Category Archives: kitchen

still ripening.

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As you can see, I’m making good progress on my ripe bananas lap blanket. (I’m aiming to finish it this weekend!) I wrapped up the lace section with the red and taupe shetland singles, and then switched to some Cascade 220 in a heathered, rusty red to keep the darkening gradient going. (In case anyone is wondering, 1.4 oz of Cascade 220 is pretty much exactly how much yarn you need to knit 1.5 inches of this blanket on 7s when the stitch count is in the 450 st range and increasing. Phew!)

Next up, more handspun. As soon as I get this Spunky Club corriedale in the New Day colorway wound into a ball, I’ll be on my way.

And here are the veggies I roasted for dinner last night: potatoes, fennel, and beets, all from the farm. Yum.

sunday night spinning.

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Last night, at about eight o’clock, I decided that I just couldn’t look at the pages of a book anymore. And so I dug out an unfinished spinning project: 3 oz. of BFL blend in the Fireside Chat colorway from the AVFKW Woolly Wonders Fiber Club. I’d already spun one bobbin, so I turned on an episode of Planet Money (great npr podcast, which you can find here), and spun the second half of the fiber, albeit a bit thicker in places than the first.

I made a half-head of romaine-sized portion of my dad’s caesar salad recipe (so good), and returned to the reading. (Sneak peak of my progress on the ripe bananas lap blanket test knit.)

And then I plied and washed the Fireside Chat BFL, and it poofed up. (Yay!) While in the kitchen, I snapped a photo of this very lonely cranberry muffin:

A dozen cranberry muffins – (one rooster reading + one boy writing a dissertation proposal) = one muffin remaining.

Must it be Monday?

pancakes, pears, and a pumpkin.

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(Okay, it was a red kabocha squash. Also known as a Japanese pumpkin. I made the alliterative choice.)

Cranberry pancakes for lunch. (Fresh cranberries, from my favorite little farm/market hybrid.)

Red kabocha squash, stuffed with a mixture of local sausage, kale, onions, mushrooms and rice, and topped with some shredded jack cheese.

A double batch of pear crisp, made with pears from the tree in D and T’s yard. I’m warming this up for breakfast.

And there’s this guy. Leg up in hopes of a belly rub. Sometimes he just lays like that.

No knitting to share, folks. Despite deadlines of the knitting variety fast approaching, the work pile won out yesterday. Grading, reading, corresponding with students — the productive hours disappear. Hoping to find time to curl up with my needles today.

 

windows. (also, potatoes.)

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Just now trying to catch my breath after a whirlwind weekend — and it seems fitting to post a few photos from the part of Saturday that felt like a chance to relax for a brief moment. These glimpses out the window onto one of many courtyards capture a bit of what it felt like to be back there, ten years after I first arrived. Just as beautiful, but a bit further away. Light filtered through window panes?

I’m still looking for the pause button these days. Feeling a bit overwhelmed by work and life, and trying to find time to knit.

This seems a bit heavy for Tuesday morning, so I’ll leave you with a photo of the twice-baked potatoes I was craving after Sunday afternoon’s long drive home.

Yum. More soon.

FO: half the grey alpaca.

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So this is the first half of the grey alpaca I’m spinning for my friend N., after setting the twist and hanging it to dry. While neither of these mini-skeins is next-to-skin soft, I’m really happy with the halo and the sheen of this yarn. What you’re looking at is about 160 yards. I delivered the first half of the alpaca to N. yesterday afternoon, and decided to work on the second half after dinner last night. One of the remaining bumps of fiber felt softer, so I spun that first. Here’s the bobbin:

I think you can see the difference in the quality. N. told me that she paid five bucks for almost eight ounces of this stuff, which makes sense to me. I think some of this fiber is the “good stuff” from the animal, but I think a lot of it might be the hair from the less prize parts of an alpaca’s coat — like the underbelly, maybe? That would explain the amount of veggie matter in the first two bumps. Here’s the final (larger) bump after separating the fibers a bit with my hands:

I love the depth of color in this picture — such a complex grey. This was coarser, more like the first two skeins. I think singles were the right choice for this yarn — and hey, I’m no longer afraid of alpaca! Maybe I’ll dig out what I’ve got from my very first fiber purchase and try again.

I’m pretty sure that this expression has something to do with the fact that Boh finally understands that there is not an alpaca in the kitchen. Just some yarn hanging to dry.

A few glimpses of the weekend:

Deb’s scalloped tomatoes, made with the last of the season’s farm tomatoes.

After dinner hot chocolate made with dutch cocoa, organic sugar, and milk.

And this morning, I pulled on my down booties when I climbed out of bed in the darkness to make my coffee. I’m ready for daylight savings — I’d rather get up with the sun than rise before her.

