advance apologies to my ancestors...

i had a dream last night in which i came across a guy named Bren on. that is not a typo. his name was originally Brendon... but somebody stole the "d".

thus, he was left to go through life as Bren on.

naturally, he was displeased with said situation, and he was on a constant search for a letter to replace the "d". in one moment of extreme desperation, he even resorted to stealing a "t" from an uncle of his. he had seen the name Brenton on a pack of crackers, and he thought it would be a good fit.

unfortunately, a second uncle showed up and stole it back. rather than returning the "t" to the original owner, the second uncle sharpened it into a short dagger, which he would brandish at anyone who tried to recover the pilfered letter.

poor Bren on was in a state of absolute despair when our paths crossed, and i afforded him every crumb of pity i had to offer. he even attempted at one point to steal a letter from me, but he gave up after i questioned if he would really want to go through life as Brenfon.

i decided that i would do everything i could to help this troubled soul find peace, and i began by getting to know him better, until i was acquainted with all his greatest hopes and dreams.

turns out he had always wanted to be an actor. not in movies or on television, but right out in front of a live audience on a theater stage. problem was, every time he tried to even go in for an audition, a door would be slammed in his face.

i walked around for a while, contemplating his predicament, and wondering what i could possibly do to help so pitiable a character. this is when i realized that there were several theater companies in the area, and a few of them listed the works of Shakespeare as a specialty.

i was struck by a brilliant idea.

me: if you use a marker, you can turn one of the "n"s in your name into a second "o".
Bren on: uhm... okay...?
me: then you can rearrange the letters to spell Oberon.
Bren on: uhm... why...?
me: stage actors are a notoriously suspicious lot. they won't dare turn away anyone with that name.

he smiled and nodded in enthusiastic agreement... that is, once i was done explaining who Oberon was.

then he ran off in search of a Sharpie... and i woke up.
___________

as i mentioned a couple posts ago, i wanted to talk a bit about the magazine that was the source of the German apple cake recipe. i recently added a magazine subscription and a cookbook to my culinary library.

i was an avid fan for many years of America's Test Kitchen, but i stopped watching after Christoper Kimball's departure from the show. it just never felt the same with him gone. however, i was perusing the magazine aisle on a recent trip to the supermarket, when a familiar face caught my attention on the cover of a new (to me) food magazine.

i was vaguely aware of him having moved on to some new endeavor, but i do not spend much time keeping up with the programming on public television these days. we get both the public radio and public television broadcast from Vermont up here in Montreal, but i do not own a tv, so i was not aware that he was back on the air... with a new magazine to boot. enter Milk Street (named for the street in Boston where this new company is headquartered).

i want to make every single recipe in this issue... except the savory bread pudding, because soggy bread is never my idea of a good time. i have been known to gag at the sight of french toast. pretty much.

random fact: my paternal grandfather was Indian. naturally, i have zero connection to the culture, other than a ridiculous fondness for the food. there is an undeniable Indian influence on Caribbean cuisine, so i was raised with a lot of those flavors being a common part of the food we ate. however, i recognize that those dishes are not—for lack of a better term—"real" Indian cuisine.

as a result, i greatly appreciated the article about crisscrossing Mumbai "In Search of the Real Butter Chicken", and i am really looking forward to giving the accompanying recipe a go. advance apologies to my ancestors who i will (undoubtedly) offend along the way.

then there is that cookbook.

for the uninitiated, Maangchi is a Korean-American cookbook author and one of my absolute favorite YouTubers. she also gets extra points for being a New Yorker. it should be noted that she is one-thousand percent responsible for the presence of gochujang (Korean chili paste) in almost every dish we make these days. i have learned so much and been inspired to try so many new things from watching her videos, and her new book is more of the same.

as soon as it arrived, we sat down together and flipped through the whole thing. you know that you have a good cookbook when you instantly start planning all the dishes you want to make. many of the recipes are updated versions of dishes she has made on her YT channel over the years, like this Galbi-jjim (braised beef short ribs). is it wrong to want to lick a page?

my absolute favorite part of this cookbook is the guide to shopping for Korean ingredients and kitchenware.

