A reason to love my town

There are times I hate this town. The sun has not been out in about a week and the gray is beginning to permeate my soul despite my daily attempt at mood alteration via endorphins at the gym.

But there are also times I love this place and this morning my neighbor helped to remind me of why I stick it out through the dark months.

I looked out the window this morning and saw this:
Let's get a little closer:
Yes, that is a dollar bill embedded in the snow on the windshield of the Fembot (aka the minivan).
Upon even closer examination
one can discern the words:
"Brian and Kate
Keep eye out.
1 week.
Jon.
Happy Holidays!"
written around the edge of the bill.

This is how our neighbor (Jon) asks us to keep an eye on his house while he's down in Florida. One year when we were doing construction and had a big pit where the front door should have been, he tossed a similar dollar bill note down in the hole.

I think this man is brilliant for this alone. Sure, we'd be happy to keep an eye on his house and make sure there aren't any knock-down drag-out parties going on there while he's away (at least not parties that we aren't invited to) and if he'd come to the front door we would have told him so. But getting the request via dollar bill note is so charming and quirky that I'll actually enjoy the process of keeping an eye on his house.

We aren't particularly close with this neighbor--he's a nice enough guy, but on the private side. But somehow, he gets our sense of humor. And that is why I love this town and that is why I live here--the unpretentious quirkiness of the residents is wonderful to behold. It is nice to be living in a place where eccentricity is more than ok, it is appreciated. Even though the sun doesn't shine here for months at a time...

And Brian pointed out that if we collect enough of these dollar notes, maybe we can afford to go to Florida ourselves someday!

Happy New Year to you all, and I hope the coming year provides you and me both with more odd yet appealing moments, and of course, lots of good food, books and yarn.

grrrmph

That would be the disgruntled sound I made when I finished reading this book:
I thought this book was unappealing and the ending was gimmicky. I'm still not sure what the point was other than to make fun of middle aged men and their self-involved pomposity. I found particularly annoying the sections in which we have to listen to Clive trying to compose his latest symphony. Writing about music is not one of McEwan's strengths and I think it takes an unique author to be able to write about a very visual or auditory art form and not make it dull as cold toast.

Stella assures me that McEwan's Black Dogs is worth reading and I liked Saturday so I'll give it a try. I also haven't read Atonement yet and a number of people I know have praised it.

And now Grumpy Kate would like you to send me some fiction recommendations so that I don't have to start the New Year off reading sucky books.

'Twas a goofy British Christmas

You can tell we had a pretty good Christmas since it started off with this fellow:

My very own Were-Rabbit figurine with movable arms. He's sitting on the kitchen counter and is approximately the size and shape of a beer-can chicken. Apparently, he is also fond of Cheerio's...

and ended with scenes like this:

Paper crowns and plastic mustache courtesy of the Christmas Crackers. Half-shut eyes and silly look courtesy of a few too many egg nogs with lots of whiskey...

In between the above photos I made a very British meal for my parents, Brian's mom, his cousin Kent, and Kent's hysterical co-worker, Miss Neffel. (Ok, she has a first name, Diane, but I like to call her Miss Neffel.)

Our plates were groaning with piles of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, green beans, Brussels sprouts and roast potatoes.

I made some little appetizer nibbles of cucumber, dilled creme fraiche and Scottish smoked salmon, which did not stick around long enough to pose for a photograph. And we ended the meal with my mom's mince pies (made with homemade vegetarian mincemeat) and whipped cream (also speedily consumed).

There were a few deviations from the British theme. The salad course was not British: baby greens dressed in a terrific orange vinaigrette (recipe below) with orange zest and topped with goat cheese, walnuts and pomegranate seeds.
And Brian's mom brought over a Buche de Noel from Whole Foods that was more chocolate ganache than cake (No complaints here! Bring on the ganache!).

We were all too full and tired by the end of the meal to indulge in the last course, Stilton, pears and port by the fire. So I'll save these for another evening around my parents' fireplace.

Terrific Orange Vinaigrette

3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh squeezed orange juice
1 T Dijon mustard
1 t maple syrup
zest from 1 orange--use an old fashioned zester here so you get strips of zest, not a microplane zester

Put all the ingredients in a jar and shake really hard!

robot-y goodness

This robot

is looking forward to jumping into this stocking

so he can greet Fiona like this

on Christmas morning.

I had the dickens of a time finishing this robot (from Jess Hutch's fantastic knitted toys booklet) without Fiona noticing since of late she has been imitating a barnacle in her mommy-attachment.

