flea genocide

well...what was supposed to be a leisurely morning consisting of a little bit of house-tidying, a little bit of halloween costume making, a little bit of breakfast eating turned into a full-on, top-to-bottom, flea extermination.

for the past few days, i've been scratching at bites on my arms and legs...they looked like tinier mosquito bites, but with a little red dot in the middle. i kind of put them off, but then i remembered a conversation i had about bed bugs with my dodgeball team and then last night we looked up bed bug symptoms online and became utterly convinced that i had them. so last night, we had a fun saturday night of the three of us tearing our beds apart, vacuuming the mattresses, washing our sheets in boiling water (practically) and spraying everything with tee tree oil mixed with water (which apparently the bed bugs don't like the smell of).

meanwhile, contemporaneous to this, when we came back from thanksgiving, we noticed that our cat, smudge, had a patch of fur missing from the back of his neck. we were kind of weirded out about it, but chalked it down to the roomie being a bad petsitter. also meanwhile, one night this week i woke up in the middle of the night and heard smudge scratching at his neck super-vigorously. i briefly entertained the notion that this super-vigorous scratching, the missing patch of fur, and my bites might be related to fleas, but since bed bugs have been in the news lately, and are the much much worse option, the hypochondriac neurotic in me went with the default crappier scenario.

this morning, smudge jumped up on the roomie's lap and she pet him and immediately set him down on the ground saying she saw a flea. so i did some googling, brushed him, and tapped the brush out onto a piece of paper towel. tonnes of little black specks rained down on the paper towel, which according to how to tell if your cat has fleas is the excrement of fleas. so, so gross!!! so then we went into crisis mode and went to the pet store, bought flea shampoo, and wrestled both cats into having the first baths of their lives. it was HELL. knowing how vicious smudge can be, i was wearing a t shirt, a zip up long sleeve hoodie, another hoodie over that, with dishwashing gloves tucked into the sleeves. in the end, he was much more calm and boddington was the chief wigout. boddington totally got all slippery eel on us and was contorting and bucking and crying his little weird lungs out. meanwhile, as we're trying to suppress the supernova of coiled energy that exists inside that 10 pound cat body, smudgie is at our elbows, with his fur all spiky and wet, basically 1/4 of the size that he usually is, trying to stage an intervention and rescue his buddy and adding to the cacophony of plaintive, whiny, caterwauling. hell.

then we had to re-strip the bed, vacuum every soft surface, i swept and mopped the floors and have done like, 20 bazillion loads of laundry, leaving me 12 minutes to get myself presentable before i have to go to dodgeball. egads.

this is a picture of last night's muttar paneer and sag and rice. i ended up doing a half-assed rice pilaf with white basmati cooked with a pinch of saffron and mixed with toasted chopped pistachios and butter caramelized onions and raisins. i overdid the water on the basmati so it wasn't as fluffy and the grains weren't as distinct as they should be in a pilaf.

this is what i made for breakkie this morning...eggs benedict. the hollandaise looks a little flushed because i used red wine in my reduction instead of the more classic white wine. still tasted pretty much the same.

tonight for dinner i had a hungarian goulash cooking away in the slow cooker. the recipe from "the gourmet cookbook" is a little brothier than goulash's i've had in the past...i should have gone with my gut instinct and not included water with the beef broth...i already cut down on the water anyway (i used 2 c. instead of the recommended 5). it smells hella good though and i think it'll be just the thing on a brisk fall day with the no-knead bread...which i specifically purchased an enameled cast-iron dutch oven for. but! i was frugal!!! i went to homesense on A&C's recommendation and saw the heavily coveted le creuset ones...marked down to $150 from the regular price $300. alongside was an oval cuisinart one, equally heavy, equally high quality for $60 marked down from a regular price of $100. while i'm usually a sucker for name brands and high-end kitchen gear, i figured enameled cast iron is enameled cast iron and went with the cuisinart. it's not like cuisinart is a slouch in the kitchen appliance department...so i feel pretty good about it.

here are the pics of the finished goulash and the no-knead bread.



overall, i was really pleased with the no-knead bread (even though kneading isn't that big of a deal). it produces a fantastic, chewy, crisp-textured end product and can be made in one bowl, with about 30 minutes total of active time, 20 hours of rising time, and about 45 minutes in the oven. mine didn't produce as fantastically hole-y an interior mie as A's rendition, but i might have rushed it a bit. also, our house is a little on the cool side which probably retarded the action of the yeast. i also used regular (it's what i had) instead of instant yeast. i will say that it's lacking a little bit in the sourdough depth of flavour that you get from bread made with a starter, but for such a low physical/time investment, it yields a very satisfactory and impressive loaf.



i also did some fridge-clearing and dispatched half a head of red cabbage i had lurking in the back of the veggie shelf...sauteed it up with some peeled, sliced apples, salt, pepper, sugar, and a bit of water to steam the whole.

fin.
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hungarian goulash

adapted from the gourmet cookbook

note: this yields A LOT...it basically filled my slowcooker and mine is like a 10 qt? if you're serving less people, consider cutting the recipe in half (i would keep the same amount of bacon though...but i'm crazy like that)

5 strips of bacon, cut into pieces

3lb boneless beef chuck, cut into 1" cubes

1 1/2 lbs of onions, diced small (i used 2 big spanish onions)

5 cloves of garlic, chopped

3 T. paprika (preferably hungarian sweet)

1 1/2 t. caraway seeds

1/3 c. all purpose flour

1/4 c. red wine vinegar

1  can tomato paste (136 ml/5 1/2 oz)

5 c. beef stock or water

salt and pepper to taste

2 red bell peppers, cored and chopped

2 1/2 pounds yukon gold potatoes cut into 1" chunks

- cook the bacon in a pan until the bacon is crisp and the fat is rendered.  (at this point, the gourmet recipe would have you remove the bacon and brown the beef in the drippings and then remove the browned beef to the same place you put the crispy bacon...i generally skip the browning step for soups).   add the chopped onion to the pan and sweat it out, add the garlic and continue cooking until the garlic is softened and fragrant.

- add the paprika, caraway seeds and flour to the pan and cook it out for 2 minutes, scraping the bottom of the pot.

- add the red wine vinegar and the tomato paste and cook this mixture out for about 2 minutes or so, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pot.

- at this point, i take all that gear and throw it in my slow cooker, toss in the beef, the stock, the bell peppers and salt and pepper, then i let the slow cooker rip on high for like, 7-8 hours.  you could also either do this shiz all in a stock pot, or a dutch oven on the stove and cook it for like, 45min to 1 hour on a simmer, with the lid on.

- after that, you throw in your potato cubes and either let the slow cooker keep ripping for 1 hour, or let the potatoes simmer in your dutch oven (etc.) for 20 minutes or until tender.

