I've finally entered the ranks of the cool phone people. Kevin and I got iPhones on Friday because our At&t contract had expired. Now I need to figure out how to take and upload photos to get back to some more regular blogging! That is of course if I can find any free time from work.

I took this picture with my new phone last night and uploaded it to Flickr. I couldn't figure out how to go from Flickr to blogging with the phone, but I think I might have an idea now.

This is "Araucania Rehue Multy" that I purchased at Rhineback. The colors are completely wonky because of the poor lighting conditions when I took the picture. The gray parts really ought to look blue and purple. I started this about 10 days ago. I knit on it for one evening and haven't touched it since. In fact, I haven't knit in 10 days. The combination of insanely busy at work, playing with a new phone, and not being able to stay awake after 9pm makes for very limited knitting time.

I also am a bit afraid of this yarn. After knitting with it, I had an odd rash on my arm and hand. I don't know if that was just a normal, random eczema flare up, or if it was an allergic reaction to the yarn. Either way, I'm feeling a bit knit-shy at the moment and not inspired to start anything else.

I finished the shrug that I purchased yarn and a pattern for at Rhinebeck. I'm not entirely loving it, but I think that a good blocking might be the solution. Of course, I've been too lazy to do that. Maybe tonight.....

• You wake up 20 minutes before the alarm clock? Every day????
• Your tights start feel like they are falling down, but you are in the middle of lecture (or another situation in front of people) and so you can't hike them up?
• The stupid time change makes you want to fall asleep at your desk at 4pm?
• Someone with too much bad cologne comes into your office and stinks it up?
• That someone from above is taking a test and you keep feeding him/her the answers so that he/she will hurry up and leave because you are becoming ill from the stench?
• You forget to slash your loaf of bread dough and it bursts out its side?
• You really want to make some cookies NOW, but have to wait for the weekend?
• Scary spiders?
• Chilly offices and obnoxiously loud coworkers?
• Writing a 75 word abstract as the sole means to convince a committee that your poster will be really neat at their conference?
• When good TV shows get lousy?

...starts tomorrow!

How would you like to enjoy a four course pasta meal that included:

• Pici al Sugo di Cinghiale


• Pizzoccheri Valtellinesi


• Malloreddus alla Campidanese


• Tortelli Mantovani di Zucca

Your Italian a little rusty? Let me translate:

• Hand-rolled pasta strands with Wild Boar sauce


• Buckwheat noodles baked with cabbage, potato, and cheese


• Sardinian-style saffron gnocchi with a hearty tomato and sausage sauce


• Squash ravioli from Mantova

Is your mouth watering? Now imagine that not only do you get to eat these delicious creations, but that you learn how to make them with your own two hands!!



Friday night was my second cooking class of the year at the International Culinary Center in their recreational department. You've previously seen the results of the doughnut class (which might I add, still has me off doughnut eating). The pasta class was supposed to last from 6-10 with 3 hours of cooking and 1 hour to enjoy the meal (with wine!!!). But, in reality, we cooked for about 4 hours, scarfed down the food for about 30 minutes and fled back to our respective homes to unbutton our pants and lull in a pasta coma.



Chef Jessica was extremely informative and a great teacher. They had most of the food chopped and prepped for us, but even still there was not enough time for us to make the gnocchi dish ourselves and the students had to rush to finish it. We made one dough from scratch and used two doughs that had been made by students for us. We got experience kneading, rolling, shaping, and cutting three doughs (the pici, the pizzocheri, and the tortelli).



The coolest part was that we each had our own work stations, so we didn't have to work in groups like in the doughnut class. The instructor would show us how to prepare the dough, shape it, cook it, and dress it. Then we'd each retreat to our stations to try it for ourselves. The instructors and some of the culinary students floated around to help. I got a lot of compliments on my pici (apparently I can roll out good snakes of pasta). The girl at the station facing me was very sweet and we had fun chatting and helping each other out.



There seemed to be a lot of couples in the class. Out of 24 people, there was a roughly even split of males and females. After making the dough for the ravioli (tortelli), we let it rest and shaped the pici. We got to cook it and dress it with the wild boar sauce that the chef had been preparing since yesterday. The sauce was absolutely to die for!!



As the night wore on, it became clear that four pasta dishes was too many for us to prepare, so we finished the buckwheat noodle dish (I was worried I wouldn't like this because I'm not huge on buckwheat or cabbage, but it was insanely delicious). Then the instructor demonstrated the gnocchi dish and the ravioli, and we made the ravioli ourselves. Again I was worried about not liking the ravioli because I'm not a huge fan of squash and sweet potatoes, but it was amazing.



Not only did I learn about making pasta, I ate several new foods including wild boar and saffron (ok, saffron's not really a food per se, but I'd never had it in anything before Friday night).



What is awesome about pasta making, at least for the simplest pasta, is that you don't even need fancy flours. Good old all purpose, a little water, a splash of olive oil, and a pinch of salt!

