Good Lord, She's Back!

Now what? A margarita and...



Margarita cupcakes! From Vegan
Cupcakes Take Over The World.

My friend Jill, who told me about this cookbook, recommended these in particular. They are SOOOOO GOOOOOOD! I made them on Sunday since Pete was nice enough to bring some tequila with him when he came back from Boston on Saturday night. I think I did something wrong since the recipe claims to make a dozen cupcakes and I only got nine. They still came out like insanely delicious cupcakes. I ate two on Sunday, two on Monday, gave one to the UPS guy and Pete had one. So I made more today! I have plenty of icing left over from the first batch. I got a dozen this time so it'll be interesting to see how they are different from the last batch. They're still cooling. It shouldn't take long - we keep our house at sixty-one degrees. UUNGH!!!! (chest-pounding noise)

Further Mayhem...

...will probably have to wait. It's disappointing, I know. Since I spent the whole morning clowning around with pancakes, wigs, the camera and this blog I'm not sure I have time to get into the baked goods + alcohol part of my scheme today.

Plus I'm all out of tequila and it's snowing. We'll see how bad the weather is and how many other things I get done today and then I'll work on the tequila.

Would You Eat Pancakes Made By This Woman?

Who wants pancakes?



Twinkie pumpkin pancakes, to be exact!

Here they are flipped:



I overcooked the first batch and the Twinkies
caramelized. They were still good. A little more sophisticated tasting
than the properly cooked ones. You know, relatively.

C'mon - try 'em. Don't be shy...



Won't you try my pancakes?



I'll have some pancakes!

Mwwa Ha Ha Ha!

I've been slacking on the posts. Sorry. I have a lot to tell but I'm
trying to cut back on computer time. I've barely even checked my e-mail.

I've either been cranking in my studio or chipping ice off the walkway/driveway.

But today Pete went to Boston for a few days so I'm hatching some evil plans involving baked goods, alcohol and the green Cleopatra wig I just bought at Target. The onslaught starts tomorrow at breakfast.

BEWARE.

Here I Am At Precinct 3

I voted. I look happier about it in the picture than I was because it's raining into my eyes and I'm squinting.

I voted my head and not my heart this time. I'm usually a slave to my heart so the old ticker's pretty insulted. It understands though and has pretty much moved on. I think the rice krispy treat I got it at Whole Foods will help.

Actually, I did take another photo in which my face better reflected my feelings but I look cuter in this one.

Doom and Cupcakes

Here's one thing I haven't been missing: my overdeveloped sense of impending doom.

I had, in fact, forgotten all about it until I had a mini flash of it last Friday. I was heading out the side door of my in-laws' garage with Pete to go to the driving range. For some reason coming out of the dim garage into the warm Florida sun, looking at the cement paver in the grass and smelling the change from the garage smell to the outdoor smell brought on a mini bolt of doom.

It didn't stick but it did remind me that there are times when that sense of doom is a constant companion. I sure wish I could figure out what's keeping it at bay. I'd like to do more of whatever that is.

Also, I made vegan cupcakes last night. Gingerbread with lemon cream cheese frosting (soy cream cheese) and Red Velvet. They were out of control. The verdict: Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World is an excellent cookbook.

I had never tried soy yogurt or soy cream cheese before. They're okay. I don't think I'd eat them plain though. In cupcakes they're divine.

A Nice Break

You probably don't want to hear about it but Pete and I have managed to shirk all of our responsibilities for a few days and we've gone down to Florida to visit his parents.

Usually when I go to Florida the weather turns and there's a cold snap or lots of rain. Not this time. It's perfect. 77 degrees and mostly sunny.

Yesterday we had lunch on the beach with Pete's Mom. Dolphins frolicked in the Indian River just yards from our table at dinner last night. This morning Pete and I each hit a bucket of balls at the local driving range/second-hand store.

We left Fay at home with a really nice dog-sitter (Thanks Michaela K!) so I can even sleep through the night without having to take "anyone" out.

But it's all over today. In an hour or so Pete and I will head off in the rental car over to the Orlando airport. The weather back in Boston is rainy (sleety? Who knows?) and high thirties. I can't complain. I had a nice break.

Yes, I Did

I did go Veg. Back in December. There's an article on nytimes.com by Mark Bittman that sums up exactly why - minus the overfishing aspect. If you don't want to read the whole article the high points are these (there are three, in case you don't want to read them either):

1. "...assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests."
2. "...if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius."
3. "Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people."