- season again with salt and pepper to taste.  

on the mend

i can tell i'm on the mend because i'm starting to go stir-crazy from not doing anything.  the roomie came home yesterday and took a nap, when she came out, she gave me sternface to the max when she caught me in the living room doing yoga.  according to her, she was just about to wake up and congratulate me for taking it easy and spending the day resting on the couch and was really disappointed to find me engaged in calisthenics.  as part of my kooky, self-taught folk wisdom, one of the reasons i feel i got sick in the first place is because i've been slacking on the self-care...i haven't gone running in two weeks, no yoga, no dodgeball because of thanksgiving...bogus.

dinner with A & C was delightful as always.  i really like those guys. A made a batch of the new york times "no-knead bread" and it's totally got the bug in my ear...i think i'm going to stop by the bulk store and pick up some bread flour and start some tonight. we're having goulash for dinner tomorrow and i can think of no better accompaniment than freshly baked, buttered bread.  my enameled cast-iron casserole is only 2.5 qts so i think i'll just bake the thing in 2 batches.  although A also put the bug in my ear about homesense having le creuset enameled cast iron dutch ovens for 50% off.  !!!!!! and i AM going to meet up with dr. rei today to go buying stuff for halloween costumes.  eeks!  i can feel my resolve wavering!  eeks!!!!!

we ended up ordering a heap of stuff at cafe polonez and then sharing everything...here's what we got -

A&C ordered the beet soup with dumplings. the beet broth was really sweet and clear tasting. i didn't try a dumpling but A&C said they were tasty and they looked cute.

the dotytron and i shared the "white borscht with sausage." i couldn't really identify what ingredient made the white borscht taste "white" but the broth was thin and had a zippy (but pleasant) sourness to it. like sauerkraut sour, maybe? floating in the broth was an egg cut in half and some kolbassa coins.

i ordered the mixed perogie platter which came with sauerkraut and mushroom perogies, potato perogies, cheese perogies (or maybe the potato and cheese perogies were one and the same), and the same pork-tasting-but-chicken-textured "meat" perogies as last time. my favorites were the sauerkraut and mushroom ones and the potato/cheese ones. i will say that the polonez gives you the teeniest, tiniest thimbles of sour cream and bacon-onion stuff for slathering on your perogies. i like my perogies to really be a vehicle for sour cream/onion consumption.

A&C got the cabbage rolls (C is a cabbage roll enthusiast, as i'm learning) which were tender little bundles of sweet cabbage leaves wrapped around a sturdy, hearty filling of rice and meat and sauced with a tomato sauce reminiscent of alphagettis (this is not a criticism).

the dotytron and i got the wiener schnitzel which came topped with a fried egg. the sides are also to be commended...they all taste really fresh and zingy and have either sweetness or acidity or a combination of the two to cut the heavy richness of the main dish. i especially like the coleslaw.


and finally, A&C got the polonez schnitzel, which i tried the last time i went there with my dodgeball team. see! the portions are MEGA! the roomie also drove us to the restaurant to meet A&C on her way to her friday night plans in an effort to keep me from pursuing my hare-brained scheme of having the dotytron and myself ride our bikes out to the restaurant and back.

now i'm off to meet dr. rei for a day of halloween costume gathering and gabbing...i feel like i haven't seen her in FOREVER...it's been about two weeks? that's a lifetime in dr. rei and lagerfeld years.

tonight for dinner i'm making muttar paneer with parathas, rice, and saag from makkah to supplement.

fin.

sick

my head feels better but i'm not sure if it's a false sense of neo citran-derived clarity...i've got a gross, phlegmy, raspy cough, which if prior history is any indication, if left unchecked will probably devolve into bronchitis. for some reason i'm prone to bronchitis.

i'm also feeling kind of weak. i'm continuing to self medicate with my arsenal of kook folk wisdom, chiefly: fresh sheets on the bed, hot shower, clean clothes, lots of sleep, hot liquids and hoping that somehow i'll ride this out without a trip to the doctor. the last time i did this, i worked the lunch line at bymark during the holiday rush and probably coughed on each and every plate of food that passed my station. then i finally went to the doctor who told me that i had somehow ridden out bronchitis, passed perilously close to developing pneumonia, somehow skirted that bullet and was now on the path to health (thereby making prescription medication pointless).


i guess now is as good a time as any to do some film reviewing. when left to my own devices, doing endless laps of the "new releases" wall at the blockbuster around the corner, i'm more prone to giving into my more base movie watching predilections. so a few weeks ago, on a dreary saturday, i rented "the other boleyn girl" because well, no one likes a bodice-ripping tale of corruption and intrigue in old english courts more than i. boy was i in for disappointment! i should have known from the fact that it was scarjo and natalie portman in the flick that i was in for a tame and timid depiction of henry the eight's excesses...not for these two young, nubile starlets the uninhibited fleshly exuberance of some lesser-known up-and-coming (or british) actress. in other words - no nudity! scarjo plays is all stunned vermeer-girl-with-a-pearl-earring eyes and full lips softly agape, while portman as the social-climbing, manipulative sister is a little hard to swallow. also, let's compare eric bana as henry viii:

to what we generally know good ol' henry 8 to look like:

ummmmmm...i'm all for revisionist history, but if you're going to be giving me a tarted-up version, then i want more TARTING up! i want to see helen mirren's magnificent rack on full display! or the equivalent! this is why you never trust an american historical production when you have a british equivalent. because british people are always willing to get naked. you can take that one to the bank.

yesterday in a half-fog i watched the "sex and the city" movie. i will say this: it didn't feel as long as it obviously was...but that could have been because i was drifting in and out. it was totally vapid and implausible and not funny but i guess it was entertaining enough...i didn't want to turn it off, but i also wasn't that engaged the whole time. let's face it - the whole "sex and the city" phenomenon is kind of well done, a kind of grizzled, chewy steak tarted up like it's filet. samantha's voracious sexy-older woman schtick has been done and done. doesn't anyone remember mona from "who's the boss"??? blanche from "the golden girls"? the search for love and the token black character were both pretty hurtbag, as was the whole overblown machination about *SPOILER ALERT* big-leaving-carrie-at-the-altar that provided the heavily contrived drama of the film's last two thirds. seriously...who WOULDN'T leave carrie at the altar? i sure as hell would. that lady is bats**t insane, yo. total headcase. it's not "feminism" or "modern" that women be allowed to be weak, flighty, headcases.

we've also been half-heartedly watching bbc's companion to "planet earth", "blue planet." actually, i just checked online and "blue planet" came out first. that explains A LOT and helps to ameliorate my criticisms of it as a whole. i loves me some deep undersea business as much as the next person, but i find the obvious editorializing and insertion of a narrative in this series really annoying. they use cutesy music and cgi (which "planet earth" assiduously avoids) to turn the sea creatures into "characters," to the detriment of the piece. i understand that it's hard to get audio underwater...but i'd rather have nothing than the overwrought scoring of the composer. they also didn't have quite enough material so there's A LOT of repetition. this one i could take or leave. "planet earth" is must-watch viewing.

tonight we're having dinner with A & C in their hood at cafe polonez. i'll bring my camera to do a proper review. wait til you see the size of the schnitzel! i'm also planning on sucking back more neo citran and knitting today and maybe making a loaf of the new york times no-knead bread. first i have to see if my cast-iron casserole is a 6-8 quarter...somehow i doubt it.
maybe i'll just cut the recipe in half.

fin.

