Cuilionn Deilg

More Backlogged Bento Action

2009-11-05T15:31:00.000-05:00

Simple and tasty bento: carrots, dried plums, 3/4 of an orange, a nori-wrapped onigiri, and four turkey & scallion potstickers. (My potstickers are shaped oddly--like very tiny, lumpy eggrolls--because I used square wonton wrappers, not round potsticker wrappers.)

A Tale of Two Bentos

2009-11-01T12:36:00.000-05:00

Well, there's really no tale, so to speak, about these bentos, but it makes for a good post title. These are from my first 2 weeks in Casper (thus from mid-August), and as such, they are rather basic in nature.

The first contains a bottom tier of sushi rice decorated with strips of nori. Middle tier holds almonds, blueberries, carrots, and cherry tomatoes. Top tier holds M&Ms and soy sauce fish.

Another fairly basic but incredibly tasty bento: bottom tier holds salami, cherry tomatoes, an herbed cheese Laughing Cow wedge, and a clementine. Middle tier holds rye toasts and a trail mix of cashews, dried pineapple, and dried mango. Top tier holds one of my chief weaknesses: Good-N-Plenty candies.

Many of the things in this second bento are courtesy of my good friend Virginia, who was an absolute goddess of kindness and packed a wonderful tote of snacks for the trip. The tote came with me to the farmers' markets in town, too, and carried home the blueberries and carrots. I carry with me the thoughtfulness of my friends, too.

Why, hello.

2009-10-31T11:37:00.000-05:00

Rumors of my death, etc.

I have been doing a delightful lot of knitting, really, and this is Adamas, by Miriam Felton. It was knit for a most delightful friend, and I love this pattern. I had been attempting a different pattern for a long time, and wow, it was a wretched process. I think I spent 5 months and only got about a foot of the pattern done. I declared it a loss, and then knit the whole Adamas in a few short months, so I think it was a good choice.

I forgot the yarn name. Alas.

I've also been bento-ing. I'll try to spread these out over a few days.

This is one of my lunches from August, actually. Sushi rice with nori checkerboard squares, almonds, dried mango pieces, blueberries, carrots, and furikake in the little container. The top tier holds M&Ms and some coffee candies.

Oh, knitting, you fickle mistress...

2009-06-04T22:04:00.002-05:00

I think the universe mocks me for neglecting my blog. I knit a Nutkin that I can't put on my foot, and today, I cast off on the Adamas shawl, only to find it is woefully small, even blocked. So I've frogged the cast off, the 12-row edging, and rehung the umpteen million stitches back on the needles and replaced all the markers.

Let's just say that that was not a satisfactory experience.

On one hand, I need to do this. The shawl is a gift, and it would be both lame and useless as small as it turned out to be. And I do enjoy the knitting--I like this pattern a lot. On the other--ooooooh, I dislike frogging.

Maybe someday I'll have a FO to post.

I did score major yarn goodness on vacation, though. Pictures to come when there's natural light.

This is not helping.

2009-05-22T06:22:00.003-05:00

I've been hideously remiss in taking care of this blog.

I have some backlogged bentos from April or so that I'd like to get up here soon, and I'm starting my summer work schedule, so I might actually have bentos to show sometime in the future. I was supposed to have one today, but...then I fainted and knocked my rice off the stove.

I'm fine, but it'll be peanut butter & jelly for lunch now. *sigh*

Next week will find me in Portland, Oregon, so hopefully I can find something awesome and bento-blog-worthy out there.

2009-03-08T17:05:00.002-05:00

These were from Thursday and Friday.

Top tier contains jicama, snow peas, carrots, strawberries, almonds, gjetost, miniature gummi bears. Bottom: Rice with black sesame seed & shiso furikake decorations, broccoli, leftover steak pieces.

And then Friday's bento holds:
In the top tier, roasted yam bits, snow peas, jicama, strawberries, & blackberries. Bottom tier holds onigiri with nori decorations, oven-roasted broccoli, and chicken with Thai chili sauce.

Yam oven-fries are my new favorite thing, food-wise. These took about 20 minutes in my toaster oven (just a couple of French-fry-sized pieces of yam cut into 3/4 inch chunks, tossed in olive oil, and roasted at 425 degrees).

Two bentos!

2009-03-07T14:14:00.002-05:00

Two bentos from last week. First one is just a bit of a snack bento: strawberries, blackberries, almond pieces, and honey-wheat bread with honey butter in the container.
And then a full lunch featuring more of the same: berries, carrots, bread, homemade gyoza rolls (I'm not sure what to call them, but they're just chicken gyoza in larger egg roll wrappers).

Nothing terribly exciting, but it's hard to be terribly exciting early in the week. I'll have more interesting lunches when I post up the end of the week.

Otro Bento

2009-02-25T10:25:00.002-05:00

From Tuesday:I do so love my bone cookie cutter. Today it has cut out some wheat and sunflower seed bread to be accompanied by a little container of butter and honey. There are some dried cranberries tucked around it, and there are (as always) carrots on the side. Both sides, actually, top and bottom. The bottom tier also holds edamame and some sweet-chili-glazed chicken. (I'm out of broccoli...and everything vegetable-like except carrots.)

Nothing exciting, but the bread is really tasty and is emblematic of my intention to start eating more whole grains/less super-refined flours. ...except for baking. Sometimes, good ol' AP Flour is what is necessary.

Three Bentos

2009-02-22T09:24:00.003-05:00

Wee skotch of a backlog from this past week, so I've got three bentos to share today.Wednesday's was onigiri with nori stripes, carrots & sugar snap peas, and the silicon cup is filled with a mix of almonds, pistachio kernels, gjetost cubes, and two delicious little gingerbread bits that were baked by my friend Virginia.

Thursday's bento was especially delicious because I had homemade gyoza/"egg rolls" to dip in Thai chili sauce (which are both in the bottom/right side tier). What happened is that I was making gyoza and ran out of gyoza wrappers, so I put more filling into eggroll skins to make longer versions. I'll have to do that more often, as they are ideally shaped for bento, and two of them would be perfecto for lunch. They're accompanied by my (toaster)oven-roasted broccoli, and I'll give the recipe for that at the end of this post. Top (left side tier) holds sugar snap peas, carrots, a moro/blood orange, and a homemade "trail mix"--bits of dried apricot, dried fig, dried mango, and almonds.

And Friday's lunch was more broccoli, carrots, sugar snaps, moro orange, gjetost squares, and two panda cookies. Bottom holds avocado maki (oh, how I love you, avocado maki), carrot accents, and three dried figs.

(Toaster)Oven-Roasted Broccoli

Preheat toaster oven or regular oven to 425F.

Drizzle your preferred amount of broccoli spears (two ounces makes a good portion for a single bento lunch) with a little splash of olive oil (about a teaspoon or so). Season with a pinch of salt, garlic powder, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Squish it around with your hands so the oil coats the broccoli fairly well and the spices stick. (I find that the more willing you are to get your hands messy the less oil you actually need, in this case.) Put it on a baking sheet (if you're using the oven) or a bit of foil (toaster oven) and roast until the cut stems start to brown and the edges of the florets are getting a bit toasty-looking. This, inexplicably, takes about 12 minutes in my oven or 5 in my toaster oven. I don't understand it, but it's a convenient difference. Cool before packing in bento.

And for someone who dislikes pretty much all other forms of cooked broccoli, I love this stuff. I actively look forward to it, and I find myself cramming extra into whatever spaces I can find in my lunch.

February 17 Bento

2009-02-17T22:33:00.002-05:00

Pretty happy with the way this one turned out! Carrots, sugar snap peas, cranberries, a blood orange, gjetost triangles, and almonds under the cheese bits in the top tier, and onigiri, roasted broccoli, and mini-chicken burgers in the bottom. And, also, it was pretty darn tasty. Blood oranges are amazing.

Miniature eclairs

2009-02-15T19:58:00.002-05:00

Everything is better with tiny eclairs.

Homemade chocolate pastry cream from Dorie. Choux recipe also from Dorie. Honestly. Just go grab a copy of Baking: From My Home to Yours. Delicious stuff.

(this post brought to you by my stunning lack of academic motivation)

Knitting Content! (and the usual bento stuff)

2009-02-14T10:39:00.003-05:00

FINALLY. A finished object with a photo! Well, rather, a pair of objects, as one mitten (regretfully) does little for many of us. Unless you happen to be a pirate with a proper hook, in which case one mitten is likely all you need. I am not married to a pirate (avec hook or otherwise), and so I made him two mittens for Valentine's Day!I started with Laura Kasian's Basic Cabled Mittens pattern and turned left at Albuquerque and kept going. I owe a great debt to the pattern for shaping and proportions, and I switched out the three 4-stitch short cables for one larger six-stitch.They're knit in Berrocco Cuzco, which is fantabulous, held double, so that they will be the warmest mittens ever, because we are having the coldest winter ever here in the land of the lost. I got it at the always-a-pleasure Spin A Yarn on Mitchell Ave. (I think it is Very Important that the yarn store is so close to the hospital. ...if I had been thinking clearly, when I was having my overnight stay last February, I would have sent my husband there, first, instead of home to get me some nice pyjama pants.)

Ravel Them.

And then there are two days of bento action, both featuring that short-grain sweet brown rice I found, which is definitely a success. It takes about an hour to use it for bento (50 minutes of cooking, 10 minutes of resting, plus however long it takes you to fuss it into the shape you like, which could be twenty minutes for me), but if speed is not your intent (and it never is with me), you can do all the other assembly work while it's cooking. ...and also shower, do some dishes, pack up your belongings and necessities for the day... Hence, I didn't find the long cooking time to really be a problem. And, of course, if it is a little problematical for you, just make a bunch at once and freeze (which is what I did with half of the rice, and used it in Friday's lunch).

Onigiri wrapped in nori, carrots, dried apricots, dried figs, almonds, and panda cookies with a bit of soy sauce in le fish. The sweet brown rice was super-tasty--just a wee hint of nuttiness that still played well with the seasoned vinegar (because I make all of my onigiri with sushi rice).

Friday's bento contained brown rice onigiri with nori and shiso furikake. The shiso furikake bleeds a very pretty shade of intense fuschia, and someday I will actually do something with that interesting property, but I only use it in small amounts because it contains MSG and that can sometimes play merry hell with my stomach. It's tasty, though. It's accompanied by more (toaster)oven-roasted broccoli (this time with olive oil, chili flakes, dried orange peel, and garlic--delicious) and sweet chili-sauce glazed chicken.
Bottom tier contains pez de soy sauce, carrots, cheese spears, dried apricots, dried cranberries, and grapefruit sections. I tried to brulee my grapefruit (sprinkle it with a bit of sugar and zap under the broiler), but my toaster oven's broiler isn't beefy enough to do it, and my gas oven's broiler would probably destroy the silicone cup (a chance I don't really want to take). Grapefruit still tasty, though.

Bento and Macarons!

2009-02-10T22:31:00.003-05:00

First: today's bento.

Kiwi, carrots, broccoli, cheese & almonds, and a container of hoisin/chili sauce for chicken karaage. Bottom tier holds said chicken and a brie/honey/dried fig "sandwich." I didn't feel like making rice this morning, and I still have some bread to use up. It's not the most balanced meal I've ever put in my bento, but I figured having raw broccoli gets me some points. (Having the dipping sauce helped!)

And now on to the exciting part: macarons.

After seeing how beautiful they look all over the internet, I decided I had to try making them myself. And I admit to a bit of fear, since I do have difficulty dealing with kitchen failures, and I have seen many tales, far and wide, of the potential pitfalls of macaron-making (fiddly egg whites, humidity, etc.). But. A friend of mine could use some sweetness this week, so today was the day.

I used a recipe from Tartelette, whose method and recipes I've seen hailed far and wide, and I tweaked it for flavorings. Rather than recopy all of her hard work here, I'll send you to the recipe: Gingerbread Macarons. Mine omitted the nutmeg and cloves and added about a tablespoon and a half of sifted cocoa powder, because chocolate and cinnamon together are so lovely.

I used Bob's Red Mill almond flour, and I also blitzed it with the powdered sugar (in my blender) until it was, indeed, far finer than it was in the package. I aged my egg whites over night, and I did let my piped macarons rest on the counter for 30 and 50 minutes.

My oven is a touch hot, so next time, I will check on them at about 18 minutes, because at 20 minutes, they were a bit crunchy when completely cool. But the inside texture is delightful. Look!

For the filling, I used dulce de leche, made in the David Lebovitz fashion. Next time, I think I will put a dish cloth beneath the caramel-holding baking dish, because the center of mine got a bit overdone. It was delicious, but the texture was not smooth--the center got a bit over-caramelized. The little chewy bits were delicious, but not as polished-looking as I would like. But the final product?

Delicious. And they have feet! Proper macaron feet! (You have no idea how excited that makes me.)

Now I just have to not go into a sugar coma.

A Proper Bento

2009-02-09T21:19:00.002-05:00

Finally, I got it together enough to make a real bento for the day! I think it was fueled by my vast new love for Thai sweet chili sauce. The bottom tier holds mini chicken burgers, glazed with Thai sweet chili sauce, sitting on sushi rice rounds. That's accompanied by (toaster)oven-roasted broccoli. In the top tier, there is kiwi, carrot rounds, a little red silicon cup of cheese bits, and the green cup holds a mix of pistachios, almonds, dried cranberries, and dried figs.

On the way home today, I also stopped at the new health-food store (...which may have been the first time I'd ever been in such a thing), and I scored some sweet brown rice, which claims to behave in the same way that sushi rice does, but with more Nutritional Value. It does take 50 minutes to cook, but I'm really not a speed-bento person, so that's not so bad. I snagged some dried apricots, and some almond flour. I have a yen to try my hand at macarons, because they are all over the blogosphere, and they look beautiful and also delicious.

Quick Bentos

2009-02-04T21:57:00.003-05:00

Just two bentos that are mostly snack-based, since I have different on-campus hours this semester. I'm attempting a bit of an experiment for the next few days--seeing if I can keep from the crazy blood-sugar fluctuations that cause nap attacks and general bleeergh.

So, today saw: grapes, carrots, snow peas, a dried fig, almonds, and assorted cheese bits. Well. The golden brown ones are bits of gjetost, but I cannot for the life of me remember the paler cheese's name, and I threw away the wrapper. It came from Wegman's, had a green wax rind, and I swear it was a buttery Norwegian cheese that was not Jarlsberg. So. If anyone can shed some light on my idiocy, that would be grand.

Then there is the pedestrian peanut butter and jelly, made a bit more exciting with almonds and dried cranberries. There's carrots, snow peas, and two homemade chocolate caramels.

Get in the car. It's a BENTO.

2009-01-27T17:32:00.002-05:00

I finally have a packed lunch, one that includes actual food, somewhat "arranged" in a bento box. It's nothing to write home about (...but apparently it's enough to blog about?): an end from a white roll with brie and almonds (in the pink silicone heart) and honey (packet there with the bluish spreader), accompanied by snow peas, carrots, dried plums, and panda cookies.This was enough for lunch, but a meeting I was having ran long (...by about 2 hours), so I did cheat and get a Snickers bar to avoid having to murder anyone on the drive home. Here's hoping I can get back on the bento bus, now that school's started and I might have a stable schedule again.

Mm, foods.

2009-01-26T21:59:00.003-05:00

But first, knitting content! (I KNOW, RIGHT?)
After a great deal of fighting with camera and the photo itself, I have this picture that almost captures the gorgeous saturation of the yarn, Claudia's Hand-Painted merino sock yarn, in Ocean Depths, which is amazing. These socks are all for me. The pattern is Nutkin, and as the inimitable YarnHarlot has said, it really is a fast pattern. It's taking me forever and a day because I'm knitting a shawl, a pair of gloves, and trying to resist casting on for a tote bag project all at the same time.

I've also done a wee bit of cooking:

Delmonico steaks (new cast-iron grill pan proves its worth--and fills my house with smoke, but that's okay because these were damn tasty) with Boursin and feta twice-baked potato and roasted broccoli, which is my new "this is real food" food love.

The broccoli (when I get more broccoli) may appear in bentos, as it tastes quite nice at room temperature and cooks in the same amount of time that rice does.

Cause for Celebration

2009-01-12T18:16:00.005-05:00

UPS smiled upon me today. So there's a camera again! And also a delightful wealth of baking books that are just making me to squee a bit.

My wonderful brother-in-law and his wife gifted me with Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking and I am wicked thrilled. Domestic goddessness isn't exactly tres moi, but I adore Nigella Lawson and everything in this book looks amazing. But you'll hear me say that a lot, I'm thinking.

Then, using the gift card gifted me by my husband's delightful (and perceptive) co-workers who occasionally enjoy the fruits of my culinary labor (bribes will, in fact, get you everywhere), I purchased Dorrie Greenspan's Baking: From my home to yours and Debby Maugans Nakos's Small-Batch Baking.

To celebrate the whole camera thing, I'm also trying out two new recipes tonight--one new to me because someone else created it, one new to me because I made it up.

First was Use Real Butter's Boursin Chicken, made the way the recipe instructed (egad!) with the exception of halving it, as I only wanted to make two chicken breasts. You can see it below paired with tonight's experiment: Oven-Roasted Butternut Squash with Bacon.

The recipe (modestly portioned side dish for two).

