Mooning and June-ing

Today is the first day of my unemployment. It was a surprisingly busy day--I finally talked Mat into helping put a garden in our backyard, which meant that he spent a good portion of the day ripping out the raspberry bushes that have been threatening to take over the back.

We're lucky to have a fairly large plot of land (the lot is 33'x125'), but unfortunately we've managed to do next to nothing with it in the three summers since we bought the house. I am not a gardener by nature (the green thumb in my family managed to pass me by all together) but I'm determined to make a go of it this summer. We've put in a 5x10 raised bed which is about half full sun and half partially shaded, and I'm hoping to plan a variety of veggies back there. I currently have a red pepper plant, two tomato plants, and a zucchini plant. I have plans to add a Thai chile plant, some cucumbers, some beans and peas, and some lettuces. I've planted some herbs out front: lots of basil (I have high hopes for basil and tomato salads this summer), cilantro, mint, rosemary...I'd like to get a cherry tomato, maybe as a hanging basket...

I'm excited for this little beauty, purchased at the local farmer's market last week.

respite

In the two weeks since I last posted, I have read twelve books, written one short story, drunk a copious amount of beer, and visited our nation's capital.

I have not made much progress on any knitting projects, but I have talked my mum into going to the Knitters' Frolic in a few weeks.

The books have been, mostly, the first eight Sookie Stackhouse books. They're not terrible, exactly, and they read like candy, but I think I prefer True Blood on the whole. I've also read Trainspotting for the first time.

Ottawa was a blast. I haven't been in several years, despite the fact that it's one of my favourite cities in the world. The friend that I stayed with lives right downtown, so we walked all over the place: down Bank St into the Glebe; across Rideau St to the markets. I got to eat Thai, Vietnamese, and Lebanese foods. We went to see the Pixies on Saturday and to a "Mod Night" at a club. (It featured a lot of Motown music, strangely enough.) I got to see the University of Ottawa's campus, and oh my stars, do I ever wish I'd gone to a real university.

I also got to have coffee with a Ravelry friend, which was pretty awesome. Too bad I'm back to work tomorrow...

The good, the bread, and two weeks left

This is actually the first of two posts for today, since today is the beginning of the Second Annual Knit Crochet Blog Week.

There are two weeks left in the term. This is simulataneously exciting and terrifying. I have quite a lot of work to do as a result of this (plus our exam is only 4 days after the last day of classes, which gives me no cushion) but somehow I always find myself dreaming of the things I will be doing once classes are over. I have big plans for the month of April, and the summer sort of snowballs from there--concerts, plays, road trips, sewing, painting, gardening, baking...maybe even running.

Speaking of baking, here is a picture of my second place winning bread:


Don't you want some now? I do. I'll have to make more this week. I am going to attempt a chickpea soup today, as well. We took a roadtrip to Sudbury on Friday to visit Chapters and Costco, and we got to have lunch at Respect Is Burning, which was serving a soup that was chickpeas, proscuitto, bacon, asparagus, white wine, chicken broth, and cream. I've found a recipe for one that sounds similar, and I'm going to give it a shot since it was a pretty tasty soup.

We also went to a hunting/sporting good store, which was in the process of a massive liquidation sale because they were moving locations. I was able to get both a Helly Hansen running jacket and a Cybersilk base layer shirt for my mother for under $40 (regularly $180). Very fortuitous timing, given that the next day was my mother's birthday...

Second Best

I've spent most of the last week cooking.

I made more of perpetual Nut-house favourite, Anna Olson's gyoza. Easy but time consuming, they are tasty morsels, and very filling.

I made blood orange sorbet in the ice cream maker attachment for the stand mixer. I haven't quite got myself motivated to make actual ice cream yet, because every time I look at a recipe that calls for more than a cup of whipping cream, I have a bit of a heart attack. Sorbets, however, are perfect--delicious, simple, and (relatively) healthy, since I get to control how much sugar goes in to it. (It also makes lovely daiquiris, too, and if the price of limes ever drops, I will be making margaritas by the pitcherful.)

