AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

yesterday morning

Yesterday while I was coming home from Donut King (my treat whenever I have to stay home because of medical things, including a vet visit), I saw our neighborhood being overrun by a flock, a herd, a gaggle, a scum of politicians turkeys. They were walking slowly up Rustic in front of a utility vehicle.

I let Victor out the back to burn off some energy and in a few moments (while I cleaned up his pee mistake) I heard some barking out the door. In our front yard there were turkeys. I went to the back door and Victor was at the side fence barking away. There were turkeys in the side front yard.

Of course there were pictures.

1. Turkey Path, 2. Front side yard, 3. Our front path, 4. Front Side Yard

All of the local dogs who were outside were having a rip roaring time looking and barking at the turkeys. There are a lot of dogs around here: Tuka, Taka, Jack (who was too far away to enjoy these turkeys) and, of course, Victor. Eventually the turkeys left the yard, but Victor was still happily at the window looking at them when I let him back in.

Victor's vet visit went well. He has an abscess, and now has antibiotics. Victor will hopefully be feeling better soon.

[10 Tuesday] aftermath from the storm

As most of the United States (and maybe the world) knows, much of the Eastern Seaboard was hit by Hurricane Irene. Having grown up mostly in New England, I have memories of previous hurricanes that were barely past the level of a tropical storm. Potentially worrisome, yes, but I have never been and still have not been in an area that has the level of damage of Vermont, Florida or the Carolinas. I was in Maine for both Hurricane Gloria and Bob. For Bob, it was 1991 and I was working at Venetia's, a Greek restaurant in Old Orchard Beach. We boarded up the place and all went home to wait out the storm (or rather I went home via some playing in puddles). For Hurricane Gloria, we got the day off from school, and played both inside and outside in a huge sand pit near our home.

Just because my experiences have been fairly minor, I don't deny that hurricanes and other storms are huge powerful things that can wipe away communities and destroy much that we have worked towards. Just seeing Vermont, a place I don't think of at all when I think of hurricanes, after Irene is proof of that.

So, this week's 10 for Tuesday is preparing for the storms. Most of my experience is with blizzards. It is New England after all.

1. French Toast Alert. It seems silly, but having the basics is always handy. I don't ever need to make an emergency run to the food mart for bread and eggs, but I often run out of sugar and milk. I actually made french toast on Sunday with a half loaf of challah I had from the week with grand marnier and lemon zest. It was tasty and I sauteed some pluots with butter to go with it.

2. Games and hobbies. If a storm is really bad, then you don't want to go outside in it. At the same time, you don't want to think about it obsessively. So, games, books, and other things you can do are a good idea. I go for a mix of tech and tech free. You can play a game via candle light even if you cannot do anything else.

3. Rechargeable batteries. For flashlights, though I also have one of the crank flashlights which is great for emergencies.

4. Gas powered stoves, etc. Our stove and oven are gas. While I wouldn't be able to use the oven if the power went off. I should still be able to use the stove top or even the outdoor grill. If the storm isn't too bad (and in my neck of Quincy it mostly wasn't), then going outside to grill can be a lot of fun.

5. For dogs, pee pads and maybe a quiet spot in the basement. I walked Victor on Sunday and it wasn't so bad out that he couldn't have a little bit of time running in the back yard. However, if the reported storm was going to be really bad I'd get a packet of pee pads and set him up a pee spot in the basement. As opposed to the random spot in the living room that he thinks is an OK pee spot. Grr. I'm looking at you, buddy!

6. Food. What, I already covered that? Nope. Unless the power goes out, I like using the time to make something delicious, decadent and more time consuming that normal. During Irene, I made these super tasty lemon raspberry rolls. I made 2 changes: I added lemon zest and extra lemon juice for the glaze (and didn't make as much glaze/use as much sugar), and I made lemon curd and used it in place of the brown butter. It was a mess to make, but it has been so worth it. And better yet, I finished the lemon curd this morning.

7. Medication. If it is storm season, or the single storm is predicted to be pretty bad, make sure that you have enough of all of your prescription medications to last you through the storm. I don't know if you can fill them early in case the storm keeps you homebound for a few days, but it might be worth it to check. Especially for medications that are for life threatening conditions. The same goes for meds for your pets.

