The Post-Christmas Post

My mom was getting Lilah dressed this morning, and Lilah pulled the sweater I made her out of her drawer and asked to wear it! She told my mom, "Mama made sweater! Pretty pink sweater!" Awwww... That reminded me that I hadn't posted a photo of Lilah in her sweater! She's pretty cooperative with photos, but for some reason, she likes her photo taken sitting on her toy box. Good thing that worked out.


Here it is, the Lean Mean Green Toddler Blanket:




Pattern: Made up as I went along, but super basic. I cast on 180 stitches and did 16 rows of seed stitch, followed by alternating squares of stockinette and reverse stockinette (each square 32 stitches wide, about 48 rows high). Five squares by five squares. 16 more rows of seed stitch, then I bound off. It's about 40 inches square. I had five skeins of Cascade 220, and fortunately decided to hedge my bets and get a sixth. I could have fudged it by skipping the last two rows of seed stitch, but I'm glad I had the extra skein. If I'd had more time and yarn, I might have made it 8 squares high for a bigger, rectangular blanket. And it would have been nice to have done something interesting in at least some of the squares--initials, or animals in reverse stockinette.
Needles: Size 8 circular (40")
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Chartreuse (not an accurate name at all, it's more Grass) - 5 skeins plus enough of a 6th to do the last 2 rows

More knitting: I think I'll do a State of the Knitting in my next post, as this one is pretty long. Santa Claus brought me ten skeins of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in a gorgeous blue, and I'm deciding between two patterns in an Interweave issue I just happen to have. Actually, I got it after seeing Rachel's Henley Perfected. I thought this Elann Peruvian Baby Silk in purple would work for it, but then I had second thoughts. And I was concerned about the fit, too, as far as the pattern part covering the whole...er, chest area without looking like it was being stretched in funny ways. I'm still concerned about it, but I do love the pattern. But also, fiddly! Maybe not as television-knitting as I need? The other pattern I'm looking at is much simpler, but I'm concerned it'll be too shapeless: The Gathered Pullover. The model doesn't look particularly shapely and it's hard to tell how it hangs by the way she's slouching. I've also only found project photos modeled by equally thin people, which concerns me. Anyone have thoughts? I also was thinking of another Somewhat Cowl but long-sleeved this time. I do like the green one I've made, but I rarely wear it because I don't wear short-sleeved sweaters. A fact I knew when I cast on, but...what can I say? I'm a process knitter. So what would you do with a bounty of Silky Wool?

Let's break for cute kitty pictures. I like how in the second photo, Geronimo is clearly thinking, "Come on, Mom. Lay off the camera already!"





Reading: I'm working on a State of the Reading for the year, and I almost fell over when I checked my LibraryThing for books I read in 2008. The number is 214 (and I might finish this one I'm reading before the new year). However, it was a light reading year, in one sense, because I only read 7-8 books I'd classify as Literature. That's really not a lot. I do rely on my kids' books (which I read really fast, thus inflating the total number) and mysteries for stress relief, but I'm not challenging myself enough. For 2009, I have a goal to read at least one serious book a month.

Writing: Do I even bother to set a 2009 goal? I think I need to, because otherwise, it's just sad. I have some improvements to my writing nook and I want to spend more (heck, any) time up there so I can finish up the mystery. I think I could do it in a month or two with serious effort. Lilah's sleeping has taken a turn for the better (knock on wood), which is helping with energy, so maybe I can stick to a schedule or at least take advantage of her naps.

Cooking: Not much during the holidays, really. I sold my stock of apple butter with no effort, leading me to think I need to invest in some equipment upgrades to improve efficiency (bigger stockpot, real canning pot, food mill). I really like the no sugar added apple butter. I'll have to look into finding citrus for marmalade this winter, then I'm excited to hit the pick-your-own in the spring. I got a copy of Mes Confitures for Christmas, which I'm really excited about. I already have ideas for spring berries.

Another Mission Accomplished!

A big thank you to all of you for your encouragement and suggestions for quick February knits I could knock off! The suggestion of The Last-Minute Purled Beret really grabbed me. Thank you, Emily of MLE Knits for the great suggestion. I hope you enjoy your treats! When Lilah goes down for a nap, I'll raid the stash and we'll head to the post office this afternoon.

Here it is, modeled by one of Lilah's penguins:


Details:
Pattern: The Last-Minute Purled Beret by Knit and Tonic
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden in Color #205 (less than one skein)
Needles: Size 7 dpns
Notes: This is sized for an adult, and for heavy worsted yarn. Instead of bogging myself down in math and actually thinking through re-sizing, I just winged it, which worked surprisingly well in the end. I used size 7 needles instead of 9 after swatching with several sizes. I cast of 64 stitches instead of 72, and only knit the brim to 3 1/2 inches instead of 4 1/2. I skipped the first decrease row and went straight to the k2, k2tog decrease row. I cast on too tightly, so when I put the hat on Lilah's head, it took a lot of tugging to get it on. I unpicked the cast-on edge (with mohair! fun!) and bound off loosely, and it was even tighter. I think with the smaller needles, I needed to cast on 72 stitches. I would say this is sized 6-12 months, too small for Lilah's big melon. But! I think it works out great, because Lilah actually hates hats, and I was a little delusional to think she would wear one. She has a little cousin who would love this, and we have friends expecting a girl in June, so I think I'll gift it. Either that, or I'll frog and knit a little bag for Lilah out of it, as she loves purses. But I'm calling it Mission: Accomplished for now. This is such a fun, easy, cute, cute pattern. But I forgot to make it "purled" and automatically wove in my ends on the purl side. Whatever. It doesn't even matter. It's cute regardless. Thank you, Emily!

You know what we haven't had in ages? Pictures just for fun! So here are a couple of Lilah and kitty pictures. Lilah absolutely loves the cats. Mirando isn't that thrilled with her, but Geronimo is such a sweet, tolerant guy. He lets her pet him (and due to constant "Pet the kitty nicely", Lilah isn't too grabby or smacky with the guys), and even put up with a hug and kiss (on his back). So cute. The cats make her so happy. Speaking of which, she's added the word "duck" to her repertoire. And if I ask her what the sheep says, she points to the nearest sheep and says "Baaa!" However, I have yet to persuade her that cows say "Moo" rather than "Baa." "Where's the sheep?" I ask when she's in the bath (she has a bunch of animal bath toys). She grabs the sheep and says "Baaa!" "Where's the cow?" I ask. She grabs the cow and says "Baaa!" "Cows say Mooooooo," I say. She glares at me and yells "Baaaaa!" Um, okay.




Other knitting: I've been working on the SKB a bit. I really need to cast on again for Matt's birthday socks, but I'm hoping to have SKB as my March FO.

Reading: I read Bubbles All The Way by Sarah Strohmeyer, then immediately went to the author's website to see if she has another Bubbles book coming out. Her answer is "We'll see." Hmmmm. She ended Bubbles All The Way with a doozy of a plot twist, and I really think another book is in order, just because I want to see the fallout from the revelation at the very end. Many amazon reviewers gave the book one star because of the last few pages. Here's the thing. It's not like there was no foreshadowing at all about this book. I had the feeling the entire book that something big was going on, and waiting for the other shoe to drop. So I thought Strohmeyer earned the ending. However, it was really abrupt. I still enjoyed this book, but a more drawn-out denouement would have been nice. I suspect she just wanted to drop the bomb at the end for maximum impact, and in that sense, it worked! I enjoy Bubbles books, as I've said before. Bubbles is immensely likeable, and her adventures are lots of fun to read about.