1/2 small butternut squash, peeled and cubed (inch-ish)
2 slices bacon, cut into one-inch bits
1/3 sweet onion (Spanish or Vidalia) cut into 1/2 inch pieces
one clove of garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. dried rosemary
generous grind of black pepper
pinch of salt
1 Tbsp. olive oil

Preheat oven to 375F. Put olive oil in an 8x8 baking dish and toss squash, onion, garlic, and seasonings together. Tuck the bacon pieces between the squash cubes at roughly even intervals. Roast for about an hour, stirring gently at the halfway point. Enjoy with anything.

Really, I might make this tomorrow just for lunch for myself (as an experiment, I didn't do the whole squash at once, and so there were no leftovers). I adored this--the sweetness of the squash, prepared this way, astounded me, and the edges of the squash caramelized a bit, giving almost a hint of crispness over the soft interior, and the smoky flavor of the bacon was amazing.

It's not a pretty dish, but it's delicious.

Where was butternut squash when I was ten and refusing to eat my vegetables?

*nota bene: When taking pictures of food, do not do it while ravenous. You just end up stealing bites of the subject and mucking up the plate.

Rice and other disasters

2009-01-09T11:53:00.002-05:00

I am apparently personally incapable of cooking more than 1/2 cup of rice at a time. Frequently, it's not a problem, as most of the time, I am making rice for the current day's bento and that's it. However, that is largely due to the fact that on the occasion that I might like to make more rice (to create bento freezer stash or with dinner), my rice goes utterly wonky. Usually to the tune of hard in the center and mushy/chalky on the outside. I'm not sure how. I follow the same procedure of rinsing, I add the appropriate amount of water as instructed, and, on the advice of a friend after several failures just letting it cook, fluff the larger quantities of rice (like, a cup or two--not trying to make five cups of rice on the stovetop or anything crazy) to prevent the water from being trapped on the bottom. I have tried different sizes of pots (in case depth is an issue)--all to very little avail.

Can you help me, internets? (My favorite solution involves a sweet fuzzy-logic cooker, but that's a wee bit pricetastic right now.)

...camera is in Ohio. *impatient!*

Still camera-less

2009-01-08T09:00:00.002-05:00

Apparently, just because you check the UPS tracking information for your package every eleven seconds doesn't mean it changes. But come on! Camera, according to data, has been sitting on its duff in Nevada since the fifth! And I actually made a passably cute lunch today, but couldn't play the photog for it.

Because I'm a little desperate to have something useful to say, let me tell you about it, and you can visualize something far prettier than what I actually ended up with. Well. Have the highlights, anyway, one of which was the fact that I had a jicama giraffe. With carrot spots. My mother-in-law got me a boatload of adorable wee cookie/aspic cutters for Christmas, and so I had to try them out. I also had some gjetost triangles. This stuff is like heaven to me, and I would dearly love to try making it some day.

As a by-product of making gyoza for New Year's Eve (because I always have more filling than wrappers), I also had some wee chicken mini-burgers (a la Just Bento) to make, so they got sauced with some teriyaki and plunked in beside my rice, too.

But the thing that makes me super-excited, and the thing that will probably lead to my financial downfall, are Meiji Panda Cookies. My mother-in-law got me a box (before I had been blissfully ignorant of them) while she was visiting with her other son in Portland, and they're delicious. Small and crispy and full of rich chocolate creme that is so simply good it's probably made of pandas and bits of rainforest and unicorn horn (even though the ingredients list isn't too traumatizing, actually). I ate one this morning to make sure I wanted to put it in my lunch as my "dessert," and then I packed two, and then I shoved the box in the cupboard while threatening my hands with the rolling pin if they touched the cupboard again today.

...it's not really that I have any real problems with eating a whole (admittedly very small) box of cookies. It's more the fact that they are kind of a precious commodity--in the grocery stores around here (the Asian specialty stores and Wegmania), they clock in at about $4-5 a package. That's a wee bit too bloody much, really. ...however, a quick Googling just found me AsianFoodGrocer.com which promises them at slightly less than a dollar. I might be doomed.

Right, then. None of this is very much fun without anything to look at, is it? That will change soon, I hope. Unless someone eats my camera en route. I would be terribly cross. (Especially since it's bringing me a Dorrie Greenspan cookbook, too!)

Where'd it go, the time that I had?

2009-01-03T14:37:00.003-05:00

School, that's where.

Also, blogging isn't much fun without a functioning camera, and that's also where I've been. The old Canon A80 gave up the ghost (or displayed the ghost, depending--there were a lot of mysterious lines and blurs and inexplicable Dark Spots on all pictures for the last few months), so I'm waiting for a Canon Powershot A590IS to arrive from the good folks at Amazon.

The holidays brought with them a great deal of cooking and knitting, of which there are no photos. Thrilling, no?

But the short list of important milestones, blogwise-speaking:

Knitting:
Finished Cookie A.'s Monkey Socks for my mother and knit Easy Drop-Stitch Scarf for my sister-in-law from the most delicious yarn I've ever worked with, a 50/50 merino/silk from Steam Valley Fibers (purchased at Rhinebeck). It was a variegated red and black (which I'd never really seen in a yarn), and so soft and silky...well. Let's just say I liked it a lot. And would sell my firstborn for a chance to work with it again.

Also, as y'do when you get a little bit of leisure, I started the Pacific Waves shawl that I am knitting for a friend, and the Nutkin socks, because I finally got my paws on some Claudia's handpainted sock yarn, and it is glorious.

Cooking:
Made a vast array of things. Did a whole turkey for Thanksgiving, as I had my parents to feed that day, and I made my butternut squash soup (which I love to bits and pieces) for them. I also made Cranberry Dinner Rolls from Baking Bites (one of my absolute favorites, food-blogwise-speaking), and a molassess and ginger pumpkin tart from Epicurious.

For Christmas gifting, I made chocolate truffles and the best fleur-de-sel caramels I've ever had. There were also three batches of marshmallows (two vanilla, one mint), four kinds of spiced nuts, cookies, and a tiramisu-inspired birthday cake for a friend.

And if only there were photos of any of it. Alas.

I shouldn't be anywhere near food right now, either, as I rather have the plague at the moment. But I do so want to make some ice cream in my new ice cream maker attachment for ye olde Kitchenaid mixer. I'm working on deciding what kind. ...and if I eat it all myself, I won't get anyone else sick, right?

OMG. Bento!

2008-10-29T12:04:00.003-05:00

Sorry it seems I dropped off the face of the earth there. I'd like to say I haven't, but in grad school, you're already so close to the edge...

So, bento back-log. These are from about 2 weeks ago. And then there was a whole week where I pretty much forgot to eat. Let's avoid that in the future, hm?
Noriben with carrot star, and in the top tier, sunsugar tomatoes, marinated mozzarella, broccoli, sugar snaps, dried dates/plums, raspberries, kiwi, mango.

Strawberry yogurt, dried plums, orange segments, and carrot stars. Bottom tier holds a nori-wrapped onigiri, inarizushi, and some shredded leftover chicken.
And a snack bento for one of my shorter days: almonds, dried plums, marinated cheese cubes, carrots, and a little container of butter for the not-shown crispbread.

And I am blogging to you from my wee lunchbreak right now (with a bento and everything!). I tried some jicama. Look for the report on that soonish.

Another Detour (but tasty!)

2008-10-11T11:40:00.003-05:00

Because this is knitting blog, though, first: RHINEBECK IN A WEEK. I have spinning and knitting to show you, too (I really do!), and I'll hopefully get to that post this weekend. Along with the bento backlog. But for now, I had a pretty excellent dinner success on Tuesday night, and I wanted to share:

Apple-Cobbled-Together Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
I have always wanted to make butternut squash soup. I've had it twice, and it remains one of three soups I will eat. (I'm really not much into soup.) But there are so many options, and so many recipes, and I couldn't decide on just one. So, I used a little bit of everything.

Makes 4 Servings(ish)

Ingredients:
1 butternut squash
Olive oil
salt and pepper
cumin

1/2 Vidalia onion, chopped
1 Cortland apple, peeled and chopped
1 cup (ish) chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
dash of cayenne
dash of curry powder
1-2 Tbsp. honey

Preheat oven to 400F.

Slice the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds. If you are feeling ambitious, save them, clean them, and toast in the oven for delicious snacking. But that's another recipe. Brush squash with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a smidge of cumin. Place squash face-down on a cookie sheet and roast for roughly 30 minutes, or until the flesh is soft when stabbed with a fork. Remove from oven and let cool enough to handle.

While squash is cooling is a good time to prep your other ingredients: chop your onion and apple and saute gently in a bit of olive oil (looking for softness, not caramelization) in a heavy pot. A little salt and pepper at this stage is also good and helpful, but remember that you did salt the squash, and the chicken stock will add a bit more salt (even if you use the low-sodium kind, which I recommend). When your apple and onion are softening (10-15 minutes, depending on heat and size of dice), pour in enough chicken stock to cover. Bring to a simmer. While it simmers, scoop the cooled squash out of its skin, chop it a bit, and add it back to the simmering goodness. Stir it a bit, and pop a lid on the pot. Simmer until the squash starts to break down and the onion and apple is good and soft. Remove from heat and carefully puree in a blender. (This may take a few batches. Better to do it in small portions than to have your blender throw hot soup all over.)

Put the puree back into the pot, add the cream, honey, and pepper and curry powder to taste. Stir well and bring back up to heat. If you need to thin the soup at all, add a bit of chicken stock at this point.

Enjoy with a lovely bit of crusty bread of some kind. This pairs beautifully with a roast chicken (which is what I made it with).

Comfort Lunch

2008-09-30T12:19:00.004-05:00

This isn't exactly an original recipe, just another variation on an old favorite, but it's getting firmly into fall weather here in the northeast, and I wanted something warm and sweet. So: Cinnamon-Toasted Peanut Butter & Banana Sandwich!

It's a recipe that you can happily customize--I made it using two different kinds of chocolate on different days.

The basic elements are (for one sandwich):
--2 slices bread (this would be amazing on cinnamon bread, I'll bet)
--1 ripe banana
--peanut butter
--1 tbsp chocolate chips or small chocolate chunks
--1/2 tbsp sugar
--1/4 tsp cinnamon
--butter

Steps (accept that your hands will be messy):
1. Heat a skillet to medium/medium-low heat.
2. Butter one side of each slice of bread.
3. Sprinkle buttered sides of bread with mixed sugar and cinnamon.
4. Spread peanut butter on the bare side of each slice of bread. Put one slice butter/cinnamon-sugar-side down in skillet.
5. Slice banana in half, then slice each half into 2-3 pieces (lengthwise). Arrange on peanut butter side of the bread in the skillet.
6. Sprinkle the chocolate bits over the banana. Top with the other slice of bread, peanut-butter side down.
7. When bottom of sandwich is caramelized (but not burnt!), flip, and caramelize the other side.
8. Enjoy!

If you like things sweet, try milk chocolate, and if you like a really robust chocolate experience, try bittersweet chips. I used Ghirardelli milk and bittersweet, and both turned out deliciously.

While it's certainly nothing like health food, this is a really robust snack/lunch/breakfast that will sustain you. The peanut butter provides great protein, bananas are full of goodness, and the cinnamon-sugar adds a nice sweetness and crunch without being overkill.

I'm certain I'll play with this one again, possibly with almond butter (something I've always wanted to try but haven't yet) and different additions. Like cinnamon chips, or raisins, maybe.

DIY One-Serving Microwave Popcorn

2008-09-22T20:37:00.002-05:00

I'm as susceptible as the next person to the lure of popcorn, but the pre-packaged microwaved stuff just chafes at me in terms of price/quantity/the fact that the "100 Calorie" packs of Kettle Corn have bleeding fake sugar in them. (I am absolutely in favor of requiring all things with artificial sweeteners--and no, Splenda, you are not exempt because you're "made from" sugar--to be labeled across the front in big, bright labels, that such is the case.) (I can live and let live with a lot of things, but...man. Me and fake sugar = pistols at dawn all the way.)

So. I found me an internet tutorial (as y'do), the necessary supplies, and I did science to my popcorns. I followed the tutorial under the following conditions:

--I used a cappuchino-style mug, so as to have more room for tasty goodness
--I used peanut oil (just FYI)
--I lived dangerously and put both salt and sugar on the unpopped kernels (this worked okay, though maybe if I were feeling more ambitious, next time I would cook the sugar with a little butter/oil first, so it dissolves, because the sugar grains really mostly stuck to the sides of the mug, but then I could just rub the kernels over it as I ate, so it worked, sort of)
--Do make sure all four corners of your paper towel are battened down so that you don't have escapees

But: success! Tasty, smart-quantity snack. Give it a try! I'll be experimenting with seasonings and oils as life allows--I'm thinking I have to try a smidge of sesame oil in there, maybe with five-spice.

Captain America Cookies

2008-09-20T11:41:00.003-05:00

Okay, so I really think Captain America (you know, Marvel superhero) is kind of a tool, but today is a birthday party for the delightful proprietor of Charging Star Comics, and I said I'd make some cookies.
The dough base is Alton Brown's Sugar Cookie dough. I added 2 tablespoons of peanut butter and 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to 1/3 of the dough for the Bat-Cookies. Cap's shields are decorated with royal icing that was thinned with skim milk (I dipped the cookie stars in white and the rounds in red) and very slightly thinned icing in blue and white was then piped on to finish them. The Bat-Cookies are drizzled with semi-sweet chocolate.

There was a bit of bento this week, though this is the only one that was worth taking a photo of:
Tuesday's lunch, test-driving some lotus root. You can see the rounds on the bottom tier (cut in half and stood on end) with the onigiri, carrots, snow peas, and stir-fried chicken bits. Top tier holds more of the veg, plus tomatoes, some broccoli, dried mango, dried plums, a mocha cupcake, and a little container of butter (atop a similar one of jelly) for my Kavli crispbreads that are not pictured.

The lotus root was a decent addition to the lunch, though I think next time I will cook it at a higher heat for a shorter time. I do like the way it looks a lot, though I'm still working on finding a good way to showcase that while still making optimum use of the space available.

Catch-All

2008-09-15T17:28:00.005-05:00

Lots of bits and bobs here, as it's been a while since I updated. Silly graduate school.

Actual content from tonight--I found some vacuum-packed boiled lotus root at Kim's last week, and I'd been wanting to try it for a while, and I haven't been able to find fresh lotus root locally, so I picked up a package. First, I drained all of it and put a cookie-sheet's worth to freeze and be portioned up for bento, and what was left over (about 9 rounds), I tried Jugal bandi's baked lotus root chips. The guide doesn't mention oil type, and I'll say this--don't use olive oil. I think the flavor's too heavy for the lotus root, and next time I'll do something a little more adventurous with the spices. I went to my go-to potato favorites: chile powder and cumin. Something lighter all around would likely be better--peanut oil, maybe five-spice. Well...if those flavors aren't exactly lighter, at least they're not what I always do with my oven-fried starchy veg. It's not to say that what I have isn't tasty--it is, and they seem to be better at room temperature than potatoes made in the same way.

Expect to see some lotus root appearing in the bento soon, too.

And with regard to bento: I've been pretty lackluster about them lately. Let's call this the highlights reel, and anything not pictured is really better that way.

Two from last week:
The usual suspects for veg, plus three mini-onigiri with sesame seeds, tiny chicken karaage bites, honey mustard sauce for dipping, a little square of homemade fudge, pomegranate arils, and a little cup of brie topped with almonds and honey for the Kavli crispbread that is not pictured. That stuff makes the best working breakfast, but it really does need a tasty topping of some kind.Again, the veg and brie and pomegranate arils, this time accompanied by dried dates, figs, and plums. Bottom tier is chicken and veggie fried rice. I think, with this one, if I had just had a wee bit of egg to chuck in it, it would have tasted like fried rice ought.
And this was today's: carrots, sunsugar tomatoes, dried plums and dates, a container of mango, and a mini mocha cupcake on the top. Bottom holds onigiri (one mixed-rice with sesame seeds and bonito flakes, the other two topped with shiso furikake and sesame seeds), with broccoli and carrots. I like the flavor of the shiso furikake, and I like that it gives me the option of turning rice a very robust pink if I were to mix it into the rice, but there is MSG in this furikake, and I am sometimes sensitive to it. I'll have to use this one pretty sparingly, I think, but I'm glad to have found it.
And this is a view of the cupcakes, one regular, one mini. They're coffee cupcakes (my favorite cupcake recipe in the world-the cake part is moist and fluffy and delicious) with this chocolate ganache frosting, courtesy of the genius that is the now-retired Cupcake Bakeshop. I made them for a grad student get-together, and, per usual, a few sweet-toothed persons zeroed in on them and loved them, while the cheese-and-crackers crowd sipped their wine and were generally undessert-ish. Pfft. Left more of my good friend's delicious chocolate cream pie (with gingersnap crust!) for moi.

I live!

2008-09-08T07:50:00.007-05:00

Well. Sort of, I guess. Exam is finished. Now just the nail-biting and nausea until I find out the result (and I have no idea how long that will be). But below you can see the kind of carnage that my desk area was at the end of the draft. ...I wish I could say it didn't still look like that, but then I'd be lying.
Couple of bentos to post, though, from last week. Nothing spectacular, but they got me through the end of the week. Friday's was actually quite tasty, and I'm sad I forgot to take a picture of it.

