Author: 459856pwpadmin

I’ve finished two baby blankets, and started a new project for myself.

But first the baby blankets.

My brother and his wife are looking forward to the births of two new great-grandsons this spring. I decided to contribute blankets.

Both blankets were knit with Lion Brand Mandela yarn, which I used to be able to buy locally but now have to purchase by mail order. Although I ordered the yarn in late December, it didn’t really arrive until January.

The first blanket was knit using two skeins in the color Spirit, No. 212. I decided to knit beginning with the skein ending in the lighter color, with the darker color being in the middle. I really wasn’t sure of how this would work out, but in the end I was happy with the result. I used the pattern “My Favorite Baby Blanket” by Alicia DeHart.

This blanket moved along pretty efficiently, I finished in early February, so it took me nearly a month, and I was happy with the result. I was also happy to that I enjoyed knitting this yarn and my thoughts were filled with dreams of knitting other blankets, or perhaps returning to prayer shawl knitting.

For the second blanket, I chose two colors of the same yarn. This time I used #267 Doxy Doxy and #276 Moomba.

I had planned to knit this blanket using a different pattern but I changed my mind at the last minute thinking it would be easier and faster to use the same pattern. I miscalculated. I had hoped to finish blanket 2 by the time I was in Texas for my mother’s 90th birthday on February 20th. That way I could leave both blankets with family. I knew this was unrealistic, as February was a very busy month, and yet I tend to harbor wild expectations for myself, imagining myself to be some kind of superwoman who bends the rules of time. Alas, not at all true.

The blanket was progressing quickly and easily and I was enjoying the changes in the colors. And then l I hit a glitch. In the skeins I received, the band of bright yellow appeared on both skeins in the exact same place. I figured I could just get away with it, and so I kept knitting. But no. I felt an intense dislike for the growing patch of bright yellow, which was not even at the mid-point of the blanket. I had to rip.

How often do I do this, move forward knowing full well I will end up ripping out? Too often. The other blanket pattern would have given me more leeway with manipulating the colors, so I was doubly pissed with myself, both for not sticking with my original plan, and for knitting when I knew I shouldn’t.

I cut the yellow out of one skein, figuring I would add it back into the progression later on, which I did. The combination of yellow and white was not my favorite stripe sequence, and it still jumps out at me, but it is a minor point, and I can live with it. I ripped and reconfigured as much as I felt I could tolerate at the time. Still my knitting slowed until I reconciled myself to my own annoyance.

I did finish the blanket however, and before the end of February, but not before I came home to Tennessee. Actually, it too took less than a month to knit, even with ripping and reuniting. February is a short month but the knitting felt endless. At least I am happy with the final blanket.

I do think I will use this yarn again. And I might well use it for a prayer shawl or two. But at the moment I need some selfish knitting. so I’ve cast on for another project.

This is also pretty mindless knitting. The yarn is Noro Ohajiki, the is pattern is simple, using “old shale” or “shell stitch”, which is easy to remember and as close to mindless while still being interesting that I can imagine at the moment. I’ve got. some other big projects underway in the studio and a couple of deadlines, So this is a deadline-free project.

Garbo and I walked outside this morning just as the sun was cresting the horizon. The air was filled with joyous birdsong. Then, as I rounded the corner of the front walk I saw my first daffodil of the season. Not the first daffodil, they have been all over the neighborhood, but the first daffodil blossoming in my yard.

I was elated.

I didn’t spend any time in the garden in 2025 due to back and leg muscle issues, a fall, and other things. In fact it has been over a year since I’ve been up to garden work, and it thrills me no end to see that anything survives my neglect.

Oh, I came home from Texas in late February to find the camellias in bloom. They are still in bloom. I can count on them beginning in late February. And the hellebores have been out for a few weeks as well.

But the first daffodils are harbingers of hope. I am behind. I am always behind but there is also always hope. Sometimes I just need to be reminded. The small joys are often the best joys anyway.

Why. do I still have a love/hate relationship with book posts? I’ve been struggling with this one for a month, and I know the problem is all in my head. It has reached the point where I don’t think I can write anything unless I get this post out first. So here goes.

