Purple Betsy Rain

really got a hold on me

2010-01-04T19:41:00.003-05:00

so i've been home for over a month, and it's pretty amazing. this is the nice view of my dining room table.
it's been a crazy whirlwind of school, work, and christmas, with a few days of break in between, but now it's a new year and it's back to business! i did some pretty successful holiday knit giving, and also may or may not have acquired A SPINNING WHEEL from Best Boyfriend Ever. i also got to visit with much missed friends and family, and spend a few days snowed in.
obviously, since today i went back to school and i have a buttload of homework, it's a very good idea to spend an hour and a half making a beautiful vegan sweet potato casserole. it's from the new moosewood cookbook that i got for christmas. potholders a gift of my wonderful friend molly.

YUM. it's so great to be back!

i have a problem

2009-11-19T05:38:00.003-05:00

the other one has already been cast on. lucky for it, i have a 7 hour plane ride ahead of me tomorrow, which i might walk off of with a new pair of socks...

ALSO. TOMORROW. IS FRIDAY. !!!

sockvember?

2009-11-18T06:15:00.004-05:00

last month i was inspired by socktoberfest to revive the knitting of the eunice socks. i was really caught up doing lots of christmas knitting though, and i didn't work on them much until most of that was out of the way. (do not let me fool you- i am not finished with christmas knitting! maybe my subconscious decided was getting a little too comfy with how much progress i made, tempting me to stray from the path to... selfish non-holiday knitting!) whatever happened, i'm hooked on socks. i immediately cast on for another pair after finishing eunice, ignoring the fact that i didn't have anywhere in my possession a skein of sock yarn. the result is what i'm calling Crazy Sock, which is made from sock yarn leftovers from other projects:

i am not sure if i am going to have enough yarn for two socks!!! my plan is to switch the gray and purple on the second sock, because it looks like i might have more purple going into that sock. thanks to our awesome lighting, the colors look a bit more violent in the picture than they are in real life- i weirdly really like them together. the yarns are, respectively, madelinetosh sock in morning dove, socks that rock medium weight in backstabber, and aruacania itata solid (?) in an unknown purpley colorway because i lost the tag. i love all of these yarns!

first pair of socks!

2009-11-17T13:42:00.004-05:00

i've been knitting "Eunice" by Cookie A. they have a beautiful cable pattern.

please ignore the crappiness of these pictures- the lighting in my apartment is terrible!

that is all!

feeling hopeful

2009-11-17T07:40:00.003-05:00

This post is mainly for the knitters who read this:
Juniper Moon Farm, previously known as Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm, is giving away a weekend at their shepherding camp! they post giveaways all the time, and i don't normally enter them, but shepherding camp sounds like the coolest thing ever! so you should go and enter too! and learn about sheep and goats! here's the link:
http://www.fiberfarm.com/2009/11/shepherding-camp-giveaway-2#comments
also, it is close to december 15, and i'm sure everyone is buried under holiday knitting (i've knit almost everything already, and i still feel buried!) but consider checking out the red scarf project. my good pal chelsea creature does some amazing work with kids who are about to age out of the foster care system, and i think this project is such a cool way to show these kids that there are people out there who believe in them! i think i'll probably only be able to make one scarf by this year's deadline, but i'll have an early start on making some for next year!
http://nownormaknits2.typepad.com/red_scarf_project_2008/
also- i finished the socks! they are amazing. i will post pictures soon, i've just got to run to class!

ps. did i mention i'm coming home on friday?

what i've been doing

2009-11-11T07:01:00.005-05:00

last night for restaurant night i made some bread. it looked for a while like it might be a disaster, what with strange ingredients, strange measurements, strange temperature, and wrong equipment, but there was a lot of improvisation and it ended up being just fine! i may or may not have accidentally put 80 grams of yeast in the preferment when i should've put 8, and that yeast may or may not have been osmotolerant, and i may or may not have tried to force the 4+ hour process of baguette fermentation into a 2 hour time block... but it still ended up being great! maybe not quite as crusty as baguettes at home, but i think that has more to do with the steam injection ovens we have there.

i would have rotated the pictures, but technology thwarts me.

i've been doing lots of knitting, but i can't put pictures of most of it up yet, so i'll just show you THE SOCKS that i have been slogging away at for about 6 months. we will ignore the fact that i have knit only one complete sock ever, and continue bravely with the hope that someday i will wear many pairs of knit socks.

you may notice that one sock has progressed much more than the other, and it even has a heel, even though both socks are on the same needle. if you think this situation is confusing, that's because it is. the technology of heel turning on magic loop was too much for me to grasp the other day as i sat knitting these on top of a dryer in the laundry room, and i didn't have any other resources available in the laundry room to help me with my conundrum. so i took one sock off the needle and turned the heel, put it back on, and now i'm working the other heel. we will not go into the many problems these socks have, because the pretty yarn totally covers these things up.
i'm coming home in 8 days YAY! i'll try to hold back from giving you all your christmas presents immediately upon arrival. i hope everyone's having a great november!

goosed

2009-11-05T14:13:00.005-05:00

is a silly phrase that my irish pastry instructor says. then i googled "goose" and found this:

this morning i did some successful colorwork knitting, which i'm really excited about. it occasionally looks like an optical illusion, but i think this is something that the recipient will enjoy about it. i also had fun making some sugar in the pastry lab- getting some good practice for the sugar class i'll be taking next tri!
other awesome things are:
- the yankees won the world series!
-apples
-watching bad movies in pajamas while eating cereal out of the box
-phone calls from great friends!

speaking of phone calls, today i got a call from a woman who asked if julia o'brien was there. julia o'brien was my irish great grandmother. probably just a coincidence, but still!
a not so awesome thing is that my boy is sick. if you are in providence, send him some healing vibes! or bagels.
here is a random picture of the mango passionfruit pavlova from the hotel. on it you can see some of the infamous mango slices and the infamous passionfruit coulis.

be a man

2009-11-04T07:11:00.004-05:00

i recently watched mulan with my room mate, which is a great movie. it inspired me to conquer a certain smoke detector that had been lurking noisily in my kitchen and put it out of its misery. it is now disembowled on my kitchen table, swift as the coursing river, with all the strength of the great typhoon. mysterious as the dark side of the moon, obv.
(in connection with emmanuel's latest post, we will not go into all the gender stereotyping done by disney movies. that could be several other posts altogether.)
yesterday we served dinner at this sort of mock-restaurant that the school opens on tuesday nights, and i did the pastry side, which was fun. i got to make some spun sugar, which is always an adventure, and spin some sorbet from valencia oranges that i squeezed by hand! this sorbet miraculously set in time for service, thanks to our blast chiller.
in knitting related news, christmas knitting continues to progress! it has come to my attention that many of the gift recipients are reading this now, so i hope that nothing has been spoiled for anyone, and if it has, sorry! you'll still be getting it anyway. i've also been working on and off on this same pair of socks since JUNE. does anyone have any experience trying to turn a heel for top down socks on the magic loop? i ended up getting frustrated and taking each sock off and doing the heels one at a time.
i also want to say a big thank you to everyone sending the hugs! now i'm just a walking pile of hugs, which obviously makes it impossible to have a bad day! you guys are so wonderful.

here is a random picture of a castle in south county galway:

it looks out onto this little inlet:

(you can click on any of the pictures to make them bigger!)

the past month in pictures

2009-11-03T06:36:00.014-05:00

these are going to be out of order, because there are some things i just can't figure out about technology.

this is my favorite picture of paris.

this is a really fancy building in dublin, by the bus station. it has unicorns on top. behind it, you can see dublin's first and basically only skyscraper, which was built in the 1960s and is 16 stories tall.

this is a gloomy picture from st. stephen's green. it was raining while we were there, but still beautiful.

this is a walk in st. stephen's green. it kind of reminded me of central park.

one of the quays down by the spanish arch in galway.

i found an alley filled with graffiti near the quay.

filling sorbet glasses with strawberry and pimm's sorbet on my last day at work!

the lounge at the hotel on a sunny day.

from the entryway to the british museum in london!

the cliffs of moher!

super creepy castle i went to on Halloween. it was built in 1184, and the same family lived in it for 900 years! the last member just died and donated it to the Irish government. the inside kind of reminded me of pan's labyrinth.

so those are some sights i've been seeing while slacking on posting! happy november everyone!

awesome things

2009-11-02T16:03:00.002-05:00

you know when even cheer up orange vegetable fest doesn't cheer you up that you are in need of major help.
the first form of help i thought of was immediately taking the bus to shannon airport, and getting on the next plane to boston.
then i hit myself over the head with some rational thoughts. dude, 16 days is like as long as a vacation. so i am on vacation! so what if this vacation will mostly consist of sitting in classrooms, i love sitting in classrooms! i also happen to really like ireland, in spite of my compulsions to leave it asap. so i am going to make my final blogging resolution before i do actually get to get on a plane: i'm going to write every day about awesome stuff that happens on my vacation.
today a very cool couple that i know got married in Iowa.
and i also got on the internet at school!
see, so there- two awesome things!