And for those of you who are into noticing the background items in photographs, yes that is a photo of a monkey hugging a cat.

More than the sum of its parts

Ok, I admit that this Pork and Hominy Stew is not an impressive looking dish. Also, it is so simple to make that you might be fooled into thinking that it would also taste basic too. But somehow it combines to become much more than the sum of its parts.

I've made this recipe for many people and while they don't look thrilled when it is first served, once they taste it they almost always want the recipe. And it is such a pleasure to spread the gospel of a dish that is so damn easy to make. If only all recipes delivered so much flavor for so little effort.

Pork and Hominy Stew with Chipotle
adapted from a Mark Bittman Minimalist column

4 Cups canned white or yellow hominy (one 28 oz can or two 14 oz cans)
1 lb boneless pork (shoulder, loin, country ribs, whatever is on sale that week), trimmed of excess fat and cut into 1 inch chunks
1 t dried oregano
1 chipotle in adobe sauce, cut into smallish pieces (I get a can of these and freeze the peppers individually in little ziplock bags. Then I grab one out of the freezer when I make this and chop it up.)
1 T ground cumin
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1 T minced garlic
juice of 1 lime
1 and 1/2 t salt
ground pepper to taste
2 T chopped cilantro
any additional vegetables--canned diced tomatoes, red or yellow pepper strips, zucchini or yellow squash cubes (optional)

Toppings (any or all of the following):
more chopped cilantro
lime wedges
sour cream
avocado chunks
grated sharp cheddar cheese

1. Combine canned hominy with all its liquid, pork, oregano, chipotle, cumin, onion, garlic, lime, salt and pepper in a big pot or slow cooker. Turn heat to medium high. Bring to a boil then adjust heat so mixture simmers steadily. Cook covered until pork is tender, at least an hour, though you can let it simmer at low heat in a crock pot all day (perfect to throw together in about 15 minutes in the morning and then dinner is ready when you walk in the door).

2. About 15 minutes before serving, add additional of the optional vegetables.

3. Stir in chopped cilantro just before serving. Ladle into bowls and let diners customize their bowl with the assorted toppings (or go ahead and be a dictator and make them all have the avocado/sour cream combo--my personal favorite).

4. Stand back and let the praise for this humble looking and terrific tasting dish rain down on you. Hand out copies of the recipe.

Spaghetti Monster Tree Topper

Last night our home came under invasion.
This Spaghetti Monster flew into our kitchen, circled around a few times and then chose to land
on the top of our Christmas Tree.
There he stayed, waving his noodly appendages and
muttering in Spaghetti lingo about pirates and climate change.

He is not the first spaghetti monster to decide that the top of a Christmas Tree is a good place to put forth his message. But he may be the first of the knitted noodly brethren.


Construction Instructions:

FSM was made from a few miles (exaggeration) of 4-stitch knitted I-cord on size 8 dp needles and Lion Brand Wool-Ease cream yarn. The I-cord was tacked on a knitted stuffed sphere made of the same yarn. His meatballs are knitted stuffed spheres made with Lion Brand Suede yarn (it isn't easy to find meaty-colored yarn out there...). Two google eyes were attached to lightly wired eye-noodles and a few of the noodly appendages also were wired with jewelry wire so they could wave and wiggle effectively.

An Odd Fellow

This "Odd Fellow" is sitting in our living room. He's from Jess Hutch's incredibly fun toy booklet.

Fiona took him for a test flight
and found him flight worthy.

Now here's the predicament in which I find myself: This Odd Fellow would be perfect for my sister, the psychologist, who god knows has to deal with many a less friendly odd fellow professionally. I knit him with her in mind and keep picturing him sitting in a drawer of her desk ready to smile at her after an encounter with a particularly difficult patient.

And the more I look at the cursed sweater, the less I am inclined to send it to her. My dear sister is just not an olive kind of gal and the sleeves of the sweater are very, very olive.

But for some reason I feel like a shit to send her the toy I intentionally knit for her and not the sweater that I intentionally knit for myself but which doesn't fit and which I previously declared I'd give her since it would probably fit her. (There are other things in her Christmas box--the book of the moment, Fallen, a box of dark chocolate covered glaceed apricots, a great T-shirt from Threadless and the socks I already knit for her, so it isn't a question of getting just a little toy or a sweater.)

Here's the thing that will decide it: does anyone think I can salvage the sweater for my own use (as it was intended) by doing some particularly forceful blocking? I already blocked it once, but I'm a half-assed blocker and I didn't tug and stretch the hell out of the sweater. Expert blockers, please chime in on how you'd approach such a problem--technique, tips, or just the painful truth that I should give up while I'm ahead and send it to my sister since it'll never work and I shouldn't go through making the whole damn house smell like a wet sheep again.