Bento below is today's bento: sunflower seed bagel pieces and tahini to dip them in, carrots, sunsugar tomatoes (honestly, the garden keeps giving them, so I'll keep eating them), snow peas, dried plum/fig/date trio, and two candies.

This was Thursday's. ...Thursday was kind of a failure as a day, all the way around, but the mango and the avocado maki helped. Also some carrot maki, carrots, sunsugar tomatoes, dried plums, a little bite of brownie, and a cup of chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and cashews.And Wednesday's bento was a group of successes and failures. Success: the carrot log-cabin-style corral I was building. Failure: too many edamame , and one side of it collapsed, and it's no longer pretty. Success: sesame seed star designs on the onigiri. Failure: being fairly sick of broccoli, but still having it in my lunch. And the meat is from 3 barbeque chicken wings, so that was good.

My Vigdis is actually paddling along--I just need to put on the collar, the other button band (with button holes...alas), get some buttons, and hope it's not as sack-like as it seems when looking down at oneself. Really. It looks ginormous. But it is supposed to be a cozy snug thing, and I should try it on while I'm wearing real clothing, not pyjamas.

It's been a few days...

2008-09-04T21:44:00.002-05:00

...and alas, it shall be a few days more.

I'm caught in a grad school Scylla & Charybdis, and will be there until at least Monday. So, sadly, there will be no food-blogging until then. Unless I take pictures of my exam snacks, which won't be cute or interesting at all. They will likely be whatever I can eat while still typing.

In the meantime: a technical question or two. 1) Is there any way to properly "reply" to Blogger comments? I mean, I can always post a comment that is a response, but I can't seem to figure out how to reply to someone without them having to check back at the post for a response.

2) Has anyone tried to make an RSS feed of their Blogger account to Livejournal? And if so, how does one make the date correspond properly? (The RSS validators that I've used tell me the date is not compatible as-is, and I scrolled through the date/timestamps available on Blogger, and I can't find a way to fix the problem. Any help would be vastly appreciated.

Island Salad

2008-08-31T16:51:00.005-05:00

Too much graduate school = no time for real baking.

But--I did decide to take a little bit of time today to make a truly tasty dinner because I had a mango at the absolute perfect ripeness. (Honestly--best mango I've ever had.)I'm calling it an Island Salad because it's tropical and summery and is helping me to forget that September happens tomorrow. The meat is a pork chop marinated very unscientifically in a mix of pineapple juice, lime juice, crushed mango, teriyaki sauce, olive oil, a smidge of black pepper, and garlic, then grilled. It's all topped with toasted almonds, cherry tomatoes, grilled mango and pineapple slices, and green onions, and I dressed it very sparingly with another unscientific mix of peanut oil, sesame seed oil, teriyaki sauce, and mirin (which makes a lovely dip/dressing for other raw veg in the bento).

It was, I think, a rousing success.

A few bentos

2008-08-29T05:47:00.003-05:00

But first: Go Vote! (And, of course, American readers, please register to vote in the upcoming national election!)

And also second: I actually worked on my Vigdis sweater last night. Be still, my beating heart. You see, it's been in hibernation since sometime in very early 2007, and I've missed several falls and springs during which its knee-length cabled goodness would have been quite cozy and good, and I'd rather not let another fall pass that way. Especially since it's only August, and I'm already wearing two layers and my Knucks and snuggling with my polar fleece when I hole up in the library. (Apparently, "room temperature" at the university means roughly "blast chiller," despite there being no meteorological reason whatsoever to be using air conditioning anymore. It's only been in the seventies for two weeks straight.)

And now, bentos!

Wednesday: Maki day! Grilled sirloin, carrot, and black sesame seed maki. Carrot and broccoli accents, with some blueberries in the corner. Top tier holds more berries and broccoli, yellow watermelon, and the sunsugar tomatoes (with nori decorations) are built up on a bed of carrot rounds.

Thursday's bento features the same fruits/veg, except my carrots are in the form of JustBento's carrot kinpira! It was my first time making it, and it really was delicious. Very exciting, and very, very rare to have a cooked vegetable in my bento. (Yes, I am still eight and tend to dislike my veggies after the application of heat, though balsamic vinegar can make anything more appealing.) The last of my sirloin bits and some little onigiri round out the bottom tier.

And today's bento also has the usual suspects in the top tier, with the addition of three dried plums wedged between the carrots and watermelon cup. Bottom tier has two star-shaped mini-onigiri with nori furikake, two mixed-rice (bonito flakes and black sesame seed) onigiri balls, and one inarizushi on a bed of edamame and carrot bits.

I've also had breakfast sidecars made of cut-up peaches and blueberries, but they're not really exciting enough to show.

Off to the library!

Intrepid, tasty little things.

2008-08-26T19:56:00.004-05:00

Two bentos, one post! First up, Monday's bento: my usual vegetation of carrots, sugar snaps, and broccoli, as well as two sunsugar tomatoes hiding beneath those mozzarella flowers. They're accompanied by blueberries and some tinned lychees. They're okay, though I don't think that lychees are necessarily on my top ten favorite fruits list. They are, however, pretty delicious (and cute!) when you fill the seed cavity with blueberries or strawberry bits. Tucked in with all of that is my dessert: one of those Bailey's cupcakes, mini-sized.

For "main course," some garlic-beef bits (I bought a completely cheater-tastic bottle of stir-fry sauce at Wegman's, and it's amazing) with an assortment of mini-onigiri. Two are wrapped in nori (I think that works better with larger onigiri), and three are decorated with nori squares and furikake. Bits of carrot for color.

Tuesday's holds blueberries, carrot dividers, broccoli, cheese cubes atop sunsugar tomatoes, and a silicone cup of yellow watermelon.

The yellow watermelon is rather tasty, but not as...watermelon-y as the pink-red variety. However, the yellow came in a manageable size for two people, and cost far less than the larger, which might have gone to waste.

...though in retrospect, I should have gotten the larger red variety and made agua fresca. That's on the list for the end of summer.

In the bottom tier, my first incarnation of mixed-rice onigiri (bonito flakes and black sesame seeds), wrapped in nori strips. This onigiri combo is a winner for me! Accompanying are three of my homemade chicken gyoza, and I am sad to say I'm almost out of them--only one pouch of four left.

And, in case anyone has been wondering about these "sunsugar" tomatoes I keep packing in my lunch, here's a photo:
The pencil's for scale, and they're not a red tomato. They're a rather brilliant orange, and they are, as the name suggests, quite sweet and perfect for eating out of hand. The plants are also ridiculously prolific (even for poor gardeners such as ourselves, who rarely remember to water or tend), and should you choose to plant some, be aware that they sprawl. Our sunsugar is actually growing through both of our other tomato plants. Intrepid, tasty little things.

...not the smartest weekend I've had.

2008-08-26T19:51:00.001-05:00

To kick it off, I turned my right ankle stepping off the curb to get the mail, and my plans to try Just Hungry's Yatsuhashi recipe were sidelined by my inability to stand on two feet. That meant we spent Friday night at the walk-in, where I was gifted with crutches and an ankle brace.

Saturday, I learned why one ought never grocery shop on crutches. I think my arms hurt more than my ankle.

Sunday, I did in fact give the mochi recipe a try... When Maki suggests you have a kitchen scale, it's sage advice. Because when mochi fails, it fails completely. I used three separate conversion widgets to try to get the proportions right, and that obviously didn't work. I also used a pot (I was smart enough to use non-stick!) on the stovetop to do the cooking phase, and I almost broke two spoons and my wrists trying to stir it. ...even though it never really did get to that clean-the-sides-ball stage. As a result, the kneading section...we never really got past that, because the dough was too loose to knead properly. I also think that I turned it out too hot, too, because was definitely sticking like mad to the plastic wrap.

So far, it's been Mochi 2, Holly 0 around here. I think I'll wait until I get a kitchen scale to brave that one again.

I did make some white chocolate & Bailey's cupcakes on Sunday (to soothe my pride), and they're pretty delish, but I need to find a better way to add the Bailey's to the icing--a mere two tablespoons still makes the icing taste kind of boozy, rather than just imparting the flavor of the Irish cream. Perhaps some sort of cooked icing next time for that one.

I used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder in the icing, too, and it's a very gray-toned brown, because the cocoa is so dark, so it didn't photograph well. (Don't judge me--I'm a Pennsylvania girl, and I hold a very special place in my heart and my cupboard for Hershey's chocolate.)

So, alas, this is a pictureless post, but fear not--I've two bentos waiting for debut (or Godot--can one truly know?) from Monday and Tuesday morning.

But for discussion's sake--what was your most epic culinary fail? You're with friends here. It's okay. Share.

Not Exactly Bento: Bento Photo Contest Entry

2008-08-22T10:48:00.003-05:00

Hurrah, a shiny thing!

Not Exactly Bento is running a brilliant contest (I'm a little late to the party--today is the last day to enter), and this is my entry post (so please forgive me for doubling up on recent bento photos).

First entry:
Top tier: carrots, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, kiwi, plum slices, manchego cheese, dried fig slices, tiny piece of cake

Bottom: noriben, stir-fried garlic chicken, broccoli

And the second entry:
Top tier: cappocollo slices, cherry tomatoes, strawberry chardonnay cheese, sugar snaps, carrots, and some frozen mango & strawberries.

Bottom tier holds three mini onigiri (two brown rice, one white), broccoli, carrots, cashews (under the carrots), sugar snaps, and homemade beef negimaki

Two Bentos and a Tip!

2008-08-21T18:32:00.002-05:00

It's been a rough week--school starts on Monday and I'd be lying if I said I was anywhere near ready. That's why I'm doubling up on the bento--just no time to post yesterday, which was this one:
Customary cinnamon brown sugar bagel with PB and honey, broccoli, sugar snaps, carrots, sunsugar tomato, cheese, and, because of said gross week, a Lindt creme brulee chocolate square and a maple sugar candy. Oh, how I love me the maple sugar candy.

Then today, I used up some leftovers--Italian chicken and balsamic-roasted squash and cherry tomatoes, with carrots, cashews, and dried plums in the bottom tier. Bruschetta topping, carrots (hiding some cheese bites), and strawberries and lychees in the top. Not shown are two pieces of white toast I carried separately for the bruschetta topping.

By now, I'm sure you've noticed how much carrots feature in my bento. Not only is that because they're my favorite vegetable, but also because I have a nifty trick (that's probably not all that new to some of you) I got from my mom to avoid having to peel carrots every morning. Once or twice a week, I'll peel most of a bag of carrots and cut them into my favorite bento shapes--some into sticks, some into penny-rounds, some into planks like you see in the bottom tier here, and a few into the decorative stars and flowers that occasionally make it into my lunches. I put them into a handy Tupperware container, fill with cold, fresh water, and stash in the refrigerator. The water keeps the carrots' turgor pressure as it ought be, keeps the carrots from drying out (as peeled and cut carrots are wont to do), and then they only need a quick blot on a clean, dry kitchen towel before they're ready to pack up. Sometimes the carrots will curl a little bit, but that's kind of helpful if you want to make an edible barrier that isn't a straight line. If you cut the carrots very thin, you can even make circular (or ovoid, really) carrot "corrals," like you see here or here.

Another teensy tip, I guess: I keep a separate kitchen towel for bento prep in the morning, so that I can pat dry any of my freshly-washed vegetables without using disposable items, like paper towels. The salad spinner is also helpful for this sort of thing, but I seldom feel like going to those lengths in the morning.

August 19th Bento

2008-08-19T06:27:00.003-05:00

What a very rainy morning. I suppose I ought not complain, as we've had very few of those this summer (which is entirely peculiar for here). This morning, the bento is rocking the leftovers:

We have, in the top tier: cappocollo slices, cherry tomatoes, strawberry chardonnay cheese, sugar snaps, carrots, and some frozen mango & strawberries. Hopefully they'll thaw enough to smoosh down before I leave for school.

Bottom tier holds three mini onigiri (two brown rice, one white), broccoli, carrots, cashews (under the carrots), sugar snaps, and homemade beef negimaki, which was supper last night. ...I love that stuff. I do wish I could make it all pretty like my local Japanese restaurant does, but this still tastes good. Some day, too, I will actually have sake on hand to make it properly.

Not shown is a nectarine and two Milano cookies.

August 18th Bento

2008-08-18T06:21:00.003-05:00

Bit of a hodge-podge this morning, as I'm sort of in-between things. I need to restock my rice stash, but I still have tiny bits of this and that left, and so I'm trying to use that up (without leaving me completely without options in the morning). We also didn't make it to the World's Best Farmer's Market (I know that's a bit of a stretch compared to you cats in Seattle and Portland and whatnot, but it's quite fine for BFE Upstate NY!) this weekend, so my fruit selection is a little sad after having three delectable kinds of berries last week. (And after the farmer's market prices, I just really can't bring myself to pay grocery store prices...)

Anyway. Enough jibba-jabba.
Today is going to be a long one--we start the You Have No Excuses, Dashitall regimen now. So, extra fruit (a nectarine) and two cookies. And in the top tier: broccoli, carrots (as divider and decoration), kiwi, sugar snap peas, sunsugar and cherry tomatoes, a few cashews, and ridiculously delicious strawberry chardonnay cheese that Wegman's was pimping. With great difficulty, I found a small enough chunk of it to try (I will try something for $2, but not for $5).

Bottom tier holds two inarizushi, a soyfish, a tiny tortilla wraplet filled with turkey, lettuce, bacon, and a wee smidge of spicy honey mustard, and some more sugar snaps.

While I was in Wegman's this weekend, I did some price-checking, too--I'm very nearly at the end of my bag of rice, and I want to try some forbidden rice & black sticky rice (though I didn't find the latter at Wegman's), and I'm trying to discover where these things are cheapest. I thought certainly that the Asian food store would have cheaper rice, but it does not (probably because they don't sell as much as the large chain), though the price is not vastly different (maybe $.60 or a dollar), and that's a low enough differential for me to buy it at the small store because it's a small store. When I really need to pick up some more things--like sushi nori and dried mango, I'll check out the other Asian grocery, too (I think they had lotus root there, and I want to try making it, because it looks so pretty all golden brown and crisped), but I'm currently trying to cut back my random spending. And, frankly, every time I go to an Asian grocery store, I buy lots of random stuff. I can't help it--it's all so interesting-looking!

I'm also trying to find some nori-paste. I think I would like it (because I do so like nori, generally speaking). Also, lotus-seed paste, because I see so many people giving it the thumbs up for onigiri filling. I'll probably actually ask about that one--I'm not sure what it would look like on the shelf (and I can't really recognize anything in the Eastern languages except the Kanji for dog).

Dutch kids do it in the morning

2008-08-16T08:52:00.003-05:00

Baking, that is. You see, my in-laws are coming to visit today, and, given my Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, it is anathema to consider having guests without having some kind of baked good to offer. (Despite the fact that we've already got a brunch at IHOP and dinner at the Joey's Pizzeria--best pizza in the Southern Tier--planned out. There's definitely a mid-afternoon snack gap in there!) However, last night, I was completely knackered. The zoo took the opportunity to wring the absolute last bit of "gainful employment" from me this week--emptying an exhibit of its dirt and refilling it with sand--so I had many meaningful hours with a shovel and wheelbarrow in the past three days. My elbows feel like jell-o. So, last night, because it was also, "OMG, CLEAN YOUR HOUSE" flight-of-the-bumblebee-style, there was no baking. So what could I make this morning (before 10 a.m.) with what I had on hand?

Turnovers. Oh, puff pastry, how I love thee.

I had the most gorgeous peaches from the Frog Pond (last week's trip) on hand, and a few black raspberries in the freezer, as well as a package of frozen puff pastry. So:

Makes 9 small turnovers

1/2 peach, peeled and cut into small chunks
1/2 cup raspberries
2 Tbsp. flour
3 Tbsp. sugar
1 sheet thawed puff pastry
1 egg, beaten with 1 Tbsp. water, for brushing the tops
2 Tbsp. sugar for dusting

Heat your oven to 375F. Mix the first four ingredients in a bowl and set to the side. Roll your thawed puff pastry out a bit, so that you can cut (roughly) 9 3-inch squares from it (this may require a little dusting of flour to keep things from sticking). Put about 1 Tbsp. of the fruit filling in the center of each square, and brush two of the edges with a bit of egg wash. Fold the opposite edges over and seal with a fork. Repeat with all of your squares, and then brush tops with egg wash and sprinkle generously with sugar. If you have demerara sugar, this would be an excellent place for it, or coarse decorating sugar. (Which I have, and completely forgot to use. Alas.)

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until puffed up and golden brown and delicious. (Who watches a lot of Alton Brown? Oh, me.) Eat these on the same day as they were made, as puff pastry is a bit delicate and soaks up humidity like mad.

I had some leftover filling, and tried to make some custard cups, but that was a teensy disaster that doesn't merit a photo or post just yet.

And to follow up from yesterday: noriben = my new favorite bento food. I think next time I will have to use smaller bits of nori, though, as separating bite-size bits from the whole was a bit of a challenge, because I didn't shred my seaweed small enough.

Noriben!

2008-08-15T07:10:00.003-05:00

Trying out something different in today's bento: Noriben. Well, I'm not sure it's exactly new, since the combo of rice, soy, bonito flakes, and nori is kind of my favorite onigiri, just rearranged a bit, but I think the eating experience is different.

