a little place called "What If"...

i am sat up in bed, with an animator snoring away next to me and a cat curled up between us under the blanket, also sleeping peacefully. it is a slice of something resembling domestic bliss, and i am cherishing the moment. 

every now and then i peer out though a tunnel of leafy limbs to a tree about half a city block away from here. it has gone a deep shade of fluorescent-pink that puts me in mind of Cyndi Lauper's hair back in the day. trust me, the photo does not do it justice, as my camera seems reluctant to believe that anything that color really does exist. 

there is also a little squirrel taking a nap just a few feet away from the window, with his tail wrapped around his body like a cozy blanket. even the local wildlife seems to be feeling the effect of the advancing cold. 

we have arrived (yet again) at the time of year when my so-not-Canadian-ness is on full display. like when i climbed out of bed Sunday morning to discover that my bedroom had been transformed into a walk-in freezer...

me: it's so cold. 

him: (pausing briefly to "test" the air) i guess it's a bit fresh.

me: you Canadians with your "fresh". it is freezing! i'm cold, so i'm turning on the heat.

him: really???

that last bit was said like i had just announced my plan to jump out an airplane using a bra-cup for a parachute. his Canadian-ness may be keeping him insulated against the rapidly-advancing frost, but it is the blood of the tropics that flows through my veins. it may (only) be the first week of October, but the heat is on! i have zero regrets. 

the highlight of this past weekend was the removal of the bug screens from the windows (and the balcony door) so that we can spend the Winter months enjoying unobstructed views of... well... snow. yes, life really is terribly exciting around here. 

the balcony garden project has similarly been put to rest for the season. there are two large heads of celery waiting to be harvested, but all the other containers have been covered up for the year. it is always surreal to look out at the space that just a few weeks ago was a near-impregnable mini-jungle, and all that remains now is a lifeless row of double-stacked containers waiting to be covered in... well... snow. 

on the more serious side of life, the city of Montreal has (once again) tightened restrictions in light of the ongoing emergency, so we are fully prepared for a long Winter of little-to-no contact with the outside world.... more of the same really. the social isolation is not proving to be a problem for either of us, as we tend to be loners (together). however, i have to admit that i have had quite a few sleepless nights of late, and i spend many a waking hour struggling to keep my mind from wandering down the path to a little place called "What If". 

the one glimmer of joy that has emerged from the constant search for distractions is that i have returned (tentatively) to my crafting of things. i am still not ready to pull the cover off the sewing machine, but i have purchased a few new patterns in the recent weeks and i plan hope to put them to use in the near future. in the meantime, i have been knitting. 

that gold yarn i was so in love with last time around is well on its way to becoming a new sweater for self. i cast this on literally right after i hit "publish" on the previous post, and i really wanted to have it done before the end of September, but... distractions. it will be finished one of these days.

the pair of socks that i had spent all Spring/Summer mostly ignoring were finally finished and passed along to the animator. this is the Bavarian Cable Socks from the Socks From the Toe Up book by Wendy D. Johnson. i knit this pair in some yarn i dyed in a colorway i am calling "koi pond"...because it is!

the design features all-over traveling cables that have the effect of leaving the socks all scrunched up right off the needles.

so i gave them a soak, and left them to dry on sock-blockers, which i purchased expressly for this ridiculous pair of socks. they looked fantastic the next day.

i cannot begin to explain how much i (still) despise knitting socks, especially when there are cables involved. naturally, he loves the bloody things. they were on his feet seconds after i handed them over. good grief! [random aside: he is blaming my camera for the paleness of his legs in this photo. i am not sure how to break the unfortunate news to him.] 

i vowed never to knit another pair of socks, then i sat down to watch a podcast on the You Tubes in which the host mentioned that she was participating in something called "socktober" (which is exactly what it sounds like). problem is, she happened to mention this just as he was walking by. you could hear him screech to a cartoon-like halt at the mention of that word. 

him: did she just say "socktober"?

me: i think you're hearing things.

him: nope. i heard it. it's a thing. you are making me socks for socktober.

all of the protest that followed was for naught, as he was already busy selecting his next pair of hand-knit socks. he settled on a pattern called Sea Oats, and i was given the immense responsibility of selecting the yarn from my stash. 

i had dyed a couple skeins of sock yarn in one of my desperate attempts at distraction, so i narrowed it down to those two. one colorway is "Grand Bay" and the other is "Zombie Apocalypse". ten points if you can guess which is which.

having made my final choice, i divided the yarn into two even (by weight) balls. now i just need to muster something resembling enthusiasm to get started on his next pair of custom-made socks... any day now. 