in need of a seriously big hug

2009-11-01T08:19:00.002-05:00

i am resolved that the next 18 days are going to be awesome and totally great. however, my internet is not working. i'm writing this from a kiosk at the mall, where i just spent my last 2 euro on internet access and where i just learned that i have OVERDRAWN my bank account.
i seriously wish i could summon that 2 euro back from this machine so i could use it to go by groceries.
instead i am going to go back to my apartment and cook my last sweet potato.
if you are reading this, please send me a hug!

cheer up! orange vegetable fest (or feast)

2009-10-30T17:35:00.003-04:00

i have been absent and i am sorry, blog world! there are lots of cool things i have to catch you up on, including (gasp, could it be?) uploading some of my own pictures instead of stealing them from the internet. but for now, i'm just going to post the recipe for cheer up! orange vegetable fest, which is something i make fairly frequently since i got a giant bag of sweet potatoes at tesco. for those of you who don't know, orange vegetables are my favorite food. they are always wonderful and they always cheer me up! this recipe includes two, although i'm sure it would also be great with some squash thrown in.
to benefit most greatly from cheer up! vegetable fest, you need the following:
1 or 2 sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced in fairly thin rounds
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced in similarly sized rounds
a good amount of olive oil
put all of these in a covered saucepan over medium heat. this will effectively steam them. i think it would probably taste better if it was all roasted slowly together in a hot oven, but my oven here is scary, so this is the way to do it if you have a scary oven. or no oven.
stir every few minutes until the sweet potatoes are fork tender. the carrots will probably never be fork tender, and if you cook them long enough to get there, the potatoes will turn to mush. it will probably take ten to twenty minutes for this to happen, and during that time you should listen to al green and read pride and prejudice. if you're making it my way, that is.
half a yellow onion, peeled and diced
1 granny smith apple, peeled and cubed
when the potatoes are tender, throw in the onion and let it get a little soft. then toss in the apples and let it all get acquainted for another few minutes, lid on please.
1 can of chickpeas
salt and pepper (and cinnamon, if you're feeling fancy) to taste
toss in the chickpeas and let them heat through. season to taste. in addition to the roasting, i think this would also benefit from the addition of walnuts. but those are really expensive over here.
eat directly from the hot pan. cheer up!

london!

2009-10-14T17:14:00.002-04:00

i am in london!
a lot of stuff has happened in the past week, and i meant to do a big update before i left, but then time got all crazy and i just didn't have time. i'm going to try to at least write it down before i forget things! but! i am in london, and it is so great. i've had the best day hanging out here with marybeth. we went to a great vegetarian restaurant in covent garden last night, and walked home for like an hour through oxford circus back to where she lives, which is a really cute neighborhood in a middle eastern part of the city- lots of the signs are in arabic! today we went to portobello market on notting hill where i may or may not have bought something new... and we also had amazing bread at a gorgeous bakery called gail's. then we took the red double decker bus over to the british museum, which is free, and one of my favorite museums in the world. we saw the rosetta stone! we only had like two hours there before it closed, but it was still great. then we stumbled upon a bookstore that sold only old out of print and rare books, like first editions of henry david thoreau and a lot of books from the 1800s and early 1900s. i may or may not have bought a gorgeous knitting and needlework book... and then we ate amazing hummus at this restaurant called hummus bros, which had probably the best pita ever. and where it is possible to get guacamole, ON YOUR HUMMUS. so so great. after we went to a bar called shakespeare's head, which was really cool, and took the bus back over here. i may or may not have also gone to starbucks several times for tea today...
it was a great day and tomorrow we're going to paris! bonjour paris! it's going to be great, and probably expensive, and hopefully filled with amazing food. we're going to try and take a hop on hop off boat tour of the city up the seine, so we don't have to navigate confusing public transportation in french. i'm so excited!
i will try to update soon, but it probably will not be until sunday when i get back to ireland!
au revoir! hope everyone is enjoying fall!

ah so bad at posting every day!

2009-10-06T14:17:00.002-04:00

i'm trying to be better though! stick with me, three readers!
so i think my last post was on the second, which was... friday! so that means i've got to tell you everything i learned on saturday, sunday, monday, and today! let's get started!

saturday wasn't too busy at the restaurant (for a saturday) but it was a little stressful in other ways. i made a giant batch of passion fruit seed coulis, with the seeds from about 50 passion fruits. i also learned that i'm going to be the pastry chef alone, two days in a row next week- on two days that we have big parties! yikes! i think this is the executive chef's way of testing me on my last week. i may or may not have also eaten about 500 pounds or carrot cake, but we don't need to talk about that...

sunday my room mate was sick, so i learned how to be the vegetable chef on the culinary line! it should be mentioned that the conception of vegetables at the restaurant is generally butter, with a side of potatoes and cabbage. so i learned how to blanch the potatoes and cabbage to order and toss them in herb butter, and do the same with asparagus, and also how to fry sole and veal (my hands smelled like fish for like 2 days) and make french fries and onion rings. and make this thing called champ, which is mashed potatoes with spring onions. there is also chump, but i think that is a cut of meat, and it's not on my list of responsibilities yet.. i also gained more confidence with tossing of things in pans, a chef-like skill that i have been slow to appropriate, usually opting for the safer, if less cool looking, option of a spoon. it's actually fun, if all the vegetables make it back into the wok safely! i also still did some prep for the pastry side, so i kindof went back and forth between both sides of the kitchen, which was an interesting experience. even if all i did was make french fries and blanch some things, i'm really proud of how it went, since i'd never been on the line before!

monday was a very nice day off, it was beautiful out and i went into town and did the usual errands. i also skyped with peggy and molly, which was so awesome. i did laundry again, and though it took close to three hours almost all of my socks were dry! and many of my shirts as well. this is a big accomplishment. i also met a few other saudi arabian exchange students in the laundry room who were trying to figure out the machines. and i did some nice knitting! the long tube/cowl of noro continues to grow, where will it stop? nobody knows!

and i may or may not have taken up the remaining space on my itunes by downloading an enormous file (red sox yankees game from a few weeks ago...) which i pretty much can't wait to watch, and savor every minute of.

today was rainy, so i opened a note i had specifically for a rainy day. then i went downtown and read travel books about london and paris for a few hours, which made me so excited! in a week i will be in london! and in 9 days i will be in paris! i feel like two days is not enough time to spend in either city, but it's what i've got that week, so we're just going to try and cram in as much awesomeness as possible! in london i want to go to notting hill and walk through the portobello market, go back to the british museum, and maybe drink some fancy tea. in paris, i want to see everything!!! but we're going to try to see the eiffel tower, and eat through le bon marche in invalides, see notre dame and the square du vert-galant and the marche aux fleurs on ile de la cite, and go see the louvre, jardin des tuileries, and place de la concorde in tuileries. marybeth has a friend who just went to paris and said she tried to eat an eclair every time she passed a cafe selling them, and my plan is similar, but more with bread. i'm so excited! i bought a french language book because i stupidly didn't bring any with me, and it would be such a waste if i didn't remember any french when i go there.
so now i'm going to read my french book and watch the baseball game and try not to be too nervous for tomorrow! hopefully everyone will get dessert and everyone will be happy.
have i mentioned that i'll be in paris in 9 days? EATING BREAD?!

mildly concussed mango sculpting

2009-10-02T18:10:00.002-04:00

yesterday i hit my head on the refrigerator doorframe while i was trying to clean it out. this is funny because around this time last year i sustained a concussion from my car doorframe on my way to school. yesterday's hit wasn't quite as bad, but it still made me super dizzy and out of it for a few hours, which wasn't the greatest since we were having a really busy day at work. at some point during the twelve hour work day, i either got used to the feeling or it went away, but before that i managed to burn a pot of sugar and spill boiling hot caramel sauce all over the floor. it was also during that time that i was attempting to prep some mango slices for service, which doesn't sound very hard but is still a skill i am trying to master. basically the key is peeling the mango so that it is perfectly round, with no angles. then you slice big halves of fruit off the pit, and do this knife technique that i believe might be called frenching, resulting in these perfect little half circle esque slives of mango. why people even attempt to consume mangoes in ireland is beyond me, because they are never ripe!
today i learned lots of stuff, like how to peel a hardboiled egg! i was pretty terrible at it at first but then i think i got the hang of it. i also made 100 chocolate souffles, and they came out even better and fluffier than last time! this was fun, although i think there might still be some souffle on my elbow...
on wednesday night a really cool thing happened- i listened to my brother on the radio! he is a broadcast journalism major, and he goes to BU, which has a nationally ranked radio program. he's on a news program and a sports program on wednesday nights at 8, and he also is going to start doing the commentary for soccer and hockey games. he said he felt like ron burgundy. but you can listen to wtbu on the internet, so you don't even need a radio! that's how i was able to hear it, they have a live stream. i've been loving radio a lot in general, with all my podcasts, and it was so so cool to hear my brother on the radio, all the way over here! so listen to him on wednesday nights!
tomorrow should be a pretty busy day, but hopefully i will learn lots of stuff!

