March 11, 2010

Taking It Easy

You know what they say: when life gets busy, knit. Well, maybe that’s just what I say. I seem to be going through a phase of unusual busy-ness. Normally, I avoid making too many plans in advance and going out every night of the week. Life’s best moments tend to be the unexpected, seemingly trivial ones that sneak upon you unexpectedly. If you don’t give yourself any down time, you might miss them. That being said, sometimes too many fun going-out opportunities arise, and that’s when I turn to knitting to keep me grounded amidst it all. When I’m on-the-go, it’s hard to fit in a lot of sewing, whether by machine or hand, and knitting has the advantage of being easily portable—and less antisocial.

When my parents told me I could make a birthday purchase, I considered doing some clothing shopping but soon decided that what I really wanted was yarn. So I headed to my favorite yarn store of all time, Wild and Woolly, about 95% sure that I would walk away with more Cascade. To my surprise and delight, I fell in love with Beroco’s Virgin Wool. It’s soft, light, and lovely. I bought about a few skeins in different colors, and wound them up:

 

 (Aren’t yarn winders beautiful?) And for the past couple of weeks, in all my in-between moments, I’ve been knitting a patchwork cardigan. So far, I’ve completed the back and the left front (not pictured).

 

I feel like my color and design choices really requires no explaining since they’re my quintessential aesthetic: bold hues, a somewhat random assortment of multi-colored squares, patchwork…no big surprises there. Intarsia work does require some patience, but thankfully this Virgin Wool is glorious, like knitting with butter—it just slides along the needles. I opted to use size 8s since I’m a tight knitter and larger needles keep the stitches looser and softer, giving this cardigan a lightness that will be perfect for cool Spring and Summer evenings. Next weekend I’m taking the bus to New York, and Easter weekend the family is driving to Princeton to visit my brother; long commutes are the best knitting time so this cardigan might not take me all that long to complete.

The other thing that keeps me grounded during busier times is the occasional wonderful evening at home. Yesterday afternoon I took my bike into the shop for a tune up so I didn’t have time to cook up anything too complicated, but I felt like having a bit of fun in the kitchen. Fortunately, I recently stumbled upon this recipe for egg muffins and decided to give it a go.

I am very fortunate to have a bountiful (and free!) supply of glorious fresh eggs from my mother’s chickens, so any dish involving eggs immediately catches my eye. These little muffins are brilliant because they’re incredibly simple, nutritious, and as I discovered last night, they’re delicious:

 

I beat together 5 small eggs, added some steamed and chopped broccoli, shredded gruyere cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and salt. No measuring required; I just eyeball the proportions that looked right—but a good rule of thumb that I learned from my mom is to add one pinch of salt per egg. I baked them in muffin tins at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. They turned out pretty small, so I ended up eating all four—guess I’ll just have to make more!

I also roasted up some Jerusalem artichokes as a side. These are one of my favorite vegetables (they’re actually a species of sunflower) so I was thrilled when Kyle and I stumbled upon them in the grocery store the other day–their season is definitely coming to an end. The good news is that Kyle doesn’t like them which means more for me. The bad news is, well, Jerusalem artichokes are known for their gas-inducing properties, so I try to keep my serving sizes small. I like to roast them for quite a while, anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour depending on the amount, so they are very soft on the inside but still crisp and slightly chewy on the outside.

After such a virtuous and nutritious dinner—basically, pure protein and vegetables—I decided to treat myself to a rather decadent dessert:

 

That’s the remaining bit of the birthday cake that my mom made for me this weekend: a chocolate cappuccino cheesecake. On the side: chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. What can I say? Sometimes a girl needs… chocolate. (Incidentally, it seems very appropriate that even since I’ve moved out of the house, my mother still manages to keep me well-fed from a distance.)

I’m also very pleased to report that I’ve had two nights in a row during which I got a glorious 8+ hours of sleep—it certainly helps that the beautiful Spring-like weather means afternoon runs in the sunshine and sleeping in. Thank goodness, because tonight Kyle and I are attending the opening of club Royale downtown, so some less-than-virtuous shenanigans may be in order.

A part of me wonders, why have a club opening on a Thursday night? The other more convincing part of me thinks: why not? Of course I can’t say no. As long as I get my share of egg muffin and knitting evenings, I can afford a few crazy nights here and there.

