Awwwww!

A friend at work and I have had this ongoing conversation about success. We've noticed with our students that almost invariably it's tenacity that makes them successful, not intellectual superiority. I've had many really bright kids who were quitters, and quite a few kids with seemingly average IQs with so much drive and willingness to work through failures that they became excellent. Success is messy, but tenacious people work through it. My friend and I have both been married to our spouses a long time, he for over thirty and me for twenty-five, and we've also talked about how difficult some stages of ostensibly good marriages can be. I think that many of  the problems in solid, long-time marriages are often not that different from the problems in failed ones, except that the people in successful marriages choose to stick with it during and after the trying stages. They keep with it despite how messy (within reason)  the past might have been.

So, here's my knitting connection. I will often chuck bad knitting even if I have a lot of time invested in it. I'm not happy just patching it up and making do. I'm pretty good about not harping about past, perceived injustices or failures in my marriage. I much prefer to harp on current issues, like "What home improvement Russ "needs"  to be working on today." But, I just can't do that with knitting. I want a clean slate. I just can't overlook  even small imperfections and focus on the overall product. I've made several major mistakes with my current mittens, mistakes that are, of course, near the beginning of my second mitten. More discouraging still, I think that the second mitten is actually the correct one. I forced myself to knit a little on it last night, thinking that maybe I could force myself to finish it, and just accept it as imperfect. I'm unhappy with them. They were intended as a gift. I love the yarn, but I just want to quit. How sad!

Lofty Goal?

I don't mind working: I just don't like working ALL of the time. It's so disheartening to have more to do than you can possibly accomplish well. If you're giving everything you've got just to keep your head above water, eventually it seems pointless to try so hard. I periodically find myself overwhelmed by work, which is my fault since I choose to do the extra college classes. Case in point, last semester I had almost 60 students in two college classes I was teaching online. I sometimes felt like I couldn't breath let alone keep up and be creative at home in any way. This semester I have just over 30 students total in both classes. It's so wonderful not to feel guilty just because I'm not working on school stuff every single minute, but I have no intention of filling that void by setting too many goals in some other area of my life.

 I do, however,  have a small resolution concerning my blog. I'm going to try to write at least one more entry per month than I did last year. That's it. As of this post, I've achieved my goal for January. Considering that I had three posts last year, it was fairly easy to achieve. I love low expectations.

I've finished my Wool Peddler' Shawl  from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls this week. I really enjoyed knitting it even though I did have to do a little unraveling several times, which amounted to a lot of stitches once I got to the lace section. It's been an extra special project since my friend Julie at Jewel Tomes gave me the pattern and yarn as part of a Christmas swap. I'm sitting on my couch this minute with it wrapped around me watching An Affair to Remember with Paige. What a perfect Thursday night!

Cooking Sometimes Trumps Knitting

Since my family lives in California, Mexican food is a big part of our culinary lives. Few of the recipes we prepare are very "authentic," but the individual ingredients often are: jalapeno, chipotle, and ancho chiles, queso fresco, and avocados, to name a few. I don't know if langostino are authentically Mexican, but if  Rubio's Fresh Mexican Grill puts langostino in their burritos and calls them lobster, that's good enough for me. Here's my recipe. The picture doesn't look that appetizing, but the consensus was that they were good!

Lobster Enchiladas

1 pkg langostino (about a pound)
3 Tbsp. lime juice
2 cups prepared brown rice (I use Trader Joe's Frozen brown rice that can be microwaved in 3 min.)
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 small can sliced olives
1 small can chopped mild green chiles
1/4 cup chopped chilantro
1 cup  shredded Queso Fresco (I actually used Hanford Jalapeno Jack, which is a locally made Monterey Jack)
1 large can green enchilada sauce.
 salt/pepper
1 pkg whole wheat burrito-size tortillas

After running langostino under cool water to thaw, place in medium-size bowl and add lime juice. Saute red onion until just translucent. Add to langostino mixture, along with olives, green chiles, cilantro, and 3/4 cup cheese.

Pour about 1/4 cup of enchiladas sauce in the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch pan. Tear 3 of the tortillas into 3 strips, and line bottom of the pan with them. Add 1/2 of the langostino mixture. Add another layer of tortillas, using 3 more tortillas. Add another layer of langostino mixture, and top with tortillas again. Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over tortillas, and top with the rest of the cheese.

Bake for about 15 minutes in a 400 degree oven.


If Albertson's had had decent looking avocados, we'd have slices a couple of them to put on top when the enchiladas were done, but they didn't, so we had to persevere without avocados.

