We had a dramatic bit of nature happen in our courtyard yesterday. A roadrunner killed a small bird and carried the body off. All that was left to show this had happened was a few spatters of blood and some feathers. The roadrunner came back three or four more times after that, probably looking for more prey. We think the roadrunner has a nest with chicks nearby.
This is the part of nature that Walt Disney didn't show in the nature shows. The hero character always escaped the predator. When we were on photo safari in Botswana, we saw a pride of lions pull down, kill, and eat a Cape buffalo. Only it wasn't quite in that order. It was more like pull down, eat, and kill. It was horrible to see and hear, but it was an important and regular part of nature. Predators kill, prey gets eaten. It's just that it usually doesn't happen right outside the sliding door.
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
22 February 2011
16 December 2009
Oops, Sorry About That
My last posting here was in early August and then, as far as anyone could tell, I just dropped off the face of the earth. I didn't, really. Instead, I discovered facebook and started posting all my news there, as well as in alt.fans.cecil-adams, leaving myself with nothing new to say here.
So, let's see. I knitted a baby blanket and an afghan, for my favorite baby and his grandmother, respectively. I've gotten pretty good at making navy bean soup in my pressure cooker. I've done a lot of reading on the Kindle DX. I discovered Woot.com and Wine.Woot.com and have spent too much money on gifts and bottles. We're down in Palm Desert (we got here a week ago) and Gordo the Wonder Collie is settling in, although he did fall into the waterfall pond on his first day here.
My beloved cousin (well, she's actually my cousin's wife, but I love her as if she were a sister, so there's no single word to describe the relationship) will be here in a couple of hours, to stay until the day after Christmas. The rest of the family will show up a little later. Her husband (the actual cousin) and their daughter get here on Sunday and their son shows up three days later. The kids' arrival dates are functions of their college and high school schedules. Her sister lives just north of us, as do his father and his sister and her husband.
I spent two hours at the supermarket earlier today, trying to fill in my pantry and have some nice fresh produce for her. I went to Stater Bros. (for the first time ever) and discovered that they have a very extensive La Brea Bakery product line. I went a little overboard and will have to do a little freezing before bedtime. Nice produce and a nice service butcher, too. There was a customer at the butcher counter looking at beef roasts and he asked to look at the other side of every roast there. I know why he was doing that, but it's excessive when it's a rib roast from the middle of the piece. Sort of like looking at both sides of a center-cut pork chop.
I'm having Christmas dinner this year for all the California members of my mother's family. That's not very many people, though. There's us, my uncle, and his two kids and their families. As I wrote above, my uncle's son has two kids. His daughter has one son, who lives in the Pacific Northwest. He and his wife won't be here because they bought a house and the escrow is closing on the 23rd or 24th, so they had to stay there. They're going to have a baby in the spring (I already bought a present on kids.woot.com). So this year there will be nine of us for dinner on Christmas Eve. I'm hoping that this becomes a family tradition, now that three households are so conveniently close.
I'm sure there's more to tell, but I've got to go put the rest of the groceries away. I'm going to light some candles to greet my cousin, too. Festive is my watchword this year.
So, let's see. I knitted a baby blanket and an afghan, for my favorite baby and his grandmother, respectively. I've gotten pretty good at making navy bean soup in my pressure cooker. I've done a lot of reading on the Kindle DX. I discovered Woot.com and Wine.Woot.com and have spent too much money on gifts and bottles. We're down in Palm Desert (we got here a week ago) and Gordo the Wonder Collie is settling in, although he did fall into the waterfall pond on his first day here.
My beloved cousin (well, she's actually my cousin's wife, but I love her as if she were a sister, so there's no single word to describe the relationship) will be here in a couple of hours, to stay until the day after Christmas. The rest of the family will show up a little later. Her husband (the actual cousin) and their daughter get here on Sunday and their son shows up three days later. The kids' arrival dates are functions of their college and high school schedules. Her sister lives just north of us, as do his father and his sister and her husband.
I spent two hours at the supermarket earlier today, trying to fill in my pantry and have some nice fresh produce for her. I went to Stater Bros. (for the first time ever) and discovered that they have a very extensive La Brea Bakery product line. I went a little overboard and will have to do a little freezing before bedtime. Nice produce and a nice service butcher, too. There was a customer at the butcher counter looking at beef roasts and he asked to look at the other side of every roast there. I know why he was doing that, but it's excessive when it's a rib roast from the middle of the piece. Sort of like looking at both sides of a center-cut pork chop.
I'm having Christmas dinner this year for all the California members of my mother's family. That's not very many people, though. There's us, my uncle, and his two kids and their families. As I wrote above, my uncle's son has two kids. His daughter has one son, who lives in the Pacific Northwest. He and his wife won't be here because they bought a house and the escrow is closing on the 23rd or 24th, so they had to stay there. They're going to have a baby in the spring (I already bought a present on kids.woot.com). So this year there will be nine of us for dinner on Christmas Eve. I'm hoping that this becomes a family tradition, now that three households are so conveniently close.
I'm sure there's more to tell, but I've got to go put the rest of the groceries away. I'm going to light some candles to greet my cousin, too. Festive is my watchword this year.
10 August 2009
Good News and Bad (But Improving) News
First the good news. I made another batch of bean and bacon soup (recipe posted here previously), only this time I spread it out over several days. It's been so hot here that I really didn't want to make it in one session. Well, actually, it started after I soaked the beans and then didn't feel like making soup after all. Still, I was glad to find out that I could spread the process over a few days.
I picked over and soaked the beans about five days ago, freezing them after I rinsed them. Then on Saturday I sliced and fried the bacon and drained it, then put it in the fridge. This afternoon I took care of the onion and garlic, then put the peppercorns, bay leaves, onion and garlic, bacon, and beans (nuked briefly so they wouldn't be a great big bean lump) into the pressure cooker, set it, and sat down to see what was new on Facebook I'm Mary Shafer there, if you want to friend me.