8. Nap. Storms are good for naps. While I didn't take one during Irene, it is because I read instead. Napping passes time, especially if the power has gone out. With the grey weather outside, it can often look like twilight inside the house.

9. Exercise. Obviously, most of my ideas aren't really preparation and more things to do during a storm to keep you from going mental or completely stir crazy. There is always exercise to do before and after a storm: move the trash cans into the basement or a shed, move them back out, pick up all of the downed branches, put them in a pile, go for a run on a treadmill, lift some weights, do some crunches, pick up some boxing gloves and spar. All ways to spend time before, during and after a storm.

10. Tell ghost stories. Storms, especially ones with rain, hail and thunder, make an excellent back drop for scary stories. It is a ton of fun. Pull out the flashlight, make a few props, and pull out the creepy story about the man who found some bones in the attic.

oh and a bonus 11 for people who are way more productive than I: Cleaning. Many household cleaning tasks just involve a bit of water, a scrubbing device and a little bit of elbow grease. I didn't do cleaning during the storm (other than to clean up after my food prep), but that shouldn't stop anybody else!

Now to bring Victor to the vet. Poor Mr. McBarknSniffs is under the weather, so out into the beautiful weather we go.

sometimes aesthetics win out

Yesterday, E and I went to see a movie after work. My husband really dislikes the feeling of even the Starbucks end of coffee shops, so I took the opportunity to go to the Thinking Cup, which while not the fanciest coffee place I've been too is probably in the top 10.

I had a light dinner with a goat cheese, arugula and apricot jam sandwich on a skinny bagette and this coffee.

There is something lost when you get your fancy coffee to go, because part of the experience is the art, the beauty of the milk swirling with the mocha (and/or espresso). Flowers and hearts are probably the two most common images in the cup, but they are wonderful to look at and linger with careful sips throughout the beverage.

Of course, being me, I couldn't just have a light sandwich and a beautiful coffee, so I had a small tart with a flaky short bread crust, and a marscapone and nectarine filling. Hey, there was fruit, so it was healthy, right?

The movie was awesome. Horrible, sad, depressing and uplifting and funny in turns. Definitely bring tissues, because there are a number of scenes that are just tear-jerkingly sad. Everyone I know who watched the movie has been talking about it, because it is well done and powerful.

Now I really want to read the book, because I blew one of my rules of movie (and musical) watching. Normally I read the original first, so I know what is going on and the flow of the writer's original vision. Books, more than movies for me, are a collaboration between the reader and the writer. It is just a less passive form of expression to read the words and ideas than to see them laid out before your eyes.

Of course, the spell of a good movie could have easily been broken by the trip home, but that too was just about perfect. I caught the Ashmont line and got to the end only minutes before the bus, so I didn't need to sit at the station waiting for an hour or walking the 4 miles home.

using up a CSA

This past week was a smorgasbord of vegetables, including more corn - a potential problem when you have not used up all the ears from the previous week. So, I planned for a light dinner of salsa and chips. Maybe not the healthiest meal by far, but it was laden with vegetables!

CSA Salsa

4 ears of corn
2 medium tomatoes
1/2 bell pepper (red in this case)
1 small onion
2 hot peppers
1 cucumber
 4 cloves garlic
1 lime or 2 smaller limes

Using a gas stove or outdoor grill, sear each ear of corn until it has grill marks or the ears of corn have been lightly blackened. Take off the burner and once cooled cut the kernels off of the cobs.

Cut the remaining vegetables into a small dice and mix with the corn. Finely mince the garlic and add to the vegetables.

Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice over the vegetables. Scrape out some of the lime flesh and mix to combine.

While this would probably be tastiest if you waited for the flavors to meld, it was still really nice to eat right away. We used the bowl style tortilla chips, so we could use more salsa and added an ounce or so of cotija cheese for our pseudo Mexican feast.

(and to those who commented yesterday, I got to work, talked to my boss for maybe five minutes and went back home to sleep.)

regretting the coming dawn

Yup. I'm up. It's raining, and I'm sitting in the living room with Saru-chan and reading the Hyperbole and a Half archive (I'm here). I woke up at 1 a.m. and I am fine, but might almost be tired enough to sleep soon.

