and presenting me with that Mazda helped me to fall in love with it immediately. She lasted until 2002. At that point, she was burning oil and had a leak in the break line. It seemed as though it was time to let her go. She was a good car - no, a great car. And I passed her on to her next (and presumably last) owner with 200,000 miles, 10 bumper stickers (including a Harley-Davidson sticker and a rainbow sticker). She was purchased by a father for her high school aged daughter.

I bought my second car on the day after Christmas in 2002 - a great time to buy a car. I'd saved up some money from working, from college graduation gifts and my parents helped me out a bit. I bought my 1997 Honda Civic LX outright, and I've had it for just under 8 years. It's been another great car. Outside of regular maintenance, I don't think I've spent more than $5,000 on repairs in the last 8 years. Not too shabby.

I didn't love the car right away, and that concerned my mom. She'd ask me frequently if I loved my car yet...and it was probably a year or two before I did. My Mazda picked me (or at least that's how I thought of it, since I didn't choose it myself) and I never coveted other people's cars, and I was never dissatisfied with it. While I did purchase my Honda, I didn't pick it. It was what was reliable and available and had decent mileage...although 80,000 miles seems pretty high to me now. I learned to love it and she's taken me all over the east coast - as far north as Rhode Island and down to Georgia.

Her time with me is waning and I feel sad about that. Her clutch is wonky, her engine sounds gravely and I think there's an exhaust issue going on. I felt that she would last me until I was ready to move on to a new car, but it seems as though she's petering out more quickly than I'd thought she would. I often feel like I don't drive that much, but my commute to work is 30 minutes each way. I need a vehicle that won't run the risk of leaving me stranded on the side of the road in rush hour traffic. I need a vehicle that can travel to visit my friends and family without me having to consider if there is someone who can retrieve me from a rural road in the middle of Virginia or on I-95. I love her, but I need to pass her on to the next person...and tomorrow's the day.

Discoveries.

2010-09-05T11:25:00.000-04:00

Today has been a day of discoveries for me.

When I woke up this morning, I discovered that drinking a bottle of wine, a Mike's Hard Lemonade AND a 22oz bottle of Smirnoff Ice was a bad idea. No matter how fun the bonfire that I went to was, that Smirnoff Ice was not a good idea. It was a far superior idea to the 40oz Miller High Life that the other bonfire-goers were enjoying.

I also discovered that my body is not as spry as it used to be. Yesterday, I endeavored to reseed my lawn. About 10 minutes into my prep-work of lightly watering and using a cultivator to aerate the lawn, I discovered that I have less of a lawn and more of a rock quarry. I continued the process of working to prep the lawn, but decided I should wait to reseed later this week. Upon waking up, I discovered that not only does my back hurt from bending over, but my wrists and hands hurt from using the cultivator for a couple hours yesterday.

The broccoli, swiss chard and lettuce seedlings that I have to plant in my winter garden seemed well-placed on my kitchen floor, bathed in the sunlight streaming through my sliding glass doors. I discovered that despite that ideal location, placing them there was a bad idea. Ellie, my bad, bad English Setter, loves strawberries, tomatoes (she tried to steal my largest prized tomato right off the vine last week) and a variety of other veggies and fruits. Apparently she likes her greens, as she tried to dive right into noshing on the swiss chard earlier today.

And lastly, I consulted the ciabatta recipe that I used when I last baked ciabatta for my birthday party. I realized that although I did create a delectable bread, I completely mucked up the recipe. It calls for 500 grams of flour and nearly that of water. I knew that 500 grams of water was around 2 cups. I assumed (VERY erroneously) that 500 grams of flour was 2 cups. Oh, no, no. Grams, of course, are a weight-based measurement and cups, teaspoons, etc are volume-based. So, here I am accurately following this recipe for Ciabatta: Jason's Quick Coccodrillo Ciabatta Bread. I am also going to make my mucked up version, which I will work to perfect a bit and then post on here as well.

As I said, it's been a day of discoveries...and it's only 11:30am.

QT with mom

2010-08-26T13:43:00.000-04:00

Photo update from spending time with mom at Cylburn Arboreatum:

I love it there. They recently finished building a new visitor center which is a great building that would be great for all sorts of events. It was nice to walk around with mom since we both enjoy plants so much!

Tart, tarte, tort, torte...

2010-08-26T13:34:00.001-04:00

Last night, I finally got into the kitchen after a long respite away. In addition to being too busy to spend hours slaving over my KitchenAid and my Cuisinart, it's been too damn hot to run the oven.

When I got home from work, I got to work on a nut torte. The basic construction was a base of homemade shortbread, a layer of jam and then a fluffy almond bread on top. It took a good long time to make each of the pieces of the puzzle, and I finished up just after midnight. The end result was worth the baking battle though. It's dense, moist and mildly sweet. I had some for breakfast...as did most of my coworkers. It was lovely with a cup of coffee. The only concern I have that in addition to the 2 sticks of butter and 8 eggs - the finished product is made in a 9"x13" pan. That is a lot of damn food.

I went ahead and brought some in to work, stuck some in the frig and some in the freezer. I told my mom that I'd save her some for when she comes to visit in a few weeks.

And here's breakfast:

Today was a good day.

2010-08-17T21:23:00.002-04:00

It's the simple things in life that matter. Although a somewhat late delivery, today, my best friend, Julie, sang "Happy Birthday" to me.

In December 2003, Julie received a lung and liver transplant. After her road to recovery, she's led a (mostly) normal life with all of its ups and downs. Last Thursday was one of those downs.

Thursday morning, Julie's boyfriend could not wake her up. She was unconscious for the better part of the day, even once she'd been stabilized at our hometown hospital. By Friday afternoon, she'd arrived at Duke by helicopter. In her sleep on Wednesday night, Julie aspirated something into those wonderful transplanted lungs, which were already strained.

She spent several days sedated with a feeding tube and on a ventilator. It was hard to watch. Julie's sprightly, bossy and ultimately, very in control of what's going on around her. Yesterday, they brought her off sedation and took out her feeding tube and ventilator. Since then, she's been turning into her old self. Whereas yesterday, she could hardly lift her own arms, today she could roll herself over in bed. Yesterday, she could hardly interact with company, today she greeted each of her visitors by name.

She managed a few jokes, and so did I. When I asked her if she wanted me to sing for her, she vehemently shook her head no. That's status quo - she hates my singing (and always has)...and my whistling for that matter.

And, despite being fairly exhausted, she pulled me to her for a hug and sang to me. I mean, it didn't sound all that great, but it's the gift that counts, right?

