Enchanting Juno

A Winter's Tale.

I am not all talk (though a little doubt could be forgiven, really). The strange nature of knit blogging is that if a finished object is not photographed and blogged, somehow it doesn't fully exist.  Even if one is wearing it.  Frequently. Similar to the sound of one hand clapping or Shroedinger's cat, the witness gives form and structure to the reality.

I'm doling them out though, as a) I have 8 days worth of stuff to happen in the next three - would anyone like to come and do the laundry? and b) it would rather dilute the impact of the reality.

Sunset Adagio - looking rather Gothic here.  This is winter's natural light - it looked perfectly gorgeous in the wind.  The edge ruffled and rippled as it moved and I am just simple enough that I could have stood there with cold feet forever and watched.

(click for big, please.  I like this one.)

Hard to believe that this is the actual color:

Nice, huh?  Adagio shawl pattern from Candace Eisner Strick, silk fingering weight from Ball and Skein, 4 mm Holtz & Stein Needles.  Begun in June, stalled since September when I ran out of yarn (despite the fact that Judy found another half skein for me in October.  I am slow). 

About three repeats short of specified size, as the yarn shortage was becoming apparent, but my silk gauge is so loose, I think it worked out well.  Just the right sort of pick me up for the dull colors of December. 

If I ever find happiness, it'll be when I stub my toe on it.

Heh.  Met a goal, not a goal person.  Not the writing of greatest clarity.  Oops.

It is totally possible to meet a goal without having one.

I find with most things that I do much better if I sneak up on them.  Emotional growth, human understanding, knitting, exercise....if I make a chart, a goal statement and specific plan, the first thing I do is exactly the opposite of what will make progress happen. Maybe clean the cabinet under the sink.

I've never liked being told what to do, apparently not even by myself.  Which is totally strange really, because you would be hard pressed to find a less indirect human being than I.  Even when I am trying to be delicate and nuanced, all I end up doing is choosing the delicately nuanced word that most brutally rips the band-aid off.  I have a near-genius for it. 
Someday I must tell you about the incident that ended with my closest friend calling me an overeducated WASP bitch - mostly as a joke.  I was trying so very hard to be smooth about the question I had been asked, too. 

It never works. 

A few months ago I was talking about this with a friend - who had just said that I default to forthright, which made me gloomy.  Because, well, it IS true and it seems like such an unsophisticated way of being.  Am complex person, dammit.  So I was glooming - not unlike Eyore - about the problem that is my tendency to leak the truth, and his response was "well, not for you it isn't".  Which has been an interesting way to think about it.  Not my problem?  If another person is troubled by honesty or perception then that might be...their difficulty?
But isn't...everything my fault responsibility problem?  Huh.  (This person also suggested that the DVDs I have in my possession which belong to someone else that I have tried to return and not gotten a straight answer to where to send them are in fact, at this point, mine.  And maybe I could just let go of fretting about my obligation to the original owner at this point.  Huh again.)

Anyway - I do have goals, but making a list and systematically setting out to meet it doesn't work for me.  Instead, I have trends, trends in increased health, fitness, intellectual and emotional development, satisfaction, dating, cooking, bill paying, organization, etcetera....and of course, knitting. I like trends.  Trends leave room for back and forth progress without feeling like a failure, trends allow for maneuvering room, trends allow for flexibility.  Trends allow for falling without failing, for getting up and beginning again without having to start over.  Starting over sucks the energy right out of the soul (well, in this context anyway).

The way I see it, we are always Works In Progress, and there is no end to that.  And absolutes give me indigestion.  So do rules, for that matter.  So no resolutions, no goals.  Be or not be.  Stay in motion.  Some days better than others.

In the back of my mind I began the year thinking that I would like to get it right with a few sweaters, that I would like to get a handle on my fit issues, and choice issues for projects, and have some sweaters I liked to wear and you know, stop dicking around with being half-assed about knitting. No plan, just something to keep in mind.  To inform my choices with.

And here I am, in December. a lot of finished work that works for the last 12 months.  But no plan.  Never a plan.
Just a thought to guide me.
 