galway part 2, laundry part 3

2009-09-30T13:54:00.006-04:00

i think my mom has esp. today i was starting to have a bit of a downer afternoon (i think due mostly to the fact that i am sleep deprived) and just at the very moment that i thought of giving her a call i got the nicest, greatest email from her. it was like a big hug that i really needed all the way across the ocean.
the past few days have been great days where i've learned a lot of things! we're approaching the halfway point here, which is encouraging. and friday is when ireland will have a second vote about the lisbon treaty, which is exciting!
here's what happened monday:
i was alittle nervous for monday because i knew i would be the only pastry chef on all day. mondays are not super busy, but last time this happened i did not end up getting to do as much pastry prep as i would have liked, and instead was requested to do things like organize the spice rack by the culinary chefs. i realize that every job in the kitchen is really important to it all going smoothly, i just look forward to doing pastry things more (making crepes is obviously more fun than trying to find a lid for the cornstarch!). but it went really well and i got everything done that i wanted to do, with the exception of making some bread because we didn't really need any. i was so happy to have everything go smoothly- i felt like a real chef! and the other chefs came back for seconds and thirds of my french style bailey's chocolate chip ice cream...
then i came back and scarfed some delicious meg's patented one pot easy meal of goodness while listening to kcrw's good food podcast. i know i have mentioned this podcast before- in case you don't remember, the host evan kleiman is the one doing the pie every day blog! she even interviewed the venerable rose levy beranbaum a few days ago!!!! anyway, so i was listening to a particularly awesome segment about the growing demographic of younger women farmers, and this led me to do some research on the internet about the IATP (that's the institute for agriculture and trade policy)'s food and society fellows. maybe i should first preface this by telling you stuff you already know about me- i have been growing more and more interested in both food science and nutrition and the food industry and economy itself, and the ways peoples' food choices impact so many systems, and how fresh food is frequently inaccessible to people. i have been feeling like, if this was a somehow nameable thing, this thing is what i want to study in college. i have been reading a lot of books about these sorts of things, trying to find some common thread between people who have spoken up about these various issues that might lead me down any sort of path. i have scoured the curriculums of colleges looking for courses that might kindof cover these topics. but things always seem to be too narrowed down, and less about learning how to change the system than learning how to just become part of the system as it already exists. food science majors are invariably just learning product development, how to develop the next high fructose corn syrup. nutrition majors frequently closely resemble pre med majors, with a focus on how to read the FDA's food pyramid to people. anyway, so these food and society fellows are all people trying to change the system. they are writers and farmers and film makers and teachers who care about the earth and about what they call food justice- accessible fresh sustainably produced food for people on all levels of the socioeconomic spectrum. the discovery of this group of people made me feel so encouraged! they are all extremely accomplished, but it was so cool to see that people are actually out there, who care about this stuff, who are doing things about it and that people are taking notice.
all this detective work led me to find the urban and environmental policy institute at occidental college. this is basically everything that i want to do. too bad they're in la!....

then yesterday we went back to galway, which was lovely. i explored a bit farther around than i did last week, and stumbled down to the claddagh quay:

it is a lovely historic part of the city that was once populated by a closeknit community of fishermen called the claddagh, and it's where the claddagh ring comes from. galway is known in ireland for being a beautiful coastal city and it was so fun walking around the water.

the afternoon also included lots of reading in the sun, and knitting on the bus, and even a return visit to my favorite third story bathroom! it was lovely.
when we returned i made the executive decision that even though the first time i tried doing laundry here it took over 6 hours, that i should do laundry last night instead of today. this is mostly due to the fact that only about 40% of clothes get dry, and i needed 100% of my clothes to by dry by tomorrow. it was definitely my most successful laundry venture yet! it only cost me about 5 euro, and it took less than two and a half hours. and some of my clothes were dry, which is an improvement!

this morning began with a very pleasant discovery- some delicious tea! i bought some fancy organic twinings english breakfast, and it was scrumptious.
today we met with some of the professors at the college to learn about our class schedule for the second half of our time here. despite some minor organizational frustrations, we received our tentative class schedules and then attended a very smelly demonstration about fish mongering. we will choose to ignore the fact that from one of our instructors we have been told that it doesn't matter at all which classes we go to, or how many, but that from another we have been told that we must attend them all. we also discovered that we are going to have an extra week off from school, due to the fact that no one informed us there was a term break at the end of october. so now i have a whole nother week to go places and see things! any suggestions?
then i took a nice long almost sunny walk into town, just to see if it was a walkable distance. it definitely is! the rest of my day has been grocery shopping, disasterous burning of onions in the kitchen, research about college, and some nice knitting.
we are about to embark on our last week of work at the hotel! while it has been a great experience, i will be excited to have more time off. i hope everyone is having a lovely last day of september! enjoy fall in new england for me. i can't wait for some apple cider and pumpkin seed bread from seven stars when i get back.

burnt tongue and my favorite.

2009-09-27T18:48:00.002-04:00

so i have been a little lacking in posting daily (it seems to be a weekend thing..) but that doesn't mean i haven't been learning things! in fact, i've learned alot of things!

here's what i learned on friday:
i made bavarois, which is basically like a mousse set with gelatin. the gelatin explains why i didn't know what it was. we make a caramelized banana bavarois (pronounced bah var wah) at the hotel and serve it with crepes and maple syrup, kindof dessert for fancy people who wish they could just have banana pancakes. i also made pastry cream WITHOUT A THERMOMETER which is like heresy at pastry school. something you will be burnt at the stake for. it was a wild time!
i also started knitting a cowl out of noro furisode, which is a totally crazy and amazing yarn. i have run into a design issue of whether the cowl should be only 6ish inches tall, or should be as tall as it can get and just be worn kindof scrunchy and possibly folded over. i really want to use the whole skein but i am afraid of looking like i'm wearing a cracked out neck brace. any suggestions?

on saturday:
i learned that saturdays are busiest when you are the only pastry chef on, which was last weekend. since we were fully staffed this weekend, of course it was significantly less busy. it was still a late night. i also learned that my socks seem to be disappearing. when i realized that i just do not have enough socks to make it until my next laundry opportunity (tuesday) and remembered that my socks are always the things that never dry even when i do laundry, meaning that i won't have socks until at least thursday, i came to the disappointing conclusion that i might need to buy socks. then my mom suggested i just wash some in the sink, so that they will be dry by tuesday, which was really the greatest idea. i've got a little makeshift clothes line in the kitchen.
i also sorted out finally the situation i have been having with my rent, and everything is worked out and settled, which is a great feeling.

today:
i have been making this giant meal when i get home from work recently. i may have already posted about it, but i'm pretty sleepy right now so i am going to tell you about it again. the sleepiness may or may not be related to the fact that i am currently digesting said giant meal... it is basically whole wheat pasta with a can of chickpeas and a jar of tomato sauce, with some fresh tomatoes and microwaved vegetables thrown in. it takes only as long to make as it takes to cook the pasta, which is a relative time because i have been known to stand over the pot and eat noodles out one by one as the pasta is boiling. this is how i came to have a burnt tongue. thinking about my burnt tongue reminds me that i saw my executive chef (who looks exactly like andy bernard, ps) butcher and pickle OX TONGUES the other day. this is definitely the most disgusting thing i have ever seen or thought about.
i work with a really nice hungarian woman. she is really sweet, and so hardworking. she never ever stops cleaning, or cooking, or some combination, except to bring everyone else in the kitchen coffee. she reminds me of a friend i had in elementary school who seemed quiet on the surface, but who was actually hilarious once you got to know her. her english isn't the best, and so even though we frequently work closely together, it takes longer to find out more stuff about her. for example, i know that she has dog that she loves, and that she and her boyfriend, who is also a pastry chef, are driving to hungary next week. i know that she is trying to start her own wedding cake company, and that she says pastry like pAHstry, which is cute. today she gave us a ride home, and some music was on in the car. it sounded like madonna, so i asked her about it and if she likes madonna. she informed me that she does like madonna but "usually i am listening more to pink." surprised, i asked her- you like pink? "yes," she says with her awesome hungarian accent,"my favorite."

awesome tubular bind-off, dude

2009-09-24T18:01:00.003-04:00

i just finished my mom's sweater! this is not even the most exciting part. the most exciting part is that it fits. it's not too tight in the arm holes or too loose in the chest or too short or too bulky or too anything. those were all specific flaws that i worried it would have while i knit it, but it came out just how i wanted it to. the ribbing pattern begins right at the waist. the stitch gauge isn't too big or too small, even though i went down a needle size, cast on for a medium and ended up knitting a small.
the diminishing rib cardigan by andrea pomerantz, cover of interweave knits spring 09 is the sweater pattern i am referring to, ps. if i was good, i would have a rav link here, but i don't because i'm terrible at updating that... but i seriously recommend this pattern.
this is a great success also because i had second thoughts so many times at the outset of this sweater. i had resolved to knit my mom mittens the morning that i went out and bought the yarn for the sweater (must have been some meaghan logic involved...). and the yarn! it was cascade 220, which i have never worked with, mostly because i always found it kindof plain. after i brought it home, i thought about exchanging it for another yarn- never, ever again. i loved working with it, which is great since i stocked up on it in other colors to knit other christmas presents in. and guess what? i love how the other projects are coming out too. looks like i am a total cascade 220 convert. i love how wooly the sweater is, without being too thick or scratchy or bulky. i even like the color, which is a sort of light brown/taupe that i never would have ever picked to knit anything for myself in.
i think that's why i feel so great about this sweater- i never would have knit it if i hadn't made it for my mom, and i love it so much i might knit another one for me. the pattern and yarn were both plainer than things i would have picked for myself, but the stockinette was not mind-numbingly boring, and in fact this pattern was a great knit the whole way. i even learned! i learned how to do the tubular bind off. i did crap out on doing the tubular cast on, but i don't think anyone but a knitter will notice. i'm proud for mastering this new method because it really is super stretchy, which is just what ribbed knit fabric needs in order to really be itself.
now i'm going to make a cowl out of the crazy skein of noro jack bought me for my birthday. just because it's technically still september, and i've got almost a christmas present and a half done.

