Let’s Talk Books

I finally jumped on the bandwagon last week and started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? I’d ask if I was the last person on earth to read it, but Jimmy hasn’t read it yet.

Well…I got to just over 200 pages, about 35% through the book (thank you Kindle), and I’m just not into it. I’ve only reached one disturbing scene, & I can stomach that stuff pretty well, so it’s not that. I just don’t like the writing. Maybe it’s because it’s a translation, but I find the writing…choppy maybe? Simplistic? And geez the detailed descriptions of things of no import. I’m pretty geeky, but I honestly don’t care about the tech specs of the Power Book Lisbeth wants.

So. I put it aside. I think I’ll just see the movie & call it a done deal.

As a replacement, I checked out The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love today at work. I’m so glad not to live in Mississippi anymore, but I do love me some Southern writing, be it fiction or nonfiction (this one is the latter). This one is sure to entertain.

Sunday catch-up

My best intentions went up in smoke as far as blogging goes this past week. It wasn’t until either Wednesday night or Thursday morning that I realized I’d skipped two blogging days. I had every intention of blogging Friday but just never squeezed it in (am I the only one who always wants to say “squoze” instead of “squeezed”?). It was an insane week, and I wasn’t sad to see it end. New adventures start tomorrow, but a blog post about that will have to wait just a bit longer.

So here it is Sunday night, and once again I’m trying to fit everything into one post.

Knitting

I made quite a bit of progress on my Thin Ice shawl. The deadline for this knitalong isn’t until February 15, but I’m not sure I’ll get it finished by then. I’m on around row 100 out of 250+ rows, and, of course, being a shawl, it will only keep growing. It is lovely, though!

I also made quite a bit of progress on the Tamarind Cowl. I’m actually now only 10 rounds plus bind-off away from being done. I’m still worried it maybe too tight, but we’ll see. The first picture below shows my progress, while the 2nd shows more detail.

While working on this cowl, I’ve come up with an idea for a hat, inspired by this pattern. I’m eager to finish this, so I can work it up. It could end up a disaster, but I want to try it anyway.

Baking

I’ve been debating whether to continue my cake quest (it’s not meshing with my weight-loss goals real well…), but have decided to carry on, as long as I get at least half the cake out the door the next day. I feel the need to bring cake to work right now anyway.

Today’s cake was Honey Spice Cake with Rum Glaze. I didn’t actually use rum, since I’m bringing it to work and there are some tee-totalers there (plus, you know, I work for the city and don’t want to bring even a tablespoon of rum). Instead of rum for the glaze, I used milk and rum extract. It tasted great! I was a little concerned, because the cake deflated a bit when I took it out of the oven. I was a little wary when I cut into it and then before I tasted it. It clearly was not quite done on the bottom, but it tasted delicious!

In other baking news, I made chocolate chip cupcakes for breakfast this morning. The recipe is from a Betty Crocker kids’ cookbook that I’ve had for over 10 years. There are 3 recipes in there that make me keep the book, even though my kids are older than the target age now: a brownie recipe, mac and cheese, and these chocolate chip cupcakes. So easy and so delicious!

Cooking

Last, but not least, let me share tonight’s dinner.

Broiled scallops, roast fingerling potatoes, and Himalayan red rice. (yeah, 2 starches, what of it?) Delicious and easy!

Sunday Baking – 1/15/12

Two experiments this week: Chicago-style deep dish pizza and kahlua brownies. Both were good, only one will I likely repeat.

First, the pizza.

I found this recipe on the blog Sarah’s Place last week; it was one of WordPress’ Freshly Pressed blogs, and the picture of pizza caught my eye. I love deep dish pizza, and while I haven’t had the fortune to actually eat pizza in Chicago, I am always on the lookout for places that serve Chicago-style pizza. This is not very common in Houston, but Star Pizza is good. There’s a place in Katy, too, that makes Chicago-style pizza on the weekends. As soon as I saw this recipe, I knew I had to make it.

This was the first time I’ve used the dough hook on my Kitchen Aid. Wow! It made making the dough so easy – I see breadmaking in my near future.

For such an easy recipe, this pizza was fabulous! While I may not have had true Chicago pizza, my husband has, and he said it was spot on. I will definitely make this again!