Travels to the Old Dominion

2010-08-11T11:23:00.002-04:00

Last weekend, the giant and I headed up to the mountains of Virginia to visit with my college friends and revel in nature. We had an amazing time. My friend's parents own a horse farm that is next to the Appalachian Trail and which borders the Shenandoah. In every direction, we were surrounded by beauty and nature. Among the highlights from the weekend: really good beer, fresh homegrown produce, deer, dogs, tubing and stepping knee deep into a stream accidentally. It was hard to come back home and head to work on Monday...and it was just hard for me to leave Virginia. As we were driving away from the farm, I felt sad and lonely for Virginia. The Blue Ridge Mountains shaped and influenced the first 20 years of my life, it's hard to think that they aren't in my backyard anymore. When I think to myself of what I want my next house to look like, it's old, brick, has a sunny yard and is located in the Old Dominion state. I'm not so sure that will be my next house, but I'm hoping that I can get back there at sometime in old age.

The Carriage House aka My House :)

I also had the chance to stop in Fredericksburg, VA, which is another one of my favorite places. I love Virginia and it's history, and Fredericksburg is steeped in history. It's home to George Washington's childhood home, to his first Masonic Lodge and to his sister's home. I'm always amazed at the downtown area of Fredericksburg, which if you've never been there, is delightful. It's got shops, stores, restaurants...and the obligatory tattoo parlor. It's reminiscent of old town Alexandria, DC's Eastern Market and Harper's Ferry, WV. We spent an afternoon tooling around and enjoying the atmosphere. We stopped by the farmer's market, the college, and two of my favorite places: Hyperion Coffee and Sammy T's restaurant.

The giant at Sammy T's...

And now, back home in NC, I'm suffering through the 90°+ temperatures, the humidity and missing Virginia. I've been keeping myself busy with knitting again...or still, depending on how you look at it. Last night, I finished the Aviatrix baby hat. Tonight, I'm hoping to make some progress on figuring out Ysolda's Urchin hat. For some reason, even consulting both the Knitty and the Ravelry patterns has left me slightly confused. It seems that I might have to write it out row by row... Blargh. I'm hoping that I can crank through it and finish it tonight, but that remains to be seen...

FO: Painted Circle Scarf

2010-08-05T20:44:00.001-04:00

Pattern: Painted Circle Scarf
Yarn: Lion Brand Homespun in Apple Green
Needles: Size10.5
Started: 7/31/2010
Finished: 8/5/2010

This is not my favorite yarn to knit with but who can complain about such a quick knit scarf! The pattern is pretty cool and develops pretty quickly. At first, I didn't understand how the scarf was going to lay, but once you get a few inches, it starts to drape nicely and you can see the shape develop. I loved this pattern. I have some additional Homespun that I got from a friend. I'm thinking I might just knit another one of these scarves as a gift.

Off to the farm...

2010-08-05T11:25:00.000-04:00

This week is another short week at work for me. In the summer, I often get to work from home, which I really enjoy. It means I get to work from my couch in my pjs with my dog next to me, and that's pretty great. No working from home this week. I've got today and tomorrow off. I love long weekends. The giant and I are heading up to Fredericksburg tonight to visit with my good friend Ginny. Sadly, her beautiful little girl will be asleep by the time we arrive, but I'm hoping to get up early and see her in the morning on Friday. We're gonna hang around Fredericksburg for a little while on Friday and then head to Dulles to pick up Jiff. A bunch of our college friends will be converging at a friend's family farm. It should be an amazing time. We get together once every summer for a weekend. The past few years it's been at the beach. Seems that we've lucked out this year - free accomodations, and our friend's mom is an amazing cook. This is going to be like a weekend at a bed and breakfast!

I got up early this morning to put together some gifts for this weekend's hostesses. Rye bread is it.

Much like last year, I celebrated my birthday with the giant. We tried for a self-portrait again this year...with much the same results as last year.

We went to Second Empire, which is an amazing restaurant here in Raleigh. The food was outstanding, the wine was amazing...and we loved our server, Walt.

I was pretty excited to get a personalized copy of the menu signed by the chef. :)

FO: Square Toed Lobster Booties

2010-08-04T11:59:00.000-04:00

Pattern: Page 81 Booties
Yarn: Colinette Cadenza in Lobster Pinch
Needles: Size 3
Started: 7/29/2010
Finished: 8/3/2010

I love this yarn and I had some leftover from knitting the baby sweater. I knit these booties a few years ago and really liked the pattern. I did it differently this time - I knit a garter stitch square and a stockinette square. Seaming them together was harder than I remembered and really irritated my carpal tunnel. I'm happy with the end result though.

FO: Cadenza Cross-Over Baby Sweater

2010-08-04T11:54:00.000-04:00

Pattern: Cadenza Cross-Over Baby Sweater
Yarn: Colinette Cadenza in Lobster Pinch
Needles: Size 3 and 5 Circulars
Started: 7/24/2010
Finished: 7/28/2010

I got this yarn to make a baby sweater out of a couple years ago. When I bought the yarn, I also got a copy of the pattern. The pattern is relatively quick to knit, but I had an amazing realization...I HATE seaming sweaters. All sweaters. Adult sweaters, I can manage, but it's just a waste of time when you're knitting a baby sweater. But if you're going to seam something, invisible seams sure are the way to go.

Birthday Spoils

2010-08-02T15:37:00.001-04:00

Last night I had folks over for a birthday gathering. I'll be turning 30 this week, so what better way to celebrate by eating carb-loaded and caloric foods! As always, I baked . Saturday morning, I started working on half of my project. My first task was to bake a couple loaves of ciabatta, which turned out to be more work than I had planned. Searching through The Fresh Loaf, I found a great recipe, which is actually fairly simple and easy to master. The only thing I was lacking was instant yeast, so I used active dry. I made 3 batches. During the first batch, I failed to follow instructions. I mixed the hell out of the dough too soon without allowing the yeast to sit and create some nice CO2. The second batch wasn't too bad but was slightly shapeless and slightly overcooked. The third batch was just right. The dough was good, the baking time was good and I remedied the shape by baking it in a 9"x13" pan with a foil divider in the middle to create two same sized loaves. Perfect.

Then, as thought that wasn't enough, I made a baguette starter on Saturday night to be finished on Sunday morning/afternoon. I ended up with 3 baguettes and they were delicious. I am going to use some of the leftover bread for fondue! Yay!

And lastly, as part of my cookbook testing duties, I made Elephant Ears. They were delicious and a huge success...and also a huge pain in the ass. Elephant Ears are made from puff pastry, and this recipe included a Blitz Puff Pastry recipe. Generally, puff pastry creation is long and tedious, but this wasn't too terrible in comparison. It did take me quite a while and the pastry dough itself was very strange to work with. I ended up with a triple recipe, so I froze to sheets. The dough for Elephant Ears is rolled out onto a heavily sugared surface and then rolled up to look like palm fronds or elephant ears! Lovely.

The birthday gathering was a blast. Lots of great food and lots of great people!

Tortillas!

