So I saw an ad on Ravelry that featured baseball team colored sock yarn. How could I resist getting some Mets yarn for some authentic Mets socks?





The yarn was dyed by an Etsy seller and is a 75% wool/25% nylon blend. I started a sock with it despite not having finished the 16A socks yet. I don't especially like the feel of the yarn, not after knitting with Shibui which is heavenly. I'm curious to see how the yarn will work up. Early indications appear to be spiraling, which of course means that the second sock will pool.



In other news, these brief glimpses of sunshine have been helping our garden.



These are the peppers in the foreground (not doing the greatest) with some spicy globe basil in between. In the back are the tomato plants with some regular basil in between.



The enormous plants on the left are the zucchinis, and to the right are the pickle cucumbers.


Last night while investigating the plants, we discovered this...

Our first harvest!!

To give you some size perspective, here is the cucumber compared to our butter dish...



And of course we ate it last night with our fried chicken. It was awesome!!!

I recently subscribed to Bon Appetit magazine. It fulfills a lot of what I look for in a magazine--lots of pictures and short articles. And since it is about food, sometimes there are even useful articles and recipes that I'd like to attempt.

Peach and Pecan Upside Down Cake


First arrange sugar sauce, pecans, and peaches in your pan. (Note for future: SPRAY pan before this step.)



Second spread the cake batter carefully over the fruit and nuts and bake.



Remove from oven when deliciously browned and allow to cool.



Carefully flip out of pan!!

You can see on the sides a bit of the reason why some spray would have been helpful.


Serve with whipped cream and enjoy!!!

Dr. Girlfriend farms...





Ok, maybe it would be more accurate to say that Dr. Girlfriend harvests and consumes!!

So H. Langston Rutherford loves scrambled eggs. It is the only thing he'll eat faster than cheese. And scrambled eggs with cheese... he is in food heaven.





**A yummy surprise awaits the hamster!!**





**The hamster approaches and samples.**





This is delicious!!!




**Nom nom nom...**



After all those eggs, hamster needs some exercise...

I awoke bright and early Saturday morning (quite an unusual feat) and quickly showered, dressed, and double checked the subway directions. Kevin kindly woke up as well and gave me a ride to the end of the 1 line.



Riding the 1 train to Times Square, I read through the Sunday Times Magazine (a regular Saturday ritual). At Times Square, I switched to an N train and headed to my final destination at Canal Street.



Above ground at Canal and Broadway, I quickly figured out which direction was north (opposite the way the train was headed... took me waaaaaay too long to figure out that keeping in mind which way I was headed on the train could help me figure out directions above ground.) As I had a little extra time, I stopped at a small cafe and ordered a bagel and water. I finished reading Frank Bruni's feature article as I ate my breakfast and became more excited for the rest of the day.



I walked back to the International Culinary Center, which is a joint venture of the French and Italian culinary institutes. (Apparently, Jacques Pepin is one of the deans of the school. I was hoping he'd be wandering the hallways, but no such luck.) I checked in at reception and received my apron and skullcap and waited for the rest of my classmates to arrive.



Shortly after 10am, I and my fellow students (11 others) were escorted to the baking classroom where we met Chef Karen and Chef Johnson. Chef Karen started by briefly telling us a little about herself and then asked each of us to introduce ourselves and say a little something about why we were there. (Since it had been a while since I was on the student side of such an activity, I forgot how agonizing it can be to say something interesting. But of course, I'll still keep making my own students do it on the first day of class.) Then it was time to jump in and learn about doughnuts!!



Chef Karen demonstrated for us how to make a yeast dough. She passed around the dough at various stages so that we could get an idea of how it should look and feel. Because yeast doughs need time to rise, we didn't use the batch she made, but instead worked with a huge batch they had made earlier in the morning. In teams of three (I worked with two sisters who were very nice and friendly), we cut, weighed, and pre-shaped the dough. Then we gave it a final shape and let it proof.



At that point Chef Karen moved us onto learning about apple cider doughnuts, which rely on baking soda and powder instead of yeast. After demonstrating how to make the dough, each team of three gathered the ingredients and mixed our own dough. That dough had to rest in the freezer.