The new King Arthur Flour Catalog came early last week and when I saw these cookies:

I knew that I had to make them. Something about the snowflakes and the white on white icing just called out to me. And coincidently enough, King Arthur Flour sent me an email that they were having a special two-day free shipping promotion. So of course I ordered the tools: cookie cutters, meringue powder, icing spreader, and some other stuff not for cookies.



I decided on KAF's Holiday Butter Cookie recipe. And I had even purchased the Fiori di Sicilia. The cookie dough was quick and easy to put together. So quick and easy that I forgot to get pictures until they were in the oven:






Here are some shots of the baked snowflakes:



This batch was rolled a little too thin.



This batch was just right!



After the cookies had completely cooled (didn't take more than 45 minutes), I whipped up the icing. The meringue powder made it very easy to make some royal icing. Then I spread and spread and spread that icing on top of the cookies. Here are a few:






I allowed the cookies to rest for several hours. (Ok, fine. I couldn't stop poking them to see if they were dry for phase 2 of decorating, so a bunch of them had smudge prints.) Then I set out having fun decorating. Which I apparently suck at:




Believe me, the picture is making them look better than they were. After the painstaking work of those few cookies, I gave up and did a cheat.



I put the cookies on a cooling rack and just drizzled the icing over the top. These ones actually looked nice. I think next time a little food coloring for the drizzle would be very pretty.




With these I got really lazy because my back was starting to hurt, I squeezed a big plop of icing in the center of the little cookies and then sprinkled with tons of sparkling sugar.



The most important part was that while they don't look as pretty as the ones that inspired them, they sure do taste good. In fact, Kevin's already requested more of them!!

I couldn't take a pasta class and not try to make the pasta at home! Saturday evening after the cookies were finished, I mixed up some pasta dough. Flour, water, oil, and salt into a bowl. Mix, mix, squish. 15 minutes of kneading by hand (surprisingly relaxing and cathartic), and into the fridge until I was ready for it.



Sunday afternoon, I took the dough out of the fridge and allowed it to come up to room temperature. Apparently room temperature is important (according to the instructor), but I can't recall why. An hour or so later, I started shaping.



I decided to make the pici (spaghetti) shape because it was easy that was what the recipe said to do. It took about an hour, but I rolled out around 50ish pasta snakes.

There's another sheet underneath the parchment with the rest of the pasta. I didn't have any semolina, so I just floured it with all-purpose to keep them from sticking.
In the meantime, Kevin (the king of sauces) whipped up a delicious tomato sauce (with hot peppers!) from scratch with no recipe. When the sauce was ready, I dropped the pici into the boiling water.



That's the pasta nearly finished cooking (just takes a couple of minutes) since it is floating to the top of the pot.



Here is the pasta about to the tossed with the sauce.





Two delicious bowls of pasta!!



The pasta and the sauce were absolutely delicious. And we enjoyed it with a white whole wheat baguette.



The entire dinner was hand-made by Kevin and I. How cool is that?!?!





Oh, that pan that the bread is modelling on. Got that from KAF as well. It makes baguettes round and lovely. No more flat baguettes for me!

I had a bit of pasta dough left over from Sunday's feast, so I tried my hand at making gnocchi shapes, which we didn't get to practice in class.

Not perfect, but not a bad first attempt. Especially since I made them with a fork and not a fancy gnocchi maker. They tasted even more wonderful than they looked.






I cooked them up and tossed them with some warmed olive oil that contained garlic and some sage from the garden. The best lunch I've eaten in ages (which isn't a hard feat considering most days at work I eat some peanut butter crackers or pretzels for lunch). I said to Kevin that I could eat gnocchi with garlic and oil for every meal from now until eternity. Yes it was that good!



I've already made another dough to make some more delicious home-made pasta. That cooking class was some of the best money I've ever spent. Now which class to take next...

Pretty Thing has been finished for quite a while. I've had pictures for quite a while. I was unsure how I felt about Pretty Thing for quite a while.

Blocking, she is really quite pretty. And it is cashmere, so she is incredibly soft. It is the wearing part that was bothering me. I envisioned wearing it like this:






I was barely able to snap that photo before Pretty Thing returned to her desired position:






The entire time I was knitting Pretty Thing, I imagined it sitting elongated on my neck (maybe a little scrunchy), but showing off all the painstaking lacy bits. But no, she folds over, won't stay up. Well, at least won't stay up unless I do something unspeakable that kills her lovely cashmere softness.



So I wore Pretty Thing a few times before blogging her finished state because I wanted to give her a fair chance before I lit her on fire and pretended that she never existed. But you know what, she grew on me. I liked the bit of extra warmth she provided. I liked the softness. I knew how pretty she was, but I couldn't see her, so I could imagine her showing off her lacy bits proudly even though logically I knew she was folded over. So Pretty Thing is indeed pretty and lovely and maybe if I'm crazy, I'll make another one.