Recently in Food Category

Inside that blue circle is a squirrel (trust me). I looked out the window and saw this poor squirrel trying to stay cool. It was laying flat out on this stub of a branch with its tail curled up in the air. Poor thing!

When I went outside about 20 minutes ago to take this picture, I noticed that it was incredibly cooler outside than inside our apartment. Too bad the choice is sitting inside melting or sitting outside getting eaten by bugs.

Time to go make more raspberry sorbet (today with pineapple juice too!!).

I finally finished the hand towel from Mason-Dixon and finally got some good weather and a few minutes to snap a picture. As you can see, I didn't really follow the pattern in the book. I think the only part of their pattern that I followed was the number of stitches to cast on.

Here is a close up of the bottom edge. I couldn't remember exactly what I did, so this only appears on one end of the towel, which I figure is fine because only the front of the towel will be showing when it hangs on the towel rack... that is if I decide to actually use it as a hand towel!

Size-wise the towel is pretty big. This shot compares it to another washcloth that I finished on Saturday. Kevin and I went to the Mets game and during the 1 hour rain delay I finished this off (which was then useful for drying ourselves off!). On the train ride home, I started another washcloth.

But, it actually isn't all washcloths and towels all the time. I just started a new hat (I know, odd for the end of July, but whatever).

This is the Droplet hat from Knitting Nature. I'm using Mountain Colors yarn in Mountain Goat. Our friends who we cat sat for brought this back for me and I thought it would be perfect for this hat. Unfortunately the camera didn't pick up all of the great colors in this yarn. The blue base is accented by green and pink and lighter blues. Very pretty! As much as I dislike bobbles, I am enjoying this pattern.

Look at how big these hot peppers are getting!!!!!

Kevin and I had a great picnic yesterday with some friends and Kevin's bro. After feasting, we went out to the movies and saw Clerks II. It was very funny!!! I'd highly recommend it to everyone (well, as long as you don't mind jokes about interspecies erotica!).

It is so cool that we all love love love Alton Brown. Unlike some other Food Network stars (and I won't name names), Alton's recipes have never failed to produce excellent results. Have you tried making his chewy chocolate chip cookies? Be warned though, making these cookies might make it impossible for you to ever eat or enjoy non-Alton-chewy-chocolate-chip cookies. I swear no other chocolate chip cookies live up to these. Hmmmm.... I think I have something new on my schedule now for tomorrow. CoOkIeS! (If you make them, I'd suggest baking for only 8-10 minutes, not 14!). But back to the jerky... the jerky is awesome. Of course I have very little basis for comparison because this is my first ever jerky (not just first ever homemade, but first actual jerky of any type). Kevin assures me that it is on par with very good store bought jerky. Yes, your place stinks up like meat during the drying process, so I wouldn't recommend doing this in the winter or other times when you have your house/apartment all closed up. You definitely want the windows open, but the smell disappears quickly after the drying (or maybe we've just become accustomed to it). Other than the smell, the process is so easy. Kevin wants to try again making a more peppery-spicy marinade, and I want to make a more garlicy marinade. But as soon as we find a cheaper supplier of furnace filters (Loew's is much too expensive for frequent jerkying... of course the filters reusable, but with the meat smell, not good for long term storage. In other words, you can keep reusing the same filters for continuous jerkying, but if you aren't going to jerky for a couple of days/weeks... get new filters), we'll be doing more jerkying.

No knitting yesterday, I've been bit by the cleaning bug. Not just the cleaning bug, but the clean-and-purge bug. The cleaning bug alone means some cleaning but not much change. The clean-and-purge bug means lots of trash, recycling, and emptier cleaner rooms. Our storage room was cleaned over the weekend and you can now walk about 3/4 of the way into it without splunking gear. Last night I cleaned out the front/sun room (which had also been primarily storage requiring mountain climbing gear to enter). Now it is totally accessible and with a quick reorganization of the yarn stash (Ha! that's never quick), I'll post some pictures of it because I actually can set up (and use) my sewing machine in there. (I really ought to have taken some before pictures). Unfortunately the clean-and-purge bug needs to be put on hold until Monday when Kevin and I can haul an old dead huge TV (which has been sitting in our bedroom for 2 years) and some useless dead computer monitors and assorted equipment to the monthly consumer electronics drop-off. We've been meaning to do this for a loooooooooong time, but didn't know when or where to drop the stuff off. After asking around and searching on the internet, we found a county program and then missed the monthly day for several months. This month, we'll be there! Hopefully after the electronics are gone (and hopefully the clean-and-purge bug will still be around, because sometimes these motivations are fleeting), I'll still be motivated to attack the closet stuffed full of crap, to weed out and donate clothes I don't wear, and to weed out and donate books that are taking up space in the bookcase (so I can reorganize my knitting books!).