there are many more pages like this, filled with all the basic information you will need when shopping for all the parts you will require for your next Korean meal. i only wish this section of the book was a handy field-guide size that i could take on trips to the big Asian market across town... or even the small Asian grocery store directly behind our building.

i sense a future filed with culinary mis-adventures that will make even the king of the Fairies proud.

this lost love of mine...

random fact: i have a degree in Classic Literature. it was one half of my undergrad double-major. oddly enough, it has been quite a few years since i sat down and properly read a book.

this is yet another thing i blame on grad school. at some point during that wasted time, i got feedback on a paper i had written about a research project i was working on, and the core criticism was that it was too much "fun". "your writing style is very poetic and evocative, but scientific writing isn't supposed to be entertaining", i was told. "stop writing like yourself", the notes concluded.

so, i set out to do precisely that... with a bit of advice from the killjoy writer of said notes.  

"think of it like you are writing a highly-detailed user manual. you want to walk the reader through the process, but at no point should it be "fun" reading."

what, then, would be the point of living?

i would have to find a philosopher to answer that question... taking care to avoid the ones who sound too engaging or entertaining. clearly they did not receive the "fun is not allowed" memo. 

turns out that the hardest part of trying to move away from my usual style of writing was that it required me to move away from my usual style of reading. problem was, i was almost-always nose-deep in the middle of a book, and it was almost-always purely for fun.

yes... i was that dorky kid. hard to imagine, i know!

from the entire set of encyclopedias (back when people owned such things) to all of mom's cookbooks to the boxes of old comic books my cousins and i found in our grandparents' basement... you only had to shove a page of text in front of me, and i was in my happy place.

then i got to middle-school, and i discovered the world of epic storytelling. i still remember the first Summer i was allowed to take the bus by myself to go to the main branch of the public library at Grand Army Plaza. that is what i still think of as "the Summer of Tolkien". and it only got worse from there.

i had a genuine love for reading. it really was my idea of fun. so, it made sense (in that moment, at least) that the only way to stop sounding like i was having fun with my writing, was to stop having fun with my reading. so i did.

and that is still where i am today. i spend very little time engaged in reading just for reading's sake. the closest i can remember coming in recent years was a handful of mysteries by Ngaio Marsh and Ruth Rendell, and a few collections of short stories by David Sedaris.

[total aside: i highly recommend Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Alleyn books if you like a good cozy mystery, and Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford series is also good reading for classic-mystery fans (her novel "An Unkindness of Ravens" inspired the title of this blog, as it reminded me just how much i love collective nouns). and, if you want to laugh till it literally hurts, look no further than David Sedaris, whose ability to find absurdity in the ordinary is a much admired trait in our household, where absurdity is a way of life.]

so after more than a decade away, i made a firm decision to get back into reading... which, it turns out, is much easier said than done.

there is a fantastic shop in our neighborhood that is packed to the ceiling with used books (and records), and we pop in there every now and then. i almost-always walk out with at least one new (to me) book, and it almost always-ends up being tucked away on some shelf to be read at some later date... which almost-always never seems to come.

so, there i was, browsing the shelves one day, when i came across two books (two halves of the same story, actually) that i had read many years ago, shortly after the Summer of Tolkien.

i was so excited, i bought both books, got them home, and i even allowed myself to be talked into opening a Goodreads account so that i could keep track of the many... many... many books i would be reading from that point on. heck... i even mentioned it in a blog post at the time. i was genuinely excited to be getting back to this lost love of mine.

then the books just sat... and sat... and sat. i carried from room to room, housing it in a bookcase, then a cubby in the table near my favorite sofa, then in the wooden crate that usually contains yarn-related items on the floor next to my side of the bed. turns out that forcing myself to have to look at the cover of the thing was not going to be enough to actually get it read. the far better approach was to leave it in what we usually refer to around here as "the library"... 'cause that sounds so much classier than just saying "the bathroom".

so, it is more than two years later, and it pleases me to announce that i finally did it. well... i am doing it... slowly. it has been three weeks, now and i am about halfway through the first book. in my prime, i would have read both books in a few (or so) days, but i am woefully out of practice, so i am taking my time.

