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[18 Jul 2008|12:04pm] |
I have the weather forecast in the bottom bar of my internet browser, and there's a red thermometer with red wavy lines floating off of it for today and tomorrow. I think that means snow?
 
Good time for a day off from work, Vietnamese iced coffee, and lots of yellow watermelon!
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| Rainy day muffins |
[08 Mar 2008|01:38pm] |
 
I woke up this morning and it was so dark and rainy, and I was so glad I'd bought some stuff last night (despite it and me all getting soaked when I walked home, cause it was dark and rainy last night too) to make muffins. Turning the oven on warms up the apartment so nicely in the morning, and the amazing smell of these muffins is going to last all day. And they're pretty easy to put together, if you happen to keep some of this stuff around.
( orange cranberry muffins recipe )
They are so good! Dave has a habit of letting me cook something, quietly not being very excited about it, and then afterwards telling me that actually he didn't previously like the thing I just made, but now he loves it. That happened today. We finish eating these muffins for breakfast, and he says, "These were great, better than great actually, I love them! But you know, I really hate orange cranberry muffins. But these I love!!" Thankfully, he means it.
Now I have a half-gallon of milk to use up. I never buy milk. I don't like to drink it, I don't like how it makes my cereal soggy, and a long time ago I started drinking my coffee black because I accidentally put milk that had been standing in my fridge too long into my cup one too many times. Blech. So me and milk are on bad terms. Whenever I buy it for baking, like for these muffins, I end up dumping most of it out, spoiled.
That may change now, since I got an ice cream maker for my birthday! I've experimented twice, both to not great results--strawberry ice cream that I didn't have enough sugar for, so it was too cream-y for me, and a chocolate hazelnut thing that was like a tub of frosting, and not in a good way. The recipe I'm using is from my trusted favorite baking book, but I'm nervous--I used six egg yolks for the hazelnut disaster (from a recipe not from that book), and she says six in hers. It just seems like too many. This weekend I'll go for lucky #3, and hopefully not waste the fancy vanilla beans that I just got in the mail this morning from my dad (along with some really potent saffron!)! That's as exciting as mail gets, I think. Thanks, dad!!!
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| Blockheads |
[07 Mar 2008|11:22am] |
 
Slowly but surely I've been working on this blanket that I started back around Christmas. It's made of scraps and stash wool (Lamb's Pride Bulky and Valley Yarns' Berkshire Bulky) that I had accumulated when I was making those animal and strawberry pouches way back when--which is why this blanket is going to have a lot of bright red and green and white in it. When I made a pile of the yarn I had, it looked so crazy, so I decided to run with that. I like how it looks (reminds me of a pinata), but goddamn, sewing in all those ends is the real crazy part!
Now I'm alternating finishing piles of squares and blocking them ten at a time. A while ago I looked around to see how the smart people of the internet blocked things, and I found this clever solution of using foam flooring tiles, which are waterproof, easy to stick with pins, and interlocking, so I can put them together to block a larger piece (say, a sweater), or use them individually for granny squares, just leaning them against a wall (like the pic below), where they take up no room. Storing them is just as easy. Whoever thought of using these was a genius!
I couldn't find any in stores nearby (some toy stores had them, but they were those alphabet or numbers ones, and I didn't want a tile with so may pieces that could fall out), so I got these 1' x 1' white tiles online from SoftTiles.com.
I had some T-pins that I'd gotten a long time ago at a yarn store, but then I realized they sell them in bigger bulk for less money at Staples, so I have a ton of those now too. I'm not sure what offices would use them for, though...
The blue tape is an electrical tape from the hardware store, which is stickier than a masking tape, so it stays on there square after square, even though it gets a little wet. It marks a 7" x 7" space. I thought about doing some more permanent lines, but I'm not sure ink will stick...and I'd hate for it to leak off onto the fabric of the square!
And as far as wet goes, I'm not soaking these by any means. I'm doing these from the couch, in front of the TV watching Lost (which is good again this season, though last night's was boring--but Ben was hilArious) and The Soup. So screw sinks and bathtubs--I'm using a spray water bottle from a dollar store. I spray a square until it's damp, then stretch stretch stretch, and pin it down.