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March 8, 2010

From Head to Toe

Does it get much better than freshly baked bread and homemade soup on a Sunday night? I think not. Especially after a couple weeks that have been full of eating out, cozying up inside for a nice simple meal is so gratifying. Simple… but not dull. You see, I went to Craigie on Maine this week which is one of several restaurants that has picked up on the whole hog trend. (Warning: if you’re a hardcore vegetarian, stop reading. This blog post is not for you.) My entrée? A pig’s head:

 

 This might look a little jarring at first, but it’s exquisite. The skin is crispy and the meat underneath is soft, succulent, and fatty. As our waitress pointed out, the bits behind the eye socket are particularly good—but you really have to poke around to get at them. It’s an actually an entrée for two (I shared this with my mom) and even then, there’s a surprising amount of meat, so I thankfully took the remainder home and turned it into split pea soup.

My mother’s split pea soup has always been one of my favorite winter meals, and since winter is coming to a close (hooray!), I’m glad I got the chance to make my own while it’s still somewhat seasonally appropriate. As I’ve said before, I love a nice thick soup and I’d always assumed that my mother’s  stew-like split pea soup had to have some kind of mysterious, thickening ingredient. It turns out, the secret ingredient to split pea soup is…lots of split peas. It really couldn’t be simpler. I glanced at a couple recipes online, and winged it. Two small diced onions, a bag of split peas, and the head:

 

Cooked in water for a couple of hours until the peas had softened, and voila—no immersion blender required. Most of the meat fell off on its own, but I took out the head and pulled off the remaining bits myself. I also made a wheat-nut anise bread from the Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book:

 

Mmm, what a perfect Sunday dinner. Kyle and I followed it up with ice cream sundaes from JP Licks (sundaes on Sunday, we’re so original), but I was too busy enjoying thin mint and cappuccino crunch ice cream to take a picture. (Bad blogger confession: I find excessive picture taking to be obnoxious—too much recording interferes with actual living. So though I do my best to capture the important stuff, I slip every so often.)

On the other end of the bodily spectrum, my recuperated Vegas feet were happy to have a new pair of socks:

 

I’m quite pleased with how these scrappy socks turned out. Limited means really are the best stimulus for creativity. I like the balance between pattern and spontaneity and, of course, I love having a nice cozy pair of socks to lounge around in on a Sunday evening:

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March 2, 2010

My Vegas Feet

Everyone knows that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and after a few days there, I’ve concluded that one of the main reasons is that it’s just hard to put the Vegas experience into words. That’s is one crazy, fast-paced, weird, and exciting city. In order to respect this creed, I’ll give just a few glimpses of my trip for a somewhat unusual but revealing perspective: my feet.

First of all, to my surprise and delight, Vegas involves a lot of walking. Taking a cab along the strip really isn’t worth it unless it’s pouring rain since traffic is slow—and it’s much more fun to walk amongst the crowds anyway. So my feet did a whole lot of strolling. Thankfully, I had an old broken-in pair of flats (shown standing on the sea glass sidewalk outside of Treasure Island):

Naturally, Vegas also involves one amazing night life. So next up is my going out feet, which were bedecked in several pairs of gorgeous shoes that my mom bought me before my departure:

All the casinos start to blend together so I can’t remember exactly where these were taken—The Wynn, Caesar’s, The Venetian, MGM (my favorite)…we did it all. Vegas doesn’t have much in the way of textiles, but the casino carpets are beautiful, no? My going out feet did more than I can recount: they danced, they drank, they saw shows, and they mostly  did things I don’t have pictures of—they even gambled. Yes, it turns out I enjoy Black Jack. This is probably because I had miraculously good luck and never walked away from a table without winning—I think I have the double yokes to thank for that. I realize gambling doesn’t always turn out so nicely.