I've fallen for "Fallen"

I finished Fallen today and wowza what a book.

The author, David Maine, chose to tell the bulk of the novel through Cain's and Eve's points of view. Choosing two flawed and troubled characters made the book far more interesting than if characters like Abel and Adam were telling their side of it. There are brief forays into Abel's and Adam's points of view but the bulk of the novel is through the lens of Cain and Eve.

As I've said here before, I'm a sucker for re-tellings of classics whether it be Greek literature and myths or, in this case, the Bible. In both of Maine's books (this one and The Preservationist) he takes a few verses from the bible and expands them into a full novel. And the voice in both books is curiously contemporary in its wit and wry observations, yet it doesn't distract from the biblical setting. Here is one of my favorite scenes--the Temptation of Eve in the garden:

--But I'm perfectly happy with the way things are.
--Are you? Are you really?
Eve hesitated.
--What did you do yesterday? demanded the serpent.
She frowned--I...walked along the river. I was looking for--yes, I was collecting mushrooms, which we ate. Also berries.
--Fascinating.
Eve brindled.--There's nothing wrong with staying alive.
--Certainly not. And the day before?
The day before yesterday was identical to the one that followed, as they both knew. And the one before that...
The snake watched her mockingly and Eve felt herself growing defensive.--We have all we need here.
--Oh sure, murmured the snake. Somehow, sans shoulders, it still managed a shrug. --There's a great appeal to being comfortable. If that's what you want, I won't argue. Go on then. Keep it up. Off with you! There's a lovely patch of berries just behind this clearing.
Eve didn't move.
--Better get them before the bunnies do.
Eve didn't move.
Suddenly the serpent's voice modulated. It no longer mocked, but spoke in gentle earnest tones.--The power of creation will lie within you, woman. That's what your God fears. What He doesn't want you to know.
Eve didn't move.
--Wouldn't that be preferable to wandering naked all day, plucking fruit and shitting by the river?
She had to admit, the creature had a point.--But it is forbidden.
--Only because of fear. Your God is afraid to treat you as an equal. Who knows what His plans are for you here? Or maybe there is no plan other than your remaining forever just as you are.
The serpent's voice drops to a whisper.--Day after day after day after day.
Admittedly Eve had felt such misgivings before.--The power of creation you say?
--Oh yes, purred the serpent. --You will carry it about with you and it will spring forth from your belly at your command.
Which, in a manner of speaking, would turn out to be the case.

There are so many intense emotions in this book--lust, jealousy, confusion, love, sympathy, regret--and I found the process of reading it to be so rich as to make me have to ration myself to a chapter or so at a time, or else I felt glutted with the intensity of the prose. And the reverse chronology demands that as soon as you finish the book, you have to go back to the beginning and read it again.

Most interestingly, for a work based on the Bible, I felt that the main message was incredibly humanistic--while characters have encounters with God their happiness and misery come down to day to day routines and how they live with the people around them. Their perceptions of each other and what they learn from their interactions left me feeling an affirmation of humanity's basic goodness.

For a book to get "Winter Kate" (who hasn't seen the sun in about 2 weeks and noticed that it is supposed to snow 4-6 more inches today) to say something positive about humanity at this time of year is a major accomplishment though my guess is David Maine will not be putting a quote like this on the paperback edition: "This book even made sun-deprived, cynical and bitter Winter-Kate feel OK about the Human Race for a brief moment of time!"

And now that I'm done with the book, I'll go slink back into my cave of doom....

They are watching me....

Last night nature decided to play a cruel joke on me and dumped 5 inches of snow on us thus causing the schools to call a snow day. I was counting on school to give me a brief break from one of my intense kids on the last full day of what has felt like a marathon of solo-parenting while my better half is off on a 9 day work trip. (I know, there are single parents out there who do this all the time and I think they are saints and can not figure out how they stay sane.)

Despite having three different types of chocolates open and available (still a few dark chocolate covered glaceed apricots left after yesterday's knitting fiasco, some truffles, and chocolate covered English toffee) and two open boxes of cookies (all butter shortbread and some of those little chocolate slabbed LU Petit Ecolier biscuits) I felt the need to make cookies today...call it complete parental burn-out or just a sugar desire that is making up for (ahem) "something else" lacking in my life the past 9 days.