I also read The Purrfect Murder by Rita Mae Brown. I don't usually buy these in hardback, but I had a good coupon at Borders. The first in this series (co-written by Brown's cat, Sneaky Pie Brown, too cute!) is Wish You Were Here. This is something like #16 in this cozy series about Crozet, Virginia animals and their humans. To be honest, the earlier books are better mysteries, but I always enjoy visiting Crozet and seeing what everyone's up to. Later mysteries see less and less editing, and Brown does tend to put whatever she's researching or has a bee in her bonnet about in her books. Sometimes this leads to interesting information about say, growing grapes, and sometimes it leads to mind-numbing two-page discussions about what kind of truck is best to have on a farm. This one, dealing with the murder of a Planned Parenthood doctor, brings in a few political rants about abortion, but I just skimmed those. I just skip the boring passages and focus on the good stuff. I like the characters, both human and non-human, and these are really fun cozies. I wouldn't start with a recent one, though. Pick up a used copy of Wish You Were Here and see how you like it. I really got sucked into this series years ago, and I still re-read them occasionally.

I also blasted through Nip, Tuck, Dead and Dead on Arrival by Lori Avocato, the two most recent (I think) Pauline Sokol books. Both were cute and fun, as expected. We learn a bit about the mysterious Jagger in Nip, Tuck, Dead, and Pauline mentions it in the next book, but the implications are really being drawn out. This is a problem similar to Janet Evanovich's problem with Ranger. If you have a character whose big thing is being mysterious, character development is hard, but you can't just have a character stay exactly the same over half a dozen books. This is, as I've said before, a fun series.

Right now I'm reading Grime and Punishment by Jill Churchill, the first in the Jane Jeffries mysteries. I read this years ago, and I'm enjoying it again. I honestly couldn't remember who the killer was.

Writing: Futzing around with Chapter One rewrites. I thought I knew how I wanted to start this book, but I went to a creative writing workshop at Emory a few months ago with an emphasis on framing, and I realized my kicky and interesting start puts the entire novel in flashback, which is rarely good. And certainly not in a genre novel, in my opinion. So I have to find a good, grabby point in the story to start and figure out what backstory to reveal and when. I've collected quite a bit of backstory on my main characters that I've jotted down, and I need to let it trickle through. Anyway, my first three attempts at Chapter One have really been placeholders. Not the kind of first chapters that make you desperate to keep reading. You don't have to be a writer to know that's not a good thing!

Cooking: Let's see. I made hummus (recipe at left), baba ghanosh (I think I have a recipe at left, too lazy to check), and ful medammes with pita chips. I made two recipes from this month's Cooking Light. The vegetarian section this month was Malaysian cuisine, and I made Rice Noodles With Egg and Green Onions. Those of you who are always impressed by my cooking will really enjoy this story. The recipe uses fresh rice stick noodles, which I was able to find. The directions call for boiling the noodles for 2 seconds before stir frying them. I assumed 2 seconds was a misprint and boiled them for two minutes, drained, then stir-fried them. You can see where this is going if you have more common sense than I do (which should be EVERYONE out there). The boiling broke down the starches in the very-starchy noodles, and they turned into clumps of rice noodle starchy bits. Really, it looked appalling. I will try this again without any noodle boiling. I can't imagine they really need to be boiled before stir-frying. Anyway, the flavor of this dish was divine and it was very simple to prepare. I am looking forward to trying it with actual NOODLES next time :) Even Matt liked this one, and he's not much of a stir-fry fan. I also made Fettucine With Creamy Mushroom Sauce. Yum! I added fresh mushrooms sauteed in a bit of butter to the recipe, which used dried porcini mushrooms with their soaking liquid, and used fresh tagliatelle from the market.

Armed with a Borders Rewards coupon, I headed out with Lilah and picked up Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson. I've cut way back on my blog reading, given my Lilah duties. I've pared down my knitting blogs on my regular reading list, and I've reduced my previously huge food blog reading down to just one, Heidi's fabulous site. I've been wanting her cookbook for ages, and finally caved because I've managed pretty consistently to cook at least a couple of recipes from each new month of Cooking Light. I felt I could justify a cookbook purchase since I've actually been cooking. This book is awesome. If you're interested in trying more cooking with fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and natural sweeteners, this book will help you through the process. I admit, while I'm not afraid to try cooking with "weird" ingredients like unusual flours, exotic seasonings, and unfamiliar produce, I have been lazy recently, falling back on regular (though at least Barilla Plus) pasta, white or brown rice, and unbleached all-purpose flour. This book is just what I need to kick-start my healthier (and fun and experimental) cooking. Take a look at the many, many recipes she has on her site. If any appeal to you, you'll probably enjoy her cookbook. If you've ever looked at interesting things at the grocery store and wished you knew how to cook with that, this is the book for you. Honestly, it's fun just to read and look at the gorgeous pictures, but I have a list of a dozen or so recipes I want to go shopping for right now. Heidi has a conversational, approachable style that is really appealing, and each recipe includes a sidebar that includes further information on ingredients, substitutions (including ways to speed up prep time), and variations. One soup recipe includes two variations that are so different it's really three recipes in one. She's so good at explaining the use of uncommon ingredients that you'll feel confident to experiment and substitute them in your own repertoire (for example, the sidebar for Acai Power Popsicles notes that you can make them with any frozen berry, which makes me think, hmmmm, I could try acai in a recipe I have that uses frozen blueberries...). She's also not preachy (rare in the health food/vegetarian cooking venue), mentioning that she hopes when you run out of your current cooking oil or flour or whatever, you'll consider replacing it with a healthier alternative. This is in high contrast to health food cookbooks written with a snotty attitude that basically say you're killing yourself and your family with the junk you're cooking with now and you'd better throw it all out and start over. Hands down, my favorite vegetarian cookbook I've seen in a long time.

The State of Other Stuff

After doing my State of the Yarn post, I started thinking (especially prompted by Rachel's hilarious comment) about the State of Other Stuff. Thinking about it, I managed to accomplish a lot in 2007--it's just not as obvious as a pile of knitted objects. I still want to increase my knitting output and (for the love of Pete) get back to my writing (dare I say, complete draft finished in 2008?), but I'm not such a slacker, I guess. Scroll down if bragging annoys you, and you can see my knitting progress!

Things I accomplished in 2007:

1. Made it through a full year of baby-related sleep-deprivation, with sanity more or less intact. Lilah is a bad sleeper. A *bad* sleeper. She thinks sleep is a waste of her time. She hates going to sleep, and she hates staying asleep once she's finally succumbed. A friend of mine was talking wistfully about a friend whose baby goes to sleep at 7:00 pm and wakes up at 7:00 am WITHOUT WAKING UP ONCE. I could not comprehend this. "How long does your baby sleep at once?" I asked. He sleeps 10 hours, then goes back to sleep for two more after having his diaper changed. Oh, and he takes two naps, 1-2 hours each. I stared at her, dumbstruck. "And you're complaining? Last night, it took two and a half hours to get Lilah down, and she woke up four times, once for over an hour! And I'm lucky if she takes one one-hour nap." She seems (knock on wood) to be doing a bit better. For the last week, she's had one 6-8 hour stretch of sleep. Not to whine or anything (okay, I'm whining!), but constantly getting a maximum of 4 hours of sleep at once is tough. But if she takes a decent (over an hour) nap, she won't take a second one.