Finally, yesterday I went for a 9.9 mile bike ride around one of the local parks, so be expecting a photo essay of biking in the park in a future post (when I remember to take my camera on my next bike ride).

I decided to join in the Knit Sock Kit Swap. This sounds like a lot of fun: make a bag and fill it with all the goodies to make a pair of socks! I've already got some interesting ideas brewing. If you want to join up too, hurry up because sign-ups close in less than 24 hours!

I've been slowly knitting along on Ms. Marigold. I've joined the body and come to the point of knitting knitting knitting and no progress. So because I got mad at that I started some new socks for Kevin, but not with that evil Regia yarn that produced a too small sock, that's still on time out. The yarn I'm using is some hand dyed that I picked up at MDS&W. I'm doing the 2 socks on 2 circs again. I'm a bit worried that there isn't going to be enough yarn, but I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

The linen towel remains untouched still somewhere around halfway finished.

I didn't knit much over the weekend because Kevin and I were busy cooking (well, not really cooking... oh I explain in a minute) and cleaning. On Saturday we started the 2 day process of making our own beef jerky! We used Alton Brown's recipe from Good Eats. Simply, cut up some flank steak, marinade, and dry in furnance filters strapped to a fan. Want to see it in progress?

13 hours later, you have jerky!

We also made sangria on Saturday. And then on Sunday we cleaned out our storage room and now I can easily get my bike in and out (which hopefully means I'll start riding it more!).

So while not a knitterly weekend, it was productive! Now if only I can be productive about school work this week...

Earlier in the week, I was sitting on the couch knitting (see pic below). Kevin was over at the computer playing a game, looked over and said "nice yarn ball." I had started a hand towel from "Mason Dixon Knitting" after reading all of your great comments and suggestions for the Squares Blanket and deciding that I don't feel like dealing with it right now, and that when the blanket is in use, the curling isn't noticeable. So I started the towel, but I didn't have size 5 needles (well, I have one, but the other is broken), so I tried size 6. Unfortunately after about 3 inches it was very clear that the size 6s were too big, so I ripped it out carefully and piled the yarn on top of the ball I had previously wound.

The next night I started over with size 4s (and am much happier with the result). I was only a few rows in when Kevin commented about my yarn ball. I told him to take a picture if it was that interesting. I didn't realize he also took this picture of me. As you can see, I'm using the Squares Blanket and have the "Mason-Dixon" book on my lap. I was trying to figure out if I wanted to do the chevron pattern or not (I decided to do 1 repeat). The other important nearby items in this picture are the laptop and Playstation controller (we just got Burnout 3 and have been crashing a lot of cars). Gilmore Girls season 4 is on the table behind me, but since I'm not watching it on the laptop, we must have been watching the Mets.

Of course I don't have a picture of the towel in progress and it is now about 7 inches big. I want to get a picture in the sun (which has been off and on recently) because the eggplant color is hard to get pictured well. In other knitting news, Kevin's lovely Regia sock is no more. I was about halfway up the leg and decided, let's have Kevin try this on. Well, it wouldn't go on. I started with too few stitches at the toe and never made up for it. So the sock is now a ball. This way, when I decide to start it up again, I can knit both at the same time.

This gorgeous yarn is from Heather. Heather and I came up with a little exchange. I picked up some fleece for her at MDS&W and she sent me some of her beautiful handpainted sock yarn. Scroll down to see all of her pretty colors, I lust after all of them.

Kevin and I went to a Greek festival today. Even though the weather was crappy, they had tents set up and yummy delicious food. We both had gyros (partly because it was the only food word we recognized!) and they were wonderful. We bought a bunch of sweet stuff and ate some of that when we got home. I think I have a decent sized sweet tooth, but Kevin and I split half the baklava and split the diple (honey ripple) and I felt a bit ill. It was good, but sooooooo sweet. I wanted to get some spanikopita (which I haven't had since college at a time when I was extremely anti-spinach), but there was a lot of people and a lot of confusion about how food was obtained. But overall it was fun and there was a lot of interesting people around.
Tomorrow, Mets vs Yankees!