After a small amount of kid involvement (resulting in an inordinate number of poppy seeds hitting the floor) we produced these:

Poppy seed thumbprint cookies

They are pretty tasty cookies, despite the fact that they came from Eating Well magazine which usually has baked goods recipes that taste like cardboard. They aren't that healthy since they still contain a full stick of butter and a cup of powdered sugar, which is probably why they taste pretty good. There's some whole wheat flour in them which gives them a nutty taste (without nuts) and I used some homemade cherry jam in the dents which combined nicely with the lemon zest in the not-too-sweet cookie base. My major gripe about most of the holiday cookies made this time of year is that they are too sweet and make my teeth itch and my blood sugar spike alarmingly (sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles??? AAAGGGG!) These little cookies leave me itchless and (relatively) stable.

But there is something a little creepy about them--take a look at the photo below:

I can't shake the feeling that they are all eyeballs (rabid and bloodshot, at that) and that, like Mona Lisa's gaze, they follow me around the room.

The sharp sighted among you might have noticed the beverage accompaniment lurking in the background of the above photo and maybe, just maybe, I should have been drinking tea instead of wine at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and which presumably wouldn't have resulted in being freaked out by my own cookies. (Maybe the opiates in the poppy seeds combined with the tannins in the wine to create the hallucination--Yeah! It was the poppy seeds fault!)
But it was such a nice wine...and it went pretty well with the cookies!

So if you too feel the need to bake some eyeballs, er, cookies, here is the recipe:

Sorta Healthy Poppy Seed Thumbprint Cookies
adapted from Eating Well magazine

1 2/3 C whole wheat flour
1 C all purpose flour
2 T poppy seeds
1/2 t salt
1/2 C unsalted butter (1 stick), softened
1/2 t vanilla
1/2 C canola oil
1 C powdered sugar
1 egg
fresh grated zest from 1 lemon
about 1/3-1/2 C jam, preferably sour cherry

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
2. Whisk together first 4 dry ingredients in a bowl.
3. In another bowl, use an electric mixer and beat butter, oil and sugar until creamy (mine was still a little runny). Add egg, lemon zest and vanilla and beat a little longer.
4. Stir in dry ingredients until combined into a sturdy dough.
5. Make small balls with the dough (about 1 T) and put them on a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet.
   
6. Press your thumb (or the thumb of any available kid who has washed their hands since they like this part) into the center to make the dent and put about 1/2 t of jam in the dent.
7. Bake for 30-35 minutes until firm and lightly brown. Cool on a rack.
8. Pour yourself a large glass of red wine, eat a couple of cookies and then let me know if the rest of the cookies are watching you as you stumble around the room consuming their brethren. Maybe yours will be more polite and avert their gaze.
   

Damn

You'd think this would be a day where I'd be giddy with happiness, skipping down the street, singing ditties and indulging in other nauseating displays of joy since I finally finished this:
Instead I'm feeling incredibly pissy since the damn thing doesn't fit. Somehow when planning to make this sweater for myself I forgot that I have really broad shoulders. I picked my size based on my (modest) bust measurement, added a few inches on the sleeves since I have long arms but entirely forgot that my shoulders would need more room than, say, a normally proportioned woman. (Too bad the pattern didn't have a subset of how to alter it for your own freakity freak figure flaws. Say that four times fast.)

So now I present to you:

My sister's Christmas Present!

Sigh.

My sister has a much finer bone structure than I do and she's thinner too so I'm guessing this will fit perfectly. And it'll go great with all the size 8 pre-pregnancy pants I finally admitted will never fit me again and gave her. Of course, they all fit her flawlessly.

However to truly suit my sister, I think I should make this sweater a little more feminine. (This is the sweater I made her last year for Christmas. Note the purpley- pink crochet edging and mother of pearl flower-shaped buttons.) I'm a little on the utilitarian/scruffy side when it comes to clothing, but my sister can pull off stuff that is a bit more decorative. As I haven't yet put in the zipper I bought for it, I'm wondering if anyone has ideas on a different, more feminine fastening. I'm thinking maybe some tiny hooks and eyes running all the way up it might look nice, unless they proved to be a pain in the ass. Or I could cover the seed stitch plackets with some sort of ribbon and attach snaps up the front.

Ideas, anyone?

And meanwhile, to comfort myself on this cold grey day (a perfect day for wearing above cardigan I might note) I'm opening up thebox of dark chocolate covered glaceed apricots that I found at Trader Joe's the other day. (If I eat the whole box, then my sister will most likely get my current size 10 pants too and I'll just wander around pants-less, sweater-less and crazy as a loon.)