For me, this is not the fun part. It's so tedious, and I'm so impatient! But after your first blocked square is dry (even though this yarn is bulky, they're drying pretty quickly, almost overnight--I think our radiator heat helps, since the whole apartment is a desert), you can appreciate why you're going through this annoying process. Everything's so flat, so straight, and--gasp--all the same size! It makes such a huge difference, especially for someone like me whose tension is so variable, or who might sometimes somehow add a couple extra chains here and there.
I have a question for you. I'm either done making squares, or I need to make three more. Which seems like a better size for a blanket: 56" x 70" (8 squares x 10 squares) or 49" x 77" (7 squares x 11 squares)? I think I'm leaning towards 56x70, but I also like blankets longer, so they're sure to cover my toes. I'd originally wanted to go 8 squares x 11 squares, but I'm almost out of yarn, and I only wanted to use what I have for this, and not buy anything more!
Here's hoping I get this done before summer!
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| I slaw me |
[26 Feb 2008|11:08am] |
I love salad, and if time and season were not an issue, I would eat some sort of salad with every dinner. But it usually takes a lot more time to put together, along with some kinda main course, and then I get too many dishes dirty, and you can't have leftovers--lettuce gets limp, everything turns soggy, even without dressing, yuk. So it's always exciting (wow did I just say that salad excites me?) when I can figure out a way to have salad for dinner, and not just as a main course.
( A dumpling tale... )
( and a slaw recipe... )
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| no vampires here |
[23 Feb 2008|02:28pm] |
How my garden grew.
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Last year I planted some herbs and a few plants in some pots on my kitchen windowsill, and all but one tiny cactus died in pretty rapid succession. They were going along fine, and then BAM! Everything died. A couple of other little cacti and even a jade plant! Who kills those?! A large part of it has to do with the big lack of sunlight in my entire apartment, so it's my fault for choosing plants that needed a lot of sun.
Since then, I've had those sad pots of dirt just sitting there. When it gets a little warmer out, I'll chose some better plants for the spot, somethings that need very very little light (suggestions?).
For now, though, I wanted to get something happening just so I don't have to stare at dirt all winter long. Solution? A month ago I plopped three garlic cloves (that otherwise I would have used for cooking) pointy side up into one of the pots, and it's been great to watch them sprout. They grow so fast, pretty much as you're watching them!
I've read a lot about growing garlic, so I don't have any real hope for these guys--they're not good container plants, in that they need a lot of space and a whole lot of sunlight to grow into a full bulb. However, I'll at least, hopefully, end up with some garlic scapes (fancy word for the stalks, essentially) in the spring. You cut them down, which encourages the garlic to work harder at growing, and you're left with some yummy garlicky greens that'll make an awesome omelet.
Speaking of spring and food, I'm thinking about joining my local CSA this year. I have to make the decision quick because spots are filled almost immediately, but if we end up moving, then it'll be a mistake to have signed up (though I might be able to sell off my shares). Another big minus is cost. Ideally I'd like the combo that includes veggies, fruit, eggs, and flowers (okay, I don't want the flowers, but it's a better deal to get it with them), but I'd have to get the half-share which is every other week for about 24 weeks, so say 12 weeks total, from June to November. That includes 7-8 vegetable items, not clear on the amount of fruit, 6 eggs, and one bouquet of flowers each time I pick up. Total cost? $495 plus $15 "administration fee". That's too much right? I like the idea so much, but I might be a lot better off just stopping by the greenmarket every other week to buy stuff. It's like how I feel about giving money to NPR--I really would like to do it, but feel like I have to be a little more rich before I can make it happen. Oh and also how I feel a little guilty not doing either!