plus... i am discovering that holding on to a book is getting in the way of the more recent addiction of mine. and i have yet to come up with an amicable  solution.

i hate audiobooks, and i do not have a recipe or spell for growing extra arms, so i am forced to choose between my two loves, and (unfortunately) the knitting usually wins—especially, as i can do that while simultaneously indulging in my other addiction, which he likes to ever-so-eloquently describe as "rape and murder tv".

and, while we are on that subject—the knitting, not the rape and murder tv— i recently started a garment entirely of my own design. [the thin white lines are just there to help me count the rows. they will be removed when it is all done. ]



my brand of OCD required an intense amount of over-planning before i cast on the first stitch, which is why it has taken over two years for this one to go from the planning stage to work-in-progress status. there was a whole lot of math and several badly-drawn diagrams along the way.

luckily, i had help to double-check all of my calculations. this is Ophelia ("Philly"), aka "Baby Bear". she is useful... ish.

but, mostly, she did a lot of this.

the project involves juggling an absurd number of balls of yarn at once. this style of knitting is called intarsia, and it produces quite a lot of ends which will have to be dealt with later. that is my least favorite part of this particular addiction.

and, yes, i am working with eleven different strands of yarn in a single row, which means i have to pause frequently to disentangle all those bits.

luckily, i have another cat to help with that. this is Cordelia ("Cordy"), aka "the Little One". what would i do without her?

then she went racing out of the room and returned a few seconds later to deposit her favorite toy in the midst of the tangle. what could possibly go wrong... right?

there are about a dozen of these plastic springs scattered around our place, but she almost-always goes for this green one... which is not to be confused with the other one in the identical shade of green. clearly, that other green spring sucks!

her favorite game is to drop the spring on the bed next to me (usually at like one in the morning when i am contemplating going to sleep). i toss it out the door, into the room across the hall, and she goes chasing after it like a lunatic. then she brings it back to the bed, and we do the whole routine all over again.

that is, when she is not busy trying to destroy my plants... again.

or my yarn.

so, you can understand my concern whenever she offers to help. so miserable. so cute.

so i packed up all the parts, and returned them to a (relatively safe) hiding place. this is when i made the biggest mistake of all. i left my warm, cozy spot on the bed for a few minutes, and i returned to find kitty number three fast asleep in that space. that is Titania ("Titty"), aka "Mama Kitty". she absolutely refused to move from that spot.

le sigh!

i do not want to give too much away just yet about my special project, but i will say that it is a sweater called "Spite". and, yes... there is a story to be told when it is all done. and, yes... it will be fun.

library and other words that start with b...

i recognize that some people are uncomfortable with being reminded that this room exists, but there is always a short stack of books in our bathroom. so much so that it is commonly referred to as the "library" around these parts. sadly, this has become the only space within our home where i can force myself to read for any extended amount of time. many a "quick trip" has turned into an hour-long stay, and there are (oddly) moments when i dip in there just to sit and read the next few pages of some text that has completely captured the imagination. best of all, i am not alone in this insanity, as one or two of the books in the short stack are usually his.

i have always been what is usually termed a "voracious reader". then undergrad happened, and that second major in Literature left me almost nauseated by the prospect of picking up yet another book. i was just falling back in stride with the binge-reading lifestyle, when grad school happened, and i have absolutely not been able to return to the habit of sitting down (either on the bed or in a corner of my favorite sofa) and reading for hours at a time just for fun. that is where the bathroom library comes in. it began with simple things—knitting magazines and the like—and gradually shifted to non-fiction reference books on whatever interest caught my fancy at that moment in time. the current short stack includes a book about yarn design and a thick book about breeds of sheep, as i eagerly await the start of wool shearing season. i expect a few books on gardening to make an appearance in the coming weeks.

we tend to buy each other books as gifts—by which i mean buying books for oneself, then declaring them as gifts from the "other". half the fun comes from finding out what you "bought" when the bell rings.