It's finished cooking now and I've tasted it. It tastes pretty good, but it needs salt, of course. It's too hot to whiz with the stick blender; I don't like the idea of flinging really hot soup all over me and the kitchen. I'll add salt while I'm doing that, to be sure to get it evenly mixed. I didn't put enough in the first batch, partly because my cousin was coming and I wasn't sure how much salt she'd like.
Speaking of my cousin, we had a wonderful visit. We were so sad to see her leave. Even Gordo missed her and kept going to the guest room to look for her. He'd give me this pitiful look like "How could you let her go away?" and, of course, there was no explaining it to him. She's the one who introduced me to Starbuck's iced chai latte last year. I'm now a regular customer and it's all her fault. I don't drink coffee, so I hadn't known they sold tea. I got her back, though. I introduced her to the Kindle and loaned my Kindle 2 to her. Both she and her husband have been reading with it and they really like it. I suspect they're going to end up buying one (or, maybe, two). We're a reading family, even the people who marry in, and it passes on to the kids, too.
Now for the bad news. Gordo the Wonder Collie had to have extensive exploratory surgery on Friday. He'd managed to swallow a 3" by 3" piece of rigid plastic, as well as a bunch of smaller pieces of the same plastic and some other stuff, and this was really messing up his digestive system. We took him over to the vet after he vomited five times in the night. Collies have deep chests, which made the surgery more difficult. They cut open his stomach and pulled all the junk out of it, which took both hands, and then examined his intestines carefully for smaller pieces.
He had a small fever over the weekend, but that's gone (this is written on Monday). He's still not eating much, but he's always been a picky eater. We now have great hopes that he'll come home tomorrow, since he actually ate a little kibble today. I think he has to demonstrate that his digestive system works from end to end, as it were, the same way that people who have had surgery on their digestive tracts do.
I picked over and soaked the beans about five days ago, freezing them after I rinsed them. Then on Saturday I sliced and fried the bacon and drained it, then put it in the fridge. This afternoon I took care of the onion and garlic, then put the peppercorns, bay leaves, onion and garlic, bacon, and beans (nuked briefly so they wouldn't be a great big bean lump) into the pressure cooker, set it, and sat down to see what was new on Facebook I'm Mary Shafer there, if you want to friend me.
It's finished cooking now and I've tasted it. It tastes pretty good, but it needs salt, of course. It's too hot to whiz with the stick blender; I don't like the idea of flinging really hot soup all over me and the kitchen. I'll add salt while I'm doing that, to be sure to get it evenly mixed. I didn't put enough in the first batch, partly because my cousin was coming and I wasn't sure how much salt she'd like.
Speaking of my cousin, we had a wonderful visit. We were so sad to see her leave. Even Gordo missed her and kept going to the guest room to look for her. He'd give me this pitiful look like "How could you let her go away?" and, of course, there was no explaining it to him. She's the one who introduced me to Starbuck's iced chai latte last year. I'm now a regular customer and it's all her fault. I don't drink coffee, so I hadn't known they sold tea. I got her back, though. I introduced her to the Kindle and loaned my Kindle 2 to her. Both she and her husband have been reading with it and they really like it. I suspect they're going to end up buying one (or, maybe, two). We're a reading family, even the people who marry in, and it passes on to the kids, too.
Now for the bad news. Gordo the Wonder Collie had to have extensive exploratory surgery on Friday. He'd managed to swallow a 3" by 3" piece of rigid plastic, as well as a bunch of smaller pieces of the same plastic and some other stuff, and this was really messing up his digestive system. We took him over to the vet after he vomited five times in the night. Collies have deep chests, which made the surgery more difficult. They cut open his stomach and pulled all the junk out of it, which took both hands, and then examined his intestines carefully for smaller pieces.
He had a small fever over the weekend, but that's gone (this is written on Monday). He's still not eating much, but he's always been a picky eater. We now have great hopes that he'll come home tomorrow, since he actually ate a little kibble today. I think he has to demonstrate that his digestive system works from end to end, as it were, the same way that people who have had surgery on their digestive tracts do.
02 May 2009
Trying Again
I dashed out today and got dog food (we were down to the last dishful and Gordo was looking worried), the mail, and more russet potatoes. I'm bound and determined to get this potato cooking thing to work. I mean, really, how hard can it be to cook a potato correctly? I guess I'm going to find out, aren't I?
I also picked up a pair of ham hocks and a pound of navy beans. Years and years ago, back in the early days of the HL-20, when the engineers at Langley were putting it together with little bits of time here and there, I went back there with two test pilots to fly the Differential Motion Simulator with a high-alpha cockpit display.
The reason I know it was in the early days of the HL-20 was that one of my test pilots was Bill Dana, at that time the last lifting-body (and X-15) pilot still flying research aircraft. Well, we ran into one of my friends at LaRC, one of the guys working on the HL-20 simulation, and I, of course, introduced him to Bill and Ed. His eyes got kind of wide, meeting the legendary Bill Dana. We went back to the DMS and I got a call from my friend about twenty minutes later, asking me if there was any chance that Bill might possibly be interested in flying the HL-20 sim, if only for a few minutes and entirely at his convenience, to give them suggestions. Fortunately for the HL-20, the DMS had just developed a small mechanical problem (a small hydraulic leak, I think) and we were just sitting around wondering what to do until the system came back up. So we all joined my friend and his test pilot at the HL-20 simulation and flew it for hours and a good time was had by all. To this day, my friend still thinks I'm a miracle worker, offhandedly producing a renowned lifting body pilot to fly his simulation.
So what does this have to do with ham hocks and navy beans, you ask? They're inextricably linked in my mind. Every Thursday the Langley cafeteria served navy bean soup and we were there on a Thursday and I had the soup and it was wonderful. It was a cool, damp day and the warm, succulent soup, with the grace note of smoky ham, was absolutely perfect. Warm, tasty, comfort food. So I've been making and eating navy bean soup since then. The canned stuff isn't really good enough, if you ask me, but it's quite easy to make. Pressure cookers are supposed to be wonderful for cooking beans, so I'm going to give it a try, right after I take on the potatoes again.