bubblin in dublin

2009-09-23T17:40:00.005-04:00

i got a really lovely night's sleep last night, probably the best one i've had since i got here! then christine and i set off in the opposite direction we went yesterday, on the 11:10 bus to dublin. it was a sunny and beautiful ride during which i made serious progress on what i'm knitting my dad for christmas!
here's what i learned today:
we disembarked at busAras, which is was the bus station is called. then we walked past a very cool sculpture of a sphere made of chains with a fire going inside (it made me think of the goblet of fire.) then we walked across the river liffey, admiring some very beautiful bridges as we crossed. we walked down to trinity college and grafton street, which is kindof like the oxford of ireland on the fifth ave of dublin. below grafton street is the beautiful st. stephen's green, on the south side of which sits the most incredible church ever. it is pretty regular looking (by irish standards) from the outside:

but on the inside it is crazy looking! our walking tour card said that it is one of the best examples of the early Byzantine style in ireland, and it was insane:

this picture doesn't really capture the feeling of what it's like to be inside the church, but it is a good view of my favorite part, all the religious icons arranged kindof in a family tree. the iconography in this church was out of control in a totally amazing, gold-plated way.
then we walked across the street into st. stephen's green, which is really beautiful and has nice ponds with ducks and willow trees, winding paths between fountains and flower beds, and a cool secluded memorial area to wb yeats that looked more like ancient ruins something built on purpose. we ate some lunch and got rained on in the yeats area, and then wandered the park some more. then we went up kildare street, which is home of the national museum and the national library of ireland. yes! the museum was super cool and free. i spent a while meandering the artifacts from prehistoric ireland as well as a great section of very old garments and textiles that had gruesomely been spared the ravages of time by their wearers' falling into peat bogs (awful!). despite the creepy way these garments came to be in the museum, they were pretty awesome examples of early tweed and there was even a knit hat!
then i continued on my quest for a real yarn shop in ireland by visiting this is knit, which is located in the mind-blowing fancy (or posh, as they say here) and very confusing powerscourt townhouse centre. say that ten times fast! i was trying to remember where it was and was thinking along the lines of powerhouse court, or courthouse powertown... very confusing. to add to the confusion, the shop inhabits two quite small spaces across the hall from each other, which made deciding between yarns difficult since you had to keep crossing between them so much, and i wasn't sure if it was permissible to bring yarns across the gulf. confusion notwithstanding, i did meet a very nice american expat who works there and also FINALLY found something suitable to make my brother's christmas present out of!
then i wandered into this strange store that apparently only sold ribbons? and tassels and buttons. it was weird but also awesome, and very fancy inside (just like the rest of powertown courthouse) and filled with women picking out trimmings for their posh weddings. i couldn't resist getting a little treat- two meters each of two really cool ribbons. i think i will mostly tie them in my hair until i figure out something craft related to do with them.
after all of that wandering, i found my way into trinity college, which is basically like a fortress of knowledge right in the middle of dublin. it is so crazy and crowded and noisy outside but you walk through these beautiful archways and you are in the middle a very old fashioned, quiet and college-y place. unfortunately they charge admission to their library now, which i had really wanted to see, but i did spend a glorious hour sitting in the sun on a bench reading by one of the many greens.

this was particularly nice after getting rained on. then i grabbed a bite from the food hall at marks and spencer- fancy department stores here still have restaurants, and this one also has a cafe and basically a grocery store.
it was a great day! dublin is a lot bigger than galway, and feels a lot more like a big international city. we saw some really great things, and learned a lot!
tomorrow i am planning on doing some heavy duty knitting, and learning where the post office is.

Gaillimh

2009-09-22T17:19:00.004-04:00

that's Galway to you non-irish speakers, and that's where we went today. what a great day! i learned a lot of things, and it was fun. first i will tell you what i have learned about galway in preparation for going there: galway is one of ireland's largest cities and supposedly the fastest growing city in europe (i'm not sure if i believe that one...) it has a lot of universities, so lots of young people, but it is also considered somewhat of the gateway to the gaeltacht, the region of ireland where many people live in traditional communities that speak only irish. because of its proximity to the gaeltacht, and the strong influences of the preserved irish culture, galway is filled with irish language, and broad casts both tv and radio in irish. it is an interesting contrast, a city full of young people steeped in strong history. it's also on the western coast of ireland, and the place where the claddagh ring came from. i can't wait to go back!
today, i learned:
buses here are really nice. for 12 euro roundtrip the price isn't bad, gets you where you need to go relatively on time (i have not heard the same for the train) and the bus is very comfortable and quiet. driving is the best way to see ireland, as the country roads are scary to walk or bike. i saw lots of sheep! and some of the biggest cows i have ever seen:

the landscape here is beautiful, and the bus ride was really enjoyable. i also saw several wind farms on hill tops!
we got in to the bus station at eyre square, which is right in the center of galway. there's a really cool copper sculpture in the square modeled after the infamous galway hooker, which is in fact, a traditional boat, and not a lady of the night. the park is also known as JFK park or JFK memorial park... something like that, basically it holds a cool memorial to JFK because he visited the city shortly before he died. the park is also symbolic of the 14 tribes that historically controlled galway back when ireland was controlled by tribes. there's flags for each tribe flying on one side of the square:

then we walked down williamsgate street and shop street, which are really cute and very irish looking and filled with people and street performers and cafes and pubs. we also found at last! a real bookstore! which was wonderful to find, even though i did not buy any books. there is one bookstore in athlone and it is about 75% stationary and gossip magazines. on shop street we walked by lynch's castle, which is one of the oldest buildings in galway and considered a cool example of irish gothic architecture. now it's a bank. then we went to st. nicholas church, which is the oldest medieval church in ireland. it was built in 1320! it is seriously old and dusty smelling, but had some sweet gargoyles and stained glass windows.
then we went by james joyce's wife's house, which is a museum now, and also walked down kirwan lane, which is a cobbled street from medieval times. i went into this wonderful little shop called lola rose, the closest thing to a yarn store i've found in ireland. it was basically like etsy, but in a small shop. it was adorable and wonderful, and i had a great time chatting with the lady who worked there and another customer, all about yarn and crafty things. their yarn selection was not very extensive, so i did not get any (what? i didn't buy yarn in a yarn store??) but i did splurge on 4 quarters of insanely beautiful amy butler fabric. two have beautiful peony patterns and the other two are more kindof graphic/ victorian looking prints that pick up the greens and blues in the predominantly pink peony fabrics. i can not stress enough how cool this fabric is and how excited i am to make a quilt with it:

then i went and had a snack at the cafe counter at mccambridge's, which is a bakery that makes my favorite irish bread, brown bread. brown bread is made with really intense whole wheat flour and no yeast, and rolled in oats. i ate some with some english raspberry preserves, and then was directed to a bathroom which was actually on the third floor of a building on shop street. it was a really cool and strange place for a bathroom!
so basically, galway is totally great and i want to go back on every one of my remaining days off. tomorrow christine and i are going to take the bus in the opposite direction, to dublin. dublin is very big and there is too much to see in one day, so we are going to content ourselves with the national library and natural history museums, st. stephen's green, marrion square, grafton street, and trinity college. maybe even the book of kells! (but probably not, because it costs 9 euro.) i'm excited and i hope that our journey is as wonderful as galway was! and we'll learn more stuff!

today i ate a lot of vegetables

2009-09-21T18:29:00.003-04:00

which was wonderful, as i rarely eat a hot meal here and eat very few vegetables.
today i am also learning a lot about patience.
these are the nice things that happened (besides the vegetables): i got to spend some time outside in the -gasp- sunshine! waiting for the bus and running some errands in town. i did laundry in a slightly more successful manner than last week, and i am hopefully about to finish the sweater i am knitting my mom for christmas! i also met a student from saudi arabia and got to practice my limited arabic. he saw me knitting and told me that his grandmother knits, with needles she makes from the branches of date trees. at least this is what i think he was trying to tell me.
tomorrow i am taking the bus to galway, where i am planning to visit my first irish yarn store. i am very excited, and i am determined for it to be a positive day!

how many days of the week do you light desserts on fire?

