BklnQ

Cold, snow on the ground.

No, I didn’t take the whole month off. In fact the weather wasn’t that nice and I spent the day in conference calls. Got some knitting done during the calls, and several since.

I had a great post in mind about our Valentine’s Day dinner—Braised Beef in Barolo, and nothing says love like cooking eye of round in wine worth more than the current market capitalization of Citibank—and about how I enjoyed my first knitting meet-up at Brooklyn General Store, but a family member, somewhat obsessively private about his/her health, was taken seriously ill, and I’ve been somewhat distracted. The situation has improved slightly since. In the meantime I’ve done a bit of knitting, and I’ve been known to go to work and I’ve spent a bit of time being scratched by the Little Monster.

Our friends A— & J— finally got the call to go to Korea and adopt their new eleven-month-old baby boy. I got a baby hat knit in record time (for me), but now that I’ve seen pictures of him, I think he might be able to wear it once. He’s huge. Cute, but huge. I’m glad I abandoned the sweater. It would have been much too small.

I’ve also been knitting a pair of socks for my Mom’s husband. And knitting, and knitting. Why are there relatively few good patterns for men’s socks? Because it takes lots of yarn and lots of time and conservative patterns are a bit boring. I have discovered that large pattern repeats do make the sock go faster and row counting easier.

In other news, the beard is gone. Looking 55 and distinguished is not preferable to looking 45 and a little weak-chinned. I don’t feel as old as my beard.

Surprisingly comfortable. OMG(osh), Spring’s coming and I weigh way too much!!!!!!

And tonight’s fabulous meal was Sesame Chicken, the recipe for which got somewhere on the internet, about.com maybe, and tripled the amount of chili paste. Really, triple the amount of chili paste. A teaspoon? Wimps. A tablespoon! Astounding.

The apartment does smell like fried food though.

J liked it, and that’s the best part.

Saturday’s dinner was Madhur Jaffrey’s Chickpeas Cooked in a Moglai-Style (sic) with her Greek leeks and a tamarind chutney. The leftovers are going to make a great pita sandwich or two for work.

Maybe I’ll go to the gym on Tuesday.

Wednesday.

Thursday.

Friday.

Saturday.

Sunday, etc.

Still rather cold and getting colder.

What to Cook With

I had disliked my stove for some time. It was white and didn’t match the fridge or the dishwasher. It was hard to clean. The burner grates weren’t flat, so pans would rock back and forth when stirring. Think stirring risotto for twenty minutes straight. The burners would go out instead of going low. It was, like much in this condo, the cheap builders’ model.

I finally got a new one, a Kitchenaid, with more features than I need. The feature I like best is the high-heat burner with the grate insert that reverses to become a wok stand. That is a full-size wok from a Chinese restaurant supply store on the stand. Cheap. Cooking in a wok with enough space to push each cooked ingredient out as it is done and opening enough space in the middle to cook the next is a revelation. I might even cook more stir-fry.

What I really want to cook more of is South Asian and Middle Eastern. What I need to cook more of is vegetables, so I went rooting through Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian. I had the stove; I had the recipe’s. I needed vegetables and spices.

Lots of Spices

While the stove was delivered last weekend and installed on Monday, neither of us had anytime to use it. I did boil water for pasta on Thursday, but that was it. I plotted with my cookbook and tossed all the stale spices into the trash.

Friday, though, I was able to take the day off and I went shopping. I went to Fairway for the bulk of it, but came home without a few things, notably, no red chilis, fresh or dried. Then I hit a few local shops trying to fill in the gaps and to pick up a five-inch cast iron pan for roasting spices. I found enough ingredients to make cucumber raita, Afghan sour cherry chutney, Hyderabadi red lentils and Sri Lankan sweet potatoes with cardamum and chilis. All of these were excellent. The raita was some of the best I’ve ever had and the sweet potatoes were good even leftover and cold.

Saturday, I went out to further fill in the remaining gaps in my grocery list and pick up few things J had added. I hit Dean & Deluca and got sweet smoked paprika and manchego cheese for J, and paid a fortune for Mexican oregano, but bombed out on everything on my South Asian list. Then I got my wok at the restaurant supply at Houston and Lafayette, two blocks away, then walked with the not exactly lightweight wok to First Ave just below Sixth St to a South Asian spice dealer and grocery, which is where I should have gone to begin with. Everything that was on my original list and some extras, all cheaper than anywhere else. The day was perfect for it too.

Have you ever smelled asafoetida? There is a reason it’s hard to find. Noxious and nauseating. I sealed the small jar I bought in a mason jar when I got home. So far it works, but I’m afraid to open the jar.

Saturday was a Chinese-like stir-fry, in honor of the new wok, with a ersatz fresh-ground five-spice powder (no star anise in the house), some chicken breasts and lots of vegetables. Not bad. I love the wok.

I also made tabouleh from scratch for lunches. It has an entirely different texture than what you get in the instant versions or pre-packaged—smoother and less oily.

J broke-in the oven Sunday with Lemon Bars and dinner that evening was Jaffrey’s Red Peppers Stuffed with Herbed Rice in the Persian Style. This was perfectly fine, but I’m now pretty sure tarragon is more appealing in concept than practice. Thyme would be a good substitute.