My going out feet also dined. Oh man did they dine. I don’t think I’ve been to a city with so many amazing restaurants. I can’t possibly recount all the exquisite food, but there are highlights. First of all: the meat. So much good meat. To start, Osso Bucco at Fiamma:

Then duck and seared foie gras at Joel Robuchon:

And wagyu, oh wagyu (domestic and Japanese), at Craftsteak:

There are no words. It was glorious, succulent, melt-in-your mouth good—and hey, it was Kyle’s birthday on Sunday so we felt justified in going a little overboard…all weekend long…

There was also lots and lots of good bread, which certainly inspired the bread baking side of me. Craftsteak starts you out with these miraculous little buttery balls of heaven:

But the true yeasty highlight was the bread cart at Robuchon. This is the kind of place where subtle picture-taking is best so I didn’t snap a shot of the entire cart and all its glory, but I’m estimating 20 different kinds of bread, of which we enjoyed roughly 10 (obviously, not all pictured):

Included in the mix: saffron foccaccio, bacon baguette, gruyere brioche, and milk bread. Saffron-infused bread? Now that’s something I have to try.

We also had lunch at ‘wichcraft (gotta love Tom Colicchio), where I had a ham, cheese, apple, andcaramelized onion sandwich on beautiful marbled pumpernickel, another one that I’m going to have to try making on my own:

Yes, they know how to eat in Vegas. So it’s fortunate that it’s also a really fun city for running. This was perhaps the biggest shock of all—I wasn’t expecting my attempts at maintaining physical fitness to be a highlight of the trip, but I was wrong. I quite enjoyed my running feet mode:

That’s right, those are bare legs. Compared to Boston, Vegas is balmy (in reality, about 65 degrees), so I could actually run with the fresh (well, relatively) air against my skin. But running along the Vegas strip is also wonderful because it is seriously entertaining. You’re so distracted by your surroundings, six plus miles have flown by before you know it—where else can you run through Paris, New York, Venice, and Rome within an hour? Bizarre, but fun. The skywalks also spice things up—let’s just say, sprinting up stairs works a whole other set of muscles. And fyi, if you think running up the down escalators probably isn’t that hard, as I mistakenly concluded when I saw a very muscular young man do it with seemingly no effort, you’re wrong. That’s some hardcore cardio right there. Given these runs, I felt pretty justified in my overindulgences.

But overindulgences also require the occasional recalibration, so I kept up with my daily headstands. Hence my upside down feet:

I’ve barely scraped the surface of the past few days, but let’s just say Vegas agreed with me more than I thought it would. Don’t get me wrong: I won’t be moving there any time soon, and the overall ethos of the place is hardly one that I admire. But, if you take this city for what it is—over-the-top and wild, with no pretense of having a refined culture or respectable moral values—it’s fun.

Fun…and exhausting. By the end of a few days, my Vegas feet were blistered, sore, and wacked. So much so that I bought a $5 pair of flip flops to wear on the journey home so my poor toes could breath:

I was quite happy to get on the plane and back to my crafting ways. On the flight there, I finished my first scrappy sock, and by the end of my return flights, I was a bit more than mid-way through the second (I probably would have finished it if I haven’t been so desperate to sleep):

Pardon the mediocre shot, but you’re not really supposed to take pictures on planes so I had to be quick. This is a happy, resting, warm foot—on its way home!

And here’s a better shot of the socks.

They’re my own pattern which means very simple: basically, a tube with an afterthought heel. A bit of a pattern has emerged amongst the stripes and cubes, but the color placements follow no rhyme or reason–and they certainly don’t match.

Finally, I should probably mention that today is my birthday: I’m a ripe 23 years old. Actually, writing that makes me feel really young and very grateful, as if I can’t believe all that I’ve done in a rather short amount of time. I guess that’s a good thing, right? Who knows where my feet will take me next.

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February 25, 2010

A Good Student and Bad Behavior

A lot of my sewing and other crafting endeavors are improvisational and self-taught. This fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants approach certainly has its benefits. I would hate to create nothing but step-by-step projects that leave little or no room for your own interpretation; conjuring up your own ideas is empowering. On the other hand, I’ve also been developing a greater appreciation for the rules; that is, the procedures and know-hows that ensure a successful outcome. I’ve learned that doing some by-the-book projects every now and then is good for my technique, and need not stifle my personal creativity.

So this weekend, in addition to finishing my gigantic Mexican napkin pillow, I made a dress using the formal pattern cutting, measuring, and proper sewing procedures that one should. One of the many benefits of working at a quilting magazine is being sent free copies of books like this one:

 

Without getting too far into product-review territory, I’ll just say that this book is awesome and full of very doable, very adorable dress patterns that are based on just a few basic designs. For instance, “Rock the Boatneck”:

 

Do you recognize the fabrics by any chance? They’re from the stash that my mom gave me after cleaning out our basement a few weeks ago. The combination of four different fabrics is Wendy’s idea, but of course I couldn’t stick with plain old solids.

