Froggies!

When our friends told us they were expecting, there may have first been squeals and tears of joy on my part, but there was most certainly the search for the perfect pattern - a pattern that spoke to the Fuzzband and myself of our friends. They love nature and have an appreciation of crafting. They have a huge back yard where they can observe all kinds of wildlife from deer to raccoons to humming birds. Maybe frogs, too...

I have not been into crochet for a while, although I have made snowflakes and some other small things. Our friend KR is a great crocheter, and her works has inspired me, so I had looked at afghan patterns for a while and saved several. The Etsy store The Hat and I has several marvelous patterns, and I have queued several on Ravelry. So that is where I ended up after my search. This is the one we picked for the little love on his way:

I had it in my Ravelry favorites all ready for purchase, so all I needed was the yarn. Luckily I already have a favorite cotton yarn. I went online and basically bought a ball of each color that was vaguely watery and froggy by Lily's Sugar 'n' Cream. I don't remember which website I got it from - apologies. I am too lazy to dig up the receipt. Bad crafter, bad! However, when not buying in bulk, I buy it from JoAnn's, so I will link that website...

Anyway. It was great to pick a motif (frog, lily pad or bubble) and then focus on those. Very satisfying! Here is a pile of finished frog panels:

One of the things I love about the pattern is that one froggy gets to be royalty!

I also got to go to a baby shower for the baby. I have very limited experience with this whole shower concept, but I figured out gifts are involved. Of course, where I come from home made gifts are key, but I could not finish the blanket! So I knit a cardigan as well:

This is the famous Presto Chango by Valerie Wallis. I have made several, and it is always as satisfying and fun! The mother is a botanist, so I made the panel leaf patterned:

And of course I added my "signature"

Fun times! And the shower was lots of fun as well. We got lost on the way, but thanks to mobile phone technology we made it in time for games and delicious food! I gather that men are not usually part of baby showers, but the father, grandfather, and the Fuzzband were all present, so way to go family B for opening up to the lads! I am also proud to announce that I won the games where the object was a blind folded diaper change on a stuffed animal! I am not competitive by nature, but I have to admit I am a little proud of this victory, especially considering the mothers and grandmothers present. I think it is the finger dexterity from handicrafts more than the number of diapers I have changed... 

I handed over the blanket just before we left on vacation, and it was so cool to think that the next time I would see my friends they would be a Mom and Dad! Exciting! 

And finally, the little darling was born on August 31st, happy and healthy at 7 pounds and 1 ounce! We were on vacation in Beautiful British Columbia, but I got to hold him when he was just over two weeks old. The cuteness is beyond words. He has THE most perfect little ears and upper lip on the planet! I cannot wait to see him grow and learn. 

Happy Halloween!

My amazing friend and colleague KR found a haunted house gingerbread decorating class at the local fancy tea and cake shoppe, The Bon Bonerie! In other words, give them money, show up to a ready made gingerbread house, icing, candies, etc. and  HAVE FUN! So, today, in the middle of grading, job applications, article rewriting and other less than relaxing activities, KR, her Mom, and yours truly spent a lovely afternoon of playing with sugar. This was followed by a late lunch, black currant tea (with milk) and a fat slice of tangerine cake, aka. Harvest Moon cake. I feel more relaxed than after a long night's sleep! Thank you KR!

If you would wander into my office next week, this is what you would see:

 Or from the side, where I usually sit when meeting with students:

Let's do a close up of the dangling spider web, shall we:

Ok, so my cellphone takes very poor quality photos, but the cobweb is only attached at the points and under the coco-puff (a kind of breakfast cereal, apparently) spider. I am ridiculously proud of it...

And lastly, when I go behind it to put the kettle on, in Dante's potentially miss-remembered words:

Now, back to work!

Fuzzband's Birthday - Featuring Cake!

My Husband had a birthday on Friday. Now, the problem when we lived in New Haven was that it was always too hot to bake and decorate a birthday cake for him. However, now we live in Cincinnati - in a house! - and we have air conditioning. So it is cool enough to actually, you know, bake AND spend hours playing with buttercream! This was a very drawn out process, but lots of fun!