Then there's a Swedish yellow split pea soup, flavored with marjoram, that I made back when I was in college that I want to try again. I'd subscribed to the Time-Life Foods of the World series when I still lived in the dorm (I like to read about cooking almost as much as I like to cook) and this was one of the recipes that caught my eye. When I moved to an apartment for my senior year, this was one of the first things I cooked. It was better than I thought it would be, too. Obviously this was a while ago, in the late '60s. It was so long ago that cookbooks noted that corn tortillas could be purchased in cans at gourmet stores. This was mind-boggling to me, as I'd lived in the CA Central Valley and in SoCal since 1953 and I thought every store in town sold fresh tortillas, both corn and flour, even the 7-11 stores.
It's late afternoon here, about time for me to go start dinner. I guess I'm hungrier that I thought I was. I only meant to mention that I was ready to try again on the potatoes, but I've digressed to lifting bodies, test pilots, and a lot more about food. Hmmm....
I also picked up a pair of ham hocks and a pound of navy beans. Years and years ago, back in the early days of the HL-20, when the engineers at Langley were putting it together with little bits of time here and there, I went back there with two test pilots to fly the Differential Motion Simulator with a high-alpha cockpit display.
The reason I know it was in the early days of the HL-20 was that one of my test pilots was Bill Dana, at that time the last lifting-body (and X-15) pilot still flying research aircraft. Well, we ran into one of my friends at LaRC, one of the guys working on the HL-20 simulation, and I, of course, introduced him to Bill and Ed. His eyes got kind of wide, meeting the legendary Bill Dana. We went back to the DMS and I got a call from my friend about twenty minutes later, asking me if there was any chance that Bill might possibly be interested in flying the HL-20 sim, if only for a few minutes and entirely at his convenience, to give them suggestions. Fortunately for the HL-20, the DMS had just developed a small mechanical problem (a small hydraulic leak, I think) and we were just sitting around wondering what to do until the system came back up. So we all joined my friend and his test pilot at the HL-20 simulation and flew it for hours and a good time was had by all. To this day, my friend still thinks I'm a miracle worker, offhandedly producing a renowned lifting body pilot to fly his simulation.
So what does this have to do with ham hocks and navy beans, you ask? They're inextricably linked in my mind. Every Thursday the Langley cafeteria served navy bean soup and we were there on a Thursday and I had the soup and it was wonderful. It was a cool, damp day and the warm, succulent soup, with the grace note of smoky ham, was absolutely perfect. Warm, tasty, comfort food. So I've been making and eating navy bean soup since then. The canned stuff isn't really good enough, if you ask me, but it's quite easy to make. Pressure cookers are supposed to be wonderful for cooking beans, so I'm going to give it a try, right after I take on the potatoes again.
Then there's a Swedish yellow split pea soup, flavored with marjoram, that I made back when I was in college that I want to try again. I'd subscribed to the Time-Life Foods of the World series when I still lived in the dorm (I like to read about cooking almost as much as I like to cook) and this was one of the recipes that caught my eye. When I moved to an apartment for my senior year, this was one of the first things I cooked. It was better than I thought it would be, too. Obviously this was a while ago, in the late '60s. It was so long ago that cookbooks noted that corn tortillas could be purchased in cans at gourmet stores. This was mind-boggling to me, as I'd lived in the CA Central Valley and in SoCal since 1953 and I thought every store in town sold fresh tortillas, both corn and flour, even the 7-11 stores.
It's late afternoon here, about time for me to go start dinner. I guess I'm hungrier that I thought I was. I only meant to mention that I was ready to try again on the potatoes, but I've digressed to lifting bodies, test pilots, and a lot more about food. Hmmm....
10 February 2009
Something New & Yard Work
I did something I never thought I'd do. I ordered the DVD of the entire first season of a TV show, The Big Bang Theory. I really don't watch much TV, but I like this show. My goddaughter, who was then majoring in physics at Penn State, recommended it to me at about the second show, but we didn't get around to watching it until late last year. Now that we've discovered it, I had to have the first season. It's really a funny show.
Hard-science guys with little or no idea about social interactions; where I have seen that before? Why, could it be at UCLA, where I was an engineering student? Or at NASA Dryden, where I was an engineer for most of my career? Or both?
We're having the trees trimmed today and tomorrow. We have three big forty-year-plus fruitless mulberries and they have to be "laced" every couple of years to reduce the sail loading when the wind blows. We also have a Chinese pistache that's nearly as big and a beautiful liquidamber beside the driveway that needed a little trimming, nothing as drastic as the mulberries.
My pomegranate bush needed to be cut back severely, though, since it sets fruit on newer growth. It's down to about four trunks now, instead of a dozen. I only had about a dozen fruit on it last year, if that many. It may not produce much this year, but I should get a bumper crop the next year. If the school kids leave me enough, I'll juice them and make jelly. Messy, but gratifying. Making this jelly is a family tradition dating back almost fifty years. I cheat and use bottled pomegranate juice from the supermarket when I don't have fresh fruit available. I posted the recipe here earlier.
The junipers on the other side of the driveway had encroached quite fiercely and we cut them back about three feet, maybe more. They really look ugly now, but they'll grow back. We've created some nice humus under there, I noticed. I asked the trimmers to cut the ivy and Virginia creeper in the back yard back to the ground. Both had really gotten out of hand and were taking over. They're going to move my Madame Galen scarlet trumpet creeper around to the back yard so I can see it from the windows (which are almost all on the back of the house). I'm not really razing all the plant life at the house, although it may sound like it. I'm just tidying up stuff that has needed attention for a while. I'd kind of coasted on some of this but I suddenly got tired of the overgrown vines and the narrowed driveway and the clutter.
This is the same team that's going to transplant my big Mediterranean clumping fan palm from here in Lancaster to the front yard of our house in Palm Desert. We left a big space for it when we landscaped down there. It's outgrown the place I have it in here and needs to be moved somewhere. It was a gift from a very dear friend, a guy who went to college with my husband and worked at Dryden for many years. He has since died, so the palm is very dear to me.