Jultember in a single word...

to be perfectly honest... i briefly considered doing a post-a-day during Jultember. however, as i have been genuinely struggling to find the will to get out of bed some days, said effort was doomed to failure before it even started. so, i took the occasional photo of the random nonsense i got up to over the course of a month that began in one season and ended in another.

this year's balcony garden project has been a literal oasis. beyond being lovely to look at, living like we do in an apartment in the middle of the city, it is especially nice to occasionally harvest something just moments before it ends up on the dinner table.

the inclusion of more flowers in this year's garden meant that there were even more colorful creatures stopping by for a visit. i was (pleasantly) shocked to see a ruby-throated hummingbird zipping around one afternoon (the visit was too brief to get a photo). one almost forgets that there is (non-squirrel) wildlife in the city, and we will definitely be planting even more welcoming flowers in next Summer's garden.

i did have to rescue a visiting cicada from potential death-by-adorable-cat. i formed a human shield between the two, until the cicada eventually climbed back through the netting and  flew away... then i spent the rest of the day threatening to climb a tree to strangle a cicada (perhaps it was the same one) whose noisy antics was driving me up a wall.

the animator was most amused.

him: if you hate that noise so much, why didn't you just let the cat kill it?
me: that would be cruel. they're annoying, but they're cute.

i found myself in need of a quick pick-me-up one random afternoon, so i made some candles. this was my first time using wooden wicks. i am hooked!

the light is stronger than with the cotton wicks, but the candle burns so slowly that it feels like it will last forever. i burned this one for close to twelve hours, and the jar was still near-full. i approve.

i have been neglecting my knitting projects, partly because it was too hot to be bothered, but mostly because i just stopped caring. this top was intended to be part of my Summer wardrobe. maybe next year.

that is some of my own hand-dyed yarn. i will talk more about the genius/lunacy involved in getting this effect on a cotton-based yarn if/when i finish the top.

 

i did manage to (finally) complete another pair of socks (more about that some other day) for the animator, which i started back in April. i also finished spinning the charcoal-grey yarn that i talked about in that same post. there is enough of this to make a whole garment, so now i just have to find a pattern that is worthy of this special yarn.

it is hard to maintain consistency across such a large spin, but i am satisfied with the end result. this is begging to be turned into a comfy cardigan.

i added some new yarns to my stash. i got a sweater's quantity of each color. they knit up into such a beautiful fabric. the fiber is a cotton-acrylic blend that will make for some comfy allergy-free sweaters for me.

i usually avoid wearing browns, but this warm gold was created to be worn next to my skin. this just screams AUTUMN!!!

we consumed a ridiculous amount of iced tea earlier in the month. there was a stretch of a couple-few weeks were the temperature in the middle of the city was hovering around 40°C (104°F), with the "feels like" temperature a few degrees above that. it was... brutal.

this was a particularly hot, dry Summer, so it was a great relief when the rain finally came about halfway through the month. which brings me to the point of this pointless thing...

if i had to summarize this past Jultember in a single word, it would be "tomato".

we got a large box of veggies from his parents' garden, including about twenty-five pounds of tomatoes... because his father is that lunatic. i roasted half of them (like i did last Summer), and the rest were turned into many tomato salads. [random aside: that plate with the chip is older than both of us.]

that particular salad was served along with a heaping plate of Greek-style lemon chicken and potatoes (made by the animator). said dish was flavored with fresh oregano and thyme from our little garden. the leftovers were equally amazing the next day.

we sent a photo of the salad to his dad, who was impressed by my neat arrangement of the slices... then he immediately began amassing another box of tomatoes. you know, in case we were in danger of running out of the stuff.

meanwhile, every now and then, one of us would step out onto the balcony, and return with a handful of freshly-harvested tomatoes. there is presently a large container of fresh tomatoes occupying half a shelf in the fridge, along with three containers of garlic-roasted tomatoes, all waiting to be used up. it is at the point where we are putting tomatoes into just about everything we consume.

the veggie haul from his parents' backyard also included several heads of celery. i chopped a few stalks at a time, and stored them in the freezer for the coming soup season.

we transplanted a couple of the smaller celery plants to the balcony garden project...

and i placed the bottom of one of the chopped up heads of celery into a pot of soil, where it promptly started to grow new leaves.

then, without warning, Jultember was through... and with it went Summer.

now we are racing toward the part of the year that i love most of all. i ventured halfway across town this past weekend to get my first taste of this year's harvest of concord grapes. i actually bought three containers of the stuff, but the first one disappeared within minutes of getting them home.

but the best bit came when the animator was checking the weather forecast earlier today.

him: apparently there is a typhoon forming somewhere in Asia that is going to bring an early Fall to Canada.
me: that must be one powerful typhoon.
him: it's the butterfly effect.
me: yeh, but with like every butterfly on the planet flapping extra hard. 
him: the last three words of this article should make you smile. you ready for this?
me: go ahead.
him: "definitely sweater weather."

yep. still smiling.

immersive apple experience: apple-turducken...