what a waste

well, the canadian election has come and gone and WHAT. A. SNOOZEFEST. i almost didn't vote yesterday. i was sick and cranky and had to make dinner and prep stuff for G & M's baby(ies) shower(s) at work today and i didn't feel like schlepping my butt out to the polling station in between all of the above and waiting for the bed to be delivered.

i was so indifferent to all the candidates...i guess if i went with my gut instincts about people, i'd say i like the cut of dion's gib the best, but that's really not saying much with such a lacklustre pool. in the end, i went with the marxist-leninist candidate, but i would have liked to scratch out the "leninist" part first.

i don't really get people who hold "election" parties...especially for THIS election! watching the ridings come in would be the ultimate sleep aid...did anyone really doubt that there was going to be another minority government? not me. you know why there's such low voter turnout? because we don't have real leaders...we have party-sycophants tied to the caucuses' apronstrings.

the shower was a huge success...we had enough food for probably double the number of attendees...i've been grazing all day so i doubt i'll feel inclined to make dinner tonight...we have enough leftovers from thanksgiving and turkey soup and matzoh balls to see us through another meal...i'll cook tomorrow night.

this is boring, i know. i promise to be more entertaining or have something insightful to say tomorrow. but allow me to just say that "30 rock" effin' RULES!

fin.

addendum

it should be noted, in the interests of posterity and accuracy, that in the rundown of my three (THREE!) parental figures' (i don't count the woman my dad married because i refuse to acknowledge that alcoholic harridan as family) lists of "favorite children in decreasing order of favoriteness" i came in the BOTTOM of ALL THREE. i would be upset about it but i've been middle-child resolved that that's my lot in life since i was a kid. before you get all child-services outraged, my mom admitted that it's not so much "favorite" as "children i see eye-to-eye with." basically, being the independent, headstrong, stubborn, smart, and hyper-self-reliant kid means that your parents don't cozy up to you as much as they would if you showed a little vulnerability now and again. parents like to be able to parent, i guess, as opposed to being told "i don't care what you think" and then going quietly and resolvedly about your business.  

given that i've been sneezing my signature, forceful, irrepressible sneezes since about 10am this morning, spraying my keyboard with a fine mist of virus-impregnated spittle and given the heavy, throbbing, tenderness of my sinuses, all signs point to me coming down with a cold. BLAST. the last thing i need.

so i set to work combating the sickness the only way i know how: with an arsenal of global grandma folk wisdom.  in other words, i channeled my inner bubby and turned 2L of my 9L yield of turkey stock into matzoh ball soup.   i love me some jewish penicillin, hard.  so i took the turkey stock and heated it up with some sliced carrots, diced sweet potato, sliced celery, and chopped leftover turkey.  when the veggies were tender, i turned the heat to low, seasoned generously with salt and pepper and threw in sliced scallions, and chopped parsley, dill, and thyme.  

meanwhile, i made the matzoh balls and boiled those off.  to make matzoh balls you stir everything together, let it chill for an hour or overnight (i fast-chill it by sticking the stainless steel bowl in the freezer for 1/2 an hour) scoop them into balls (i use a 1.5" ice cream scoop)  and drop them into a pot of salted, boiling water.  i cook them until they're swollen and puffy (30-45minutes) at a steady simmer.  you can test one by pulling it out and slicing it in half.  the matzoh ball should be the same colour and consistency throughout...if the centre is still kind of dense and dark, then throw it back in.  then i put a couple of matzoh balls in a bowl and ladle the soup on top.  

easy!  delicious!  yields lots of leftovers!  good and good for you!  

so the peeps delivered the bed frame tonight.  i found out that the reason it was so cheap is because it's a teak veneer.  ah well, serves me right for thinking i had found the steal of the century.  still, it's easy to put together, sturdy, and was a decent price for our soon to be spare bed in our soon to be (?????) home when we upgrade to our queen (??????).  it lends a dignified air to our room and i really do love the built-in side tables.  look!  (disregard the reclining dotytron) and the el stupido cat:

it feels nice to be elevated off the ground...i'm sure i'm in for a rude awakening when i fumble for the now-farther floor during my middle-of-the-night pee run.

okay...i'm trundling off to bed with some "watchmen" and the photo issue of "entertainment weekly" to lull me to sleep, in the hopes that i awake tomorrow in a better state (not likely - i feel like my sinuses have more to give, yet).

fin.

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matzoh balls

4 T. chicken fat (or neutral oil - i use canola, because i tend not to have a tonne of chicken fat lying around...much to my eternal disappointment)
2 T. seltzer or club soda
4 eggs
1 T. sugar
1 1/2 t. salt
pepper to taste
1 c. matzoh meal

- stir everything together until well mixed....you can add thinly sliced scallions, chopped dill or parsley or thyme if you like.
- wrap bowl with plastic wrap and store in fridge for at least 1 hour or overnight. - cook as directed above

thanksgiving and oktoberfest, lagerfeld styleeee

this entry will mostly consist of gratuitous pictures of food and my impossibly juicy turkey of which i am inordinately (and justifiably) proud.  behold!!!  

the convection oven at my parentals place always messes me up...that sucker (18lbs, stuffed) was done in 3 hours!!!!! i also pull my turkey out of the fridge a few hours before i want to start it in the oven, so that there isn't the catch up time. health canada would probably tell you that this is terribly dangerous and a breeding ground for salmonellla, but i would beg to differ. i don't recommend it if you have people in your party who are immune compromised or leery of food-borne illness, because those are the ones that will get sick and ruin a good thing (ie. raw milk cheese, jack-in-the-box hamburgers) with their delicate gastrointestinal systems. i figure if you're taking the turkey up to an internal and external temp that will kill the bacteria, then not having it be straight-from-the-fridge icy does no harm in the long run.

i grease up the bird with butter and season liberally with salt and pepper. then i take cheesecloth and soak it in a mixture of white wine and melted butter and drape that over the breast. when we're nearing completion (i use a digital probe thermometre, set to go off at 170F) i take the cheesecloth off and let the breast brown. i also baste with this mixture, which makes for really tasty and rich pan juices.

i ended up letting the turkey rest out for nearly an hour which resulted in very juicy, tender, and still-piping hot meat, the best of all worlds. my sister paid me the ultimate compliment by saying that my turkey is the only one she looks forward to. i don't know what it is about w.p's...but they like to roast that bird into dry, desiccated submission, and often commit the more egregious offense of THROWING AWAY THE SKIN! the SKIN!!!!!!!! the best part of the bird, bar none! in some misguided attempt to CUT FAT! even whilst they're glomming candied sweet potatoes and green bean casserole held together with great glops of campbell's cream of mushroom soup! it's such a tragedy.

clockwise from the top right, we have: dark meat, white meat, roasted garlic mashed potatoes (passed through a food mill...no lumps here!), stuffing baked in a casserole, my sister's zucchini casserole topped with crushed ritz crackers and bound with an unholy amount of cheese, stuffing from inside the bird, and brussels sprouts and carrot casserole with horseradish mayo.


here's a shot of the plate, featuring all of the above and a healthy slurp of gravy and my family's beloved pillsbury crescent rolls. we loves us some crescent rolls.

pumpkin pie for dessert, with a healthy slump of whipped cream. i love my pumpkin pie but lately i've found it a bit tiresome. i think i've grown so fond of the sweet potato pecan pie that plain ol' pumpkin just doesn't get the gears cranking anymore.