So, in the top tier, there are kiwi and plum wedges, blackberries, carrots, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, manchego cheese, dried fig slices, and another tiny piece of Yip-Yip cake. Bottom tier houses the noriben (with sesame seeds on top), some stir-fried chicken with garlic sauce, and some broccoli bits.

It's really rather motivating to have a new bento thing to try. I woke up without a fight at 6:30 this morning for the first time in a while, despite going to bed around 1:00 a.m. (because I'm an Olympics junkie), all so I could layer the same foods in a new way.

Noriben is also a great way to use up the nori scraps that accumulate from making nori decorations for your bento. Some of those sheets are full of cut-out palm trees and sunbursts and music notes and such, and lots of awkward little sizes that don't much fit anywhere else, but for noriben, it doesn't matter. Excellent.

Snack Bento!

2008-08-14T06:50:00.003-05:00

Today, apparently, we'll be getting lunch at work (one of my coworkers' birthday is today, and her mum is ordering pizza for everyone, so that's spiffy). That said, not to look gift horses in their minty-fresh mouths, I'm not a huge fan of the place that's delivering the pizza (now that I live somewhere where you can get really good pizza, I'm not sure why the mediocre pizza still thrives...but, even when pizza's not that great, it's still pretty good), and my body's kind of gotten used to having fruits and veg. I can tell when the weekend hits and I have no bento--I get all sluggish and a little grumpus (but usually don't do anything about it because, well, it's just not the same when they're not all lunch-prettied). So, I made a wee snack bento.

I used the 320 mL Happy Balloon box (lots of people have this one--it's a great size!), and crammed it full of cucumber rounds (with carrot accents), carrots (more hiding under the cucumber, broccoli, kiwi, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, and half a plum.

In the mornings, I also make a "you have no food in your food" box for my husband (whose idea of lunch = ham sandwich and chips), and I use a 400 mL Lock & Lock box for that. It generally has the same produce in it as mine, just arranged with less...purposeful cute. I try to make it pleasant looking, but I really do struggle with filling a deeper box. Even this little box has me scrambling a little to think of ways to use the depth. If I were going to do a savory dish in this kind of box, it would be great for chirashizushi or something like that--where one tops rice with something--but I've not yet done that.

Side notes: the lid of this box says "The life which bounced," and I love that. I'm not sure what it means, but I'm pretty sure it's a good thing to have

Sock news: started the heel flap last night. Yay!

Two Bentos

2008-08-13T06:42:00.003-05:00

Today's is much more exciting than yesterday's which definitely didn't merit its own post. I'm tacking it on here only so it doesn't feel left out.

Today's bento features inarizushi with a lot more edamame than I meant to make. (Do you ever do that? Adding the pretty pods to the boiling water, and that doesn't look like enough, and that doesn't look like enough, and then the bag tips a little too far, and suddenly you've got a wicked lot of soybeans to contend with... I think this is a direct result of trying to cook before seven a.m.) Top tier has broccoli, a teensy radish slice, cherry & sunsugar tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries, manchego and dried fig slices, carrot dividers, and the world's tiniest piece of cake. The cake, actually, is the same batter/filling/icing as my Appa Cupcakes, but I had a little bit more batter at the end of baking than would fill a whole cupcake paper, so I decided to play with my miniature cake tin instead. Oh, tiny cakes, how I would love to have an excuse to make and decorate one every day. But, of course, it's really hard to make cake batter that only fills one four-inch pan, ne?

Yesterday's bento was a brown sugar & cinnamon miniature bagel, spread with peanut butter and waiting for the honey in the Stitch container, accompanied by a riot of the usual fruits & veg: strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries, carrots, broccoli, cherry tomatoes. Not exciting, but definitely solidly tasty.

In knitting news, I'm almost done with the leg pattern repeats on my first Monkey sock (and they really have nothing to do with monkeys, which is a little baffling, but the pattern is so good I won't fault it for that). So close to done, I think I'll print out the heel/foot/toe directions, because hopefully I'll hit that stuff during lunch break.

I should definitely read for my last comprehensive exam on lunch break, but that's just really not as much fun as I think it should be. Also, it's hard to concentrate in the staff building. Yes. I'll knit instead.

(You see how hard I had to twist my own arm there?)

Rainbow Bento!

2008-08-11T19:44:00.003-05:00

Finally managed to get the full rainbow!

Top: strawberries, carrots, mango, broccoli, blueberries, blackberries

Bottom: avocado and chili-garlic chicken maki, carrots

I feel a little bit one-trick pony with the bentos lately, but the produce is too good right now to want to not cram at least one tier full of berries and things. My freezer stash of rice is also quite depleted, and I'm having a hard time wanting to devote an evening to making onigiri. Also, I have avocado. And I loves me some avocado maki. (Also, I don't know what else to do with avocado that will keep until lunchtime without turning brown. It stays nice and bright in the sushi rolls.)

What kind of cupcakes does a giant flying bison eat?

2008-08-10T18:46:00.003-05:00

Any cupcakes he wants to!

These were inspired by my watching of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Aang's flying bison Appa.

To get your bison airborne (or yourself, really, because these are sweet), you will need:

1 can dulce de leche
1 batch vanilla cupcakes (see below)
1 batch Magic Bison Buttercream (see below)

Vanilla Cupcakes (adapted from these)
20 cupcakes / 350 degree oven

3/4 cup (1-1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1-2/3 cups sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
2-2/3 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
2. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until well combined.
3. Measure the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and whisk to combine.
4. Measure out the milk and vanilla and stir to combine.
5. Add about a third of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar and beat to combine. Add about a half of the milk/vanilla and beat to combine. Continue adding, alternating between dry and wet and finishing with the dry.
6. Scoop batter into cupcake cups about 2/3’s full. Turn oven down to 350 degrees and bake cupcakes for about 22-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

When they have cooled, cut cone-shapes into the tops, fill with dulce de leche, and replace cupcake plugs. The filling is camoflaged as a giant flying bison is not. Then, top with:

Magic Bison Buttercream
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, room temperature
Powdered sugar (maybe 3-4 cups?)
1/3 cup (or whatever is leftover from the filling stage) of the dulce de leche.
8 oz. bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled
a few splashes of milk

Beat butter until smooth and fluffy. Carefully (to avoid clouds of powdered sugar everywhere) mix in 3 cups sifted powdered sugar. Stir in dulce de leche. Stir in chocolate. When everything is smooth and a pleasant spreadable (or pipeable) consistency (you may have to add powdered sugar to stiffen it or a bit of milk to smooth things out--it'll still taste great!), whip the frosting until it's as fluffy as you can get it. Apply to cupcakes in your method of choice.

Keep them under lock and key to avoid accidental overdose in the case of lemurs or boomerang-wielding idiots.

...with actual knitting content! (and best breakfast ever)

2008-08-10T08:58:00.004-05:00

After starting the same sock (without a proper pattern) a dozen times and frogging it because I lost my place or forgot how many increases I did at the toe, I scrapped the whole project and started a new set of socks for my mom. (This was because I was ambushed by some beautiful yarn at my LYS--Jojoland Melody--100% superwash merino--when I was not supposed to be buying yarn for myself...but this isn't for myself, it's for my mom, so it's okay, right?)

I'm using Cookie A.'s Monkey pattern, and I love it. The lace pattern is easy enough to work on in the car, the knitting is both interesting and fast (after two repeats of the lace motif, anyway), and the yarn is lovely--not splitty, plenty soft, a ridiculously pleasing shade of subtly shifting blue and green...it's really enjoyable.

Also, this morning I decided to try making crepes for the first time, kind of as a belated breakfast-in-bed for the anniversary and to show off some of the most ridiculously pretty blackberries ever. I used Kevin's crepe recipe because it's a very good breakfast-for-two size (makes four 7-inch crepes), and was so very, very happy with the results. In truth, I expected a bit of disaster, because, as they say, the first crepe is for the dog. However. I have no dog (alas!), and the first crepe came out just fine!

I do have to work on cooking each side of the crepe to the same shade--they all had one golden side, one pale, but were still very tasty. They're filled with a mix of blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries sitting on a thin layer of dulce de leche, and that's what you see drizzled over the top, too.

I make my dulce de leche by boiling cans of sweetened condensed milk (keeping the can well-covered with boiling water) for a very long time. For this consistency (it would make a good filling for a tart or cupcake, but is not stiff enough to pipe), I think the can was boiling around 4 hours. So it's an undertaking, but so, so worth it. And also very cheap, if you've ever looked at purchasing dulce de leche in the store. I'll be making some cupcakes later to use more of it.

August 8th Bento

2008-08-08T07:00:00.003-05:00

I don't know about you, but putting sushi in my lunches always seems to improve the day, and this week, as I'm sort of clawing for the weekend, I needed some. (Work's been really busy, very physically demanding, and I've got forearms that look like they've been attacked by wood rasps--at least, they would, except for the poison ivy that's being all plaguey-looking on top of the scratches.) So. This morning, I used up the last of my super-delicious steak with some avocado to make maki. There are some carrot accents between each piece because there were teeeeensy gaps and I filled two of them with carrot bits, and then I had to do all the spaces for symmetry's sake.

Top tier (because I was feeling very cool colors today) has kiwi, blueberries, cucumber, and plum. There are more carrots underneath the cucumber, but they didn't fit the color scheme, so I hid them. Lid has soy fish and requisite cookie.

...the only problem with bento boxes is that there's no really convenient way to put pie in them, unless you want to sacrifice a whole tier. (I made a peach pie last night, and I will miss it at lunch.) I suppose the only reasonable thing to do is to eat it for breakfast!

August 7th Bento

2008-08-07T06:56:00.003-05:00

Mmm, tasty leftovers. You see, last night we went out for an extremely extravagant (for us) dinner at Moxie's Woodfire Grill, and that meant coming home with some excellent things for lunch today.

Top tier: (almost)Rainbow! Carrots, sunsugar tomatoes, mango, edamame, blueberries, plum wedges

Bottom: Bonito-flake-filled onigiri shaped like a bone (using JustBento's cookie-cutter onigiri method), leftover Delmonico steak slices, leftover grilled zucchini

Lid: Milano cookie, nori for onigiri

Also, I am pleased to report that the kare pan in yesterday's lunch was super tasty. The exterior was not exactly crisp after sitting in the refrigerator at work, but nor was it soggy, so I consider that success! I will try that again when I'm having a day at school where my lunch can be at (frigid) room temperature.

Three Years!

2008-08-06T06:41:00.004-05:00

No, not three years knitting or three years bentoing (which are more like 20 years--dear Lord, that's the first time I put that in print and it looks vast and terrifying--and four months, respectively), but three years married. Heavens. (But it's going really well! ♥!) ...all of this makes me sound, I think, much older than I am. Let me disclaim: I'm only 26. But still.

I wish I'd done a little more with the day's bento, since it is a special occasion, but the freezer stash is a little bare in the rice department, actually. Hopefully this weekend will give me a chance to restock, because last night, I made a new bento staple! I made a (bastardized, cheating) version of Closet Cooking's Kare Pan, and wow. I'm totally sold. I made his kare recipe (linked at the bottom of the Kare Pan page) on Saturday--pretty much so I could make the curry bread, actually. I did cheat, though, because I didn't have another day to sacrifice to the kitchen--I used a package of Pillsbury Dinner Rolls dough for my bread dough, and fried as directed. Delicious. I will say, though, that when I do it again, I will (ideally) make the dough from scratch or at least use prepackaged dough in loaf form, because the rolls leave you with long strips of dough that were a bit of a pain to work with (so many extra edges to seal, and that was the hardest part).

I froze the leftovers (and it was very hard to have leftovers, but I prevailed) wrapped in foil and bagged in a freezer bag, then reheated/recrisped two for my bento in the toaster oven this morning. Thawing them in the box would likely leave one with a soggy, gross mess.

They're in the sidecar box with broccoli florets and blueberries. In the green box, I have carrots & edamame, 3 mini onigiri (brown rice and regular) with nori hearts, strawberries, blueberries, a sectioned plum, and a single sunsugar tomato from the garden.

While I like that I could separate the crispy kare pan from the more moist rice (so it has a better chance of staying crisp), I admit to having a hard time packing these deeper, single-layer boxes. You can see the gap between food and lid--filling these boxes takes a little more planning in terms of what I'm actually bringing (which might mean deciding that before half of the food is in the box). I might also start making rice shapes that are just for these boxes--ones that are thicker, or completely rounded, etc.

August 5th Bento: A Bit Continental, Really

2008-08-05T08:18:00.003-05:00

No rice today. *gasp!*

Top tier: semi-bruschetta topping (red tomato, sunsugar tomato, mozzarella cubes, fresh basil & oregano, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, smidge of garlic); manchego cheese cubes, dried figs, two capocollo rosettes, kiwi.

Bottom tier: Carrots, cucumber slices, broccoli, blueberries, strawberries.

Lid: two Milano cookies

Not pictured: two slices of toast for the bruschetta, cut into wee triangles. That is my one sadness regarding the bento: as a Pennsylvania child, bread is the stuff of life, and it is very hard to actually put in the bento, because it is not very dense. A third of a sandwich takes up almost a whole tier, and that's a bit problematic if you need a heavy-duty lunch.

I feel a little bit like I'm cheating when I skip the rice. I don't know why. Probably because a bento like this doesn't really expand my culinary palate at all, because it's really all old favorites (well, the figs are a new thing, and the manchego, and the capocollo, but I like all other dried fruit, cheese is always good, and it's a salty cured pork, so those three things are all like all the other stuff I enjoy). The contents, though, are still mildly exciting to me because the tomatoes and the herbs in the bruschetta mix are homegrown! Our tomato plants have finally begun to give fruit, and when the sunsugar plant really gets going, we'll be up to our ears in quarter-sized sun-colored tomatoes. I can't wait!

August 4th Bento

2008-08-04T07:15:00.003-05:00

Despite disliking a largeish font, I think my blog's a bit of an eyestrain, so I'll give it a go in this size.

Today's bento features my favorite summertime dessert (and yes, I know I've put it all out of proportion by making my lunch about 1/4 pudding, but sssh): blueberry pudding. There's also strawberries, blueberries, cucumber slices, and broccoli in the top tier. Then carrots, leftover margarita chicken thigh, and onigiri with nori furikake on the bottom.

If you have any desire (and trust me, you should) to make the blueberry pudding, proceed thusly:

Mix 1 large (6 oz.) box of instant vanilla pudding mix with two cups of milk (not three, as the box will instruct). Add in one standard-sized container of Cool Whip (the only reason I can think of to purchase Cool Whip), and mix well. Then gently stir in a good whack of blueberries (I leave the ratio up to you--at least a pint, though).

Try not to eat it all at one sitting.

Wow!

2008-08-01T21:25:00.004-05:00

Through some delightful twist of fate, my July 4th bento has been shortlisted in Bento Pet's Bento Competition! That's super-exciting, because there are so many gorgeous entries. Check out the poll (on Bento Pet's sidebar) and vote for your favorite!

But, long time, no see around here! I was on vacation for ten days at the end of the month, so there were no bentos then (alas!), but I am home now and my work schedule has restabilized, so I will hopefully be back in action, bento-wise soon.

In the meantime, have one I made right before vacation!
In the lid, we have honey/sesame granola bar, soy fish, nori strip for onigiri, and candies. In the top tier, we have edamame and carrots, grapes, broccoli, and blueberries. In the bottom tier, bonito flake onigiri with nori decorations, more carrots, and teriyaki chicken.

Contest!

2008-07-14T21:16:00.003-05:00

Perhaps you've already seen it, because Biggie announced it already, but check out Bento Pet's Bento Competition!
I've sent in three entries. I certainly don't expect anything to come of it, as I'm just a newbie, but it's a really cool contest for bento preparation that isn't the kind of ornate kyaraben that are stunning but maybe not the kind of thing I can put together at six a.m.

More Bentos

2008-07-14T20:07:00.004-05:00

...some day I will have proper knitting content in here. Somehow. I'm getting close to the end of the cabled scarf I've been working on since December, so hopefully I'll remember to take a photo before giving it to the destined recipient.

A bit of a catch-all post of some older and newer bentos, because these are some I've liked a lot. First: top tier holds mango, carrots, dried mango, sugar snaps, and watermelon. Bottom tier holds chicken katsu & carrot maki and broccoli. Lid holds dulce de leche wafer cookies and soy fish.

Second: left tier holds chicken gyoza, onigiri creatures in carrot fencing, edamame. Right holds carrots, kiwi, grapes, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni accents.

Third holds gummi candy in the lid, top tier holds sweet beef sticks, mozzarella and cherry tomatoes, carrots, mango slices, broccoli, and a container of tahini for dipping. Bottom tier holds basil leaves, sugar snaps, blueberries, grapes, and kumquats.
Fourth holds, in the top tier: carrots, grapes, blueberries, broccoli, cashews, and a little container of dipping vinaigrette. Bottom tier holds broccoli, inarizushi, and brown rice onigiri with furikake. Lid holds Reese's Pieces and strawberry fruit leather.

Fifth holds two whole wheat pitas, green box holds broccoli, carrots, garlic beef, tomatoes, and lettuce, with a container of shoyu vinaigrette. Blue box holds grapes, blueberries, and lychees.

