You Win Some, You Muck Up Others

 As if it isn't bad enough that I'm the last person to bake bread during the pandemic, my bread did not turn out at all. The dough for two loaves of cinnamon-raisin bread looked OK at the beginning:

But it never rose properly. I puzzled and puzzled over it. I've baked plenty of bread in my time. Then Keith asked about the yeast. I only bought it a few weeks ago, but I checked anyway. Yep, it expired four years ago! Given the run on yeast in the past year, I have no idea how any out-dated yeast was left.

Fortunately, not everything here is failing. Thanks to Kim, I have an adorable embroidered sheep. I'm going to make the Hygge Reindeer, which Kim also made, and then combine them in a little quilt.

Kim really has a knack for finding the best embroidery patterns.

And I'm quite happy with the quilt I'm making with my flower embroidery:

The border strips are fabric that I sun-dyed last summer. Wow, does that seem like a long time ago or what? Not that I mind winter. I took a long walk this afternoon, and it really cheered me up. 

I have a rough work week coming up so I needed the boost. So far, my district is mostly virtual, but I'm always worrying about being asked to go back before vaccination! Chicago's teachers have voted not to teach in person, which I think is wise. My science-smart friends say the Midwest will have another spike as universities open up.

So, wherever you are, stay safe, my friends. We are not out of the woods yet.

Good Enough

I did fix my About Town mitts -- sorta. The one on the left is correct; the one on the right has some issues: there is a blip on the thumb, holes at the base of the thumb gusset, and the hand part isn't quite right. 

But when I put them on, they look just fine -- and that's good enough for me! I'm going to make a pair for my daughter -- and those will have to be perfect!

Keith is Up North camping this week, so I'm cooking for myself. Last night I made crepes with ricotta cheese and sauteed nectarines. Pretty amazing.

Tomorrow is the first night of Rosh HaShanah, and I'm going to a virtual dinner before services. I'm going to make baked tofu with peanut sauce. It's a New York Times recipe and recommended by a friend, so it should be good. I have to do something festive!

Virtual teaching is really hard, but I feel re-energized. This evening I went to a McDonalds where I knew one of my graduates would be working. She was so happy to see me (and I to see her). Reminded me of why I do this work. The best news: She's going to cosmetology school. In June, she told me she was not ever going to school again. So glad she saw the light sooner rather than later!

Hooked on Hitchhiker

It's been a dreary weekend: cold, windy, rainy, gray skies. I'm not complaining because I needed to rest and this weather definitely helps with that. I went to Torah study yesterday and then had a nice long lunch with my mom. Last night, Keith and I started the third season of The Man in the High Castle (Amazon), and it is as good as the first two.

Today I started cleaning up my studio and then went out to lunch and Urban Sketching. I ended up drawing one of our sketchers:

The blue sky is just wishful thinking. It was quite gray.

I'm pretty happy with this sketch. The woman sort of looks like Jean, the sketcher, which is a rare accomplishment for me! I need to find some time to just play with my watercolors. It's a challenging medium and I don't put enough time into it.

This is good knitting weather. I finished my first Hitchhiker, and I love it. It only has about 39 teeth (it's supposed to have 41), but it is long enough right off the needles. After blocking, it should be a decent length.

I like the way the gradient works out when it's around my neck. I think it came out well enough to be a gift.

It was such a fun and relaxing knit, that I just had to do a stash dive and start a second one.

I have no recollection of where I got this skein of yarn. It's going to be an adventure. It's a magic ball with 15 colors of sock yarn tied together with square knots and wound into a cake. I haven't come to a knot yet, but I'm hoping that I can just leave the knots in place and have a rustic sort of shawl. Strangely, there is no company name or brand. All I know is that there are 525 yarns of Merino superwash sock yarn. 

For dinner tonight I made a delicious red lentil dish from the Oh She Glows Every Day Cookbook. The dish called for homemade mango chutney, but I cheated and bought some. I'm not vegan, but I do make a lot of Oh She Glows recipes. They are healthy and reliably good.

