When will it be too late?

For most of my life, I've enjoyed crafts such as cooking, and more recently, knitting, although I've also dabbled in other things (in high school, ceramics; under my bed, a freeform miniature quilt in progress). I love the challenge of cooking fresh and delicious things, and when the Brookford Farm CSA starts up again in a few weeks, the push will once again be ON to figure out how to eat all those greens.

I learned how to make yogurt this weekend. This particular DIY project expresses exactly why I enjoy these things: the finished product will be tasty, I will know what I put in it, and it actually cost less for me to make it myself. (Obviously knitting doesn't pass that test, but the uniqueness of each object makes up for this!)

But, for the past couple of days I've struggled to enjoy the fruits of my labors. Last Saturday night, my husband and I were out of town, enjoying an evening of delicious food and beer after a day-long cheesemaking workshop (hence the inspiration to make my own yogurt). We had just received our entrees, and so we were rather quiet, focused on our food, and could hear the table behind us very clearly having an outspoken conversation about the U.S. presidential election. We were in Northampton, Mass., where it's perfectly normal for white people to have dreadlocks, so their conversation slanted pretty left, and was mostly focused on Hillary vs. Bernie.

Their conversation resulted in a conversation with my husband about the spectre that is Donald Trump. How can so many people seriously consider, even champion, a man who clearly thrives on hate? As my husband said, everyone has to have someone to put down - all of us feel a little better about ourselves when we know there is someone below us to step on. I know that. He knows that. We know this is simply a human trait, one to be recognized and dealt with in a mature way. To do otherwise would be to invite the sort of hatred Trump is spreading. It sickens me to think there are so many Americans who aren't self-aware enough to realize how Trump manipulates them into this kind of hate. I want to throw up when I recall his nasty, schoolground behavior at one of his recent rallies, from a clip I happened to catch on the national news. "Oh, go home to Mommy," he sneered at a protester, before complaining that there are no adverse consequences for protesters any more. Is he insinuating that someone with an opposing point of view should face consequences?

Seriously? This is what we want for our President? This is who we think should represent our people and our ideals? (In contrast, this is how George H. W. Bush handled a protester. Listen to Act Two).

I got up to go to the restroom, and heard for the first time the ambient music playing in the restaurant - a fabulous, 1940s-era big band swing sort of sound, a sound popular when another leader of a first-world country was denouncing large groups of people for the religion and heritage they happened to be born with. I imagine that in the early days, most of the German people went about their daily lives while knowing something wasn't quite right with their leadership. And when it was too late -- it was too late.

When will we realize it is too late for us?
And what is the point of crafting at times like these?

Updates to my Rhinebeck Yarn

Glancing through posts of recent past, I noticed that in September 2015, I noted the yarns I purchased at Rhinebeck in September 2014. I must have felt really guilty for not using them within the year, because yes! Progress has been made!

My Sprig!

The Lisa Souza Blue Faced Leicester Sport did indeed become Sprig, a sweater pattern by Alana Dakos. I ran into all kinds of strangeness with this pattern. It's actually written quite well, but for some reason, it turned out to be incredibly gigantic on me, even though I measured myself and chose the size I felt was most appropriate, based on the schematic. And I swatched! Fortunately, after much hand-wringing, I decided to blow the minds of knitters everywhere and take it in. On my sewing machine. And it came out great. Details are on my Ravelry project page.

When I type that it sounds like it was a very easy decision, but in fact I was all angry and flustered and upset for the better part of a week. To be fair, I cut it to fit with zero ease, instead of the 1-2 inches of positive ease intended for this sweater. But even with that caveat - it was still huge! Where could I have gone wrong??? Now that all the dust has settled and I can look back on that experience with more detachment, I can say:

• Maybe I should have someone else measure me.

and...

• Let's face it. My gauge really is different when I knit on circulars vs. knitting on straight needles. I shall make swatches in the round from now on! A huge thanks and SHOUT OUT to the knitmoregirls for explaining how to do this on their podcast. I'd seen a description before, but honestly it just looked like a crazy mess. But when Jasmin said "It's like an icord," the lightbulb finally turned on.

