eat! craft! live!

making the best use of hot weather?

My usual crafty pursuits and cooking adventures have been lacking of late. As such, I feel like I haven't had much to say here! And why have my hobbies been put on hold? It's hot. Really, really hot.

Adding to the suffocating heat from the great outdoors, our oven is terribly inefficient and makes the entire front part of the house into a sweltering chamber of doom this time of year. It's bad enough in the winter, but at least then the AC and the oven aren't fighting each other for world (or duplex, at least) domination! Tonight, for instance, we briefly baked some chicken breasts and sweated through our whole meal. It's an old oven.

So needless to say, there hasn't been a whole lot of cooking going on. And for that I apologize. We've been eating a lot of Jell-O (yes, really) and light sandwiches 'round these parts.

I did however, as you can see above, cook an egg! On our sidewalk. (I wasn't kidding about the heat!) It took a good three hours, but I also set it out in the morning, before the heat of the day had reached its peak. Here, the hottest part of the day is usually late afternoon. I've seen several different numbers, but apparently eggs solidify somewhere between 140°F and 170°F. So. There you have it!

I blame the heat for my lack of knit blogging too... It's not that I haven't been knitting - I have - it's that it's too darn hot to take photos of the finished projects! Because if it's hot enough to cook an egg on my sidewalk, the last thing I want to do is head outdoors in wool socks.

Anybody have any cool cooking and crafting ideas? I sure could use some...maybe I need to get into smoothies...

:: photo friday :: The County Line on the Lake

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.

Food Blogger Bash at Whole Foods

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.

Cissi's RSS Feed

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:

• Belgian Ale Doughnuts: Warm Beer Toffee Sauce, Peanut-Fleur de Sel Toffee
• Tangerine Financier: Browned Butter Almond Cakes infused with fresh Tangerines
• Roasted Peanut Macaron with Caramelized Banana Ganache: Crisp and chewy Almond & Peanut Sandwich Cookies with a Caramelized Banana White Chocolate Ganache
• Mini Sacher Torte: Small Bite-sized version of the classical Austrian dessert. Dense layers of chocolate cake with housemade Apricot Preserves and Dark Chocolate Glaze served with a side of "Schlag" or whipped cream as is done traditionally.

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.

January love: the voyeuristic edition

Really, I'm just sharing some of the blogs I like. But this post might as well be called the now-you-know--who-I-internet-stalk edition. Because as much as I love reading these blogs, and blogs in general, it just strikes me as...peculiar...sometimes. You know. That we read all about each other's lives (some more than others) and many times have never met, will never meet and oftentimes don't even know who our readers are! (I know you're out there...I see my stats... Hi!)

Amy at commonplace is one of the very nicest bloggers I "know." I entered a giveaway of hers a long while back and was blessed with an abundance of lovely yellowy yarn. (I could have sworn I posted about it, but now I can't find it! So here's a photo of the yarny goodness.)

Jamelah.net is the (self-proclaimed) "most useless thing you'll ever need." Indeed. Witty and well-written, her entries frequently leave me laughing out loud. There was this one...about ovaries...but alas. Her blog self-destructed at some point not too long ago and I can't link to the entry about the ovaries. But trust me. It was hilarious.

Living Small is, well, about living small! Something I try to do daily. I'm inspired by the "no new threads" year over there and would love to do it myself this year, were there not extenuating circumstances that would make it very difficult in 2009. Maybe another year...

I don't really remember how I came across Suburban Bliss. I think it may have had something to do with Velveeta... But anyway! Processed cheese aside, it's a delicious source of entertainment.

If there's one thing about Jessica at Turkeycookies, it's that, to me anyway, she always seems like a big bundle of cheerful. Sometimes I need snarky. In fact, most of the time I need that. But a healthy dose of cheer and optimism sure can balance things out.

I hope that you all are having a stellar 2009 so far! Mine has been excellent. There is freshly dyed yarn drying on the porch and a crustless manchego and broccoli quiche about to be sliced into!

2008: the year that was

2008 was not a remarkable year for us. That's not such a bad thing because 2007 was a real downer. So, 2008 was leaps and bounds ahead of that! 2008 was the year that we both had full time work most of the time and our jobs didn't completely suck. Nobody went to the hospital with meningitis. I wasn't struggling through the tail end of grad school. Our apartment building didn't burn down. All in all, not so bad!

2008 was the year I started this blog. My very first post, way back in May, was so hopeful about our little garden. Little did we know that the temperatures would shoot up above 100 in late spring and never go down again until fall, thus rendering almost all of our plants withered and unproductive.

The garden may not have been a success, but knitting was! 2008 was the year I got serious and started knitting things that were more than just glorified squares and rectangles. I've come a long way since those first fingerless mittens above! August saw me completing my Ravelympics project - my first lace project, given to my step-mother for her birthday.

In between all the canning and cooking and knitting and blogging, I managed to find the time to get engaged! Of course, that had little impact on 2008, but it's definitely going to make 2009 a lot more interesting!