I opened the month with Colwill Brown’s debut novel, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh, and my complicated feelings about this novel in particular are the reason I have not previously managed to write this post. As a debut novel, I think it is brilliant. The author’s technique of using written phonetics for South Yorkshire accents added a lot of color and brightness to what is otherwise a very sad, traumatic and dark novel, filled with violence, about girls growing up with few prospects, girls who, unlike the popular fictional trope, do not escape. I get that this specific place, and certainly this time — the 1990s, possibly early 2000s, does not correspond to my experience but I can still viscerally feel that anger and longing that fuels these girls — anger at being objectified, longing to be desired and loved. The wall of misogyny that surrounds these girls drives me to despair. Yes, it is specific to time and place, but it is also universal. I am fortunate to live in a highly educated privileged microcosm of society that sees only the fringes, and it is good to be reminded that in many ways my world is a small subset of what is experienced.

I am glad I read this book. I do not want to read it again, which for me is a criticism. I am a person who thinks readers form relationships with good books. Not this book, not for me. It is ambitious, compelling even. I don’t need a happy ending. But on some level the novel failed to carry me along; the novel became boring, trite, accepting. This may be the state of the world; it is not what I want from my literature.

Luckily for me, I adored Bryan Washington’s novel, Palaver. I found the story much more compelling and satisfying, if not perhaps quite as technically dazzling. But I do not actually read books for their technical qualities. Washington also takes risks here. The novel is the story of two characters, a mother and son, referred to throughout the book as “the mother” and “the son” even though every other character in the novel has a name. The pair have a difficult relationship, and they have not been in contact for a number of years, not until the mother feels compelled to visit the son in Tokyo. They have trouble connecting, not only with each other here, but I increasinlgly think, as I read the novel, with themselves. Washington uses their inner musings, as well as their interactions with others (named) and with food, to explore their relationship. They are like two ships, two people who, despite their blood relationship, seem to have no shared culture or even language in which to communicate. I get the impression that this disconnection is not what drives this novel, but rather the way that we bridge the gaps between us. Thus the use of two separate spheres of influence, two unnamed characters and the way their circles overlap, as they learn to know each other, and in a very real sense themselves. In the end our two protagonists begin to grow into a new relationship, beyond the parent/child relationship which has defined much of the novel. It is an interesting path, a good one, and one that often does not develop. It is hard to see our parents, and our children, as the people they are, apart from the parent/child relationship. I think Washington explores this process really well. I initially read Palaver last November, and think it stands up well to rereading, revealing more with continued acquaintance

I needed the relative “lightness” of Palaver, because at the same time I was continuing to work my way through Gertrude Stein Writings: 1903 – 1932, which I finished late in the month. I can’t say that I enjoyed everything in this book, but I am glad I read it. Many of the specific works were rereads, but not all of them. I actually read QED, The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas, and several of the shorter works in December, and aside from stating that I still feel, as I did in college, that the Autobiography is the least interesting thing Stein wrote. I can see why it brought her fame. I think I appreciated Tender Buttons more today than I did in my 20s, mostly because I’ve learned to just let the language set its own pace in my heart, and stop fretting over what it might “mean” and, as a corollary, whether I am smart enough to understand it. I also now think “Melachantha” is the strongest and most powerful part of Three Women. To write a story from the perspective of a black woman was ground breaking enough, even if Stein was not black. But by doing so, this highly educated and ambitious Jewish lesbian woman was able to explore what it means to be separate, and different, and on the fringes of society. I think I still have a lot to learn from Gertrude Stein.

I ended the month by reading Han Kang’s 2025 novel We Do Not Part. As expected I was drawn in by Kang’s intensely poetic prose, its strong humanity, and her masterful use of metaphor. If you have not read any of Kang’s previous novels, I think this one might be the best starting place. Kang she explores not only Korea’s dark history and the terrible things humans inflict upon each other, but also the humanity of people, and how simple acts of human care, kindness, and shared suffering also keep love alive. Kang’s novels are not for those who do not want to bear witness, who insist on believing that humanity is better than it is, but she also shows us the beauty in sharing our past, in shared connection, and how we can be stronger, and perhaps even more loving, than we might ever have thought.

I am exhausted.

It seems I tell myself I can do ten times more things than I can actually accomplish, and then I melt into a trembling pile of jello. I’m telling you, I am ready for jello.

But why?

I drove home from Texas Sunday and Monday. As I drove I imagined all the things I would do Monday evening. But I collapsed. I partially unpacked, straightened up this and that. I dislike the last leg of the trip, from Nashville to Knoxville. It is a beautiful drive. But at the end of a long drive, the steep grades, and, I would swear, the craziest drivers of the trip, make it a stressful couple of hours.

