This One is For Kevin

I've been going through a bit of a cycle here lately. I've been knitting, reading and cooking, all in equal measure. I re-read Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility and Persuasion. Then, done with Jane for a while I moved on to Edith Wharton and did the same with The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. Not satisfied, Stephen and I took a trip to Barnes & Noble and I bought "Julie & Julia," written by Julie Powell, a food blogger that decided to embark on the monumental task of cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year. Julie & Julia is the memoir that grew out of the blog and the experience in general. I finished it in two sittings, over the course of 24 hours. I enjoyed it immensely. Friday night I finished re-reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I forgot that at the end of the book, the dog, Karenin, dies. It made me think of Leah and I had to stop for a few minutes and sob before I could finish the book. At the moment I'm toying with re-reading Great Expectations. I haven't decided yet, but there's something about Miss Havisham's festering, putrid wedding feast coupled with Estella's cruel teasing of poor Pip that I find attractive.

Through it all I've been knitting and cooking as well. I pulled out three years of back issues of Bon Appetit and revisited some of the most interesting recipes that I've either made or envision myself making. Just in the last week or two I've made Parmesan Crusted Chicken, Potato Salad, various green salads, Mexican Wedding Cakes (eggless cookies with pistachio and dried cranberries, coated in powdered sugar), Orange Cardamom Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting, and Chakchouka (eggs cooked with vegetables.) Tonight I plan to make glazed turnips, over a bed of redleaf lettuce and have chocolate strawberry shortcake for dessert. Stephen and I have also been brewing. We kegged the latest batch yesterday. Before we made the last batch Stephen bought a brand new stainless steel cookpot. It's fabulous because it's tall enough to prevent the dreaded boil-over onto the stove. There's nothing like trying to remove sticky wort that's been baked onto a stove top.

I'm still knitting on my Vintage Pink Cardigan. I've knit the back, front and left sides, and one sleeve. I'm now in the middle of sleeve-desolation-island. By the time I get to the sleeves of a sweater I'm thinking "Almost done!" Then I start knitting the sleeves and realize that I'm not almost done. I'm stranded on a desolate island with nothing but the sleeves to knit and an infinite amount of time to knit them in. By the time I get to the second sleeve I'm fairly certain that I will need an eternity before they are finished. I leave you with a few photos:




Strawberry Rhubarb Pie and the beer blow off bucket, overflowing.