Of Pretzels and Pavlova

When I decided a few months back that I wanted to post more regularly here, I read a couple of articles online about blogging. The best piece of advice that I got was that I should blog in the morning, and that I would be better able to keep myself posting consistently if I did so. I didn't put much stock in it at the time, since I tend to think about posting more in the evening, but I'm starting to think that it might be the better way to go.¹

I've been putting the stand mixer through its paces, and have made both soft pretzels and pavlova this week. The pretzels were okay--it was a very humid day, which made for very dense pretzels. The recipe claimed to make 8 pretzels, but if I made it again I would make 16 smaller pretzels. I would also salt them more. The dough hook is awesome though--it kneaded my dough for me in about 3 minutes. I only used the meringue recipe from the pavlova, and it came out different than I'd anticipated. The recipe uses cornstarch and vinegar instead of cream of tartar, and it made a meringue that was crisp on the outside and marshmallowy on the inside. It was good, but very, very different from what I'd anticipated. (I served it with a raspberry coulis and homemade whipped cream, in case you're wondering.)

Yesterday, I washed and set a skein of alpaca-merino-silk yarn that I spun several months ago. It's drying now. It's so pretty I can hardly believe that I made it myself. I am going to make this pattern from Knitty with it, I think, which will be the first time that I've knit anything with yarn I've spun myself.

I am off to somewhere this evening for round two of Not My Family Reunion, because Mat managed to get tomorrow off, so we're going just for tonight. I was saying to him this morning that I thought I would be better able to deal with it if the two reunions weren't back to back; if we were fully able to attend both we'd have only three days between the two because of the long weekend. "That's too much time with too many people for an introvert," I said. "Dude," he replied. "You were an interpreter on a historic site and gave tours in two languages to huge groups. You've lectured to nearly 200 students. How are you possibly an introvert?"

Being an introvert, I explained, is not about being shy, although I was painfully shy for the first 18 years of my life. Being an introvert is more about finding it difficult to engage in social interaction for extended periods of time, and about valuing your own company as much as (if not, in some circumstances, more) than the company of others. One of the things that I like about Mat's job (aside from the sweet spousal discounts on used books and clothing) is that his schedule does not overlap with mine, which means that I get to spend a reasonable amount of time by myself every week. He is definitely an extrovert, though, so that's part of why he doesn't understand.

I need approximately three more hours in the day. If you could arrange that I'd be eternally grateful.

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¹ I.e., thinking about posting is not the same as actually posting.