[full disclosure: i wrote this roughly two three weeks ago... then we had a week-long plumbing emergency that left me swallowing painkillers in rapid succession to keep my head from exploding. trust me when i say that there are few things in life as joyous as a migraine that lasts multiple days. good times. said crisis was eventually rectified, and i have (almost) finished recovering from the stress of the thing, so this seems like the perfect time to wrap up my talk about our seasonal obsession with apples. oh, and further full disclosure: the lighting in my kitchen is extra-sucky once we run out of daylight, which happens shortly after four in the afternoon at this time of year. if anyone ever suggests that you move to Canada... start running away!]

in our last episode, i turned most of the assortment of apples into a tasty crumble, but the best bit was still to come. what could possibly be tastier than a toasty apple crumble, you ask? apple crumble cake, i respond.

everything is better with cake.

this dessert is the best of both worlds, and it offers a fantastic voyage of appley (appleish?) goodness for all. as the name implies, it is the fusion of a cake (which everybody loves) and a crumble (which is basically a crustless pie... which everybody also loves). basically, this is the apple-turducken the world has been waiting for.

as the name also implies, the setup for this one involved a few more steps than when i made the crumble (see previous post). i reserved half an apple from each variety (plus half a pear) for this one...

and i am using this recipe (with a few tweaks, see below) as my starting point.

the fruit was cut into slightly-smaller pieces this time around, and the remaining ingredients were assembled. [random aside: this is—just possibly—the part of cooking/baking i like best. it is meditative to chop, measure, and arrange all of the necessary bits in preparation for making something wonderful. my brand of OCD delights in this part of things.]

there are multiple parts to this recipe, so i sorted the ingredients accordingly.

1. yogurt (because i had no sour cream on hand)
2. dry ingredients for cake base 
3. fruit with sugar, ginger, lemon juice, and cornstarch
4. butter, sugar, and ginger for cake base
5. dry ingredients for crumble topping

i made the following tweaks:

• added salt to #2 & #5, and a pinch to the fruit in #3
• added a bit of cornstarch to fruit in #3
• added grated fresh ginger and lemon zest to #3 & #4
• added (dry) ground ginger & freshly-grated nutmeg to #2 &#5
• added chopped walnuts to #2 & #5
• sprinkled a handful of dried cranberries over the fruit topping during cake assembly
• used less sugar in each component, because we prefer desserty things slightly-less sweet
• skipped the caramel and icing sugar at the end, for the same reason

each component of this cake needs to be prepped separately before being layered in the baking pan. i first combined the contents of the fruit bowl, then i did the same for the crumble topping.

next, the contents of the butter bowl got creamed together to start the cake batter.

this is when i remembered the eggs which had been left sitting elsewhere on the counter to come to room temperature.

they went into the butter mixture.

this is very simple cake mixture, so fancy mixing equipment is not necessary. a rubber spatula was
my only tool.

the recipe specifies to add the dry cake ingredients in thirds, alternated with the sour cream (yogurt), mixing after each addition. so, first came some flour mixture...

then half the yogurt...

and i continued on in that fashion, ending with the last third of the flour mixture. the batter should be a relatively thick one, as it has to be able to support the fruit and the crumble topping.

with the fruit, batter, and topping mixtures ready to go, finally, i began to assemble the cake.

into a greased springform pan...

went the cake batter, spreading to distribute evenly...

and it was topped with the fruit mixture.

i sprinkled over a handful of cranberries, because i can.

and the whole thing was covered with the crumble mixture.

just in time too, as the crumble from the previous post was ready to come out of the oven at this point.

after a short stay in the oven, the cake was ready to go. imagine my dismay as i stood there in the kitchen trying to decide which appley treat we should try first.

i love a good crumble, but cake always wins!!!

the best bits were along the outer edges where the fruit caramelized a bit. it was a thing of pure joy.

the whole cake disappeared in two days. luckily, it was covered in fruit, so it was practically a health food. makes perfect sense, no?

the end.