2010-07-27T19:49:00.000-04:00

I was in a baking mood, but not so sure I was ready to tackle something huge. I was a little bummed that I didn't have any naan to go with my hummus or any tortillas to use with some chicken, cheese and salsa. Naan was a little more complex than I wanted, but homemade tortillas were super quick, very easy and tasty great. They turned out just the same consistency as tortillas you buy at the store, but fresher and less chewy. I just used the first recipe I stumbled onto when I searched for a recipe on my Blackberry. Here's the recipe.

I must say, making them round was the biggest challenge. Many of them are trapezoidal, but as long as that didn't impact the flavor, it didn't matter!

Making tortillas at home is definitely worth the time and energy!

OBX

2010-07-26T17:00:00.001-04:00

The giant and I are all over the place of late! We spent the weekend in the Outer Banks - with no air conditioning. It was Ellie's first time at the beach! She had a blast, but there were SO many birds to tempt her, I'm sure it was also a little torturous. It was pretty hot this weekend, so we spent our mornings and evenings at the beach.

Sunday, we drove from Rodanthe, where we were staying, all the way up Route 12 until the road ended. It was lovely. When I was growing up, we went down to the Outer Banks nearly every summer. Boy have things changed. We mostly stayed in Ocean Sands, which looks nothing like it used to. We also headed to the Wright Brothers Memorial...which was slightly miserable. It was very, very hot and very stagnant. That meant that the giant climbed to the top himself while Ellie and I air conditioned the car for his return.

FO: Cuddly Baby Wrap

2010-07-26T15:12:00.000-04:00

Pattern: Cuddly Baby Wrap
Yarn: Lion Brand Babysoft Solid in Pistachio
Needles: Size 7 Circular
Started: 7/19/2010
Finished: 7/23/2010

I think the finished product is adorable, however, the pattern itself was confusing. I don't know how I stumbled on the pattern, but it was probably while searching for free baby patterns on Ravelry. This was fairly quick to knit, and very uncomplicated. My only complaint is also a celebration - I hate this yarn...and I finished the skein.

Rye and Barley Breads

2010-07-20T09:26:00.002-04:00

Despite the ridiculous heat, I had the oven going again this weekend, as I baked 2 weeks worth of bread as part of my cookbook testing duties. The first loaves that I made were seeded rye bread, and the second loaves were barley bread. The recipes were both very simple, but they called for high gluten flour, which is very difficult to find down here. Other than that, I enjoyed making both. Making homemade bread is ridiculously easy - it just requires that you're at home for at least half the day.

The rye has a great flavor and a great texture. The crust is firm, but not hard and it yields to firm pressure. The crumb is even and the bread itself is chewy but also slightly airy.

The barley bread has nigella seeds in it, which give it a musty, salty taste, which remind me of the ocean. The crust is VERY hard - like, if I threw it at a window, it might break the window, hard. The crumb is nice and even and the bread itself is dense and chewy but pleasantly dense.

FO: Magic Slippers

2010-07-19T13:23:00.001-04:00

Pattern: Magic Slippers
Yarn: Lion Brand Babysoft Solid in Pistachio
Needles: Size 2 DPs
Started: 7/18/2010
Finished: 7/19/2010

This was a super quick pattern to knit. Such cute booties to match the February Baby Sweater I knit. I can't wait to give these away.

FO: Bellflower Shrug

2010-07-18T22:07:00.001-04:00

Pattern: Bellflower Shrug
The Bellflower Shrug was a free pattern published on MagKnits, which is no longer online. I have the pattern in a word document if anyone would like to have a copy.
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft
Needles: Size 6 and size 7 in DP and circular
Started: 7/8/2010
Finished: 7/18/2010

I started this last weekend when I was in Illinois/Wisconsin on vacation. The pattern is written to be worked flat, but I decided to knit it in the round to decrease the amount of purling on the wrong side - purling aggravates my carpal tunnel. It was a pretty quick knit - my only hangups were my occasional inability to count. I have a 2nd skein of Caron Simply Soft left. If I can't figure out what to do with it, I might just knit a gift shrug for a friend!

Yarn Pr0n

2010-07-16T14:21:00.001-04:00

Several years ago, it was all the rage that once every couple of weeks, knitters would have yarn pr0n on their blogs. Just a gratuitous homage to gorgeous yarn. I am not sure if I've ever done that or not. When I was up in Wisconsin last week, I managed to increase my stash by one skein of handspun silk and wool. It's pretty cool looking...I haven't decided what I'm gonna do with it, but I can't wait to plan around.

Without further ado, from Maple Hill Farm in Washburn, WI:

Dinosaurs, elephants and waterfalls

2010-07-15T12:09:00.005-04:00

The giant and I were gone for 4.5 days on a trip to Chicago and northern Wisconsin. If you look at a map, you can see that there's a LONG distance between those two points - that meant nearly 16 hours of unadulterated car-knitting. It was incredible. In addition to making STELLAR progress on the giant's sweater, I also started a shrug. It's not gorgeous, but I need to use up some crappy cheap yarn and that seemed like a good use. Yay for machine wash!

The trip was a blast. We headed to Chicago and spent a day exploring the city and doing touristy things. Despite it being summer and school being out, I think we dodged a bullet by going on a week day. At the end of the day, we met up with Jiff, had dinner and hit the road.

In the picture, you can see Sue at the Field Museum, an awesome row of dinghies down on the water, a statue bearing a hockey jersey and me with a large elephant constructed out of various types of tire rubber!

We drove northwards to DeForest, just north of Madison, where we retired to a hotel for the evening around 11pm. When we stepped out of the car, we were accosted by the smell of...well...a petting zoo. It smelled like green grassiness and manure. Despite the smell, at that stop off the highway, we didn't see a single farm animal. In an unprecedented and bold move, the bearded giant was not only up before me, but was up before 6am getting showered and ready to hit the road. At around 8am, we headed further northwards on the last leg of our journey.

What we saw of Wisconsin on our drive was mostly green pastures with the occasional town. We passed through a "resort" town, which was nearly beach-y in atmosphere - sort of kitchy and rundown in some ways. It was a beautiful drive, which the bearded giant was determined to do without any help. He heard no complaints from me, as that allowed me to knit for nearly 6 hours straight (ergo the progress on the giant's sweater and the knitted shrug).When we arrived in Ashland, WI, we had lunch The Black Cat Coffeehouse, where we ate and caught up with the giant's college friends. After lunch, we wandered around the town and up to Northland College. Northland is similar in size and architecture to where Jiff and I went to school, so it was an interesting comparison.

When we were done with out tour of Ashland, we went a few towns over for an Avett Brothers concert. I've never seen a venue quite like this one. It's called Big Top Chautauqua - during the winter, it's a place where you can ski...and in the off-season, it's a circus tent set up to house concerts. So unique. Both the opener, Elephant Revival, and the Avetts were great. Among the amusements there, they had a couple ski lift chairs around for seating and a great little dive bar which served original Leinenkugel in cans.

In the picture, you can see Jiff and I on the chair lift, Elephant Revival, the Avett Brothers and Jiff scowling while I knit in public!