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| more birds |
[24 Aug 2007|10:45am] |
One of my anonymous neighbors, probably from an adjacent building, got a bird several months ago. At first, I'm pretty certain the bird wouldn't talk to him, because I could only hear HIM whistling all day long. ALL the time. Hoo, HOO, hoo. Over and over! Then I was home during the day one time, and I heard the BIRD but not him, so then I was convinced that the bird would only chatter when the owner wasn't around--funny bird. But now I think maybe he got ANOTHER bird, and this one's freaky weird sounding, almost like a chicken or a peacock. It's making Latke the cat a little unnerved. Check out the video, and turn the volume up to hear them. I don't know much about birds, and I don't like them much except when they're in the wild, but I don't know how smart it is to keep them in a big apartment building. I wouldn't be surprised if someone murdered this guy just because the birds were driving him (or her...) insane! Though for me, it's more the guy's whistling that will drive me cuckoo.
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| food and birds |
[19 Aug 2007|01:39pm] |
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) karatekatkniter made some zucchini bread the other day, and it looked so good (and included a recipe) that I had to either eat my computer screen or make some for myself.
( My tinkered recipe back here... )
  
I had the day off on Friday, and I spent most of it cooking. I made these breads, and a blueberry tart, and then dinner was some pasta with beans, butter, and sage from my dad's garden that I picked last weekend when I visited my parents, with some pretty and delicious heirloom tomatoes from the greenmarket at Rockefeller Center that was only around for a month, and is now sadly gone. I wish I had a garden just so I could grow some tomatoes. I'm a little obsessed right now about food, and how mostly it doesn't taste like anything anymore--like how mass-produced tomatoes at the supermarket don't taste like tomatoes, just watery squishy things--and it will be nice to have a garden again one day. Cause those pots on the windowsill aren't cutting it (not pepper one!).
 Also, Dave and I went for a walk yesterday, got some tomatillos and peppers from another greenmarket spot that's near us but nearer the expressway, and then we went to look at some parrots that live in a ballpark nearby. You can hear them before you see them--it's really cool!
There was a tornado in my neighborhood (in Brooklyn--holy shit!) a couple weeks ago, it knocked over a lot of very old trees, the majority of trees in the area actually. Missed my apartment, thank goodness, and it also missed all the spots where these parrots live, also thank goodness. Did I mention they're really cool? Dudes, it's so neat!
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| ruining my fingers, one stitch at a time |
[28 Jul 2007|04:53pm] |
I've been slowly working on a grandmother's flower garden quilt since May. The pattern seemed to be popping up a lot, and once I saw this tutorial, and saw that doing it wasn't as impossible as it had seemed, well I lost all will to resist. And it's not impossible at all--just slow, slow as a sloth on blue devils. It takes me days to finish each flower, and I need to make about 50, plus all the hexagon spaces that will separate all of them and be like the background. They're 1 1/14-inch hexagons, and I bought the paper pieces from here, from Sunshine Creation's suggestion, and I'm glad to have done that, and skipped the really boring and undoubtedly (for me) inconsistent step of cutting them all myself. It'll be queen-sized in a billion years when I'm done. Then I'm going to hand-quilt it. I'll be making this forever!
Which is quite nice right now, actually, moving slow in the summertime, consistency in something pleasant, and little bits that quietly add to a whole. Ambitions have been on my mind lately--ambitions regarding jobs and work and careers and the other dirty synonyms, which seem so important as groundwork for the other, more pleasant ambitions we'd like to focus on--envying those who have them, wondering why I've never had some of my own, and whether I can find them. It's the unfortunately-shelved secondary ambitions (the ones that don't come with a check every other week, or health insurance, or a 401k) that are all I can ever focus on, and it's great to think so closely each day about the small scraps of fabric and the unknown day ahead when they'll be together as a well-loved quilt, and that maybe I'll be sleeping beneath it with other ambitions already in motion.
Pictures of all the different flowers are at my flickr.
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| think spicy thoughts |
[23 Jul 2007|08:11pm] |
A couple of my windowsill plants need your help. Please take a second to picture lush, leafy greens, and maybe all your thoughts will help these scrappy little jalapeno pepper plants (the two pots on the left) to grow at least one little pepper. They're not doing great. They're not doing BAD either, but they haven't actually grown at all since the first week I got them, like two months ago. Come on, little peppers!