July 4th Bento

2008-07-08T22:06:00.005-05:00

My Fourth of July bento: bonito flake onigiri with nori decorations, sugar snaps, gyoza, and a cherry tomato; edamame, carrots, sugar snaps, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, mango; and dried fruits and some candies in the lid.

And the second, from a day or two earlier, is similar, but I liked the decorations on the onigiri.

Weekend Update

2008-07-01T13:02:00.003-05:00

Yes, I am well aware that I have actually missed the weekend by a full two days. Shush. It was a busy one. First, the hand-knit handtowels I've been frantically knitting were wrapped and given to their destined happy couple on Saturday (in one of the best weddings I've been to in a long time). However, I knit the last stitch at 3:15 for a 4:00 wedding, so there are no pictures. Which makes me sad, because the cotton yarn I used was really quite radiant (like the bride), and that's saying something because I rather hate knitting with cotton.

Now my hands are empty again, and it feels very, very strange. But, I have no good portable knitting just now, though I do have another project that is approaching done, so I should do that.

Also strange was 3 days without bento. I think the fact that I slept 3 hours on Monday afternoon is indicative of what happens when I has no bento: I eat junk or don't really eat. (Though I did gorge myself on black raspberries, which I had wanted to put in today's lunch, but I froze them yesterday to avoid the possibility of losing even a single one to mold, because they are so very fragile.)

Today's was a tasty bento, though not really much to look at. Maybe pictures a little later in the week. But tonight I have to go to the grocery store because we are very nearly out of any kind of foodstuffs that are good for bento (carrots are my only remaining veg, and I'm down to two lonely kiwis on the fruit side). It's peculiar how excited I get about grocery shopping in times like these, ne?

New Bento!

2008-06-24T07:16:00.002-05:00

Three days a week, I work at a job that is very physically demanding, and so my lunches (as you've probably seen) are sure to have a good bit of protein and very filling carbs (because rice packs so very nicely). Two days a week, I go to school and sit at my computer/read books all day. Today is one of those days, so I thought it would be a good idea to lighten up the load a little bit and try out my new bento (that is about 100 mL smaller than the blue Urara dragonfly box I usually use). Check out the excellent Engrish on the box top. It makes me happy.

I don't generally count calories in my boxes, either (I pack bento to make sure I eat actual food, rather than to cut back on what I eat), but today's items were easily countable, so if you were wondering:

Miniature brown-sugar bagel with peanut butter and honey: 243
3 Cherry tomatoes: 10
Broccoli florets: 15
Cucumber and carrot star slices: 7
1/2 orange: 30
1/2 cup grapes: 50 (after I took the photo, I filled in the top of the box with grapes)
Total: 355

The orange, too, is extra delicious. It came from a local farmer's market (but the orange is definitely not local, this being the northeast), and maybe I could find good oranges in the grocery store, I just haven't yet. The Frog Pond (farmer's market) has totally spoiled me, and I've only been there once.

Trips to Kim's Are Always Interesting

2008-06-15T22:02:00.003-05:00

Saturday saw me sneaking in a very quick trip into Kim's Oriental Grocery (my favorite of the area Asian groceries--of which there are 3 that I have found), which resulted in my picking up a can of lychees in syrup, some bonito flakes, and the best dried mango I've found. I'll probably crack open the lychees a few days from now, since I have fresh fruit post-shopping now, and the mango is tasty, but not new. The bonito flakes, however...that's time for culinary adventure.

First let me explain my relationship to tuna. In terms of the everyday canned variety, I think only the smell of sauerkraut makes me gag more. I really can't get on the bus with anything fishy-smelling, and so I was really wary of anything even vaguely tuna-associated for a very long time. Then I encountered raw tuna in sushi, and in a strange combination of fascination and peer pressure, I discovered how very much I adored it. And I continue to wonder how anything like maguro ends up like Starkist. But that did make me wonder if maybe bonito flakes would be something I could like, because I tend to like dried meats (I'm a jerky fanatic) and I had hope, generally speaking, because the Japanese cooking endeavors I have been embarking upon have all been quite enjoyable. And the package wasn't too expensive, so I pounced on it.

Tonight, I decided to make some onigiri for tomorrow's lunch and fill them with bonito flakes moistened with shoyu. I made the filling first--which is just what it sounds like--so I could try it (no sense in filling them if I didn't like what was going in, eh?). Opening the package, I was distressed. Because it smelled distinctly fishy. But I tried some, and it was decidedly not fishy. In fact, it tasted not unlike that finely shredded beef jerky that was sold in a plastic can to look like chewing tobacco. And again--I loves me some beef jerky. So I was really pleased.

...after failing spectacularly at brown rice (and I hate that it takes more than an hour before the ruin is fully evident--at least when I screw up white rice, I know within half an hour), I made some regular sushi rice, and started forming up my onigiri.

I've got two filled onigiri waiting in the freezer for tomorrow, and hopefully those will work out. These will be my first frozen & filled onigiri--usually, if I'm going to put something in them, I do the whole process the day of. Hopefully this will work out nicely, though, because that would be a nice possibility to add to the rotation.

Yaki Onigiri

2008-06-04T07:23:00.002-05:00

I've got some mango teriyaki chicken (just diced chicken breast cooked up with some bottled teriyaki sauce, a splash of OJ, and some pepper, then I tossed in some cubed mango left over from last night's mango/bell pepper salsa adventure--it's awesome on pork chops, chicken, and salad), with a yaki onigiri. I used Biggie's tutorial, but the process is way easy: whack the onigiri in a dry pan, toast until starting to brown, brush with soy, re-toast on both sides (and I also did the three short sides, too, because the crisped bits look really yummy). Makes the kitchen smell awesome at 6:30 a.m. (Bento means breakfast is really interesting...I just kind of snack on the shrapnel left from cutting things into bento-sized bits.)

Top tier has more mango, grapes, strawberries, carrot sticks, and shelled edamame.

And then yesterday's bento, which was far less complicated, but I like decorating sandwiches:
Peanut butter and jelly with dried mango decos, grapes. Bottom tier is turkey pepperoni flowers around store-bought spanokopita (eventually, I will make my own), a carrot corral for my edamame, and strawberries that have been sprinkled with powdered ginger. In the lid, Lindt creme brulee chocolate, which rocks a lot.

Thursday or Friday morning I'm going to give avocado maki a try. I've never had avocado in sushi, but it's a pleasing flavor, and it's hard to not love anything rolled up like that. (Presentation junkie what?)

And now off to work! I will clean up in rainforest aviary and hope my yaki onigiri is a success (and not, like my smart-assed husband said this morning, "Yucky onigiri." He has yet to embrace the awesomeness of nori).

Some more bento!

2008-05-31T20:52:00.004-05:00

First successful attempt at inarizushi! It's hanging out here with a fish full of soy sauce and a little bit of dried mango in the bottom tier. In the top tier, there's the usual mix of sugar snap peas and carrots, some kiwi, a strawberry, and a mocha-caramel mini-cupcake (it was a very good week for baking!). In the lid are some bits of a honey/sesame seed/sunflower seed granola bar.

And Friday's bento involved another attempt at some maki rolls--this one is teriyaki beef and raw carrot. It was most tasty. Everything else is largely the same.

Then there was the mini-project this afternoon: organizing my gear a little bit so it stops eating my countertop. I dragged the drawer (that came with my refrigerator that we never use) out of storage, and it turned out to be pretty perfectly sized for this purpose. On the left, everything that was going into the space, on the right, everything in its place. Head over to my Flickr page to see it all labeled!

Alas and alack.

2008-05-27T08:45:00.002-05:00

I had hoped to have a F.O. to show you here, as I did, indeed, finish Quant, but I frogged it four minutes after my last stitch. I suppose I could have taken a picture of how silly it looked on my head, so I could at least amuse you, ne? But, I didn't. But let me tell you about it.

See, I used a skein of Manos de Uruguay in a lovely, lovely variegated navy/taupe colorway and had just enough yarn to follow the pattern swimmingly. I even went to the trouble of hunting up a modification so that the ends would be symmetrical, and I mastered the knack of entrelac. Truly, entrelac is Good Knitting--interesting enough for your fingers, but easily memorized! It was knitting I could do while copy-editing. In short, it was ideal--a very good pattern, enjoyable new knitting-learning, beautiful yarn--so why'd it end up wrapped in a ball again?

Because my head ain't meant for headbands or anything like them. AND I lived in some awesome denial because the Manos is a little more robust than the given pattern yarn and it turned out about 2 inches too wide. Which meant it did not lovingly cup my head, but rather stuck out in the back like a stunted kerchief. When I tried it on, all I could think of was the end of Lilo & Stitch, when Stitch puts Nani's bikini on his head like an aviator's cap.

In retrospect, though, I should have kept it, made it a little bit longer, and had myself a very innovative obi belt. That would have been wicked cool. I mean, I'd never wear it, because the only kimono-like thing I own is cherry-red, but at least it'd have a purpose. But that's an idea for the future, next time I have some really sturdy yarn in a color I could possibly use for belt action, I think it'd be pretty hot.

I think, too, the Manos might have color changes that are slightly too brief for the entrelac. I mean, it looked really cool, but it didn't give those isolated jewel-like diamonds that I lusted after on the pattern page. Hm. Anyway.

Now let's have a wee bitty whinge.

I'm suffering from acrylicus cablitis. By which I mean that--for whatever reason--the last 3 fingers of my left hand cramp like a mother when I do more than four rows on a cabled scarf I'm doing. Anyone have this problem? I don't remember it being an issue back in December when I started this bad boy, but last night, sweet Christmas, I thought I was going to have to amputate. I desperately want to finish this scarf because, as I said, I've been working on it since December, the friend it was for just had a birthday, and I feel a little bad about that.

But, can't knit with crippled fingers, so I switched to my Ademas (which has been in progress since New Year's Eve, 2006--I'm just now approaching my 3rd-of-twelve pattern repeat. How ridiculous I am. That didn't hurt my hands at all, though I wish I had some Inox 5s instead of the 5s I'm using now (I don't even know what they are) because they feel really clumsy in my hands. Maybe I'll snatch a pair of those at some point, when I go on the hunt for the perfect linen yarn (planning ot make some wedding gifts, if I can find the right colors).

I do so like knitting lace, despite the fact that it takes for-damn-ever. I queued up a new pattern on Ravelry for some fiber that isn't spun yet. (Funny how that works.)

Now I'm off to make a big damn mess of my kitchen. It's a baking-type day!

A new shiny thing!

2008-04-18T20:16:00.002-05:00

Which is to say, I have a bit of a new hobby/interest/obsession.

Bento.

I've been posting a little bit about it on my personal blog, a little bit on the Ravelry Bento Artists Group, and generally raving about it to anyone who will listen.

But it's just so shiny:
This is my lunch from Thursday, and I'm kind of ridiculously proud of it. I'm still not very good at the speed bento process--getting this excellent lunch together quickly, and you can read more about that at Lunch in a Box and Just Bento. Those are my two go-to websites for everything from bento lunch safety to supplies tips to recipes, and everything in between.

I should like to write more on this, but I'd only be repeating myself, and I'm a bit too knackered to do that just now. But perhaps there will be more posting of this sort as I continue on the bento adventures.

Knucks: Knocked Out

2008-03-23T13:49:00.003-05:00

Finished my Knucks on Friday night, and they are delightful things. Let me tell you the story of finishing them.

I had been sort of strapped for real knitting time all month--how else could it take 3.5 weeks to knit a wee pair of glovelets? So when we decided to go see The Town Pants in Corning on Friday night, I knew I'd found some prime knitting time. Not during the show, of course, because one must sing and clap and pogo while the Pants play. But because they are so brilliantly popular, it's crucial to get to the venue (the inestimable Snooty Pig) early. So we got there at 7:30 for a 9:30 show. The drive is also 1.5 hours long. So I had plenty of time to knit the ribbing on the right glove, sew up the gaps at the fingers, weave in my ends, and make a general neatness of it. And I had time to take the left cuff off of its waste yarn, put it back on the needles and knit the extra length (because I hadn't decided how long I wanted them to be, nor was I sure how much yarn I had). Then I put them on, kept my hands warm because the bar opened the door for air (it was packed), and was able to clap like a mad thing because wool is squishy and my hands weren't all red and stinging by the end of the night.

I did, of course, have some drunk woman come up to me and say, "You're knitting? What the fuck's up with that?" But then another couple (one we shared a table with) had a nice long conversation about alpacas with me. So I guess it evens out. Either way, I had super music and now have a new pair of Knucks to boot!

(No pictures, because the second one looks the same as the first.)

I think I'm going to add a few rows of ribbing to my Santa Cruz hat. It's a little bit on the shallow side--I found I was tugging it down a lot at the show. ...I hate picking up stitches. *gnash teeth*

There's a Spinning Challenge for You!

2008-03-15T07:49:00.002-05:00

I had myself an pretty ridiculous dream in which I was spinning (on my wheel, despite knowing that there's certainly no way the orifice on Sinclair is big enough) together a combination of red shoestring licorice, black television cable (in roughly two-foot staple lengths, and let me tell you, those co-ax joins are not as easy as it looks when you don't really want to stop the wheel), and 1.5-inch-wide red satin ribbon.

I don't know what my dream-idiocy was planning to knit with that in the end, but it was a pretty cool "yarn," all things considered. ...like, you could definitely knit something racy, naughty, and damn cool in an industrial-kink kind of way with it. Maybe. Ish.

No idea. Because then Jin and Mugen from Samurai Champloo were trying to fight again and my spinning disappeared.

Knuck

2008-03-02T16:08:00.003-05:00

One down, one to go! Well, one down, insofar as the glove is finished, the finger gaps sewn, the ends woven in...and I am left undecided about the length of the cuffs. So I'm letting the ribbing on waste yarn for now, while I knit up the other one and decide how long I want to make the cuffs. I have delusions of making them proper armwarmers, too, but we'll see how much yarn I have and whether I have enough patience to spin more if I need it.

Off to cast on some fingers!

Knuckle Sandwich

2008-02-28T09:39:00.003-05:00

I cast on for a set of Knucks Tuesday night. And since, I was five minutes late to school on Wednesday morning, up late last night, and had to forcibly remove myself from the needles this morning so as to avoid being late again (though my intern was 11 minutes late, and I turned out to be almost 6 minutes early, and I can't help but be a little angry at that loss of 17 minutes of knitting).

Since my first pair of socks, I have known: I do love me some DPNs. I really, really do. And knitting the little fingers for the Knucks has just charmed me to no end. I understand Stephanie's obsession with the wee grape leaves on the Vintage socks completely now.

I'm knitting my Knucks with some mods (as y'do)--making the fingers go out to the last knuckle because I have been craving a pair of gloves-for-typing for years. I'll probably knit the cuffs longer, too, so they're combo arm-warmers/gloves. And I'm knitting them in more of my BFL Glas (to match the Santa Cruz hat) because there's something magical about knitting one's own handspun. Seriously. It's a really nice ego-boost (okay, so I might be a little past boost and into vexingly pleased with myself) to know that you've made all of the thing and the yarn isn't coming apart in your hands as you knit, and the color changes are beautiful and crisp because you were diligent about your plying. And this all balances the FAIL of my current other (lack of) productivity.

I will hope to have progress pictures of the Knucks this weekend, as my parental units are visiting and that means that the rest of the week will likely be sacrificed to making sure we have enough clean coffee cups. ...or I could just hang my finished Knuck on the refrigerator and have us all share one. I think that would be okay.

F*&% me, a FO!

2008-02-24T01:42:00.004-05:00

Santa Cruz, by Sarah-Hope Parmeter, from Magknits.

Knit on size 7s, according to the worsted pattern. It fits very close (because my yarn is my own handspun and is very approximate worsted--I probably could have used the DK pattern and had a denser hat), but I like it. My plan is to wear it during the day at school after I've had to walk into campus wearing my chullo (i.e. after any lame attempt to style my hair is utterly ruined).

Yarn fiber is HelloYarn BFL, colorway Glas. It makes me so, so happy. I spun it on my Ashford Traveler, then Navajo-plied it to preserve the color-changes. The colors are so saturated, so dark, it sort of muddies if you barber-pole it. My photography isn't the best, but it's a mix of rich blue-greens, blue-purple, and small bits of black and brown.
It is, all things considered, the most perfectly me colorway I've ever seen. AND I have a whole bunch left! This only used about half of one of the balls I've spun (I get about 125 yards of finished yarn out of a full bobbin of singles). So...maybe matching wristlets or something. I think I'd do those on size 5 needles, though.

Great knit. Quick, satisfying, and near-instant gratification, which makes me happy after so much languishing over UFOs.

Dude. Your English teacher looks like a thug.

It can't be bad if it involves wool, right?

2007-12-23T22:44:00.000-05:00

Today I decided I maybe oughtn't wear hand-knit lace to church services. It's very hard to feel appropriately humble when you're wearing Alpaca Cloud around your shoulders that's been invited into a beautiful shape by one of Eunny's gorgeous patterns.

Surely it's not a sin if the pride is in the sheer amazingness of alpaca and wool, right? Heavenly creations and all that? I was exulting! I praised! ~~And I wasn't thinking about how much better my shawl was than the store-bought sweaters all around me. ...much.~~

Please no lightning this close to Christmas.