 

“one day i’ll be a better writer…”*

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We saw Sharon Van Etten and the Bowerbirds at a neat bar near the water this week. Sharon Van Etten (pictured in the crappy photo from my phone, above) is worth checking out, if you’ve never encountered her music. What you see is what you get up there — a girl and a guitar — but man, can she write a song. And her voice — soft, clear, haunting. Check out a video of her at SXSW here.

I also recommend the Bowerbirds. Who doesn’t love a band with an accordion, a snare drum, and a homemade xylophone? Check out their tiny desk concert at NPR here.

So, some fun stuff (read: late nights) this week, but also lots of work. Which made for a very tired rooster. Thursday night I made a big pot of cauliflower soup, and while it was simmering, I slathered peach butter made by my friend K. on slices of beer bread. Yum.

And today, when I got home from campus, I curled up on the couch, watched Bones, and made progress on windschief hat numero dos, out of malabrigo in verdeazul, for B. Malabrigo is the perfect yarn to knit with on a cold and rainy day. Planning an evening of soup, knitting, and maybe a movie. I’ll get back to the pile of books tomorrow. Happy weekend, folks, and thanks for all of the sweet blogiversary wishes.

*This is a line is from “Much More Than That” by Sharon Van Etten.

the cheese trail.

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Yesterday was an epic Sunday. I went to an early morning yoga class, where my teacher mentioned that in addition to an artists’ open studio event happening in and around town all weekend, that the local cheesemakers’ association was also inviting folks to visit their farms and taste the different kinds of locally-made cheeses. That was enough to rearrange the day. We hopped into the car and headed to farm country.

The trees everywhere were golden and honey-hued, and oh, the light! Yesterday was a clear day, and everything just looked warm. You know?

We met some cows. I think this one down in front is named Gina. At least that’s what her ear tag says. We learned about how local farmers make gouda and jack-style cheeses, learned about different ways of aging rounds or blocks of cheese, and tasted a generous amount at the two farms we visited. We settled on what I think is a raw milk cheddar, and a hunk of (local) beer-soaked, wood-aged gouda.

Last night for dinner, we might have just eaten cheese, bread, pickles, and some leftover coleslaw. But that’s because the cheese trail was only the beginning. (I’m going to break Sunday’s adventures into two posts. Stay tuned!)

pie and plying.

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First of all, thanks for all of your input on my handspun blanket. This time around, the oranges have it, and I am hoping to make some time to wind yarn later today!

I wore my Sunday Market Shawl yesterday, and it was just the burst of color I needed. I reach for this far less often than I thought I would — maybe because of the colors — but it certainly brightens my day when I wear it out of the house. Someday I’ll get around to actually blocking this…

Meet the first pie (for me) of fall. Pears from the tree in the yard of friends, plus one apple to fill out the pie pan, and a crumb topping. Delicious. In fact, this is reheating in the oven right now.

I plied most of my SCF bfl in the reflection colorway while the pie baked, and today I have plans to wash the yarn and set the twist.

Okay, time for pie!

cake for breakfast.

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Nope, not birthday cake. Just cake leftover from saturday night.

We watched a movie last night, which means I got some dedicated knitting time. My windschief hat is flying, and I am absolutely in love with the way this yarn is knitting up. The depth of color! The stitch definition! Discuss.

And here’s one more shot of Boh and the birthday boy, because today is the day. Aren’t they sweet?

saturdays are for dinner parties.

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Dear friends came for dinner last night. (Boh was on cloud 9.) Y’all know I love to play in the kitchen, but I especially like cooking both for and with D and T — we have similar tastes (well, aside from D’s brutal hatred for all things eggplant), we belong to the same farm, and we always have a good time together. They brought homebrew, a bottle of homemade limoncello for my freezer(!), beer brewed with Japanese hops for us all to try (it DOES taste like “sunshine in a glass”), and tortilla chips for the mostly-tomatillo-with-a-peach-thrown-in salsa I made. And I decided to test out some new-to-me recipes based on what could be found in my fairly full fridge. After lots of drooling over recipes on my computer screen, I settled on two ideas from Deb over at smitten kitchen: scalloped tomatoes with croutons, and everyday chocolate cake. I paired the tomatoes with a salad of very peppery arugula, cherry tomatoes, goat cheese, and cherry tomato confit with a homemade vinaigrette with a bit more honey than I usually use. I was really happy with how everything turned out — these recipes have earned spots in my kitchen binder!

Also, here are the results of peaches +bourbon, take two. I did use the immersion blender to make this more sauce-like, and I’m thrilled with the consistency: thicker and smoother, but with chunks of peach.

And here’s what I’m casting on later this morning. I’ve been meaning to start a hat for D. He’s sporting a new haircut these days, and as the weather gets a bit colder, I want to contribute a hat or two to his headgear collection. I was inspired by the Windschief that Laura posted yesterday, so I hopped over to Ravelry to look through other people’s FOs, and ultimately, purchase and print out the pattern. I’m using tosh worsted in malachite, and I’m psyched to cast on.

I really should be reading all day today, but I’m going to allow myself at least a little bit of time for knitting…