i passed out by 10am...ridiculously early, drained by a day of cooking, a night of eating, and the airing of grievances at the family thanksgiving table. if there's one thing you can say about my family, we're certainly not repressed. we know EVERYTHING about each other and we can converse with a level of honesty and raw, open, communication that i've yet to see in other familial settings. not for us the stoic silence and stilted politeness...oh no. thanksgiving with the lagerfeld's features off-colour jokes, a numerical listing of my mater's favorite children, getting dressed down by an ever curmudgeonly big d, and equal parts laughter and cathartic tears. it's kind of awesome. i wouldn't have it any other way.

the next morning we made a breakfast of huevos rancheros, with scrambled eggs instead of the fried to make things easier.

we also had monkey bread. i effin LOVE monkey bread. we don't have a bundt pan at the familial estate so we split the recipe into two disposable foil pans. i could eat POUNDS AND POUNDS of monkey bread...especially the crispy outer bits. the good thing about baking it in shallow pans is that there's WAY MORE crispy, sugared, caramelized outside bits and less of the doughy innies.

it wasn't all eating though. we re-watched "iron man" watched episodes of "30 rock: season 2" and played touch football. which once again reiterated to me that i'm NOT a football tactician. i can't handle the strategizing. we also went to a park and threw a frisbee around and played nintendo wii until our forearms hurt. i was also completely charmed by little ze's renditions of "piggy noises" and his lisping along to the sesame street theme.

this little gem was awesome too (relayed by my sis): my sis was watching "sleeping beauty" (disney version) with my niece and my niece was asking why the king was destroying all the spinning wheels. and my sis replied that it was to prevent aurora from pricking her finger and falling under the queen's evil spell. to which my niece replied, matter-of-factly and offhandedly, "yeah, well everyone knows that doesn't happen because in real life spinning wheels are for turning hay into gold, and wool into yarn..." and my sister had the funny job of explaining that the events of rumpelstiltskin are not to be taken for real life occurrences.

then we did the big oktoberfest dinner for my outlaw bro.  clockwise from the top, we have: bratwurst, oktoberfest sausage, warm german potato salad, braised cabbage and apples, and pork schnitzel.  the finale was the cake i had been labouring over, the inside-out german chocolate cake with a semi-sweet chocolate buttercream.


devil's food cake layers with a dulce de leche, toasted coconut and pecan filling, and the light, sweet, buttercream slathered all over. it was hella tasty.

we drove back downtown this morning so that i could prep for my friends G & M's shower at work. i made deviled eggs and cheesecake brownies, and raspberry almond bars and i'll be making chicken salad tea sandwiches and smoked salmon and dilled cream cheese tea sandwiches tomorrow.

phew. we're doing thanksgiving with the dotytron's family tonight. we're going for indian food as a nice turkey and kraut respite. my broski also loaded me up with comics...i can't STOP reading comics. i effin' love them. they're so much more engaging than...books!!! and all you literary snobs can go eff yourselves..."the watchmen" is as dark and dense a dystopia as one could ever hope for.

fin.

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karl lagerfeld's definitive pumpkin pie
(makes 1 9" deep pie)

1 1/2 c. heavy cream (18%)
2 eggs
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 can 28oz pumpkin puree (if you want to use the whole can, just double everything to make 2 pies...they freeze really well)
1/4 t. salt
2 t. cinnamon
1 t. ground ginger
1/4 t. cloves
1/4 t. cardamom
1 unbaked 9" deep dish pie shell

mix all the ingredients together with a whisk, pour into pie shell, bake at 375F for 40-50 minutes until the pie is set and lightly puffed and pastry is golden.

in which

it is confirmed that most knitters are b***hes. so i went to lettuce knit yesterday on my lunch as i happened to be in kensington buying chorizo.  i ran into the girl who writes this blog that i have in my rss feeds.  as i was paying for my purchases, i said, "i think i read your knitting blog" and you know what she replies?  completely awkwardly and disinterestedly, "oh yeah?"  WHAT. THE. F**K.  way to have no social skills.  i'm sorry i don't look like a bedraggled women studies major in a uniform of little girl mary janes and knee skirts and dripping in homespun wool with my parkdale librarian glasses and shirts with silkscreened bird prints on them.  jeez.  who does that? when people say they read my blog i can usually have a normal conversation about it (probably because my readership consists of my family and 3 friends...but still!)  i can definitely offer something better than, "oh yeah?"  what the hell does that even mean???

i'm kind of sick of going to that store and getting s****y service.  i'm a repeat customer! everyone EXCEPT for this girl who's name starts with an A always gives me wary-eyes and is the DIRECT opposite of warm and friendly.  and seriously, what gives them the right?  you know what?  your roving is ugly and THAT'S why i didn't buy any.  

sigh.  now i feel bad.  fine...maybe she was having a bad day.  it's just i find it hard reconciling how knitters are all like, "we belong to a community!" "go knitters go!" and can have conferences and yarn tattoos but for the most part, are generally unfriendly.  

by comparison...the people at the purple purl have never been ANYTHING but nice and helpful and the right amount of chatty.  lettuce knit is totally representative of kensington market and its' pseudo warm and welcoming but really elitist and cliquey vibe.  it's like you don't get good service unless you really look like you're a squeedgee or bob marley tshirt away from being destitute.  

so that's my rant for the day.  lettuce knit is full of fascists who are probably stoned from a lack of gluten in their diet and too much earnestness and solstice-loving.  

in other news...i'm excited for tonight!!!  tonight is the start of thanksgiving weekend with my family.  .first i have to go to the library and get my holds and pick up my pants from my tailors and stop off at home and re-measure my boxspring one more time to see if i can buy this mid-century modern teak frame from these vintage dealers down the street from me.  it's a love bedframe with built-in drawers and a HEADBORD!!! how glam!!!  and it's made of teak!  i LOVE teak!!!  i think the price is prett solid ($300) for a bed frame and even though i don't plan on sharing a double with the dotytron forever, for the forseeable future that's going to be the case (and if we buy a house in the east end of toronto, bedroom sizes just might preclude us from trading up)...it'll be nice to have a little bit of elevation going on.  

then i'm going to the purple purl to pick up more roving for my thrummed mittens which are turning into the FATTEST MITTENS OF ALL TIME.  K at work made a joke about trying to handle change (or anything requiring a modicum of manual dexterity and opposable digits) with them on.  it doesn't appear likely.  you'll have a better idea once i post a picture.  i think they'll be really warm but it's basically like walking around with your hand stuffed in a loaf of bread made of wool.  apparently the roving starts to felt and get matted down with use...but holy criminey...they's be some chubby mitts.

we're going out for dinner tonight with the grandparentals up in markham.  no word yet on if we're eating at pak fook (the grandparentals favoured place) or asian legend (the younger generation's favoured place).  

fin.

dump and run!

this will by necessity be a quickie as i'm STILL PREPPING FOR THANKSGIVING.