I noticed that the photo of my most recent quilt in my last post was fuzzy, so I just had to go on record with a better photo:

How was your weekend?

I'm a Meme and Other News

We had the Special Ed Department Holiday Party Friday night, and I won some pretty awful stuff in the White Elephant exchange, including a really awful hat. I was goofing around in it and one of my colleagues turned me into a meme:

This afternoon I went drawing with my friend Tsela, who included me in one of her sketches.

 Tsela is much faster than I am and she completed two sketches in the time it took me to do one. We always think it's fun when we draw the same thing. The results are always quite different (mine is on the right):

We were drawing at Madison Chocolate Company (highly recommended!) and saw a celebrity there. I know he's shy so I settled for taking a photo of the back of children's author Kevin Henkes. 

I started a hat with some Cascade 220 from my stash. The Antler Hat pattern is free from Tin Can Knits. I have never been disappointed in a Tin Can project. This is a very easy cabled pattern, and it's going quickly.

I am making a recipe from my new cookbook for dinner tonight: Lemon-Fennel Chicken in a pot.

I love Dorie Greenspan's baking recipes. I swear by her pie crust. She is the co-author of Julia Child's baking book; I can't imagine a better credential! I also made one of her chocolate cake recipes for dessert. I hope things come out well because my mother is coming for dinner!

Potato Chip Knitting and Reading

First, I want to thank all of you for kind words this past week for my cracked tooth. I swear those digital good wishes do translate into pain relief! It certainly does help to have so many friends out there pulling for me. (ETA: the verb "pulling" is definitely a pun)

I have had the perfect knitting and listening to get me through this. I am 80% of the way through my Land of Sweets Cowl, and I just can't stop. It's a proverbial "potato chip" knit -- just one more round! Even the lace sections are easy and relaxing.

Yesterday I got to the end of Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng on Audible. It is a page-turning story that examines what it means to be a mother from many different perspectives. It also compares a an affluent family with a vagabond artist and her daughter, and raises complex questions about how important money is. It's really quite thought-provoking. I highly recommend this book -- and that's not something I say often. If you like audiobooks, this one is well-done.

I had to pick up the new Smitten Kitchen cookbook as soon as it hit the bookstore. If you haven't discovered Deb Perelman's web site and books, you are in for a treat. She makes amazing food that isn't too complicated in her tiny Manhattan kitchen -- and then shares the results with us. 

Now I'm off to sip my tea and catch up with you!

Taking the Sad with the Good

It's Monday of spring break and a pretty busy day. For one thing, I am packing because I leave very early tomorrow for Miami, where I'll be spending a few days with my daughter.  I'm alternating packing with cooking for Passover, which begins this evening.

Among other things, I'm making Chocolate Caramel Crackers (with matzoh). It's a Smitten Kitchen recipe, so you know it's delicious.

Also delicious: Valdani embroidery thread. I blame Kat for this new obsession. She turned me on to Bonnie Sennott, who is an accomplished embroiderer and a wonderful knit designer, too. Bonnie mentioned that she used this "gourmet" thread, so I, of course, had to try it. It is indeed lovely.

Those are some good things. Here is the sad:

Keith had to put down Weeko a few days ago. She'd had renal failure for over a year and took a turn for the worse a couple weeks ago. Even after six days with the vet, she was lethargic and refused to eat. Weeko was a very anxious cat who hated the vet, so he had a vet come to the house. She passed in his arms. She was his cat. Even after living with me for a decade, she hissed at me. Still, I do feel her absence. She was just 12, so Keith wasn't ready to say good-bye.

And speaking of veterinarians ... Last weekend Seth received his official lab coat in the Blue Coat Ceremony, which marks the near-end of the third year of vet school. For a long time, he didn't think he'd go to college, so I am still amazed by how much he has accomplished.

In a few weeks he'll be done with classwork and begin his year of rotations. I was pretty darn proud. I may have even shed a tear or two. It's hard to believe that a year from now he'll be a real dog doctor.

Holiday Weekends Rock

With spring in full swing, the three-day weekend was glorious.