Also, I made cake.

A buckeye cake.

Yesterday I intended to make chocolate cupcakes with a peanut butter ball inside, sort of like a reese's peanut butter cup only in cupcake form. I made the chocolate peanut spread from Smitten Kitchen and a fairly standard buckeye recipe. However, I made one of the chocolate cupcakes from the Cupcake Bakeshop, and that was where things went all wrong. I crammed her batter into 12 cupcakes instead of 14. I put the peanut butter balls in them and they might have wanted more liquid, because what is OK for candy is not really OK for something heated to 350 degrees for 20 minutes. They also either sunk to the bottom or were pushed into the batter too much.

Of course, I don't know that those are the reasons the cupcakes went all wrong. I've been out of baking powder for over a week. Now, if you don't bake frequently, then this really isn't a big deal. I found a substitution "recipe" and made up enough to tide me over for a couple of weeks. The substitute involved cream of tartar, baking soda and cornstarch, all things I had in relative abundance. It seems to work well enough, but I have no idea if it is equivalent to double acting baking powder or single.

Suffice to say that between that and a temperature issue, I had a batch of cupcakes that didn't dome but also spread out to cover most of the unsprayed surface of the cupcake pan. As they weren't going to come out pretty, I now have dessert for Chris and I for the week (or two). And buckeye cake became my second choice.

I use the Nestle buckeye cake recipe (with a few minor changes), because I happened to have the premelted chocolate on hand (and regular baking chocolate squares if I had run out). This cake doesn't involve leavening, so there is no worry about it rising too much.

I added a little extra butter (2 tablespoons) to the basic buckeye recipe I had made earlier in the day and a little over a 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract to make the buckeye "peanut butter filling" more pliable. I couldn't make the one in the Nestle recipe, because Sunday was a day of using stuff up. I ran out of confectioners sugar and had to break open another box of unsalted butter.

I haven't had heavy cream in a while, and made the chocolate peanut spread with the idea of using it like a frosting.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ganache

(I eyeballed this, so consider the measurements below as a grain of salt)

1/3 cup chocolate peanut spread
1/4-1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup whole milk

Heat the ingredients over a double boiler on medium heat, stirring frequently. As the chocolate chips melt, whisk (or any other stirring implement - I was lazy and used my "not an offset, but meant for cake decorating" spatula) vigorously until the milk is completely incorporated. If it is not easily spreadable (you want it to be somewhere between peanut butter and hot fudge sauce in consistency), add additional whole milk a tablespoon at a time until it is as liquidy as you would like it.

Theoretically I could have made it with the chocolate peanut butter spread from the store, but my recipe of the smitten kitchen used extra peanut oil, because it felt very hard to spread. With a store bought spread, you might need extra milk.

Because I'm not going to cut the cake to take a picture of it, instead have a picture of my husband before we went to see Harry Potter yesterday posing with Snuffles.

The sweater was not worn out of the house, because it was 80. But it did get to see the movie with us.

Happy birthday, Saru-chan!

Tuesday was Saru-chan's birthday. She turned a whopping 7 years old. She has grown more affectionate and less scared of Victor over the past year (I think it has something to do with the idea that she doesn't have us to herself, but anywho). She is gorgeous, sleek, large and very soft. Like many cats she likes to be pet, especially if she can scootch her butt really close to your face in the process. Hey! It's a gift.

Saru-chan catches the bugs I don't want to catch and release outside. She will play with them until they are dead and if we are very lucky then eat them. It's a protein source she needs to work for (and is smaller than the mole that Victor caught last week), so I don't mind. Heck, I even encourage it. We shoo Victor out into the back yard and will place her near her new treat. Yup, so mean we are.

I made ice cream for Victor earlier this year, so it was time to make ice cream for Saru-chan. However, she cannot have actual milk. Usually we get her a container of CatSip or some other kitty milk and she will drink it over a week, so that is what I used.

Ingredients:

2 cups of CatSip cat milk
4 TBSP catnip, divided
4 egg yolks

I heat the milk till steaming, turned off the heat and added half of the catnip, which I steeped for an hour.

In a separate bowl, I whisked the 4 egg yolks. After the hour was up, I reheated the milk mixture and then tempered the eggs. I then added the tempered eggs to the milk mixture.