Success! ...and failure

2007-12-09T10:56:00.000-05:00

You see, I successfully completed the Super Seekrit thing I was knitting before (huzzah!) and the gauge didn't go wonky with the needle-switch (double huzzah!), and they even arrived at the desired destination without exploding...but I completely forgot to take any pictures. I fail.

But: Super Seekrit Thing:
Mrs. Beetons!
Knit: from Rowan Kidsilk Haze, color Fern & Rowan Tapestry, color Lakeland. The small beads were the wee glass seed beads in a green like the Kidsilk, and the larger beads were a glazed blue-green, like the Tapestry. I think I would use all seed beads next time, since all of the beading is on the Kidsilk part, anyway.
Notes: Kidsilk is indeed a pain in the arse to frog, but is very satisfying to knit with because it is oh so prettyful. Also, Tapestry = my new favorite yarn-crush. I have another ball of it in Rustic, and we have more Super Seekrit Big Plans. (Doesn't blogging about holiday knitting suck?)

I am also knitting washcloths. I hate knitting with cotton. Especially cabling with cotton. And yes, why not have a cabled washcloth? But the quickness of finishing washcloths is a heady thing. Next task regarding washcloths? Charting designs! Cross your fingers for me on that one.

Aaaand: I am working on a cabled scarf for a friend, in Caron Simply Soft. It's acrylic, and I'd rather not use it on principle, but it's really nice acrylic, shiny and silky and the color is a beautiful silvery grey. It is also wicked affordable (how else do you get a foot-wide cabled scarf & matching hat knit for something like $8 in yarn that is imminently pettable?). This is a very exciting project--friend and I sat down with Viking Knitting, and she pointed at cables and motifs that made her happy (the happiness knot on p. 32-33, and the three-bight happiness signs on cables, p. 33, if you're reading along), and we went to the yarn store. This is where we're at. It looks like a heart, but it's the beginning of the Happiness Knot.

Same friend also brought me a new adventure in spinning! A friend of hers has a Lop, and she's saved some of the shed fur. It's not long enough to spin on its own, of course, but I tried carding it together (because it's soft like angel-down) with some BFL and a smidge of those dyed Mohair locks I got at Rhinebeck. I'm spinning it on my wee Cascade, and you can still see the gray merino/silk that's been on the spindle for a while under the new bunny-mix. I'm spinning it fairly fine, and I have no idea what I'll do with it (possibly something for the bunny-owner, perhaps), nor do I know how it will hold up to the plying/setting process, but we'll see.

And, now a comment on the thing that actually made me open the update page: so, Vickie Howell's projects usually don't appeal to me. But, I've found a few things (the Kick Ass-cot, for one) that kind of appeal. Not high on the queue, really, but if I were bored (I'm not, at the moment) and wanted something to bash out in one skein from the stash, I might look there. BUT. How much do I love that she's named a color of yarn in her LOVE line "Ennis & Jack"? I'm not sure I agree that they're lavender, but the concept of it makes me happy. And there's a Westley and Buttercup one, too!

Now I have to stop blogging. I'm starting the first of my comprehensive Ph.D. exams tomorrow, and I still have texts to read.

Wow. My bamboo-crush isn't any smaller.

2007-11-25T12:17:00.000-05:00

It is so much easier to knit Kidsilk Haze on woodens. My Lord. I mean, I'm halfway through my Super Seekrit Thing #1 (second half) and haven't had a dpn go flying yet! It's...it's like knitting is fun again! Well. My only worry is that the other half of the Seekrit Thing might have to be reknit if my gauge has changed in conjunction with the joy of woodens. But we'll see. Cross your fingers for me? I don't really want to re-knit the whole thing, but the idea of frogging Kidsilk and it not looking like mange afterwards is...argh.

In other holiday knitting news: I think I'm going to be a ginormous dork and succumb to the lure of washcloth-knitting. But cool washcloths. Washcloths that kick ass. Because they will be full of nerdy emblems and such. Just have to find yarn in a color I don't hate for them. (My LYS doesn't carry Sugar-n-Cream, and I don't blame them, and the A.C. Moore only carries colors that fall in the cupcake-vomit category.) I'll check Michael's, I guess, too, because I don't know what other yarns would work well for such a project.

In the rare event that another knitter is reading this, any suggestions for a good washcloth yarn? Is cotton my only functional option? (I've heard tell that linen might be good, too, but linen is largely out of my budget for this.)

Rhinebeck: We live.

2007-10-21T20:59:00.000-05:00

Last night I got home from Rhinebeck with the best intention of watching some baseball and talking to some people, but when we got home at 10:00, I sat on the couch and wrapped in a blanket and was asleep in about 45 seconds. Not exaggerating.

Today, I managed to get to my target wordcount, and then spent the rest of the day playing with my new toys. I have pictures. Let me show them to you.

One of my favorite things about Rhinebeck? Maple sugar cotton candy. Can you pick which is the candy and which is the wool? It is so good.

And I spent too much:
Handcards.

Mohair locks to card on said hand-cards:

For spinning:
50/50 Merino/Wool blend:

100% Merino:

For knitting:
Mohair/merino/silk boucle:

And then I organized a little.

Before:

Barely room for the cat in all this fiber madness:

After (a little trip to Target for Storage Solutions):
The spinning corner (does not appear in above photos):

The knitting corner:

And what my cat thinks that this is all for:

Of course, none of my grading is done. And I haven't read any books since Friday. And I've not kept up with internets properly. But my yarns, there be order (for now). I also declared war on some unfinished objects, too--I ripped and wound up a poorly-crocheted scarf, ripped 1/3 of a to-be-felted bag, and segregated the good stuff from the gross acrylic.

Good day. And no one who came along ran screaming from me.

Rhinebeck!

2007-10-18T16:19:00.000-05:00

I'm Rhinebeck-bound on Saturday with some excellent friends. I haven't really been thinking about much lately that isn't fiber-related (much to the detriment of some of my schoolwork, and actually to the advantage of one piece), and this is a particularly fraught excursion to New York Sheep and Wool because the ratio of knitters to Muggles in my group will be 2:3. I am one of those people who has trouble enjoying herself if her company is not enjoying themselves, so I'm hoping that the non-knitters will be entertained for at least several hours. (It's a 3-hour drive, one-way, from here, so I might cry if we're there 2 hours and everyone else wants to go home. But that shouldn't happen. Rhinebeck rules.)

Also, I'm going to be looking for fibery gifts this time around, so hopefully that will be fruitful. Or wool-ful. Or whatever. Can't spin grapes. I'm also thinking I might look at yarn this time. Last time, I kept myself from falling prey to yarn-attraction by shopping for spinning fiber, but there are a few people whom I'd like to knit things for, and Rhinebeck is one of those places that will probably have the perfect colorway, you know?

If anyone is looking for me (though most people who read this blog are not going to be at Rhinebeck), I'll be wearing my Under the Hoodie (silver, black, and brick-red) and my grey Newsboy cap. I'll be carrying (most likely) an AWP Atlanta black tote bag, or possibly a multi-colored tapestry bag patterned with cats. I may have 2-4 people with me, but they are all friendly, so do say hello!

I'll only be there on Saturday, probably noon-ish arrival time (because even the most wool-positive Muggles don't think that yarn's worth getting on the road at 6 a.m.).

Last year, I'd fantasized I'd have my Vigdis done in time for Rhinebeck, but such is not the case. I did actually do a gauge swatch for my button bands/collar over the weekend, and I re-seamed the shoulders with the right color yarn. And then I fell into the same massive panic as I had about the whole button band/collar issue before. The "Why do you have to make everything harder than it has to be?" panic. Because the way the pieces end, as shown, given my cardigan-mods, are all wonky and uneven. So I might end up unraveling some things and reknitting some things until I have a roughly rounded shape upon which to build my collar and button bands.

Spinning news: Just been puttering along on the midnight blue merino/Tencel blend. I want to get back to another spool-ful of the BlueFaced Leicester because Navajo plying is just too neat. Also, I want to knit a hat. And the urge to break out the drop spindle and play with a little of what I'd hoped would be laceweight but is too heavy merino-silk blend. I'll try to remember to do a picture for that. It's really pretty fiber.

tap tap

2007-10-04T21:35:00.000-05:00

Apparently, I might still live. My spot on the Ravelry queue came up! So, you can find me over there as Sheffiesheep.

I'm still stalling out on the Vigdis, waiting for some mental quiet-time for the Adamas shawl, have knit and frogged the same sock-toe four times because I keep forgetting where I am and how many decreases I've done--but I'm also doing some seekrit knitting that I quite love. Photos when I finish and the recipient receives it.

I've got some of that midnight blue fiber (from Sinclair's introductory post) on the wheel just now, and it's quite lovely.

I like the slipperyness of the tencel. I've been spinning up a spool of that, and then a spool of some beautiful HelloYarn Bluefaced Leicester--not to ply them together or anything, but because I love how different each of them is to spin. The BFL is so easy and solid and richly colored--I've been plying it up Navajo-ply so that the colors stay separate. I don't know what my final plans for the BFL will be. Maybe a hat, so I can take advantage of it's woolly goodness and the color changes. It might be something I can practice knitting a liner on, too, because I'm particular about my head and how much woollyness it can manage. We'll see. At the rate I'm going, this may not be an issue until I move somewhere too warm to have winter hats.

Oh, bugger.

2007-03-19T19:21:00.001-05:00

I did that thing where I don't update for 3 months again. Even after kindly prompting a month ago. Eeks.

But! I do have something to show you because the Wool Fairy visited me today, bringing with it some luscious, luscious stuff from HelloYarn.

The beautiful blue/green/black/brown fiber is hand-dyed Bluefaced Leicester. The colors are so saturated, so rich...it's amazing. I'd dye my house to match this stuff.

The lovely cream-colored goodness is undyed Merino/tussah silk blend, and they're both posed there with Adrian's lovely shop cards. If you have any interest in the yarny goodness, shop with her. The service is outstanding, the materials gorgeous.

So, I have no idea what these two lovelies are destined to be just yet, but there's an urge to combine the two. The BFL for color, the merino/silk for sheen (because it is so, so shiny and soft).

And ideas like that are why I really want a set of hand-cards. I think I could get some lovely heathery effects if I could card them together. Then again, I'd be messing with the perfect preparation of these fibers, and that seems a waste.

I've not been knitting as much as I'd like. I'm stalling out on the Vigdis because it scares me (it's seaming/collar/button band time, and I've only ever done seams on one other thing, have done zero collars, and zero button bands). And that's a thing that needs a lot of concentration and math for, and let's just say that the exact middle of the semester is not good for projects requiring "a lot of concentration." This is, I think, a much more spinny time, because I can do that without thinking too hard about it (which is probably what marks me as a spinning n00b, but oh well).

Mmm, wool.

Obligatory New Year's Post

2007-01-08T09:52:00.000-05:00

You know, why not do this now, when we're already a solid week in? (Note to self: resolving to procrastinate less will probably not work. Again.)

I am, of course, terrible at resolutions. You have seen me attempt to resolve to post here more often (which is working out well right now, but we'll see how things go once school starts again). And I always resolve to eat better and exercise more. The exercising part doesn't really work out for me so well, but in a general way, I'm eating better these days. Mostly because I've overcome my fear of rice (long story, but it's only been since November that I've eaten the food that sustains the majority of the world, and I've found it to be quite okay. No one told me that it doesn't really taste like anything, and so if you pair it with something tasty, it's quite awesome.) and I'm trying to cook new things. One can, in fact, get tired of cereal and pasta, and it helps that I'm trying to make sure that my husband gets his share of vegetables, too.

My biggest resolution every year, though, the one that really matters, is with regard to my writing. I always say I'm going to write more, but then life gets busy and that's the first thing to go. As a person getting my Ph.D. in, essentially, writing, this seems a bit peculiar, don't you think? And so that's my goal this year. I will not cut out my writing. I will cut out the other crap first. As my favorite teacher used to tell me, "You're a writer. You shouldn't care if you fail Biology." Well, that approach doesn't actually work (one can't get into the appropriate graduate programs without first graduating), but the sentiment behind it should. If there is a thing one is passionate about, one ought to allow oneself to be passionate about it. So, I'm going to try.

The writing has gone well so far. I've been doing it each weekday morning since the New Year's guests have gone, and today I think I got nearly 10 pages.

In other news, yarny news, I'm having problems finishing that Vigdis sleeve. I held it through most of the Jets/Patriots game yesterday, and then I knit one of those crazy novelty yarn scarves during the Eagles/Giants. (A Christmas gift for someone who had very poor luck in our Christmas bingo.) If I buckled down and knit that sleeve, it's probably only an hour's worth of solid knitting. But it's killing me. Beige stockinette. This afternoon, I'm actually planning on knitting myself a crazy novelty scarf to go with my new coat. (I got some ridiculously soft Patons Carmen--the local Michael's was having an obscene sale on their ridiculous novelty yarn--$1 and $2 a skein. In my defense, I'm now equipped to knit Christmas gifts for a passel of 12 year old cousins, so as to have gifts on the cheap.)

And you know my Newsboy cap in the sidebar? I wore that cap for the better part of 6 months, and it's disappeared. I can't find it anywhere, and I don't think I took it somewhere and left it, either. And so I need to make another one, but it's breaking my heart that I can't find the one that I lost. It was so perfect for my head! I've never lost a handknit before. It's terribly sad.

Vigdis: I haven't forgotten you

2007-01-05T08:49:00.000-05:00

I know it seems that Vigdis, in all of its snuggly, cabley glory, seems forgotten over there in the sidebar. Though I haven't written much about that project, I assure you, it isn't true. In fact, we're approaching the end. See? From left to right, it's sleeve island (1/2 to go!), the modified front panels (converted from pullover to jacket status), and the back. The difficult part will be figuring out the collar. Since I did something with the front that the pattern didn't call for, I'm not quite sure how to manage finishing up the front, but I suppose I'll figure it out. Cobbled-together is my specialty. I do have a mis-crossed cable on the right front to fix, which I'll do with Stephanie's "Desperate Measures" fix. I'm not fussy enough to drop the necessary ten stitches and undo a few feet of knitting and then manage to get them back up to the rest of the stitches without disaster.

Have some close-ups. The yarn is not as Dijon-mustard colored as my camera thinks. (Until the sun comes out in Binghamton--maybe for a week in July--I will have no naturally lit photos. I live in a house so cave-like in its lack of natural light that I'm tempted to raise mushrooms in my living room. My husband's obsession with Batman takes on a whole new tenor.) It's actually a very pleasant camel color. Below is my modified front. I'll whack a button band on it as soon as I figure out that collar. It will be my first button band--I doubt I will so much "whack" it on as I will fret and pick up stitches like it's my first surgery, knit a button band that is too stretched, frog it, knit a button band that turns out to be a ruffle, frog that, and hopefully finally do something that looks a little less deformed.

The last thing that's on my mind with this project is the delicate wire of enough yarn/not enough yarn that I think I'm walking. I know I'll get my second sleeve out of its ball of yarn, but I don't know if I'll get my collar and button band out of what's left. The beauty of the situation is that Sirdar has discontinued their Nova Super Chunky line (as far as my research can tell me), and when I bought my yarn, it was in the close-out bin at Carodan Farms. They have an excellent close-out/discontinued bin. I did buy one more ball than the yardage indicated I would need, but this could get interesting. If anyone has a spare ball of color 890, name your price. And if that yarn has gone to the big basket in the sky, guess who's making a button band in handspun?

A little misty.

2006-12-29T08:42:00.000-05:00

That's what I was after reading Stephanie's post about TSF. The world is lucky to have people devoted to such positive causes--I notice a lot of positive causes in the knitting blogiverse. There's TSF, Heifer International, the Dulaan project, tons that I'm sure I'm forgetting, and the smaller, more personal causes--Relays for Life, personal needs for ailing family and friends...there's so much work being done by so many people who could easily say that they haven't time for things like that.

Do you think it's because knitters can't stand to be doing only one (or thirty-seven) things at once? That we have a yen to see people properly warm (and, by extension, properly fed, cared-for, and loved)? Or is it just that wool (and silk and alpaca and tencel and bamboo and cotton and qiviut) really do make us better people than we are without them? (I know I feel most generous when I've got my paws in a pile of cushy, shiny softness--soft things make one's heart glad)

Brings me joy to be even the tiniest part of it.

Off to go play with Sinclair and maybe actually figure out this lace-weight spinning thing. It probably involves making a new drive band for the smallest & second-smallest whorls. *sigh* It's a good thing I'm filled with goodwill at the moment.

Middling.

2006-12-27T06:58:00.000-05:00

Here we are, between the holidays. And, it seems, between everything else. I'm between taking photos--we forgot to take the camera back to Pennsylvania with us for Christmas, and I forgot to take a photo of the Super Seekrit Christmas knitting. It was a brown felted pot (think clay pot without handles; that's about right). And I knit one of those crazy Fun Fur scarves for the Christmas bingo pile. (What, you don't have Christmas bingo?)