I've also made bread--more specifically, caramelized onion beer bread. I have actually not made bread very many times in my life, but this recipe was so simple that it turned out incredible. The student services department hosted a "Northern University's Best Baker" competition today, with categories in cakes, cookies, squares, and bread. I chose bread because I wanted to try a savoury option. A brief visit to a friend's gourmet food shop/bakery last weekend suggested a caramelized onion and cheese bread to me, and the recipe above sounded the most delicious of all the hits that my google search turned up.

I made the first batch on Monday, omitting the cumin because a) I didn't have any cumin seeds, and b) I just forgot to add the ground cumin. It was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I ate the two loaves by myself because Mat hates onions and wouldn't touch it. I used Sleeman Honey Brown as my beer of choice.

When I made the dough last night, I remembered the cumin. It smelled fantastic today while it was baking, but I couldn't taste it as much as I would've thought in the finished product, probably because it was just the ground cumin. The bread was even better the second time, I think, and the judges thought so too--I came in first in the bread category, and in second overall. (I lost to a very elaborate 4-layer cake.)

Other than that, most of today has been lost to cleaning--we finally trucked our unusable computer desk and broken washer off to the dump, and we moved the furniture in the living room around--it's so much nicer now. Almost like we live in a grown up house.

Frakking cold

I would estimate that, in my lifetime, I have owned approximately 20 000 yarn needles. That's probably a conservative estimate, even, to say only 20 000. I own a lot of those things. Do you think I can find one right now? The answer to that question is obviously "no."

There are usually at least two or three floating around the computer desk, whether it's on the shelves or in the drawer, but I am currently coming up short. The drawer has an interesting assortment of other stuff (all of the American candy my parents gave us for Christmas, a small book of Oscar Wilde quotations, a diaper pin from when I was a child) but no yarn needles.

It is cold here, gentle reader. Yesterday it "warmed up" to -27 degrees Celsius; today things are currently sitting around the same temperature, although it should actually warm up this afternoon. The only good thing about the cold like that is that it doesn't snow here when it gets really cold because it is just too dry. We had a small incident in which the little cat decided to make a break for freedom and the great outdoors, only to come running right back in to the house before he made it off the front porch.

For the last few months, a few of my friends from the guild and I have been going out for "Fancy Ladies Night", which essentially means that we get dressed up and go out for dinner. One of the Asian fusion restaurants in town does a seasonal feast menu every few months where you are served a variety of dishes family-style, so we started there and are intending to make our way through the finer dining establishments of NBRC. This month, however, we decided to try "Fancy Ladies Stay In," where we stayed in and had fondue. It was a delectable feast.

We made pizza for dinner last night, which turned out really well. We used a dough recipe from one of the cookbooks I gave to Mat for Christmas, and it was pretty darn tasty.

spinning and food

While I was home on the weekend, Mat's mum gave me a giant basket of tomatoes from her garden. When I got to my parents, my mum said, "Oh, you got tomatoes already. I was hoping to pawn some off on you." It has been, apparently, a ridiculously good growing year in the region where I grew up: the corn came in early, the tomatoes plants have nearly exploded, and the cucumbers are also quite plentiful. So I have a basket of tomatoes to turn into a tomato sauce at some point today, and I bought a basket of Ontario peaches yesterday that I'd like to turn into a peach crisp.

Even though Girl Tuesday brought over her spinning wheel almost two weeks ago, I haven't had a chance, really, to do anything with it until yesterday. I picked up some of Fleece Artist's Merino Sliver¹ at the store downtown, and I've got the first braid half spun and half pre-drafted.






The cat thinks the spinning wheel is just about the coolest thing ever.

It's shaping up to be a beautiful day here, so I'm going to get outside and enjoy it.