2009-09-20T19:56:00.004-04:00

because i light them on fire every day- creme brule! it's really fun and always smells like right after someone blows out the birthday candles.
so i'm sure you reader(s?) have noticed that i have already failed at posting everyday. alas, i struggle forth in the hope of someday achieving my goal of faithfulness to you, blog. actually, the past two days were just extremely tiring and long, so i just went to bed when i came back from work. here's what i learned:

Friday:
i learned what a passionfruit looks like:

they are really awesome smelling and really awesome tasting, and totally unremarkable looking until you cut them open. i thought they might be small beets until i picked one up.

Saturday:
i learned what it is like to be a real pastry chef. i did a la carte dessert service in the restaurant all by myself- on saturday night! it was really crazy and busy, but fun. it would have been more fun if we didn't start to run out of some essential things like mint by the end of the night, but everything went out without a hitch, and it was really cool! i'm proud of myself for turning the day around, because i may have ahem mixed up the sugar with the salt ahem while making a coulis the day before... i blame the raptures induced by the passionfruit. nevertheless, this was a mortifying discovery and i am proud of myself for not running out of the kitchen all the way back to the us!

today:
i learned that frustrating circumstances can lead to positive ones. this is technically something i have been learning the whole time i've been here, but today i was kindof at the end of my rope and just when i was feeling the most exasperated, a great thing happened! we met the girl who lives upstairs from us. her name is laura, and she is very nice and probably thinks that we are nuts. she is from galway, and it is her first year of college, and she lives alone in the apartment above ours! i cannot imagine what it would be like to live alone your first few weeks of college. it's also just nice to know someone else in the building, and now she can come down and visit if she gets lonely- or we can go upstairs, we heard she has a tv!
it was definitely a nice thing that came out of a frustrating series of events, and i'm so excited that we made a new friend!
i am also really coming to love doing yoga. i have done yoga with varying degrees of regularity for a few years, but never more than a few weeks at a time- sometimes i have enjoyed it, and sometimes i haven't. i've never been very good at meditating, or even focusing on the present, but this is why i am loving yoga recently. it is making me just be here, right now, trying to get into some ridiculous shape and breathe at the same time. i may yet become one of those weirdos that does yoga everyday.

i think those were all nice things to learn! tomorrow is the last day of the work week for me, and then i've got three days off! christine and i are going to attempt to do laundry and see galway and dublin during those days, and hopefully we will learn more things along the way!

today is september 17th

2009-09-17T16:43:00.003-04:00

and i started off the day by learning how great friends are. i woke up this morning, still feeling sick and not having gotten the greatest nights sleep (sometimes i think drunk american college students get seriously shown up by their irish counterparts...). i resolved on going to work anyway, hoping that it wouldn't be too busy (it wasn't) and that i wouldn't throw up (i didn't). i was really in need of a hug, and i checked my email before we got picked up for work and i had a wonderful email from peggy! it was exactly everything i needed to hear and it made me feel so great, and all day i carried around peggy's long distance hug with me.

thing #2:
i learned how to make a croquembouche:

which is basically THE fancy french wedding dessert. i have never made one, only heard of them in legends at school. it was a pretty insane thing, and kindof reminded me of a christmas tree wrapped in hair (that would be the spun sugar). it looked very fancy though, and i'm sure the happy couple enjoyed having it at their wedding- except that it is not to be eaten, only looked at. since it is basically a tower of profiteroles, of course there were some profiteroles on the dessert tasting plates. these plates went something like this: crumbled cookie that looks like sand with house made chocolate chip ice cream, apple pear crumble, profiteroles with chocolate sauce, and CHOCOLATE SOUFFLE. today i made, baked, and plated almost 200 chocolate souffles. i mixed it by hand in an enormous bowl and was over my elbows in it. it was pretty fun!
stay tuned for more exciting and dessert related things!

ok, now don't fall out of your seat

2009-09-16T16:50:00.002-04:00

i know i didn't post for like 5 months and now i'm posting twice in one day, but as meredith from the office says, "my car, my rules."

i thought i should update you on somethings i love right now. i figure this is also something good for me to focus on.

Podcasts, specifically from NPR and American Public Media. it all started when emmanuel and i began listening to his podcasts of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me... before i left, since we don't have a tv or the internet, we really enjoying the wholesome awesomeness of listening to these podcasts in our apartment. before i left, i downloaded a buttmillion of them, all about food, and i have since fallen deeply in love with lynn rosetto casper of the splendid table. BUT not to be shown up, KCRW's good food is also wonderful, and led me to Evan Kleiman's blog about MAKING AND EATING A NEW PIE EVERYDAY. this is amazing. i love pie. it is the reason i wanted to become a pastry chef, and it never fails to comfort and calm me to make a pie. i have been known to make pie at strange hours, and for no reason, other than holding on to sanity. i also happen to be the proud owner of a certain behemoth book about pies- Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pie and Pastry Bible. it is possibly the most wonderful book ever (besides the encyclopedia of knitting, of course) and AND and during her pie blog evan makes many of the difficult and intimidating and fairly ridiculous pies from the bible. so much amazingness.
here is the link to her blog, starting on the first page of the journey of pie:

i also love buena vista social club, otis redding, and good eats. what else is new! nothing picks you up like listening to cuban men sing, hearing otis tell you to shake, and learning about the right way to make muffins or purge eggplants.

cistean eireann- the irish kitchen

2009-09-16T15:28:00.002-04:00

hello bloggy world!
it's been quite a while since i've written anything here, but i think we (me and the computer) knew when i started this thing that i'm not very good at keeping up with these sorts of things. hmm, since the last post was in april i guess there are a few highlights i should fill you in on! i finished my first full year of culinary school, received the faculty scholarship (which means i get a term's tuition for free this year!), got in an accident in my beautiful new car (no one was hurt!), got the car fixed, became a legal adult, and drove with emmanuel from minneapolis to providence in two days in a giant truck. he moved here! then we moved into a very great apartment together, and now i'm living in ireland for three months. i also grew some things in my garden and knit some things and spun some yarn in between there.
that's obviously the short version, and lots of other things have happened! but now i am here in the wet, green land of people who always smoke and eat a lot of cabbage and butter. i know, ireland isn't exactly the place you think of going to learn about international cuisine, but there's actually alot of amazing local food happening here.
i work in a beautiful hotel (that i have only seen a few times since i am mostly in the kitchen!) and the food they do there is at once high class, contemporary, and true to the irish soul of cooking (potatoes and cabbage with potatoes and cabbage). i have been here for 11 days and i have 63 days left, and i am inspired by the many "diary of something every day" blogs that are out there right now. i thought, i have a blog! i will post everyday something i learn here. if nothing else, it will be something for me to do and helpful when i return and have to turn in the project- a photo journal of my time here! it need not be said that i have not been so diligent about keeping that journal...
so! i will fill you in on the things i have learned so far, here in ireland, and especially the things i have learned in the irish kitchen.
french fries are called chips
chips are called crisps
crackers and cookies are called biscuits
i'm not sure what biscuits are called.
never ask anyone what anything is, because you may almost accidentally eat black pudding.
black pudding does not resemble in any way anything that we would think of as pudding in the united states. it is also made from intestines and coagulated blood, which i have been informed are ingredients that are difficult to freshly obtain.
all plugs and outlets here have on and off switches. so does the water and heater and the kitchen appliances all have safety switches which render them inoperable unless switched.
doing laundry is an extraordinarily frustrating experience involving strange things called biological washing tablets (there's also non-biological, and i have yet to understand the difference, or how laundry soap can be biological in the first place)
pharmacies closely resemble the fancy make up counter at macy's- no toothbrushes in sight!
i have also encountered the strange phenomenon of polish rap music, which is the only rap music i have heard here, despite the popularity of american pop music here.
i have also learned how to concoct a makeshift "chocolate cake" on the spot with basically sundae-making ingredients- brownies, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce. i have seen beef stock made in a pot that i could sit down cross legged in, have squeezed about 40000 lemons by hand to make sorbet out of them, removed the meat from rabbit carcasses, made crepes and creme brules and panacottas and bavarois. (incase you don't know, panacotta and bavarois are both molded gelatin desserts made with dairy, but bavarois is whipped and is more like gelatin mousse.)

i have also discovered that i miss the united states, a lot more than i thought i would! i have always imagined it a possibility that i might live in another country when i grow up.. but perhaps distance makes the heart grow fonder, because i actually miss the old usa. today i saw a boy crossing the street in a university of wisconsin tee shirt and i almost stopped him to see if he was actually from wisconsin.
i think this will be in the end, a very positive experience for me. i have already learned so much about working in a real kitchen and working as a real pastry chef, and i feel like my skills have dramatically improved. i feel like this will be good for me to get out of my comfort zone and prove to myself that i can do something challenging. and i think i need to learn about being present, in the present moment, and not always planning the future moments or rehashing the past ones. i really want to get better at that! so here's to learning something new every day of the next 63 days!