Basically, I woke up this past Sunday morning with the urge for a little machine sewing and a break from the hand-stitched applique that I’ve been so focused on. I then remembered that my house guest rarely wakes up before noon (actually, she woke up at 1 pm when her alarm went off) so I used the time to cut out the necessary pattern pieces. Later that evening, it took me about 2 hours to sew it all together, hem the seams, etc. I realize the fabric looks a tad wrinkly even though I’ve ironed it to death so some steaming might be in order. It also looks shapeless, but I promise it’s very cute when it’s on. It’s quite short, which complements the looser fit; fun, but not overly scandalous ;) There isn’t a dress in this book that I’m not dying to make so you can expect to see many more frocks in my future.

On Tuesday night, I tried out something a little different: fabric-based, of course, but no sewing required. It recently came to my attention that Lexington Community Education offers random winter classes in a variety of fields, including Fine and Fabric Arts. A couple of months ago I signed up for French memo boards. The class took place in my old high school (weird!) and included myself, the instructor, and two other women. Small classes are the best since there’s no jockeying for the teacher’s attention. It was informal, fun, and oh-so-gratifying. After an hour and a half, I had created this:

 

I’ll just cut to the chase and say that I’m completely hooked and my mind is already swarming with ideas for more memo boards. I mean, they’re a very practical room accessory, good for keeping track of all the little fliers and postcards that accumulate along the way:

 

But they’re also beautiful and not overly time-consuming. I have a new crafting love and have already informed my family and friends that they will be receiving memo boards whether they like it or not (fortunately, they mostly seem to like it).

It’s a good thing I’ve been getting my fabric fix these days because tomorrow morning Kyle and I leave for Las Vegas (we have a 6 am flight—early even for me) where I doubt I’ll be doing much sewing (I have my knitting, don’t worry). This is fine: I’m in for a different sort of trip. I feel like if you’re going to go to Vegas, you might as well go all out, and in preparation for the potential madness, I’ve been taking it easy this week with plenty of sleep and simple meals made out of whatever needs to be used up in the fridge. It’s been quite a while since I’ve really grocery shopped and am at the point where there isn’t too much left to work with so I’ve been eating lots of  cheese sandwiches for lunch. This isn’t as sad as it sounds: lots of gooey, melted cheese can be just as satisfying as any combination of multiple fancy ingredients. Dinners have been a hodgepodge of random foods but fortunately, my mom recently restocked my collection of fresh chicken eggs which are my new favorite dinner ingredient.

There is nothing like fresh eggs. Once you’ve had them, it’s hard to go back. Their yokes really are yellow, and they really are loaded with flavor; store-bought eggs are pale and bland in comparison. The other wonderful thing about fresh eggs is the frequent appearance of double yokes:

 

The first time I got one of these, I was so excited that I took a picture on my phone and sent it to my mom. I’ve had several by now, but I still texted her last night as soon as I saw two happy yellow yokes floating in my skillet. It just never gets old. A quick Google search turns up no real consensus on what a double yoke actually means—everything from good luck to the likelihood of giving birth to evil twins. All I know is it gives me an inexplicably good feeling. Double yokes makes me feel blessed—and even if I’m wrong about the good luck, at least I’m getting the double the nutrients in one go.

One of my favorite ways to have eggs is over easy on top of…pretty much anything: stir-fried veggies and rice, polenta, pasta—but last night, I decided to try something a little different. I broke into a long-forgotten carton of oats and made myself some savory oatmeal:

 

Yes, it looks like regular oatmeal, but it’s made with chicken broth, lots of cheese, and a bit of salt. My morning oatmeal of choice is loaded with milk, cinnamon and brown sugar—but this was equally delicious in a different way, and served as a lovely base for my eggs. That, plus a roasted acorn squash (which I planned on eating half of, but just couldn’t resist), and some green veggies for good measure, made for a satisfying and saintly dinner:

 

Being good can be such fun, but so is a healthy dose of bad behavior…Vegas, here I come.

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