Unlike normal ice creams this never thickened to what I call a normal custard consistency. There just isn't enough fat in it among other things. Also, the mixture looked curdled. But hey, it was for Saru-chan who doesn't care about such things.

I let it cool in the fridge overnight and then churned it the following morning, adding a single can of cat food (we used a fishy cat food from a pouch) and 2 more tablespoons of cat nip.

Like the dog ice cream, because there is no added fat, sugar or thickeners (like xanthan gum), the ice cream froze really hard. There was more loss than normal along the side of the ice cream container where it was too hard to add to the tupperware.

It does make for a hard to scoop ice cream. In the future, I would scoop (with a small cookie scoop) from the ice cream maker when it is still relatively soft onto a parchment covered plate or cookie sheet. Then they would at least freeze into mostly into single serving amounts.

Saru-chan got to try her ice cream Tuesday night for her birthday. For the occasion she got to eat it from one of the blue dessert glasses we have. It was kind of hilarious, because the entire house had ice cream Tuesday night. Hibiscus sorbet for the humans, cat ice cream and dog ice cream.

She likes it!

Things to note. Saru-chan did not seem to like her cat ice cream quite as much as Victor liked his. There are a lot of possible reasons for that including that Saru-chan mostly seems to like her catnip au natural, that the cold item is harder for Saru-chan to eat than it is for Victor and that the flavor was just off. There is, of course, tons left, so she will get to have some more and if she decides to permanently turn up her nose at it that is OK. She is a relatively picky eater, so I'm ready for that eventuality.

Happy birthday, Saru-chan!

Iron Craft 33: Is Team Hufflepuff anything like Team Smack Bella?

(Apparently last week was supposed to be Iron Craft 32, so I have 2 of them. Not a big deal at all. Whoops!)

This week's iron craft challenge was to finish something that had been lying around.

This was easy. I have a ton of projects lying around.

See the unfinished projects. Heck I have a ton of projects that aren't finished that didn't even make it into Ravelry. It's true! I'm pathetic about the finishing stages. The lure of a new garment doesn't outweigh the annoyance of seaming.

The best projects are the ones that thus do not involve more than about 20 stitches worth of seaming.

So, one of the projects that was not on that list was the sweater for my husband. Team Hufflepuff, which was started at the movie theater (or right before) of movie 7 and was supposed to be finished for opening day of movie 8.

Yup, just over a month ago. The knitting has been done for a few weeks, but I was punting on the blocking and seaming. And it is completely understandable that I was. It took me most of an evening to crochet the shoulder seams (I was having piss poor luck with the other methods there and spent 2 hours seaming and picking apart at Gather Here, but at least I was amongst friends). Saturday evening was spent sewing the sleeves into the arm holes. Sunday evening was sleeve and side seam 1 (2 hours of Mars Attacks. Why did I want to watch that?) and Monday evening was sleeve and side seam 2 (ah, Will Wheaton was a much less painful experience). Tuesday was picking up stitches for the neckline and weaving in ends.

We photographed this last night even though it was late and it loses the full geeky effect. Better pictures later I'm sure.

The pattern is an amalgamation of the sweater from Charmed Knits and the sweater template from Handy Book of Knitting Patterns.

The yarn is Cascade 220. In a stupid turn of events I started this sweater (November 2010) having only bought 3 skeins of the grey Cascade 220. Wow. Mind numbingly dumb. I ended up buying 5 additional skeins in 2 additional dye lots. Thankfully Cascade's dye lots are usually really close.

I have about 1.8 skeins left (somehow I have 2 started skeins and one that is still unwound). Needless to say, this was not my best planned project ever.

This is also a project that could have used outtakes.

My husband has tried on the project at nearly every instance of the seaming. Things I missed with the camera: the Huffle Poncho, Michael Jackson wore one sleeve, right?, and Do you think this neckline is too much? Why did I miss the Huffle Poncho? It was hilarious!

With all of the yarn left, I wonder if I should make an actual HufflePoncho for my husband or if he would disown my sorry arse! As it is, I will be making with the remaining black and gold a Hufflepuff version of the Elinor's Mittens. The cables are happily unisex enough and the pattern sized enough to fit many a person I know.

