FFF: Your Choice

Nora's theme this week is "You choose!" I've been waiting all week to post this one (and then took all day to get a moment alone with the computer). Here is what you see when you casually announce that for breakfast you are making COOKIES!

FFF: Peace / Piecing

Nora's theme for yesterday was "Peace" - and she was good enough to announce it ahead of time. Despite this, it seemed to be a week without much peace in terms of my inner landscape. Denise Levertov's bleakly beautiful poem "Zeroing In" aptly describes what I am talking about.

But today has been a good day, and I've found a nicer landscape waiting for me inside. I attribute this mainly to what I have done in the kitchen today (cinnamon rolls for tomorrow! meatloaf! crazy 1907 onion soup!) and also that I was able to sit in front of my sewing machine and experiment with some ideas. Here are the photos:

Fav Foto Friday: New...CrazySock!

My fabulous friend Nora is hosting Fav Foto Fridays - each Friday she posts a theme, and any blogger who wants to play along picks up the theme, posts a picture, and links back to her.

I am so tardy with photos all the time, and I hope that participation will both inspire me to post more often and also to take more photos.

Her theme for today is "New" and this is as good a time as any to introduce...CrazySock!

CrazySock was knitted, felted, stuffed, and decorated for Cora this Christmas. I had to work on it when she was around because it took FOREVER and I got a late start. Because the initial knitting is indeed a sock, albeit a gigantic one, I told her that it was a sock for Grandpa Dave. Amazingly, she had no trouble believing this. When I knit the ears, I told her they were decorations for the sock. When Grandpa Dave arrived for Christmas, I overheard her telling him that he was getting a crazy sock for Christmas.

The horse was finished in time, thanks to help from my mom, who knit the i-cord for the reins while I sewed on the eyes and mane and D-rings for the reins, and I carefully placed it in the very front of all the presents so it would be seen first - otherwise I knew it would be lost in the wash of other gifts. And CrazySock and the sled from Chris were indeed the first things she saw, played with, and fell in love with - pwhew!

(As usual, I wish I had thought to take more photos of the process. Something to remember in the future.)

Delicious, easy, crazy...and a big freaking list

Yesterday, the day before classes started, my last full day home by myself, I decided to do something fun. I had just got from the library a fabulous cookbook, 660 Curries, and when we were in Madison, we were given a beautiful, huge cabbage. What are the chances? I thought. But, I looked, and I found a curry that used cabbage. But the recipe also would require the making of a toasted & ground spice blend and also...cheese.



Did you say cheese? Homemade cheese? Count me in!



So, I made paneer, which was easy and fun and so wild that I was wishing Chris and Cora were there to see what happens when you stir a little vinegar into a giant pot of boiling milk. INSTANT CURDS AND WHEY! And then, the transformation to actual cheese. When I brought Cora home from daycare I had her try the cheese. She loved it. She tried it several times. Then she brought her Elmo in to try the cheese.



The spice blend was also easy (super easy - by chance it was the easiest one with the least ingredients in the whole book). And the curry itself came together in about 20 minutes and was undoubtedly the best way to eat cabbage ever. We also had basmati rice and some beef kabobs from the store (our back-up in case the curry was not amazing and delicious). All in all a tremendously satisfying day. And the rest of the cookbook looks great too - there are lots of things we would like to try to make.



Then I found, on a food & cooking blog, The Omnivore's Hundred. Here is what it is:


1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (I can't cross out, so I'll just label those NO)

4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/ linking to your results.


The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:


1. Venison

2. Nettle tea

3. Huevos rancheros

4. Steak tartare

5. Crocodile

6. Black pudding NO!

7. Cheese fondue

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush

11. Calamari

12. Pho

13. PB&J sandwich

14. Aloo gobi

15. Hot dog from a street cart

16. Epoisses

17. Black truffle

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes

19. Steamed pork buns

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes

22. Fresh wild berries

23. Foie gras - at this point, NO

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn, or head cheese - EXTREMELY DOUBTFUL

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper - NO...OUCH!