The Process

1. I bought on-sale Malted Milk Balls at Easter.

2. Decide on a surprise birthday party and coral the guests. I decided on a very small gathering of friends from the area, although I did try to get The Best Man to come from Pittsburgh... Fuzzband has dreamed of a pot-luck appetizer dinner, so that is what I asked peeps to bring.

3. Monday, 5 days before B-day, I stayed home because I had a doctor's appointment, which I combined with lunch with my friend KR. She also took me shopping for ingredients for the B-day. The Fuzzband has the car, and it would have been suspicious if I had borrowed it. PLUS I got to hang out with KR! I had drawn a plan in my little memo book, "Dichtung und Warheit" - KR did not get it, apparently, but when she saw the cake it all made sense. The Fuzzband'd engineering mind grasped it immeidately when he saw it on the B-Day. Although by then he had also seen the cake....

4. Wednesday I had a dentist's appointment, so once again I stayed home. And baked meringue, using the Joy of Cooking's Meringue I recipe.  I left them in the oven, hoping Fuzzband would not get inspired to use the oven. The gamble payed off!

5. Friday, B-day. I stayed home on the pretext I need foot X-rays. My medical issues sure have been agreat for excuses not to go to the office and prepare for the party! While I did figure out where I need to go for X-rays of the sore foot, (the joys of the US health care system! Aaargh!) I actually spent most off the day in the kitchen with the Birthday cake:

The meringue had gotten a bit sticky on the surface, so I turned the oven back on and dried it out. Worked like a charm! Must remember for future reference.

While first aid was going on for the meringue, I made chocolate ganache from our Chocolate cookbook - it goes with Stephen's favorite dessert, their Tropical Fruit Vacherin, of which there is a photo on Facebook. I also melted the chocolate for chocolate buttercream - Wilton's recipe - to be mixed with whipped cream for a less sweet and lighter filling. While those were cooling I baked the Devil's Food Chocolate Cake from The Joy of Cooking.

This is what I turned out in the end:

I googled some molds to make my own three dimensional fish cake topper, but came across a tile design, which had a neat textured relief thing going. As it is flat, it would also mean I could make a higher cake!






I wanted to make the sides have a sort of under the water vibe. They're supposed to be water grass and the Malted Milk Balls are bubbles or rocks in muddy water. :

Fuzzband really liked the cake! Yay! Everyone else did, too!

Below you can see the layering: chocolate cake at the bottom, then meringue, chocolate cake, and topped with meringue. There were Malted Milk Balls between they layers. I put the meringue at the top to get a super smooth top and no crumbs. Fuzzband is not big on buttercream icing, so I filled the cake with chocolate ganche flavored whipped cream, and did my very best to have as thing a layer of buttercream icing. Having a top layer that does not release any crumbs makes this easier. Please take a moment to admire the thin layer of icing at the top - the chocolate layer is ca 1 mm thick, or less in places, and then there is the colored buttercream icing - and sprinkles to make the fish glisten! KR and I picked those out.

The Surprise: Friday!

On Fridays we often go out for Mexican, so to keep the Fuzzband at home, we came up with a plan that our friend MF was coming for dinner - she lives a bit further out so this is rare enough to warrant a Special Occasion. I also told the Fuzzband that I had told her of our new meal plan - The Fresh20 - and had mentioned the black bean quesadillas on the menu for this week, and that she was excited, so I would make those for her on Friday!

The plan was that our friends the Ms and KR would just pop in around 6 pm and as the Fuzzband opened the door, they would say "surprise" and hand over their appetizers. HOWEVER! Once MF had arrived, I noticed we were out of toritllas, and thought "Shit! Now he'll have a good excuse to go out!" but instead he offered to go to the store to buy more! Woot! Off he goes. The Ms and KR arrive at the same time minutes after the Fuzzband left, KR parking partially in front of our driveway as she always does, thinking the Fuzzband was at home. I told her Fuzzband would be irritated first, but then realize what the situation was, and she should help set the party up and not move the car. So, we pull out the table to make it bigger, set it with cheerful napkins in the birthday boy's favorite color - green - and set it up with all the appetizers everyone had brought!