 

3 Alarm

Posting is clearly going to be slowing down here - of course now that I've said that, no doubt I will be full of procrastinatory energy and you won't be able to get rid of me, but the days, they are like the sands through the hourglass, yes?  And Christmas is coming. 

I have a few things left to figure out, and a house to clean and a suitcase to pack and oh, the laundry...I don't know how people who are responsible for others manage it, I really don't.  But today I am optimistic, as I spent part of yesterday sorting out a guilt pile - you have guilt piles, right?  The unfiled, unpaid, the Damoclean sword in paper form, the encroaching tide of mystery data.  It starts out as 6 pieces of paper for next month and 6 months later is knocking the phone out of the cradle with the bulge of its retaining wall.

Yeah, I fixed it.  Paid them, filed them, threw their sorry asses in the shredder.  Back down to 6 pieces of paper for which I WILL WRITE CHECKS TODAY.  And I'm a little giddy from the high.

Also, I am on fire with the knitting, not that you could tell.  But the truth is that if tonight goes really well I could bring my finish count for the past few days up to three items.  Someday I must tell you about it. 
At knitting a few weeks ago someone pointed out that I had knit a lot this year.  I was in the throws of ripping 10 inches of ribbing out of the Dream In Color cardigan at the time and said something bitter and disparaging, but it turns out she was right.  This year I have finished 4 sweaters - 3 of which I actually wear - plus a myriad of mitts and scarves and things.  Which was my actual, if unspoken, goal in knitting this year: clothes. 

I'm so not a goal person.  How peculiar is it that I met one?  And the universe still intact and everything.

I think.

More about food.

This is from Jamie Oliver, an old Naked Chef episode (found it on FoodTV Website, from whom I also nicked the photo. Mine is not generally quite so pretty, but it doesn't last long, so it hardly matters.) (The food channel used to be so much fun.  What happened?)

Parsnip and Rosemary Tagliatelle

• 12  slices pancetta, or dry-cured streaky bacon
• 1 handful fresh rosemary, leaves picked or 1 handful fresh thyme, leaves picked or 1 handful fresh summer savory, leaves picked
• 4 good knobs of butter
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled, finely, sliced
• 2 parsnip, peeled, halved, finely, sliced, lengthwise
• 1 lb. dried tagliatelle
• 3  good handfuls grated parmesan cheese
• sea salt, and freshly cracked black pepper

1. In a large, non-stick frying pan fry your pancetta and herbs in half the butter for 2 minutes on medium heat.
2. Add the garlic and parsnips.
3. Cook for a further 3 minutes, until the pancetta is slightly golden and the parsnips have softened nicely.
4. Cook your tagliatelle in salted boiling water (check the packet for cooking time), then drain, reserving a little of the cooking water.
5. Mix the pasta with the parsnips and pancetta and stir in the rest of your butter and the Parmesan, adding a little of the cooking water to loosen the mixture and make it creamy and shiny.
6. Season to taste.

I would then add, serve in a bowl.  Of course.  I don't do anything formal with slicing the parsnips though.  I do what Jamie Oliver did on the episode of the Naked Chef I lifted this dinner from: use a carrot peeler to make little pasta-like strips of parsnip, that way they disappear into the pasta and make this unexpected sweet bite in the dish. And I would probably add more than two, if they're little ones.  Also, I would start the pasta first, way before I start doing anything with my pancetta.  Oh, and when I misremembered procuitto for pancetta once I discovered that procuitto goes gloriously crispy in the pan, which can be fun.  But it doesn't make much fat, so keep an eye on it.
Fantastical good.

While I was hunting around for this on line - as an alternative to finding my cooking notes - I found another of his recipes, this one for beef and parsnip stew, which I think I might make this weekend.  Along with this, which I have longed for since Ysolda uttered (well, typed) the compelling phrase Gingerbread Cupcakes with Lemon Yogurt Icing.  And me with a bag of Meyer lemons in the fridge.  How that happened I will never know.

