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Restingmotion

Linen Layers

I surprise myself sometimes, but that is neither here nor there.

When I was knitting the Elisabetta Shawl earlier in the summer, I noticed that it coordinated perfectly with a favorite summer linen dress. The shawl works well with quite a few things in my wardrobe actually, but it does in fact coordinate perfectly with that dress. And that coincidence, as neither the yarn nor the dress were procured with thought of the other in mind, prompted some mental plotting.

As I was finishing up Elisabetta, I was looking at the new Noro Knitting Magazine, #22, Spring/Summer 2023. There were several projects I could see myself knitting and wearing, including the cardigan shown above, "Nantucket" by Deborah Newton which is knit in Noro's Asaginu, a fine linen/paper yarn.

Much as I am intrigued by Asaginu, and I did buy some for another project, I decided that I wanted to knit this cardigan to wear as a topper over a particular green linen dress.

Asaginu comes in many beautiful colors, but none of them worked with the dress I had in mind. Instead I chose this fingering-weight linen from Quince & Co. called Sparrow. The color is #215 Banyon. Asaginu is classified as a DK weight yarn whereas Sparrow is fingering, although Asaginu is slightly lighter in weight due to its construction and materials. I knew my sweater would be different, airier perhaps, perhaps heavier, but I thought I would like it nonetheless.

The knitting is fairly straightforward with a simple 4-row lace pattern and stockinette, although I admit that it took me most of the sweater to keep the alternating rows of the lace pattern straight. I blame this on dyslexia and a lifetimes struggle with right and left. I had to concentrate to remember if I was on the K2tog, yo, K2tog, yo, K1, SSK row or the yo, SSK, yo, SSK, K2tog, yo, K1 row. For some reason the SSK-dominant rows were easier for my mind to grasp than was the alternative. Anyway I eventually got it. I did have to knit the left front twice as I inadvertently knit two right fronts. That too is a mental thing. I can intellectually comprehend the idea of knitting the left like the front, reversing the shaping, but in order to actually do it, I have to specifically write the instructions out before progressing.

Even as I knit the left front twice, I still made a mistake on that second knitting, one I did not pick up until I wore the sweater, even though it was right in front of my eyes the entire time. I have no problem with deconstructing, ripping and reknitting projects, and have done it many times, but not this time. It has been an emotional year, an even more emotional summer in some ways, as I transition from being a person who struggled with life-changing health issues, to being a self that is on a slightly different path than the one I was on before. I left that little bump of mis-knitting as a reminder that life is never perfect, that there are always bumps along the way, and that perfection is itself an illusion an illusion that often holds us back.

I got the exact dimensions of the small/medium, which was my intention, although my gauge was slightly different. Although I am not small, the smaller sized was plenty oversized for me. The shapes are simple: basic rectangles with a little bit of neck shaping, The pattern does call for back neck shaping, which I like as it makes the cardigan lay more nicely, but I did alter the neck and shoulder shaping ever so slightly to accommodate my particular shape. And yes, the fronts are exactly the same size, only the shoulder shaping differs, and that only slightly.

The sweater is wider than it is long, (27 x 22)and I think it looks somehow more appealing on the blocking board than it does assembled and flat. This is not a garment I would necessarily find appealing sitting on a shelf in a store although I do think it is very flattering on the body. Although the impetus for knitting this cardigan was narrowly focused, it will, in fact, work with many things in my wardrobe.

The finished cardigan is the perfect little summer topper. Linen works for Tennessee humidity. It is loose, light and airy, almost weightless even. I used slightly less than 4 50-gram skeins of linen, or 194 grams to be exact. I even found the perfect buttons in my stash.

Summer is almost over, but warm weather should hang around for a while. I can see myself wearing this with not only white but many neutral colors, and the sheerness will play nicely with contrast. A happy knit.

April 24, 2024
Airiness

I knit a shawl, a light airy beautiful shawl.

The pattern is a simple grid, almost mindless, at times pushing on tedious. Perhaps it was still a little too soon after my blanket marathons to begin a simple rectangular shawl, but the results are wonderful.