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¹ I love this fleece. It's merino, handles really well, has all of Fleece Artist/Handmaiden's signature great colours, and it's generally about $7 CAD for a 50g braid.

doing the grown up things

One of my most popular posts here at academia nuts is the one where I wrote about not knitting a Cowichan style sweater for the Ravelympics during the Vancouver Games. (My other most popular post is the one with the chart for the Hearthstone from World of Warcraft.) It's a topic that I'd like to revisit some time: I think that the sweaters represent a very interesting and very vexed space in Canadian culture, and I've hardly done them justice. I only bring it up today because I've just discovered that Briggs and Little have released the HBC Cowichan-style sweater pattern as a free download on their website. It is a beautiful sweater, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to knit it. Unfortunately, it's written for their Country Roving, which is not one of my favourite yarns (picture pre-drafted pencil roving that feels like Lopi). If it were the Heritage yarn, that would be another story.

I'm in the process of sorting through the kitchen, a process which is probably long overdue. We've lived here for just over two years now, and I suspect that since that time we've just been putting things in the cupboards without really paying attention to what they are. Now that I have so many nice new kitchen things, I'm trying to sort through what we can keep, what we can give away, and what we can toss. Now that I have my standmixer, I don't need my handmixer anymore, but it will work quite well for someone else. I also have about three different half sets of dry measuring cups and spoons, which I'll be pleased to get rid of and replace with lovely stainless steel ones. I have also found our large colander (hurray!) which had fallen in behind the pots.

I also cleaned out the fridge today. Not a "let's toss the gross stuff" clean, but a real, remove-and-wipe-down-the-shelves type of clean. I also--I think/hope/pray--found the source of the rather unpleasant odour emanating from the fridge these last few days. Remember that time I made pavlova? When I separated the eggs for the meringue, I saved the yolks intending to make lemon curd...and then forgot them until this morning. Gross.

an embarrassment of riches

I am chez les parents for one last night, though I will be up and on the road quite early tomorrow morning. One of my aunts in Toronto hosted a bridal shower for me today, and it was a really nice afternoon. There was sushi, cupcakes, fifteen different kinds of cheese¹, wine, tea, champagne, sandwiches...so much delicious food.

When my friend Jess got married last summer, she told me that one of the biggest surprises about getting married is how generous people are to you. And even though I knew that was true, I didn't realize exactly what that would mean for me until today: It truly is an embarrassment of riches to be loved by your family and friends. The shower was a recipe shower--my sister sent out recipe cards with the invitations, and everyone brought recipes and kitchen supplies to the shower. The best recipes are the family ones, copied out by my grandmother from her cookbook, where her mother originally wrote it, or from the Women's Institute cookbook my grandfather's mother helped publish up in Timmins in the early twentieth century, or my cousin's recipe for cream filled Easter eggs.

I am so very lucky. Even if they did make me wear the bra.

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¹ Maple cheddar! Guinness cheddar! Caramelized onion cheddar! Cheesegasm!

Chipmunks McGee

Poor Mat had his wisdom teeth out yesterday, and he is now all kinds of puffy and jowly about the cheeks. He had all four out, although only two were impacted. (Hurray for dental insurance from work, I must say; it's rather an expensive operation.) The poor guy--the day before, we had gone grocery shopping to lay in some provisions for his recovery. He had looked up a couple of recipes for vegetable soups on the internet, and bought the stuff to make them. When we got home, I asked if he wanted me to help chop stuff up and get things ready for the soup. "No need," said he. "I'll just make it tomorrow."

I decided that this was one of those moments in our relationship when I could either tell him the truth or just keep quiet. I opted for staying quiet, as sometimes telling the truth causes the other party to accuse you of being a know-it-all or a bossy bessy. Needless to say, he was not up to soup making yesterday, poor guy. He seems to be in much better spirits today, although he hasn't actually made it out of the bed yet so I suppose time will tell.

