picture-full progress

proof!  half dome and clapotis:

ok, so progress is a relative term.  i’m really happy with the half dome so far, and the clapotis i think will look very cool once it’s finished and stitches are dropped, but i don’t think variegated yarn is for me.  luckily, this is for someone else!

last night a and i went to see clap your hands say yeah at central park.  it was a pretty good show (is it bad to say i like their studio-recorded songs better than when they perform them live?) and fun to be in central park.  i had a bit of a hike through the upper east side from the subway to the park, and it was a whole nother kind of new york.  walking down madison avenue past roberto cavalli, dolce and gabbana, pucci on a side street–so posh and foreign!  and the people were cracking me up.  brittle, skinny, shell-haired women with their portly, gray-haired husbands going to dinner.  we don’t get much of that in brooklyn!  and then of course the contrast once i got in the park and was surrounded by hipsters in their skinny jeans and flats.  i went from feeling young and carefree to old and stodgy in a matter of 10 minutes!  

no more shows on tap for a while, which is ok with me–i’m tired!  dinner with my brother tonight at bianca where i will definitely be ordering the gnocco fritto for an appetizer!  and then the aforementioned knitting, cooking and movie watching tomorrow for which i’m inordinately excited…

pictureless progress

i have no pictures for anything, which makes my blog even more boring (i know, just when you thought it wasn’t possible).  i do have progress to report though.  

first, food.  i made the chicken with squash and cranberry beans based on this recipe  with smashed potatoes on the side.  i even made a ring of mashed potatoes on the plate and nestled the chicken and squash/beans mixture in the middle so the potatoes formed a moat and looked sort of theatrical.  the camera battery, alas, was completely dead and plugging it in for a couple minutes did not help.  deciding a hot meal was more important than a photographed meal, i decided to forego the picture taking.

now, knitting.  i am making serious progress on the clapotis AND the half dome.  i changed the brim on the half dome to 2×2 rib instead of stockinette so no rolling which will mean warmer ears for a.  this weekend is supposed to be chilly and rainy so i plan to spend saturday afternoon knitting away on these projects and maybe some scarves, and watching a stupid movie.  any suggestions?  i’m in a girlie movie mood…  i bought myself some of this yarn last weekend at purl in jade 51.  isn’t it amazing?  i have a red coat, a winter white coat and a black coat and i think it will look great with all three! 

back to food.  since this weekend is going to be chilly i’ve got some big cooking plans.  well, semi-big cooking plans.  i’m making pork hominy stew on saturday, and cornbread on the side.  while i’m getting the pork from the farmer’s market (and it’s free range, organic, antibiotic-free), i ordered a lot of the ingredients from fresh direct.  i’m a fresh direct virgin, so i’m very excited about it.  it’s hard not to order a lot of groceries when you’re shopping because it doesn’t feel quite real.  i couldn’t resist the par baked artisan bread though–you finish the baking at home so it smells great and is freshly baked.  i opted for the ciabatta rolls so i can bake just a couple at a time.  very exciting stuff.  i suppose that’s it for cooking plans right now for the weekend, though i’m sure we’ll make brunches both days as well.  last weekend we had our requisite scrambled eggs on saturday, and then sunday i made french toast with peach compote and creme fraiche.  the highlight, however, was making this bacon which i know sounds weird but was really delicious and easy to make.  i LOVE cooking bacon in the oven.  for a jewish girl i eat a lot of pork, huh?  though i think that’s nothing compared to how much my mom eats.  making up for lost time, i think…

guest appearance

ready for the cutest cats ever?  henry and ella, ladies and gentleman, courtesy of bfa…

 

ah, fall…

i love fall and am so excited it’s here.  fall is definitely my favorite season, and now that i’m on the east coast i am preparing to enjoy it even more.  it seems to me that fall in the midwest is the week between summer and winter when the air is smoky and crisp.  on the east coast it seems that fall might actually be fall–a couple months worth of smoky, crispy air and crunchy leaves on the ground!  while it’s true that the days are still a bit warm here, the nights are finally cool which means breaking out the down comforter (which is thankfully king size so gracie can’t pull all the covers off us leaving us to wake up freezing), cooking yummy foods like squash (yay squash!) and getting into the swing of knitting.