him: that must be the mailman with the book you bought me.
me: what did i get you this time?
him:  a book of Elvira pictures. it's a late birthday gift. oh... and you also bought me a guitar... shaped like Mojo Jojo. 
me: i see.

are we incredibly dull people? that is very likely the case. do we really care? not in the least.

we made some recent additions to our respective collections. they appear in no particular order, and there really is no need to point out who owns each book, as he is a B-movie obsessed animator, and i enjoy all things murder and sheep.


this is a very typical Amazon purchase around here.

he has a sizeable collection of "art of" books, most of which were gifted to him by his younger brother, who happens to also be an animator. i am sure both parents were excited when their eldest son announced that he was abandoning the family drywall business to pursue a career in animation... then his little brother, their last hope in life, decided to do the same. seriously... they are both really good at what they do.

the best part? The Art of Zootopia...

includes drawings of a sheep! that made me smile.

which brings us back to Yarnitecture. Jillian Moreno is a teacher after my own heart. her approach tends to focus of explaining why you do something, as opposed to merely demonstrating how it is done.

Dyeing to Spin & Knit does not offer much new content for the seasoned dyer, but it is still a worthwhile addition to the craft library. The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook, however, is a MUST HAVE for anyone who even likes to fall asleep counting sheep.

it has heaps of information about different breeds of sheep, like the Bluefaced Leicester, my all-around fave breed!!!

there is also tons of info about the fleece quality of each breed. this is porn to my people.

i got Socks from the Toe Up, since someone has concluded that he is worthy of such hand-crafted things. [that object behind the book will be the subject of tomorrow's post.]

Horrorstör: A Novel is a thriller/horror set in a big-box furniture store. any resemblance to a certain Scandinavian furniture multi-national is purely coincidental. i did actually buy this one for him, mostly because i liked the cover. i am so weak.

Mama Kitty appears to like a bit of gore.

The Art of Loish: A Look Behind the Scenes is by Dutch Illustrator/Animator, Lois van Baarle.

i like the drawing on the back cover of this one.

the Loish book was purchased from our local used bookstore, along with yet another classic murder mystery by Dorothy Sayers, and a mini collection of the work of Illustrator Tim Biskup.

i want a breezy summer dress made with fabric covered in this particular Biskup design.

the favorite recent purchases however, have to be Elvira Mistress of the Dark, which was part of my birthday gift to him {updated to add Elvira photos, plus a better photo of the Norah book}.

it is a book of photos of Elvira. what more needs to be said?

... and the new bible of knitwear design, Norah Gaughan’s Knitted Cable Sourcebook, because she really is the master of such fantastic things. i can seriously gush about this woman for days. she will always be my fave.

now, pardon me while i return some of these books to the bathroom library.

i need to be stopped...

i am enterprising on a new obsession, but it requires a bit of history to explain. last year, we were inundated with beets from the summer/fall CSA farmshare, so i had to find many ways to use them before they went off. problem was, i am the only person around here who likes beets, and then, only once in a very blue moon. i was able to put the leafy tops to use as "sauteed greens" (and they really are quite tasty as such), but there was no amount of magic that would make the bulbous roots any more appealing to my favorite animator. enter pickled beets.

i did not want to buy a bunch of canning equipment (canner, jars, rubberized gripper thingy for moving hot jars) just to produce a few quarts of pickles. luckily, there is a lazy approach to doing everything. i purchased a few large jars of the type that are usually used to display dry goods (pasta, beans, that sort of nonsense), and i skipped the hot water bath used in canning and settled for fuss-free refrigerator pickles. i boiled, peeled and sliced the beets, then layered them with sliced onions, a few sprigs of fresh herbs, and some pickling spices. i made a hot solution of vinegar, water, and salt, filled the jars with the mixture, and left them to cool to room temperature before placing the jars in the fridge. after several days, i speared a slice on a fork and presented it to my favorite animator for tasting. (once we got past the many goofy faces of protest) he nibbled the very edge of the disc, chewed a few times, then opened wide and grabbed the rest of the slice from the fork. yep... he was hooked.