Instead of making this one - the mahogany stew I mentioned - which is also good.  Though I used less hoisin and added about an hour to the cooking time - first two times I had it it was really good, but rather heavy - the third time I cooked it way longer and the meat broke down a bit more - much more delicious AND digestible.  I've had this with mashed potatoes under it - good.  But I like egg noodles better.  Nice wide ones.

Any other recipe questions....honestly, read Bakerina.  She got me cooking again after a long hiatus (read this and I dare you not to cook) and the lentil thing is all her fault.  Though I can't find the post with the balsamic dressed ones. (ETA: Aha!)

French lentils (the black ones are gorgeous, but they make the carrots brown looking and sad), cubed carrots, cooked until tender, toss with butter and balsamic, salt and pepper to taste, Israeli feta and slivered almonds on top is what I end up doing.
It might, or might not, be what she described.  Things get blurry in the middle of a love affair.

No, really. 2nd in a series.

Received one day, no other message or prior contact:

"Want to hear about buster??"

No response given.

Next day: 

"Buster the rabbit, he's a friend of mine.
He likes to drink his carrot wine,
all of the time.
Buster the rabbit, he's a silly boy,
and all of his silly freinds come around,
and they get all pie eyed on carrot wine.
What can I say?
But Buster he's still a friend of mine.

Buster the rabbit, he likes to play it cool,
didn't stay in school.
Buster the rabbit, run out on all his friends,
says, paying taxes is for dummies.
Buster the rabbit, had a girlfriend all his life,
never made her his wife.
Well what can I say?
But Buster he's still a friend of mine.

Buster the rabbit, stays up late at night,
says he'll get all the sleep he needs,
when he's dead.
Buster the rabbit, he lives life as it comes,
kinda makes it up as he goes along,
more or less.
Well now, what can I say?
Buster he's still a friend of mine."

Bowl Food

I keep thinking about my tendency to cook things that just go into a bowl.  Like it is something a little bit worrisome.  Clearly, I am not a real cook.  Or something.

And I'm not compared to many of the people I know - they cook like art, cook like love, cook beautifully.  And those are worthy, worthy goals, and I will be happy to feast on the end product if you invite me to dinner.  Not you you, I mean a global and generic 'you'. You know.  But me, I just want to cook good things to eat.  If its just for me, I want to be quickish. Get back to the knitting.  If it looks nice, that's a bonus, but not a necessity.

Mostly, it goes in a bowl. 

Lentils and Rice, with a bit of balsamic and butter, spinach with feta and paprika, roasted butternut squash mashed up with a bit of nutmeg and fried onion bits, that chickpea and kale soup, brussel sprouts tossed with salt and pepper and oil and roasted til brown and crispy and soft (add some walnuts for the last 5 or 10 minutes).  The ever popular vegetable stir fry.  In the summer, fresh tomato slices and ceasar dressing and walnuts, or nectarines and plain yogurt and wheat germ and a little maple syrup.

I'm a fan of a large green salad with almonds and chicken and tomatoes and scallions and a goddess dressing.

There's a rosemary thing with parsnips and fettucine.  That is oily but good.  Must find the recipe. 

And that Mahogany stew.  I never cook that any more, too much for just me and it is rather a lot of meat.  But the carrots that have been cooked in are about the most delicious thing in the world.  I've been meaning to try it again with some parsnips too.
(The parsnip is undervalued in American cooking and it is really a damn shame.)
Oh and the mushroom and white bean and tomato sauce/stew.  With a bit of lamb sausage.

All in a bowl.  Not, obviously, all at once.

I got thinking about this today after reading this NY Times article about some of the cook books out now (I want to go buy them all).

I have a couple of friends who are notable cooks and I find myself shy around them, of cooking for them - because I don't think of myself as a real cook.  Almost every one of the things I mentioned above are things someone fed me or told me about that I just plain old stole.  I guess I think real cooks invent more.  And garnish. 

I bought an Ottoman cookbook last year - not that I've done much with it - and one from Elephant Walk in Boston - THAT was a notably good meal.  And a good read as well.  More than I knew about Cambodian culture than I did before.

