Boom

The Role of Art

Just when life seems like too much work, not enough doughnut, along comes a genius to brighten your day. Take a look at Patricia Waller's crocheted accident victims and feel better about the world. She's also got crocheted artificial limbs, lab animals gone wrong and innocent creatures being killed in various delightful ways. Thank you to Mr. Dalton, who forwarded a few images, giving me the chance of googling on "knitted accident" to find the site. How often do you get the chance to google "knitted accident"? Not. Often. Enough.

Also: the angriest pug in the world. Someone should knit him a child to maul. Or send him a ham. Or send me a ham. I would appreciate a ham at least as much as that pug, and I would share it with you, too. A little bit.

Sweetie and I had highly messy sandwiches last night at Ali Baba, a cute place on Broadway that has a lot of rugs with woven camel patterns. Some are tiny and still attached by the longitudinal threads that connect them (I'm sure there's an official weaving term, but I don't know it.)--perhaps child laborers aren't allowed scissors? He had a gyro; I had fried cauliflower, and both were pretty good. I will go back, but will be trying the spinach one and the feta cheese one before I eat more cauliflower. Mr. Cute Counter Man brought us sage tea towards the end of the meal--sweet, plus sage-y, plus free! ESL cuteness: the "house salad" is called "home salad". Maybe a real estate agent told them about how constant use of the word "home" increases the speed of sales.

A Groovy Kind of Groove

I started a new project last night--embroidering a quilt top started by my maternal grandmother's mom; she traced spiderwebs on quilt squares that alternate with squares that are embroidered with flowers. It's easier than I expected in that embroidery is remarkably easy; it's harder in that I need new glasses and using blue thread to embroider on blue fabric is a project with "new bifocals" written all over it, even if my prescription was totally up to date. Please think of that every time you're tempted to buy anything from Anthropologie or Urban Outfitters or Cost Plus (everything at those shops seems either painted with small stripes or embroidered) and hand over a donation of glasses or cash to Unite for Site.

With those random bits out of the way, what I really want to write about is the three books I've just read by John Thorne: Serious Pig, Pot on the Fire and Simple Cooking. He writes about something I've been mulling over for a couple of years, which is the idea of developing a roster of ingredients and techniques for your regular cooking that keep you interested and at ease in the kitchen. No one really likes to eat the same six dishes-plus-leftover-night roster so many of grew up with; at the same time, being constantly in search of new recipes means you spend too much money on both cookbooks and obscure ingredients--not to mention that the real result is eating out often, because who actually has the interest in cooking an entirely unfamiliar dish at the end of a day?

Thorne urges you to get away from the platonic ideal of a vegetable (being willing to snip off the ends of an elderly vegetable or cut around a bruise on an apple) and eat economic basics like oatmeal, lentils, rice and beans while at the same time going to rather extensive effort where he finds effort is truly due like making your own sausages and sending away to some obscure company for starter to make your own buttermilk. At root, I think much of his idea is based on bringing cooking back around to what it was 150 years ago, when almost everyone kept a pig and some chickens, had an apple tree and a small garden, and knew that good ingredients didn't have to always be perfectly fresh and lightly cooked to have some delicious results. (and no, he doesn't keep a pig and chickens; he does his modern best to buy from a nearby farmer who does those things for him, falling back on mail order when he feels it necessary).

Other than his funny and intelligent writing, it's the "when he feels it necessary" part of these I like the most. He leaves plenty of room--actually, he urges you--to develop your own opinions. (So many food writers have that Thou Shalt attitude implicit in their work.) His recipes are interesting, too--and there's lots of them--because they work fine (and he sometimes gives a fat pile of options, like his nine recipes for cheesecake and six for cocoa and/or hot chocoate) but also because it's easy to see where you might change them a bit based on what you like and have on hand (Vietnamese sweet chili sauce and goat cheese, in my own case at the moment). He also has some nice cookbook reviews and a website with a newsletter and another book available (Home Body; I can't wait to read it). Mr.Thorne is my new hero; three cheers for Mr. Thorne.