On Saturday, we went for an awesome little hike up to a beautiful impressive waterfall. We went into Bayfield and explored the town. We went down to a little park right on Lake Superior which had some AWESOME swings to play on. I was impressed - they had something I'd never seen before - a Jenny Swing for disabled children. Sounds like a pretty great idea to me. We grabbed some coffee at Big Water and we had lunch at Maggie's - a ridiculously flamingo-enrobed restaurant with great food.

We went down to a gorgeous, peaceful beach right on Lake Superior. Along the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, about 5 miles east of Cornucopia, Wisconsin, is Meyers Beach. Beautiful beaches and awesome seacaves. The water was surprisingly warm and the sand was the finest texture I've ever seen. Just down the beach from where we were sunning ourselves was a fresh water stream draining into the lake, which had not taken the path of least resistance, snaking back and forth before settling on it's final path. After the beach, we went to the northern most Post Office in Wisconsin before heading home for a cookout and bonfire.

It was hard to get back into the car and drive 8 hours south to Chicago after such a nice relaxing vacation. It was certainly too short, but very relaxing and enjoyable. I think the bearded giant, Jiff and I are all settled back into our work weeks and certainly that relaxation is wearing off by now...

Challah

2010-07-07T12:52:00.004-04:00

Against my acupuncturist's wishes, I'm baking bread (she doesn't mind the baking so much as the consumption) and eating cheese quesadillas (definitely wants me to cut down on the dairy). I'm on staycation today, and I'm loving it. Ellie and I got up early so that we could go for a walk before it hit 101°. It was actually fairly nice out this morning considering the oppressive heat that we're suffering through at this moment.

I've spent the day tidying, cleaning, organizing, doing laundry and, of course, baking.

There's nothing I'd rather do that bake some awesome bread and share it with some awesome neighbors and friends. On the agenda today, for my cookbook testing fun, were Individual Challah Twists. I compared the recipe to several other challah recipes and it's not all that different in content and construction. I didn't completely heed the directions of the recipe though, as usual. The recipe should yield 12 individual twists, but I only made 5. I used the remaining 7 to braid a 3-ply and a 4-ply loaf of challah. I couldn't resist. The opportunity to actually make my own challah was too irresistible - I wanted it to look like the traditional braids.

The result was magnificent. I look foward to making this recipe again in the future. Although I traditionally like a little more sweetness to my challah, and in the future, I might add a little bit of honey to sweeten it up. The crumb on this was far better than I'd imagined that it would be. After rising, it seems like there were huge airpockets in the dough. I tried very hard to degas it enough that it wouldn't be a problem, but I was skeptical. Amazingly, seems like I got the crumb right on this.

FO: Tri-Corner Baby Hat

2010-07-07T01:11:00.003-04:00

Pattern: Tri-Corner Baby Hat
Yarn: Red Heart Ltd. Baby Clouds
Needles: Circular size 10.5
Started: 10/7/2009
Finished: 7/6/2010

This is yet another item that I started last year. Quick, easy knit and it took me forever to actually finish. Ridiculous.

Kiddie Pool!

2010-07-03T19:01:00.004-04:00

Such a successful day! We hit the thrift store first thing and I got a bedspread (which I washed the hell out of) as an addition for Ellie's crate and, of course, a crock pot. It's just whats I wanted and has a removable pot on the inside (some older ones don't). I can't wait to use it.

And, after that, we got Ellie a kiddie pool.

I love it when a plan comes together.

2010-07-03T06:50:00.000-04:00

I've got a million and one things bubbling around in my head. It's a 3 day weekend, and next week's a one day work-week. The giant and I will be headed to Wisconsin via Chicago in 5 short days. I cannot wait. I'm feeling pretty fried at work. We've had a string of busy-making things going on which all culminated on June 30th - our fiscal year end. The new car smell of FY2011 is pungent and unavoidable...but I can't wait to escape it.

The weekend will bring me closer to my pursuit for happiness in canned items. I'm in search of an old school, hopefully ugly, crockpot. It will entail exploring some thrift stores, but I'm up for the task.

And, I feel like I kicked this holiday weekend off the right way. I had acupuncture, which I love and always enjoy...then the giant and I went to see The A-Team. What a great movie! If you loved them when you were a kid, like I did, you've got to see the movie! I managed to crank out an inch on the giant's Cobblestone while nervously knitting during the action of The A-Team! Woohoo! Now if only I could get my dog to sleep in a little later on the weekend...

Raspberry Fritatta

2010-06-29T20:59:00.000-04:00

Here's an unexpected use for all of those amazing locally grown fresh raspberries... I added the raspberries on a whim. It added an awesome tartness. Of late, I've really been favoring fritattas over quiches as a means of avoiding the additional calories in the crust. Fritattas are simpler because of the use of the over-proof skillet and shorter cook time! This is a great dinner recipe, but if you were to add some sauteed Canadian bacon, it'd really rock as a breakfast dish too.

2 T olive oil
1/3 C onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 C red pepper, diced
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 C shredded Asiago or sharp white cheddar (reserve 1 T for top)
1 C raspberries
salt and pepper to taste

- Preheat oven to 350°.

- Heat olive oil in an ovenproof 10-inch skillet over medium-low heat. While olive oil heats, whisk eggs, milk, cheese, salt and pepper in a bowl.

- Add onion and garlic to the skillet. Cook for 3 minutes, until onion is soft. Add red pepper and cook for another 3-5 minutes. Be sure the onion doesn't burn.

- Add egg mixture to the skillet. Cook for 5-7 minutes. Sprinkle raspberries evenly over egg mixture, gently pressing them into the still-wet egg mixture. Sprinkle with remaining 1 T cheese.

- Place in oven 5 minutes or until cheese melts and eggs are cooked.

Oregon

2010-06-29T10:41:00.002-04:00

The bearded giant has been out of town for nearly a week. He's been at Pinot Camp in Oregon...and he's been torturing me with pictures like this:

He always gives me a hard time when I travel for work - he sort of assumes that I'm seeing the world. In reality, when I travel for work, the only thing I'm seeing are grimy metropolitan streets and the inside of law offices. Clearly, he got the better end of the deal as far as work travel is concerned.

FO: Limey Cardigan

2010-06-29T07:43:00.001-04:00

Pattern: Seamless Yoked Baby Sweater
Size: Small
Yarn: Red Heart Soft Baby
Needles: Circular size 4
Started: 7/11/2009
Finished: 6/29/2010

Embarrassingly enough, this is the first knit item of LAST year. As you know, my carpal tunnel was really getting me down there for a while. But now, I'm back in the game. I wasn't a fan of knitting this pattern, but I did find it to be a little vague for the directions at the end of the body. It's not clear for which rows you should start knitting the decorative pattern. If you do, indeed, want to have the 5th button hole be in the garter band at the bottom, you need to make sure to give yourself a handful of rows for the decoration. I wasn't paying attention and ended up having to pull a portion of it out (which grumpily resulted in a dropped stitch...grrr).