2. Made it through a year of breastfeeding. Lilah has actually never had formula. It was really important to me to breastfeed for her first year. And I made it!

3. Made all of Lilah's food, except for baby cereals (for the iron content). Lilah has never had jars of baby food, and I'm really pleased about that. It took almost no time for me, and she's turned into a great eater. We're transitioning to feeding her our food (sometimes with modifications), and it's going very well.

4. Made it through a year of cloth diapering. It actually isn't that much work, and when she's been learning to walk, the extra padding on her rear end comes in handy :)

5. Moved from Madison to Atlanta. The house is reasonably the way we want it, too, although we still have a few boxes here and there, and no pictures on the walls.

6. Increased our square footage at least threefold, and added a yard. And managed to keep the place, not spotless, but free from Health Department interference.

7. Made friends and got involved in our new community. (Remember all the bake sale posting?)

8. Kept up with my reading, even some literary reading (although the proportion of "comfort reading" (re-reading favorites or reading more fluffy fare) to literary is not exactly where it could be), which is nothing to sneeze at. I also started (and keep up with!) LibraryThing.

9. Lost all the baby weight plus 20 extra pounds that had been hanging around since college. Went down 2 sizes from just before pregnancy.

10. Kept blogging! Not always often, and not always interesting, but I've kept the blog going. I've enjoyed the people I've "met" through blogging, as well as having a record of my main pursuits, even when I just keep posting "nothing new" in the writing column over and over.

Okay, bragging over. Onto the content.

Knitting: I'm on the foot part of Sock #1 of the Waving Lace Socks from Favorite Socks. I'm using Opal, which is not my favorite, but I think the colors, which are vaguely oceanic, complement the waving pattern nicely. I wore my only handknit pair of socks yesterday (Jaywalkers), and I may rip those out after I finish knitting all my current sock yarn (in addition to what I posted last time, I have Opal in Tiger (for my husband), a Sunshine Yarns skein in Strawberry Banana, and Gryffindor stripe). They look nice, they really do. Only it's a huge pain to get them on and off my feet. I read that the pattern was inflexible, but I assumed that since it was a sock pattern, they'd at least be functional, but they're really not. So, I'll be screening my sock patterns more carefully.



I also cast on for the Simple Knitted Bodice with my Malabrigo. My word, this is soft. Knit bloggers are always going on and on about Malabrigo, and I get it now. It is luscious. And the colors are just out of this world. But I knit a few rows on this, then switched to my sock, and the Opal felt like sandpaper in comparison. This sweater has been on my list since I saw Rain's lovely version. And the Malabrigo is perfect. I have four balls and ordered two more. There are no dye lots, so I'm really crossing my fingers and praying to the knitting gods that they look okay together. This may be the worst progress photo ever. The lighting in our house is really challenging, especially on cloudy days, and I need to find somewhere I can consistently get decent photos. The other problem with the sweater is that it's just a couple inches of stockinette right now, and so likes to roll into a ball. But here's an idea, anyway:



Rachel inspired me to get the Winter issue of Interweave and add the Henley Perfected to my queue. If you haven't seen it, check it out here. It's the kind of knitted sweater about which a non-knitter would say in awe, "Wow, that looks like something you could buy in the store!" and think it's a compliment. I have Baby Alpaca from Elann in a light orchid color, and lots of it. I had started a tank, but wasn't really into it, so I ripped it out, and I have more than enough for the Henley Perfected. I stopped getting Interweave, mostly because of a lack of knitting time, but also because there aren't that many patterns I was into. But there are a few sweaters in this issue that I might like to knit (I really like the Gathered Pullover). Although, if the skirt makes the size 2 model's rear look big, there's no way I would ever attempt it. And there's a ruched tank that looks like a maternity top, again on the size 2 model. So those won't make it to my queue.

Writing: You know the story: no time, no energy.

Reading: Not Just a Witch by Eva Ibbotson: Heckie can turn anyone into an animal and Dora can turn anyone into stone. The two are best friends until a falling-out over a hat. They end up duped by a furrier looking for exotic pelts, but join together to make everything right in the end. Not her best effort, but a cute story nonetheless.

Which Witch? by Eva Ibbotson. Tired of waiting for the next dark wizard to take his place, Arriman the Awful decides to marry. He auditions all the local witches with a contest--whoever performs the darkest magic wins. Belladonna desperately wants to win, but flowers and fluffy bunny rabbits tend to spring up all around her and she finds dark magic impossible to perform. With the help of an orphan named Terrence, she comes up with a plan. This one is really cute and charming. Terrence is adorable, and Belladonna's inadvertent white magic is very funny. Arriman is a hoot. This is one of my favorite Ibbotsons, and that's really saying something.

Books 2 and 3 in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. The first is The Lightning Thief (the author is Rick Riordan), and 2 and 3 are NOT a disappointment. If anything, they're even better than the first.

I also read Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich. Everyone says the between-the-numbers Plum books are not as good, and they're right. But this was still fun. Grandma Mazur at the slots, Lula modeling underwear, a guy who thinks he's a leprechaun...what's not to like? And it's a fun diversion while waiting for Fearless Fourteen to come out.

Cooking: From this month's Cooking Light, I made Tomato-Braised Beans Over Polenta and Orange-Cranberry Wheat Germ Muffins. This beans were really good. Every year, they tweak their format a bit, and for 2008, the Inspired Vegetarian column is looking at a different world cuisine every month. This month was the Veneto, the region in Italy that includes Venice. The recipe calls for cannellini beans, although the notes say that cranberry beans are authentic if you can find them canned. I found dried cranberry beans with no effort at all, and prepared them. (Seriously, how hard is that? You dump them in a pot with water and leave them overnight. The next day, you drain them, add more water, and simmer them for an hour and a half or so.) Lilah LOVES cranberry beans, as it turns out. Matt thought the muffins tasted rather healthy for him, but I like them. They're not big, though, for 200 calories per muffin. I could eat three pretty easily. From the December issue, I made
Peanut Squash Soup. I'd made this before, but this time I started out doubling the recipe, and made it thicker, like a stew. I only had one squash, so I added a sweet potato. I also took some out for Lilah before adding the peanut butter and chile. She loves the mild, peanut-free version. She's getting really insistent about eating what we're eating. She'll point vigorously past her own dish to indicate ours. My little brother mostly pointed and grunted until he was, like, four, and then we couldn't shut him up, so I'm trying not to worry that Lilah mostly points. She says Dada, Mama, Ki-Kat (for kitty cat), and Meow. When Matt comes home, she rushes to the door, saying "Da-Da!" and smiling up at him. She yells "Mama!" and pounds on her tray when I'm not making her dinner fast enough. Hmmm. Anyway, I also made oatmeal cookies. Nothing fancy, just the recipe from the barrel of Quaker Oats. But yum!