Here's the Mediterranean clumping fan palm from the south. To give you an idea of its size, the block front of the raised bed is about 26". You can see some of the Virginia creeper on the left side of the photo, growing into the palm. These three photos were taken in September, which is why the creeper still has its leaves. Right now it's just a bundle of light brown stems and really ugly.
Here's a photo from the southeast, with the trunk of the Chinese pistache on the right side. You can see Virginia creeper on both sides. The stuff really spreads.
And this photo is from the north. The grass-like plant that you can see arching on the right is a volunteer clump of pampas grass. The neighbors on the other side of the wall had pampas grass against their side of the wall and it seeded freely. Pampas grass is nasty to deal with. It's very hard to kill and the leaves are exceeding sharp. It'll cut bare hands readily. This little clump is going away tomorrow, along with all that Virginia creeper you can see.
Gordo the Wonder Puppy has greatly enjoyed having the tree trimmers over. They are very obliging with pats and attention and have flapping pants cuffs to chase. He had to come into the house because I decided he was a bit of a tripping menace, chasing cuffs and boot laces. I think the crew was relieved to see him go. I would have been. It was really funny to see him take in the changes in the back yard after the team knocked off for the day. The ivy is down off the little metal shed in heaps and some of the privets have vanished.
Gordo went to the vet to have his blood levels of his epilepsy meds checked. He's up to 68 pounds, at 9.5 months. He's supposed to weigh about 75 pounds when he's fully grown, but I'm beginning to think he may be a little heavier. He'll still fit on my lap, as long as I have the hassock under my legs to extend my lap enough. He napped briefly on my lap this afternoon, having been worn out by all the excitement and getting up early. He's definitely still a puppy.
Hard-science guys with little or no idea about social interactions; where I have seen that before? Why, could it be at UCLA, where I was an engineering student? Or at NASA Dryden, where I was an engineer for most of my career? Or both?
We're having the trees trimmed today and tomorrow. We have three big forty-year-plus fruitless mulberries and they have to be "laced" every couple of years to reduce the sail loading when the wind blows. We also have a Chinese pistache that's nearly as big and a beautiful liquidamber beside the driveway that needed a little trimming, nothing as drastic as the mulberries.
My pomegranate bush needed to be cut back severely, though, since it sets fruit on newer growth. It's down to about four trunks now, instead of a dozen. I only had about a dozen fruit on it last year, if that many. It may not produce much this year, but I should get a bumper crop the next year. If the school kids leave me enough, I'll juice them and make jelly. Messy, but gratifying. Making this jelly is a family tradition dating back almost fifty years. I cheat and use bottled pomegranate juice from the supermarket when I don't have fresh fruit available. I posted the recipe here earlier.
The junipers on the other side of the driveway had encroached quite fiercely and we cut them back about three feet, maybe more. They really look ugly now, but they'll grow back. We've created some nice humus under there, I noticed. I asked the trimmers to cut the ivy and Virginia creeper in the back yard back to the ground. Both had really gotten out of hand and were taking over. They're going to move my Madame Galen scarlet trumpet creeper around to the back yard so I can see it from the windows (which are almost all on the back of the house). I'm not really razing all the plant life at the house, although it may sound like it. I'm just tidying up stuff that has needed attention for a while. I'd kind of coasted on some of this but I suddenly got tired of the overgrown vines and the narrowed driveway and the clutter.
This is the same team that's going to transplant my big Mediterranean clumping fan palm from here in Lancaster to the front yard of our house in Palm Desert. We left a big space for it when we landscaped down there. It's outgrown the place I have it in here and needs to be moved somewhere. It was a gift from a very dear friend, a guy who went to college with my husband and worked at Dryden for many years. He has since died, so the palm is very dear to me.
Here's the Mediterranean clumping fan palm from the south. To give you an idea of its size, the block front of the raised bed is about 26". You can see some of the Virginia creeper on the left side of the photo, growing into the palm. These three photos were taken in September, which is why the creeper still has its leaves. Right now it's just a bundle of light brown stems and really ugly.
Here's a photo from the southeast, with the trunk of the Chinese pistache on the right side. You can see Virginia creeper on both sides. The stuff really spreads.
And this photo is from the north. The grass-like plant that you can see arching on the right is a volunteer clump of pampas grass. The neighbors on the other side of the wall had pampas grass against their side of the wall and it seeded freely. Pampas grass is nasty to deal with. It's very hard to kill and the leaves are exceeding sharp. It'll cut bare hands readily. This little clump is going away tomorrow, along with all that Virginia creeper you can see.
Gordo the Wonder Puppy has greatly enjoyed having the tree trimmers over. They are very obliging with pats and attention and have flapping pants cuffs to chase. He had to come into the house because I decided he was a bit of a tripping menace, chasing cuffs and boot laces. I think the crew was relieved to see him go. I would have been. It was really funny to see him take in the changes in the back yard after the team knocked off for the day. The ivy is down off the little metal shed in heaps and some of the privets have vanished.
Gordo went to the vet to have his blood levels of his epilepsy meds checked. He's up to 68 pounds, at 9.5 months. He's supposed to weigh about 75 pounds when he's fully grown, but I'm beginning to think he may be a little heavier. He'll still fit on my lap, as long as I have the hassock under my legs to extend my lap enough. He napped briefly on my lap this afternoon, having been worn out by all the excitement and getting up early. He's definitely still a puppy.
15 April 2008
I've Got the Blahs
As the title says, I've got the blahs. I'm not knitting, I'm not baking, and I didn't even take my recyclables out for today's pickup.
It occurs to me, however, that I'm not baking because I don't really like lean breads that have been baked in such a hot oven that they have little charred spots on the crust. That is to say, artisan bread. I mean, I'm not even that wild about baguettes (although I'll make an exception for several baguette sandwiches I've had in my life--jambon in Paris, brie and onion in Snowmass, and Serrano ham and avocado in Santiago, Chile). But that's what I've been trying to bake. Or not.
Meanwhile, I've got a Tupperware bowl full of bread dough out in my casita fridge. I'm afraid to throw it away. I know it's not going to ooze out of the bin and chase me around the kitchen, but I saw "The Blob" at an impressionable age....