You know, when I want to go a nearby city, for shopping or whatever, I would rather drive to Atlanta than to Nashville. And Atlanta traffic is no picnic either.

But why am I still tired? I can admit it is a happy kind of tired.

Wednesday night was my book club meeting. It was at my house, and I cooked mostly Japanese, but not a traditional Japanese meal. The book, Palaver by Bryan Washington, was set in Japan, and a lot of food was involved in the story, but not really in a traditional Japanese setting. In fact I liked the way the author wove food into the story.

But back to me. When I chose this book and this month, my head was off in the clouds, thinking I had 10,000 hours. I did not. Tuesday I planned the menu and shopped. Wednesday I cooked. Wednesday I also had a stiff back, sciatica, severe pain in my left leg where my muscles had tightened up, probably due to the back issues, but also because I had been twisting it under me. Oh, and my left foot was numb. Just a little glitch. But it did slow me down.

I loved the shopping. I do love grocery shopping. I actually love exploring stores, and I wasn’t really exploring that much because I had a long list. But I had to go to 6 or 7 stores to find what I wanted, and it took 5 hours. That may have contributed to my back issues.

I usually go too far with the pre-meal snacks, tending to cook enough to feed the Russian army. This time I was more restrained. Appetizers were breadsticks and deviled eggs. I wanted something Jamaican because of the Jamaican heritage of the two protagonists. I originally was going to make some kind of fritter and sauce. Instead I made deviled eggs with a sweet/spicy chutney mixed into the filling. I topped half of them with hot peppers and half with quarters of sweet pickled grapes (those just happened to be in the fridge). The breadsticks were made from the soft roll recipe from The Art of Gluten-Free Bread. Rather than using za-atar, as stated in the recipe, I improvised a topping by crushing up roasted seaweed snacks (gim) sesame seeds, and shichimi togarashi seasoning. I brushed the bread with a mixture of white miso and sesame oil to get the seasoning to adhere before baking. I rather liked the combination.

For a first course we had an almost clear miso soup. My original intention had been for a clear broth, but by the time I got to it, my plans had changed. I was having too much trouble standing. It tasted just as good. I added tiny little enokidaki to each soup bowl.

Everything else was served family style.

The cold dishes included a pickle made from matchsticks of carrot and daikon radish in the proportion 1:2. I also made a salad of cucumbers and wakame seaweed. There was a cold greens dish. I used a mix of spinach, kale, and chard, which was blanched then cooled in ice water. The chilled greens were then marinated and served in a bowl of iced dashi. That was the only recipe from my new Japanese cookbook, Konbini, which I love, but did not end up using much for this meal. The greens were served with a miso dressing. The dressing was good, but I loved the dash-marinated greens on their own; I’ve been finishing them off all week and think they should be an easy household staple.

For hot dishes we had halibut steamed in sake, rice, and two additional vegetables. The most time-consuming consisted of fried Japanese eggplant halves that had been scored in a tiny crosshatch pattern, and then fried. They were served with miso dressing. These were fabulous, and beautiful, worth the time spent scoring the skin. The final hot dish was a quick pan sauté of shimeji mushrooms in butter and sake.

I was very happy with the meal, and happy to be cooking, even if I was tired, but I did poop out earlier than I had hoped. Luckily my friends helped me get things out and I am grateful. Aside from driving myself cuckoo with the cooking, I am a casual hostess. The point of a party is to have fun after all.

Oh yes, we ended up with a not very sweet lemon-poppyseed cake and sorbetto, either mango or lemon. I meant to go out buy some Asian ice cream, but, well, that didn’t happen either.

At one point I thought of taking pictures of all this fabulous food, and a part of me wishes I had because I thought the dishes were pretty. I loved making this meal, and I wondered if a photo record would be nice. But another part of me thinks of all the dinner parties over the years and how few pictures I’ve taken. Yes I take pictures for cookbook club dishes, but otherwise I forget. Food is ephemeral and yet not. I remember the food but mostly the food is just a vehicle for the conversations and companionship. I love cooking but it is never really about the food. Mostly I remember the conversation and the good times.

