Nearly as soon as we arrived in Maine, we went for a weekend of camping and fair-going! We're just starting to feel settled in (for the moment!) so I will soon be updating you all on our adventures since the last time I checked in. (Has it really been a whole month? Wow!)
Hoards of crafters converged upon the museum for the CommuniCrafting event to celebrate the latest releases from Jenny Hart, of Sublime Stitching, and to try our hands at a number of different crafty pursuits. Folks from Austin Fiber Artists were there with needle-felting goodies, Leslie Bonell from Stitch Lab had some sewing-related fun, Rachel Hobson (Average Jane Crafter) showed me a thing or two about embroidery and Kathy Sever from Future Craft Collective had some delightful cut-outs of ponies and turtles that I forgot to sneak into my bag...
For a handful more photos from the event, take a peek at my Flickr set.
We went tasty touring to a few food trailers last weekend - check out Chris' Little Chicago for delectable dogs, Lulu B's for scrumptious Vietnamese sandwiches and Molly's Sno-Cups for sweet sno cones! In honor of WWKIP Day, my knitting accompanied me to all our destinations.
Don't forget to knit in public this weekend. (Or next!) Maybe some new yarn would inspire you? ;)
Austin has a really great food blogger community. Big thanks to The County Line on the Lake in Austin for hosting us. Great food, yummy wine and a gorgeous location!
For more of my photos from the evening, including a weiner dog ON A BOAT, see my Flickr set.
I only became aware of Earth Hour 2009 a few days before the actual event this year. (Though last year I didn't hear about it until after the fact, so I suppose a few days is better than nothing!) For those of you unfamiliar with the event, Earth Hour took place this past Saturday night at 8:30 PM local time. For an hour, beginning at 8:30, people around the world turned off their lights. Simple, right?
It's an initiative to bring attention to global warming. Without putting forth my own personal beliefs regarding global warming, I'll just say that I'm all about frugality. Why use unnecessary energy? Why use unnecessary anything? Having the lights off for that one hour reset my internal energy clock, I suppose you could say. I've noticed myself being more aware the past day or so when we have unneeded lights or other electrical appliances on. It saves energy, it saves money.
Jack's not quite sure about this whole candlelight business...
Personally, I loved having the lights off for an hour. I even did some knitting in the semi-dark! (Many candles shed a surprising amount of light...) It was cozy and intimate and comfortable. What about you? Did you participate in Earth Hour?
There's a Flickr pool set up over here so you can see photos from around the world.
Last night I was lucky enough to be invited to the Austin360 Food Blogger Bash co-sponsored by Whole Foods (seriously - did I really need to link that? Has anyone not heard of Whole Foods?) and Go Texan. (Big thanks to Addie Broyles!)
There is a very active food blogging community in Austin - Addie says there are 60-70 of us writing about our culinary adventures. Amazing! And we all keep at it just for the fun of it, for the most part. (Well, that and the promise of events like this. *wink wink*) The crowd was entertaining and vibrant and the food...amazing. I saw some old friends and met a host of new ones. It was good to chat with Jenna Noel, of Edible Austin, and Cathy Erway from Not Eating Out in New York. I glimpsed the gals behind Cupcakes Take the Cake and countless other bloggers, from here and away. It was really a pleasure being surrounded by people who are as equally passionate about food, especially local food, as I am. And for once, I didn't feel like a crazy person for getting down on my knees to get the perfect shot of a fork or some tomatoes.
Besides the amazing people, there was food. Oh, was there ever food! The edibles were spread throughout the culinary center and the patio area, leaving all of us food geeks plenty of space and light to take some delightful photos. Which, of course, we did...in spades. Despite my professed hatred of cold tomatoes, the tomato tatins were my favorite - "Sliced Texas hot house tomatoes atop country-style bread spread with fresh Texas basil pesto and drizzled with olive oil." The combination was amazing and I couldn't help but return for seconds. (And maybe thirds...and fourths...shh...)
In addition to pre-made food that tempted our tastebuds, there were cooking demonstrations by Jesse Griffiths of Dai Due and Tyson Cole from Uchi who cooked herb-stuffed flounder and grilled trout in crispy rice balls, respectively. What a treat!