Peanut Stew (adapted from Cooking Light)

Ingredients
1 TBL peanut oil (I used canola for Lilah)
4 cups (1/2-inch) cubed peeled butternut squash (1 medium)
4 cups cubed peeled sweet potato (1 very large)
1 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons minced garlic (about 6 cloves)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
4 cups vegetable broth
3/4 cup natural peanut butter
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation
Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add squash and next 6 ingredients (through coriander); sauté 5 minutes or until onion is tender. Add broth, peanut butter, tomato paste, and pepper, stirring well to combine; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes or until the squash and sweet potato are tender. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve over brown rice.

Note: Cooking Light called for reduced-fat creamy peanut butter. I have never seen the point of this. It has the same calories, and they just replace the fat with sugar. Or high-fructose corn syrup. Once I tried natural peanut butter, I can't even eat Skippy or Jif, with the corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils (or palm oil). It's completely different, and it's real food. Worth the slightly higher fat content.

Wanted

For Inappropriate Urination and Destruction of Private Property.
Wanted: Only Alive (Pending Results of Laundry)


What Matt heard this morning as I got dressed in the other room: "What the---? Oh my god! OH MY GOD! How could you--? What the--? WHERE ARE YOU, YOU BIG ORANGE FREAK????"

Geronimo is on my List. And I don't mean my Happy Sunshine List. I hadn't finished unpacking all the way from our California trip. I know that's lame. But there's been a lot to do and I've just been pulling clothes out of my suitcase, left open in our bedroom, figuring I'd eventually get it so close to empty that it would be quick to finish. Well. Early this morning, Geronimo was being noisy while we were trying to get Lilah back to sleep, so we shut him in the bedroom. We're talking 20 minutes, here, not extended inhumane incarceration. And he apparently felt this was a pee-able offense. So now I have a load of my clothes in the laundry. Thank goodness he picked that side instead of the side where my Irish Diamond Shawl was. Actually, I've already forgiven him. He has a history of inappropriate peeing (we had this box lined with a towel that the guys loved to nap in until one day....well, you know where this story is going) and I should have unpacked. The open suitcase with clothes in it is just too much like his idea of a litterbox to leave out like that.

So that's the fun stuff going on around here...

Lilah is crawling really, really well now. She crawls best when there's a cat to crawl toward. Here she is in California, meeting my brother's cat, Jack. Check out his laser beam eyes. Every picture of him seems to have those. He must have superpowers or something.


Between Lilah's crawling and numerous house projects, BUSY is the four-letter word of choice around here, so I have to apologize AGAIN for falling behind on my blog-reading. I'm looking forward to getting caught up soon. I'm so busy that I missed the Emory Alumnae knitting circle last night, which I had really been looking forward to. I'll have to make it next time.

Knitting: Not a stitch since I finished the bolero. Can you believe that? Knitting is usually something I do while watching tv, and I have watched almost none at all in a week. Too much else going on. I have Irish Diamond out so I can do a row here and there, but I need to go through the stash and pick another quick project. I've been thinking of starting something for Lilah for when she's bigger, like a sweater in size 4 or so, so there's no pressure to finish.

Reading: The Penguin Who Knew Too Much (or is it Too Little? I don't have the book with me) by Donna Andrews: This is the latest Meg Langslow mystery, and I thought it was fun, fun, fun. I love these. They're such a pleasure to read. The first is Murder With Peacocks if you're interested. Meg's kooky family ends up embroiled in another murder (you couldn't pay me enough to visit them, since someone always ends up dead) and Andrews's writing is enjoyable and the characters are like old friends by now.

I'm working on Diane Mott Davidson's Sweet Revenge, and enjoying it with reservations. I like Goldy, but there are things that are irritating, both in the series as a whole, and in this book in particular. I think her husband is sometimes condescending, and Goldy, despite her protestations to the contrary, is seriously nosy, often for no good reason I can see. Her son is less annoying in this one, at least so far. But the characters are fun, the cooking is fun, and while the mystery seems a bit obvious, I could be completely wrong about the solution. The first in the series is Catering to Nobody.

Writing: Not at all.

Cooking; I made hummus, baba ghanosh, and (for the first time) foul moudammas! I made two kinds, actually. This recipe right here and this one and both were lovely. The second is my favorite, as it is closest to the one served at a Madison restaurant we loved. (If you still live there, it's King of Falafel, yum.) I also made Pear Ginger Muffins, based on a recipe in, of all things, Starbucks Passion for Coffee cookbook. I made a bunch of changes, and next time, I think I'll try it with fresh ginger.

Pear-Ginger Muffins

12 oz. crystallized ginger, finely chopped*
2 pounds pears, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cardamon
4 eggs
1 1/3 cup sugar
1 cup milk (I used soy milk)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup canola oil

1. Preheat oven to 400 and spray 24 muffin cups with cooking spray.
2. Mix together dry ingredients.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine wet ingredients. Slowly add dry ingredients, including ginger. Stir in pears.
4. Divide batter among 24 muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool slightly in the tins, then transfer to wire racks.

*I decided to finely chop my crystallized ginger in the Cuisinart. This was stupid, but ended up working. First, crystallized ginger is like gummi bears, so it turns into a big, sticky mass in the Cuisinart. Uh oh. I salvaged it by adding 1/2 cup of the flour from the recipe and pulsing until it looked finely chopped and the flour had made the ginger separate.

Everyday Adventures!

Every day, something new comes up around here. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. Like The Bug That Must Not Be Named that freaked me out after midnight last night. I got up to read in the living room and I noticed Geronimo behaving strangely. He was staring at something in the corner, and I thought, "Oh please no." And there it was, freakishly long antennae waving, stupid long legs looking yucky, shudder, shudder, shudder. Ew. I actually said, "Come on, Geronimo, you're a big guy. You can take it." He looked up at me dubiously, as if to say, "I know it moves, but I can't tell if it's prey or not. And it doesn't look tasty. And how do you kill it, anyway?" and continued to watch it in a vaguely perplexed manner. So I did what any modern woman would do. I went and woke up my husband. I know, feminists everywhere are cringing, but I just can't stand the things. I get the heebie-jeebies just typing the name. (Like the arachnophobic Joey said on Friends, regarding a caged tarantula, "Is it on me? I feel like it's on me.") I trap and release spiders with no problem at all, but these things. Ugh. Welcome to the South. We've already had to deal with fire ant eradication in our yard, mosquitoes in our neighborhood carry West Nile, and now this! Excuse me while I go call the exterminator, or possibly a contractor to construct a protective bubble around the house.

On a happier note, here are the guys, enjoying the stairs. Geronimo is laying on a large catnip-stuffed rat.


Lilah loves the stairs, too. There's nothing funnier than being at one end of the stairs with someone else at the other!

The home decorating continues. We hated our first living room window attempt, then we got a new valance, new rod, and Matt came up with the idea of gathering the curtain in the middle instead of pulling it back on the sides. Isn't it neat?


Knitting: Still working on the shrug. I can't resist showing my first attempt at a Russian Join. I think it worked well. It's on the edge, in any case, and not that visible, I don't think. I found a lovely tutorial right here that helped me out (this is the technique blog attached to The Boy Who Knits).

It's kind of blurry. My camera did not want to do this close-up at all. I'm darn close to halfway done with the shrug! Woo!

Reading: I'm nearly done with The Science of Harry Potter. It's a lot of fun. If you're not interested in science, though, it's probably too dry for you. It's more a survey of natural and social sciences in the context of Harry Potter than an explanation of magic.