It's cute...I'm not sure who it's for, but I'm happy to have accomplished yet another knitted something this year. Initially both last year and this year, I'd had such high hopes for myself, but it just hasn't happened as I'd planned knitting-wise.

Awesome Giveaway

2010-06-28T22:57:00.000-04:00

I have been lusting after these bags forEVER: https://www.namasteinc.com/

I am psyched - J. Leigh Designz is having a giveaway for a Namaste bag of your choice! You can click the first link to get to all the particulars of the giveaway, but it's fabulous!

Namaste has the best knitting bags and handbags! Now one could be yours for just a little effort and no money!

Personally, I'm a huge fan of The Monroe.

FO: February Baby Sweater

2010-06-28T07:49:00.002-04:00

Pattern: EZ's Baby Sweater on Two Needles (February)
Size: One size
Yarn: Lion Brand Babysoft Solid in Pistachio
Needles: Size 7
Started: 6/19/2010
Finished: 6/27/2010

I have been meaning to knit this particular sweater for a couple years now. I'm so glad that I finally got a chance to try out the pattern. I knit the February Lady Sweater 2 years ago, and I'm very excited to have finished this. The pattern is easy to follow and easy to knit. The gull lace pattern is very easy to memorize and so there's no need to schlep the pattern along with you.

The one modification that I made was to knit the sleeves in the round and then pick up stitches at the underarm once I was done knitting them. The end result looks great. You can see an underarm picture here.

My one piece of advice about knitting this - make sure you plan out where you want your buttons/buttonholes to be ahead of time.

Poppy Horns

2010-06-27T21:51:00.003-04:00

While the giant is away this weekend, and the rest of the country is watching the World Cup, I've been cleaning. I cleaned my house top to bottom on Friday and Saturday, and today, I'm going through yet unpacked boxes finding stuff that I didn't know I had and stuff that I really need to get rid of. My pile for the thrift store is ever growing, as is my hunger. This afternoon, my friend Lindsay came over and together we did a little baking. Meet my Poppy Horns. They are simple, delicious and the crumb was an amazing, even texture. Light and fluffy and I can't wait to make them again.

These days, I live for the weekends. Owning a house makes life so difficult. There's nothing I'd rather do than hang out at my house. I don't have to be doing anything to be happy...I just like my house that much. And now that my tomato plants are producing and my strawberry plant is too (I got a dozen strawberries today!), it's like a daily experiment in gardening.

I've spent a lot of time this week admiring my plants, baking (another tarte tatin and today's baking fun) and knitting. I'm making good progress on my February Baby Sweater, which I'm hoping to finish tonight.

Among the things that I unearthed while going through the boxes in my office were the yarn for my mother's sweater and for the giant's sweater. The giant's sweater has been sitting out and has progressed right along (albeit slowly), the I didn't have a clue where the extra yarn was. Mom's (Christmas) sweater remains an inch long... After this baby sweater is done, I'm on to working on those projects.

Minted Cucumber Soup

2010-06-25T19:38:00.001-04:00

Ingredients:
3 cucumbers
1 scallions
16 oz plain yogurt
1/3 C fresh mint
2 T milk
2 T lime juice
1 T cumin
1/4 t garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

- Peel cucumbers and slice in half longways. Use a spoon to seed the cucumber. Roughly chop.
- Add all ingredients together in a food processor or blender. Blend.
- Chill before serving. 15 minutes in the freezer will add a refreshing edge.
- Serves 4.

Weekend Roundup

2010-06-22T11:05:00.001-04:00

Per usual, I had another baking adventure this weekend - Black and White Cookies and Lace Cookies. The Black and Whites were amazing. I'm not a huge cookie person - and I've never had a Black and White cookie that I liked. I always think they're somewhat dry and perhaps too shortbread-y. The Lace Cookies were another story all together. The did NOT behave as they were supposed to in the oven so I had to modify my later batches in order to make them a bit more edible.

Here are the modified Lace Cookies - this picture is before I smeared melted chocolate on them to make Lace Cookie sandwiches.

And the Black and White Cookies. Delicious! They were a bit of a pain as I had to pipe them with a pastry bag.

All of this baking has been a constant source of turmoil in my relationship with the bearded giant. He blames me for his weight gain - but I assure you, I've not force fed him anything. But, in an effort to right that wrong, we've been cutting calories, eating lots of veggies and we've kicked all sauces and condiments to the curb. It's nice to eat healthy, but every once in a while, you got stop and smell the cookies.

In garden news, I have lots of things growing - in addition to carrots and radishes, I have Sungold, Purple Cherokee and Green Zebra tomatoes - AND peppers both hot and regular. My zucchini looks really healthy and has produced a couple nice blossoms thus far. I'm really hoping that I can ward off any bugs that are bad news for squash, at least until I get a couple tasty squashes. I planted my Delicata squash sort of late in the game. It looks healthy, but there are no blossoms yet. I'm working on training up a trellis, because you can teach it to vine that way. We'll see how it goes.

And lastly, knitting news...I've finished my two Baby Surprise Jackets and I'm now working on Elizabeth Zimmerman's February Baby Sweater. Some of you may remember the February Lady Sweater that I knit for my friend Julie. That adult sweater is based on EZ's Baby Sweater. It's been a pretty quick knit thus far, my only challenge was relearning the gull pattern and that only took about 10 minutes. I've got the yoke and a sleeve and a half knit. I'd like to finish it by the week's end.

Gratuitous happy picture.

FO: Green Baby Surprise #2

2010-06-21T11:51:00.000-04:00

Pattern: EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket
Size: Small - modified the pattern
Yarn: Red Heart Ltd. Soft Yarn Solids in Guacamole
Needles: Size 10
Started: 6/14/2010
Finished: 6/21/2010

Man, I am cranking through these. I modified the pattern and downsized it quite a bit in order to make more of a newborn size. It's tiny and cute. Sadly, I was almost out of yarn and was having some trouble finishing it. I ended up knitting and reknitting the very end of it FOUR TIMES in order to be able to cast off.

It was a quick knit and if it hadn't been for the reknitting to be able to cast off, I would have finished in about two days.

I love this pattern because once you know how it works, you don't have to look at the pattern again.

Yarn Lust

2010-06-18T18:42:00.001-04:00

Now that I've got veggies in the garden growing and I don't need to be thinking about potting, repotting or planting, that frees up a ton of my time! I'm going to try to get back to knitting more. Of course, I need to finish working on the sweater for the bearded giant. I haven't ignored it entirely, I've been knitting a bit here and there, but haven't made a whole lot of progress. Having to pull most of it out definitely sort of killed my will a little bit. Having cranked my way through 2 Baby Surprise Jackets has got me back in the mood for knitting.