2008 also saw the start of a brand new crafty business venture for me - my hand-dyed yarn shop. It's been a blast so far, and I'm thrilled that people actually want to buy my yarn and even seem to really like it! Hopefully 2009 will be a good year for my little fledgling business, despite the wretched economy...

So whether 2008 was a fabulous year for you or pretty terrible, I hope that 2009 is even better! I have high hopes for everyone. Happy new year!

the end

No, not the end of my blog, just the end of NaBloPoMo! It's been a long month, but rewarding too. Sure, some days I've just dashed off a post in order to get it done, but many times just knowing that I had to post something, anything, made me really sit and think about what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. (Not that you can necessarily tell from my not-so-super writing...*ahem*)

I expect I'll be back again tomorrow, since it's the 1st and all, and I've got a brand new batch of love for y'all. (Y'all. I said it. Where has my northern accent gone?!?) But after that I hope to be checking in less frequently. I'm torn between writing for the sake of improving my writing and only writing when I have something really excellent to say. Every time I do NaBloPoMo, I tell myself that this time I'm going to post something really amazing every single day. I'm turning over a new leaf! It's going to be great! But in reality, I just simply don't have time. I hope you'll stick around regardless. Tomorrow is a brand new month! I've still got recipes to share and knitting to discuss and kittens to photograph. Happy December everybody!

day 19

It's day 19 of NaBloPoMo and I'm tired. Not because of NaBloPoMo, just in general! In fact, I feel just like my sweet kitty up there. That's Lily. Everybody say hi to Lily! Lily says hi.

It's been an eventful couple of days. I know I don't talk so much about my personal life here so you wouldn't know (unless you follow me on Twitter) that yesterday I was in a (very, very minor) bus accident on the way to work, that we had some pilot-light-going-out-house-filling-with-gas issues yesterday morning and M just found out today that he got a job so we won't be homeless! So this is about all I've got for today. I'm nearing the end of my niece's sweater but I'm taking a break to work on my grandmother's socks this evening while I spend some quality time with my most recent Netflix DVD. Living the high life over here people...

new! improved!

I'm afraid today's post is going to be rather lame, as I have somewhere to be in about 45 minutes... (I know, lame compared to what? Yesterday's post? Hm.) I was pondering what to blog about this afternoon and I decided to add a little recipe index to my blog, which I've been meaning to do for some time. (Psst...it's over there under I Like to Help.) I know that if you click on recipe over there under categories you'll get all the recipes I've posted but I just wasn't feeling the way they all popped up. (Full posts, ordered chronologically.) I wanted something that would just pop up a nice, compact, well-behaved little list so you (and I) could see everything at a glance. And maybe some categories. Vegetables. Desserts. Breakfast foods. I'm not sure about the categories yet and I'm not sure it matters at this early stage where I've only got a dozen or so recipes so far anyway. The librarian in me (I'm an archivist by trade - did I mention that?) wants so badly to categorize and cross-reference, but I think that will have to wait for another day as I have some coffee to drink and friends to catch up with!

How would you want recipes categorized?

November love :: the crafty edition

I'm all about the crafty goodness this month. It's just starting to get cool(er) down here in the land of the longhorn and I'm loving it. I actually wore a hoodie last night! The mornings have been brisk and clear and knitting finally feels like a worthy pastime, instead of a useless hobby.

First up, 100% philistine made. I am seriously coveting one of these pouches to put my knitting in. My current set-up for bus knitting is a cat-chewed gallon-sized Ziploc freezer bag tucked into my purse. Which, if you ask me, is ever so classy. 'Cause that's just the kind of gal I am!

More knitting: b r o o k l y n t w e e d. His photos are swoon-worthy, like this one and these. Handspun, patterns and beautiful photography, oh my!

How About Orange always has something creative and fabulous to brighten my day and I really want this mousepad. Or maybe this one. And her fabric. Oh, and this ribbon. Weiner dogs! With sweaters! On ribbon! I'll stop drooling now.

You will probably see me working on this sweater in the near future, from Marie Grace Designs. Such a cute, simple sweater and it doesn't hurt that she has adorable children to photograph her patterns on! See the adorable children in adorable hats that I've been wanting to make for a while now. Love!

And now splityarn! (Shop here, blog here.) As if I didn't have enough things already on my wish list, I totally *need* this camera strap! (That fabric should look familiar...) Good thing Christmas is coming up...

Well, that's it for this month's love edition. I'd also like to add that I have officially gone off the deep end by signing up (again) for NaBloPoMo. Again. Again! So you'll be seeing more of me over the next month! After last year's abysmal failure, I'm not sure what to expect for this year. I managed to do it in July, but July doesn't have the frantic pre-holiday rush of November. Or Thanksgiving. Or long dark nights. I love November, don't get me wrong! I'm just not convinced it's conducive to daily blogging... We shall see!