I am currently working on a little cap sleeve top made from Fleece Artist's Peter Rabbit, which is an 80-10-10 angora/wool/nylon blend. The fabric is pretty much the softest, floatiest dream. I've converted the pattern to be knit in the round, though, so now I am stuck in the endless stockingette circle. I just have to keep in mind that the finished product is so awesome as to be worth it. Besides, today is Day Two of the Great Firefly re-watch, so it will be good to have something relatively mindless to work on while we watch.

I'll be headed to my parents' this weekend, and then down to Toronto for a bridal shower on Sunday. It'll be good to have some time with them and Youngest Sister. It will also be good to get my first paycheque of the year, although that does mean I will have to resist all temptation to visit any of the yarn stores on the way home...

weekend

Another hot and humid day. We're waiting on a thunderstorm, and my head is just aching. I've taken two extra strength ibuprofen, which has taken the edge off, but I can still feel the ghost of the headache. Brutal.

It's been a good cooking week here: I made a delicious thin crust pizza. (Okay, not "made" so much as "assembled"--I used a Presidents Choice crust.) I topped it with a plain tomato sauce, proscuitto, sliced boccocinni, shaved parmesan, and fresh basil leaves. It was fantastic. This morning I also tried my hand at salted caramels. (Perhaps not the wisest choice on such a hot day.) The caramels came out pretty well, I think, though I still have to finish cutting and wrapping them. I think I may have cooked the sugar a little too long, as they have a slightly burnt/crème brulée taste to them, but it's not a bad thing. I used a grey sea salt, and I think I would put in more next time. Also: silicone baking pans for the win! I literally just popped my caramel out of it by flipping it inside out. Awesome.

I'm almost done Larisa (like two more pattern repeats and then the last beading section almost done) which is great. I want to keep it for myself, but one of my aunts is hosting a bridal shower for me, and I'm a bit stuck on a gift for her. I need to pick out my next project carefully. Mat is having his wisdom teeth removed on Tuesday, and I am his primary caregiver. He has suggested that we get the first season of True Blood to watch while he's all incapacitated, and I want to work on something that I can finish in short order because...

I have simple knitting to do! I sold two mitten patterns to a dyer, and hopefully the yarn will be on its way shortly, because I have a very tight turnaround. Good thing mittens are usually quick knits...

Early in the morning

I had to drive Mat to work for 5 a.m. today, which is one of my least favourite things to do. I have discovered, through the course of our two years living common-law, that I don't necessarily sleep well when we sleep together. It's not so bad during the school year when my job does a fair job of exhausting my mind, but I've been a little understimulated this summer¹ and have often found myself quite awake when Mat wants to go to bed. This is especially problematic when he has these 5 a.m. shifts, as they usually necessitate him going to bed between 9:30 and 10 o'clock at night.

Now, I love the man dearly, but he is a very restless sleeper. He talks; he kicks; he chatters his teeth. He also, on occasion, snores. If I go to bed at the same time as him, it usually isn't too bad: once I am asleep, I stay asleep, but if I don't...he'll keep me up.²

All of this is to say that I am quite tired, and that I am skipping out on today's portion of the 50 Days of Tea because I want a cup of tarry black orange pekoe, and by George, I am going to have it. It is also a perfectly balmy 8 degrees here in NBRC, so a hot cup will be marvelous.

We looked after Abigail, the six-month old daughter of one of my old roommates, for a few hours last night. It went well until she started to get a bit fussy, which quickly turned into very fussy and then into full-on screaming. I was trying to make dinner while Mat watched her, and we quickly realized that it was our faces that were upsetting her: every time I came into the room, she'd look for her mom, and realize that I wasn't her, and get even more upset. So we strapped her into her chair, turned her away from us, and were careful to enter and exit the room out of her line of sight. She stopped screaming within five minutes of not being able to see us, and fell asleep within ten.