How to Enjoy a Weekend

I woke up early this morning, which probably had something to do with taking a two hour nap after work yesterday,  I'd guess. I started the day by doing a little knitting on a pair of mittens I've been working on. I can't say much about them because they're a gift, and the recipient reads my blog pretty regularly, but I will say that they're been fun to work on, even though I've had to pay careful attention to the chart most of the time. I'm using Andean silk from Knit Picks, which is very reasonably priced and wonderfully luxurious feeling.

It's so fun having a full uncomplicated day stretched out in front of you. I did a little baking, and then I went out to our orange tree and picked about twenty oranges Our oranges aren't great this year, kind of mealy, but the juice itself it good. I squeezed a nice pitcher of orange juice, which took way longer than I remembered it taking in the past.

 It was well worth it though. (I'm not talking hand squeezed; I used an attachment on my old food processor.) I was so happy with it that I hand delivered some to Paige, who was tanning out in the backyard...yes, tanning. It may start raining tomorrow, but today was the most perfect day I could imagine. Nothing like Central California in January!

Happy New Year!

Without a doubt this has been the most relaxing Christmas vacation my family has had, but we needed it. 2009 was  a good year in many ways, but it wasn't an easy one. We're all ready for a great and a little less stressful 2010. Starting tomorrow, however, the only one napping around here for a while will be kitty, but that's OK, we're ready!

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Whenever we have a vacation of any length, I feel some pressure to go, go, go. It is fun to travel and have some adventures, but I can honestly say that I enjoyed this vacation because we didn't do much traveling at all. It gave all of us time to just hang out together, and it gave me time to do my two favorite things--cook and knit. I finished my nephew's Debbie Bliss Cable Yoke sweater without too much trouble inserting the zipper, and for the past week I've been working on my Wool Peddler's Shawl from Folk Shawls. I have loved working on this shawl. I received the pattern and the wool for it in a Christmas Swap with my friend Julie. The swap was Julie's creative idea. We were supposed to use a favorite Christmas scene from a book as our inspiration. Julie used A Christmas Carol, and literally left me speechless with all of the wonderful presents she sent. Besides, candy, a candle, a cup, and Icewine tea, she sent me this pattern, some pretty wool, and a set of gorgeous stitch markers. I didn't need the stitch markers for the first part of the shawl, but I wanted to use them, just to admire them!



I didn't cook as much as I had planned during the past two weeks, but I did have a couple of successful cooking experiences. My brother and sister-in-law sent us a fun book, Ebelskivers. I haven't tried any of the recipes from it yet, but I did make some æbleskivers. I had meant to bake some kringle too, but never got around to it. I did bake some weinerbrød though, which was almost as good.
I used an old copy of From Danish Kitchens which had been my aunt's It's a great book, which is still in print, but my torn-up copy is extra special because it has lots of writing and recipes in the margins.

Wienerbrød

6 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups lukewarm milk
3 yeast cakes
1 tsp. salt
1 cup butter (I used 3/4, but I'll go back to the whole cup next time)
1 tsp. cardamon
1 egg
1/4 cup almonds

Dissolve yeast in milk and let stand for 5 - 10 minutes. Mix flour, sugar, salt with yeast/milk mixture. Roll dough out on a floured surface. Add butter in dots and spread with a knife if butter is room temperature. Sprinkle with cardamon. Fold and refold - let rest for 30 min. Roll, refold three or four times using a light quick stroke. Place aside in a cool place. Roll to a one-fourth inch thickness. Cut into one inch strips. Twist and form into pretzels. Place on buttered sheets, brush with slightly beaten egg, sprinkle with chopped blanched almonds. Let rise over boiling water (I don't really understand what this means, but I tried it by putting a cookie sheet over a pan of boiling water.) When double in bulk, sprinkle with sugar and bake in 400 degree oven.

Happy Holidays

I knit these little bunnies last year, but they're so cheerful on our mantel that I thought they deserved another chance to wish everyone Merry Christmas.
I don't have much knitting to show off since I've been cooking since last Wednesday, although I did knit my friend Julie a little mitten as part of a swap we did, but I forgot to take a pic of it before I sent it. I also knit a little sweater ornament for a non-knitting friend, using a pattern From the Wool Room. It's knit from the top down, and I think it may be my favorite "tiny sweater" pattern. I've tried a lot of them.