Now, here we are at the weekend and almost all evidence of the party has been put away, but my memories survive. I’ve always felt that photos are not an adequate substitute for memories; when I spend time taking a picture I am not spending time living in the moment, feeling the feelings. But I am not a good photographer and I am a good feeler of feelings. My perspective is angled differently I suppose, taking time to take a photograph is a distraction, like looking at myself and my life in third person.

Everything I made is simple in and of itself. Making so many dishes was not simple. Yes, overachiever speaking. I wonder why I don’t make these dishes more often. Perhaps, having been reacquainted with them, I will. I’ve fallen in love with dashi again. And we are heading into vegetable season soon, this meal has rekindled my excitement in the kitchen.

It seems I don’t need to remember the specific moment — it is already gone, fleeting. I need to hold on to the threads of where it takes me.

Last week was a hard week. Rather than focusing on all that I could be doing, I regressed and was beating myself up over what I was failing to do. Never a good sign that. You would think, at my age, that I had beaten all those childhood demons into dust, but alas they still extend whisky tendrils into my thoughts. Occasionally they latch on, at which point pulling them out screaming is a chore.

I let myself putter.

I read. I took care of some household tasks in preparation for going away. I knitted. I played bridge. I released myself from obligation. Only by stepping away could I allow myself to let go. And I found myself right where I needed to be.

I came home, took a deep breath, looked in the refrigerator, and made myself dinner. There is nothing like limited resources to spark creativity. It was nothing fancy, and yet it was good.

I had taken a piece of salmon out of the freezer in the morning. The only other perishable items in the fridge were a lemon, a small celeriac, a small zucchini and some milk.

I peeled and cubed the celeriac, covered it with milk, added a bay leaf, and simmered it until tender. Then I pureed it. The idea came from Joshua McFadden in his newest book Six Seasons of Pasta, where he uses the celeriac puree as a component of other dishes. Most of the pasta dishes in this book are not resonating deeply with me, but I find the simplicity of this celeriac puree perfect on its own. It has become a highlight of the winter vegetable season. I imagined that celeriac puree would be delicious as a bed for salmon.

The fennel stems were minced with garlic and some jarred Calabrian chiles and mashed into some butter. I squeezed some lemon juice, salt and pepper over the salmon, topped it with the fennel stem butter, and roasted it.

I originally intended to slice and pan sear the zucchini, but on a whim I picked up Samin Nosrat’s new book, Good Things. I saw that she had several recipes for charred zucchini, including one where she uses pickled red onions, Calabrian chiles, and mint. I closed the book and made my own version of that, using pickled red onions that were already in my fridge, and dill fronds rather than mint. I dressed the salad with the remaining lemon juice and a splash of red wine vinegar.

My pickled onions felt like a hybrid sort of thing to me. They started out as sumac onions, a middle-eastern condiment/salad, a quick “pickle” really, made from red onions, sumac, olive oil and lemon juice. Sumac onions are usually eaten fresh. I made these last fall, when I was testing a new cookbook, and although the recipe used traditional ingredients, it varied somewhat from previous versions of this bright salad I had made. I didn’t like these onions young, as a fresh salad. Luckily I didn’t give up on them but squirreled them away in the back of the fridge and forgot about them. Recently rediscovered, they are now delicate, complex, tart, sweet, and utterly wonderful. Combined with the zucchini, chiles, and fennel fronds, they made a wonderful salad that added brightness to the plate and perfectly offset the richness of the salmon.

This is not an atypical thrown-together meal. It is the kind of meal I tend to call “not cooking” although of course I did cook. Mostly these meals come together and they suit me, my tastes. They don’t always end up this delicious though. Cooking is like that. No matter how good you are, there are day when somethng is off, and it may not be the cook. There are days things don’t work at all, days that are only meh, and days that are wonderful. The wonderful outnumber the meh, but I should not take them for granted.

I also cannot usually reference the source of my ideas, but here I thought it was useful. I love cookbooks, collect them to some extent, but I am not, by nature, a follower of recipes. Recipes, or rules, are not my strong suit, although I do think you need to understand them, understand their purpose, before fudging the lines.

I wanted to record this dinner because it made me happy. I wanted to record this dinner because it cleared out the fog that had been shorting my mental synapses. It is not important in and of itself, but it is a reminder of the power to let go of those imposed ideas of obligation and just go with the flow, to be myself. What I cook, what I eat, is such a reflection of who I am in any given moment.

Why can’t my writing be the same?