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters - NO

29. Baklava

30. Bagna cauda

31. Wasabi peas

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl

33. Salted lassi

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float

36. Cognac with a fat cigar - NO TO THE CIGAR

37. Clotted cream tea

38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O

39. Gumbo

40. Oxtail

41. Curried goat

42. Whole insects

43. Phaal

44. Goat’s milk

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more

46. Fugu - NO

47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut

50. Sea urchin

51. Prickly pear

52. Umeboshi

53. Abalone

54. Paneer

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal

56. Spaetzle

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV

59. Poutine

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores

62. Sweetbreads - NO NO NO

63. Kaolin

64. Currywurst

65. Durian

66. Frogs’ legs

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis - DOUBTFUL

69. Fried plantain

70. Chitterlings, or andouillette - DOUBTFUL

71. Gazpacho

72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe

74. Gjetost, or brunost

75. Roadkill

76. Baijiu

77. Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail

79. Lapsang souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom yum

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.

85. Kobe beef

86. Hare (AKA YUMMY BUNNY)

87. Goulash

88. Flowers

89. Horse (MAYBE - DID WE TRY THE PFERDEWURST IN GERMANY? CAN'T REMEMBER)

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano

96. Bagel and lox

97. Lobster Thermidor

98. Polenta

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake

Last to know?

Oh. My. God. So, I finally figured out that this Dr. Horrible thing I keep hearing about is a Joss Whedon project (put the important facts first, people!) and finally get to take a look at it.

Utter glee. Total bliss.

I had to stop it though, so that I can watch it with Chris tonight. I'm afriad the Olympics will have to go on without us for a while, because this is just too delicious.

I'm sure I am the last person to know that this fabulous thing is out there. But, if I'm not, if YOU are, then you should totally go watch it now.

Now! (Don't make me call Dad at work.)

Interviewed!

I forgot to mention that my interview is up at Forever in School - part of the huge interview project from Citizen of the Month. As you know (as I so often say to my students), I am a big geek. I actually like taking tests. As an adult, the next best thing is to be interviewed. Maryam asked me good questions - ones I've thought about before, and ones that I hadn't. Plus, I totally love the name of her blog!

I think my own interviewee is on vacation. (In August?! No way!)

Toddler Reading

I meant to post this before, but Under the Mad Hat has a terrific reading list up for July. Many of the books on it are favorites of Cora's, and we will be getting some others from the library. Mad Hat Mommy's reading lists are great - check the labels for the others, and spread the word.

Book lovers, unite! (But you can finish your chapter first.)

More made things: a photo essay

Finally - some pictures!

I made these tartlets for poetry group the day we met on Christine's birthday. What is exciting to me is that a) it's the first time I've used the little tartlet pans I bought a couple years ago, and b) it isn't a recipe, just an idea I had and then made. Oh, and, local little sweet strawberries I bought at the farmer's market.

I made this top for Cora from a pattern I found on a really cool blog that a friend told me about. I am not really a garment sewer - I mainly do quilts and things like that - but for Cora I don't mind sewing clothes. First of all, she loves it when I make her things (see below), and secondly, it doesn't have to be perfect. Her peer group is not going to judge her harshly if her clothes are obviously homemade. They might even be a little envious. (Well, especially with the Peter Rabbit fabric!)

And the hair? She wants it up like that ALL THE TIME. She brings me her barette and says, "Mama, do my haircut!"

So, this is not a very realistic picture of the Scary Garden - you have to imagine the waist high weeds and volunteer trees that were there before Chris cleaned it up. This space used to have a carport, so there's also lots of gravel mixed in with the weeds. Still, this is what the patio guys had to work with when they showed up Tuesday morning.

Here, they're almost done. It's about 3pm on Tuesday at this point.

Here it is! We have to let the sand settle and then decide what to do with the edges - sod? grass seed? marigolds? Suggestions?

There was a lot of sand leftover - right now just a big pile on the driveway. We're trying to find a sandbox. Apparently if you want a sandbox, you have to buy one in May, because the stores send them all back in June. Grr.

And, finally, a gratuitous Cora picture. I thought the zebra towel would be a good thing to have in her lap during a messy pasta dinner. She wanted to look like Mommy after a shower. And then the green glasses came out. In all the other pictures she is also sticking her tongue out like some bizarre heavy metal babushka granny.

Do you already know about this?

Over at Under the Mad Hat and a few other blogs, a couple of women put together a monthly list (posted the second Tuesday of the month) called Just Posts - a collection of posts from various other bloggers on various social topics big and small, global and personal. You can find the list from May here.

I enjoy the list; I've found my list of blogs I read expanding a little every month. This month I really liked the one about "whatever as a pay scale" and how the seemingly small topic of whether young girls who babysit feel comfortable (or not) stating their hourly rate is part of the larger topics of self-esteem, gender pay equity, and knowing your own worth.

Cool stuff.