Boom in the Hat

I'm horrendously proud of a rather minor accomplishment: my first successful knitted hat. It's also my first finished cable; they're easier than expected, after those first panicky rows where it seems like you're purposely creating a huge snarl of yarn for no purpose. My hat, happily, looks remarkably like the one in that photo above, except it's sort of a neutral tan color with little flecks of gray and darker brown. The first hat I ever tried--one that involved me making up the pattern as I went along--resembles nothing so much as a giant vintage swim cap, or some kind of alien mushroom cap. Three cheers for a hat! Hurrah, hat!

The next knitty project lined up is a sweater that seems popular with the knitter/blogger crowd: it can be viewed here, here and here if you care. It'll be dull to knit, but that's kind of good because it means that I can read and/or take it to Bad TV Night or chat with people while knitting it; the cable of the Successful Hat had to be ripped and redone a few times because I apparently can't talk and count at the same time. (Some of you might suggest I can't count whether I'm talking or not. I have no hard evidence to present that would prove you wrong.)

I'm also going to start on a long-overdue embroidery project, for which I will have to supply photos at some point: I have an antique quilt top begun by the Boom Great-Grandmother, who either died or gave up before it was finished. She alternated wedgewood blue and white squares; each white one is embroidered with a different flower. The blue ones have a stenciled spiderweb pattern drawn on, which I'm going to embroider with a blue just a bit lighter than the fabric. It's a big-ass quilt top--generously covering a queen-size bed--and the squares are about 15". If I could be bothered to do the math properly, I could give you a quick estimate of the number of squares, but--see above counting statements--I can't be bothered. So let's just call it "one buttload" and be done with it. When it's done, it'll match some lovely spiderweb lace she made that edges some pillowcases I have. My great-grandmother was a total goth, apparently. Or maybe just really dug spiders? A google search about entymology dug up a specialty I've never heard of: forensic entomology. Please note the "presence of flies around the genital area" for today's bit of shuddering horror.

Catheter Cozies

If you don't love Katamari, you won't care about these fabulous toys, but you might want to go look at the cuteness anyway.

And speaking of cuteness, you know about Cute Overload by now, right? Perfect antidote to 25 days of rain. While searching online for the big-headed panda featured at cute overload, I discovered this fellow, whom I mainly like because of the "removable hamster pilot". If you ever find yourself behaving in a manner that you aren't happy with, just remove your hamster pilot and you'll be all fixed up

From cuteness to food science: About once a month,  someone asks me what cream of tartar is. I'm not sure if writing about it will relieve me of having to answer this in the future, but I'm willing if you are. Cream of tartar used to be used as a leavener for baked goods, before there was double-acting baking powder. Its offical chemical name is potassium tartrate and it's a naturally-occuring product from wine making. You can make your own double-acting baking powder by combining cream of tartar (an acid) with baking soda (an alkali) in equal amounts, although it's not particularly exciting. Today, it's found most commonly as something to add when you're beating egg whites into a meringue. What I've found over the years is that what mostly matters with egg whites is if the eggs are fresh, from hens that eat a natural omnivorous diet, and are at room temperature before you start beating them. If you're looking for it in Seattle, just check the bulk spice section at any QFC--it's available, and it's cheap. When I've used it, I find that it tends to cake up more than modern baking powder or soda, so sifting it, or at least removing the lumps with a fork, is necessary before stirring it into your eggs or batter.

Now for a personal tale of cream of tartar and a catheter: After my first back surgery in 1995, my body had trouble learning how to pee on its own, which resulted in repeated removals and reinsertions of a catheter (when one's bladder is about to burst, it's surprising how little discomfort one feels about a catheter insertion). Finally--after about 18 hours of this nonsense--my favorite nurse brought me something called "Queen's Mix", which was something she learned from an older nurse when she worked the obstetric floor (lots of catheters around there, apparently). Queen's Mix is a glass of lemonade with a teaspoon of cream of tartar stirred into it--it makes it very tart and fizzy and for whatever mental/physiological reason, it works nicely to get bladders functioning properly. I was able to go home, finally, and get away from an insane situation at the hospital, involving an old diabetic (and horribly constipated) roommate, a nurse who referred to her as "an animal" and a number of old church friends who stashed candy around the diabetic's bed and told her to not tell the nurses. Hurrah for cream of tartar, and hurrah for odd old remedy things that work when modern medicine is moronic.