No, I think it's time to try sourdough. A friend from afca has sent me starters, so I'm all set. Yes, sourdough is a lean bread (flour, water, salt, yeast in the form of starter), but it's a lot different from baguettes. It doesn't go stale in four hours, for example.
Just think of me when you hear a news story that starts "A retired NASA engineer in Palm Desert was found smothered by bread dough", OK?
It occurs to me, however, that I'm not baking because I don't really like lean breads that have been baked in such a hot oven that they have little charred spots on the crust. That is to say, artisan bread. I mean, I'm not even that wild about baguettes (although I'll make an exception for several baguette sandwiches I've had in my life--jambon in Paris, brie and onion in Snowmass, and Serrano ham and avocado in Santiago, Chile). But that's what I've been trying to bake. Or not.
Meanwhile, I've got a Tupperware bowl full of bread dough out in my casita fridge. I'm afraid to throw it away. I know it's not going to ooze out of the bin and chase me around the kitchen, but I saw "The Blob" at an impressionable age....
No, I think it's time to try sourdough. A friend from afca has sent me starters, so I'm all set. Yes, sourdough is a lean bread (flour, water, salt, yeast in the form of starter), but it's a lot different from baguettes. It doesn't go stale in four hours, for example.
Just think of me when you hear a news story that starts "A retired NASA engineer in Palm Desert was found smothered by bread dough", OK?
18 October 2007
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
I haven't posted anything here recently because I was hoping to have some good news and avoiding some bad news. I still don't have the first, but I've accepted the latter, so I can actually write about it.
It's the Bigfoot Shawl. I had made an error and frogged one pattern repeat and reknitted it at about the eighth pattern repeat, which was a bunch of rows back. I'd managed to miss a yarn over and, therefore, multiple stitches in subsequent rows, so when I reknitted it I didn't really have enough yarn and the entire repeat was tight for six rows. I'd told myself it would come out in the blocking, that no one would notice, that it was OK, but it was preying on my mind and the day before yesterday I frogged 36 rows (averaging 346 stitches). I am not a happy knitter right now.
I must say that the yarn Knit Picks Gloss, has held up beautifully in the face of this abuse. I put a Options Harmony US 4 needle onto the longest cable and picked up the stitches of a purl row after ripping back. The yarn cooperated with this, not running or anything. The live stitches just sat there, ready to slip onto the sharp little needle. The yarn is 70% merino and 30% silk, so this probably isn't too surprising.
The good news I'd hoped to share was the delivery of the modified mini-van. It was supposed to come up early this week, but the wind was so bad we had them hold off. The old van had gotten sand-blasted in the Dryden parking lot about four days after we'd gotten it, so we're kind of jumpy about too much wind and a new vehicle. You may have seen the news stories about the big multi-vehicle, multi-fatality crash on SR-14 here Tuesday, caused by a terrible dust storm. The wind was gusting up to 50 mph here on Tuesday and Wednesday. They were going to bring it up today, which is a beautiful cool, calm day, but the ABS light came on, so they took it to Keys Toyota (Toyota problems get fixed by Toyota, modification problems get fixed by Mobility Works) and it looks as if we'll get it tomorrow afternoon.
I went by Tuesday and rented a 10' x 7.5' storage space and I'm going to get the moving guys in on Monday, 29 Oct. I have a queen hide-a-bed here at my house to go to a local charity. It'll be replaced by the couch and loveseat from my mom's house. The rest of the furniture from her house (a queen bedroom set and some other pieces), plus a whole bunch of boxed stuff, will go to the storage space. There's also a solid rock maple hutch that's stopping at the storage space for a while, before going to live with my friend. Once the house is empty, I'll get the painter in and the house will go onto the market.
I picked up paint chips from Frazee Paint on Monday. They gave me an entire swatch book, too, and there are some beautiful colors in it. I love some of the accent colors, but not for a house I'm trying to sell. I'm inclined to paint the entire interior in Swiss Coffee, which is the color of our Palm Desert house and will be the color of our Lancaster house. It's a very popular warm off-white that I really like. However, I have to see how it looks with the drapes before I decide.
It's actually been a busy week; in addition to all this stuff I had a routine doctor's appointment yesterday and a mammogram today. Then tomorrow I go to the ophthalmologist for my yearly exam. Plus I need to meet with the cleaner and painter for estimates. I'm trying to get the cleaner in at the end of next week.
I also tried out my new six-quart crock pot from Overstock.com. I got a really nice chuck roast at Albertson's and bought it on the spur of the moment. Normally I plan my grocery shopping so that I don't have to run all over the store but not this time. Once I got the roast I had to go back and get the vegetables. It came out really well and I was pleased. Cool-weather food....
It's the Bigfoot Shawl. I had made an error and frogged one pattern repeat and reknitted it at about the eighth pattern repeat, which was a bunch of rows back. I'd managed to miss a yarn over and, therefore, multiple stitches in subsequent rows, so when I reknitted it I didn't really have enough yarn and the entire repeat was tight for six rows. I'd told myself it would come out in the blocking, that no one would notice, that it was OK, but it was preying on my mind and the day before yesterday I frogged 36 rows (averaging 346 stitches). I am not a happy knitter right now.
I must say that the yarn Knit Picks Gloss, has held up beautifully in the face of this abuse. I put a Options Harmony US 4 needle onto the longest cable and picked up the stitches of a purl row after ripping back. The yarn cooperated with this, not running or anything. The live stitches just sat there, ready to slip onto the sharp little needle. The yarn is 70% merino and 30% silk, so this probably isn't too surprising.
The good news I'd hoped to share was the delivery of the modified mini-van. It was supposed to come up early this week, but the wind was so bad we had them hold off. The old van had gotten sand-blasted in the Dryden parking lot about four days after we'd gotten it, so we're kind of jumpy about too much wind and a new vehicle. You may have seen the news stories about the big multi-vehicle, multi-fatality crash on SR-14 here Tuesday, caused by a terrible dust storm. The wind was gusting up to 50 mph here on Tuesday and Wednesday. They were going to bring it up today, which is a beautiful cool, calm day, but the ABS light came on, so they took it to Keys Toyota (Toyota problems get fixed by Toyota, modification problems get fixed by Mobility Works) and it looks as if we'll get it tomorrow afternoon.