Hey, anyone remember what's happened in the first six Harry Potter books? Cause I forget. There's a whole lot to remember, and I've got junior Alzheimer's for sure. I just started the new one, but I feel a little like these pepper plants--I'm not entirely sure how I got here, and I'm a little worried I won't grow at all in the next few days cause this place is sort of confusing. But it's nice being out in the sun for a little while, anyway...
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| mullet apron, a wedding, and oldies |
[13 Jul 2007|12:23am] |
Thanks to all my private helpers out there, I got tips on where to find a dress for my sister-in-law's sister's wedding, and how to finish up my present for her. You guys are amazing. The reversible apron was tricky, but it turned out nice, and I hope she uses it a ton by making me a lot of baked goods.
Adrianne and Jeremy's wedding was this past weekend in upstate New York, just outside of Ithaca, right on Cayuga Lake. So. Pretty. Everything about it was great. There were root beer jelly beans, which happen to be my favorite. I got to hang out with my awesome niece and nephew. Dave looked sharp. Okay, my shoes hurt--stupid girl shoes. And on the ride back to my brother and sister-in-law's house afterwards, we saw at least a dozen deer, which was actually a little scary. We had to drive slowly the whole way home.
  
On the ride home-home, to Brooklyn, Dave and I listened to the radio a lot, which I like to do in cars. But there are barely any oldies stations left, which tend to be the ones I linger on. Just so happens the NYC oldies standard, which was a staple on car rides my entire life, and which was replaced with some new, created-by-team-of-marketers programming a couple of years ago, was welcomed back on the air today. Hope those marketers can feel Cousin Brucie's foot up their asses, ha!
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[02 Jul 2007|02:10pm] |
Thanks for your dress help the other day! Someone was convinced she could find me a dress, so she led me around and had me try on a thousand at Bloomingdales, and then I ended up getting one at H&M. It's kind of simple and not too dressy, so I'm going to wear fancy shoes to make it seem more like a party.
The dress is for a wedding, and the bride had an Anthropologie wishlist as part of her numerous registries. On that was a pretty reversible apron, and I decided that I would make her one instead, and I sort of avoided it until now because I hit a mental design roadblock.
Maybe you can help!
Here's my at-work Photoshop rendering of what it's supposed to look like. The floral side is Moda Uptown "Mom's Couch" in green (which looks better than my little copy-paste number here!), the plain side is brown, and each side has the other's fabric as a contrasting pocket. Business in the front, party in the back.
I'd like to do a border with binding in green, but if I do that, I can't figure out how to attach the neck and waist ties. If it were only one-sided, I could sew them to the wrong side behind the binding and that would be that. But the damned reversible has to look nice on both sides.
So how do I attached the ties? Any sewers out there have ideas?
If it works out, I'll totally show real-live pictures of the apron when it's done!
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[22 Jun 2007|12:32pm] |
I had the worst time getting home yesterday from my work trip to California--I managed to get onto an earlier flight (woohoo!) which then landed after the later flight that I was originally on (booo!) because of thunderstorms and some other problems and us having to stop and refuel in Pittsburgh. I got onto my plane at about 3:30pm EST and got into my bed at about 2:30am. And, in both directions, my TV set on Jet Blue broke. Only mine. On the whole plane. I started to feel a little unlucky! Or magically electromagnetic. Traveling is stupid, I hope I don't have to do it so much any more.
But then when I woke up this morning I saw that the postcards I'd ordered from Jordan Crane had gotten here. They're so amazing. You can't even imagine, it won't work, so just go buy them so you can see how great they look.
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| I delcare this the Summer of Tart |
[30 May 2007|12:52pm] |
Plum is such a great word.
And a great fruit.
So when I bought two pounds of them this weekend, I thought I'd be happy just snacking on them, but nooo, I got ambitious and decided I'd make a tart. So then they sat in a bowl waiting, until last night I finally relented. I really didn't want to turn the oven on. I really didn't want to get the food processor, which barely works, dirty. The brown sugar was almost solid. I have no idea how to cut up a plum without it being a plum massacre. But it was such a compulsion, I could not stop. That is so dumb, but really, I had the plums, I had almonds in the freezer, I got me a tart pan, so I HAD to do it.