The Fuzzband gets home, and as he comes into the kitchen from the garage (the guests were hidden behind the corner in the dining room) he's griping "Somebody has parked partially in front of our driveway! I would like to let you know I did NOT spit on the car"!!!! He walks into the dining area and  - SURPRISE!!! He was completely surprised! And delighted! And speechless! And his griping about the offending car was not only hilarious, but he completely forgave KR. I was a bit worried he's recognize the car, but luckily he did not. An absolute success! Thank you, gang!

Everything was delicious: Ocra and veggie patties; prosciutto, melon and goat cheese canapes; chile-cheese dip and tortilla chips; quacamole; Italian orange and egg salad; potato veggie salad; and potato chips and Amerikan Dippi from Finland we love, and had told the Ms and KR about the previous weekend. I had made a HUGE pitcher of Singapore Sling. The Fuzzband loves it, and he was born in Singapore!

It was a lovely evening of chatting, laughter, and a garden and compost tour for the gang.

Other things we did on the B-Day weekend: Saturday!

We drove south to Kentucky, and had lunch: our first visit to Chick fil A! We've been getting their calendars from family friend sin Maryland for years, ever since the chain came out with a Cows in Shining Armor version. The calendars are all about celebrating the glory of cows, so we should all eat more chicken to spare these noble beasts!

We went to the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Kentucky - Kentucky is gorgeous!

On our way back to Cincinnati we wen't to Miyako's in Crescent Springs for Hibachi dinner. Crescent Springs is just across the river from Cincinnati in Kentucky. 

When we got home, the Fuzzband's newest hobby of ax collecting was initiated with the arrival of this beauty:

Isn't he handsome, this Canadian lumberjack of mine?!

We capped the B-day celebrations with cat-sitting our neighbors' cat, Zoey, eating cake, and watching Call the Midwife on their Netflix. Lovely!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOVE!

R is a skier.

The Fuzzband and I have been blessed with wonderful friends. Sometimes these friends are glorious enablers! In the summer of 2012 we were at our friends' M and R's - delicious food, fun people, croquet in the back yard, the neighbors' kids had a party and ended up playing a game that involved running around with glo-sticks. It was fabulous!

One of the outcomes of the party was that R - a dashing gentleman with the most sincere kindness you could ever hope to meet (Fuzzband and I do not think he is capable of a negative thought) - got to talking about sweaters. Now, R is an AVID cross country skier. He told me it had been his dream since for ever to have a sweater with cross country skiers on it. Really? Well, let's Ravelry it! I'll knit a sweater if he pays for the yearn. Really? Really. We did some searching on Ravelry, and found little. In the end we decided to combine the pattern from a hat with a sweater I would make from scratch. Exciting! And R got a hat out of the bargain as well: 

The pattern is by Bea Ellis Knitwear, which can be found on Ravelry, Facebook, and e-Bay. It seems they are no longer in business. I caught them at a moment when there were a couple of items up on e-Bay, and after a few messages, I managed to get in touch and actually purchase the pattern. They only sell kits, so R and M decided which colors they wanted from the beautiful Falk yarns at Dale of Norway - that's the yarn the kit uses. It was very nice of Bea Ellis to accommodate the colors I requested, and the kit arrived nice and prompt. Score! The hat was very much appreciated:

After this, I did some serious measuring, knitter's math, and figuring things out based on Ann Bud's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns:

Much tea was consumed. I ordered the yarn from my Dale of Norway purveyor of choice, www.woolubaabaa.com - and service was cheerful, friendly, and prompt:

I don't like knitting to deadlines, and R was the perfect recipient - cheerful, grateful, excited, and always telling me to take my time. I cast on Dec. 9th. I ended up unraveling the ribbing and trying out the tubular cast-on (thank goodness I bought Nancie M. Wiseman's The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques all those years ago!) - it is cast-on love! Where has it been all my life? 

I copied the skier pattern and multiplied that until I had a ribbon on skiers. The lower band - I think of it as the snowbanks R skis over - also grows out of the ribbing. I am a little bit ridiculously proud of the back as well, and the collar is a Kitchener Stitch bind-off - again my first! I did the body in the US, and the sleeves while teaching in Germany.