vegetables

2009-04-02T09:32:00.005-04:00

i have been reading (or more like finishing reading from this time last year) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver recently. Now, some people i know have expressed a dislike for Ms. Kingsolver, but i have to confess to really enjoying everything i've read that she's written. i bought this book last year when my family and i were digging our first garden into the ground, and i thought it was really inspiring. Even though we mostly got tomatoes and a few really strangely crooked carrots, i was proud that we got anything out of ground that was grass for its whole life until we dug it up around memorial day. This year, being only slightly more familiar with the way plants grow (we know what some of them look like) we are significantly more ambitious. Last weekend we dug up more grass bordering the garden and have doubled it's size. If you are not from New England, you should be aware that most of this endeavor involves rocks, moving rocks, breaking rocks, throwing rocks, wheeling wheelbarrows full of rocks all over the place, and lifting giant rocks in the manner of the strongest man in the world competition.

this is a picture i found online when i googled 'lifting rocks.' it's from nonserviam dot com, just in case it belongs to someone else.
today or tomorrow or saturday, whichever is the sunniest, i'm going to put our pea, carrot, beet, and chard seeds in the ground. it's very exciting! last year, because we started at the end of may, we bought already started plants from an organic farm and transplanted them into the garden, but this year we are planting seeds straight up into the ground. i don't even know how to go about doing this, and i'm going to read more gardening books and see if i can figure it out.
the point of this post, other than to tell you reader(s) how exciting i am about my garden, is to tell you about how awesome eating food grown where you live is. not only is it way better for the environment, but it's way better for your local economy and it can be really good for you nutritionally. it's kindof neat to learn about where you live, and what the earth in your particular location provides for you. i could go on and on about this, and how it is also kind of a rebellion against corporate food culture (and oil companies) to buy anything straight from the person who grew it, but instead i'll just tell you to go to a farmer's market and buy something this summer! it's fun, and a win-win-win! (i'm learning about conflict resolution in my leadership class, and it just makes me think of the episode of the office where michael tells pam that compromise is not an ideal outcome to a conflict, and instead oscar should wear a t-shirt made from angela's baby poster. it turns out that this is also what you learn in leadership class.)
also, on some episodes of good eats there is a lady who is a nutritional anthropologist. i totally want to be this lady.
here are some cherokee purple tomatoes!

i will be growing them in my garden. purple tomatoes are supposed to be awesome.

goats!

2009-03-26T10:44:00.005-04:00

as you reader(s) probably know, i really want to have my own sheep someday. but i also want goats! goats are smarter than sheep and tend to be a lot like dogs personality-wise and they are wonderful and awesome. i decided to research the procedures of owning a goat, and i learned a lot of things. first of all, as a goat owner it is a good idea to know all the plants on your property that are poisonous because goats eat everything and apparently have not retained the instinct of not eating poisonous plants. this is means that you should probably be able to recognise any poisonous plants by sight in order to keep your goats safe.

also, goats are herd animals, which means they get really sad and lonely if you only have one! plenty of people remedy this by just getting two goats, but i bet those ones get lonely too! i read that a sheep (which are also herd animals) who was kept alone emits more stress hormones than a sheep that was on its way to the chopping block! nobody wants their goats or sheep or anyone to feel like that!
other than these two factors, it seems like having goats is totally awesome. they are mischievous and playful and if you are dwight shrute and can only own an animal if it is useful, they produce milk and fibers! having read all these things, i think its safe to say that i probably can't own goats for a little while, so i will just have to go visit some. and now you know about goats too!

the month of march

2009-03-24T21:56:00.002-04:00

since my last update, the month of march has passed. here's how it went:
week one- we had a big giant snow storm, and it was school vacation (for everyone else). i spent the week working with my friend who is a doctor of cakes and a really talented chef and cinematographer to assist said chef in filming a dvd about bread baking. it was really cool and tiring and ended with an evening of pizza made in an oven built in said chef's yard.
week two- began first trimester of academic classes since leaving NYU. pros- classes only on monday, tuesday, and wednesday. cons- class on wednesday for twelve and a half hours straight. wednesday is the new worst day ever. my brother was home from school on his break, and was really sick with all manner of terrible digestive problems that were then passed on to me. shout out to chelsea, who was also recently too sick to knit, which is pretty terrible. i became one with my couch and watched a lot of what not to wear and hgtv.
week three- continued to be one with my couch. then i was visited by the best boyfriend ever and we had tons of fun. our fun included pizza, rock climbing, waffle irons, blueberry pie, falling asleep (twice) during casablanca, and building a wigwam in the woods. it was also jack's birthday, which was really fun and the occasion for making the pie. happy birthday jack! it was also peggy's birthday, and she called me from honduras which was awesome because now i know she is safe after her journey to guatemala. happy birthday peggy! also while i was recovering, i began knitting peggy something that i think will be awesome for her birthday with some delicious Terra from the Fibre Company. emmanuel and i bought a great waffle iron at bed bath and beyond which resulted in a giant disaster in my kitchen (which resulted in me giving in and buying pam). then, i may have broken my toe by dropping my computer on it in the bathroom. this occurred on saturday morning when i tried to carry four glasses and my computer downstairs and decided to make a pitstop in the bathroom to brush my teeth. i thought i had set it down and instead i let it go and it fell directly onto my toe! in a way, i traded toe for computer, and given the choice, i'd probably do it again. unfortunately, my toe is enormous and a lot of weird colors and it's hard to wear shoes.
week four- weirdly, math may be evolving to be my favorite class. i never ever ever liked math or was good at it but this class is pretty cool and non mathy for a math class. still having a hard time wearing shoes, but it is a little easier. the toe is smaller. i am making very good progress on my sweater which i hope to finish sometime before august! unfortunately, our yarn bomb was taken down! but i have some exciting ideas for a follow up. and it is spring! and i have waffles!
so those are some things that happened in march! yay for april!

finished objects

2009-02-24T14:12:00.006-05:00

i have not posted in a long time, and here are most of the reasons why:

petit fours glaces. they are little 1 inch by 1 inch squares of frangipane sandwiched with raspberry jam, glazed with fondant that is exactly 98 degrees and filigreed with chocolate. way too much work to eat.

wedding cake. chocolate raspberry pound cake layered with raspberry jam (apparently, people are into that stuff) iced with italian buttercream, american buttercream (aka grease cream) roses.
i've also knit almost a whole sleeve of my vivian sweater- in fact, i knit so much of it this saturday that i had to stop knitting for the rest of the day because my hand hurt! in minnesota i started a cowl that i finished earlier this week, out of Terra by the Fibre Company. this yarrn is super super pretty. i loved working with it and i may just have to order more from purl soho. i've been wearing it with an awesome flower bud shaped silver pin that belonged to my grandma.

yarn bombing with chelsea on broadway. we decided this bus shelter needed to be alittle cozier and charged ourselves with knitting as much of its 14 by 76 inches as possible over the weekend. then yesterday we sewed it up! as we were sewing it, a girl yelled out her car window 'excuse me, what are you guys doing that for?' chelsea said 'decoration' i said 'happiness.' she yelled back 'i like it!' yay! we already made one person smile. hopefully this will lead to more of these in more fun places!

sleeping beauty

2009-02-16T16:26:00.002-05:00

so i just returned from a lovely weekend in minnesota visiting with a boy who unquestionably wins the Best Boyfriend Ever award. i was going to say best boyfriend of the year, but i have ammended it to be best boyfriend EVER. here's why: just picture what the best day ever for me would be. does it involve yarn? knitting? cuddling under seventeen blankets because it is freezing? prank phone calls? romantic dates and delicious food? if you answered yes to all of these questions, you are right! my valentine's day involved all of these things. i was told we were going to do a surprise thing in the afternoon, and we went to the 2009 KNIT OUT AND CROCHET at the mall of america. yes, he took me to a convention of knitting, yarn-crazy midwestern women. for valentine's day. as a surprise. we attended a wonderful class about how to make the best of your variegated yarn, saw some awesome knit samples, fashion shows and display tables for a lot of major yarn brands. it was generally amazing. we also met a woman who was spinning on a beautiful spinning wheel and told us about how she has 80 sheep and her husband shears them and she spins all their fleece into yarn! i was like ah, i want to be you. and she even spun alittle on her wheel for us. this led to an interesting conversation with emmanuel about the machinery of the spinning wheel and him saying the following words: "i think i could make one, maybe even out of a bike." best. boyfriend. ever.
i have been fascinated by spinning wheels since i was like 5 and saw sleeping beauty. and now that i love spinning i covet them even more, and i frequently linger on websites ogling them. here is an old irish woman with a spinning wheel 100 years ago:

here is st. elizabeth of hungary with her spinning wheel:

now i can be like these ladies. yes.

also, if there's one thing i know, it's volume!

i have homework= time for a post

2009-02-09T17:17:00.002-05:00

i have been really busy for like the past week, so my knitting like has totally suffered. i don't think i knit anything yesterday. i feel super weird about that. but i can't worry about that now, because this is super crunch time for my project/ midterm/ practical tomorrow. also, i need to show my boyfriend he is special in a way that is not giving him a card that says "you're a great pal" filled with money.
this will be a short post.