Russ and went to Solvang last Monday to buy some medisterpølse (Danish sausage) at Nielsen's Market for our Christmas Eve dinner. We also made a little stop at Olsen's Danish Bakery for some Kringle. Russ isn't too enthused about going to the touristy shops, but I did get a chance to buy a few little Danish paper ornaments.


I can understand why Ronald Reagan and Michael Jackson would have wanted to live around Solvang. The view from the mission is so beautiful. We always take the backroads home just to enjoy the beautiful landscape.

Catastrophic Crab Dip

I have quite a few Christmas cookbooks, but my favorite is the Mystic Seaport Christmas Memories Cookbook. Last night I decided to make a crab dip recipe from it for a potluck at school. This doesn't sound like it should have been a dangerous endeavor. It was, however, the indirect reason that I ended up in the emergency room in Bakersfield forty miles away. As I was reaching for the crab in our refrigerator, I somehow snagged my wrist on the lid of an olive can and trying to catch the can, I ended up with a deep, two-inch gash on my wrist. It didn't bleed or hurt that badly, but it was scary looking. I remember looking up at the clock as I realized that I was going to need stitches; it was nine o'clock, the time that our small town's urgent care center closes. So, Russ, who had already gone to bed, and I headed to Bakersfield where we sat endlessly in the waiting room. I think my big mistake was telling the triage nurse that my pain level was a three on a ten-point scale. I should have said "eleven!" Finally, after five hours of waiting, and having answered "no" to four different nurses and/or doctors who questioned whether my slit wrist was self-inflicted, we headed home through the foggy night. When we got home at 2:30 a.m., there was the crab dip in the fridge. Paige had gone ahead and made it for me. She had gone to bed, but Kai was sleeping on the couch waiting for us to get home. What a nice ending to an unpleasant evening.

Crab Dip

3 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 cup mayonnaise
2 cups cheddar cheese
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 -2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
4 hardcooked eggs, finely chopped
12 - 16 oz shredded crabmeat

1. Process cream cheese, mayonnaise, cheddar cheese, lemon juice, and Worcestershire Sauce in food processor until smooth.

2. Fold in crabmeat and chopped egg. Pour in oven-proof casserole and refrigerate until ready to serve.

I served my cold, but you may also heat in a 350 degree oven until hot and bubbly. You may serve with sourdough bread or crackers.

Hopefully, you will have an injury-free experience preparing this wonderful dip.

I had plans for spending my evening knitting yesterday. Typically, because I have had so much work to do, I feel like knitting all the more. I'm almost finished with the "cableyoke jacket" sweater from Debbie Bliss's Simply Baby. I just need to buy a zipper. I really like this pattern. It was really easy, but the cables kept it from being boring. I'm proud to brag that I used stashed yarn to knit it. It's wool, but that's about all I know. I've had it forever. I think I bought it to knit a Christmas sweater from McCall's Knitting Magazine back when it was one of the only knitting magazines around.
This is turning into kind of a random posting, but I had to show off my mailbox cover. I think it's the perfect design for someone who loves knitting. I'm hooked on the mailbox covers from House to Home Ideas. Russ asked me today if I was part of a club with them where I get a new one every month...mmmmm. that sounds like a great idea.

Knit Cupcakes

I love Vegan Yum Yum's Knit Cupcakes. I've tried to make them a couple of times, and I've been only moderately successful; they're not easy. One thing I've learned is that Albertson's must not sell marizpan too often because both times I've bought it, it was hard as a rock. World Market, on the other hand, has nice, soft marzipan. I "knit" my cupcakes for a little knitting get-together with some people from work. I'm pretty happy with them, but I think I still need more practice. Luckily, I bought several packages of marzipan!

Loving Thanksgiving

I noticed that many people were on the ball and wished their fellow bloggers a Happy Thanksgiving on the actual day, but I was too busy cooking and then eating to think about that. Our family usually celebrates a small (people-wise) Thanksgiving since traveling during Thanksgiving seems pretty much like torture. The fact that we don't spend Thanksgiving with our extended family used to bother me a little when the kids were young because I wanted them to experience the excitement that my husband and I had when we were young, with lots of relatives and the perfunctory "kids'" table where we were free to eat black olives from all ten fingers. Both of my kids love our Thanksgivings though and the traditions we've developed for ourselves. As I said, we don't let the fact that there are only four of us interfere with going all out on everything. I can hardly bear to think about all of the calories we've consumed in the past few days. Paige insists, with little argument from me, that I prepare Nantucket Cranberry Pie each year, which is easy but wonderful. I don't remember where I got the recipe, but it was probably Bon Appetit. Kai had a slice for breakfast yesterday morning and that was the end of it.