I ended up finishing the sweater on August 4th, 2013. In other words it had dried from blocking, and I sewed my "handmade by Miti" tag into it. Apparently I did a marvelous job:

To add to the incredible excitement of this year has been M and R's little baby J! I had leftover yarn from daddy R's sweater, so of course a matching piece had to be produced, right? I settled on Valerie Wallis' Presto Chango which I'd also knit for another friend. I like the option of multiple panels so grandma can hold a kid without milk drool, should that be an issue. It also meant I could do two panels - duh!

Presto Chango calls for heavier weight yarn than the Falk I had, so after a bit of knitters' math, it was easy to cast on the number of stitches needed for a one year old, and do the measurements for 6 months, and with a bit of luck it will get cold enough in New England for J to actually, you know, wear it before he gets too big. I feel I have done the patterns as well s the yarn justice. Not much more I can eke out of that combo. 

The Cake that Beet Carrot Cake

Once upon a time, my Fuzzband and I were hanging out with friends, and somehow we got on the idea "what would happen if one substituted beets for carrots in carrot cake"? This is of course a question undoubtedly many have had over the years. 

I love, love, love beets. Love them. Love! So I decided to test this theory at the first opportunity:

And because I know everyone wants to see a close-up of the cakes pre-baking:

Yes - that is the Pepto-Bismol pink batter, ready to go in the oven! To maximize the oven-usage on a hot summer day, I roasted the leftover beets at the same time.

Disappointingly, the baked result is not as tantalizing a color:

Seriously. Not pink? No. 

As this was an exercise in test-kitchen hysteria, I resurrected some cream cheese icings from the freezer and iced the loaves to take to an evening with the same gang of friends. I believe shooting a BB-gun from inside the apartment at a target on the patio was involved later in the evening...

At the top left is featured my spiral bound recipe book that I put together to take Mother's (and other peep's) recipes with me when I moved out from my parents' place. Since then it has moved to Rome, Canada, and now Connecticut. The Carrot Cake recipe I revamped was my grandmother's. It is without a doubt the best Carrot Cake recipe in the world. Despite this, my husband has declared that the Beet Cake is the better of the two, and asks: "Why should we ever make Carrot Cake again?" 

It is true: the Beet Cake is delicious! Not unlike Carrot Cake, but earthier, and a bit less sweet. Everyone at the dinner loved it, and our friend LH swore repeatedly that night, and later in a 100% sober state, that it is her favorite cake EVER! She asked me to make one for her birthday later in the summer. I, of course, did, but added some cake decorating flare:

Yes, it is cream cheese icing, and it was very much appreciated. Several people have asked for the recipe, so here goes:

1,5 cups canola oil
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp soda
2 tsp baking powder
3 cups grated beets
(1 cup raisins or nuts - optional)

0. Heat the oven to 175 Celsius (350 Fahrenheit)
1. Beat the oil and sugar until pale and fluffy. Or until you get distracted...
2. Blend and sift the dry ingredients (I never sift, and barely blend...)
3. Mix the sugar-oil goop with the dry ingredients.
4. Add beets (and raisins and/or nuts)
5. Bake for 30 mins, or 1 hour in a tube pan. When a wooden tooth pick comes out clean, it is done.

Slather with your favorite cream cheese frosting.

Enjoy!

Boobies!

Men like breasts. I will not even qualify that with "heterosexual" - some of the men I know most interested in breasts are in fact not sexually attracted to them in any way. The bra discussions we have had... You know who you are...

Anyway, I have a cake pan that is meant to make the dress portion for a princess cake. I have made a nun cake with it. Now, obviously they beg the thought: "two of those would make great boobies"! I just needed the excuse. Of course, I am married, so by "excuse" I mean time, place, inspiration, and temperature have to come together. My Fuzzband's birthday is in July, and there is no, I repeat, no baking happening in this apartment in July. But never fear! I have friends! Not that I need to wait for a birthday, but it adds solemnity to make a special cake. Wait, I just used the word 'solemn' in a post titled 'boobies'... Nevermind.

Back to cake. My friend JG happens to be heterosexual, and like boobies. Other things he likes are food, baking, cooking, beer, compost, outdoor toilets, crass jokes, whiskey, and his wife, also a J, but JW (or JayDub as my Fuzzband sometimes says). My kind of guy! To make the combo even more precious, JW is a dear friend who has helped me though some tough times, like qualifying exams. 