you know what though??? I DON'T CARE BECAUSE THANKSGIVING IS THE GREATEST OF HOLIDAYS. bar none. even if it means i have to play "hide the giblets" with a pasty, goosepimpled turkey on saturday and lube up its nooks and crannies and unmentionable bits with gobs of butter. even if it means you spend ALL DAY cooking for a meal that gets demolished in about 10 minutes. it is worth it because giving thanks is a magical, wonderful, soul-enriching thing that makes us better people. and to do it around a table groaning under the benevolence with which we north americans are (by and large) graced is a humbling experience that brings to the fore the elusive sublime that is our own humanity.

okay...this is what i made for dinner tonight. we had seared halibut with chimichurri. chimichurri is a sauce/marinade used for grilled meat that originated in argentina. alongside i fried up par-boiled yukon potato chunks with bits of spanish cured chorizo and fennel.


the salad tonight was a bag of mixed, wintery, bitter greens from the sorauren farmer's market with eggplant (also from the farmer's market) cubes fried in roasted garlic oil, toasted pine nuts, shallots, and goat's cheese in a red wine vinaigrette.



now i have to finish slathering the german chocolate cake with buttercream.

fin.

hellboy baby sweater

well, i finally sewed the buttons on my rendition of elizabeth zimmerman's february baby sweater.  it's kind of famous in the knitting world.  the good points are that it's a top-down sweater - you start knitting the collar and work your way down, increasing and decreasing as necessary, and put the "live" sleeve stitches on a holder so that you can pick them up and continue the sleeves. that's good cuz sewing knit pieces together is painstaking, unforgiving, tedious and tiresome work.  the bad thing is that elizabeth zimmerman is notoriously sketchy on the details...her patterns are more like base recipes.  i'm pretty good at intuiting and figuring stuff out, but in this case, i wanted to make a sweater for a 12-18 month old baby and her sweater pattern only went up to 1 year so i had to do a lot of maths and i screwed stuff up and got frustrated but not so frustrated that i would rip it back and start all over and the end result is a pretty cute sweater with a GINORMOUS right sleeve (when you're looking at the sweater).  so i'm calling it the hellboy sweater because hellboy has that giant arm of his.  


it's kind of ugmo and gross and definitely not my standard meticulous work but i really wanted to start working on the thrummed mittens so i finished it, even though it wasn't perfect because my drive to finish one project before starting a new one outweighs my drive for perfection when i've already given up.  in my heart of hearts though, i still think it's kind of cute and i figure once a baby is wearing it, you won't be able to tell the difference!  in fact, i think i'm going to make a big version for myself...and this time, i'll do it right.   the original recipient was my prof's new baby but i've come to my senses and i'm trying to cut down on the whole "knitting for strangers" tip. so i'll save it until i find a baby i really want to give it to or maybe i'll keep it for my own future (theoretical) baby(ies).

as we all know, my FAVORITE HOLIDAY OF THE YEAR is fast approaching and tonight i prepped in earnest.  i made the stuffing (sage, bob evans sausage) and the carrot and brussels sprouts horseradish mayo casserole and i'm pretty much done for that meal.  we're ALSO doing an oktoberfest meal to honour my outlaw bro's kraut heritage (and as an excuse to eat german potato salad and schnitzel and wurst) so i made the filling and cake layers for a inside-out german chocolate cake.  instead of using the cake recipe provided, i'm using my go-to devil's food cake recipe, which makes 8" layers, which will mean a thicker layer of caramelized condensed milk-pecan-coconut filling (that's good!).  cakes enrobed with chocolate ganache are a bit of a pain in the bum but whatevs...it's a special occassion and i rarely make cakes for my family.  


i ALSO found time to make the flammekeuche we were supposed to have a few nights back. other recipes suggest you just dump bacon bits and thinly sliced, raw onion on top of the creme fraiche layer.  i wasn't too keen on that so i cooked off the lardons first and then caramelized the onion in the bacon fat and added chopped thyme.  



alongside i made a romaine salad with caramelized pears, goat's cheese, pine nuts, shallot, and red wine vinaigrette for a crispy, wintery, veggie side.



fin.

polski ogorki

cafe polonez is AMAZING. huge, plentiful portions that focus on starches and meat crammed cheek-by-jowl on enormous plates. i went splitsies with my teammate C on a bowl of tripe soup (not his idea) and the schnitzel polonez (topped with sauteed mushrooms). the tripe soup featured tender tripe in a rich, stewy, thick liquid with lots of cracked black pepper and some bits of carrot ($5.50). i dunked heavily buttered slices of rye bread in the bowl and was hand-clappingly happy. the schnitzel was crispy, lightly breaded, tender and came sided with a pile of boiled potatoes with dill, sauerkraut, grated beets, and coleslaw ($14.50). it was good, basic, hearty, eastern european grub. i also tried some of E's perogies...the meat ones were stuffed with an indeterminate meat mixture that tasted like beef/pork but had the stringy texture of chicken. very good. the potato ones were delicious, especially coated in a thick spackling of full fat sour cream. i would definitely go back.

i also took a tip from my boyfriend and stopped in at the sorauren park farmer's market...not too shabby! not all organic and of course it featured the de rigeur farmer's market entertainment of a past-the-sell-by-date hippie in rugged woolen and handtooled suede attire, enthusiastically and doggedly plunking away at a guitar and singing "folk" songs. yikes. so earnest! i picked up some lovely striped eggplant that i might stuff next week as well as some mixed greens and a fantastico cheese from montforte dairy, called (stupidly, imo) "l'indiscretion" (seriously. so ghey) which is a goat's milk cheese with a grappa-washed rind. it was deliciously chalky and goaty without being too redolent of the barn. then i tooled around roncesvalles for a bit and eyed some polish sweets and nearly fainted from the smell of kolbassa and other rustic, country sausages at a store before deciding that i needed to have more time to make considered, measured purchases and not let my perpetually gluttonous stomach do the dictating.

so my dball team (most of whom know each other) were talking about someone they knew...a girl who sold her virginity back to god. what the-?!? so i asked what you get for it. my boyfriend replied "a toaster" and i asked the natural follow up question, "2 slots or 4?" according to my boyfriend, it's a 4-slotter...which definitely makes it a much more enticing transaction...in that situation, if god really wants my damaged v-card in exchange for a 4-slot toaster...i'll totally give it to ol' yaweh! if we're following the logic of the metaphor through though...your virginity is technically "taken" by whichever random skidball you were in love with in highschool, so i don't really have MY virginity to sell back...i have my then boyfriend's. tricksy. i wonder if god knows the difference? seriously. apparently the other thing about this virgin-re-seller is that she loves bono and bono's charity work (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) wow. that kind of makes her like a unicorn. admittedly, my list of deal breakers is long and idiomatic...but being a fan of bono's charity work would probably put you smack dab in the middle of the "do not touch or entertain the thought of touching" hinterlands.

i got a massage tonight and now i'm gearing up for a dessert of super-hot epsom salt bath with ever-reliable entertainment weekly. i have to say, the cover with jon stewart and stephen colbert skewering the new yorker obama cover was HI-LARIOUS...if only for colbert's expression!!! he really nailed the flirtatious coy/smug look of the drawing.

for dinner i took the leftover meatballs and tomato sauce that i froze a couple of weekends back and heated them up. i served them on toasted, sliced, ace burger buns to make little meat ball sammies, topped with mozzarella cheese and served with a caesar salad. so tasty...i wish i always had the foresight to have meatballs and tomato sauce lying around in the freezer.