Chef Karen's apple cider dough was well rested so she demonstrated cutting the doughnuts. And then returned her doughnuts to the fridge for another rest. Then she demonstrated how to make a hole in the yeast doughnuts (basically just punch your finger through it).



And then it was time for the frying. There were some technical difficulties with keeping the oil at the correct temperature (the simple and short version is that this is the first time they taught this class and so didn't anticipate that the electric burners wouldn't be strong enough). Once the technical issues were solved, my team and I fried and fried and fried. Yeast doughnuts were fried and coated with vanilla sugar, and others with cinnamon sugar. Some yeast doughnuts were fried without a hole and then filled with raspberry jam. Then we fried the apple cider doughnuts, some of which made it into the sugar, and some of which were drizzled with icing or glaze.



The number of doughnuts created by the whole class could probably have supplied a small bakery for their entire day. I was able to bring home more doughnuts than Kevin and I could possibly eat.

As you've noticed, knitting content has been quite sparse of late. I've got two socks in stages of uncompleteness, and a scarf that's about 95% finished. But I'm bored with them and wanted something new without spending money. If I had a sizable stash, this wouldn't be so hard, but since my stash is mainly one skein of this, one ball of that... finding an interesting project is difficult.



I do, however, have 8 skeins of Noro Kureyon, but only if I frogged the 4 skeins that were knit up as a log cabin square. And so I decided to frog it and start a new Klaralund. I figured that with a few changes (knitting in the round, downsizing the sleeves) I could make a Klaralund that I would wear and not frog (like Klaralund I).



I frogged the log cabin square and cast on for the body in the round. I knit 8 inches and started to notice it looked a little too skinny. I put it down for several days because I didn't want to measure it. I didn't want to know the truth. Today I measured... instead of 4 stitches per inch, I have 4.5 stitches. Half a stitch is not so bad you say? That's 2 more stitches per 4 inches, which amounts to a loss of 3 inches in the body width. That means there is no way it will fit without a lot of stretching (or some extreme dieting).



So I have to frog it. But I need to decide whether to continue on size 8s and recalculate the number of stitches to cast on based on my gauge, or go up to a 9 and try to get the gauge required...... thoughts?

**You switch on about midway through the program as the camera catches a quick glimpse of our Host Dr. Girlfriend.**







...and here we have the dough portioned into 60 gram balls and shaped to their final shape. Remember after the dough has completed its bulk fermentation, we cut, shape, rest, and re-shape. When you get good, you'll be able to degas, fold and flip, and round with two hands at once!






Now these beauties need to be lightly covered with some plastic wrap and allowed to rest for their final proof. This will take about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. And poof...





Our doughnut balls have grown significantly to their biggest size. Hopefully before they fully finished proofing, you started heating up your oil. Between 350 and 360 degrees is optimal. If your oil is too cold, you doughnuts will be oily; too hot, and your doughnuts will burn before they cook.



As your oil comes up to temperature, it is time to shape the proofed doughnuts. You can certainly leave them as is if you intend to fill them with jelly, but today here on Dr. Girlfriend Cooks we're making non-filled donuts, so let's make some holes.





Making a hole in a doughnut is quite easy. Just push your finger into the center of the ball, wiggle a bit, and once the hole is started, gently pick up the doughnut and enlarge the hole. The doughnuts will deflate a bit as you do this, but don't worry they'll puff up in the fryer.



Once your oil is nice and hot, you are ready to go. Remember, don't overcrowd your pan. Just a few doughnuts at time keeps your temperature from dropping and gives you room to maneuver.



Today we are using a small, household deep fryer for our frying. I prefer this method to a big pan of hot oil on the stove. That big pan of hot oil terrifies me. Additionally, the fryer actually does a better job of holding its temperature constant, which will make frying your doughnuts easier and more consistent. I can only fit two doughnuts at a time, but that's ok. Fry the doughnuts at least 2 minutes per side, but not more than 3 per side.



Briefly drain your doughnuts on some paper towels and then allow them to cool off on a rack or some additional paper towels.