So far, and I do realize we are only, what, six weeks into the new year, 2026 has been shaped by an interesting contrast between periods of swirling activities, offset by pools of dead calm.

You would think that I could keep up, but apparently I cannot.

I went to Lincoln to visit my friend Liana. Well, I wanted to see an opera in Omaha and I am lucky to have a friend who lives in Lincoln, and who also loves opera.

But first we saw a play. Nebraska Wesleyan was putting on a production of The Gas Heart, an avant-garde play by Romanian-born, French poet, Tristan Tzara, from the early part of the 20th century. Tzara was one of the founders of the DaDaist movement.

I personally found it very interesting that I happened upon this play at a time when I am rereading Gertrude Stein. They are very different, and yet, just as this period saw a rejection of the received wisdom of the past, I can wonder about renewed interest in and relevance of these works today.

I really liked the set (above). This was a great piece for drama students to stretch their skills, and there were some excellent and promising young actors here. I didn’t think the students quite got “DaDa” itself. They were almost too happy, too naive. I felt like they were playing whereas my sense is that the young avant-garde of the time were deadly serious. DaDa was a reaction to the irrationality of WWI, a rejection of brutality, but also of the status quo in politics, science, and art that had lead to war. Dada was anti-rational, anti-genius, probably even anti-art. It was a rejection of all that had come before, a rejection of the ideals of the enlightenment that had led to this moment in time. It is a play of deeply imbedded sardonicism. I did not see that here.

Quite frankly, I am happy that these young people have not experienced that kind of upheaval and despair, the dissolution of the world in a sense that led to this artistic moment. But DaDa has become a part of who we are today, whether we acknowledge it or not. And many feel like we may be in another period of breaking norms. I can understand the interest in reviving these works. We don’t yet know where we are going, or what will develop. I am glad I saw the play, and the young people putting it on. It was thought provoking. What will prove to be the equivalent of DaDa today? Will there be a similar breaking with the past? Will we even recognize it when it occurs? Has it started already? Does the breaking itself require a kind of upheaval? I feel we are still looking to the past, and glossing over the present. I hope I am wrong.

But on to other things.

After absurdity and an exploration of the anti-cultural fringe of art (and I think DaDa is still on the fringe even thought its effects have permeated modern life) we moved on to a celebration of art in the mainstream.

The Lied Gala was taking place the weekend I was visiting and I joined Liana’s group. She had told me that the green Vionnet dress would be perfect, and she was correct, even though I initially had doubts about cotton voile in January in Nebraska. But indoor events tend to be warm, and ladies evening clothing tends to be bare. It worked, and I felt quite festive. I enjoyed the evening and met a (hopefully) new friend, Becky, although I doubt we will see each other much because I rarely go to Nebraska.

And then, finally, the opera.

Carlisle Floyd’s opera Susannah provided the impetus for this trip. I wanted to see the opera, again, as I had seen it once before in a disappointing production. At that time I felt the opera was interesting and showed great promise. I wanted to see it again, much the same way I sometimes want a cookie to erase a bad taste in my mouth.

My wish was fulfilled as this was a fabulous production. I loved the stark, abstractly modern simplicity of the set when we walked into the theater. I loved the way that the scene changed with the use of projections onto the stage, from the starkness of a church to the beauty of the Appalachian hills.

The singing and acting were also excellent. It is a powerful opera, exploring the innocence of youth, the dangers of groupthink and the ways fear leads people to do terrible things. It is also a great story with beautiful, familiarly American, and effective music. The story is a powerful melodrama about an innocent young woman who is victimized by a narrow minded Evangelical community in rural Tennessee. I admit that I like contemporary, modern, and 20th century opera. I also admit that not all of those operas have the potential for popular appeal, but this one does, at least in my mind. It has everything I see and hear in Puccini except that it is uniquely American.

I know that Floyd wrote this when he was still in his 20s, during the height of the McCarthy era persecutions. In many ways its subject may have been challenging in the 1950s. In some ways it may still be so today as we seem to be experiencing another period of narrow-minded fear-mongering polerization. This opera does what opera is supposed to do, tell a story, carry us away, fill us with compelling emotion, while at the same time reminding us of our strengths, our foibles and who we really are. I really wish this opera would be performed more.