I thought I'd mention some of our favorite books for Lilah, since I mostly talk about *my* reading. Unless otherwise noted, they're all board books. Obviously, we're big book people, as the list below just addresses some of her (and our) favorites. I've recently been doing what Matt calls "a dramatic reading" of Going On A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury that, despite the story's length, keeps Lilah riveted. It takes a lot of energy, though.

Charles Fuge - Sometimes I Like To Curl Up In A Ball introduces Little Wombat and his animal friends. Charming rhymes, gorgeous pictures of animals. Unfortunately, the follow-up Little Wombat books just aren't as good. The illustrations are still wonderful, but the stories are less compelling. I Know A Rhino is absolutely darling. It's imaginative, beautifully drawn, and nicely rhymed. It's about a little girl who makes up stories about her stuffed animals. My Dad is a rarity--a book about a dad instead of a mom. I got this for Matt for his first Father's Day. It's fairly simple, a story about a bear bragging about his dad, but it's sweet and his drawings can't be beat.

Annie Kubler - Her illustrated versions of songs are just adorable, and some of Lilah's favorites are Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (which uses animals and people from all the continents and can prompt fun discussions about cultures and where different animals live with older toddlers), The Wheels on the Bus (the bus takes children, a magician, a clown, and others to a birthday party in the illustrations for an extra dimension), and Row, Row, Row Your Boat (which adds a couple of really cute verses to round out the short song and features babies in the illustrations, which Lilah loves).

Eric Hill - Lilah loves the lift-the-flap spot books, Spot Goes To The Farm, Where's Spot?, Spot Bakes a Cake. These are classics for a reason.

Barney Saltzberg - Peekaboo Kisses and Noisy Kisses are lots of fun for Lilah. She loves lift-the-flaps and feeling the different textures.

Karen Katz - Peek-a-Baby, Where Is Baby's Belly Button?, What Does Baby Say - more lift-the-flaps. Lilah likes the baby faces and she loves peek-a-boo.

Jane Yolen and Mark Teague - How Do Dinosaurs...? books. We discovered these through Kohl's Cares for Kids, the charitable organization of the department store. They periodically offer very inexpensive hardback books with accompanying stuffed animals, with proceeds going to health and education programs for kids. My mom (an elementary school principal) knew about these and ordered them for us. There are several board books available, too. Dinosaurs are much more pleasant and well-mannered than you probably thought! Cute rhymes, amazing dinosaur drawings that include the names of each type of dinosaur, and positive messages make these really fun. We have the three hardbacks, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?, How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon, and How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? We also have two of the board books, How Do Dinosaurs Learn Their Colors and How Do Dinosaurs Play With Their Friends? We like them all, and plan to get the others.

Sandra Boynton - We have pretty much all the Boynton books. They are fantastic. Cute rhymes, wonderful animal drawings, plus many with accompanying songs. A cost-effective way to get several is with two Boyton's Greatest Hits boxed sets through amazon (new for $15 for 4 books, and another (Big Box of Boynton) with 3 books for $13. Lilah loves music, so these are a big hit. Boynton has three musicals with books, and a fourth musical, Blue Moo, coming out this fall. We got them from my mom through Kohl's Cares for Kids. Rhinoceros Tap is the first. The songs with board books available are Horns To Toes and Barnyard Dance. We have lots of giggly fun with Tickle Time. All the songs are performed by the very talented Adam Bryant, so this one lacks the "Wow, that's Meryl Streep!" sort of fun on the later, star-studded musicals, but the songs are all enjoyable, and it doesn't really matter. Then comes Philadelphia Chickens. Songs with available board books are Snuggle Puppy, Pajama Time, and Belly Button (Round). Other highlights are Scott Bakula singing Pig Island and Laura Linney's very funny Please Can I Keep It?, but the whole CD is fun. The most recent is Dog Train. Our favorite songs on this one are the Kate Winslet-Weird Al Yankovic duet I Need A Nap, Penguin Lament sung by Five for Fighting's John Ondrasik (even my cool, 23-year-old brother brother loved these two), and Billy J. Kramer's three-episode Cow Planet saga, but again, we like the whole CD. Very non-annoying kids music. We put these on when Lilah's fussy and dance with her, or sing along with her board books. She loves music (as soon as we start playing music, she starts bopping in time with the beat, very cute), so it usually stops her fussing and often puts her to sleep if she's tired. Lilah's favorite Boynton board books are Your Personal Penguin (with a free download of the song performed by Davy Jones of the Monkees), Belly Button Book (a sister song is on Philadelphia Chickens), Pajama Time (song on Philadelphia Chickens), The Going To Bed Book, and Snuggle Puppy (song on Philadelphia Chickens). We were excited to see that Boynton has a bath book coming out soon.

Wow, that's a long list. I hope someone finds it interesting!

Writing - I've at least been jotting down ideas. I've hated my beginning for a while, and I may have figured out how to do it in a less lame way. The problem is finding time for a rewrite, which may be solved since we're visiting my parents for a week and a half, which means I have a lot more personal time.

Cooking - Nothing that exciting. Matt commutes almost an hour (sometimes more), so by the time he gets home from work, we throw something together or go out. I've been cooking like a madwoman on the weekends to create leftovers to eat during the week, and that's helping. We've moved our going-out-for-dinner from weekends to weekdays when we have less time for cooking.

Happy Anniversary to you, too, Yarnthrower!

Home Sweet Home

Since I have no knitting progress photos to post, and I don't think I've posted pictures of our house, I thought I'd do that today. We're mostly unpacked, and slowly furnishing and decorating. It seems to take a really long time, maybe because of having a baby, maybe because we are not very good at making decisions.

The cats love our stairs:


Behind Geronimo, you can see the main color of our house paint. This is not a color we would have chosen. I'm not sure how well it shows up, but it's sort of a pale lemon-lime. Like a margarita, but not as fluorescent and a little more yellow. It's not hideous, but if it weren't for the two-story foyer (really just a yard by a yard spot between the front door and the stairs), we would have painted already. That's what happens when you buy a pre-owned home :) And it could be A LOT worse. This is just "not our color" instead of "so hideous we can't live with it." There are other weird things, too, like the IKEA lighting fixtures, which just aren't our style, but we've (and by "we", I mean "my dad when he visited") replaced three of these with ceiling fans, because there was only one ceiling fan in the house when we moved in, and this is Atlanta! It's hot! I have no idea how they lived without them, but it's much better now.

The guest bedroom and Lilah's room have long dormers, about 10 feet, which is like a hallway to the window. They really don't have a function, but I love them. My writing desk will go in the dormer in the guest room, and in Lilah's, we're going to get a toy chest and cushion for a window seat. Lilah's walls were already a nice butter yellow, go perfectly with the Pooh accessories we picked out, and don't need to be painted:


We're pretty darn happy with our bedroom. We got a bedroom set (our first real grown-up room furnishing), picked out curtains, and found linens. We love it. The wall color isn't really what we would have picked, but I think we've made it work well. Here's a corner that doesn't show the boxes that still need to be unpacked into drawers:

I have three boxes labeled Winter Clothes. Hahaha! Probably, I can just leave them in boxes in storage. They were necessary in Wisconsin, but not so much here.

ETA: (Boy, I had to edit a lot this time. I couldn't seem to remember everything I meant to post.) Happy anniversary to us. Matt and I celebrated 5 years of marriage on the 10th.