Pattern: Elisabetta Damask Shawl by Cecelia Campochiaro

Yarn: A Verb For Keeping Warm Shimmering Tussah Lace in color Dewdrop

I knit this on size 6 needles, which was the recommended needle size. I didn't check my gauge, though I am a loose knitter and my shawl was slightly larger than the pattern specified. I didn't worry about it, and I like the final result, which is really all that matters.

Next up, something with a bit of a lace panel, a sweater, also on size 6 needles, so it should be a fairly quick knit.

April 24, 2024
Summer Blues: A Color Not a State of Mind

Hello Blog!

In the interim I was plagued with a bad summer cold. Then I took a driving trip to Texas. No photos or thoughts on that but I have been journaling regularly again, so I remain convinced that blogging will fall into place in its own time.

In the meantime, I have finished objects! Two finished objects!

First:

I finally sewed up a sweater I finished in March. The pattern is called Anise by Katherine Mehls. It was published in Noro knitting magazine #20. It is just happenstance that I knit this sweater in the exact same color way as is shown in the pattern. I had originally purchased the yarn, Noro Uchiwa in color Tokyo for another project but did not like the way the yarn was working in that project. Luckily the store had another skein, giving me enough yarn to make this sweater, which I love.

My progress was not a shining example of thoughtful, intelligent knitting however. The pattern is written as an oversized tee, and although I like the look, it wanted something a little more close-fitting. So I decided to make a smaller size and did the math to make the sweater work with my own gauge. Then I started knitting, and started second-guessing myself. I thought perhaps I had made a mistake and the sweater would be too small. This probably had nothing to do with my math, or even my initial decision-making process but with some body issue or another I was going through at the time. So I decided to make the sweater bigger and added extra rows to the sweater as I was knitting the right front. The sweater is knit from side to side.

Unfortunately, after I had done the center shaping and was working on the left front, I 'forgot' that I had added extra rows (even though I had written this down) and continued according to my initial calculations. I knitted the back as originally calculated. Only after I finished the knitting did I actually notice that the right front was a good 1 1/2 inches bigger than rest of the sweater. Not a good look. But there was no way I was going to rip back almost half the sweater and reknit. Here the fact that this sweater was knit side-to-side had an advantage. I could simply cut the sweater, unravel the excess fabric and invisibly join the sweater back together and no one would be the wiser. I threw the sweater in the bottom of my knitting bag and contemplated this for a week or two before actually undertaking the process. It all came out fine, and the joining was actually fun, but I like Kitchener stitch.

Then I blocked the sweater. Since it was cool and the yarn is mostly cotton, it took a while to dry. Big Ears Weekend and Easter Week came and went and I was still tired. The sweater languished, once again relegated to the bottom of the knitting bag. I finally sewed it up while I was in Texas. I like the finished result. I like the fabric created by the yarn, I like the weight, which is light and drapes for aran-weight. The only thing I would have done differently is perhaps start and finish the pieces differently, so that rather than seaming the side seams at the cast-on and bind-off edges, I finished with either a (visible) three-needle bind off or kitchenered the pieces together (invisible join), only seaming at the shoulders and the brief underarm/cap sleeve. Note for future if I ever make this again, although a second iteration would be for the more boxy version.

I wore it this week while the weather was bit cooler (70s). As a more fitted cotton sweater in an aran-weight yarn, this is not a summer sweater for the bulk of the Tennessee (or Texas) summers. Perhaps it would be more versatile as a boxy layering piece, but I suspect it would then suffer from being too heavy to layer. The resulting top can be worn as a more fitted vest or as a solo layer under a jacket, and I believe it will see a lot of wear.

Second, socks:

I was given the yarn, Laines du Nord Watercolor Sock, in color 137, for Christmas. Initially I thought the color was a bit staid, and the beginnings of the first sock felt almost boring. But things picked up as I progressed through the skein. In the end I really like the socks, I like the light fingering yarn and the resulting fabric. These were knit on size 1 needles, using 60 stitches and they fit well.