Nantucket Cranberry Pie
2 cups cranberries
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs
3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. almond extract

Place cranberries, walnuts, and 1/2 cup sugar in food processor and process until roughly chopped. Put in 10-inch pie plate or springform pan.

Mix eggs, butter, 1 cup sugar, flour, salt, and almond extract until smooth and pour over cranberry mixture.

Bake 40 min. at 350 degrees.


Another dessert tradition that my kids insist upon is what we call "Carolyn" Dessert" because our friend Carolyn gave it to me. Actually, I think it's often called "Better than Sex Pie," but I didn't think that was such a good name when the kids were little or more so now that they're teenagers. (ha, ha) It's kind of a funny dessert for us to love because we think of ourselves as foodies, and Cool Whip doesn't usually fit with sophisticated culinary experiences. But, Thanksgiving isn't about sophistication, and good is good.

Carolyn Dessert

1 cup pecans
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
Mix together and press in bottom of a 9 by 9 inch pan. Bake 20 min.

8 oz. pkg. cream cheese.
1 cup sugar
3/4 of a 13 oz. tub of cool whip
Mix together and put layer on top of crust

1 small pkg. chocolate instant pudding
1 small pkg. vanilla instant pudding
Prepare pudding and mix together and use for next layer

Finish with remaining cool whip. Shred Hershey bar on top.




The nice thing about being stuffed is that you can still knit. We've had beautiful weather, but I've still spent a lot of time on the couch since Thursday just knitting. I finished another Thorpe hat from Through the Loops. This one is for my three-year old niece. I love this pattern although I was relieved once I got out of the complex pattern part. I really had to concentrate, which isn't something I like to do for very long when I'm knitting. I never stress myself about knitting gifts. I just enjoy finishing what I can finish. one year, I sent my sister's family their gifts in February. I'm feeling a little pressure this year though because Paige recently informed me that she' like some gloves. My kids have no interest in knitting other to make fun of me about it where appropriate, so I get so excited if either of them shows any interest at it. I want to hurry and get started with those gloves before Paige goes to Hollister and buys some polyester ones!

The Lambs are Back

Every year, around Thanksgiving time sheep start showing up in the fields near where we live near Bakersfield. These aren't beautiful Shetland sheep, but I still love having them around, especially when they start having lambs. Russ pulled off the highway yesterday, so I could get a closer look at a flock. There were tons of lambs, not newborns, but still very young and cute. It seemed like there were a lot of twins, and the shepherd had tied their legs together. It didn't seem to bother them, but I wonder what the deal was.

Our mission yesterday wasn't just to enjoy lambs. We also had a visit to the library on our exciting agenda. I love browsing, looking for a book that attracts me simply because I like the cover. I hit the jackpot with mostly "foody" books:A Cook's Tour by Anthony Bourdain, Passion on the Vine by Sergio Espinoza (a book about wine and food in Italy; and An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor. Of course, I still have The Wee Mad Road, which Madame Purl had mentioned on her blog, on my nightstand and am enjoying it. It's not about food or knitting, but it's set in Scotland, which is almost as good! Oh! and this week's New Yorker is their food edition, so I'm set. I just wish I could read and knit at the same time, but I can't. I've tried.

Thorpe Hat

I love the idea of winter: bundling up in warm sweaters, wool socks, cozy stocking caps and mittens. In actuality, I didn't really like the excessive cold when I lived in Nebraska during college and a few years after. I prefer our Central California winters where it's often around thirty degrees in the morning but hits fifty or more by noon. I may begin my day with a warm coat, but hats, scarves, and gloves seem superfluous most of the time. But, I love small knitting projects like hats, scarves, and gloves, so my "lucky" nieces and nephews get to be the recipients of most of my winter-type knitting projects. This weekend I knit the Thorpe hat from Through the Loops. It was an easy pattern although I did have to pay close attention to the intarsia part. The pattern also calls for a double-half crochet on the edge of the finished hat, which intimidated me a little, even though she told me not to be. Youtube is so great for things like that. I found an excellent tutorial that explained it perfectly. I've been meaning to knit a Thorpe hat for a long time, and I had several left over skeins of yarn in colors I wasn't crazy about, but I knew that my six year old nephew would love, so after a long Sunday afternoon of knitting, I had a hat. I still need to add the ties, but that won't take long. You just braid them.