I'm headed to the in-laws' for a family reunion this weekend. 31 people will be there, which will be quite chaotic; hopefully I'll be able to slip out for a bit to visit my own parents and touch base with a couple of friends. My future mother-in-law has requested that I make some soft pretzels for the occasion. I haven't actually made them in years (as in at least three or four) so it will be interesting to see how that goes. I'm considering making a practice batch before we leave today from an Alton Brown recipe. If I do, I get to try out the dough hook on my stand mixer, which sounds like it could be fun.

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¹ You are shocked, I'm sure, to discover that wedding planning is not rocket silence.
² I also have issues with knowing that an alarm clock will be going off in the future, since I'm paranoid about sleeping in. If I know an alarm has been set, I will wake up periodically throughout the night to make sure that I haven't slept through it.

Of Mousse and Men

Today I really did clean all the things. Or at least most of them. It was quite gratifying. I also went to the mall and picked up my brand new KITCHEN AID STAND MIXER, which is quite gorgeous and also weighs quite a bit. It is a thing of rare and singular beauty. I made the Salted Caramel Chocolate Mousse I mentioned a few days ago, which was a very interesting experience. I've never made any kind of caramel before, so melting the sugar was a bit scary. I was especially scared by the crust of sugar left in the pan, but it actually completely dissolved after I let it sit in some hot water for about twenty minutes. I also managed to spill a single drop of boiling sugar on my thumb, which resulted in a LOT of pain, and a very nice blister. I haven't tried to knit since I did that, so I'm not sure if it will affect my knitting. The mousse is quite delicious, though.

One of the neat things about working in a university is that it's a research climate, which means that there's a lot of opportunity to participate in different studies. Today I got to sit in on a focus group discussion of Millenial students in post-secondary education, and how teaching practices at the post-secondary level have changed because of them. Very interesting stuff.

Today's tea was TAZO's Zen, which is my favourite green tea and my favourite of the Starbucks teas. It's green tea blended with spearmint and lemongrass, and it makes a beautiful cup of tea, particularly when my throat is a bit sore or when I don't want the kick of black tea.

Good, Bad, etc.

Today is a sad day. I just found that my favourite university blog, Rate Your Students, is dead. There's a new one called College Misery, but the quality of the posts is severely lacking--RYS was a far superior read.

On the plus side, I found a recipe for Salted Caramel Chocolate Mousse. That might be a good project for later this afternoon...I also want to do the Molten Lava Cakes this week, but we'll see.

Today's tea was TAZO's Awake, which is a black tea. It was decent. M had a friend over last night for drinks and RockBand, and we wound up staying up until 3ish, so the black tea was a must for today. I feel much better now that I've had a cup of tea. I've got a union meeting at the school in an hour, and I will most definitely be hitting up one of the Tim Hortons once I get there.
Several hours later:



Kilt hose are done!

Clean all the things?

It's Earl Grey day today, which is another of my Stash teas. Not one of my favourites--the bergamot overpowers the black tea. Weird as it might sound, the TAZO (which is Starbucks' in-house brand) is nicer.

The knitters and I recently went out for drinks at a local pub. It was a most enjoyable evening, since about eight of us came out and there were bellinis to be had. There were also drunk people to be confused by our knitting, which is always a good time. A few people were discussing the blog Hyperbole and a Half, and I am here to tell you that I now understand everything I need to know about myself as an adult, and if you click here, you can too. I also recommend The Sneaky Hate Spiral, but I don't recommend drinking anything while you're reading it, unless you like it when liquids come out your nose.

Just in case you were wondering, I vacuumed *all* the things today.

I also bought myself a pre-wedding present: a KitchenAid stand mixer for $200. Mat wasn't quite sure why I would want to spend $200 on a stand mixer when I have a $20 hand mixer. Perhaps this is one of those things that non-bakers don't understand? I don't bake often, but it's definitely something I'd like to do more of...especially once I have a good quality tool to work with. I'm thinking that my first mixer experience might have to be some kind of Pavlova.