For the sock knitting nerds among us, I used a boomerang heel on these rather than the fish lips kiss heel I used in my last pair of socks. I think I like both techniques equally, although the fish lips kiss would be more appropriate if I were using a contrasting color for the heel.

I also modified the toe shaping from the standard technique, doing one-sided shaping that fits my foot better and creates distinctly right and left-footed socks. I am trying this because I have had occasional issues with neuropathy in my big toe since chemotherapy and I find that socks pulling across that toe can be particularly painful. Rather than opting for looser socks, which then bunch up if I wear boots, I thought I would try a more fitted approach. We will see how it works out.

April 24, 2024
A Knitting Update (from 2022)

A Knitting Update

I promised finished objects. Finally.

First something simple:

The headband was started on a whim. I was attending a brioche workshop. My single-color brioche swatch was progressing well, and when the instructor mentioned this pattern — Headband with a Twist — I just ripped out my swatch and cast on the recommended number of stitches with no thought to gauge or anything else. It is a pretty simple project, and I am happy with the results, although I do think I could have done this a bit differently.

My headband is a bit wider than I might prefer. This headband was knit in Rowan's felted tweed in color Boulder, one of the partial skeins left over from the temperature blanket project. Although I love felted tweed, and I love this headband, I think I would like a headband in a more tightly spun yarn even better. If I do knit another headband in Felted Tweed, and I might, I also think I would use a smaller needle, and possibly cast on fewer stitches, making it slightly less wide. I do however love the headband I knit and I will wear it when the weather inevitably cools again.

Luckily this is a fast, fun, mindless knit and I can see myself making a few of them. I wonder if they would be potential gifts.

There is one error, shown here, which I noticed a few rows after I had made it. There is a bar across a column of knit stitches, where I forgot to wrap. It would be more obvious in a less fuzzy yarn. I intentionally decided not to tink back and fix it, decided that one error was itself an important statement, a reminder of the imperfection of life, and it is on the inside of the headband anyway. I can't say that I made no other errors, but I did fix them all. This is another reason I like this pattern, it is just enough to use as a practice piece, to master brioche until it becomes like second nature, and short enough that I don't become bored with the process.

Second project — a baby blanket (my last blanket for a while)

This is knit in Blue Sky Sweater Worsted yarn in three colors. It is a gift for my baby brother's first great-grandchild, Sloane. Here it is spread out to block, with blocking wires running in every direction to make sure the lines and angles are true:

It is a thicker, more substantial baby blanket, what with a worsted weight yarn and the garter stitch, but I like it anyway and hope it will be received well. It has a great feel and nice drape, despite its weight and I think it will be sturdy. One thing I do note is that the yarn created a substantial amount of lint when washed prior to blocking, and upon looking it up on Ravelry I see that others have noted the same thing. Today I will de-lint, remove the wires and wrap this up for delivery later this month when I will be in Texas.

April 24, 2024
Temperature Blanket 2022

The Temperature blanket is finally complete! Although I did not finish it in February as I had originally hoped, I did finish before the end of March and that counts as a success in my book. This means that it took me slightly over a year, almost 13 months, to knit the blanket, which is is pretty much on schedule, or would have been had I knit one garter ridge a day — also the original plan. Of course waiting for a yarn order also slowed things down, and by the time the yarn arrived I was wrapped up in another project….

I love the results. Admittedly I would have liked a little more color variation in the middle of the blanket, just as I would have liked a little more temperature variation in those middle five months. Generally however, the blanket turned out well, and the excitement of seeing what the next color would be was both motivating and a bit of a lesson in combining colors as I found myself entrance by color combinations that would not have occurred to me otherwise.