For JG's birthday last May I decided to make him the boobie cake! Some investigation (I have connections!) told me he is very fond of caramel. I also happen to know he likes whiskey. My friend AR once made a DIVINE cake (recipe from our friend LB... It is complicated, I know...) with butterscotch and whiskey. It is really something else. I have also made it with a maple buttercream frosting that caused another friend, AV, go into some kind of epileptic spasms... Instead of maple, I decided to use whiskey and caramel as my themes.

Hence was born the whiskey butterscotch boobie cake with caramel icing:

 Two cake batters baked in form later - you can see the butterscotch chips in the cake. You can also, just, see the holes in the tops of the cakes - that is where a hollow aluminum rod is screwed into the cake pan to ensure cooking the center of the "skirt" cake evenly.

 I forget what we were drinking, but it must have been good - JW's camera angle is wonky...

 Note the Jack Daniels bottle on the counter...

 J testing the caramel buttercream frosting.

 Marachino cherries add the final (realistic?) touch. You can tell the smoother boobie was done by the then fiancée of JG, JW. We had a blast - girly time spent to make one fiancé a happy camper! Officially we were studying - bootcampage as we call it! Hah! Little did HE know!

 The happy birthday boy!

One half consumed boobie. 

I have a serious crush on JG's sense of humor. And of course the cake was perfect for bringing out the best (worst?) in everyone present. Several at the party were part of my friends collectively called "friends from Church" - a Church they go to regularly, and we sometimes crash, but still. They are some of the most upstanding citizens out there, and wild and crude humor is brought to the group by yours truly, and JG. So imagine my delight when CB, who does cuff links like few others, commented that my cleavage is delicious! I almost peed myself laughing. It was great! 

Going Roman with MissKnitter and Fuzzband

New Haven has farmers' markets. The philosophy is local, organic, community, connecting, etc. I do like the idea, but the practical side leaves something to be desired... It is sort of a local farmers bring their products to sell to the urbanized trendy. As the Fuzzband and I discussed, there is a certain lack of congruence in the  sellers and the customers. Trying to make a livelihood and ostentatious consumption meet. There is also something about being yelled at twice in the first ten minutes at the market that tends to put me off... But whatever. We went last Saturday to check out the beets, but ended up buyin rhubarb and zucchini flowers. Zucchini flowers! Fiori di zucca! Yay! I loved these stuffed with ricotta and fish when I lived in Rome. Yummy! So we bought ten (for $2) to try to recreate my culinary memories from 2000-2001. Very exciting!

Yesterday evening the Fuzzband and I went over to my friend MissKnitter's place, so I brought the zucchini flowers and a filling I concocted from memory, and a couple of recipes from the internets. The Fuzzband flipped a coin, and so we did baked instead of fried fiori di zucca.

Preheat oven to 350-400 F (175-200 C)

2/3-1 cup ricotta
a few good spoonfulls of parmesan
parsley
1 egg yolk
1 hand sized fillet of fish baked and flaked
salt
pepper
zucchini flowers

Mix all the ingredients for the filling. It can be refrigerated for a while prior to filling. Pry the flowers open, and fill with a few teaspoons of the filling. Fold the petals around the filling and place on a lightly greased or baking paper clad baking sheet in a vague hope that the filling will not explode the petals open, spraying your friend's oven... Bake for ca 10-15 minutes until the filling is hot and the flowers are even more golden than they were prior to insertion into oven.

I have not figured out how to rotate images from my smartphone in a way that maintains the selected rotation in the blog. Irritating. 

We also discovered that once they have been baked and cooled down, they could be reheated! Good to know for potential party contributions.

MissKnitter made a delicious linguine and clam sauce dish for the main course. The recipe was sort of following a recipe from the internets. It turned out ridiculously good! 

MissKnitter also had a salad based on self-construction. As I am allergic to a lot of salad stuff, she gave us greens, chopped green bell peppers, chopped jalapenos, blueberries, blackberries, olives, and a vinaigrette to freely mix and match. Oh, and for appetizers she had antipasti and olives. Dessert was raspberry sherbet the Fuzzband picked up when he ran to the store to pick up some portobellos. Delicious meal all around! And of course the relaxed company was a big part of it all. As visiting guest stars we had Honey Dog and the cat Whiskey. Scampi the cat was busy guarding MissKnitter's yarn stash in the office, but we paid our respects to her anyway. 