In the "trying new foods" category, I made a beet/carrot slaw with an Asian dressing today, and it is pretty tasty (and my hands are quite pink now). I also hit on a truly inspired idea: I have a small, stainless steel martini shaker that came as one of "gift with purchases" on a bottle of vodka a few years ago. It's cute but largely useless, since it makes about half a drink by the time you get some ice in there. It is, however, exactly the right size and shape to make my own salad dressings. Awesome.

Gnocchi and sushi and knee socks, oh my

Remember back when I was doing that thing where I was going to try to make at least one new dish every week? Well, it didn't end up working out to be quite every week, but Mat and I have done a pretty good job of trying to do new things, and today I tried something that I've wanted to make for a long time: gnocchi. The idea of gnocchi has always really appealed to me, but the ones at the grocery store are always made with potato flakes, which seems...kind of icky to me.

I made mine with Yukon Gold potatoes¹, ricotta cheese, flour, and egg yolks. I paired them with an oven-roasted tomato sauce flavoured with onions, garlic, rosemary, and bacon. All in all, it was pretty tasty, although I do wish I had a potato ricer rather than a masher.²

The second kilt ho is coming along very slowly, but I have acquired some Big Love and Damages to keep me company as I move through it. The part that I'm on right now is the most boring part--once I hit the Eye of Partridge heel it will go much faster, I think.

Mat and I celebrated our sixth anniversary with a trip to the new sushi restaurant in town, which was quite fun. It was our first visit to "Sushi Island" and it was decent. It is not the best sushi that I've ever had, but the selection was decent, as was the service, and the price is decent for what you get. I had lots of the salmon sushi, which are my favourite, and Mat tried the Yellow Dragon roll, which has mango on top. It was a really nice way to spend the evening with him. We've both changed so much in the six years we've spent together, and it was good to take some to reflect upon the past that we share as well as what we want from our future.

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¹ Which, for those of you keeping score at home, were engineered at the University of Guelph, where I did my MA.
² I also discovered that we can add cooked potato to the list of vegetables that Bad Cat will eat.

I Sing the Body Pathetic

I recently finished a cute, lace up cardigan from French Girl Knits called "Wrenna". I had to modify the pattern since I used a different yarn, but the end result is quite pleasing, and I was pretty excited to wear it today for the first time. The sweater is black, so I paired it with a pale lavender tank top, grey jeans, and grey ballet flats, and felt very pleased with myself for being so stylish. (I also only had a lavender ribbon to use for the lacing, so it worked quite well.) My hair is pretty much at the perfect length right now, and it has been behaving very nicely these last few weeks.


Then I got to work, and had two separate people ask me if I was pregnant. (If you are wondering, I am not.) I blame this squarely on the empire waist tank top: Empire waists do nothing for a shape like mine, because they fall in a way that emphasizes the widest part of my body while ignoring the parts that taper. Like my actual waist. It is a terrible look for me--I guess I thought that the inherent cuteness and good shape of the Wrenna would counteract the tank top. No such luck.


What's most surprising about this, I guess, is how upset I am as a result. I've done my fair share of feminist theory, and I know all about body politics and the like; I don't think you can be a feminist on the internet without coming in to contact with these ideas at some point or other. One of my favourite units to teach back in my high school teachin' days was the critical media studies unit on gender in the media. (Plus I'm a knitter, and there's nothing like being actively involved in making your own clothing to make you understand how totally arbitrary sizing and notions of body shape are.) I try my best to advocate accepting your body as it is, and acknowledging our cultural standards of beauty as problematic and unrealistic. I know how difficult popular culture makes navigating this world if you don't fit into these preconceived notions of what a woman's shape should be, but I guess I've always sort of thought that I was above all that.


It turns out I'm not above it at all. The pregnancy question has me obsessing over my weight. I keep wondering, Am I fat? I sneak glances at myself in the windows in the hallways at work; I examine my reflection in the mirrors in the washroom; I bemoan the lack of a full-length mirror at home where I can see my whole body.