What do these things have in common?  Mostly bowl foods. Things with legumes and vegetables and rice, things that ladle, things that need an edge to hold them.

I had this moment at thanksgiving:  I kept forgetting to call my mom to review the stuffing recipe of my ancestors (very good, by the way) and in the end I went to the store and threw more or less what I'd need in a cart and added some chestnuts because I like them and just...decided to figure it out.  I've made stuffing before.  I've eaten stuffing before.  It was kind of a new moment for me as a cook, one of those tiny moments that turn out to have larger repercussions

We were being vegetarian, so I was thinking about adding mushroom stock for depth of flavor, but in the end Mom talked me out of it - thought it would be too damp - and you know what?  I was right.  The stuffing as OK, but it could have been better.  And I didn't need a recipe and instructions from my ancestors, I knew.  But I'm not a real cook, so I gave up the idea too easily.

After the holiday I took the leftover stuffing and the leftover soup and the leftover everything else and threw it all together (with some mushroom stock, thank you very much) into a pan and made this weird vegetarian stew.  Which I ate out of a bowl.  And you know what?  It was a bowl of brown mush, but it was enormously tasty mush.

I find bowls warm and comforting (I love handle-less tea mugs for the same reasons, cupping my hands around them makes me feel grounded and safe and connected and aware) and I like stews and noodles and roasted vegetables and mashed up legumes with lots of savor. 

I wonder where this idea comes from, the idea I have that the way I like to do something is not just automatically OK?  I somehow have to go through these mental gymnastics to recognize what's good and personal and reflective of the self about the things I do, and that there is no need to align it with anyone else's ideas or habits unless I want to incorporate something I find good and choose to adopt.
I was talking to a male friend over the holiday and though he has just as many questions about his own life as I do, he doesn't have that...sense of apology that so many women do.  That I struggle with sometimes.

That's something I'm grateful for this year, that I am learning to be friends with men again.  And also?  I can cook. 

The end of Autumn.

This fall I have been absolutely unable to look away from the trees.  My expectations for tree color were not high, given the bizarre, nearly tropical, warmth of September and October.  But somewhere before Thanksgiving we must have had a hard frost and suddenly there they were, the reason my mother sent me a box of wax ironed leaves when I lived in California. 

There are 5 young maples in a row in the park by my house who have gone such a magnificent pinkish scarlet that I nearly drive over the curb whenever the car rounds that corner.  They are hanging on to every last leaf and I salute them...though I have not photographed them. Some things can not be captured.

The three dimensionality of the fallen leaves beautiful this year, the way they drift and pile so lightly.  The shades. The shadows.  Perhaps this year I am just more noticing. 

Every year the leaves fall from the maple in my neighbor's yard onto my deck and I am so busy and lazy and not aware that they stay there until there has been rain or snow and they are rotting and sodden and frozen and in the spring they are a stinking beast to clean up.  Saturday I was home after the gym and looked out and thought - that tree is finally bare and today that is a 30 minute job.  Sad as I am to see them go.....

Sunday found me glad I acted. 

Other signs of winter.....Kilkenny Irish Soda Bread.  I used to be a fair hand with baking - when I was a little girl I would come home from school and make a cake a few times a week - but I never do it any more as I live alone and can't say no to fresh baked anything.  But the things you can buy are awful, even in good shops. 

Subbed craisins for raisins as that was what I have (I hate raisins), and used half organic whole wheat flour/half organic a/p white flour, and unprocessed cane sugar. I grew up thinking that healthier choices meant less flavor and I'm investigating the truth of that a bit these days.  So far it seems to be bollocks - I would say on the whole more delicate flavor, but not less. 

Verdict?  Not sure it was soda bread, but it was really good.  Managed a decent delicacy of crust and the flavor was excellent.  Needed a hair more mixing for cohesion - maybe a tad more buttermilk? And a tiny bit more salt. 

I ate half the loaf while it was warm - must work on that - I'll check the leftovers tonight to see if the texture in fact came out right in the end.