I went by Tuesday and rented a 10' x 7.5' storage space and I'm going to get the moving guys in on Monday, 29 Oct. I have a queen hide-a-bed here at my house to go to a local charity. It'll be replaced by the couch and loveseat from my mom's house. The rest of the furniture from her house (a queen bedroom set and some other pieces), plus a whole bunch of boxed stuff, will go to the storage space. There's also a solid rock maple hutch that's stopping at the storage space for a while, before going to live with my friend. Once the house is empty, I'll get the painter in and the house will go onto the market.
I picked up paint chips from Frazee Paint on Monday. They gave me an entire swatch book, too, and there are some beautiful colors in it. I love some of the accent colors, but not for a house I'm trying to sell. I'm inclined to paint the entire interior in Swiss Coffee, which is the color of our Palm Desert house and will be the color of our Lancaster house. It's a very popular warm off-white that I really like. However, I have to see how it looks with the drapes before I decide.
It's actually been a busy week; in addition to all this stuff I had a routine doctor's appointment yesterday and a mammogram today. Then tomorrow I go to the ophthalmologist for my yearly exam. Plus I need to meet with the cleaner and painter for estimates. I'm trying to get the cleaner in at the end of next week.
I also tried out my new six-quart crock pot from Overstock.com. I got a really nice chuck roast at Albertson's and bought it on the spur of the moment. Normally I plan my grocery shopping so that I don't have to run all over the store but not this time. Once I got the roast I had to go back and get the vegetables. It came out really well and I was pleased. Cool-weather food....
26 June 2007
The Knitting Diet
I've been noticing recently, that my clothes have been getting looser. I had a routine doctor's appointment today that confirmed that I've lost weight. Not an entire size, but at least half a size, maybe a little more.
What was perplexing about this was that I hadn't been doing anything special to lose weight. You know how "unexplained weight loss" is a symptom of almost every serious illness, according to all those public service announcements and news stories? I didn't exactly panic or anything, but I did think back to see if anything was different that might be the cause. I figured it out fairly quickly.
Let me introduce The Knitting Diet. It works, it's easy, and it produces a Finished Object fairly often. What could be better?
Really. I'm not kidding. Knitting is why I'm losing weight. My problem has never been eating too much at meals. It's always been snacking, mostly in the evening. With my hands full of knitting I don't seem to snack. I don't know whether it's because I'm too busy to want to snack or because I keep putting it off for just one more row or because I prefer knitting to snacking, but whatever it is, I'm just not snacking. And because I'm not, I'm losing weight.
Now I just have to figure out how to knit and ride my exercycle. Fitness is important, too. Muscle mass burns calories, even resting.
What was perplexing about this was that I hadn't been doing anything special to lose weight. You know how "unexplained weight loss" is a symptom of almost every serious illness, according to all those public service announcements and news stories? I didn't exactly panic or anything, but I did think back to see if anything was different that might be the cause. I figured it out fairly quickly.
Let me introduce The Knitting Diet. It works, it's easy, and it produces a Finished Object fairly often. What could be better?
Really. I'm not kidding. Knitting is why I'm losing weight. My problem has never been eating too much at meals. It's always been snacking, mostly in the evening. With my hands full of knitting I don't seem to snack. I don't know whether it's because I'm too busy to want to snack or because I keep putting it off for just one more row or because I prefer knitting to snacking, but whatever it is, I'm just not snacking. And because I'm not, I'm losing weight.
Now I just have to figure out how to knit and ride my exercycle. Fitness is important, too. Muscle mass burns calories, even resting.
23 April 2007
Pomegranate Jelly And Tradition
My mom was a really good cook and she frequently made jam and jelly. She was renowned for her pomegranate jelly. Pomegranate jelly is beautiful. It's a deep ruby red and it tastes just wonderful. It's almost a bit addictive.
She used to make a couple of batches for me every December, in both the little four-ounce jars and the eight-ounce jars (for the real aficionados), to give to my friends and cow orkers. This custom had started out with about three jars and, over the years, grown to about two dozen. Everyone who had ever tasted it wanted more. When my mom came out to Dryden and I was introducing her to people, about half of them would say something like "Oh, I love your pomegranate jelly and I look forward to Christmas and a jar of it all year". My cousin even mentioned it in his eulogy (and the attendees nodded in agreement).
I'm carrying on the tradition; I just made a batch of pomegranate jelly. As usual, it turned out very well. I don't know that her recipe is foolproof, but it seems to be. In the hope that someone else will start this tradition in their family, here's the recipe.
Katheryn's Pomegranate Jelly (makes around 9 one-cup jars)
4 c pomegranate juice (squeezed from six or eight pomegranates or bought)
¼ c lemon juice (squeezed from two lemons or bought)
1 box pectin (check the date on the box)
7½ c sugar, measured into a separate bowl
Put the juices into a large, deep pan and stir in the pectin. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Add all the sugar at once and stir until it's dissolved. Skim off the froth with a metal spoon. Stirring, bring the mixture to a boil that you can't stir down and let it boil for exactly one minute. Then take it off the heat, skim it some more, and pour it into prepared one-cup (half-pint) jars.
Jar preparation: wash the jars in the dishwasher on the hottest cycle or wash them by hand and sterilize them in boiling water for a couple of minutes. Put them into warm water (hot jelly in cold jars can result in broken jars) before you start cooking. Boil the flat lids for a couple of minutes and leave them in the water. Wash the rings.
Pour the jelly up to about ¼-½ in. from the top, put on a flat lid, and screw on a ring. Don't screw it down tightly, but do get it on firmly. When you have all the jars filled, put them into a large, deep pan and cover the jars with water. Cover and bring the water to a boil. Boil for five minutes. Turn off the heat and lift the jars out and set them on the counter. As they cool, the lids will pop, showing that the vacuum packing worked. If a jar lid doesn't pop, reprocess it or refrigerate it and use right away.