I know I'm not fat. I know I'm not skinny, either, and I know that I really shouldn't weigh much less than what I weigh right now.* My body isn't shaped to be much smaller than it is right now: My hips are always going to be wide; I'm always going to be chesty; I am always going to be curvy. (I'm pretty sure this comes from my dad's family--the M----rs all have crazy metabolisms. Thanks a lot, Dad's genetic line!) I don't think my body is perfect (there are loads of things about it that I don't love, but that's another essay for another time) but there's certainly nothing wrong with it. So why, then, am I all in a tizzy over this idea that I look like I could be pregnant (which my mind has turned, by extention, into looking fat)?

It's just interesting to me, I guess, to come into such close contact with my own failings. I'm quite surprised that this upsets me that much, but it does. I don't know that I'd go quite so far as to call it hypocrisy on my part, but some days it really feels like the older I get, the more I discover that I keep falling short of the person I like to think that I am.

*I kept writing additional sentences to qualify this statement, about how I have winter weight and could stand to lose 5-10 lbs., but have opted to avoid saying those since I have a normal weight for my height/age and a normal BMI. Funny how even as I say that I'm happy with my body, I'm still nitpicking the details, isn't it?

come in from the cold

It has been a very interesting day around these parts. We were woken up this morning by the loud and incessant cawing of a murder of crows. There were about thirty of them in the tree on our front lawn, on the wires and the rooftops. If it weren't so cold out, I'd even go so far as to say that the darn things were having a hootenanny. What could possibly have so many birds all riled up at 6:30 in the morning? I asked myself. Then I slid my fingers through the slats in the Venetian blinds, and looked out at the yard.

This is what I saw:



The racket went on for a good hour or so until the owl took off, and all the crows just exploded behind him. It made me feel as though I was in a Hitchcock movie.

For this week's foray into new food territory, I decided to make some gyoza. The university held a food fest a few weeks ago, and I had some there that were just ridiculously good. They didn't seem as though they would be excessively difficult to make, so I snooped around to find a good recipe and wound up settling on an Anna Olson recipe. I only changed two things: first, I used lean ground pork instead of regular (it was all they had at the store), and second, I only put in about 125 grams of cabbage instead of a pound. I honestly don't know how they'd be with a full pound of cabbage in there. The little bit that I had was more than enough. It wound up making about 75 little dumplings, which are very tasty. (The other thing that I changed is that I've just been steaming them, not frying then steaming then frying.)

Not much progress to report on my Ravelympics knitting except that I've ripped out and started over again (so that I could go up a needle size). I'm pretty sure the third time's the charm, though; this gauge seems much more workable.

Knitting, Cooking, Cleaning: The Life Domestic

It has been a busy few days here; when I haven't been thinking about the politics of knitting, I've been actually knitting. (Scary.) There's also been a lot of cooking and cleaning happening over here. Friends of ours are due to welcome a baby girl into the world in a few short days, so I've been working on a wee feather-and-fan sweater for her, and Mat and I are making up some food to take over. We've realized that we've been in a rut lately, so we're trying to be proactive in making changes in our lives.

I frequently try to tell my students that life is a learning process and that university is not necessarily about learning to identify the parts of sentences, but I tend to forget that myself. Living with my partner has meant a lot of learning for me. We have very different temperaments: he will brood where I will attack; he sleeps more than I do; he is much neater than I am. One of the things that I have learned about myself since we've moved in together is that if I don't plan my week out in advance, nothing gets done properly.

This never seemed to be an issue when I lived alone, but I think that's because I only ever had to worry about myself. If left to my own devices, I will often graze rather than eat properly, which just doesn't cut it when you need to feed someone else too. It also didn't matter when I cleaned the tub or did the dishes, or if I remembered to wash the sheets or vacuum. Add another person into the mix, though, and that does start to matter.