Knitting: The shrug is going really well! I love the Pakucho Organic Cotton and I have about 5 inches done (out of 19), so I have real progress. I am about to the point where I have to decide how to join the yarn. I was thinking the Russian Join might be too bulky in worsted weight in a lace pattern. I might have to actually swatch a couple of joins to see what's less obtrusive. Funny story: I had to relearn the long-tail cast-on for this project. I learned it once when I first started knitting, then I learned the cable cast-on and never did it again. You should have seen me. First, I ran out of yarn 2/3 of the way through, then I wound up with two feet of tail.

Reading: I re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and now it's Matt's turn. I'm reading The Science of Harry Potter (good eye, Rachel!). It's really interesting so far. I've read about different ways we might be able to make a broomstick fly, and I'm looking forward to the chapter on invisibility cloaks. It's written by a scientist who asked other scientists to sum up scientific principles on the theory that "magic" is just really, really advanced technology. Like how gravity used to be considered magic. It's very tongue-in-cheek, but does a great job of explaining things like the physics of flight and wormholes. So far, he hasn't come to the conclusion that we're capable of reproducing the magic of Harry's world, but he touches on the principles that might allow us to someday.

ETA: I finished Putting on the Dog by Cynthia Baxter. It really wasn't that good, and I don't feel I'm overly picky when it comes to cozy mysteries. The sleuth was nosy and wishy-washy. Her annoying boyfriend whined through the whole book. Jessica kept saying how great he was, but I never saw it. Although, she was really no prize either, insisting that she wanted to make it work with the boyfriend in one paragraph, and getting drunk and slow-dancing with a movie star alone in his mansion in the next. Then she'd get mad that the boyfriend was jealous. The solution was really telegraphed quite a bit, too, and I didn't care that much by the end. If I weren't so compulsive, I would have stopped halfway through.

I also read Halfway to Half Way by Suzann Ledbetter. The first in this series (mystery/romance) is South of Sanity, and these are cute. Hannah works at a retirement community that serves as home to some elderly busybodies who love to solve crimes. She's kind of their den mother. They're good-natured, funny, light reading, and I enjoyed this newest installment.

Writing: Not a thing.

Cooking: I made hummus, yum! And I've stir-fried and made pasta, but nothing too exciting.

StringBean, once I got the hat on Lilah, I started trying to turn it around, but she was having none of it! So there it is, backwards. And heh heh to "the thing that happened" etc. ETA: a non-backwards hat pic:

Higher Math

In honor of Lilah starting on Cheerios (actually a generic wheat-free version, since Cheerios contains wheat starch, which she's not supposed to have yet for allergy reasons), I present a word problem that illustrates the amazing powers of Baby Math:

I put 10 Cheerios on Lilah's high chair tray to give me time to clean up the kitchen. By the time I'm done, there are no Cheerios left on the tray. I have been watching her, and 2 Cheerios have actually made it into her mouth. I find 1 in the pocket of her bib, 3 on her seat, and 1 stuck to her cheek. How many Cheerios are on the floor?

You guessed 3, right? Ha! The answer is 7. I cannot explain this.

Anyway...

Knitting: I've now done 4 repeats of the lace pattern! This is out of 14, and the shawl is only about 4 inches long, so there's a long way to go. I have a shrug to start soon as an instant gratification project to raise morale. The slow growth of the Irish Diamond means I need a kick-start.

Writing: Still nothing to report here.

Reading: Ooh, lots!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: I will not ruin anyone else's enjoyment by saying too much, but I loved it. I must read it again soon!

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde: I love these books! This one was excellent, and it's obvious at the end of the book that more sequels are coming. The first is The Eyre Affair, in case you're interested--I wouldn't jump into the series in a later book. I have to reread this one as well.

I also read a mystery novel called Crime Brulee by Nancy Fairbanks. It wasn't great. The protagonist was not all that sympathetic, and she was the best of the bunch. It was so promising, too. Maybe I'll try a later book and see if they get less tedious.

Cooking: I actually baked on a cool evening. I wanted to make pumpkin muffins with a random can of pumpkin in the pantry, and pumpkin chocolate chip sounded yummy. Anyway, the muffins were fantastic. They started as an adaptation of a random recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins that I'd found somewhere on the internet, but I subbed some whole wheat flour and added pecans (we ARE in Georgia, after all). I used my Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Chips (now they're labeled 60% Bittersweet or something, but they're the extra big ones). Substitute any other chocolate chip. If you want to make mini muffins, use mini chips and chopped pecans. At the last minute, I realized I had no cinnamon, which the recipe called for. Oops. I was afraid they'd need a bit more oomph, so on a whim, I subbed cardamon. Yum! Even better than with cinnamon, I think. I'd like to play with this a bit to make it lower in fat. I'm sure I could use less oil and add some applesauce or something. Anyway, here they are:

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pecan Muffins

4 eggs
1 can pumpkin (16 ounce)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup canola oil
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cardamon
1 tsp salt
1 12-oz bag Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate Chips (or any other chips)
1 cup pecan pieces

Preheat oven to 350. Spray 24 muffin cups with nonstick spray or line with paper liners. Beat together eggs, pumpkin, vanill, and oil until smooth. Stir together dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add to the wet ingredients and stir until blended. Fold in chips and pecans. Divide evenly among muffin cups. Bake 25-30 minutes or until golden brown (check for doneness with a toothpick). Makes 24.

A couple other recipes I've been meaning to post:

Marinara Sauce

1 TBL olive oil
6 cloves garlic
1 small onion, finely diced
1/4 cup red wine
28 oz. crushed tomatoes
1 carrot, finely grated
1/4 tsp chili flakes (more to taste)
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup parsley, chopped

Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add garlic and onion, saute 2 minutes. Add wine, simmer 2 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and simmer 20 minutes. Serve over pasta with parmesan or goat cheese.

Cheater's Non-Dairy Baklava

This is adapted from a Cooking Light recipe. I served this a couple of times before moving, and no one guessed it was a non-butter version. Traditional baklava uses melted butter brushed over each sheet of phyllo instead of cooking spray. It's a pain and also insanely fat-laden. But good. Resist the temptation to cut into bigger pieces. It's good, but if you eat too much, you WILL get sick!

Ingredients
Syrup:
1 1/2 cups wildflower honey
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 whole cloves
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick

Filling:
1 lb. walnuts
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon salt

Remaining ingredients:
Cooking spray
20 sheets frozen phyllo dough, thawed (I used Athenos brand)
1 tablespoon water

Preparation
To prepare syrup, combine honey, 1/2 cup water, juice, cloves, and cinnamon in a medium saucepan over low heat; stir until honey is completely dissolved (about 2 minutes). Increase heat to medium; cook, without stirring, until thick and syrupy, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat; keep warm. Remove solids with a slotted spoon; discard.

Preheat oven to 350°.

To prepare filling, combine all filling ingredients in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Pulse until combined and walnuts are well-chopped.