Knitting

There was some progress on Feather & Fan in the last month, but most of my knitting was done on a lace scarf in Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool on #2’s (Am) during innumerable conference calls to tedious to recall. Between that and typing e-mails, my hands and wrists have been tired.

This has all been rather long-winded, but I’ve spared you the last month of boredom and tedium. Really, you missed nothing.

Anyone care to review 300 pages or so of financial systems business requirements documents for me? I didn’t think so.

J’s in the kitchen, finishing up the mess I made making dinner. My timing never comes out the way I hoped and there were dishes still everywhere when dinner decided it was ready to be served.

Dinner was asparagus with scallions, (thin-sliced) potato and onion casserole and chicken paillard with a green peppercorn, lemon and sherry sauce. I generally winged it and the paillard was not quite thin enough, but it turned out pretty good.

Rome

We caught up on the Rome episode we missed last week and watched the new one too. It’s darker this season, if that’s possible.

Last night we watched Bedrooms and Hallways, a gay-themed movie with Kevin McKidd and James Purefoy. Mr Purefoy was sexy then, but Mr. McKidd clearly has benefited with age. The ending sucked, though.

Watching the movie last night did lend an odd overtone to the scene in Rome when Antony offers Vorenus redemption.

Short

Ted has a nice exposition on socks— it’s worth review. Funny how he too ran out of yarn before being able to complete a full pair of socks. Hey, yarn manufacturers! Men wear socks too.

10 am, on a Saturday morning two days before xmas, I’m on a conference call to discuss on-going testing for a system conversion. And we’re trying to pack up and head up to Rhode Island to spend the holiday with J’s family. Tuesday morning I back in the office. This is not going to feel like a three-day weekend.

What to take to knit (quietly in the corner)? Nothing is currently portable, so I’ve packed yarn and dpn’s for socks.

I’ve made two cheese balls and J made some French Canadian pork spread—blech!—to take along. I forgot to buy crackers, so we’ll have to hit the grocery store when we get there. We’ve also got wine to bring. And a few presents.

I hope everyone has a relaxing and pleasant holiday.

Sunday night’s main course.

A beef rump roast with a dry rub composed of chili powder, fresh ground cumin and oregano, chipotle powder, salt & pepper.

I served it with brown gravy, garlicky sauteed spinach and a wild and brown rice mixture cooked in beef broth.

Yeah, I know; I’m two days late.

And medium is the pinkest I can tolerate.

J & I went up to Hudson NY for his birthday—he’s Brad Pitt’s age. We drove up on Thursday, stopping at a couple of wineries, one of which was open. We picked up half a case at Millbrook, three each of a Cabernet Franc and a 2005 Chardonnay, both good for the price. We got to Hudson a quarter after three and walked around after settling in at the guest house. We decided to have a margarita at Mexican Radio, which turned into two drinks with chips and salsa and then into dinner at the bar. We stretched it out and left a bit after six.

Hudson is very quiet on a Thursday evening in mid-fall. The street was almost empty. There were only two interesting shops open after we left the restaurant. I bought two coasters from a shop selling Turkish ceramics and glass, and we looked in on a shop that had, among other things, some cute knitted things—women’s and children’s only—some hand-knit locally, but didn’t buy anything. We went back to our rooms and found it was only seven. An early night of TV and knitting.

Friday we drove up to Mass MOCA in North Adams, MA. For J’s birthday we go to museums and restaurants; for mine we go to bars and restaurants, and I go yarn shopping and he goes to museums. The museum was a great space and I liked some of the art, but I still occasionally got that feeling of a joke I just don’t get.

On the way back, we stopped at The Fields Sculpture Park in Ghent. This is worth a stop, a long stop. Acres of fields and woods and a pond with large, outdoor contemporary sculpture and installations. We only had a little over and hour to spend before sunset, but we could have easily spent the whole afternoon. Most contemporary art doesn’t appeal to me, but the big sculptures do.

We had dinner at Ca’ Mea. It was good. We stretched it out with appetizers, entrees, dessert and coffee. J really liked the rigatoni in pumpkin cream sauce.

We still got back to the rooms by eight. We played a board game and watched Roseanne on HBO. How could anyone marry that voice?

Saturday morning, we had brunch at Red Dot, walked down to Parade Hill the look at the river, then did some shopping, but didn’t buy anything. We hit another winery on the way back, but it wasn’t worth the effort.

I did try to get some knitting in, but couldn’t come up with anything I liked. I knit five or six different patterns, frogging them all as doing nothing for the Fleece Artist kid mohair/silk I have. It’s a beautifull yarn. Frustrating. I came back to Brooklyn with nothing more than frogged yarn.

I have finished my hat made of Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino leftovers, mostly knit during conference calls.

That’s the outside; this is the inside. [The color is more blue than purple.]

Generally, it’s reversable, but the inside has a k4p1 rib to fit better inside the k8p1 rib on the outside. Cast on 90, btw.

Otherwise. Doesn’t Brad Pitt’s middle look a bit thick almost human on the cover of Vanity Fair?