fin.

cupcake overload

food bloggers the world over would have you believe that the heydey of the cupcake is drawing to a close. anticipation is rampant over what will be the next homespun baked treat to sweep the zeitgeist (brownies seem to be the front runner). well, you wouldn't have known that after spending the weekend at casa lagerfeld and dotytron.

after dodgeball, a hot tip from my boyfriend sent us to madeleine's on bathurst (@ dupont). i fell IN LOVE. they sold a dazzling array of confections stacked in apothecary jars (french macaroons, brownies, cookies) as well as homespun pies and a refrigerator case stocked full of other delectables like coconut cream pies and these cheesecake things that my boyfriend specially recommended. i bought three mini cupcakes (vanilla with chocolate buttercream) and a cheesecake thing (a little round of chocolate and vanilla cheesecake on a chocolate cookie crust, enrobed in chocolate) and we ate those AFTER dinner at the momma and poppa d's. the cupcakes were DIVINE! moist, sturdy cake with a medium crumb that tasted like home-baked golden cake and a soft, light, incredibly luscious and cloud-like topping of chocolate buttercream that was sweet and rich with cooked buttercream essence. i adored them. the cheesecake was also delicious but a trifle rich for my liking.

this is AFTER we had a delcious chicken/mushroom/broccoli crepe dinner AND had my hazelnut brown butter cake (the dotytron forgot the camera so i didn't get any pictures). i LOVE the hazelnut brown butter cake. the recipe is from smitten kitchen by way of suzanne goin's book "sunday supper at lucques" which i promptly ordered from amazon (after coveting it for many years and unsuccessfully hoping that the public library would grab it)...this AFTER i had pretty much vowed to never buy another cookbook again what with the glut of recipes available on the interweb and torn from my multiple magazine subscriptions (soon to be shorter: "bon appetit" has jumped the shark bigtime and is getting axed from the roster).  hazlenut brown butter cake is light, redolent with toasty hazelnut flavour and the warm caramel undertones of browned butter and vanilla bean.  i slicked the top with a simple bittersweet chocolate ganache resulting in a low, simple, rustic looking cake that was barely sweet, with roasted, round, bitter flavours. really sophisticated...it's going on the wedding cake shortlist.  

this is what i envision at the performance - a table with all kinds of vintage and simple cake stands piled with some of my favorite cakes and sweets...hazelnut brown butter cake, the devil's food cake with brown sugar buttercream, something with cream cheese frosting (carrot cake or banana cupcakes), maybe sweet potato pecan pie with whipped cream (more likely i'll keep it all cakes) and people can just carve off a slice or two or three...hopefully they'll all made by me. the table will be decorated with figs and some sunflowers and that's it.  simple simple simple.  

so now the dotytron and i have to drag our asses out to various parks around toronto to see what's suitable for the big to-do.  the toronto music garden was our fist pick (and by "our" i mean "mine" since the dotytron isn't really interested in those kinds of details) but they don't allow amplification and we kind of need an electric guitar (or we can rejig things to do without).  the big thing is that they only allow room for 40 people or something...but the way i figure it is...it's a public park, right?  so we could have 40 people of family and then have our friends "happen" to be wandering through the park and showing up and watching the to-do...all guerilla/d.i.y. style.  

also...the house of our dreams is still VASTLY over-priced for what you get.  it's quite small.  my dad dug it, but said he would only pay $300 000 for it.  we had to tell our dad that $300 000 DOESN'T HAPPEN in toronto unless it's a hovel.  they had it staged so that when you walked in there was a fire ripping in the fire place and the smell of pumpkin pie...kinda ghey.  it would need some work...anyway...we're just going to keep doggedly hitting open houses until we've seen 50, at which point my dad says we'll be "educated" enough (he has this weird school-based analogy so right now we're in "kindergarten" and after 50 houses we'll be in "college") and hopefully the market conditions will be such that we can swoop in for the kill.  

in summation, i loved madeleine's and hazelnut brown butter cake and planning a wedding type deal just feels like SOMUCHWORK that you kind of don't get super-motivated to do it.

tonight is dodgeball and then dinner with the team...we're going to cafe polonez on roncesvalles for some polski ogorki food (tripe soup [i'll probably be the only one eating that]), perogies, breaded meats, cabbage rolls and the like.  bliss!!!!!!!  maybe some paczki?!????  

fin.

rested

i slept ALMOST ELEVEN HOURS LAST NIGHT. that's HUGE! i never ever sleep so much! i feel like a zillion dollars! though, i have to admit, i feel a little lost that i haven't already prepped/baked/done a billion things by this point. i'm feeling like the day has run away from me a bit. but i can also simultaneously acknowledge that that's borderline psychotic so i'm not going to give into it.

yesterday futronic came over and with another round of cupcakes from flourgirls out in milton. this time there were TWO (!) RED VELVET cupcakes in the batch. now, we all know how i love me some red velvet cupcakes. before i give my review, allow me to interject for a moment on how i have my finger on the pulse of the nation.

case numero uno: the adoption of the karl lagerfeld persona FAR PREDATES the reinsertion of karl lagerfeld into mainstream, popular, young awareness. it predates the lagerfeld collection at h&m (the one that barely sold in canada...nowhere near the lineups and slavering anticipation that met subsequent designer ventures by the clothing line). it predates lagerfeld confidential, the lengthy article that appeared either in the new york times or the new yorker (which revealed that la lagerfeld is kind of bats**t insane, but in an endearingly old world auteur kind of way), and his alignment and subsequent distancing himself from lilo (lindsay lohan) which in turn predates her now seemingly ancient lesbianism.

case numero dos: the red velvet cupcake thing. i was THERE people, shouting it from the rooftops well before foodgawker and taste were flooded with pics from food bloggers the world over (read: north america) with their versions of the southern treat.

case numero tres: the tent dress/muumuu phenomena.

so, while idiots the world over are chasing after (inexplicably) the agness deyns of le demi-monde, allow me to pause for a moment to toot my own kazoo. and seriously, agness deyn?!? as if LONDON is generating culture worth talking about right now?!? blech. snooze. she's marrying one of the dudes from the strokes. nuff said. remember them? i sure as hell don't.

clockwise from top: red velvet, chocolate raspberry, red velvet again, lemon. anyway, the red velvet cupcakes from flourgirls gave my beloved babycakes a run for their money, although i'd probably have to do a side by side comparison as it's been a while since i've had a babycake (you know, them being prohibitively expensive and all). the cream cheese frosting was light and tangy without the telltale cloying tackiness of an unbalanced cream cheese to sugar ratio. the cake was a startling crimson, whereas the babycake is more of a cocoa derived earthy rust. the cake was moist with a nice light crumb. very tasty, indeed.

it has come to my attention (based on the revelation from mr. futronic that the proprietor of flourgirls reads this very blog!) that my readership is actually wider than i generally suspect. this kind of warms the cockles of my cold, black heart. it's nice to know that people are reading and appreciating my petty attempts to amuse and self-aggrandize.

today for sunday breakkie we had dippy eggs and toast.



the rest of the day (what little is left of it!) will be spent as follows:

- my dad is arriving in half an hour to accompany me and the dotytron on the open house of my house of dreams

- then dodgeball

- then dinner at momma and poppa d's for poppa d's birthday...i think nany and poppa (real poppa) are coming too!