Be careful, because hot sugar syrup is very dangerous.
Eat the jelly with fresh butter on hot biscuits or toasted English muffins or toast. You can substitute cream cheese for the butter, if you'd like.
She used to make a couple of batches for me every December, in both the little four-ounce jars and the eight-ounce jars (for the real aficionados), to give to my friends and cow orkers. This custom had started out with about three jars and, over the years, grown to about two dozen. Everyone who had ever tasted it wanted more. When my mom came out to Dryden and I was introducing her to people, about half of them would say something like "Oh, I love your pomegranate jelly and I look forward to Christmas and a jar of it all year". My cousin even mentioned it in his eulogy (and the attendees nodded in agreement).
I'm carrying on the tradition; I just made a batch of pomegranate jelly. As usual, it turned out very well. I don't know that her recipe is foolproof, but it seems to be. In the hope that someone else will start this tradition in their family, here's the recipe.
Katheryn's Pomegranate Jelly (makes around 9 one-cup jars)
4 c pomegranate juice (squeezed from six or eight pomegranates or bought)
¼ c lemon juice (squeezed from two lemons or bought)
1 box pectin (check the date on the box)
7½ c sugar, measured into a separate bowl
Put the juices into a large, deep pan and stir in the pectin. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Add all the sugar at once and stir until it's dissolved. Skim off the froth with a metal spoon. Stirring, bring the mixture to a boil that you can't stir down and let it boil for exactly one minute. Then take it off the heat, skim it some more, and pour it into prepared one-cup (half-pint) jars.
Jar preparation: wash the jars in the dishwasher on the hottest cycle or wash them by hand and sterilize them in boiling water for a couple of minutes. Put them into warm water (hot jelly in cold jars can result in broken jars) before you start cooking. Boil the flat lids for a couple of minutes and leave them in the water. Wash the rings.
Pour the jelly up to about ¼-½ in. from the top, put on a flat lid, and screw on a ring. Don't screw it down tightly, but do get it on firmly. When you have all the jars filled, put them into a large, deep pan and cover the jars with water. Cover and bring the water to a boil. Boil for five minutes. Turn off the heat and lift the jars out and set them on the counter. As they cool, the lids will pop, showing that the vacuum packing worked. If a jar lid doesn't pop, reprocess it or refrigerate it and use right away.
Be careful, because hot sugar syrup is very dangerous.
Eat the jelly with fresh butter on hot biscuits or toasted English muffins or toast. You can substitute cream cheese for the butter, if you'd like.
09 April 2007
Scarves Go To College
This is the big, relatively warm scarf I knitted for my goddaughter. The yarn is a combination of cotton, rayon and cotton, and rayon strands, with a fuzzy acrylic strand to soften it. I bought it from Spin City Yarns (spincityyarns) on eBay. I buy a lot there, as they have wonderful yarns at excellent prices. You can't really tell it in the photo, but the fabric has a beautiful drape to it.
The pattern is just a five-one ribbing that shifts to the left one stitch every other row. It's enough to keep the scarf from curling, while offering just a little textural interest. The scarf is eight or nine inches wide and about six feet long.
This is a Moebius scarf made from Berocco (I think) Cotton Twist. The pattern was just (k3,p3) on 287 stitches. As a result, the pattern shifted one stitch per round, giving me a chevron stitch. This pattern was based on some of Cat Bordhi's comments. I was mostly trying to keep the scarf from rolling. It has an I-cord bind-off which looks really nice. You can just see it in the photo. The yarn is a very delicate pale apricot.
Four Fun Fur garter-stitch scarves for spring.
The yarn on the left, below, looked more spring-like in the ball.
I really like the way the colors on this scarf worked out. I think this is called flashing but I'm not entirely sure.
Washcloths here. The one on the right is the Ball Band Washcloth from Mason Dixon Knitting and the band around Peaches 'n' Cream cotton yard. (It's not my ball band pattern, which is for the one that is a diamond, with yarn overs on all for sides.) The left one, in doubled white cotton is a pattern I picked up somewhere that I can't remember. It has a very nice textured pattern that's pretty much invisible in this photo.
The last thing that went into the package was a bag of four tangerines, right off the tree in my back yard. This is a little beauty of a tree, with glossy dark leaves. The orange fruit really stand out from the foliage and look very festive. I think it's actually a clementine, not a tangerine, but the difference is minor.
The pattern is just a five-one ribbing that shifts to the left one stitch every other row. It's enough to keep the scarf from curling, while offering just a little textural interest. The scarf is eight or nine inches wide and about six feet long.
This is a Moebius scarf made from Berocco (I think) Cotton Twist. The pattern was just (k3,p3) on 287 stitches. As a result, the pattern shifted one stitch per round, giving me a chevron stitch. This pattern was based on some of Cat Bordhi's comments. I was mostly trying to keep the scarf from rolling. It has an I-cord bind-off which looks really nice. You can just see it in the photo. The yarn is a very delicate pale apricot.
Four Fun Fur garter-stitch scarves for spring.
The yarn on the left, below, looked more spring-like in the ball.
I really like the way the colors on this scarf worked out. I think this is called flashing but I'm not entirely sure.
Washcloths here. The one on the right is the Ball Band Washcloth from Mason Dixon Knitting and the band around Peaches 'n' Cream cotton yard. (It's not my ball band pattern, which is for the one that is a diamond, with yarn overs on all for sides.) The left one, in doubled white cotton is a pattern I picked up somewhere that I can't remember. It has a very nice textured pattern that's pretty much invisible in this photo.
The last thing that went into the package was a bag of four tangerines, right off the tree in my back yard. This is a little beauty of a tree, with glossy dark leaves. The orange fruit really stand out from the foliage and look very festive. I think it's actually a clementine, not a tangerine, but the difference is minor.
07 April 2007
The Queen Of The Grill Strikes
Last night I grilled. And grilled. And grilled some more. Then I vacuum-packed and froze. No more grilling for a while. It's going to get hot out there, so I'd rather grill and freeze than slave over a hot grill in 100°-plus heat. Or heat up the kitchen for the air conditioning to deal with.