I purchased 21 colors of Rowan's Felted Tweed for this blanket and I used 20 of them. Surprisingly the color I did not use was the warmest color, Rage, which was to indicate days where the high reached 96 degrees Fahrenheit, or greater. We usually do get a couple of days a year that are that warm, but the highest temperature in 2022 was 95. Now, we had 5 straight months where the average high was over 80, a bit of a long stretch for us, and 90 days where the temperature was over 85, which puts us right at the top edge of the normal range for this area in terms of heat index. The extended prolonged heat was actually harder on my garden than the cold snap in December. So I have to say the blanket was nicely balanced between being relatively mindless while also being fun and educational.

I was inspired to knit this by the temperature blanket post at Modern Daily Knitting, and I started roughly, as they suggested with Kaffe Fassett's Garter Stitch Striped Shawl. Basically that means I used the needle size he recommended and knit the shawl in garter stitch. I knew that my gauge would be looser than the gauge recommended in the pattern because I have knit this yarn before and have knit patterns by Rowan and this designer. My gauge was 18 stitches and 34 rows to 4 inches (as opposed to the Kaffe Fassett pattern which got 24 stitches and 44 rows to 4 inches. I liked the fabric created at my gauge, and I love the weight and drape of the blanket. It does not feel too loosely knitted, in fact it feels quite ideal for my use and my preferences.

The finished blanket is 60 inches wide by 96 inches long. According to my records I used 23 1/2 skeins, or 4509 yards. I had originally estimated, from my gauge swatch, that the blanket would take 19 or 20 skeins, and I estimated that the border would take 3 1/2 to 4 skeins and both ended up right on point. Overall I am happy.

via restingmotion.typepad.com

April 24, 2024
Another Catch-Up Post

Still April.

And another blog post. I should celebrate successes as they materialize. I am working on a book post, but it is coming slowly. This is primarily because I am still struggling with being over-tired, with doing too much, and learning to accept that normal, even at the still-tender age of almost 66 is not what normal was even a few years ago.

That said, even though I feel overwhelmed, and like I have been frittering my time away, this is not exactly true.

There has been sewing, mostly simple.

Two cross covers, one in lenten purple, one in holy week red, for my church. These were additions to the set of each made last year, to accommodate a new processional cross.

And one simple garment for me, this a chiffon cardigan to wear to an event. The dress was already in my closet. The cardigan is red silk chiffon and is a fairly simple garment to make. I did use a pattern for this, Marfy 3303 which is one of the "free" patterns included with the purchase of the Marfy 2014/2015 annual catalog. The pattern picture is shown below:

There are two pattern pieces, two front pieces and two back pieces which are seamed at the center. You would think they are rectangles, but they are not, part of the genius of the pattern. Tucks are made at each shoulder, and there is a side seam, but it is in the interior of the cardigan, allowing the edges to float and flutter freely, as if the cardigan were simply a shawl. The clever cutting and seaming allows this to fit and flow on the body nicely, and also to stay in place when one is dancing. Always an advantage in my book.

I also made six baptismal towels, four in March, for Easter Sunday.

And two more two weeks later. Each towel is made by hand from ecclesiastical weight linen, with hand embroidery and hand hemmed. The entire process takes me somewhere between 8 to 13 hours, the variation depending mostly on the baby's name. the shortest of these took me 8 1/2 hours, and the longest slightly over 12, or somewhat over 70 hours total for the six towels, but less than 80 hours. I love doing this, and I am sure I could find a faster way, but at the moment this is still a labor of love.

There has been some knitting progress, but nothing has been completed. I am still working on the ribbon cardigan. As much as I love both knitting and ironing, I find that this project tests my patience. I may like to iron but ironing yards upon yards of rayon ribbon flat is tedious at best. I have just finished ironing the third 100-yard skein of ribbon. I need to wind it on a spindle, after which I can knit another section of the sweater. The knitting itself is also slow, fun, but slow. There have been evenings in the past month where one row of the twisted basketweave stitch is all I can accomplish of an evening. Of course, the body of this cardigan is being knit in one piece, so the rows are not short. Sometimes self-justification is all that keeps us going. I know that I will love this cardigan. I love the fabric that I am creating. But it will be a long time before I take on another ribbon sweater. I will be happy if I have finished this by fall, which is, realistically, as soon as I would wear this sweater anyway.