As soon as the doughnuts are cool enough to handle, you can top them with some sugar or cinnamon sugar. You do want the doughnuts a little warm for this step to be sure the sugar will stick, but don't coat the doughnuts too soon or the sugar will start clumping and melting.





If you are interested in coating your doughnuts with powdered sugar, you'll have to wait until they are 90% cool. If the doughnut still has any warmth, your powdered sugar will just soak right into the doughnut.



It is very helpful to have your kitchen or work area set up for a production line. Raw doughnuts near the fryer, a draining area on the other side of the fryer, a place for cooling doughnuts, your toppings nearby, and a final resting place (not your tummy!!!).





Here you can see to the right my fryer with raw doughnuts to the left and a draining area to the right. In small kitchens like mine you need to get a little creative, so the rest of the assembly line is behind the fryer. There's a cooling place, toppings, and final resting place.



Frying two doughnuts at a time is bit time-consuming, but your efforts will be well rewarded with a bounty of delicious goodness.





This simple recipe yielded 18 doughnuts: 6 sugar, 6 cinnamon-sugar, and 6 powder-sugar. Leave the doughnuts sitting out to breath a little after they are first made. When you go into Dunkin' Donuts (which you will never do again, now that you can make your own doughnuts), you see they have their doughnuts sitting out and not sealed away. Depending on how many mouths are in your house, they might not last long enough to seal up. After a few hours, you can cover the doughnuts in plastic wrap or seal in an airtight container.



These doughnuts don't last long, so be sure to eat them the day they are made or the next. By day three, they aren't so good.





Deliciously chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside. Nothing is better than a delicious doughnut.

Since it is so steamy here in NYC, there is absolutely no knitting happening. Not even socks. It is difficult to even get the energy to move my fingers to type. Yes, we have air conditioners in the windows, and turning them on would make it more comfortable. But I don't want to pay the electric company a bucketload of money for running the AC 24/7. So far we've been using it mainly in the evenings and for sleeping. Additionally, the air conditioners are loud. So terribly loud. If my office was air conditioned (which it isn't), I would consider hiding out there during the day (well, I probably still wouldn't, unless my office also had TV and ample snacks). The point is... there is no knitting to be talked about and not even any baking... just melting.

About 15-20 minutes ago, I looked out my living room window wondering why it was so damn sticky and awful outside (and worse inside). I noticed that there were four men across the street from my place having a heated argument. There was a teenager watching the entire thing from across the street (basically standing in my driveway).


Of course I was curious and peeked out the window and listened. I couldn't really follow their conversation because a lot of it was shouting and a lot of it was in Spanish. I did catch something about one guy having another guy's license, and something about "in this economy."


Suddenly a woman walking a dog and a HUGE man showed up. The lady told the teenager to scram, but one of the four arguing guys said "no that's my boy." The lady and HUGE man infiltrated the argument. The lady got in the face of blue-shirt guy who seemed to be the target of the other 3 guys in the argument and start screaming at him in Spanish. I looked away for a moment and when I looked back blue-shirt guy was laying on the ground and the HUGE man was standing over him. I don't know if he was pushed or punched, but he was just laying there.


The lady picked up something of blue-shirt guy's and ripped it in half and tossed it on the ground, and then everyone started walking away together while blue-shirt guy remained on the sidewalk. It was quickly clear that blue-shirt guy was OK, but just laying there until the people who were angry at him left. He got up and gathered his things, and last I saw was angrily yelling into his cell phone at someone.


I don't think the individuals involved realized how many witnesses were watching. Including myself, there was an entire construction crew just around the corner, and the maintenance man from the apartment building across the way was sweeping up the sidewalk just a few yards from the fight. What made me the saddest about the whole thing however was that the house next door to ours has several little kids who play in the front yard. One of the kids (probably about 7 years old) also witnessed the entire thing. I walked by him when I took my rent check to the mailbox (this is when I saw blue-shirt guy on his cell phone) and the little kid looked completely frightened and yet enthralled by what he witnessed, and was clearly intently listening to the blue-shirt guy yelling in Spanish on his cell phone. Poor kid. Also, the poor teenager who watched his father be involved in a confrontation in which violence was used to solve the problem.


Now, I'm hot, sticky, and depressed.