It has been a week and a half since I returned, and I am just now getting my thoughts in order. There have been more than a couple of fabulous concerts at home as well, all of which I enjoyed thoroughly. I was late to the concertmaster series, and only heard part of the first half, but was luckily present for a lovely performance of Schumann’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2. Then, just when my feeling about the KSO’s pops series was at a low, I attended the “Simply Swingin’: Great American Crooner’s” show featuring Steve Lippia. He was fabulous, even making me cry at one point, and I was happy again. The musical abundance concluded with the Gesualdo Six at The Episcopal Church of the Ascension, performing a beautiful, introspective and calmingly luscious assortment of songs — the high point of my first week back.

Of course there will be more, there will always be something new. I started this post thinking of events competing for my attention, thinking of the things I must miss, and I am reminded of all the marvels that I enjoy in my life. Not a bad way to start the morning.

Remember that Vionnet Dress I started in October? My expectation was never that the dress would be completed at the end of a week. It was not. The entire week was spent sewing narrow hems, what felt like miles and miles of narrow edges. It was not difficult sewing but it was meticulous sewing, the kind of work that takes much patience and attention to detail.

When I returned home all that remained was to sew the dress together, four straight seams, and the shoulders. But this is a summer dress and fall was ramping up, so I didn’t really start sewing again until after the turn of the New Year.

Because the seam lines are all on the bias, I opted to sew them by hand. I used a fell stitch, joining the pieces with the wrong sides together. Actually, I went back and forth about this. Emily had noted that she had seamed her dress placing wrong sides together, but there was evidence that Vionnet had done the opposite, and I pondered this for a bit. Wrong sides together and the underside of the hem would be outward-facing on the floating triangles but the neckline hems would be turned down against the skin. Right sides together and the hem finish would be hidden on the floating panels but visible at the neckline. Or so I thought. This proved to be incorrect, but more about that later. I lost a day tootling about the inter-webs, looking at Vionnet dresses. and finally opting for wrong sides together.

Note to self: If I make this dress again, and I intend to make a silk version, I will assemble it differently, with the right sides together.

For my first fitting I simply basted the shoulders together, and adjusted slightly so that the neckline was low, but supposedly manageable. I knew there was to be a twist at the shoulders, but I thought, once again incorrectly, that this would require only minor adjustments to the fit.

The illustrations in the Japanese Vionnet Book (this is pattern #3) show the shoulder twist quite well, but even so it took me a while to figure out what would work with my fabric and my body. But even so, given my dyslexic difficulty with right/left/and mirror images, I had trouble translating what I saw in the book to the actual fabric in my hand. But I got it eventually.

I basted the shoulders together and tried on the dress. This proved to be a learning experience.

The. deep neckline, which I had originally felt was manageable, was now unwearable, although I might well have worn it in my 20s. The twist pulled the upper part of the neckline outward, creating a much more visibly plunging neckline. There were multiple factors at play here, not the least of which was due the fact that I was working with cotton voile and not a delicate silk. There is a big difference between a plunging but very narrow neckline, and a wide open plunge.

Now the problem became how to fix it. Simply pinning the neckline together at the center, which would require either a fold and a tack, or moving the center seam didn’t work. The resulting drape of the dress looked matronly, not at all the look I had been aiming for.

I went back to Emily Magli’s photos of the dress, shown in this blog post (as well as on Emily’s blog). I noted that Emily seemed to have positioned the twist more toward the back of the dress, which allowed the front neckline to lie flat. But a back twist looked terrible on me. Another round of research ensued, and I found multiple versions of the dress, with the twist placed in different ways, all of which altered the way the dress hung on the body although the construction varied only slightly.

I had permission to play, but I struggled to come up with something that worked for me.

Eventually I grew frustrated and tied knots at the shoulders, mostly just to see if I could create a neckline I liked. Surprisingly I really liked the knots. I liked the way the neckline lay flat, and felt it was also flattering. I thought that although the knots were more casual, they suited the cotton voile. This was always a “summer garden party” type of cocktail dress in my mind and the knots fit that slightly more casual vibe. Also the twisted seam looked bulky compared to the wispiness of the dress, whereas the knots made the bulk look intentional. I was sold. So I simply sewed the knots in place.

Voila! I finally had the dress I imagined.

I love this dress. I am also thrilled that I finished it in January, giving me a good start to the year. I’ve finished two projects this month, and I adore both of them, even though only the sweater is seasonal and getting much wear now. Eventually the weather warm. Eventually, I will have photos of me wearing the dress, but not today.