SO GLAD I DID!
Here's the recipe, adapted from this one.
 2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup finely chopped almonds
3/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), diced
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 pounds red plums, pitted and quartered lengthwise
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. That's too goddamn stupid to do in the summer. Next time someone stop me. Next time I'll make popsicles.
Mix everything together, except the plums, by hand in a big bowl.
Press half of the crumb mixture in an even layer into the bottom of a 9 1/2-inch tart pan. Arrange the plums in the pan, skin side down, to form a flower pattern; begin at the outside and work your way in. Pretty doesn't matter so much. There is so much crumb left to go on top, you won't see the plums.
Sprinkle the rest of the crumb mixture evenly over the plums. Bake the tart for 40 to 50 minutes, or until it's lightly browned and the plum juices are bubbling. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes. Remove from the pan and transfer the tart to a flat plate. Serve warm or at room temperature.
It's not too sweet, so it is even better with whipped cream!
Because I had to get out the food processor, and had difficulty slicing [smooshing] up the plums, and had to break up the brown sugar with a fork for a while, and had to turn the oven on when it was so hot out, I'd rate this recipe as mildly irritating to do after your first day back to work after a long weekend. On another, cooler day, with new brown sugar and plum-cutting knowledge and a kitchen that can accommodate leaving a food processor on the counter and maybe if I had a dishwasher, I'd rate this recipe as really super easy.
On either day, it's holy shit delicious.
 I pick pie over cake, vanilla over chocolate, and I like my sweets spiced! So I know I'm going to be turning the oven on like a moron again and again this summer. Do you have better ideas? Should I just get an ice cream maker?
Actually, I may just eat a lot of popsicles from this random little bodega a few blocks from my apartment. They make them there, and have a million flavors, including some chili thing that I was too chicken to get. I got mango:
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| fish zoo |
[14 May 2007|03:12pm] |
Dave and I went to the New York Aquarium yesterday, where they have the nicest walrus ever. I have no other walruses to compare it to, but even so I could tell this one was in the top walrus tier. Like the rest of Coney Island that surround it, the aquarium is kind of depressing and deteriorating--there was just that one lonely walrus, and a single sea lion that I saw--and is filled with wailing children. When I was going to sleep last night, I worried a little about what the walrus was doing right then, and if it was sad, and if it can hear the clatter and screams from the Cyclone during the day. I though about making a new movie called 'Free Walrus!'
Anyway, my point is this: it was FREE to get in. Because I still have a Bank of America account (though I switched banks a few months ago because BoA Bites, and just haven't closed it yet). If you have one, you (and a guest!) can get into a bunch of museums free until the end of the month. Free museums? Awesome:
http://www.bankofamericapromotions.com/museums/
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| ChairyBoo |
[06 May 2007|06:52pm] |
 My friend gave me two kitchen chairs for free about three years ago, and they have been great for sitting on ever since. But with cat claws and lots of use, they have really fallen apart. Ewww, look how gross.
So I got the bright idea to reupholster them. I got two yards of canvas fabric at fabric.com on sale, and figured I'd learn as I did it. And it was really easy! Granted, I did it as lazily as possible, but hey, they turned out great on the cheap. If you ever wanted to see how to do it yourself, here goes.
( See the whole, gruesome, really easy process... )
 Presto! New chair!
One step I skipped was ironing the fabric (lazy, remember?), which is funny because look at how the ironing board was totally right next to me through the whole process, mocking me. Whatever, ironing board, the fabric will get smooth from all the butts sitting on it.
Now, to do the couch...
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| justin time |
[04 May 2007|10:31am] |
I finished this blanket the other day, just when it will be perfect--the next week should have nights in the 50s and 60s, just right for my light comforter and a crocheted blanket on top. Go Spring!