Because I have feet problems, I have to plan cooking carefully so that I have time to break up the standing. It was a perfect weekend for knitting breaks in the back yard.

I did get out for a bike ride and headed east. The UW campus is beautiful. This is the Historical Society Library, where I did all my master's research a long time ago!

All the cooking worked out well:

And we had a family gathering on Memorial Day! I'm just mad that I forgot to take pictures. That's a strawberry pie on the left and a pecan pie on the right. I could live on pie! Are you a pie eater?

Hope your weekend was great!

Weekend Stuff

There is nothing quite as sweet as the first weekend of winter break. Having two weeks away from work is such a luxury! I do complain about work sometimes, so I want to come clean and admit that the school breaks are an amazing benefit. So many Americans only get two or three weeks off a year and, frankly, that is criminal! We all need to recharge.

My weekend started out with a bang: When I got home from work Friday, my daughter had arrived from Florida.

Yesterday I drove to a suburb on the other side of Madison to take class to learn to make this bracelet:

This leather and beads bracelet is called Beading Insomnia. I saw some samples in the store a few weeks ago and signed up for the class on the spot. I like bracelets that have a cuff-type look. This photo makes the white beads look whiter than they are. They are more subtle in real life.

This evening I am hosting a birthday party for my dear friend Marsha. I am making two kinds of cookies for dessert, one being the Brown Butter Salted Caramel Mocha Cookies pictured below. These are amazing cookies, less sweet and more complex than most cookies.

I'm also going to make the Browniest Cookies from my favorite food blogger, the Smitten Kitchen. Yes, there will be healthy food for dinner to balance out all that sugary richness. But you have to indulge when it's one of the "0" birthdays, don't you? I think it's a law.

I hope everyone has had a lovely weekend and that no one is too stressed about the upcoming festivities!

Nicole at Frontier Dreams recommended this book:

I'm not vegan -- or even vegetarian -- but I do think there are lots of good reasons to eat less meat, both for the environment and for one's health, so I requested this from my local library. And I have to say that so far, it hasn't disappointed!

My very favorite recipe is the Classic Glo Bar. It's a granola bar that you make from scratch with ingredients I had not used before, such as chia seeds, hemp seeds, and brown rice syrup. The seeds come in large and somewhat expensive bags so I felt like buying them was a gamble. What was I going to do with all those chia seeds if I didn't like the bars?

Not to worry. The Glo Bars are delicious! And much more healthy that anything you can buy. So today I'm planning to make Present Glo Bars, a similar recipe but featuring some different items.

I'm also planning to try one of her green smoothies later today. As someone with jaw problems, I can't resist checking out a smoothie that has kale in it!

I hope you're having a great weekend. After a rough week at school, I was more than ready for a few sunny, lazy days. Yesterday I went for a bike ride and today I've got a walk scheduled. I'm hoping two days is long enough to recharge!

I Am Smitten

After a long wait, I finally got to the top of the queue at the public library and was able to pick up this book:

I'd become kind of lazy about cooking lately, so I really needed something to kick-start my kitchen activities.This book was the perfect solution. The pictures, the descriptions, the recipes -- all of those elements make this book inspiring.

No doubt, some of you are already with the Smitten Kitchen, which began (and continues) as a blog. Author Deb Perelman lives in New York City and makes her magic in a very small kitchen. She churns out recipes that produce flavorful results without using exotic ingredients -- and she succeeds.

Every one of the recipes I've whipped up has been fabulous:

• Tres Leches Rice Pudding
• Wild Rice Gratin with Kale, Caramelized Onions, and Baby Swiss
• Tomato Glazed Meatloaves with Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have finally found a kale recipe that is delicious -- not something I'd eat for health reasons only. And I don't think I'll ever make mashed potatoes again without browning the butter.

One thing to note: This is not a "health" food kind of book. Deb Perelman does not shy away from cream or butter or sugar. That said, there are many healthy recipes, including the Gratin I mentioned above.

And if you think you don't like rice pudding, try the tres leches version. It is amazing.