I'm teaching Frankenstein for the first time next semester, so I double-dipped by listening to Heather Oardover on Craft Lit talk about knitting and Frankenstein. She uses the Librivox recordings, but I like how she interjects her "English teacher" thoughts about each book beforehand.
I also worked some more on my nephew's orange socks that I started on our little trip to the alpaca farm. I'm not using a pattern, and there's a chance that they won't fit him. Fortunately, my sister has several other little candidates running around her house. I'm kind of proud about how well they've turned out. I cast on 48 stitches and used 24 stitches for the heel. They're nothing great, but they look good, and they're a fun mindless project.

Alpaca Field Trip

My Xtreme Knitters Club went on a fun little trip on Veteran's Day. We visited the Silver Suns Alpaca Farm, near the Danish village of Solvang, one of my favorite little towns, even if it is a major tourist trap.

I've seen a lot of llamas, but aplacas are smaller, and they seem more friendly, like not as likely to spit. The owner was really nice, and took us into the pen with some of the alpacas. They were really curious and particularly interested in getting to nibble on our sweaters. After our little tour, she took us into her shop where she had a nice variety of beautiful alpaca yarn. Most of it was from her alpacas. She also had lots of roving and gave my friends a little spinning lesson with a drop spindle. I've tried before, and I just can't get it, so I didn't even attempt to "play." I did, however, have to buy a little yarn. She had given us that free tour, after all.I don't really know what I'll knit with these two yummy skeins, but I'll enjoyed just squeezing them until I figure something out.

If you're like me and admire people who whittle down their stash, but can't seem to do yourself, you should visit Rani's blog rght away. She's giving away some nice skeins of yarn. Hands off the pink! I have dibbs on it!

No Time Spent Knitting is Wasted

I'm rarely tickled with my finished knitting projects although I'm often satisfied with them. I think that is because I often enjoy the process so much that finishing is almost anti-climactic. That may also be why I don't mind quitting halfway through a project. I had fun along the way. This week I unraveled a sweater I had started for my nephew, which I had spent at least ten hours on. I finally realized that I just plain didn't like where it was heading. Then I started the Every Way Wrap from the fall issue of Interweave Knits. After working for quite a few hours on it this weekend, I accepted that my cables looked nothing like the pictures in the magazine. I don't know what I did wrong, but I was way off. Good thing that unraveling is so much fun. On the more successful note, I did finish one of my calendula socks. It fits perfectly.

Busy Halloween

I knit half of a sock yesterday while driving to the coast and back, which is nearly four hours of driving altogether. The pattern is called Calendula. I saw it on Misandventures in Knitting, and decided that for once I would actually complete one of her projects instead of just ogling it. I'm on the heel right now and having a little trouble because the directions have some German terms, but I'll get it!I used to have a New Yorker cartoon on my fridge that had a woman and her husband talking to friends. The woman says, "...And we raise our own children." It was probably really making fun of people like me, but I loved it and felt like Russ and I could say that too. We could count the number of nights either one of us have spent away from our kids, not counting the innumerable nights they've spent the night at friends' houses. My point is that since we didn't have a support system other than ourselves as we were raising our kids, we have always spent a lot of time together, which was fun although exhausting too. As they've gotten older, it's been more out of habit than necessity that we do a lot together. It has also been more of a challenge to go on day trips that make everyone happy, but we've still managed usually. So, it was a big deal yesterday when we decided not to cajole our teenage children to go to the beach with us for the day. They were both invited,.. with the disclosure that our day plan included buying apples, going to the natural food store in San Luis Obispo, and finding a challenging hike that we'd never done before. Both offspring opted out: I think it was the hike that did it.Stop number one, Gopher Glen Apple Farm.I'm cheating with this picture, since Paige didn't go along on this trip, but it's a picture of Gopher Glen our favorite place to get apples. We've been going to get apples there for at least twenty years,an were there in early October but needed to replenish our supply. Thirty pounds seemed reasonable! Next, we stopped at Kelsey Winery. A friend at work had told me that we should try their apple wines. We did a little wine tasting and decided that my friend was right; all of the wines were delicious. That's big coming from me because I'm not that big of a wine fan. We bought an apple chard and an apple merlot.
We did some other fun stuff, but the "highlight" of the day was to attempt to hike to the top of Bishop's Peak. I gave up when the trail became just rocks, not because I couldn't go on, but because I thought that if I were a rattlesnake, that's just where I'd like to sun myself! It was intense and a little hairy going down, but mostly because I didn't have good tread on my shoes. Great day overall.We ended the day with a little coffee and after buying some incredible looking caramel apples, headed home to a night of little goblins knocking at our door asking for treats.