The best part? I have almost a full skein of Lisa Souza Blue Faced Leicester Sport left over. (Yes, it is absurd that I made a sweater with 839 yards of yarn, and then later even cut some of that away. I really don't think I'm all that small). One of these days, I will try my hand again at the Wild is the Wind hat, by Lee Meredith. I think this yarn will be perfect for it.

My attempt at That Nice Stitch in Jubilee Pumpkin Spice.
I just wasn't nuts about how it came out. Frogged it.

The other yarn I purchased at Rhinebeck in 2014 was the single skein of Blue Ridge Yarns Jubilee in the Pumpkin Spice colorway, which I snagged out of a clearance bin. Sadly, it did not become the Cedar Leaf Shawlette. Nor did it become the cowl by Susan Ashcroft, That Nice Stitch (which I partially knitted for a Mystery 220 KAL).  I really just didn't care for the way the variegation looked knitted in the cowl pattern, and I figured it would probably look pretty similar in the shawlette pattern. I finally frogged it.

But I'm very happy to say that right now, on my needles, is the Gris de lin cowl by Cailliau Berangere. And I really like how the Pumpkin Spice looks with this pattern -- I'm getting more of a striped effect instead of a mishmash of colors effect. I'll end up with a ton left over, but hey, that just means I can make something else with it later.

Of course, now that I'm catching up with my 2014 purchases, I still have yarns from 2015 and so-far-in-2016 to knit... in fact, there's probably three years' worth of projects in my queue!

Mmmm Scallops

Anyone who's watched Top Chef knows that sea scallops are a risky business. More than one contestant has landed on the bottom and even had to pack up their knives and go home due to their inept cooking of the delicate white bivalve mollusks.

And the cost! I've never seen sea scallops for less than $12 a pound in my New England supermarket - and that price appeared so briefly that I failed to take advantage of it. Often I will order scallops in a restaurant, simply because I believe it is the one dish I could order where the cost is actually less expensive in the restaurant than it might be if I made the same dish at home.

But, sea scallops can be so delicious. And they are particularly delicious when prepared as part of the recipe for Seared Scallops Over Bacon Spinach Salad with Cider Vinaigrette, from the March 2008 issue of Cooking Light. This recipe with the absurdly long name is freakin' delicious. And so, when I found myself in the grocery store one evening without a plan and without a list, I decided I would make it for dinner.

Normally, other than cutting everything in half to accommodate a two-person household, I follow recipes to the letter. (Except for red onions. No dragon breath for me). Anyway, I did look at this one on my phone before I went into the Data Dead Zone (aka grocery store), but when I got home I discovered that not only had I intentionally compromised by choosing to use the romaine heart salad I already had (instead of spinach), and a Fuji apple instead of Granny Smith (because it was on sale), I had also unintentionally neglected to buy apple cider, AND, to top it off, the bacon in the fridge was fuzzy. Gross.

Fortunately, I managed to successfully work around this.

• Since I didn't have any acceptable bacon, I found a jar of Hormel Real Bacon Bits. Not quite the same, but it did the trick.
• Since I wasn't cooking real bacon, I couldn't saute the shallots in the bacon fat. Instead I used a tablespoon of olive oil.
• Since I didn't have the apple cider to cook down and mix with the shallots for the salad dressing, I decided to make a modified version of my mother-in-law's simple salad dressing. With the tablespoon of olive oil (now infused with delicious carmelized shallots), I added two teaspoons of honey, and less apple cider vinegar than the recipe called for -- about a teaspoon. This was super fun because my honey was a granular rock, and therefore had to be soaked and stirred in a pan of hot water before I could do a thing with it.

But, it was worth it. The resulting salad dressing was freakin' delicious, and made enough for the two of us.

Compared to all that, cooking the actual scallops was easy. Just dust them with seasoning (cumin, salt, and cayenne red pepper for a bit of a kick), and plop them in a frying pan with olive oil for three minutes on each side. They were halfway done when my husband came home. "Wow, we're eating rich tonight!" he exclaimed when he saw the scallops frying. Indeed we did.