Lightly coat a 13 x 9-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Working with 1 phyllo sheet at a time (cover remaining dough to prevent drying), place 1 phyllo sheet lengthwise in bottom of prepared pan, allowing end of sheet to extend over edges of dish; lightly coat with cooking spray. Repeat procedure with 4 phyllo sheets and cooking spray for a total of 5 layers. Sprinkle phyllo evenly with one-third of nut mixture. Repeat procedure with phyllo, cooking spray, and nut mixture 2 more times. Top last layer of nut mixture with remaining 5 sheets phyllo, each one lightly coated with cooking spray. Lightly coat top phyllo sheet with cooking spray; press baklava gently into pan. Sprinkle baklava surface with 1 tablespoon water.

Make 3 even lengthwise cuts and 7 even crosswise cuts to form 32 portions using a sharp knife. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until the phyllo is golden brown. Remove from oven. Drizzle honey mixture evenly over baklava. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Store covered at room temperature.

Waiting for UPS!

Since I'll probably be using all my non-Lilah time over the next couple of days reading Harry Potter 7, I thought I'd post while waiting for UPS to bring my copy. Speaking of Lilah, thank you to everyone who pointed out that I neglected to post a photo! Here's an action shot, chasing after one of the cats in her walker. She loves this thing. Don't feel bad for the cats--they retreat up a couple of stairs and watch her curiously.

Besides Harry Potter anticipation, what else is going on? My mom was here for two weeks, so I got lots of boxes unpacked. The house still needs lots of help (hanging pictures, ugh), but it's pretty liveable now.

Knitting: Still plugging along on Irish Diamond. I still love the Zephyr Wool Silk, and I still like the pattern. It's just creeping along slowly since I can sometimes only manage a row or two in between unpacking, Lilah entertaining, and other commitments. So this is going to be pretty boring as a knitting blog for a while. Perhaps I'll pick a quickie project to bust out just for morale.

Reading: I read Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin, a YA novel. It was really quite extraordinary. It starts out with 15-year-old Liz waking up on a boat with no memory of how she got there. She soon discovers that she's dead and on her way to the afterlife. It's funny and poignant and just a wonderful read. It's a quick read, too, and I recommend it to anyone intrigued by the premise. I also read Antiques Roadkill by Barbara Allan, an okay mystery. I liked it quite a bit in some ways, but constant asides and parenthetical comments were tiresome, and the first-person narrator is strangely silent on some important autobiographical stuff that she just throws out there without comment, so she's not all that sympathetic. There's something there, though, so maybe the next one is better. I also read No Nest for the Wicket by Donna Andrews and laughed a lot. Her Meg Langslow mysteries are lots of fun. This one centers on the society ladies of Caerphilly playing eXtreme croquet, so it's pretty funny. The first in the series in Murder With Peacocks.

Writing: Nothing here due to unpacking. After I read Harry Potter, perhaps!

Cooking: Nothing too exciting. It's too hot, really, and it's been so busy.

Well, I hope my next post is more exciting than this one!

Darn That Groundhog

We are currently on Winter Storm Warning, and it is snowing sideways outside our window. What was that about an early spring, stupid groundhog???

Anyway...Thank you for all your suggestions, String Bean! I know there's a vendor at our farmer's market with sheep's milk cheese (though it's a bit of a dangerous stall since he also has yarn...)!

Thank you, everyone, for your comments on the bear suit! Changes I would make now that I have a baby:
1. Add feet. (Ooh, how cute would little bear feet with claws be)
2. And maybe attached mittens that could flip open.
3. Two words: Crotch snaps. Baby clothes that don't have these mystify me.

Knitting: Here is my sock progress on Hedera:

I can hear you all now: "Surely you've finished sock #1, and this is #2?" Er...no. I have just finished the twisted rib cuff and barely started the lace. Part of this is some indecision. I keep wondering if this yarn would rather be a scarf, or a baby sweater. But I want something for me, and I wouldn't wear these colors except on my feet, and they're cheery and fun, and they're mine! Mine, I tell you!
Partly it's because of this:

That fun little accessory is the result of deQuervain's Tenosynovitis. Most commonly seen in piano players, bricklayers, and...women with new babies. It's apparently overuse of the tendon from hauling the baby around! I ignored the increasingly painful twinge in my wrist for weeks before I went to the doctor. I finally went when I was unable to use scissors in the normal way because my range of motion was so limited. It doesn't hurt to knit with the brace off, but it's really awkward with the brace on, which makes me think I shouldn't be doing it. I'll ask when I start PT.

Reading: I finished A Charmed Death by Madelyn Alt, and it was resoundingly...okay. It was a fine, fairly well-written mystery, nothing special. I also read High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. If you've seen the John Cusack film, you've basically read the book, although it was fun to see how the movie moved the story from London to Chicago. It was quite enjoyable, and I'm reading his About A Boy now. Lilah and I are around page 500 of the fifth Harry Potter, well on track to finish before the 7th book comes out.

Writing: Finished current revisions, though I still hate my opening. Eventually, something will come to me. Now working on chapter 9. I also mapped out some things I need to work in, because I've decided the exact motive/method of the killer(s). I had known whodunit, but I figured out exactly why, how, and if anyone else was involved, which I think is fun. I also need to figure out a map of my town it's set in because I think I've contradicted myself somewhere.

Cooking: I made Gallo Pinto, a Costa Rican breakfast dish. We had this every morning while on our honeymoon there, and it's delightful. We found a vague recipe and this is my adaptation:

Gallo Pinto (Allison version)

1 pound dried black beans (You can substitute canned black beans, rinsed well in a colander and drained.  You need 5 cups, which is about 3 small cans.  Just skip steps 1 and 2.)
4 TBL olive oil, divided
2 small onions, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
4 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
2 cups white rice (I like Basmati a lot, but any white rice will do)
1/2 cup Salsa Lizano, or to taste (if you can't find this, there's really no substitute, but you can order it online right herewith free shipping)

1.  Place the beans in a large pot and pick out any twigs or broken beans.  Cover with cold water two inches above the surface of the beans.  Soak overnight.
2.  The next day, drain the beans in a colander and rinse well. Return to pot and cover with cold water two inches above the surface of the beans.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until beans are tender, but not mushy.  This usually takes 45 minutes to an hour - check every 5-10 minutes after about 40 minutes of cooking.  Drain and rinse.  Set aside.
3.  Heat 2 TBL oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add half the onion and half the garlic.  Saute about 2 minutes, until onion is translucent.  Add rice, saute 1 minute.  Cover with 3 cups water, add 1 tsp salt (optional), and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes.  Fluff gently.
4.  Meanwhile, heat remaining 2 TBL oil over medium-high heat in a large saucepan.  Add remaining onion and garlic; saute until onion is translucent.  Add beans, tomatoes, and cilantro.  Heat through.
5.  Combine rice and beans.  Stir in Salsa Lizano.  Serve with sour cream and corn tortillas.  Alternatively, scramble or fry eggs and serve alongside.

Serves a whole bunch as a side dish, or 8 as a main dish.

I'm trying a new hummus recipe, so I will post about that later (I'm in the middle of the process right now). I have high hopes for a good result, since the recipe is a HUGE pain. I made baba ghanosh already. For those of you who were wondering what would happen if you put an eggplant under the broiler and skipped the step where you prick it with a fork, here's your answer:

As my husband said, "Whoa, it shot its guts out!" True, true.

