Weeee're back

The Smoky Mountains were gorgeous. I’ll try and stay focused here on the 4 Obsessions review of our week away (for a few pics of our camping, canoeing and some damn cute kids, check out the pics I uploaded to Flickr)

Writing: none. No computer, thus no writing.

Reading: Got more than half way through Blindness which I am really loving; beautifully written, intense ideas, and lots to think about. Half a book is not bad when traveling with the under-5 set and having to alternate pages (no, not chapters, pages) of my book with Blueberries for Sal and The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broomhandle (which has one of my favorite lines in all of picture-book-dom “They chubbed their chubs and looked around and chubbed their chubs again”), which were Fiona’s favorites on this trip. Ian’s favorite was his latest anatomy book. I found myself reading to him about how the kidneys process urine…

Knitting: I finished the knitting for the mustard sweater, and yes, it necessitated 3/4 length sleeves. It pisses me off that the pattern (from Stitch and Bitch book 1) was so far off on the yarn requirements. I calculated the yardage and even purchased an extra skein, but for my sister’s sweater, it turned out 2 skeins off and for mine, 1 off. For Anna’s, I bought the 2 extra skeins, but I bought the yarn for mine through Elann and unfortunately they didn’t have any more for me to buy. I’ll try and block it this week and then do the crochet around the edges.

Cooking: Like I mentioned before we left, this was a week off from cooking for me. I did some damn good eating though. Brian stepped up to the plate (the jet-propulsion camping stove) and made some delectable back-woods food. Here is a photo of him whisking eggs for a fresh-chive omelet one morning. What is not to love about a man who has his own camping whisk?

And we managed to have a good quantity of the Southern food that we can only make (not find in restaurants) up here; while in Asheville visiting friends, I had some fabulous collards which were stewed with tomatoes, rather than the usual ham hock. I liked them a lot, probably even more than the traditional kind, and believe me, I can pack away a LOAD of good collards when I come across them. And I had some good corn relish and barbequed pork, too.

Now that I'm back in my kitchen, there is a Scallops with Soba Noodles recipe that I want to try. And I just got my latest copy of Cook's Illustrated and they have a how-to for marinated flank steak. I've never had a successful flank steak cooking experience (though I have managed to make some very expensive shoe leather with flank steak...). And due to an immensely frustrating experience in Lexington, Kentucky in which we did NOT get to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Alfalfa's (we got there at 2:10 and they locked the doors at 2 pm so we could just look inside the big windows at all the lucky people eating their delicious lunches and had to choke down Subway crap instead), I will be assembling the sandwich I intended to order there in my kitchen.
Recipe:
My version of the Alfalfa Avocado Grill
Take two slices of whole grain or really good bread (today it will be Zingermann's traditional Jewish Rye), smear one side with a thick layer of hummus, put some sharp white cheddar cheese on the other side, in between, pack in some sliced avocado, tomato and alfalfa sprouts. Grill 'till cheese has melted and the bread is golden.