I am still thinking about making another version in silk. Unusual as it is, I think there is room for more. This is not a dress to be worn everyday, but a dress for occasions. It is lovely and very forgiving.

That second Vionnet-inspired dress will not appear immediately. There are many other things I wish to make. But I am eager to sew, both generally, and specifically with silk. Yes, it is true, I dream of miles and miles of tiny seams.

I’ve been in a salad state of mind. Odd for January that, actually, odd for me generally. Although I love vegetables, salad is not usually my default unless I have some very very good, fresh from the garden produce, and even then I tend to prefer cooked vegetables.

Part of my renewed interest in salads is because one of my cookbook club selections for this month is the new book, Sabzi, by Yasmin Khan. I like Khan’s previous books, Ripe Figs, Zaitoun and The Saffron Tales, and so was surprised that my reaction to this book has been decidedly meh.

There are a good dozen recipes or so I would consider cooking, and I cooked six of them, but even so my reaction to this book remains undecided.

Why don’t we move right to the recipes?

I made this fennel, avocado and pistachio salad early in the month, when I still had a nice fennel bulb in the fridge following holiday cooking. It was a lovely salad, with an appealing combination of textures and flavors. I was especially entranced by the way the fennel and the fresh tarragon played together, yielding a complex brightness, as well as the way the softness of the avocado both accented and softened the crisp anise of the fennel. . It reminded me that I need to put more tarragon in salads, something I did regularly when I lived in the Hudson Valley and grew tarragon. It seems I am going to be planting some tarragon in the garden.

This was the least successful recipe, one of those rare instances where, for me at least, the final dish was less compelling than any of the individual components were individually. The combination of roasted broccoli, radishes, and dates was delicious. I would happily serve this combination on its own as a side. This is remarkable in a way just because, although I love roasted radishes, I don’t often like them combined with other roasted vegetables. The curried tahini sauce was fabulous with broccoli and dates, but I did not like it with the radishes, or the lentils. I would have preferred a basic tahina sauce, or no tahina at all, I’ll likely throw dates Into future batches of roasted broccoli, and explore the options with radishes, but otherwise would not make this salad again.

Orange, radish and olive salad. Lovely, fresh, bright. I make a lot of variations on orange salads. Although this was very good, I can easily think of a dozen combinations I prefer.

On the other hand, labneh with persimmons and harissa was a standout and something I would never have thought of on my own. The combination of persimmons with lemon and harissa creates the perfect balance of sweet/tart/spice. With the creamy labneh and fresh mint, every bite seemed to be a satisfying symphony of tastes. I could eat this as suggested, as a part of a mezze, but I could also have a bowl of this for breakfast, a light meal, or even dessert. Persimmons are often hard to find here, but I am determined to put more effort into finding them next year.

Roasted Brussels sprouts with almonds, pomegranate and coriander. Basic roasted Brussels sprouts. I love the addition of pomegranate, but I’ve done that before.

Dalaar, a fresh herb salt, made here with coriander, basil, mint and parsley in lieu of the native herbs which are not available in this country. This was good on many dishes. I think the proportion of her salt to herbs was a little high, but I can adjust that.

Having reflected on what I have cooked from this book, I’ve come to the conclusion that is not the book for me. For the most part the recipes are simple, but so are the flavors. I found very little that was new or compelling. Perhaps the problem is just that I am jaded, that I have a lot of Eastern Mediterranean/Middle Eastern cookbooks, and I found no new insights. Aside from the persimmons, there is little here I cannot just whip up on my own, no cookbook needed. This is true of the persimmons as well, except that by the time persimmon season rolls around again, I will have forgotten.

But I am also wondering if my reaction is more about my own general sense that the “veg forward” trend has been done to death. Don’t get me wrong. I love vegetables and cook a great deal of them. And I have a good sized vegetable-focused, vegetarian, and even vegan cookbook collection. I’m just not seeing anything that I find particularly creative or new or fills a niche that hasn’t already been covered. Although I know the author spent a lot of time on this book, the production quality feels rushed, as if the publisher was desperate to capitalize on a trend. I think the book suffers for that, although I do not think this is in any way the author’s fault.

I’m still thinking about those persimmons though. I can’t imagine I would ever forget those persimmons.