I sincerely hope this will become a yearly event - it was a blast!
To see all my photos from the event, check out my Flickr set.
Saturday is my birthday! In honor of the splendid occasion, I am having a sale in my shop! To get 20% off anything, just put "BIRTHDAY31" in the notes to seller and I'll refund 20% of your purchase, not including shipping. Saturday only! Yay for birthdays!
This past Saturday I had the chance to meet the Ravelry crew at a little party at The Knitting Nest. But I'm such a social weenie I didn't really talk to any of them other than to stare (politely, I hope) and nod and smile and say hi awkwardly.
The place was crowded and full of energy as Jess, Casey, Mary Heather and Caro made their rounds. It was easy to see where they were at any given moment - you just had to look for the small crowd with eager faces.
The foursome received official certificates proclaiming them "Honorary Texans" and there was a silent auction, door prizes (I got some cuddly yarn!), some spinning and, of course, lots of knitting! I bought more than I should have and talked less than I could have, but had a good time anyway.
To see all my photos from The Knitting Nest Ravelry party, see my Flickr set.
Last Wednesday, I dragged a friend out on the town for a little wine and free dessert. The event for food bloggers, Twitterers, Yelpers and regular folks was wittily named the "RSS (Really Sweet Syn) Feed" - how I could I pass it up? Cissi's Market on South Congress is one of those places that I've passed by a million times, but have never set foot in. And there's a perfectly logical reason for that! It looks completely out of my usual price range. The truth? It's only mostly out of my price range! Hoo-ray!
In all seriousness, the free sweets and discounted wine were definitely what motivated me to do something other than sit around my living room with M and the kitties, knitting and watching 30 Rock on Netflix. Which is what I generally do on a weeknight. And I'm glad I got out! It feels good to be around other humans sometimes. (Not that M doesn't count...he's very human.)
My friend and I opted to get dinner beforehand at Home Slice Pizza, which is conveniently across the street from Cissi's. Assuming (correctly, I might add) that actually eating dinner at Cissi's would prove to be a little beyond our budgetary allowances, the pizza was a nice fill-me-up before the main event. A couple greasy but delicious slices of pepperoni later, we crossed the street and entered a roomy space lined with giant windows and shelves of wine. We were early and there were plenty of spots to sit, so we perched at a high table by one wall of windows and people-watched while we perused the (really entertaining) menu. Waitstaff with trays of delectable goodies wandered here and there, asking, "Would you like some dessert?" Seriously? You had to ask? Who says no to free sweets? Between us, I think we managed to try just about everything. I nibbled a mini Sacher Torte, two skewered Belgian Ale doughnuts with toffee sauce, a surprisingly tasty tangerine financier, some sort of gingerbread muffin which wasn't on the menu so I can't remember what it was called, and two glasses of very pink bubbly wine. (And I have now revealed the true extent of my free food-induced gluttony.)
Here's what the folks at Cissi's had to say about the desserts:
They described them better than I ever could but I'll give you some brief impressions. The Sacher Torte was delicious and soft, but a bit melty which made for some, shall we say, indelicate eating on my part. I passed on the macaroon because the idea of banana ganache made me very unhappy. The thought of anything banana, except bananas, pretty much makes me want to run screaming. The tangerine financier was, as I mentioned, surprisingly delicious. I say surprisingly because I am not generally a huge fan of anything almond flavored, except almonds. (I sense a trend here...) It was moist and just sweet and flavorful enough without being overwhelming. The doughnuts were by far my favorite - they were the little treats I was looking forward to all evening but which were always absent from the trays when the waitstaff came by! I can only imagine that everybody got to them before the trays got to us. Warm, sugary and fried, with a deliciously sweet, warm toffee sauce, they made quite an elegant picture served skewered two at a time on long, narrow white plates. I assure you, they are not to be missed.
Oh yeah! I had wine too! Which led to an ill-advised shopping moment after we left Cissi's where I said to my friend before we entered the store, "Don't let me buy anything because I'll think it's all a really good idea!" I won't go into detail about the wine because I don't know what it was - only that it was pink, bubbly, sweet and delicious.