And to wrap up today's topics in one fuzzy little tassled package, please do go witness the knitted catheter bag cozy.

The Horror

Happy note: Honey Crisp apple season is here! We missed the Broadway Farmer's Market this weekend, but I found them at QF(uckin)C. Pick them over; they bruise easily, as the web link notes. But oh so tasty. I was planning on eating one right about now but must wait to feel less repulsed from the dental pictures.

I am starting a new reading experiment. Instead of reading one book after another in an endless stream, I am breaking it up. Now I have a Bedtime Book and a Daytime Book. This helps when I'm reading a whole book that I'm enjoying but is also work related (such as the current "Nell Kimball: Her Life As An American Madam", which is a possibly faked autobiography), because I don't have to worry about taking notes while trying to go to sleep. And it lets me choose a book of short stories or essays (or at least a book with reasonable chapter breaks) for the bedside table (currently Stories of the Night: An Insomniac Reader) which is very nice but not at all insomnia inspiring.

I have been on a pillow making spree of late. Four of them went to live at Coach's house. Two of them are living here. When will it end? Sweetie fears the answer is NEVER.  He may be right. It starts with covering the sofa with pillows, and poof, next thing you know, you can't fit in the front door because the whole place is awash in the damn things. At least they're not showing up in dumb little shapes, or trimmed with lace, or whatever. Yet. If they start inbreeding, who can tell what design mishaps might happen? (hmmm...the Purtymouth Pillow Company has a nice ring to it...)

Ho Union

I really hope the hookers get their union, if only because I want them all to wear shirts that say, "The people who gave you the weekend". It makes me cranky that it's listed under "odd" news: I'd like to think that new unions are what made it odd, but no. No, it's that 400,000 poor women with no job skills but their parts could possibly be protected instead of further exploited. Now that's kooky. Or wait, maybe it's that the union secretary guy's middle name is Maria.

And because it came up today and was surprising to the person I was lecturing, in the 1920s, "kissing" was frequently, obviously not always, a polite euphemism for doing the sex. Being engaged was, like it always is, seen as a pretty good reason to go right ahead and "kiss"; estimates based on birth records (both urban and otherwise) is that 1 in just under 10 weddings during the last half of the decade involved a wee bun in a flapper's oven. And my favorite bit of silly 20s slang: "the bank's closed". That meant "no kissing". Or no "kissing". Or perhaps even "no" kissing.

Since typing the word flapper reminded me of it, here's a link to an old story about an oil spill. The only reason to go look at it is the photo: a fairy penguin in a turtleneck. 

Droop

I feel like I'm having some kind of delayed seasonal affective week. An entire pony parade could prance into my living room and I'd just roll over on the couch and put a pillow over my head. Go away, stupid ponies.

Actually, I decided last week I should start betting the ponies again, as since starting the reality tv betting pools, I've won 4 outta 5. Thank you, superhero Tom Westman, for winning me $40 while you won yourself a million (pre-tax). (wait, do I now have to report $160 of "gambling winnings" on next year's taxes? If Sweetie loses $160 in Vegas, it'll all be OK, right?) So maybe I should open a sports book, quick like, before the pony parade arrives. Which pony will be voted off first? A strange thing about this one was being right about the inability for the few remaining girls to get it together and boot the even-fewer remaining boys. It's not strange that I was right; it's strange about being right about something that I wish was different, but then if it was different, I would be out money (and Superhero Tom would be out even more).

Pug fest was as hallucinatory as it always is; Paul has a pile of photos and a video clip of the Paddling Pug; feel free to bug him about it. We were introduced to two pugs, one named China and the other named Carol. Yes. A pug named Carol. Once again, I didn't steal a puppy. Once again, there was a small contingent of goth pug owners. The owners were goth, rather than the pugs. I understand your confusion.