Greater progress has been made with "Murder of Crows". I finished the body of the sweater and have picked up the first sleeve. This too will be a fall sweater, although there are still early mornings in the garden which would be cool enough to wear this sweater, were it finished. I really like the way this sweater is turning out and knitting it has reminded me that, as much as I love complicated texture and color work, patterns that require thought, it is also very good to have a simple mindless project on the needles. Pardon the dark photo — an unblocked sweater on a dark background, taken on a deeply cloudy day.

April 24, 2024
April! Already almost half gone….

Hello. Welcome to my monthly blog post and a brand new peony.

This is the first bloom of a new self-starting peony which appeared in my yard a couple of years ago, slowly growing every spring, disappearing in the heat of late summer, and slowly growing. I have a couple of peonies in places where I never intended them, but they seem so happy in their chosen abodes that I have been loathe to move them.

I think there is a lesson in that.

Just as I think there is a lesson in the way this spring has worked out for me, my general sense of overwhelm, my ongoing tiredness, and ongoing struggles in terms of decisions about who it is I want to be in this moment of my life. I know that sounds strange for a woman who is 65 going on 66, but it seems to me that life is not so much a smooth line but a series of chasms and summits, opportunities for growth or for stasis. I've always been a person who embraces change and yet who also struggles with that very change. The struggle part is not unusual. I, like most of the people I know, embrace comfort, embrace familiarity. And yet I think that change is equally a part of what it means to be human. I am changing. And as I change I become more the person I have always been.

I can't write about what that means yet. I'm too much in the middle of the process.

I can only leave you with another flower. The first of the irises. More will follow.

I too will return.

April 12, 2024
Hello Spring

I did say I would return in March although my intention had always been for early March. Missed that internal deadline, didn't I?

It is no matter, somehow things always play out the best way they can. Or at least that is the view I choose to take on the matter. It is lent after all, and it always seems to me that lent ends up being a period of upheaval and resolution. Sometimes metaphysical, sometimes physical, sometimes, surely, all in my head.

Lent is, in many ways much like spring. Spare and bare still, but with pops of color, pops of hope. Uncertainty abounds: cold nights, warm days, rain, sunshine, sudden frosts, and yet resurrection surrounds us.

And yet it is all a part of the plan, the normal cycle of things. It shouldn't surprise us, and yet it always does.

I was in Texas and Arizona. Lovely visits, both with family.

I returned to a series of unfortunate glitches: some kind of mild allergic reaction thingy on my face, a rheumatoid fare, an encounter with gluten that lead to a celiac flare, more struggles with atrial flutter. All basically minor. All annoying nonetheless.

Like the garden, we muddle through, marshal our resources, cliché-filled, marching ever onward. The camellia is sending out a few precious blooms. It wasn't the January snow that did it in, but the single digit temps so close to its normal bloom time did set it back. What blooms appear are late, a little war-torn, but valiant harbingers of hope.

The vegetable garden continues. A few hot days, have prompted the bok choy to bolt, but the flowers are also delicious. Cabbage, broccoli, bitter Italian greens continue onward. I will never keep up with them all. Broccoli is heading.

I planted fava beans and they were coming up nicely, little green leaves peaking above the soil. The same for peas. And like that, they were gone. Someone ate them all last night. The great legume massacre of 2024. Perhaps there is time to sow another crop. Perhaps best to let it be. Another sign. But there will just be room for other vegetables.

The first of my "late" daffodils are up. Actually a little early. But its the only one so far, although there are lots of buds. There is always someone who leaps out from the crowd.

Anyway, welcome spring. It is a good spring, a good start. Always too much too do. As always it doesn't all get done. And who says it should anyway?

March 13, 2024
Blog Break and Project Updates

This will be my last post for February, which has been a quiet month anyway, at least in terms of finishing things.