http://dneese.blogspot.com/2008/12/announcing-global-guerilla-knit-up.html

go to the above link, and follow its directions. i have been planning to tag a bus shelter for probably forever, and i'm totally going to do it on february 23rd (and no, my recent run-in with the rhode island law only scares me alittle)
even if you don't knit! make something joyful.

also, my brother made a blog about English premier league soccer. i don't imagine that our blogs will really reach the same populations in any way, but just in case, it's called Wrong Side of the Atlantic, and i linked it over there on the side.
ok i promise i am going to get off the internet and not even think about ravelry until i am done with this project. anyone want to knit on wednesday?

a hat story

2009-01-31T14:50:00.004-05:00

so i have this hat from urban outfitters that i have worn almost everyday for the past year and a half. note that i am wearing it in my banner picture. it originally belonged to my NYU roomate Katie Blakely, but as i was going through an unfortunate stage of short hair growing out, she graciously lent it to me. i wore it so often that when it was time for me to leave new york, she insisted i take it. i took it only with the promise that i would knit a hat in its likeness, and return it to her. THIS WAS OVER A YEAR AGO. at the time, i wasn't really a knitter, and i had never made a hat, but i knew it could be done.
cut to october of this year, when i discover the wonders of spinning. i made this amazing yarn with fibers from Terrabellaspun.etsy, and i knew right away that i wanted it to be a hat. unfortunately, i crocheted it into this very very stiff lumpy looking thing that resembles a hat. i wear this on my head frequently, mostly to the grocery store or while loafing around.

with the un-success of the handspun hat, i decided to try just making a basic hat, with lots of increases after the brim, figuring that it would just materialize. looking at the original Katie hat, the stitches looked like a very small gauge to me. so i bought some noro silk garden (sigh. gasp) and knit it into this hat:

(apparently, i am prevented by blogger from uploading this picture? oh well. it's not too exciting, and it's also on ravelry.)

it is effectively just a regular old beanie. oh well. i still wear this on my head too, because i love the noro, but i dont find this hat style to be particularly flattering (unless your hair is even less flattering, which is frequently the case for me.)
then, a few weeks ago i went to yarn it all with some fun knitting friends, and bought this AMAZING turquoise yarn, hand dyed by madeleine tosh. it is the prettiest yarn ever. i know i say this about many yarns, but really, if i could only knit with one yarn for the rest of my life, i pick this one. i am head over heels. because this yarn is so wonderful, i couldn't decide what to make with it, and i have been working on The Sweater every chance i have, so mostly the yarn just hung out looking pretty. then i saw the grace lace beret, on chelsea's blog. eureka! here is the holy grail of hats i thought, and i cast on right away. 24 hours later:

i will never take this hat off again. thank you chelsea, elizabeth einstein, and madeleine tosh, for serendipitously colliding and bringing me this hat.

in other knitting news, i have major sweater progress! i was going to upload a picture, but apparently i can't. technological proficiency eludes me. anyways, be excited. it's on ravelry, and hopefully i will be wearing it near you soon!

amazing

2009-01-21T13:13:00.000-05:00

this is pretty much how i feel about barack being president too.

gah!

2009-01-18T19:33:00.003-05:00

I WANT TO GO TO CAMP PLUCKYFLUFF
http://www.pluckyfluff.com/camp.html

but apparently you need to come with your own spinning wheel :(
during the past few weeks i have spent most of my spare time knitting Vivian by Ysolda Teague. i don't think i've talked about my recent obsession with Ysolda Teague, so i will just tell you all right now: she is great. i first became aware of her while drooling over Twist Collective. (to my crafty friends who read this, if you have not read Twist Collective, google it right now and go there. you will pee.) so basically, Ysolda is a 20something Scottish girl who loves literature, works part time at a yarn store, and makes money off being the most bangin knit designer ever. i pretty much want to be her, and i am definitely going to try and meet her during my time in the british isles next fall.
alright, sorry for sounding so creepy. im just inspired that she makes money off of being awesome. so inspired that i decided to embark on Vivian (that sounds so dirty) which is definitely the hardest thing i have ever knit. until i tried socks yesterday, but thats a different story. amazingly, besides having to tediously pull out a whole row this morning, i haven't fucked it up yet! here is what it looked like a week ago:

i have another picture that's basically the same that it won't allow me to upload. now, it is about twice as big (and twice as wonderful) and i love every stitch of this project. also, if anyone is in the market for some delicius yarn, you should look into Aruacania Azapa. get some and cuddle with it.
in other yarn related news, i bought some incredible turquoise hand dyed yarn at Fresh Purls yesterday with some lovely ladies. i haven't been able to think clearly enough about it to decide what to make with it yet, its too dazzling. i am also attempting the rapunzel socks, published in Knit 1., also by Ysolda. i have mostly suceeded with the few rows i have of it thanks to chelsea's fine abilities to decipher patterns.
so hopefully this hasn't been too boring for any non-crafters reading this. to get you guys drooling, i'll tell you about what i plan to make during my practical exam this week (which is hatefully during the inauguration!)
DAY 1: lavender honey creme brulee, served with a cylindrical caramel nest filled with fresh blackberries (and possibly raspberries for color)
DAY 2: ginger poached pears with pistachio shortbread and blackberry sorbet.

are these things anyone would want to eat? i don't really get a lot of freedom as to what desserts i make, so i mostly can only be creative with flavors.

im going to go watch pride and prejudice, the long version.

coincidence

2009-01-11T20:11:00.003-05:00

so awhile ago i heard a piece on NPR about this couple who stopped buying things for a year. They bought food obviously, and things they deemed "necessities" but no clothes or unnecessary objects of entertainment. People who know me know that i listen to NPR pretty much all the time, and it is great. so i heard this thing about them and i was like well, that's kindof hippy dippy of them, but also a kindof cool idea. and everyonce in a while it pops in my head and i think about if i have the willpower not to shop for a year. and i'm like oh yeah, i don't need to shop, but then christmas comes and i find it very easy to spend the gift certificates all in one go. i also read on this girl's blog a few months ago about how she was endeavoring to wear only things she made and i was really inspired. i always feel proud when i'm wearing something i've made. so imagine my awesome surprise when i stalked around to one of my newest favorite blogs to find this article! it's the newest one:
needled.wordpress.com
she has pretty much articulated all my thoughts on this issue much better than i ever could (although she has had a year of pointedly considering it). i'm not sure if i could do something like this, and i find her thoughts on the luxury of being able to make a choice like that really thought-provoking, but i think it's really inspiring and all of the things she made are so beautiful. i'm pretty sure there are like two people that read this, but if you read this and then take the time to read hers, what do you think?

new year

2009-01-05T21:46:00.002-05:00

i went to mexico, which is pictured above.
it was pretty much amazing, and i was sad to leave!
i have been thinking alot about the past, and about the future, because usually thinking about one leads to thinking about the other.
i made only a few new years' resolutions, the most successful of which so far has been to stop cracking my knuckles (although i accidentally leaned on my fingers and one cracked yesterday, but i do not count that!) the least successful has been trying to think more about the present than the past and future, leading to more "presence in the present" if you will. this is not something i am good at.
another one was to get my online life in order, meaning to actually post on my blog, actually update my ravelry, not forget my flickr id, figure out my digital camera from 3 years ago, and generally accomplish things.
here are other awesome things (besides going to mexico):
i finished my brother's scarf and my mom's mittens and am a few rows away from the completion of emmanuel's art school scarf. pictures will follow soon!
i registered for classes in the spring
i am reading harry potter in spanish
mexico, obviously, was awesome. and beautiful and spicy and foreign and filled with festively decorated toilets (pictures of which are also forthcoming)

i have to go do my homework (anyone else notice a trend of my posting here when i should be getting things done?)
i miss you emmanuel! come back to a place where it is cheaper to talk on the phone really soon, please.

christmas approaches!

2008-12-22T08:57:00.002-05:00

i swear it is my primary new year's resolution to actually update this with some frequency and detail. until then,
weirdandtwisted.blogspot.com
germans who make art yarn

so busy

2008-12-11T11:50:00.001-05:00

www.twistcollective.com

ittybittymiracle.blogspot.com

that is all

Ahhh eeee ooooo, killer tofu

2008-11-17T12:29:00.003-05:00

that is what i should have called this lunch. not only was it terrible, it has been haunting me for weeks as i have been so busy that i left its remains in my car. It did not age well.
ps. I am done with my project!

i am watching a show

2008-11-15T20:45:00.000-05:00

about a family that has 17 kids. i am morbidly fascinated by this (and also putting off my homework). from a certain (very far removed) respect, i can sort of see the appeal of this. these two people have effectively created their own world, and their whole family's whole world. But part of me kind of feels like maybe they are trying to barricade themselves from... something. birth control? that's pretty much where my ability to understand them ends, because they are pretty conservative and sexist. i can absolutely not imagine what it is like to mash out that many kids, or to even know seventeen people that well. their house pretty much looks like a warehouse crossed with a dorm. its probably the weirdest show ever. except that i flipped the channel and bear grills was running around naked eating a freshly slaughtered yak's still bleeding liver.
on an unrelated note, this week i went to saver's with two awesome ladies and made some excellent purchases. these include a sequined silver lame sweater that is so amazing i had a dream about it, and a cassette that cost me 49 cents called Songs That Got Us Through World War II. This is the best cassette ever- it begins with a song called boogie woogie bugle boy. oh baby!
also! i am going to mexico with emmanuel after christmas! i am so excited. it also makes me feel justified for listening to Latin 100.3 Providence, because now i can just claim i am refreshing my spanish (although clearly i am just rocking out.)
and, all the beautiful beautiful things i ordered on etsy last week arrived on wednesday. i will not say much except the world should get ready for the coolest yarns ever. i am already trying to name them.
ok. that is really enough procrastination. i am going to watch the break up and try to focus on my homework (whoever thought writing about Danishes and their respective fillings could be so arduous?)

what will i eat for lunch???