In yarny present-hood, I got the lace flyer for Sinclair (which I begged for). I was noddling with it last night and the good news is that yes, it does make very tiny yarn. The bad news is that the adjusting and the fiddling and the frequent use of a screwdriver really hinders my ability to leap into my spinning. I am forced to trod sedately. I've never been good at treading sedately. Not treadling, mind you. The treadling is quick like lightning. It's the planning that gets me. The deliberateness of wanting to spin. And now if I want to go back to my other yarn (the lilac stuff), I gots to get out the screwdriver again. I just need another wheel, is all. *ducks and runs from the lightning bolts*

My dad, without knowing what he was even looking for (he just went and looked for knitting books--didn't bother to check my Amazon wishlist or anything), gifted me with the Indomitable Yarn Harlot's Knitting Rules! and Mason-Dixon Knitting. I'd call that a success.

I was planning to ply (attempt to ply?) the teensy lacey bits of yarn from last night's adventure today, but I think that something else will have my attention today. I've got to check in on a friend who was in the hospital last night.

I hope the holidays (whichever you might celebrate, and if you're not celebrating, I hope late December is pleasant & joyful in a general way) were kind to you all, and best of luck deciding on those knitting resolutions. We've only got a few more days to pretend we'll buy less yarn and be more faithful to our projects.

Holiday meme!

2006-12-20T08:16:00.000-05:00

Borrowed from Knitting Iris.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate. Mad props if it's made with real chocolate & cream, but mostly I like the cheap-o instant mixes with the suspicious little marshmallows. I really do like those a lot.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? Always wrapped. With amusing names on the tags.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Colored! I personally appreciate people who can manage that wonderfully classy white/gold/red/green thing at the holidays, but I know I'm incapable. I loves me a gaudy tree, and I loves me some tinsel. It is sad that having a cat has thus far kept my tree tinsel-less, but I'd rather have no tinsel than a trip to the vet.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? If there were mistletoe here, we'd really never get anything done. And the few people who come to the Little Blue House probably don't want anyone here kissing them.

5. When do you put your decorations up? The minute the semester is over. This year, it was December 12. I would like to decorate the day after Thanksgiving, but life has yet to cooperate for that.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Peanut Blossoms.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? This was a recurring one: on Christmas Eve, after the church candlelight service, we'd drive around and look at the lights. As it got later in the evening, my dad would point out one of those blinking red radio tower lights, and Mom would say it was Rudolph, and we'd rush home and Mark and I would go right to sleep.

8 . When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? What do you mean, "the truth?" Hardcore believer. For life.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Nopers. Though, sometimes, we're forced to have one side of the family's Christmas celebration the Saturday before Christmas (sometimes that's very early, too, or after, depending).

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Loudly. Our ornaments are a mish-mash of colorful glass balls I got at Pier One and castaways from both my parents & Bill's. At least 3 strings of lights. And always a star on top.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Both, sometimes. It's harder to be really excited about snow when you have to drive in it and school's never cancelled.

12. Can you ice skate? You bet your blades I can.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? This is going to sound silly, but the gifts I have loved best have always been stuffed animals. I think Cheetah is my favoritest ever, though Franco & Wolf are high up. And now that I have Sinclair, I can't help but love him. But the stuffed animals--they're the best.

14. What's your favorite thing(s) about the holidays? The lights. I love the times when you can just lie on the couch, no lights but the tree lights, and be snug for a while. I like to look at the tree and unfocus my eyes so that everything glitters in double. And I do love carols. Can't sing, but I still like to try.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Peanut Blossoms. And chocolate covered pretzels from Wolfgang Candy.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Our Christmas Eve dinner (the only time of year that there's cloth and candles on the Wendt table) and my mom's devious plans to make us hunt though half the county to get to our presents.

17. What tops your tree? A star. Always a star.

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? I like the giving part. I like picking out gifts that I know people will like, and so I wish (every year) that I had started my shopping earlier.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song? "Little Drummer Boy" (yes, Laura, even if it is the longest song ever) and "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear"

20. What is your favorite holiday book? Dickens' A Cricket on the Hearth. Sentimental tripe, and I love it.

21. Candy canes yuck or yum? I can eat one candy cane a year. I generally get bored with hard candy. I like the munching part.

21. What's number one on your Christmas list this year? Aside from the peace on earth & goodwill to all, there was Sinclair, and he's got. Now I'd like for Bill and I to be able to run this familial holiday gamut (you know, a dozen places in 48 hours again) without feeling like it's a gamut. I'd like to enjoy the holiday instead of being stressed out by it.

Print o' the Wave Stole: Finally

2006-12-17T11:17:00.000-05:00

She is finished! Finally. And I'll say this right away: don't look too closely--she's riddled with mistakes. As a first lace piece and as something I was trying to finish on a deadline, I just couldn't frog it back as often as I might have wanted to. I did have to do some serious tinking at times (not yet used to the teensy stitches and the fact that they don't look like much until stretched out), but it's far, far, far from perfect. The fun specs: knit in Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud, color Smoke, on size 3 Inox circs. Took me every bit of two hanks (and I had to hand-wind those bitches into balls. Much cursing done there.), and I followed Eunny's pattern & blocking advice. It's a beautiful pattern, full of all of the instructions a complete n00b like me could want.

Have some detail photos:
This is one corner, showing my cheap solution to not knowing how to deal with the curved edging--I made it into pointy scallops. Now I just have to wait until it dries, and then I'm going to run around the house, trailing it behind me like fairy wings. Now that it's blocking and almost looks like it's supposed to look, I don't hate it anymore.

My next lace adventure will be Ademas, from Knitpicks, knit in Alpaca Cloud Stream. Someday, I'll spin enough laceweight to knit Icarus. But for now, I'm going to spend some quality time with Sinclair.

Super Seekrit Christmas Knitting Part 1: Vanquished

2006-12-15T07:21:00.000-05:00

I finished one Christmas object--the only one I was absolutely certain I was going to make--and it's currently drying, next to my betta fish, Clark. (He looks like Superman--all blue and red and fierce.) But, since it's seekrit, can't take a picture. I can tell you, though, that it's a felted item made from my very own handspun. The yarn I used is a two-ply Corriedale (in natural ecru) and Dark Welsh (a very pleasingly rich dark brown) and a little bit of HelloYarn hand-dyed merino that I spun on my very first drop spindle. (It was a Babe spindle, one of those jobbies with the red plastic discs. Totally functional, very resilient to being dropped on the floor a lot while I was learning. Pictures of my new(ish) sexy Cascade to come soon.)

I love felting. I don't do it in the washing machine, since I don't usually do laundry in hot water and I don't even know if there is hot water connected to the washing machine here. I just fill up the sink with bitchin' hot water, toss in the object and some Palmolive, and scrub away. Keeps my always-cold fingers nice and toasty, I can see exactly how much shrinkage is happening, and I can see any spots that aren't felting as vigorously as the rest and correct it. Also, as someone whose life is dedicated to sitting around with my face in a book, the vigorous hand-agitation is almost like a workout. (How very, very sad.)

Since the semester has ended, I've been much more active in terms of my blogging. I'm going to try to continue this trend, but I won't be so foolish as to make promises. We've done that before, and we've always been proved terrible liars. Of course, as a fiction writer, lying is kind of a trademark skill. Interesting. At any rate, my most current fiction project (a novel) is part and parcel of this very sheepy endeavor, so it's probably in my best interest to keep alive in the Blogiverse.

As I try to do that, expect catch-up knitting & spinning photos as a vain attempt to overcompensate for my habitual prolonged absences. As part of my overcompensatory plan, have a photo of lovely flowers from my November trip to Riverside, CA. I don't know what they are, but they were growing in the courtyard of the Mission Inn. (It's just beautiful. I didn't stay there--too swanky for TA salary--but I would have liked to.) The flowers aren't knitting; they're prettier than anything I knit. Hopefully, if you're caught in the northeast and the endless winter spiral of grey, they'll cheer you up a bit.

And have a tree, too. It's ours, procured from the local boyscout troupe, and we definitely need some larger ornaments.

Pictures!

2006-12-14T08:51:00.000-05:00

It's yarn! Well, actually, it's a single, spun from the merino/tencel fiber that posed with Sinclair in the last post. My goal is to spin up those three braids into varying combinations--some plied lilac to lilac, some lilac to midnight, some midnight to the variegated, etc., and see if I can't bash a big, cozy shawl out of it. I'm not yet jumping into spinning laceweight (though I'm hoping for the lace flyer for Christmas and laceweight is one of my goals) because I've had this fiber on hand for more than a year now (waiting not-so-patiently for a spinning wheel). And this fiber said, "Make us into a big, cozy thing," when I bought it. The fact that it wanted to be anything other than held on my lap and petted quite surprised me. (That's what I would have done with it, had the fiber not instructed me to do otherwise.)

In other parts of the life, I've also been baking. You know, since it's sugar-coma time. Lookit. Cookies:

They're my favorite Christmas cookie of all time, the Peanut Blossom. They're remarkably easy to make, one batch makes 3 dozen, and it's completely easy to eat all 3 dozen in 3 days. I'll be making more of these on Saturday.

I've begun some Super Seekrit holiday knitting, a felting experiment with the first of my Sinclair-spun yarn. (You'll see that yarn when the item is finished. The fiber was leftover from the Zoo spinning presentation disaster.)

Any thoughts on giving handspun yarn as a gift? I want to make some beautiful yarn that recollects the sea (the Pacific Northwest, to be exact) for a dear friend who is just getting into knitting. Any suggestions for fiber locating? HelloYarn, my favorite (and first) fiber source, sells out so very quickly. In an ideal world, I'd do the dyeing myself, but I think one new major crafting supply (Sinclair) is enough for one holiday. I love my husband, love him for splurging on a wheel when we could definitely have put that money elsewhere, and I think I'll try to limit my "ooh! I need that!" impulse for a while. And bribe him with cookies.

IMG_1246[2]

2006-12-10T20:10:00.000-05:00

IMG_1246[2]
Originally uploaded by metallikitten12.

This is Sinclair, my brand spankin' new Ashford Traveller. He's seen posing here with the fiber we're going to dive into as soon as I post. (And because I know you'll want to know, all of this fiber is from Cloverleaf Farms, purchased last year at Rhinebeck, and the two solid braids are merino/tencel blends, and the multicolored is a merino/silk blend.)

The name? Named after my most favorite Kiwi ever, Harry Sinclair. You may know him as Isildur from Peter Jackson's masterful rendering of Lord of the Rings, but he's also a fantastic director in his own right. My favorite Harry Sinclair film is The Price of Milk.

And now we're off to spin.

Stolen Time

2006-12-04T06:25:00.000-05:00

This time is being bodily wrenched from writing two final papers (one of which is almost done but could be 12 pages of arriving at no actual point, which is a problem) that are due on Thursday. But I can't keep the excitement in.

I have a spinning wheel in the mail.

It's an Ashford Traveller.

When it arrives (I don't know if it's a he, she, or other--wouldn't know until we've officially met), there will be many pictures. And I might hyperventilate, too. This wheel is the only thing keeping me focused on the academic crap, because when it arrives, you can bet your booty that all else takes a back seat.

In other news, I finished the Print o' the Wave stole, but I may have to actually graft the join where I was a huge cheater and used a 3-needle bind-off. It's not blocked yet, but I know that corner's going to look stupid. *sigh* I didn't think I'd get to the point where I hated it, but I think I do. Hopefully we'll make up after blocking. (I hope to do the blocking when the finishing wax is soaking into the new wheel. Wouldn't want to get wax on the fiber, you know.)

You notice, of course, how the stole was in no way finished for Writing By Degrees? I got over that loss, because WBD was a huge success. I'm still trying to catch up with life after it, but it was fantabulous. Knitting writers, I hope to see you there next year.

I promise photos next week.

What a horrid dream, or: why too much stress + knitting can be bad news

2006-10-04T07:43:00.000-05:00

As posted earlier, I'm trying to finish Print O' the Wave by the 19th of October. And the edging is taking 1, 000 hours. And I have a Spanish exam coming up. Of course, that means that my dreams were plagued by failed knitting of epic proportions. I submit for your consideration this dream:

I dreamt that I had finished the stole (and was most ecstatic in my REM-land about this) and began the blocking process. That means the stole needs to soak for a while, and so I put my delicious ball of silvery-gray lacey goodness into the sink to soak. Upon returning, I find that my entire piece had turned fuschia (which is distinctly not gray and is as close to a color nightmare as could happen to this knitter), but in my dream I found that interesting despite the shock. And so I progressed to my bed (which will serve to block said stole when it's actually finished in real life) to set upon it with pins and patience, only to find that the stole had felted. It looked something like this, which is Amy's lovely felting project (picture it more fuschia, though). And it had felted from merino wool to silk. And was sheer, even see-through. Which would have been beautiful nonetheless (and I would have rejoiced at the magic sink and magic water)--except the dream-stole was the size of a handkerchief.

The horror! The horror!

Jeebus.

2006-09-29T08:26:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time. A really long time. I'm surprised they haven't kicked me out of the blogiverse, actually. Perhaps self-imposed exile is enough?

Though I obviously haven't been blogging, I have been knitting. In fact, I've been working on my first foray into knitted lace. I started with Eunny's amazingly wonderful Print O' the Wave Stole. I'm knitting it in KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud (what beautiful yarn and what suffering to hand-wind 440 yards of yarn at a time...). Yarn and pattern in my hands, of course, is probably massacreeing Eunny's lovely pattern, but this is a first attempt. And I am one of those knitters who can let a mistake go. Probably because my eyes aren't trained enough to really see them...we'll see when it's blocked. At the moment, I'm working the border (which seems to take a thousand years--I've been working on the border since the beginning of September), so the whole stole is a balled-up wad of smoky softness. But completely unidentifiable as lace just yet.

The original plan for this lace project was Holly having something beautiful and impressive to wrap about her at a very swanky wedding we went to on September 2. On September 1, I was just finishing the center panel. I didn't even get through the eyelet border before the end of the wedding weekend. *sigh* It really would have been perfect, too. My new goal is to get the stole finished by October 19, so that I can wear it to Writing By Degrees--BU's annual graduate-student run, globally-attended creative writers' conference. I'm one of this year's 3 co-directors, so I have to introduce one of our keynote speakers (which terrifies me). I'm hoping that finished lace around my shoulders (which will be freezing because Binghamton is already under frost advisory and it's not yet October) will give me a bit more social grace and eloquence. When I'm nervous, I'm Miss Malapromism. That's death to an English major. At the Ph.D. level. Which is me. *facepalm* So cross your fingers and say a prayer for me, yeah?

Even as I scramble to finish the lace, I wish, however, to start more lace. I bought the Ademas pattern from KnitPicks when I bought the yarn (if you're going to place an order, might as well be worth it...). I want to start it! But no. Finish one thing. Also, I've got to finish a baby blanket for a friend who's expecting. I dislike knitting baby items in public--people always assume it's for myself. Thank you, but no. For the love of God, NO! I want to hang a sign around my neck that says, "It's going to be a gift. Shut up."

I should go knit instead of blogging.

I should actually blog instead of intending to.

I should do so many things.

Don't Look at the Leper Hippies.

2006-07-18T08:10:00.000-05:00

That was the general reaction, it seemed, to the spinning demo weekend. To give some context, since we have a petting yard full of sheep and an alpaca and a llama, I volunteered to do a weekend-long spinning demonstration at the zoo. The director adored the idea and let me buy some fiber for the public to try spinning and such. This is how the weekend turned out:

In a zoo, packed with people (especially on Saturday for Ice Cream Safari), where the whole idea of the place is to go and look at things, I spent two days being decidedly and deliberately ignored. I could see people not looking anywhere near the gazebo I was in. The gazebo is a foot off of the main path, not near any animal displays, centrally placed between the ticket booth and the gift shop, and I had set up a table with fiber samples for the petting and information, a blanket full of spindles for trying, and hung the scarf and mittens set I was raffling up in a central location and in an attractive manner. I had a clear and informative explanation of the raffle typed and held in a picture frame. I had a schedule of events clearly posted. On Sunday, I even made colorful signs saying "Win Me!" and "Please Touch!". Out of 2 days and something like 600 people or more (we had buses of people come), I sold 10 raffle tickets to a total of 6 people (one nice man basically bought tickets out of sheer goodness rather than any interest whatsoever in the knitted goods). That's $10 of donations for the Zoo. It disgusts me. And I'm going to hold the prize and try this thing again, I think, regardless of how unscrupulous it is.

I ran a finger-knitting bracelet-making workshop both days. Probably 10 kids made bracelets (for free, out of yarn from my own knitting stash, including some very nice and flashy bits that were very popular). A few of their parents comprised the other raffle tickets, bought out of a sense of obligation for the bracelets. Maybe a dozen people both days actually stopped and checked out the table full of fiber and endured some information and demonstration. Mostly people averted their eyes and walked more quickly. I don't understand it. Case in point: On Sunday, Bill was the excellent Bill he is and came to fetch me lunch (Saturday I couldn't leave my stuff and wasn't willing to tear down and set up again to run to the top of the zoo and fetch foods, so I made do with a granola bar). While he sat with me for a while, a woman he works with passed by with her husband and child (probably 2 or 3). He said hello and waved and she waved back. And kept going. On Monday at work, she asked if he usually hung out at the zoo, and he explained that he was there with his wife. Who was the one he was standing with. To which she replied, "Yeah, what was she doing?" If you hadn't turned your eyes to the pavement and run away, you would know!. I don't exactly mind that a lot of people didn't stop and get the whole spiel or buy raffle tickets. (I'm hurt, but I think I'll survive.) It was the fact that so many people absolutely refused to look even in that direction. I'm not a scary-looking person. I have a very encouraging and cheerful customer-service voice (which I used all day and wanted to gag) that many of you know from listening to me order pizza. I wasn't selling insurance or religion or even really selling anything. I saved the raffle reminder until the very, very end of speaking (hoping people would READ THE SIGN themselves). I just don't understand. Lots of people have no interest in the fiber arts, I know, but even more people don't even know what the fiber arts are. Aren't people just a little curious about something they've probably never seen done before? It really makes me want to cry. Especially as someone who has always been the kid who wants approval.