Oh, and we bought beets elsewhere: more on those another time...

Professionally Pink

Several years ago (fall 2007) a historian of medieval law visiting at the Yale Divinity School sat in on the seminar - are you ready for the name? - Medieval Law! It was being taught in the Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Library Rare Books and Manuscripts reading room and was one of those epic experiences professionally, recreationally, anecdotally, educationally, and socially. It was also the semester my Degenerative Disc Disease had a glorious relapse and I was on pain medications that sent me into hysterical giggles ca 30 mins after taking  a pill. Of course, in order to sit through a seminar I had to medicate myself right before class. I am deeply grateful to the Professor and my colleagues for their patience, support, and help. Minus points to the Law School for disabled access to the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, though. I could not take the stairs for months, so I had to take an elevator up to the modern library, trundle my wheely bag across the way, and take another elevator down to the basement... To figure this out required discussions with two librarians, two security guards, a call to the Disability Access office, and several friendly law students who carried my bag and let me lean on them. 

I know you wanted that back story.

Anyway, the medieval law historian. Let us call her Ms. Law Mentor.

 Ms. Law Mentor took me under her wing, and has been extremely helpful and supportive in my career. Plus, she is bucketloads of plain, pure, fun and has fabulous common sense. And as my adored sister-in-law would say: Common sense - not that common. But Ms. Law Mentor has it. Part of this common sense is realizing when to let go of things. So she let go of 14 skeins of Cotton Classic yarn by Tahki Yarns, and gave them to me! We are talking beautiful mercerized cotton any knitter would kill for. Unless they hate knitting in cotton, but we are ignoring that possibility in this utterly common sensical blog posting. The color was black. Now, I almost never wore black at the time, and even now only if I can pair it with bright colors. Preferably bright oranges or pinks. At the time, I did not do pink. There is a follow-up to that statement.

So, what should a non-black wearing girl do with such a treasure? Well, the answer came browsing Ravelry, of course. Hilary Engebretson's design Emerald Seas was the perfect solution! It is a top, knitted with a series of eylet rows down one side through which one threads ribbons of potentially very bright, contrasting colors. See where I am going, eh? So I knit the top, with some modifications: I reduced the ribbing at the hips, and shaped the top quite dramatically by decreasing needle sizes twice. As I had about half of the yarn left over, I knit myself a skirt, too! And had just enough  to finish the piece! I actually had to use left over needlepoint floss to stitch the waist elastic in...

Then the question was: what color ribbons do I use? I settled on burnt orange, red and pink. But Jo-Ann's Crafts and Fabrics did not have the perfect colors! So I did two shades of pink and a red:

Niece, eh? Here's a full frontal view:

I particularly like the decapitated look. And the pink. It was my first foray into pink, and since then I have become increasingly excited about the color. Preferably in combination with orange (this is me, after all), but I now own several items that are unequivocally: pink! 

And notice the shoes? My Fuzzband convinced me to get those once upon a time, and they are amazing! The ensemble from the back: 

This photo really should have been taken with stockings that have seams in the back, I know.

I have since mainly worn the ensemble at conferences! With a read suede jacket I bought at the Amsterdam Airport back in the early 2000s, or with a burnt orange cardigan, or with a lavender top... It is surprisingly versatile, and incredibly comfortable. This past five weeks I had three conferences in Europe, and I wore it at all of them. In fact I presented two of my papers in it, at separate conferences, of course. I wore sensible black Clarks Wave.Run walking shoes in Huddersfield, and cute little Söft kitten heels in Leeds. As Söft does not have an image online of them, here they are via my smartphone:

All in all, the ensemble is fabulous for conferences. It is comfortable, travels well, is unique, and flattering. I felt great! Oh, and the papers went well, too. Is there anything like presenting your research in an outfit you have hand made from yarn given by an academic mentor, I ask? The answer must be "No". Thank you Ms. Law Mentor!