After pugging, and before watching the amazing Mayor of Sunset Strip, I finished my first knitted bunny. I forgot to sew on a face before I stitched up the back of his head, poor fellow. Still, he's adorable and I am All Proud. Back to the movie for a sec: the soundtrack is AlternaJill's Soundtrack of Her Youth (X, Ramones, T Rex, Bowie, Blondie, Smiths, Sex Pistols) and there is a crazy man in it who has the best spaceman suit ever. Seriously. Paul. Not only does he have the best spaceman suit ever, he sings a song about/for Jennifer Love Hewitt. [ok, plus it has Davey Jones from the Monkees; Mr. Mayor was his stand-in. I had such a crush on the Littlest Monkee...]

Sweetie and I begin our SIFF rounds this Friday, with Lipstick and Dynamite. Three of the women highlighted are two rockin' old ladies (still wrestling at that please-don't-break-a-hip stage of life) who now live together with their midget sidekick. Of course, that sounds like"what if Thelma and Louise hadn't driven off a cliff, but had gone on the lam and ended up managing a midget circus?" Which I would probably pay to go see, actually. If Hollywood is paying attention.

Critters

The first critter of the day is everyone's favorite: Gimpy the Downer Cow. Coming soon to a hamburger near you.

The second critter of the day is Rosie, the Laotian Rock Rat. It's like some kind of big-headed prehistoric weasel. Hopefully not coming soon to a hamburger near you.

The third (and scariest) critter of the day is Timmy, the Humiliated Baby Chicken. Who's chipping in to buy one of these suits for the soon-to-be newest member of the Dalton clan? I'm sure I can get some of the Knit Chicks to help out on additional suits for all family members.

Why Lil' Billy is the mascot I do not know, but please do throw an unopened can at your postal delivery person tomorrow. Seriously: Throw it. Hard. And say, "and that's for Lil' Billy" as it whacks them in the head. If you throw like a girl, just leave it by your mailbox. We all have at least one unopened can of something-or-other, don't we?

The Death Pie (formerly known as Copyright Violation Pie) has left the building. Never have I made a dessert that caused such damage to so many people. The happy/frightened/chittery/comatose reactions have gotten me obsessed with further heavy prep/no-bake dessert--it's sort of like the raw-food diet, only really bad for you! (although that makes it sound like I think the raw-food thing is actually healthy, which I don't) At any rate, I now require this book. I am also going to do a specific search through Mr. Hughes' Family Recipe Box (Ant Poison: Very Poisonous) to see what Fleda has to offer in the way of iceboxy treats. I think of them as the kind of thing that grammy clipped a recipe for from the Borden can umpteen years ago, wrote down on an index card, and now everything thinks of it as "her" pie, when really it's everyone's grammy's pie.

Pudding Cup

I've been threatening the ones I love with a suet pudding for a long time now. Just moments ago I found a recipe that said loved ones might even be convinced to taste: bacon pudding. There are actually multiple versions; this bacon roll-up style sounds best to me. Perhaps with a side of bashed neeps? Looks like an incomprehensible typo, doesn't it? But no: bashed. neeps.

I finished knitting my first bunny last night (while watching Uber Goober), and it's completely retardo. I promise not to drink while knitting this next bunny, so it won't have bunny alcohol syndrome. I've started calling it FLB, for 'funny-looking bunny', as years ago a nurse told me that FLK (funny-looking kid) is actually an official medical comment that means it's possible/probable that a child has some form of accompanying health or intellectual problems, but it's not yet clear how the problems may present. Poor wee bunny.

I have two things to say about Uber Goober. First, oh my yes, the girls who play D and D do indeed "get all freaky and cast spells on your ass and shit". Second, go ahead and skip all of it except the part where the girl who can't stop fiddling with her corset metagames rock/paper/scissors--"I was all, he's not a gamer, he's going to throw scissors, I better get rock ready".

Where does a blog entry go after that? To bed. Adieu.