I spent some time on Ravelry today looking at potential patterns. I've got a lot of single skeins of yarn that I'm like to use up. I'm trying decrease the stash as much as possible...especially since I've got yarn fever again. I am, at this moment, fighting the urge to go pick up some Cotton Ease in cool colors for a blanket or anything really. Something that I can just knit up quickly.

And then, in addition to the new things that I want to knit, there are the old standbys that have been on my queue for a long time.

Above, you can see some of the patterns that I'm lusting after and you can see below the names and links to them on Ravelry. I love thinking about all of the fun knitting projects out there.

Clover (top left)
Baby Kina (top right)
Lotus Blossom Tank
Pattern Green Home Slippers
Cable-Down Raglan (bottom left)
Shalom Cardigan (bottom right)

Off to a Bad Start

2010-06-18T10:10:00.005-04:00

My morning didn't start well. I woke up, took Ellie for a walk and had brekkie. I needed to apply some GardenDust to a few remaining caterpillars in my garden and water the yard. While traipsing around outside, Ellie dessicated a bag full of dirty cat litter and chicken packaging. Now, my kitchen is unusually malodorous.

And then, en route to work, I managed to dump coffee down my nice pink polo shirt. So, here I sit in my office in a coworker's sweatshirt waiting for my polo shirt to dry. Hand-washing has really lost it's charm for me.

I'm hoping that the weekend will get better from here. Yay for Fridays. I managed to nearly finish my second Baby Surprise Jacket last night while making my way through more episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Thank you Netflix for great Watch Instantly options!) This weekend, I'm hoping to continue knitting, relaxing and actually get some baking done. I am going to be baking Lace Cookies...I can't wait!

And lastly, I baked a little the other day for a friend. I really wish that I could eat it...delicious.

FO: Green Baby Surprise

2010-06-17T13:12:00.003-04:00

Pattern: EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket
Size: Large
Yarn: Red Heart Ltd. Soft Yarn Solids in Guacamole
Needles: Size 8
Started: 6/11/2010
Finished: 6/14/2010

I've been in acupuncture for my carpal tunnel, and I've been working very hard not to exacerbate the pain. It's been getting better with the treatments and the constant use of my wrist brace. I know many people have carpal tunnel in both hands/wrists, but mine is only in my right. I decided to take a chance this past weekend, and actually do some knitting. It went well, although my wrist and hand muscles are pretty sore from the workout. I have two friends with infants, two friends with babies on the way, and one friend who's kid is turning 1 year old this summer. I thought I'd try my best to knit a couple things up.

Here's the first - my green baby surprise jacket. I still need to add buttons, but I think it looks pretty good. I love this pattern. Every time I knit it, I forget which end I'm knitting and so it takes me until halfway through which end I started knitting at and which pieces are the sleeves. All in all, I think it looks great. Now, on to my modified BSJ for smaller kids...

Susie

2010-06-16T22:11:00.002-04:00

I always say to the giant that I don't read the news because it makes me cry. And it does. Often. I'm pretty sensitive. I have to change the channel during Hallmark commercials, or when there are ads for the Humane Society. Reading about the oil spill makes me cry every and has since the first wind of it hit the news.

And, again, today, I cry.

Today, finally, North Carolina legislators agree that anyone who would torture, starve, or kill an animal should face jail time. The North Carolina state Senate unanimously approved increasing the punishment for animal abuse and cruelty. After being signed into law by Gov. Perdue, animal abuse will have been reclassified and upgraded to a Class I felony.

http://ncvaw.org/susie/

Susie is a pit bull mix who was beaten, set on fire and lefto to die in Greensboro last year. Susie's owner, LaShawn Whitehead, who left her to die, was charged with felony animal cruelty and burning personal property. Personal property - can you believe that???

Susie survived and is happy, alive and well-adjusted. She doesn't have ears, and she has extensive scarring, but the state has done right by her in approving this very important change.

Williamsburg

2010-06-14T16:39:00.006-04:00

It's been over a month since I went to Williamsburg with the bearded giant. I wish I was still there. It's such a lovely place. The bearded giant took pictures for the weekend, and we finally uploaded them and looked over them.

Here are a few pictures from our trip. I'd love to have a little white house with gardens like the ones they have.

BSJ

2010-06-12T15:01:00.002-04:00

It's been a while and you may have forgotten, but on occasion, I knit.

Garden Update

2010-06-10T14:34:00.000-04:00

Here are a few updated pictures of the backyard/garden these days. The bearded giant thought I was a little batty when I started doing all of the containers around the yard, but the bottom line is, I don't know where the best sun is yet. Sadly, I think to really get the best sun, we'd have to have the raised bed in the middle of the yard. Not gonna happen.

I did somehow manage to fail to take a picture of the raised bed which has the lettuces, bok choy, carrots, parsley, cilantro and delicata squash in it.

There's the raised bed - it's looking pretty good - several different types of tomatoes, zucchini, sugar snaps, peppers and eggplant. Woo!

Here we've got a sungold tomato, a scotch bonnet pepper, white eggplant, fish pepper, cherokee purple tomato and a green zebra tomato.

And the strawberries! Woo. Well, Ellie had been eating them - both the foliage AND the fruit. Now that we're not letting her out back, they look GREAT. And so does the yard. Ellie wasn't the sole destructive factor in the back yard, it just wasn't thriving at all. We've reseeded and we've been watering, and it looks MUCH better.

Yay for summer.

biscotti

2010-06-09T09:53:00.005-04:00

I did my weekly baking last night. I made biscotti for the first time. It's incredibly easy to make although it does have a pretty long bake time for summer.

I made the loaf a little stouter than I should have, and that made cutting them into pieces fairly difficult. I think they still look pretty tasty, even before being baked a second time to harden them up.

And here's the final product - it was delicious. I added a little chocolate ganache to help them go over a little better at my office. :)

Edit: Per Travis's request, apparently, I never comment about the flavor. The biscotti was not too sweet and had a subtle almond flavor, although it had quite the nutty texture. In the future, rather than adding vanilla extract, I'll probably add almond extract and a wee bit more sugar.

tamale casserole

2010-06-08T19:40:00.000-04:00

Last night, I was stumped as to what to make for dinner. I haven't been to the grocery store in ages. I managed to make a rather convincing vegetarian tamale casserole. It was delicious. Ellie was desperate to have a share...I didn't give in though. It went really well with the Glee I was watching. :) I do love that show. I'm sad that this season is almost over. I am glad that I have leftovers for lunch and dinner today!

Is it last weekend yet?

2010-06-08T13:39:00.002-04:00

Well, I've successfully made it through Monday and into Tuesday. At our office, we always think of Tuesdays as worse than Mondays. At least on Monday, you're still high and happy from the weekend. Luckily, my weekend was good enough that I'm still happy.