so, in the spirit of fall and not having any plans for tonight, i am looking forward to cooking something involving squash and the cranberry shell beans i got this weekend (maybe this with mashed potatoes on the side).  and working on the half dome for a to protect his head from the soon to come elements…  who’s jealous of my super exciting plans?

case of the mondays

i just wrote this huge post about the weekend and now it’s gone!  synopsis–hem was great and flaming lips totally rocked (singer in giant hamster bubble crowd-surfing!).  also went to purl soho which is the best yarn store ever.

no weekend photos, so here’s a gratuitous (and revealing) gracie photo:

and lest i forget,  a giant shout out to fj and bfa.  the most obnoxiously wonderful readers/commenters a girlie girl living in brooklyn could ever hope for!

yay yarn!

my knitting woes have come to an end.  the world may now breathe a sigh of relief.  for all of you out there (and i know there are a lot of you) worrying about my bunchy clapotis, stop worrying immediately.  i figured out the error of my ways

(bad technique) and i now have non-bunch-slightly-curling-as-it-should-be clapotis!  whew…

 in other knitting news i’m going to start on an even more mindless project–a plain old scarf in seed stitch.  but the yarn is quite luscious which will make it slightly less mindless.  see?

in non-knitting news, weekend plans just got more exciting.  last night we went to a sort of disappointing dinner at applewood.  it’s a lovely restaurant, and the menu looks great and it smells great in there, but the food seemed slightly off and a and i both woke up with sour stomachs.  we didn’t have any plans for tonight until i realized hem is kicking off their newly released album with a show at irving plaza and then tomorrow night is the flaming lips at hammerstein ballroom!

slop on a plate

i made the crispy gnocchi with shell beans that i mentioned yesterday, but changed the recipe based on what i had and what was easily available.  that involved buying gnocchi from russo’s (local italian food store)

along with sundried tomatoes and spicy italian sausage (to satisfy a, the former vegan now known as “where’s my meats” boy).  because almost every ingredient i added was tinged red ended up being too reddish and sloppy looking.  but it was quite tasty, and i just polished off the leftovers for lunch!

building a better(?) mousetrap

so we’re having ongoing mouse problems.  maybe a month and a half ago i started noticing little mousey turds on the counter.  a and i couldn’t decide what to do about it.  we like animals, we didn’t want to tell the landlord (because we’re certain he’d use poison and we didn’t want the slightest chance that gracie would get exposed to it), and we weren’t sure what to do.  for a while we even thought we’d catch it and keep it as a pet.  until i read that you can get the hanta virus from wild mice.

here’s a picture of gracie looking scared by the mouse.  ok, actually scared by the camera.

thus began our search for a mousetrap.  sadly, not this mousetrap.  we researched humane traps and homemade traps, and in the process delayed actually buying a trap.  until mr. mousey got really bold and started running across the back of the counter WHILE WE WERE EATING DINNER!  which regularly caused a to shriek like the little girl he is.

so, we decided that the snap traps would be ok to use because they kill instantly and are therefore humane in a sense.  we used one snaptrap and actually caught (and killed) a mouse.  we thought we’d solved the problem.  we hadn’t.  we still have mice!  we’ve now tried snaptraps, human catch and release traps, and have even resorted to glue traps (which literally made me cry when i thought we had caught one in it.  luckily, we hadn’t) and still no mice have been caught.  but they’re there.  they rustle about actually squeaking loudly enough to wake gracie up barking from a sound sleep.  any suggestions?

ah ha!

this is why i’m not harvesting acorns right now.  and please please please scroll down for a money shot of the squirrel’s nuts.  and i don’t mean acorns!

a tree (with lots of acorns) grows in brooklyn

i know, totally dorky title.  but seriously, what is with all the acorns?  i don’t remember ever seeing so many acorns before in my life, or ever fearing being pelted by them and they drop seemingly from the sky and bounce on the sidewalks.  gracie is used to them now, but when they first started dropping it was great fun to watch her head bob up and down as she watched them bounce.  and if there are so many acorns so readily available, why does no one cook them?  it seems our due, paying so so much to live here, that we should be able to reap some sort of harvest from the land.

so no plans for tonight which means time for cooking and unraveling the problem clapotis.  the only thing we have left from the greenmarket trip last weekend are shell beans.  considering i was inspired to buy them by this post, i think i’ll attempt to make that recipe!