2008-11-14T12:28:00.001-05:00

inspiration

2008-10-29T13:08:00.000-04:00

www.craftivism.com

this lady is so great. i love making things.

what's up procrastination

2008-10-27T21:44:00.001-04:00

right now i am procrastinating my homework. you would think at culinary school that there is no homework, and if there is it involves awesome things like food. WRONG. there is homework, and it, like all other breeds of homework, is terrible and i want to do everything but complete it.
today, two pieces of technology in my life revived themselves from the mysterious realm of the questionably broken. my ipod fixed itself by running out of battery, and my mom fixed my digital camera (i'm not really sure why) by putting batteries in it. so basically, hooray for bateries and their role in powering gadgets!
the revival of my camera came with the benefit of finally having my pictures from the trip to italy greece and switzerland i took IN 2006. awesome, but kindof an example of how bad i am about getting things done.
in any case, expect to see these pictures somewhere sometime and the new pictures of my life i was always planning on taking if i had a camera. (hint: it will mostly involve yarn)
also today i made a bread showpiece, which was really fun because it involved braiding the dough and making flowers out of bread. it is totally great to make things that are both pretty and edible. and i got to bring it home, because nobody wants a giant bread showpiece that celebrates the harvest hanging around their dorm. this means that now my car smells like fresh bread and it kept me warm all the way home.
i am becoming critical of my blog since reading emmanuel's and realizing mine is distinctly less funny. if you are someone that reads this who is not him, go read his blog: treesgrowleaves.blogspot.com.

things i've bought that i love

2008-10-20T10:44:00.000-04:00

i guess i havent been very good about keeping up with this, but that is not really a surprise.
lots of things have happened since my last update!
here are some of the good ones:
i went to the badlands and mount rushmore (i really do have pictures i promise)
i started culinary school and learned how to make professional french pastries and artisanal breads.
i survived my whole first class at school
i finished my first skein of handspun yarn! well almost, i just need to soak it to set the twist.
i went apple picking
i got a new tattoo! it is great and it is pictured above. i should probably take a new picture now that my foot isnt 100 times normal size
here are some of the bad ones:
the red sox didn't win the ALCS
emmanuel went to jail
i'm sure there's lots of other stuff that happened in the last two months that i should have blogged about but did not. one cool thing is that my first yarn bomb is still up in the garden grille parking lot! woo hoo
in this post i am honoring mindy kaling, the great writer of the office who until april kept a really awesome blog called things i've bought that i love. it was a totally great and shameless log of awesome things she bought and why they were awesome. so here is my version (if i was her i'd have pictures)
1. Burt's Bees Radiance Body Lotion
this body lotion not only smells really awesome, but it is shimmery. that means after you use it, your skin legit sparkles (and is also hydrated and good smelling). it is great and also 99% natural!
2. Roving from TerraBellaSpun
i bought this beautiful roving from TerraBellaSpun on Etsy, which is the best website ever in case you haven't been there. TerraBellaSpun is not only great because she makes beautiful and inspiring roving that makes me want to make the best fibers ever, but because she is making these fibers in Rhode Island! Local awesomeness.
ok i'm going to go eat apple cake and walk in the woods with my brother before i spend the whole rest of the day making bread at school.

lots of new stuff

2008-09-03T10:46:00.000-04:00

i have lots of new things to post! like photos from south dakota and minnesota and pictures of my broomstick lace hourglass jacket! i finished the body of it yesterday. also, we brought my brother to college. and i'm painting my room!
yikes!
soon i will put a very long post the contains all of these things. but right now i'm going to clean my room up so i can start painting it!

p.s.

2008-08-20T14:08:00.000-04:00

these ladies rock:
http://www.ladiesfancyworksociety.com/

also i just signed up for ravelry at the recommendation of my newfound knitting friend chelsea. this means even more things i want to make! but weirdly they make you wait 2 days til you can use it!

it is my weekend

2008-08-20T13:54:00.001-04:00

and there is an americas next top model thon on.
and i am drinking tea and crocheting.
and our knitting circle was fun! small but awesome (that's what she said?)
and it's a beautiful day!
i am making it a goal to finish my curtains finally and make lots of progress on the dress i am crocheting in the next two days! and hopefully maybe try to de-espresso stench myself and see if i can get my hands to no longer feel like gloves of sandpaper.
tomorrow i am going to maybe get a haircut, a photo of which i have been trying to post on here but for some reason it won't let me upload it!
berf. i'm going to make more tea. today is awesome!

my moms friend was visiting so we paused to chat!

2008-08-18T20:59:00.000-04:00

but now i am back. today i biked 15 miles! i know that's small potatoes for you bike hipsters out there but it was an accomplishment for asthma-ridden folk like me! the providence bike path is just so beautiful, i pretty much couldn't help smiling at every person i passed just because i was so happy to be on the earth under the sun beside the sea! by the end of it mostly i was just really sweaty and covered with bike grease.
now i am at this strange point in the evening, that happens every night, where no matter how exhausted i have been all day long and how little sleep i got the night before and how early i have to get up the next morning, i'm unexplainably becoming more awake and less likely to go to sleep before 12, or any time that would be sane for someone who regularly wakes up at 5:30. i'm not sure how much sense that made. this is a frustrating occurance, because i know tomorrow morning i will kick myself in the ass for not going to sleep NOW.
also, tomorrow is the first meeting of our knitting circle! i am excited and nervous. i feel like i should have some form of experience in group dynamics, or bringing people together over a common thread (ha ha ha) but the truth is that meeting new people makes me pretty nervous and i feel like i'm going to have to do alot of it soon. i guess i just will feel responsible if the whole thing is awkward or weird or never happens again after tomorrow. cross your fingers for me, wide world of internet!
i need to brush my teeth, they taste like feet.
hmm. this is becoming a whole lot like everything i don't like about blogging. i think i will go watch the olympics!

i might've been born yesterday but i stayed up all night

2008-08-18T20:23:00.001-04:00

the bronx. 151st street! 8 blocks from yankee stadium.
i'm also extra proud because it was the first thing i ever cable knit.
in other news, the yankee game was cool.

this morning i got up really early

2008-08-15T18:58:00.000-04:00

and i went to work. this afternoon, among other things i made kindof cracked out looking eggless oatmeal cherry cookies. perhaps my friends who are more experience with vegan baking will be able to help me out with the science behind why they happended the way they happened, but they still tasted yummy! i gave a batch to my friend ally- it is her 21st birthday! yay! and also some to my neighbor judy because she just started radiation and i thought she needed a pick me up!
i am posting this mostly to relay my excitement over the fact that i just returned from purchasing yarn for a dress that only cost me 20 dollars! i am so thrilled. i even bought some really eye catching purple sparkly yarn that may be finding its way onto a bus shelter on broadway next week if you know what i'm saying...
tomorrow i am voyaging to new york with my family to see a yankee game, which should be really fun. i am disappointed that we are not going to really spend any time in the city as we are going down and back in the same day, and it will be presumably my last visit to yankee stadium as it exists today. i don't really approve of the destruction of the stadium, there's too much karma going on there.
in other exciting news, today corinne and i decided on a date and time of the first meeting of our knitting circle! i am very excited, i've never started/ organized anything before. i hope it is awesome and not lame. i would post the details here and invite my myriad readers to come but i'm pretty sure there's currently only one person who reads this and he neither lives in the state nor practices any sort of needlecraft.
hmmm. i'm going to go start on that dress!

Yarn Bombing

2008-08-14T21:12:00.000-04:00

Hello blogosphere.
welcome to my first blogging experience! it follows shortly on the heels of my first yarn bombing experience. check it above. for those of you who don't know, this means that i am engaging in crochet graffiti, and now my art has its own life out in the big wide world! or in this case, the garden grille parking lot.
so i think this blog will mostly be about the stuff i do when i'm not at work, which is mostly make things. i'm not sure how this venture will work, since i am both extremely critical of writing about myself and of things i make. it may end up being mostly pictures of pie, but that's ok with me if that's ok with you.
some things i like are: books and libraries, awesome vegetarian food and specifically delicious pastries, organic gardening, crochet and needle arts in general, ancient civilizations, the beach, and dorkily riding my bike around town. if you like these things too, let's be friends!
time to go watch/ fall asleep in front of the olympics!