The kahlua brownies turned out good, too, but they were too involved. First, you make a crust using flour, butter, brown sugar, and pecans. Then the brownie filling. Then a buttercream icing. Then a chocolate glaze. There’s also cooling time in there, since you can’t ice hot brownies with buttercream icing. And you can’t put the glaze on the icing until it’s cooled. Another issue was the recipe itself. The ingredients were divided by recipe section (crust, filling, buttercream, glaze), but the sections were out of order, and the ingredients within each section were out of order, too. That made it extremely difficult to follow. In fact, this was probably the most poorly-written recipe I’ve ever used. The finished product was delicious, though, although I would have liked more of a punch from the kahlua.

This Week on the Needles – 1/13/12

First, let me apologize for the poor quality of my project pictures this week. I didn’t feel like pulling out the good camera, and the light isn’t great.

I mentioned last week that I was going to do a block a month for a blanket (it will probably actually be 2 blocks a month, if I want a blanket anyone other than a baby can actually use!). I finished my first square Wednesday morning, minus blocking and weaving in ends, which I’ll do this weekend. I’m pleased with how it came out. I’m using Plymouth Encore Worsted, which is a 75/25 acrylic/wool blend. The colors of this square are “forest green” and “fox.” I don’t know that all my squares will use the same colorways, but I’ll choose something that complements them.

I’ve made a bit of progress on my Tamarind Cowl. I wish I had used bigger needles, but I think it will still be big enough. I’m considering turning it into a hat if it’s too tight as a cowl.

My other current project is the Thin Ice shawl. This is going very well, EXCEPT I realized I forgot to switch to smaller needles to work the section I’m on, as called for in the pattern. I think instead of ripping it out, I’ll just call it a “design element.” Ah well. Sorry about the glaring white in this picture; I brightened a lot so you can see the details in the knitting better.

Finally, a little enabling.

My friend Katie, stinkin’ enabler herself, texted me to tell me that The Loopy Ewe had Wollmeise in stock, and I couldn’t resist buying a skein. The color is Taube.

I also finally got my order from Knitpicks that I purchased with my gift certificate Jimmy gave me for Christmas. I, unexcitingly, bought blocking mats and wires. Woohoo! But I also bought some Stroll Glimmer in the Dragonscale colorway. My intention was to make the Dragon Wing shawl from Knitty, but after getting the yarn, I’m not sure how great it will look. What do you think?

Wordless Wednesday

Teaser Tuesday – 1/10/12

I’m still reading The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale. The book is really good, but it makes me very anxious. I want to finish it, but every time I read it, I’m filled with a sense of dread… I’m 57% done now, so I’m in it for the long haul.

This quote is from the first page of Chapter 23 – since I’m reading a Kindle copy that doesn’t have true page numbers, that’s the best I can do, folks.

Mr. Blacklock has a copy of the London Evening Post from yesterday spread out on the bench, and is scanning the pages urgently for an account of the opening season’s fireworks at Marylebone Gardens. “How irksome!” he exclaims, finding it. Scornfully he reads aloud:

“Prodigious height! Salutes that deafened the ear for hours subsequent! Glorious climactic eruption, when scarcely an inch of sky was left unemblazoned with brilliance!”

 

 

Sunday Baking

The title of this post is a bit misleading, as I am not baking this Sunday (I did that on Friday this week).I was remiss in posting about baking over the holidays. Today I’m going to share pics of my various baked goods that I’ve neglected to post over the past several weeks.

On Christmas Eve I baked snickerdoodles for Santa. I had actually planned to bake these on the 23rd, I think, but I ran out of time. Or oomph. I almost didn’t bake them on Christmas Eve, either, but I decided at the last moment to do it, even though I was tired and still hadn’t finished crocheting Eli’s monster. The plan was almost ruined when the sink stopped up and we ended up with a massive link under the sink. Fortunately, Jimmy found his hidden handyman skills and was able to fix the sink and we were able to clean up the mess and get on with the baking. The snickerdoodles turned out amazing, too!

On Christmas morning, I always make a breakfast casserole. If I didn’t make this, my daughter might actually disown me. This is easy and delicious!

On the 26th, we enjoyed the company of our dear friends, Cathy and David. Of course I had to bake a cake. I got to use my rose-shaped bundt pan for the first time! This cake was Paula Deen’s Sour Cream Almond Pound Cake, continuing my quest to bake everything in the All Cakes Considered cookbook (the next two cakes are from that book, too).