I flew back from Chicago on Friday. I had the best time visiting with Jiff and exploring the city. She has the most amazing bakery right near her house: Bleeding Heart Bakery. I enjoyed a lovely little cup of coffee and delicious tea cake there. We also had dinner together at a great restaurant (with a terrible name), Brown Trout. It's a small restaurant with mediocre decor, but an amazing menu.

Once I got back to town though, the bearded giant and I got to spend a lovely weekend together. Friday, we relaxed at home together and watched the movie "Charlie Bartlett." If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's a sort of modern day Ferris Bueller. I loved it, and I laughed and cried.

Saturday, we spent the day doing some shopping at Logan's Trading Company. I had to make some tough decisions about the garden. There were a few plants that weren't thriving, so I decided that I should try pulling them up and planting some seedlings that were a little more advanced and stronger. I planted about half of them in the garden before nearly expiring because of the heat and humidity. We rounded out the evening with a delicious pasta dish that the giant made, while watching "Body Heat." I'd never seen it. It was an excellent movie.

Sunday, the bearded giant had a day full of surprises for me. We left the house at noon and headed over to the newly renovated North Carolina Museum of Art. They have some lovely stuff there and the building itself is beautiful. After that, we had lunch at Cafe Caturra, which opened only a few weeks ago, but has quickly become a favorite of the giant's and mine. We did a little bit of shopping and headed on to the last stop for the day - Frankie's Fun Park. We played a little mini-golf (I lost) and skeeball (everyone wins!) It was lovely.

And then, even better - he made me a stellar meal! Oh - and he brought me flowers. He's such a rockstar.

Boy, I wish I could go back to the weekend. It was so lovely and relaxing.

What do you call work that feels like vacation?

2010-06-03T18:18:00.003-04:00

Workation? Vacork?

I've finished up two days work in Chicago and I'm currently relaxing in Jiff's light, airy, lovely apartment awaiting her return. I don't want to leave...ever. I want to stick around and play and hangout. It's so nice to have amazing friends that are just relaxing and fun to be around.

Last night, we hung out and enjoyed some Chicago style pizza while watching some playoff hockey. Since Chicago's the only NHL team that I don't hate other than the Canes, we were definitely cheering for the Hawks.

In honor of Jiff, everyone should hug, text or call one of their best friends today. :)

Memorial Day Weekend

2010-06-01T09:56:00.003-04:00

The bearded giant and I had an wonderful relaxing weekend. Saturday, we ventured down to Southern Pines and Pinehurst and tooled around a bit down there. Sunday, we relaxed at home and did a little shopping. And Monday, we went to cook-outs - him at his friend's house and me at my neighbors. And here we are on Tuesday, and it's pouring rain and I'm wishing I could rewind to the long weekend.

In addition to the rest and relaxation this weekend, I also cleaned my house with a fervor that I haven't had in forever. I did BBQ spare ribs on the grill. I made the bearded giant take care of a couple hundred ants that have been taking over my yard and house. And last, but not least, I baked!

Saturday morning, before the giant was awake, I started working on my baking projects. I am a test baker for a cookbook. My first project was Coconut Macaroons. It was exciting and different - I've never made anything like them before. Lots of egg and coconut, no flour, VERY fluffy. I also had to pipe them through a pastry bag, which never ends well for me. In fact, as I write this, I'm noticing chunks of coconut are still on the kitchen table.

And after that, still before the giant woke up (there's a couple hour lag time there since I get up before 7 with the dog), I made an amazing coffee cake. Banana Coffee Cake with Walnuts and Coconut. If you look at the recipe, you can see that I took a few liberties with it. It turned out incredibly well, and I have been enjoying it for breakfast every morning since.

The best part of the weekend's baking endeavors was that I got to use the new KitchenAid mixer, Gustav.

And then there were the ribs. Early Saturday morning, I headed to the grocery store to stock up on food for the weekend. I got a 5 lb rack of spare ribs. After a full day out and about in Southern Pines and Pinehurst, the giant had to run up to this great little wine shop in North Raleigh - Uncorked! We'd been up there on Friday night, so, I didn't feel the need to go too. He dropped me off at home and I got busy working on making the ribs. They'd been marinating in a BBQ sauce mixture all day long. So, when Saturday evening rolled around, I was ready to grill...albeit with very little idea what I was doing and no supervision. Thankfully, a high school friend directed me by way of Facebook status comments and I ended up with some really tender and delicious ribs. They weren't that hard to do at all - and since they are done on the grill over low heat for several hours, it allows one to do other thing...like clean.

I'll be heading to Chicago for work tomorrow morning, and I like to make sure my house is clean and well-kempt [sic] for me to come home to. While those ribs were a-grilling, I swept, mopped, vacuumed, dusted, tidied and even did laundry. Thank goodness for ribs.

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Memorial Day weekend and that they took time to appreciate the freedom that those in the military provide us.

Lemon Custard Tart

2010-06-01T06:43:00.003-04:00

Among last weekend's spoils was a lovely lemon tart. It was decidedly easy to make. It called for minimal ingredients, and I had everything I needed in the house already. It did leave me short of the eggs I needed for the Bocconcini Stuffed Mediterranean Bacon Pull Aparts, but thankfully, I have neighbors!

Ingredients
CRUST
1 C all-purpose flour
5 T butter, cut into small pieces
FILLING
2 large lemons
2/3 C superfine sugar
2 eggs
2/3 C heavy cream
OPTIONAL
thinly sliced strips of lemon peel for decoration
3 T lemon juice
1 T confectioners sugar

- Preheat oven to 400°.
- Sift the flour into a food processor. Add the butter and pulse until dough has just formed. Add a little cold water to make the dough hold together.
- Turn dough out onto a well floured surface and roll to fit an 8" or 9" shallow, loose-bottomed tart pan. Press the dough into place, trim it (reserve the trimmings), and prick the base all over.
- Bake the tart shell until it is crisp and firm to the touch. Remove from oven and set aside after about 12-15 minutes.
- Turn the oven to 250°.
- Make the lemon filling. Finely grate the zest of the lemons into a bowl, squeezing the juice from the lemons into the bowl as well. Add sugar and eggs and whisk to combine. Pour in the cream and whisk again until smooth.
- Fill in any crash in the pastry shell (to prevent the filling from leaking out) with the reserved trimmings. Pour the mixture into the patched shell.
- Bake the tart in the oven until the filling has set and feels firm to a light touch - about 40 minutes.
- While the tart bakes, soak the reserved thinly sliced lemon peels in a mixture of lemon juice (from a third lemon, or from a container) and confectioners sugar.
- Take the tart out of the oven. Use those pieces to decorate the tart.
- Once cool, chill in the refrigerator to firm up the lemon custard. Remove it from the pan, place on a serving plate and sprinkle with powdered sugar to decorate.

Ninny vs. Bocconcini

2010-05-23T20:55:00.002-04:00

I took Friday off from work to play with my mom. If you read the previous post, then you know about our efforts to grill every meal this weekend. It went pretty well. Hamburgers, french toast, BBQ chicken, salmon on cedar planks...but today we fell off the wagon a bit. I think part of the problem was that we were all sorts of stuffed from yesterday's endeavors.

