A lull in the blogging

We're leaving tomorrow morning to head down to the Smoky Mountains area to do some camping and canoeing on the Fontana Resevoir. This means that I will be entering a period of culinary passivity. Whether it is due to the limitations of camping cuisine or my fear of the camping stove (which sounds like a jet engine and which I always think will blow up in my face), I let Brian do all the cooking when we camp. I am hoping for good weather and for Fiona to learn that throwing herself out of the canoe (repeatedly) is not a good idea.

My food contribution to the trip is limited to research on places to eat along the way. Roadfood is a good source for southern barbeque and I'm sure we'll try to time our driving so we hit Lexington and the Alfalfa restaurant when hungry. I'll print out their menu in case the kids are super crabby and we have to get takeout.

I also need to pick out a book and a knitting project to take with me. I'm thinking I'll take Blindness to read; though it isn't exactly light vacation reading, I am seriously hoping for a little time to get into it (while camping with two kids under 5 years old...yeah...right....). Knitting wise, I am sorely tempted to go out today and buy some circular needles to start a pair of socks on. I read this on-line piece about how to knit two socks simutaneously (rather than one sock at a time) on two circular needles and I'm fascinated by it. I already have the yarn which I bought on impulse at Elann. But I've never knit socks before, so starting something like that is probably a stupid idea. I probably should just bring the mustard cardigan and finish the sleeves (and hope like hell that I don't run out of the yarn--I only have 3 balls left for 2 sleeves and may end up having to unravel an entire sleeve--which will piss me off--and re-knit it at 3/4 length). But socks on two circulars will be easier to pack than a sweater on straight needles, right? right?

I leave you with these freaky food photos to contemplate--there's a whole cult of latte art out there and Flickr has some great photo examples (just insert "latteart", yes, all one word, into the Tags search and you can see them all).
I found the most beautiful cappuccino and its cousin and, below, its slightly freaky mocha cousin. Could you drink this dog?


Mocha poured by Bob
Originally uploaded by tonx.