I don't think I blossomed any leprous sores over the weekend. I didn't smell. And I had a whole bunch of soft, fluffy stuff I was begging people to pet and basically destroy. I called out gently to some, especially with little kids, who might like to know what the alpaca feels like since he's not part of the petting zoo. Or little ones who looked too little to go into the petting yard. Feel the sheep without getting stepped on. I invited people to try out the spindles. I asked people if they wanted to make bracelets. I did everything I knew how to do, and still no one really bothered.

I did have one guy who has probably already ordered his learn-to-spin kit and one little girl (whose dad is a prof in the geology department at BU, oddly enough) who had an absolute knack for it, but that's really about it. (Said girl's mother has an Ashford wheel and Kiwi fleeces from a trip they made for prof-dad's research, but girl never spun before. It's in her blood.) The problem is that this wasn't exactly about spreading the spinning love so much as it was a way to do something nice for the zoo, and it bloody well crashed and burned.

*sigh*

Holly Has Too Been Knitting!

2006-06-03T07:52:00.000-05:00

She just hasn't been doing anything else. Well, she has been playing We Love Katamari, too (for the PlayStation 2), thanks to an excellent friend who probably finds it amusing that the game has eaten my life. The good thing is that too much video games = buggy eyes, so I have to take breaks to knit because things don't swirl or flash while I'm knitting. Usually. So I do have some progress to show y'all!

Right there is the back of Vigdis, all finished (except the ends-weaving, of course) in all its cozy glory. It's almost 4 feet long, so finishing that up two nights ago (it's been between 85 & 95 degrees here since Memorial weekend) was warm work. Then again, before this week, I think the last time that I was warm was probably the previous August (the week before our wedding was particularly sticky). So I'm not really complaining.

Below: A little close-up action.

Since the back is finished and I was feeling brave, I decided to cast on for the left front panel of Vigdis. Except, you see, there is no left front panel for Vigdis. The pattern is a pullover. But I don't like pullovers, especially not one so long as this will be. I'm taking that cliched ol' bull by the horns and making my own front (I have never done such a thing before--sure, I whacked out an ice-cream pint cozy without a pattern a few months ago, but that took all of an hour and a half. This will take me weeks, and it's Important Knitting.). Own front means changing the knotwork, too, so I'm using a narrower set of S-hitches that will face each other over a button band. Thusly:

I've also decided that I need a sock on the needles, too, so I started up a regular old sock, toe-up, as described in the previous post, and I'm using a little yarnover lace pattern on the top of the foot and up the leg (when I get to the fabled leg, of course. The sock-knitting, when compared to my tunic sweater on US 11s, she is the slow.). The sock, in homage to the Yarn Harlot and the Sock of Fame, here poses with the always-lovely Holly Golightly. It's hard to photograph a black sock.

Can't see the pattern for anything, but I'll try another background when there's more progress. Probably a picture of me wearing the sock over a white sock so you can see the holey bits.

Just before Memorial Day I finished the Venezia "A Little Lace" pattern and gave the scarf to my mum (a late Mother's Day gift). Sadly, I gave it away before I took the picture, but you can imagine. It's just longer than the half-knit piece in the picture on the sidebar. You have good imaginations. I know you can do it.

In spinning news, I'm nearing the end of my Hello Yarn roving, and am preparing to break into the gorgeous fluff I got at Rhinebeck last fall. For that, I was hoping to have a spinning wheel, but alas, with renovations happening all over this house, there's no wheel in my near future. I am compromising with a featherweight drop spindle because I want some laceweight yarn from that lovely fluff I bought. (Pictures coming soon, promise.) What spindle? I'm really hoping for a Cascade spindle, the Shasta. Why hoping, you say? Because my birthday was 2 months ago, and in true form, my brother just asked me what I want(ed) for my birthday. What he wanted was a list from Cabela's (the camping/hunting/fishing outfitters)--he didn't "like" my Amazon wishlist (our family does this: "I don't like what's on your list. What else do you want?"). So I put together a list from Cabela's of things I wouldn't mind having (like a headlamp for knitting in dim places! one of those neat thermometers with a cord like Alton Brown uses!), but I also sent him a link to the Bellweather's list of Cascade spindles. With a note (and a phonecall) that said spindle was what I really wanted. I don't know what he decided yet. I'm hoping it's the spindle; otherwise, I'll place the order myself and that will inevitably include more fiber or some other bits of sheepy goodness that I ought not get right now.

And his birthday is in a week. I have no idea what to get him. I'd like to take him to a Binghamton Mets game & out for some excellent food, but the odds of getting him the 180 miles north to Bingo aren't good. Any suggestions for a late twenty-something who doesn't read much, not very into music, has given up collecting movies in favor of rental, and hasn't got much in the way of hobbies? He golfs and fishes, but he's got all the equipment he needs for those things.

Startitis What?

2006-05-11T08:08:00.000-05:00

Still too lazy to fight with Digicam. The difficulty is that this computer is so anciently slow that it takes me several minutes just to get through to this update page (I exaggerate not), so the process of uploading photos is gargantuan.

Since it's spring and I'm one paper and 40 portfolios-worth of grading away from summer freedom, I've decided to start a new project, one that I can work on while walking (the very long back of Vigdis, what with its bigness and cably goodness, is not that kind of project). And I've had that black and white Sockenwolle lying about. So I'm embarking upon my first set of toe-up socks (only second pair overall). I've cast on this morning, following Denise's Toe-Up Sock tutorial. I don't know who Denise is, but thank you, if you're out there, for great instructions! I've not decided what to do about the body of the sock yet. I'm fighting between a regular ribbing and something with a bit more bite to it. Just don't know. At the moment, I'm working most on yoking my anti-numbers brain into remembering how many rows I increased in and when I'm on a decrease row and when not. I ought to get a row counter in a big way.

This project may become car-knitting for the weekend, too, since we have a trip to near Philly on Saturday.

And I was probably supposed to leave for school half an hour ago, so this is me, signing off.

Spring Knitty!

2006-04-12T13:24:00.000-05:00

I keep meaning to update, but now the Spring Knitty issue is up, and I can't tear myself away long enough to fight with the digital camera just now. I will say that I've been making slow (very slow) but sure progress on the back of Vigdis. I think I'm going to miss my window for wearing it as a spring jacket (as in, missing my window by several months, really), but I still like the yarn and I love the pattern more every day. One thing I can't seem to get the hang of is cabling without a cable needle. I've tried it a few times on Vigdis, since it's cable city, but I lose stitches, things get pulled wonky...it's a mess. So I keep on with my curvy cable needle and wish it were quicker, but I really do like the security of knowing that those stitches aren't going anywhere.

I have the urge to knit ice cream pint cozies. I probably ought to put that on a set of DPNs and use it as TV knitting or walking knitting since Vigdis requires my attention fully and completely every other row. I have some sock yarn, but I want to make some pretty patterned socks this time and I haven't the energy to fuss with a new pattern and Vigdis at the same time. I keep flirting with the Jaywalker socks, but I don't know. I'm not sure if the yarn I chose would look nice with the pattern or not...it's that black and white Sockenwolle a few posts down. I'm open for suggestions if anyone has any.

Also: baseball season has started. I think that will help me a great deal in knitting progress, not so much in progress with the end of the semester.

One last thing: Amy's new yarn store, Make 1 Yarn Studio, makes me want to move to Canada...not that I didn't want to move to Canada before, but this makes me want to move to that side of Canada. You know, where it's really cold. Did you ever see such a beautiful yarn store? Such awesome-sounding events?

+1 Hat

2006-02-27T15:52:00.000-05:00

I finished the +1 Hat for my friend (my pseudo-Olympic knitting) last weekend. It's taken me more than a week to photograph it, but hopefully I'll get it to the P.O. bythe end of the week.

Perhaps it's in tribute to the late, great Don Knotts that my camera hand is indeed like The Shakiest Gun in the West. Blur-tastic, so my photos are.

It's knit in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran...curses to the yardage on those wee balls, curses! The gray bits are Andean Silk from Knitpicks.

Life is settling down a little bit now--only two more rounds of student conferences to go before Spring Break. And boy am I ever ready for Spring Break--heading to Georgia for a few days to visit with family. I have to start a set of socks or something so I have suitable travel knitting. Vigdis is a bit too fiddly for me to want to travel with cable needle and book and post-it notes and extra balls of yarn and such. Socks travel most easily. Of course, I also have to read Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead, which is nearly 800 pages of "you don't have time to knit," and grade 40 creative writing portfolios in that week, too. This being a full-time student and a full-time teacher at the same time is a bit ridiculous.

Oh, We are Ashamed!

2006-02-18T10:11:00.000-05:00

It's been very nearly a month (will be, tomorrow) since I've updated. Not for lack of desire to do so, though. Graduate school dug its claws in, and dug in hard. This is why I'm not an Olympian. *sigh* It's an awesome idea, though, and you wonderful peoples are doing such ambitious projects! Adrian has her lovely Highland Norsk, Colleen the modified Spring Breeze Top, Stephanie the Hardangervidda (which looks quite dangerous), and 4,000 more have their projects!

I'm an Olympian in spirit, though--I've been watching a lot of the Olympics (who knew curling was so addictive?), and working on a knit hat for a friend of mine in med school. I was lucky enough to stumble across one ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in Evergreen in the bargain bin of my LYS, Spin a Yarn. I'm (hopefully) stretching it into full hat length--in her Dublin Beanie pattern, Kel over at y(e)arn noted that the Cashmerino can end up a few yards short--by knitting the ribbed bottom (which folds up) in some Gray Knitpicks Alpaca Silk leftover from the Under the Hoodie. I'm getting ready to do the decreases at the top of the hat, so we'll see how my gamble pays off.

I'm still working, very slowly, on Vigdis. It's knitting I can't do if I want to pay attention to other things, so that leaves me without a whole lot of opportunity there. I am, however, skipping town for Spring Break in a few weeks, so hopefully I can get a good portion of the back done.

And now it's time to read. Because I'm an English major and that's all I'm allowed to do.

We Got Yarn (and a Caribbean Amphibian)

2006-01-19T15:12:00.000-05:00

Kermit, who has a lovely singing voice, is displaying the new yarns! That's 11 skeins of Nova, color 890, and 2 skeins of Sockenwolle, color 190. I wish I had some knitting progress to show, but I don't. I did cast on and knit the first 13 rows of Vigdis, but I didn't like the tension (cast-on was too loose, actually, and looked ridiculous underneath all of those lovely cables), so I frogged it.

I'm actually thinking of monkeying around with the gauge (probably a mistake); I'm not sure I really want my Vigdis to be as bulky as its measurements claim it will be. I'm thinking of this as more of a spring/fall coat than a couch-cozy (I have a polarfleece body bag/Penguin Wuzzie for that). I might jump down a needle size. I also want to exchange the pullover for the zippered on/off, which requires that I squirrel around with the whole front of the pattern. What I thought I would do is omit the big cable (that would be identical to the back of Vigdis) and substitute running S-hitches and put the zipper between them. Since there isn't a whole lot of body shaping going on, I'm hoping there will be little bloodshed involved.

In Shapely-Tank land, knitting is progressing. I'm not sure what to make of Turino Silk. I don't think I like it, actually, and that rather makes me sad. I do know that knitting with that yarn is absolute hell on my shoulder and wrists. Why is this? It's knitting up at the appropriate gauge, it's not actually that tight on the needles, but working with it is just sucking the life right out of me. But I want that tank-top, dammit, so I'm sticking with it. The best part of this yarn is that it's nearly impossible to split (that doesn't mean I haven't, but not often).

Does anyone ever find that the colors you most like to wear are the colors you least like to knit with? I'm a black/gray/blue girl (and I've never had a chance to knit anything blue! It's criminal! ...this is mostly because there are certain blues that are not okay, and I don't trust my computer's ability to show me the color of blue the yarn would actually be--it's too risky), but knitting with the gray Turino is dreadfully dull. I really love working with the pastel Venezia (A Little Lace, in the sidebar), but I will not wear those colors. That absolutely must be a gift. *shudder* They're very Easter-eggy. The lovely Nova yarn, which is a touch warmer in person than in the photo above, will be just right for a spring/fall warm cozy that I will love. But I think that knitting that much beige may just kill me. Black yarn makes me buggy-eyed. But that's my favorite color of all to wear!

Why must I be so perverse?

The Chullo, She is Done!

2006-01-11T09:52:00.000-05:00

See, I even added a pom-pom! (I, too, have a problem with "pom-pon," and so I add an m at the end. If that's wrong, I don't want to be right!)

At first I thought it would be too tight, not so much that if I put it on it would never come off, but if I put it on, what little effort I put into my hair would be for naught. Blocking completely solved that problem! A bit of a drenching and some pins, et voila! Hat that pops right on and right off the ol' bean.

I am still not entirely sure how I ended up with a hat in black (normal for Holly), gray (normal for Holly), and red-pink (WTF, captain?). I think it's because the red-pink yarn (it's kind of variegated, very shimmery, and completely impossible for a camera-ignoramus like me to photograph properly) both seduced me with its shinyness and its convenient availability in the ol' stash, right on top. And, I have no blue yarn. Which is heinous. I don't know how that happened, but I have no blue yarn (except for two skeins of some crazy Fun Fur that I don't know what to do with). Must remedy.

In other yarn-tastic news, the yarn for Vigdis has shipped! I decided to go with a yarn called Nova, from Sirdar, in a color that I hope will be a nice, soft light brown, like the color of dry wood. I have little faith in my monitor's ability to show color properly, especially looking at that picture of the hat (the gray is not very gray at all, though I think I'm blaming that one on the camera and the operator of said camera). At any rate, as long as color #890 isn't orange or yellow, we're in business. The most beautiful thing: Nova was on sale (in the discontinued yarn bin) at Carodan Farm. That place, it is magic: friendly, affordable, nice selection even when the yarn is way cheap. I got the yarn to knit Cleo (from Knitty, Summer '03, picture to be in FO's eventually) from them, too, also on sale. (As someone living on a TA stipend, there is no yarn but yarn on sale.)

In the stash, I had 5 balls of Plymouth Turino Silk in color 07 (a tweedy gray flecked with black) that I bought at a yarn store in Cumberland, MD, a year ago, that I had no idea what to do with. So I searched and searched until I remembered the Shapely Tank Top pattern from White Lies Designs. I check the yardage, swatch away, and booya! I have a home for my yarn. I'm interested to see how that turns out. Progress to come as soon as there's more than a few rows of garter stitch, yeah?

Viking Knitting

2006-01-08T11:30:00.000-05:00

I was on Amazon ordering a birthday gift for a friend, and I splurged (as you do). I justify this action by the fact that I didn't get one single bit of knitting swag for Christmas. Anyway, I decided that I needed Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Patterns for Knitting. Not only does that book fuel my love for all things medieval and older, it also has wonderful historical context, amazing patterns and charts, and it has prompted me to get over my irrational fear of charts. As a result, I knit up two of the knotwork charts just to get the hang of reading them.

We have, from bottom to top, knit in leftover Wool-Ease from the Newsboy cap, the happiness sign woven through a ring, the S-Hitch from Ardre with Cables, and also a bit of spinning (not done yesterday but I wanted to post it and I had the camera out) done on a Babe spindle from gorgeous Hello Yarn merino top.

And the cat found the picture pile to look mighty comfy:

Anyway, all of this knitting and such was to give me impetus and courage to start a new project. I have decided on Vigdis, from Viking Patterns. Now I have to decide on a yarn. It was knit in Rowan Chunky Tweed, but I doubt that said yarn is within my budget. Any suggestions for a cheaper, similar yarn that would also make the cables pop?

What's a KnitBlog without a cat?

2006-01-04T14:38:00.000-05:00

This is Hrunting (middle name Danger, last name Stupid). My dear, sweet, only-sometimes-evil Hrunting is just thrilled with my new toy, isn't she? She's 8 months old, and, surprisingly enough, usually lets the yarny things alone in favor of rending the curtains and wallpaper. And crumpled balls of paper.

Photobucket

2006-01-04T13:58:00.000-05:00

This is a test post from Photobucket.com

Trial Run and Introductions

2006-01-04T11:38:00.000-05:00

Have never worked with a blogging system in HTML before, so please bear with me.

The blog title comes from a (hackneyed) Scots Gaelic translation of "knitting needles made of holly," which combines my name and two of my favorite obsessions: knitting and the British Isles. I am a student working on my Ph.D. in English with a creative disseration in fiction, living in New York's southern tier and trying to cope with the snow. As a native Pennsylvanian, one would expect that I would be used to snow, but even after nearly 24 years, that is not the case.

Knitting to come soon--as soon as I figure out how to bend HTML to my wily will.