As I said to my mother this afternoon, any weekend where you make it to Logan's (the best garden shop in town - with the best prices) more than once is a good weekend. In addition to getting some coleus and coreopsis for the front beds, we also got some good advice about my fig tree which hasn't been looking so well these days. We also ate and ate, and ate.

Yesterday morning, immediately following the success of the grilled french toast, I started working on a Lemon Tart (picture above, recipe to follow). It was pretty easy and was really rather pretty when I was done with it. Then there was the beast of a baking project, which I started just before dinner and finished at nearly 11:00pm: Bocconcini Stuffed Mediterranean Bacon Pull Aparts. You can find the recipe here, but I originally found it through The Fresh Loaf's blog section.

It was a beast from start to finish. The ingredients weren't really cheap...and the prep time alone was HOURS and HOURS. (And for those who don't know, Bocconcini are tiny balls of mozzarella. ) Those of you who know me know that my determination (stubbornness) and lack of ability to ask for help are debilitating at times, but I prevailed last night and asked, nay, BEGGED for help. Thankfully, with the help of my mom and the bearded giant, we finished assembling the thing. When it came out of the oven, it was heavenly - unlike anything I've ever made. It weighed nearly 5 lbs, and was worth it's weight in calories. There were several snafus in ingredients - instead of a cup and a half of grated Parm, we used THE ENTIRE CONTAINER. And the butter/bacon grease mixture - don't even get me started on that.

In the end, there was no real pulling apart to be done. If you know monkey bread, you know how each segment delightfully pulls off the one below leaving you with a special, amazing, bite-sized morsel. We were ripping off hunks the size of apples, and were quickly (and sadly) stuffed. It's filling, rich and overwhelmingly and obviously caloric. While I won't make it again, I am starting to learn my baking boundaries. And today, when I started assembling ingredients for a loaf of homemade bread, the bearded giant and my mother staged an intervention.

Grilled Apple-Stuffed French Toast

2010-05-22T13:14:00.005-04:00

My mom doesn't have a grill at her condo. They aren't allowed to have them. So, to make up for that, we have spent the weekend grilling. I realize that we've only had dinner and breakfast so far - but we managed to grill both meals. For dinner last night, we had burgers. But for breakfast, we made Grilled Apple-Stuffed French Toast. It was one of the fanciest and most decadent breakfast items I've ever made.

Ingredients for the filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
2 T. granulated sugar
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1/4 C. sour cream
1 medium-sized coarsely chopped apple (we used Passion Rose, but I'd imagine that a MacIntosh or even Granny Smith would be good)

Ingredients for the French toast:
6 slices (cut 1-1/2 inches thick) challah
6 large eggs
1/2 C. heavy cream
1-1/2 T. melted butter
1-1/2 T. vegetable oil

Mix the filling:
Combine the cream cheese, sugar, and cinnamon and mix thoroughly by hand until smooth. Gently stir in the sour cream and apple until just combined.

Make the stuffed-French toast:
Use a sharp serrated knife to make a pocket in each slice of bread. Insert knife into the center of the bottom of the crust and work the knife in both directions, leaving a 3/4 inch around the edge of the bread. Be careful not to puncture the bread or other sides of the crust.

Squeeze the bread gently to part the opening. Spoon in 2 or 3 T. of the prepared filling until the pocket is full. Tap the bread slice on the counter to settle the filling. Wipe any extra filling from the opening with a clean paper towel.

Whisk the eggs and cream together. Dip each slice of stuffed bread into the egg mixture and soak for about 30 second.

Grilling:
If you are using charcoal, use fewer coals than normal and spread them out so they are not stacked on top of each other and so they are not touching. If you are using a gas or electric grill, turn the knobs to medium and when the grates are hot, clean them thoroughly. Oil the grates with a paper towel soaked in vegetable oil or with a silicon basting brush. (Careful of flare-up.) Put the egg-soaked bread on the oiled grates.

Close the lid, and allow to cook for about 2-4 minutes, or until golden brown. I used both a spatula and tongs in order to make sure they were baked thoroughly on each side. When they are lightly browned on each side, remove from the grill. Serve warm with maple syrup or homemade whipped cream.

Adventures in Stupidity and Tick Bites

2010-05-17T10:22:00.000-04:00

I'm listening to the sounds of today's gentle rain tapping on my work window. It's pretty soothing. I'm definitely enjoying the rain that we're getting today and that we got this weekend. This winter was both snowy and rainy...and the beginning of the spring made me think I didn't want to see another rainy day. I've been on the flip side of that. For the last month and a bit, I haven't really seen rain. I've been telling my mom I didn't believe in rain anymore. My water bill has been high as I've had to water my garden each night after work. Thankfully our dry spell has broken...we've had a few good rains over the last 2 days and nights.

The garden has certainly been benefiting from the rain, and possibly from the season. Last Sunday, I planted several Delicata squash seeds...which have sprouted and are now about 5" tall. A WEEK - 5" IN A WEEK! That's amazing. Tis the Season!

I finally opened up the KitchenAid.

I haven't used it, but I did play around with it and check out all of the pieces...and went online to look at all of the accouterments.

While it felt like the bearded giant and I didn't do much this weekend, we actually did. Sunday night, my friend Katie came over with her adorable son. We had dinner together and then just hung out chatting and catching up after he'd gone to bed. On Saturday morning, Katie, the bearded giant and I all walked the Cystic Fibrosis 5k - Great Strides. It was a ton of fun, and Katie's friends that we walked with were all very nice. After the 5k, we went to Escazu Chocolates. They recently moved their shop, and it's awesome. I highly recommend their Strawberry Balsamic!

After that fun, and a nap...I headed into work for Duke Law's commencement. The head of the FBI, Robert Muller, gave a really well crafted and interesting address to the to-be graduates.

At that point, I was ready to head home and relax, but I had a really inflamed tick bite that I was concerned about. I headed over to Urgent Care for the 2nd time in 2 weeks to have them check a tick bite. The doctor was kind and was able to ascertain that I had a tick mandible stuck in the wound, which was causing much of the irritation. He did prescribe the antibiotic treatment for Lyme Disease just in case. Argh.

As for Sunday, the bearded giant and I didn't do much during the day, but in the evening, we headed to dinner and to see Wicked at DPAC. The show was great - and so were the seats. We were only about 20 feet from the stage! Afterward, however, we returned to the car to find that while I had put "The Club" on my car before the show, I didn't actually have the key with me. To the tune of $55, we took a cab back to Raleigh and I caught a ride to my car this morning from a coworker. Several coworkers have argued that with my old, beat-up '97 Honda, I needn't use "The Club" at all...because no one wants my car. Ugh. Probably true! What's life without a little adventure.