so much pretty yarn and so little time...

ah, yarn! there's just so much pretty yarn out there and lately i have just gone on a yarn buying spree. or would binge be a more accurate characterization? a few nights ago i bought a book called romantic hand knits. i was intrigued by the title and man, does it have some beautiful (and sexy) patterns! i didn't get that great amazon price, i paid the $27.50 list price, but i also bought it at an independent bookstore, so it's all to the good. when i lose the weight i've put on (first time in my life i've ever needed to lose weight - egad!) i will be making that skirt.

i also ordered some donegal tweed from patternworks, in garnet, which happens to be my birthstone. :) i have been lusting after this yarn for several years now and not buying it because i didn't have a specific project in mind. i hate buying odd skeins and then not doing anything with them, so even when i impulse buy i'm usually getting at least five skeins or so, and when i'm in for that much dough (the donegal tweed was around $11 a skein), i hate to just have it sit. i am a somewhat weird knitter in that respect, i.e. i don't want my stash to get too big. then it went on sale and i figured to hell with it! i don't care if i don't have anything specific in mind, i'm getting some! so i did.

i also bought some double twist from green mountain spinnery a few weeks back, with a project in mind. i got a gray color, not either of the ones listed. it's actually a little more of a taupe-y gray than i wanted (damn you inaccurate computer monitor!!!) but it's still quite nice. i might not use it for what i bought it for, ironically, as it's a little scratchier than i want that particular sweater to be. the tags say it will soften up a lot upon washing and i do tend to trust the tags, especially when they're from the mill that makes the yarn in question. whatever it ends up being, you can't beat $7.35 for a 250 yard skein of 100% wool!

we also did the complete splurge of my knitting career buy a few weeks back... debbie bliss pure cashmere from littleknits; black for drew and morning sky blue for me. drew really wants me to make him a cashmere sweater and they're having this bag sale, ten skeins for $76! seeing as how the skeins are all of 45 yards/250 grams (i.e. tiny) and retail for anywhere between $23 - $25 per skein i just couldn't pass up $7.60 a skein. couldn't do it. and they let you mix colors to get a full bag, too! mind you, with what we were spending i'd let the customer mix for a full bag too. i can't bring myself to say how much it all cost... let's just say a huge fucking sum of dough, and leave it at that.

and drew, bless his immensely generous heart, got me alice starmore's in the hebrides, which is out of print and consequently quite expensive and hard to find. it didn't cost quite what the cheapest one listed did, because i got the cheapest one - woo hoo, hoo hoo hoo (that's the vonage jingle woo hoo, fyi.) it hasn't arrived yet - i can't wait 'til it gets here! i have one of her books, the celtic collection, still in print i think, which i bought years ago at straw into gold in berkeley (a great yarn shop, now sadly defunct). it was one of those "if i open that book i know i'm going to buy it, so i'm not going to open it. shit! i opened it!" situations. i hadn't even realized most of here her books were out of print now... some sort of blow out with the publisher. it's a crime, really, her designs are just magical and she's pretty much the authority on fair isle knitting. you can still get new stuff from her web site, virtual yarns, which is good. i'll have to find a picture of me in my cromarty sweater to post here. it's the blue one with all the intricate cables, you may have seen it.

ooh! and i got some blocking wires and a spaceboard, again from patternworks. not glamorous but completely essential. i didn't understand that blocking was as important as it is when i started knitting, but it really is so i decided to invest in the tools. not having the blocking stuff is like trying to sew, or block, for that matter, without a good iron, i.e. a really bad idea.

and i am working on a pressie for someone, too, but i can't say what in case they might figure it out. when it's been given is when i'll post a picture. :)

there is so not anything going on at all that i'm not even sure why i'm posting! i'm finally getting over the flu, which is nice, but it means i've done jack for the past ten days or so, thus having nothing to really capture anyone's imagination with. i got a flu shot, but managed to get a strain of flu that wasn't in it, which is just insulting, as was getting sick on a saturday. wah wah wah!

it's very rainy here in nocal which is all to the good as we need it, but you know what? it's not just pittsburghers who can't drive in the rain. there are so many yahoos on the road here and people just get stupid in the rain, going too fast or too slow. my favorites are the folks who, in already slow traffic, somehow manage to be left-lane bandits. i think you need a God-given talent for that one.

one cute christmas-y story for you, about a christmas card delivered 93 years late. who says the u.s. mail doesn't get the job done? :)

sniff, sniff

i have a cold. sore throat, stuffy head, sneeze-o-rama - ugh! some way to spend the weekend.