In the spirit of breaking out of my biggest rut, which is a food rut, I've decided to make one new recipe every week. This week's adventure in fooding will be a pork tenderloin with roasted potatoes.

Far from the shores of England

Yesterday was one of the best days I've had in a very, very long time. It's Fall Fair weekend here in the village, which means it's a time of parades and tractors and cows and oddly shaped vegetables. My father's Masonic Lodge was sponsoring a child identification program, and he had asked all of the sisters to volunteer for a few hours. It wound up being a lot more interesting and fun than I had thought.

When I was a child, child identification programs usually consisted of inky fingerprints on an index card. (Since our father was a police officer, all of the sisters have amazing fingerprinting technique--we were taught how to roll them out from a young age.) Child identification has changed pretty substantially in the 20 years since I was a child. The packages we put together yesterday consisted of digitally scanned fingerprints, digital photos, a short video clip of the child answering questions, a dental impression, and a DNA swab (along with their parents' information). The Masons were all quite impressed with our computer skills. It's good to know that when they aren't keeping the electric car down, they're actually doing good in their communities.

My dad took us (sisters + cousin) out for dinner to thank us for volunteering, and we went to the Wild Wing the next town over. I had never been to a Wild Wing before, and it was fantastic. I'm a fairly unadventurous sort, so I tried the medium wings and the Desperado wings (medium + maple). Youngest sister had something a dill sauce on top, which I was quite happy to skip. The wings were so good--just at the upper edge of what I can stand to eat, heatwise, and sharp and vinegary in taste. There was also ample celery, carrots, and blue cheese dip.

Youngest sister also managed to throw a bone right into my beer glass, because she is a jerk.

We had two pitchers of beer between the five of us (except me, who was driving and had her single glass of beer destroyed by an errant chicken wing), and my dad attempted to pass on the manly skill of how to pour a beer properly. This was less successful the more everyone drank, and we wound up telling stories of SOME of the stupid things that we had done as teenagers while drinking underage. Apparently, according to my dad, we were never quite as subtle about it as we wanted to think we were.

Mum comes home from Scotland today!

Salami Bridal and Other Adventures

At times I feel like I live several very separate lives. Family, university friends, SMATH friends, seminar instructor, post-university friends...these segments seldom intersect. So when my friend Jess asked me to be in her wedding party, she was quite surprised to find out that this will be my third time down the aisle (and, by conventional wisdom like "three times a bridesmaid, never a bride", the key to eternal singledom). The wedding isn't til next August, but Jess wanted to get an early start on everything. And that's how we found ourselves on our way to Toronto visit a bridal salon that will forever be known as "Salami Bridal" in our minds and in our hearts.

The day started out well enough, but when we arrived at the bridal salon, it was in a tiny strip mall, directly above, of all things, a deli. Inside, it was small and dingy. There was only one fitting room, and we wound up having to trade off mirror time with another bride. None of this is particularly bad, really, but after we had tried on a number of bridesmaid dresses, Jess wanted to look at their bridal range, and that's when disaster struck. She had on the third dress of the day when our sales consultant came in and told Jess to get dressed: "My next appointment will be here in a few minutes and you have to go." Just like that. Since there were four bridesmaids and a bride, we'd booked a double appointment (or thought we had), and we thought we still had loads of time. As we went out the door, the sales consultant told us we could come back when we were ready to order.

Not bloody likely.

Fortunately the rest of the day was a very good time, even if I ate far too much. I was only a little hungover on the car ride home, despite not sleeping very much last night. Today has been the most gloriously lazy day for both me and the cat, who has worked out a way to lie across my lap between my stomach and the laptop, and who is currently sacked out like a ragdoll. Silly cat.

ETA: When we were at the second bridal store in Barrie, Jess was trying on the dress that she was about 75% sure she was going to get so that we could all see it. No sooner was she zipping it up than Paul McCartney and Wings's "Maybe I'm Amazed" comes on the radio, which is her and Aaron's wedding song. It's definitely a sign.