Last stitch. In knitting and now I see in crocheting, I pull the yarn very taught. I do these things to relax, and it works, but my hands, man how they pull without me even noticing.
More pictures here...
Dear Today, Thank you for being Friday. Love, Mary.
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| actual size |
[26 Apr 2007|01:18pm] |
Catch of the day (wahwahwah)!
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| MORE PICTURES, LESS WORDS |
[20 Apr 2007|04:00pm] |
I'm sewing it all together now!
Well not right now.
Now I'm trapped at work. I want to be outside!
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| FOOD |
[16 Apr 2007|11:35am] |
 On Thursday I got totally soaked in the windy rain, and a tree or a person fell on the tracks in front of my train (who knows?) on the way to work, so I took that omen and turned right around and went home! On the way, I saw that the store near me had strawberries for 79 cents a pound, and I never turn down cheap berries. I bought a bunch. That night, I made grilled strawberry sammiches, and we still had tons of strawberries to eat. Yum.
So on my from work on Friday, I pretty much couldn't stop thinking about strawberries. For me, strawberries in big amounts usually inspire pie, so I got off the train and hit the store like I was going to make a pie. Right away, I was hoping for some rhubarb, but all they had was expensive and limp. Then the peaches were pointless. Finally, I remembered seeing a recipe for an easy tart (HAAhahah) on Everyday Food the weekend before, so I grabbed what I thought I might need, and headed home to try it out.
( The recipe and the results back here... )
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| This is where the t.v.-watching magic happens. |
Besides watching cooking on the boob tube for hours and getting ideas from there, I also love cookbooks. Right now, I'm getting the most use out of the Daily Soup cookbook, because it's still so damned cold in mid-April, and because soup is my favorite type of food after sandwiched items.
I've lived in a big Chinese neighborhood for a few years, and we're about to consider renewing the lease. Dave and I would like to live closer to the city so we can hang out with friends more, but it's expensive and smaller and blah blah blah. Anyway, the thought of moving makes me appreciate my Chinese neighbors more. I can't move without cooking lots of Chinese food first and making use of all the shops nearby with crazy ingredients! But I know zip about it, and I walk through the crazy vegetables and have know idea what anything is. So I was looking for some books, and found some good references from the best page of cookbook recommendations I've seen. Check out this KQED page for a nice extensive but edited list. There are even a few non-recipe books, like The Man Who Ate Everything, which is on my list and I'm looking forward to reading once I get out of the novel kick I'm in right now, and need some non-fiction.
Anything missing from it that you love? How do you cook, and what's your favorite cookbook?
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| Jude's hat |
[10 Apr 2007|11:19am] |
I tried to knit a hat for my baby nephew, Jude, for Christmas, but I ran out of time. So, it ended up being his first birthday present, which he celebrated in March. Since I missed the xmas deadline, I'm actually pretty psyched in just this one way that it's still so cold out (probably especially in Western Massachusetts, where he lives), so that he might actually get to wear it before his head gets too huge. And since he's a Bakija, there's no way his head won't get too huge, too soon.
It's a pattern from a book I have that I will have to tell you the name of later because I can't remember!
I tried to find something in my apartment that could model the hat. Latke would not have been into it, plus her head is too small, plus Jude's dad (my brother Jon) is so allergic to cat hair that he'd probably die if his son's hat was ever too close to the kitty. Everything cute and stuffed that I own was too small. But then...this puppet. I made this bride in a puppetry class I took in college, and it turns out her head is perfectly baby-sized.
She's pretty creepy, I admit, but I am so proud of her crazy hair. I glued that stuff on with serious precision. I remember sitting in the dark sewing room at school for hours, the only light coming from the rows of sewing machines, with a bag of hair and glue and was in the hair-gluing zone. We would listen to the radio, and I feel like the Rolling Stones were always on. "Brown Sugar" and my eyes totally focused twelve inches in front of my face on the papier-mache skull, whiling away the fall afternoons in a stuffy glue-fumed spot, knowing that I'd have to eventually graduate in December, wondering how I could get a job doing exactly what I was doing then forever.
Still wondering...
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