there is absolutely nothing interesting going on. i've been reading some really great books by s.m. stirling lately; dies the fire, the protector's war (there was no war in the book, however), and now the third in the trilogy, a meeting in corvallis. the premise for these books is for an unknown reason, could be a freak natural occurrence, could be aliens, who knows? everything mechanical in the world stops working; in the book this event is called "the change". gun powder and explosives don't burn right, either, so guns, dynamite and the like are useless. most of the people in the world die, and what happens to rest is what the book is about. i love these kinds of stories, alternate realities and such, and this kind of ties into my love of zombie movies. even though there are no zombies it has the element of little pockets of people thrown together because of a cataclysmic event trying to survive. i have always liked to think that should there be a zombie attack, i'd be one of the survivors. then again, i don't know how to shoot a gun and we all know only a head shot will kill a zombie. i did decide i should learn how to shoot a gun after watching the dawn of the dead remake a few years ago. my brothers, joe and justin, sat with me and the rest of the viewers after the movie coming up with our plan to survive. joe and justin had just bought a canoe at the highland park rummage sale that weekend (for like $50 bucks - sweet!), and justin and joe were living in lawrenceville just a few blocks from the allegheny river, so both figured prominently in our survival plans.

on the way home i called drew, who was away on a business trip, to tell him i wanted to learn how to shoot a gun, because you never know when zombies might attack and while i was never a boy scout, they're onto something with the whole "be prepared" motto. he of course thought this was hysterical because he thought i should know how to shoot a gun just in case i was ever in a situation where i might need to shoot one, and i'd always said i had no interest in guns nor learning how to use them. he's kinda got a bit of a survivalist streak, my sweetie; again, something that will come in handy during a zombie attack. in the midst of our conversation my cell phone cut out on the section of wible road it always does, and i thought to myself, if this was a zombie movie this is where i'd bite the dust. i collected the dog and slept at my folks' place that night, and when i got up in the middle of the night to pee, i thought to myself "i am so glad i came down here!" i have no pride when it comes to such things... my overactive imagination gets the better of me sometimes and it was better to just indulge it by going to my parents' house. drew also thought this was hilarious, and pointed out we lived a minute's walk away from the local police station. i replied, "yeah - a police station filled with armed zombies!", so he gave up trying to dissuade me.

as long as i'm on zombies, there's an excellent zombie book that you might want to read: world war z: an oral history of the zombie war. fucking excellent book! i think they're making it into a movie... i hope they don't fuck it up. i wonder who's in it... must do a google search.

well, that's it for me folks. and my advice to any of you who, like me, are a little chubby and out of shape, or who don't know how to shoot firearms or live on nuts and berries in the woods... perhaps we should all make a new year's resolution to get in shape and learn a few new skills, because if the change ever does happen or zombies attack, i'd hate for any of us to bite the dust because we were the sick zebra in the herd.

herbie, wounded warrior

herbie, our wonderful orange tabby, is wearing a cone and sporting a shaved spot with a straw sticking out of his backside, courtesy of surgery wednesday night by dr. nicki at santa cruz veterinarian hospital. he's fine, don't worry, if not a little frustrated; he had an almost abscess near the base of his tail. it wasn't actually an abscess yet, but was heading that way fast. there were two bites (we think from tommy, the other orange tabby in the neighborhood who he has been fighting with) & apparently there was a pretty big infected area so the vet thought he'd need a drain in it. we knew something was up because he was walking sort of funny, like his butt hurt, but more than that he was in a most un-herbie-like foul mood... hissing at us when we tried to pet him and that's just not our little love bug at all. when he wouldn't eat, when he turned his nose up at his evening nummies (a small scoop of fancy feast), an event he eagerly anticipates every day starting at 4:30 pm (and nummies aren't until 6 pm at least, usually) we knew he was sick. so off to the vet at 11:15 pm, where we stayed until about 12:30 am, probably closer to 1:00 am, before heading home without the herbster. the vet called the next morning to tell us the surgery went well (they were only going to call overnight if there was a problem, and there wasn't, praise God!) and that he had "a robust appetite" this morning, so we know our guy is back! :) and his dad stayed home on thursday to look after him. he's really settled down (he was pissed when he got home), but he's bumping into things and walking backwards so he won't bump stuff. i just had to re-do his collar. he'd managed to get the plastic part undone at the place where it's put together. i felt bad when i'd finished as he just sat there, head down, like a bowed and beaten man.

but the cone and the drain will go bye-bye on monday, so if he can just put up with us until then. i gotta say, he's loads better about taking his medicine than chiana was when she had a really bad abscess a few months ago. in general she's a lot easier going, so much so that her temperament combined with her fluffiness meant we didn't realize she had such a bad abscess until she was really sick; the vet said there was necrotic tissue in her wound (and necrotic tissue = totally disgusting!) herbie, on the other hand, was pissy and miserable and it wasn't even an abscess yet. then again, he is one smart cat and he's not into suffering.

hating me for documenting his suffering:




the reason he needs a cone




success at finally getting to clean his tail! and his drain. i'd just done warm compresses on him, which is why his fur is wet around the edges.