January has been a month that has been simultaneously both incredibly slow and impossibly busy. One might hope that there would be balance, but instead the pace has vacillated between careening wildly down a steep hill and a dead stop.

You would think I would have much to report. I do not.

I made jars of marinated feta for my book club. I used citrus peels, bay leaves, red chiles, and pink peppercorns for the aromatics. The technique was from Samin Nosrat but everything else was a riff. I’ve already eaten my jar and made myself some more.

I twisted my knee, and have since been battling an ongoing sinus headache. For a while I thought I was coming down with something but that something simply proved to be badly impacted sinuses, my ongoing sore throat due to annoyingly slow sinus drainage. Bah humbug.

The 2025, “let’s grow out the hair” project finally came to a conclusion. I am really happy with the results. I don’t have the patience to dry my hair as nicely as they do at the salon. But that’s okay. I am content with my own sometimes frizzy version of the bob. Well, I guess you don’t see the hair as it blends into the darkness of my closet, but it is amazing how hairstyle and standing straight affect my ability to feel like myself.

I’ve missed a couple of fabulous concerts and events I was looking forward to attending due to the above mentioned clumsiness and sinus theatrics, but I know there will be other concerts, other events, etc. I did make it to the Q series concert on Wednesday however, and was thrilled by the contrast of the music, from two pretty contemporary pieces for wind quintet, and a Haydn quartet that was just beginning to bridge the transition from classical to modern quartet form. It was an emotional exploration from jagged disconnection to calmness. A concert to remember.

Mundane as it is, I’ve also been happily employed pursuing basic home related tasks, from cleaning out closets, to pantry cooking , to even taking time to restock the freezer with time saving little hacks that make life easier.

I never manage to get through a package of bacon, and buying a slice or two at Whole Foods makes no sense to me. The alternative? I buy a bulk pack at Cosco, 32 slices, and then roll each slice individually on strips of parchment into little ribbon-like rolls. My freezer box holds 30 rolled slices of bacon. Two slices for breakfast and I can freeze the rest, making it simple to pop a slice or two of bacon out whenever I want it. Easy peasy and no waste.

What is going to happen next week, the last week of the month? Who knows. Am I on the fringe of the big winter storm or in the midst of it? While everyone in town was stripping the stores clean of bread and milk, beer and soda, I bought mirin and cooked pork belly sous vide. There are three large jars of different aged kimchis in the refrigerator. It sounds like the perfect winter weekend for kimchi jjigae. I suppose we will each weather the weekend in our own way.

I’ve finished my first project in 2026. It probably should have been a 2025 project, but hey, better to do it right than fast. And really, I am not lacking for things to wear.

Introducing lavender clouds.

The sweater was inspired by a yarn I saw in my LYS, Mod yarns Loopy de Loop in a really pretty lavender color. I wanted to use it to make the Cumulus Blouse by Petite Knits, which several people in the knitting group were knitting at that time. Of course I started just as they were all finishing up, and I am far behind the trend.

The sweater is knit with two fine yarns held together and I knew I had other lace weight mohairs in my stash that might work so I took a chance and bought one 870 yard skein, which I felt was pushing it, but I was willing to take the chance.

I ending up using this Artyarns Silk Mohair yarn in color 501, Bonnard. And I absolutely loved knitting with this yarn, (less so the mod yarns), and the combined yarns made a beautiful fabric.

I made mistakes here and there, I wrote you earlier about how I lost my mind in the neck and shoulder shaping and had to rip the sweater back, when I was really about 2/3 done with it, a frustrating and also freeing process. The mohair boucle, Loopy de Loop, did not rip well, but it survived. I had already noticed that this yarn is far more likely to pill and shred than the art yarns, but I went ahead with the project.

I really like this pattern. I intentionally made the sweater with less ease than specified in the pattern and I am very happy with the results. I am very happy with the style of the sweater, and with the finishing — icord edging at neck, sleeves, and hem.

Although I love to knit complicated patterns, both cables and color work, the simple truth is that the sweaters I wear the most are the simple ones. This is at least partially due to the fact that I now live in an area with pretty mild winters. I like to knit fun complicated things, but I also like to wear things I knit. This was probably as fun a knit as I could ask for in a plain sweater. I loved the beginning and the shaping around the shoulders, but admit that the bottom of the sweater, just endless stockinette was a bit boring. Still, I would absolutely make this sweater again in a different yarn because this is the kind of sweater I love to wear most days.