For New Year’s Eve, which we also spent with Cathy and David, I baked the coffee spice cake. This one was a little dry, but it tasted good. Not one of my favorites, though. Hmmmm….maybe with a mocha glaze…

Finally, on Friday I wanted to bake and didn’t want to wait until Sunday. I made the Spanish Meringue Cake. This was the most unique cake I’ve made, with meringue baked on top. It was also one of my favorites so far. In fact, I may have to go have another piece now.

This Week on the Needles

I’m so happy to finally have time to write this post!

I’m having huge issues with cast-on-itis… Since New Year’s, I’ve cast on 3 projects:

Clothilde: I’m knitting this in the Dream in Color Smooshy I posted about a while back. At the moment, I’m off by a stitch or two, so I’ll need to do some backing up. This will be lovely when I finish.

Tamarind Cowl: I’m using Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Pearl for this, which is the same yarn I used for the hat I’m going to show below. I love this yarn! It’s mostly gray, but with a hint of pink mixed in. I think I’m going to do a cowl a month this year. I’ve made a bit more progress on this since I took the picture.

Finally, I cast on the Thin Ice shawl, which is the current knitalong on the Knitabulls podcast. I wasn’t too sure about doing this pattern, but when I saw that my mom is doing it, I decided to do it, too. I bought some Cascade Heritage Sock Yarn in Sapphire specifically for this project. I’m really glad I decided to knit this; it’s a fun knit and really pretty, too.

I’m also going to try to knit a block a month for a blanket this year. I tried this a few years ago and quit, but I’m going to try again. I bought some Plymouth Encore to start that and will probably start it today.

Now some finished objects. I’ve mentioned a couple of these in the past, but I couldn’t post pictures since they were gifts. Now you get the pictures!

David’s Scarf: I used the Yarn Harlot’s One Row Scarf pattern for this in Mirasol Ushya to make this scarf for a good friend. It turned out great! I knit a good bit of this on our road trip over the holidays, which I’ll try to post about soon.

Quest: This is a Knitty pattern. I did Version 2 of this, which has a cool honeycomb pattern. This is the hat I used the Malabrigo in Pearl for. I love it so much I want to make one for myself! This one was for my good friend Cathy.

On a whim I decided to make a monster for my son, Eli. It’s kind of like a crocheted version of Rebecca Danger’s knitted monsters. I ended up staying up until 1:30 Christmas Eve/morning finishing this, but it was worth it as it turned out so cute!

Finally, I’m going to do some enabling. I’ve bought way too much yarn lately (is there such a thing?). Here are the four skeins I’ve gotten since Christmas (the Sweet Georgia was bought with a gift certificate):

Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock in Tourmaline

Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Brick

Three Irish Girls Wexford Merino Silk in Gretel (this yarn reminded me of a sunset)

Shalimar Breathless in Gunmetal (this just came in today’s mail and is soooooooo soft!)

Finally, I wanted to mention some podcasts I’m enjoying. My mom got me hooked on podcasts, even though I don’t have a ton of time to listen/watch. Here’s what I’ve added to my regular listening time:

The Knitmore Girls – a mother/daughter podcast, but this one is actually on hiatus since Jasmin just had a baby this week!

2 Knit Lit Chicks – another mother/daughter podcast, with a focus on both books and knitting. I love this podcast and the Ravelry group is fun, too.

Knitabulls – This one’s a video podcast, and the host, Diane, is so sweet.

Knitting in Circles – another video podcast, which I’ve only just started watching. This one’s a husband/wife podcast, & they’re from the Mississippi Gulf Coast like my husband.

Knit Knit Cafe – I actually just listened to my first episode of this and can already tell it will be a favorite. This one’s another/son podcast, which is a unique twist.

Hmmmm….I see a trend in the types of podcasts I like – do you?

Wordless Wednesday

Teaser Tuesday & a New Year’s Resolution

First, a resolution. I resolve to be a more consistent blogger in 2012. I hope that in and of itself doesn’t doom me to failure! I’m going to participate in some daily memes in order to keep myself going.

Today’s meme is Teaser Tuesday. Back when I was book blogging, I participated in this one quite a bit. It’s hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading – check out her blog for all the details. The basic point is to share a passage from something you’re reading.

It’s not particularly easy to turn to a random page on a Kindle, so I will choose a couple of sentences from my current page.

This teaser is from The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale. This particular book doesn’t seem to have real page numbering (which is annoying), but it’s somewhere in Chapter 2.

My mother will be eaten up with anxiousness, and then her baby will come and she will have enough to do without worrying after me. I do not know about my father.