In the nick of time

Just before it gets too warm, we talked Lilah into modeling this cute little number:


FO pictures and pattern info are right here. She wasn't that excited about it, but we had to get pictures before it was too small. It's a 0-6 month, and believe it or not, our barely three-month-old has almost outgrown all her six-month stuff. At this rate, she could be the first female linebacker in professional football, though I hope not. It's also my theory that she's teething early, due to major drool and tiny teeth I SWEAR I can see, but no one else can, and some night waking that wasn't happening before. We'll see...

Please don't take it personally if I haven't commented on your blogs in a while. Things have been a bit hectic, and there are days when all my free time is spent doing laundry or something. I'm slowly getting more free time, and I can't wait to see what you've all been up to!

StringBean, I'm all about the vanilla soymilk on my cereal now. And Starbucks does a nice soy vanilla latte. Soy cheese, though...yuck. All in all, cutting out cow's milk has been less traumatic than I expected. I'm trying to take this as an opportunity to improve my Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Indian cooking. Anyone else have ideas for less dairy-oriented cuisine? Rachel, you may not have this problem at all! Less than 2% of colic cases are caused by cow's milk allergy, and it's a sensitivity to proteins in cow's milk (so I can have goat cheese), not to lactose, which is a sugar.

Fun news...The Whole Ball of Yarn(s) is moving! No, I haven't finally switched to Typepad. We're moving to Atlanta, where my husband starts a post-doctoral research position this summer. Since we met and fell in love as undergrads at Emory, we're kind of excited to go back. But, wow, is there a lot to do...finding a place to live, packing EVERYTHING up, throwing out junk that we're not moving with us. We have loved living in Madison, though, and I plan to take Lilah to the Farmer's Market, the Terrace, Great Dane, and our other favorite Madison places, as often as possible before we leave.

Knitting: Still going on Hedera. Rachel, I may be emailing you about a short-row heel when I get closer to the heel :) I decided to leave the FuzzyFeet excessively blue. It's getting warmer anyway, and when it gets cold, I shall just buy my husband new pajamas to match them!

Reading: I forgot to mention How To Be Good by Nick Hornby. Hornby wrote High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, and About a Boy, among other things, and my husband loves him. I quite enjoyed it. I think it would be a cool book for a book club because there are a lot of interesting issues raised. It starts out with a marriage that's falling apart. The twist is the husband's spiritual change. It's hard to summarize it as being "about" something in a succinct way. I think it's about modern society, doing what's right and how to figure out what that means, being connected to an increasingly disconnected society. It was very funny in places, and really made me think. To be honest, some parts made me uncomfortable, but I think it's good to be challenged sometimes.

I also finished Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House and loved it. No shock there :) I'm now working on A Charmed Death by Madelyn Alt. This is a sort of Wiccan-ish murder mystery, the second in a series. I picked it up for the plane, and haven't read the first. There are some things about the pagan/mystical elements that I'm not sure about as far as accuracy goes, but it's not a negative portrayal. The mystery so far is fairly interesting.

Writing: Ha! I sat out on the porch yesterday (gorgeous spring day) and knocked off some revision while Lilah napped. I deleted some stuff, so the word count is 40,500.

Cooking: I made Sesame Noodles with Broccoli from the April Cooking Light, and it was fantastic! The sauce used tahini, dark sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, and soy sauce, and I could have eaten it with a spoon. It was excellent, and will go in my repertoire. I used soba noodles instead of whole wheat spaghetti. I have some Indian recipes I plan to make this week.

Business as usual

In case you're curious, here's how the cats have responded to Lilah's arrival:


Yup, they don't care that much. (Mirando is snuggled into the Boppy, which is a breastfeeding pillow, a fantastic invention. And also a good cat bed.) I guess from their perspective, not much has changed. They still get fed and petted. Mirando still snuggles with us in bed. Geronimo still gets brushed once a week. They don't care much for her crying (which fortunately she doesn't do much of), but other than that, they don't mind her at all. Every once in a while they'll sniff near her head or feet, but they don't get that close.

Thank you to everyone who enjoyed my birth story. The main reason I decided to share it is related to Areli's comment--all the birth horror stories out there. When I was eight months pregnant and flying back from visiting my family at Thanksgiving, one of the flight attendants told me all about her emergency c-section during which she almost died and her baby had to spend two weeks in NICU. Um...thanks? Seriously, what would possess someone to share that with a pregnant woman? And I had such a great birth experience that maybe my story can help balance out the horror stories some idiot has told you.

Knitting: Thank you to everyone who felt ripping out the HP sock was unnecessary. I love you guys. I'm still on the leg, but almost to the heel flap. Speaking of which, my next pair of socks, I want to try a short-row heel. As I was catching up on my blog-reading, I fell in love with these stunning socks by Turtlegirl. I like my Gryffindor socks (which are more or less from Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns) but the look of her short-row heel is lovely. I have some Sunshine Yarns sock yarn in Strawberry Banana that will be my next pair of socks.

Reading: I'm about halfway through The Thirteenth Tale. The word "unputdownable" gets thrown about a lot in literary criticism, but it is no exaggeration here. This book is riveting. I'm a little bummed that there are only 200 more pages to read. Oh, I forgot to mention that when I got to the end of The Fourth Bear, I was delighted to see the following: "Thursday Next returns in The War of the Words, July 2007." I squealed and jumped up and down. I am not kidding, I did. Yay! A Harry Potter movie, possibly a Harry Potter book, AND a Thursday Next book all in the same month? Best. July. Ever.

Writing: We had a couple of rough nights without much sleep. Last night was better. But at any rate, laundry was almost above my capabilities the last couple of days, much less creative output. Back to revising today, though.

Cooking: Hey, I cooked again! We had almost nothing in the apartment so I improvised Bean and Cheese Enchiladas with Fiesta Rice from random stuff in the fridge and pantry. Matt and I agreed that they were really quite good, and the filling for the enchiladas would also make awesome bean dip. I probably would have used black beans instead of kidney if we'd had any, but it was good this way. Cilantro would have been a nice addition, too. I've never made my own enchilada sauce, but that might be fun sometime.

Bean and Cheese Enchiladas

1 can refried beans (14.5 oz.)
1 can kidney beans, well drained (14.5 oz)
2 cups shredded cheese, divided
2 cans enchilada sauce, divided (I think these are 12 oz.)
2 cloves garlic
12 corn tortillas, warmed according to package directions
sliced green and black olives for garnish
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 375. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray and cover with a thin layer of enchilada sauce. In a food processor, combine beans, garlic, 1 cup of cheese, and 1/4 cup enchilada sauce. Process well. Divide evenly among tortillas, rolling and placing seam side down in the pan. Cover with remaining enchilada sauce, reserving 1/2 cup for Fiesta Rice (if making). Top with remaining cheese, then olives. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes, or until bubbly.

Note: I used 2% sharp cheddar for filling and 2% Mexican cheese blend for topping, because that's what I had.

Fiesta Rice

1 cup white rice
1 can diced tomatoes, drained, liquid reserved (14.5 oz.)
1 tsp salt (adjust to taste)
About 1/2 cup enchilada sauce (left over from enchiladas)
1 cup frozen corn
1 tsp cumin

Combine all ingredients except reserved tomato juice and enchilada sauce in a small saucepan. Pour tomato juice and enchilada sauce into a measuring cup and add water to total 1 1/2 cups liquid. Add to pan. Bring to a boil. Cover tightly and reduce heat, simmering 20 minutes, or until liquid is mostly absorbed. Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes. Fluff with fork and serve.