- then home for knitting. my thrummed mitten is coming along swimmingly! regardez-la:



fin.

thus far

well, i woke up uber-early and made two pumpkin pies (thanksgiving preparation) and a browned butter hazelnut cake for the dotytron's da's birthday dinner tomorrow. i also made a batch of bran muffins and ate a bowl of steel cut oats with the dotytron before he left me to go to work.

then i waited for the neighbour (shortround) to move his stupid car out of the driveway so that i could get my bike past it. he moved the car in last night so that the dotytron could park the borrowed parental mobile behind it, which was nice of him, but he also promised to move it out early so that i wouldn't be trapped inside the house. i even went so far as to go over there and bang on the door repeatedly to no avail. he's probably passed out in an alcoholic stupor.

so, finally i got all pissed off at being kept a prisoner in my own home and reefed my bike and myself through the space. i may or may not have scratched his car. i'm going to fess up though, but really, it's his fault. and before you, my dear readership, get all moral majority on me, the car is plenty scratched up already and is missing both a side mirror, a side window, and has a perpetual flat back tire.

thus liberated, i went to st. lawrence to pick up oktoberfest provisions for next weekend and then stopped at the mall to get little ze some belated birthday presents (my sister requested fall clothes, so i had to wait until fall rolled around), then i tried on some stuff in the change room at h&m and emerged HORRIFIED at the state of my upper arms. so now i'm frantically researching upper arm exercises on the internet. getting older is pretty good in the sense that you become more and more confident but also simultaneously (and contradictorily) kind of awful in that time ravages your once youthful looks and you're not SO FAR GONE that you can't remember how nubile you used to be. i'm starting to feel like no-makeup is no longer an option. i look HAGGARD! i'm hoping against hope that it's the harsh change room lighting. *crosses fingers that i'm not slowly morphing into elizabeth may*

tonight we're having dinner at dr. rei and hanbo's. it's a late dinner as the dotytron is getting muscled into going on a group "nuit blanche" thing for school. so stupid. i told him that when it comes to situations like that (ie. group work during leisure time) you have to PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN. left to their own devices, most people dither and waste time and waste YOUR time because they're worried about not getting A's. you really have to take charge before your whole night has been eaten up with dingbats you don't care about.

tomorrow we're going to see the house i'm lusting after. we roped my dad into going with us. mostly because he's retired and has nothing better to do. but he's already informed me that i'm committing the cardinal sin of being too emotional. he's right. that's why i'm not holding my breath. i also know that realistically, now is not the time for us to be buying, what with the dotytron being a student and all. i'm kind of muddling along just hoping that the gods will look kindly upon me and somehow the stars will align and the chorus of angels will see fit to give me the house that i'm emotionally and irrationally attached to.

fin.

debate fever!

here is a random loot bag of my opinions on the great debate-fest of aught 8. we watched the U.S. veep ones until the end and then switched over to catch the tail end of the canadian ones.

- gilles duceppe =

seriously. SEPARATED AT BIRTH.

- why was the canadian set anchored by a table shaped like a TOILET with a maple-leaf poo floating in the bowl?

- why was the canadian set so damn cheap?

- why was the canadian moderator allowed to rephrase, interrupt with his own questions, and put HIS words in the mouths of the candidates?

- why is jack layton such an opportunistic freak?

- biden DESTROYED palin. obliterated her. i was a little worried at first that he was going to alienate people by seeming overly intellectual (especially when palin kept appealing to soccer moms and main street americans) but for the most part his points were succinct, he remained on target and pointedly called her out on erroneous facts she spouted. i also liked how he numbered his points. plus his closing was SICK! there was a "god willing"! and tears welling! plus it was a hella catchy closer. he was pretty skillful at working in his own "middle american" background and drawing on his experience and kept his answers topical. overall, well played, biden, well played.

- palin answers questions like a pageant queen. she's semi-poised but totally glossy and vapid - it's a lot of words, no substance.

- the moderator in the u.s. debates was a PRO-star.

tonight for dinner i was supposed to be making an alsatian "pizza" (flammekueche). alsace is a region in france that borders germany and has its own kind of unique little culinary sub culture going on. it's basically pizza dough that you roll out really thin and top with a layer of creme fraiche mixed with a little tiny bit of ricotta (or quark or fromage frais) and top with bacon lardons, caramelized onion, and thyme. sounds tasty, right?

instead, heady with the knowledge that the house that i so desperately covet has dropped TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS in price and armed with a trusty newsfeed line that the housing market in toronto slowed 6% over last year, i made the counter-intuitive call that we go out for dinner, instead of taking the logical path, which would be that impending home ownership, however theoretical, should generally serve as an impetus for one's fiscal belt tightening.

in my defense, i received my gst rebate yesterday. AND i got a happy email from hr assuring me that the incremental climb i'd seen in my paycheques over the last 4 pay periods is legit. this was in response to a wary email i sent filled with trepidation that the $400 more a month i had been making was some horrible, cruel, payroll mistake that i would get dinged for in one grand lump sum. it turns out i reached my cpp and ei maximums and now it's more in my pocket and my ing savings account. ta-da!

anyway, a couple of months ago, a shoddy thai restaurant on the danforth, mong kut thai opened an outpost near logan with the tell-tale table-top grills that bespeak korean bbq all you can eat. this was going to be a thai iteration of the formula. pretty intriguing, right? how can you go wrong with piles of meat, right? WRONG! we sat down and were presented with plates of poorly cut, gristle-flecked, UNMARINATED (!!!!!) meat served in the de rigeur little plastic dishes but without the usual all-you-can-eat (ayce) exuberance. instead, 4 little forlorn, sinewy and canada grade b pieces crowded together on the plates with more negative space than modern typographic design. ai. the unmarinated part made it even worse. eating cheap meat without the benefit of ANY flavouring (salt! pepper! soy! MSG!!!) is unforgivable and makes you feel bad about yourself. so we asked for our bill and left, still hungry. but i wasn't about to sit through an irredeemable meal.

so we ended up at dangerous dan's (where we should have gone in the first place). ran into frankie gunns. came home, i started working on my new knitting project (thrummed mittens - inspired by the combined pull of the following: desire to learn a new skill [thrumming, mitten knitting]; to make something quick; to make something for MYSELF for a change; and to have warm toasty fingies after the biting chill of today's walk to the subway), and we watched the new food network show by the au pied du cochon chef and caught up on "gossip girl." bliss.

fin.

obligatory post extolling the virtues of fall

has anyone ever in the world loved fall as much as i? well, maybe dr. rei and the dotytron. i adore it. last night i pulled out our sheepskin slippers with no small amount of glee at the promise of toasty toesies...these are the things i'm loving/obsessed with at the moment:

- 100% cotton tights in jewel tones. i bought two pairs and they cost me a pretty penny (they were almost $30 a pair) but i'm wearing my purple ones today and have already received multiple compliments. they're super warm and soft and smooth and not fake-feeling. it's like wearing a full length pair of thin, comfy socks. love 'em. i also love that they have a very gentle waistband, unlikes most of my other tights which require very unsexy contortions to wriggle into and create bumps and bulges where bumps and bulges are neither invited nor welcome.