fast-forward to the present, and he has already put in a request for pickled beets for the upcoming season. naturally, i see this as an opportunity to delve deeper into the world of canning (and as an excuse to buy some proper equipment). unfortunately, attempting to learn more about preserving and storing food is like throwing yourself down a rabbit hole and emerging in Prepperland. i have absolutely nothing against being prepared for emergencies—some of my favorite people have basements that look like supermarket aisles—but the SHTF rhetoric tends to inspire overzealousness (bordering on straight-up insanity) in individuals who seem more than willing to press the self-destruct button, just to put their "plan" to the test. seriously, it is scary at times. one minute you are reading a relatively sane post about food preservation, and a minute later, you are eyeball-deep in comments about chemtrails, mind control, and every manner of global conspiracy. i just want to eat tasty pickles and maybe make some jam. i am not stockpiling for World War III.

so, there i was, weeping for the future of humanity, while browsing for books on Amazon and simultaneously cycling through many tabs opened to assorted food storage websites, when it hit me: i need to be stopped. i tend to preface every new activity with tons of research, which (inevitably) leads to the need to purchase ALL the equipment, because that is how my brand of OCD works. it would be acceptable (or even useful) if i had an acre or two worth of produce to 'put up' for the winter, but i am likely going to buy a couple bags of  beets and amuse myself for an evening turning them into pickles. period. this does not require collecting more junk equipment in my already crowded kitchen cupboards. beyond that, i blinked for a minute and found myself looking at vacuum sealers. makes sense. if you are gonna go, may as well go all the way, right? seriously... i need to be stopped.

elsewhere, i am gearing up for marathon amounts of summer reading. as a general rule, i pick a theme (or author) and roll with that for the season. i decided to take a break from cozy-mysteries, and try a bit of fantasy for a change. i started reading Raymond E. Feist back in high school, and i always intended to read the rest of the Riftwar cycle, so i am returning to the very beginning with the Magician novel(s).

i am also drooling over Making, a new-to-the-market, multi-craftual magazine.
 

the first issue has a "flora" theme, while the second issue (due out later this year) will have a "fauna" theme.

there are recipes, line drawings (of the 'adult coloring book' variety), and assorted craft projects, including beading, embroidery, and these super-cute sewn/quilted coasters.

however, Making is first and foremost a knitting magazine. the Editor (and resident Photographer) is knitwear designer Carrie Bostick Hoge. i love the simplicity of her garments, several of which are on my must-knit-before-i-die list [notably, the Shoals Tank, Maeve shrug, Maude cardi, and Portland Pullover]. while the magazine features projects from several designers, i found myself swooning over one by CBH herself. there i was, perusing the preview images, when i came across the Branches & Buds Pullover, and i gasped audibly. it is even more charming in hard-copy. i need this sweater in my life!

we found this vintage copy of the Better Homes & Gardens Sewing Book at the used bookstore, and it was a must-have for my craft library. it was originally published in the nineteen hundred and sixties (that does sound ancient), but it is a timeless reference of basic and advanced techniques that should come in very handy.

then, just as i pulled the last book from the pile and started snapping away, my camera lost power. some may say the battery went dead, but i have read enough of this book to recognize the first stages of an assault. clearly, the garden gnomes do not want me to share this truth with the rest of the world. seems i may need to reconsider the prepper lifestyle after all.

on a parting note, i was sorting through a batch of photos earlier today, when my attention was drawn to an odd repetitive noise. it stopped after a second or two, so i returned to sorting... and there it was again, a noise coming from outside, but in decidedly close proximity. this was the point when i tossed aside the librarian glasses, grabbed the nearest cat (that being the little grey one, as the other one was too busy napping to get involved), and bolted toward the balcony. a tiny head popped up among the greenery, and i responded by shoving the cat through the door, in the general direction of the trespasser. then my cat, my bestest best girl, sat down on her haunches and proceeded to lick herself thoroughly, while the squirrel looked on with curiosity from the railing. having concluded that my cats are completely useless, i was forced to resort to harsher methods. why was i squirting hot sauce on the balcony and sprinkling chili powder on soil, you ask? chemical warfare, i reply. wish me luck.