I'd found boneless center-cut pork chops on sale at an excellent price, so I'd gotten a dozen of them. One package (of four) was a bit thinner than the other, so I marinated them in an herb, vinegar, and oil dressing for about half a day and grilled them first. They cooked really quickly and smelled so good, it was all I could do to grill the rest of the meat, rather than diving into these chops. I also slid a pair of stuffed potatoes, from the service deli, onto the warming shelf when I first turned the chops.
Once those chops got done (I go to at least 150° on pork, mostly out of habit), I re-oiled the grill and tossed the other eight chops on the fire. I gave them a little over a minute more on each turn (three turns or, actually, a rotation, a turn, and another rotation to get crossed grid marks on each side). About when they were done, the potatoes were heated through and I pulled them off, too.
Then I tossed the four New York steaks (rump steaks to the British and their other former colonies, I believe) on the grill. These had also been on sale. Getting the meat on sale was why I was grilling; I don't usually pay list price, as it were, for meat, except low-fat hamburger. While they were cooking I tidied up the trash (it takes me about a third of a roll of paper towels to cook this much meat and then there were the trays and plastic from the store, so I had quite a bit) and put the chops, in their covered casseroles, on the bottom shelves of the cart. When the steaks were done, they too went into a casserole and I shut off the gas and zipped the cart into the kitchen.
I should mention that somewhere around when the first chops went onto the grill a bourbon and 7-Up highball magically appeared on my cart, right beside the salt and pepper. It took almost an hour from when I started to when I was done outside, but I wasn't in a hurry and I didn't exactly crowd the grill. The glass was nearly empty, except for a few rather sad, warm pieces of ice, when I came in.
So I mixed another drink, cut one of the steaks in half, added a potato to each plate, dished up a little tossed green salad for each of us, and served dinner. It was really good. Of course, I was absolutely starving after sitting out there by the grill, smelling the meat cook. I love grilled steak and pork chops and I love my gas grill that lets me make them just as well as a restaurant can.
When I finished dinner, I went back out to the kitchen and vacuum-sealed the other three steaks and all of the chops. I put the steaks and eight of the chops in the freezer. We're going to have marinated chops tonight and plain chops tomorrow. Monday is my 60th birthday and we'll probably go out to eat.
I like having this grilled meat in the freezer. It heats pretty well, without much drying out, and the vacuum sealing prevents freezer burn. Putting dinner together can be really quick using it. And it's unusual enough to seem like a little bit of a treat when we do have it.
Then today I worked on getting my stashes of yarn and beads into the closet tidily. Some of the beads just simply have to go. I'll never use them; many of them were hand-me-downs from a friend who got tired of beading a few years ago and weren't really my style. I don't know exactly what my style is, but they aren't it. Between the USPS flat-rate shipping and eBay, these beads should find a home. I'll let someone else find a place to put them.
Photos of the closet will appear tomorrow, once I get most of what I'm keeping put away. For some reason, the closet seems to keep getting smaller and smaller, the more I try to put into it.
I'd found boneless center-cut pork chops on sale at an excellent price, so I'd gotten a dozen of them. One package (of four) was a bit thinner than the other, so I marinated them in an herb, vinegar, and oil dressing for about half a day and grilled them first. They cooked really quickly and smelled so good, it was all I could do to grill the rest of the meat, rather than diving into these chops. I also slid a pair of stuffed potatoes, from the service deli, onto the warming shelf when I first turned the chops.
Once those chops got done (I go to at least 150° on pork, mostly out of habit), I re-oiled the grill and tossed the other eight chops on the fire. I gave them a little over a minute more on each turn (three turns or, actually, a rotation, a turn, and another rotation to get crossed grid marks on each side). About when they were done, the potatoes were heated through and I pulled them off, too.
Then I tossed the four New York steaks (rump steaks to the British and their other former colonies, I believe) on the grill. These had also been on sale. Getting the meat on sale was why I was grilling; I don't usually pay list price, as it were, for meat, except low-fat hamburger. While they were cooking I tidied up the trash (it takes me about a third of a roll of paper towels to cook this much meat and then there were the trays and plastic from the store, so I had quite a bit) and put the chops, in their covered casseroles, on the bottom shelves of the cart. When the steaks were done, they too went into a casserole and I shut off the gas and zipped the cart into the kitchen.
I should mention that somewhere around when the first chops went onto the grill a bourbon and 7-Up highball magically appeared on my cart, right beside the salt and pepper. It took almost an hour from when I started to when I was done outside, but I wasn't in a hurry and I didn't exactly crowd the grill. The glass was nearly empty, except for a few rather sad, warm pieces of ice, when I came in.
So I mixed another drink, cut one of the steaks in half, added a potato to each plate, dished up a little tossed green salad for each of us, and served dinner. It was really good. Of course, I was absolutely starving after sitting out there by the grill, smelling the meat cook. I love grilled steak and pork chops and I love my gas grill that lets me make them just as well as a restaurant can.
When I finished dinner, I went back out to the kitchen and vacuum-sealed the other three steaks and all of the chops. I put the steaks and eight of the chops in the freezer. We're going to have marinated chops tonight and plain chops tomorrow. Monday is my 60th birthday and we'll probably go out to eat.
I like having this grilled meat in the freezer. It heats pretty well, without much drying out, and the vacuum sealing prevents freezer burn. Putting dinner together can be really quick using it. And it's unusual enough to seem like a little bit of a treat when we do have it.
Then today I worked on getting my stashes of yarn and beads into the closet tidily. Some of the beads just simply have to go. I'll never use them; many of them were hand-me-downs from a friend who got tired of beading a few years ago and weren't really my style. I don't know exactly what my style is, but they aren't it. Between the USPS flat-rate shipping and eBay, these beads should find a home. I'll let someone else find a place to put them.
Photos of the closet will appear tomorrow, once I get most of what I'm keeping put away. For some reason, the closet seems to keep getting smaller and smaller, the more I try to put into it.
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