- the following colours: forest green, emerald green, teal, mustard yellow, orange, and purple purple purple! i covet an armada of professorial cardigans and thin layering pieces (tops and bottoms) in all those colours to break up the de facto black, greys, and browns of my winter work wardrobe.

- cotton jersey sheets, flannel pjs, sheepskin slippers

- fall food. rushing home in the biting cold to fill my belly with warm, stewy, carby, meaty goodness and the promise of a warm and sweet tidbit washed down with a minimug of cold milk before bed.

i'm one of the few people in the world who loves it when it gets dark early and i can traipse around my dimly lit (no bulb over 40 watts or whatever the new-compact fluoro equivalent is now) apartment, stumbling over things and tripping in the murky, wan, tobacco-stained atmosphere that is the byproduct of equal parts energy consciousness/environmental conscience and desire for ambiance.

i was looking over the summer list...and i didn't do too well. i have to start doing the maths to make my quilt happen and start cutting my delicious and adorable fabric. i have to get a leg up on holiday knitting, but to spare my fingers and inflamed tendons i think i'm going to stick to fat and chunky knitting for the next little while. i didn't get my driver's license OR get a first aid certificate. but there's still time for both. i have to make drapes. i have to get all my thanksgiving gear ready and prepare for a party at work.

now that the secret knitting has been gifted to the intended recipients, i can finally show it off!

for my pregnant co-worker, i turned the fir cone wrap into a fir cone baby blanket by casting on the same amount of stitches and beginning the garter stitch finishing band when it was roughly square. it's knit with estelle cloud cotton in a lovely caribbean ocean blue colour. the cloud cotton is very, very soft, and machine washable (kind of important for baby stuff) but a little hard on the hands (cotton doesn't stretch). the pattern was easy to memorize and it was a great first-timer project for my first real foray into using-a-chart lace patterns.

it was easy to figure out where i went wrong and using stitch markers between the pattern repeats saved my life once i figured out that was the way to go (3/4 through the final product and after ripping it up and starting over more times than i care to count). this took me about a month from start to finish (with long of non-knitting in between and lots of do-overs).

i also turned the kimono shawl from cheryl oberle's "folk shawls" into another baby blanket for my other pregnant co-worker (two co-workers, good friends, due within weeks of each other, married within months of each other), in the same yarn, but a suitably gender-neutral (i hope) pistachio colour for her baby.

i made my own chart for this pattern, as i've found that i like reading charts when doing lace better than following directions like "*k2, yo, ssk, yo*, repeat from * k3" i get easily confused with written directions and lose my place. this also took me a month from start to finish, with technically 2 weeks of actual active knitting time. the rest of the time i was giving my inflamed tendons a break from gripping slippery yarn and needles.

i'm really happy with both of them and i hope G and M like them and their babies love snuggling up in 'em.

tonight i went to terroni for a work-crew dinner in honour of the two mums-to-be. then i came home and watched the u.s. v.p. debates and taped the canadian debates to be watched later.

friday cannot come soon enough! if at all possible, i'm going to try to keep fridays for me and the dotytron or just do low-key things in the future and only make exceptions for grand, fun, nights, as generally, by the time friday rolls around, i'm DONE for. wiped out. exhausted. besides...another thing i adore about fall and winter is that it's for cozying up on the couch and watching movies and eating. nothing more elaborate or satisfying than that.

fin.

an elegy for rigor

remember when people used to do PROPER RESEARCH?!? and remember when people actually were INTELLIGENT with sophisticated VOCABULARIES and CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS and knew that in order to understand something, you generally required CONTEXT?!? i lament those days.

i am NOT a luddite. i love technology. i love the ability to download free episodes of gossip girl on rapidshare super-quick and watch them on my flatscreen monitor. i have a blog roll that's fairly epic (though skewed to craft/design/entertainment) and know how to set up rss feeds with my eyes closed. i know what twitter is, i've assessed it and find it stupid. i like facebook NOT for networking, but because it panders to my voyeuristic tendencies. i'm a dogged blogger and i'm fairly up to date on large-scale trends.

i feel like in the librarian community, we're so desperately afraid of being rendered obsolete that we're willing to throw our lot in with any new "web 2.0" doodad that crosses our path, just to show how "with it" we are and how "reactive" to the needs of our clients.

not to burst anyone's bubble...but i have yet to come across a research question in my 10 months of working professionally that could have been answered with a blog...ANY blog. however, the issue gets dichotomized and polarized, to the point where i don't feel like we can really voice our (valid) criticisms of relying on this technology without being accused of having some kind of retrograde attachment to paper and ink...of not being in tune with the "24/7" needs of the "crackberry" community. ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?

i like to fancy myself that i'm pretty hip. granted, i'm not on second life, but equally granted, second life is for losers (this is understood). the information profession is basically full of people who think that you "should" be on second life or are frantically signing up for myspace without realizing that myspace is for kids AND dead (in equal measure). my point is this: if you were to have some kind of "information professional trend-spotting olympics" i could TOTALLY represent and not only represent, TOOL most of the n00bs out there, who aren't only n00bs, but are like, loser n00bs. the kind who watch bravo. the kind who are like always 10 steps behind and when they're on the ball, they're on the ball with stupid stuff, like naomi klein or michael moore. the kind who take nuit blanche seriously. actually, it's making my skin crawl.

there was a recent library conference where a parliamentary library in australia surveyed their clients and found out that their clients value BREVITY over ACCURACY. well, me and my manedward tufte would probably agree that the bullet-pointing of information in our society is what is leading to our rapid intellectual degradation, the collapse of analytical ability, and the appallingly abysmal levels of political consciousness and civic engagement (my extrapolation).

what we also fail to understand, as information professionals...is that by blindly incorporating blogs for the SAKE of being "on board" with web 2.0, we are ENSURING our OBSOLESCENCE. any idiot can google information and find a blog and pass it over. my job is to do the editorial selection and quality control. this is MUCH harder to do. i've been given the tools to separate the wheat from the chaff (i actually think i was born with them, but that's another story). people will ALWAYS need researchers. they will NOT need people to do their web browsing for them (unless you're the pope - dr. rei and dotytron and i, inspired by our trip to the vatican, spent a good, long afternoon looking for a bathroom in rome speculating on the habits of the pope. it must suck to be the pope. you're like in this inbetween world. where you ride around in a car and you probably wear sweatpants on your day off but you aren't hip to popular culture)


tonight for dinner i made broiled feta with poached eggs and rosemary focaccia. i took slabs of feta, brushed them with chili oil from this jar of spicy chilies that ex-supervisor T gave me (she didn't make 'em, she bought 'em and thought i should have them), and broiled it in the oven with some olives. i poached some eggs, and served the whole mess with some toasted slices of rosemary focaccia and grape tomatoes roasted in the oven, tossed with garlic, basil leaves, salt and pepper. it was fantastic. a no-fuss meal that took all of 15 minutes active prep time.



fin.