The American-style meat industry has global negative impacts which are thoroughly covered in the article itself.

I love eating meat, especially bacon, but my "tasty" versus "worried" ratio turned over. I'm not militant about it. I'll eat meat (or fish) if I'm at someone's house and that's what they made or if the alternative is deep fried wads. I'm not trying to convince anyone else to go veg either. I'm just showing all four of my readers how I finally got worried enough that my mental discomfort overcame my sense of physical discomfort.

Fay, however, will always be a carnivore.

On a more cheerful note, my friend Jill told me about the "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World" cookbook. Cupcakes are not bacon (there's no substitute for bacon) but they sure are tasty and enticing. I'm getting really hungry looking at the Customer Images on Amazon.

Grunt!

Me clean today. spend hours scrubbing fridge. "What that smell?" "Can't find it!" take fridge apart "SCRUB!!!!"

Me kill smell! Still not know what was.

Go see rock 'n' roll tonight at Plough. Pete's band. Hope brain returns by then. If not, no big -- Rock!

Brain like this when dig holes all day too. Gardening. dig up rocks. Gets migraine sometimes. Let go of stress, focus on task, get migraine. Bad news but what can do? Must dig holes.

More kitchen clean tomorrow. dirty kitchen.

Knitting Pete's "Candy Corn" Socks

I've been making and making and making rather than blogging lately.

In fact I have to go check the brownies I have in the oven. Be right back...

Not ready yet.

But here's a shot of Pete's socks in that special "Candy Corn" yarn I was talking about. As you can see I'm making them "toe up" using a pattern from Interweave Knits Summer 2007. The cast-on took me about half an hour and lots and lots of cursing to figure out. More thorough instructions and one or two more illustrations might have helped. On the other hand if the instructions were clearer I wouldn't get to feel as proud of myself for figuring out what they meant.

I haven't cussed that much in quite a while. It was fun. You start with twelve stitches on three splinter-sized double-pointed needles (six stitches on one and three and three on the other two) and do four "make one" increases each round until the point where you make four "make one" increases every other round. It was so annoying! I got so tense that I broke one of my needles.* The person who wrote the pattern said that one of the best things about it is that you don't have to work the Kitchener stitch. Personally I'd rather do the Kitchener stitch over one twelve-stitch row than have to do so many rounds of tiny Make One's.

There is one great thing about this pattern: a table explaining how many increases to make for a range of gauges and foot sizes. That is very helpful since Pete and I have big feet.

The main reason I'm using this toe-up pattern is that I'm paranoid about running out of yarn. I'm always paranoid about it. I always make swatches because I tend to be a loose knitter. If the gauge isn't right I'll unravel the swatch and do it over. When I finally get the swatch right I'll unravel that one too and use the yarn again in the main project. I'm not sure that the small amount of yarn I save makes any difference in the end but it does make me feel better.

At this point I've done all the toe increases and I'm just doing plain rounds until I get to the heel. I think the hard part is over. Honestly I have enjoyed the challenge. It seems that I tend to pick projects based on the fact that I'd like to own the sweater. This can lead to some pretty dull knitting since I like kind of plain sweaters. All the effort and extra cussing that this pattern required was kind of refreshing.

In other knitting news I ordered some of that Noro sock yarn and it has arrived. It's beautiful but it's also got the diameter of thread. Hopefully the colors will keep me going.

*I broke the point off about two inches down. It's a 7" wooden needle so I think I'll just sand down the jagged edge and keep using it as a 5"er.

Inspiration

This stuff is infernal. It gets everywhere. It has inspired the first song I'll ever write (I haven't written it yet) entitled "I Crap Glitter." I haven't actually checked to see if this is literally true but it wouldn't surprise me.

Sunday Times

Today is, in my opinion, a good day to pick up a copy of the New York Times. I'm not going to do it myself though. That would involve a ten-minute drive and as usual, I'm feeling stingy about my time.

Here's what I read online today:

Guy Trebay on Carla Bruni.
Caitlin Flanagan on the unfortunate price of sexuality for teenage girls.
Steven Pinker on Moral Instinct. That one's 8 pages long. I guess I wasn't so stingy with my time in reading it. But there is a difference between spending ten minutes driving and ten minutes feeding my head.

I have to say that I admire the way that Carla Bruni isn't afraid to use all her advantages. That said I'm also very relieved that she doesn't want anything I have.

And now I'm going to feed my face with another chocolate cupcake.