please send herbie healing prayers and vibes, as he is finding us very trying. as to his sister, she's doing great!

thanksgiving

sorry to take so long to post about thanksgiving, but i just now woke up from the turkey coma. and if you believe that, i've got a bridge i'd like to sell you. :)

well, thanksgiving was wonderful!!!! yum-a-dum-dum! the turkey was so great that i ordered another for christmas (since it was frozen it was $10 less - mad savings! not!), and i am already looking forward to it! we had excellent company and our own private bartender (thank you dave!) i had three versions of a sidecar, a cocktail i had never before drunk but it's really darn good! dave seriously has a gift for mixing drinks, and that's not something to be taken lightly. anyone can mix a drink, but not anyone can mix a drink like dave can. whoever happens to be mixing your drinks, don't be like me and start drinking it when dinner is almost done and you haven't eaten for a good five hours. i had to stick it in the fridge half way through because i was getting tipsy, and nobody wants a tipsy person making the gravy or mashing the potatoes.

without further ado, here is our turkey before going into the oven.



this is the heritage turkey we got from reese turkey farm. as farmer reese says, the best way to save these rare breeds is to eat them, and i am happy to say he has recruited five new volunteers to eat these birds into every day commonness. seriously though, we paid a lot of money for our 11 lb turkey, though we weren't just paying for the turkey: we were also paying for preserving and helping to foster genetic diversity, which is very important to us, altruistically and from an enlightened self-interest standpoint. farmer reese's turkey was so good that we'll never get another turkey from the supermarket if we have anything to say about it. fortunately for us, we do! i brined this bad boy for twelve hours using williams-sonoma apple & spices turkey brine, mostly using water but also about six cups of apple cider. i made a maple syrup and herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme) compound butter, which was rubbed not only on the skin but also under it. i worked the skin loose from the meat, which it tougher to do on a heritage bird than a conventional one, and then deposited dollops of the butter underneath. if you look closely you can see some lumps under the skin. they're easy to see on the legs. stuffed the heck out of him with my usual stuffing and we were off to the races!

and after a few hours, this is how he turned out:



pretty magnificent, huh? we sure thought so, and for those of you reading here, can i just tell you how great the heritage turkey was? i thought i'd discovered the secret to making delicious turkey when i discovered brining, but a heritage turkey goes up to eleven, maybe even twelve. on its own, it must be wonderful, brined it was just paradise. i seriously didn't know that turkey could taste this good! i wasn't sure about brining, as a lot of sites said not to, but for strictly comparison purposes i thought i should, otherwise it would be comparing apples and oranges. i also read another blog where the cook faced a similar dilemma and decided to brine and her turkey turned out great, so that clinched it.

the biggest differences that i noticed between heritage turkey and conventional ones (i.e. factory or even organically raised broad-breasted whites) is that the meat in general is darker, even the white meat. the legs are a little longer and the wings are much more developed. also, the skin is a lot thicker on the breast, perhaps because these turkeys live normal lives doing normal turkey things, like flying, running and scratching around (and even having - gasp - sex!!!!) if you're a big fan of the skin, the breast skin doesn't crisp up where it's thicker like on a conventional turkey, so you'll want to get your crispy skin fix from the legs or another part of the bird.

of course, we had great company and i had many helpers, so here are a few more shots for your viewing pleasure:

preparing mr. turkey for his date with the oven:



a chef is only as good as her sous chef! his people might not know potatoes like mine, but he can sure peel a mean potato!



mashing the spuds. i have to make a product plug at this point. i'm an easy mark for williams-sonoma. i drool over the catalogues, wanting one of almost everything, and if i were ever to get stuck working retail again, i'd want to work there. always looking for new gadgets that will make food yummier and easier to make that way, this year i tried out the potato ricer that williams-sonoma was selling (it's not available on their site anymore; hopefully that's not a permanent situation.) folks, if you like mashed potatoes, you need this gadget! you still mash them up with a masher once they're through the ricer, but that ricer makes them so smooth and so light... i never knew mashed potatoes could be like this, and i'm irish!!!!



we all need somewhere pretty to eat.



how's this for happy diners? diane and dave were nice enough to join us (trump is taking the picture)



mmmmmm.......... pie......... mmmmm!!! one mincemeat and two pumpkin, with fresh whipped cream of course! kind of hard to tell but i bought these cute little pie cookie cutters for that i used to decorate the crusts. another williams-sonoma product... it includes a maple leaf, oak leaf, acorn and pumpkin cutter. if you look very closely at the crusts you can kind of see the shapes, and i used the oak and maple cutters for the steam holes in the mincemeat pie.



and as herbie demonstrates, this is what happens when you eat too much turkey.



i hope your thanksgiving was just as good and just as much fun as ours!!!!