Mittens of Majesty

Mittens of Majesty: These thick woolen gloves do not restrict the wearer's manual dexterity.  They generate a continuous endure elements effect which protects from the cold only.  They also grant a +5 competence bonus to Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility and royalty) checks.  Finally, once per day, the user may use mass suggestion as an 11th-level caster (Will DC 19 to resist).

Moderate abjuration and enchantment; CL 11th; Craft Wondrous Item, endure elements, mass suggestion; Price 87,780 gp.

My husband has been calling these mittens of magesty as I have been working on them for their complicated-looking pattern, and their purple and gold color.

I started these mittens closer to the end of July than I would have liked, because these were for Camp Loopy project 2. I was busy trying to clean up the last of the knitting for my husband's sweater. However, last Thursday (August 4), I finished the first mitten at the Pints and Purls night at Gather Here, and immediately cast on for mitten 2. The second mitten took me until Saturday evening to finish.

The pattern for these looks complicated, but in the end these are very simple cables combined with the simplest of colorwork. If you were afraid of the cables, you could get an awesome impact just doing the stripes on the front and the tweeding on the back.

These mittens were my first colorwork project since taking the class with Mary Jane Mucklestone at Squam.

These make me ridiculously happy!

This pattern by Pamela Wynne (I've also made the February Lady sweater) is awesome. The instructions are clear, the charts have a good legend which makes following them simplistic. The hardest part of this project are the first few rows of the color pattern, because you start the thumb chart and the cable charts at different times. I have yarn to make at last one more pair of these (though I do not know if I have enough yellow left for a second pair).

Pattern: Elinor's Mittens (project ravved here)
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Purple Jewel Heather and Goldenrod
Started: July 24th?, 2011
Finished: August 6, 2011

Iron Craft 33: The days of summer

Summer time for me growing up is flying kites (we had the cheap plastic ones), going to the beach, collecting rocks, and a lot of swimming. We also collected recyclables to redeem for cash, read books (mostly me, my siblings aren't as much into reading as I), and fished.

The Boston area has been more spring-like than summery this week as we have had rain pretty much each day since Sunday. So, I did what any respectable New Englander would do and I made a kite.

I used this tutorial, but used fabrics and ribbons instead of plastic bags.

Click on any of the pictures to see the full size on Flickr.

My materials:
2 bamboo skewers
1 fat quarter (or less) of fabric
2 yards of 7/8-inch ribbon
cotton thread and needle

1. Print the template to fit an 8.5 by 11 inch sheet of paper. Fold over the bottom, and hand sew a hem on the bottom with tiny pockets in the bottommost corners for the bamboo skewers to fit. Fold over and sew a single width of fabric, no greater than 1/8th inch, on each of the remaining sides to clean up the edges.

2. At the two topmost points, sew on two triangular pieces of scrap fabric to help hold the skewers into place.

3. Next place the skewers over the fabric and marked where to cut them to fit the kite. Cut the skewers at the marked area with a pair of scissors. Insert skewers into the fabric pockets. Sew the skewer to the fabric by sewing around the skewer near the middle of the fabric.

4. Cut 2 strips of ribbon about 1.5 to 2 inches long. Fold in half and sew to the outer most points of the fabric base.

5. Cut the remaining ribbon in half and sew around the bottom of each skewer.

6. Attach crochet cotton or other light (the lighter the better) thread as per the tutorial. I would err on the side of too much thread for the bridle. Mine had a harder time in flight partially because my heavier material, but also because the thread was a little too tight to allow the easiest lift.

7. Fly!

I used a gauzy ribbon, but was hoping for some happy monkeys or beach themed ribbon.

This was a fun little project, which I think I will refine over the upcoming week. While it flew sort of, I'm sure I can make sure it goes a lot better!

no need to water here

I want to go kite flying, something I haven't done in easily 20 years. However, there has been rain off and on since at least Sunday. Rain on Monday before I left work. Rain yesterday evening and misty the rest of the time. And there are thunderstorms for today.

At least I don't need to water the lawn, right?

In knitting news, I finished a project on Saturday that I will hopefully have photos of for Friday. The high humidity has made the blocking process take forever! Back to the blanket I go!