I don't need to finish objects, there are more than enough things in my life as it is. Nonetheless there are quite a few piles here and there, and various ideas floating about that may or may not be beginning to shape themselves into tangible form. The creative fog is itself refreshing, and not limited to any particular medium at this point. I am dreaming of gardens and food, embroidery, sewing, knitting, color, texture form. It will all sort itself out in its own time.

I have managed to finish one thing, a simple scarf sewn up from a navy/blue/black sweater knit. This piece had been languishing in a stack for a long while. I had a sweater made from this fabric when I still lived in Hyde Park, but it has long since been worn to threads. I don't remember my original intentions for the remaining piece, but lately I keep looking at it, thinking "That will make a nice scarf someday" and then putting it aside. Well someday arrived. I honestly don't know why I had been putting this off, perhaps thinking I might have a more interesting idea. But interesting is sometimes overrated. And a scarf in hand is always good.

On the knitting front I've gone from working on one project (Ausma) to having three projects on the needles.

One is a rayon ribbon cardigan, that I love but which is proving to be a slow project. I had started this once before but had trouble keeping the yarn from twisting. I felt like I was spending more time untwisting the yarn than I was knitting. I ripped and began again after pressing all the twisted ribbon I had already knitted back into smooth silky shape.

I figured out that a ball, even a carefully hand wound ball, didn't work for me. Somehow, while knitting, I would twist the yarn even more. I came up with the idea of winding the yarn on a spindle of sort, using an embroidery frame as the spindle. This is tedious and time consuming, and each skein must be wound on the spindle painstakingly. That means the interruptions between knitting each skein becomes tedious. More tedious in fact, because the skeins themselves are twisted and tangled. Each new skein has to be slowly unwound, ironed, and slowly wrapped onto the spindle.

I do not believe the tangling is the manufacturer's fault. This yarn has been packed and unpacked multiple times, and treated non-too-kindly I fear. I take full responsibility even as I mutter under my breath while standing (not) patiently at the ironing table. Although I love the actual knitting, and the pattern is both simple and entertaining, the pressing and winding is far less exciting. It will be some time before this sweater is done, and most of that time will not be knitting time.

The ribbon project is not portable, so I needed something I could tote around with me. Enter socks. I'm not far along yet, but far enough that the sock is stable enough for traveling about. The yarn is a self striping yarn from Urth Yarns called Uneek Sock and I am knitting them on size 1 needles. The skein pictured is enough for one sock.

Feeling in need of more mindless knitting time to balance both the annoyances of ribbon flattening, and the fog of creative dreaming, I also started another fairly straightforward project, an assigned-pooling sweater using BFL fingering yarn from Barker Wool. The pattern is from Barker Wool as well and is called A Murder of Crows. I've just started this as well, so I don't have much to report. I am having fun with it so far. I really need a loose comfy sweater to just throw on all the time around the house and studio and I am hoping this will be the one.

Anyway, I hope the remainder of February is kind, and I will see you in March.

February 17, 2024
Playing with my food

Somehow I think I didn't cook as much in January as December. Perhaps my memory is faulty; in retrospect I cooked a lot in early January and then I went through a lull.

Let's take a look back and see.

I think January started off pretty strongly. I had a large bag full of fennel fronds after making fennel gratins for Christmas. I also had a new cookbook, Tenderheart, by Hetty Liu McKinnon. I noticed that she made a pesto from fennel fronds, and she did it a little differently than my standard pesto recipe in that she used pepitas (pumpkin seeds) instead of pignoli (pine nuts). I had some pumpkin seeds languishing away and decided to use them up. At first I wasn't convinced, but the pesto improved with age. I still think I prefer pine nuts.

I also thought McKinnon's proportion of garlic to fennel frond was a little high, but that could have also been a factor of my garlic and my fennel. At first the pesto tasted strongly of garlic and made my eyes water. But I left it to rest a few hours, which allowed the allicin in the garlic to mellow, and the balance of flavors improved immensely. I've grown fond of the numerous variation on pesto that I've tried over hte year and tend to keep on hand now. Some, like this one, appeal to my frugal self — "look I'm not tossing the fennel greens" — but they offer wonderful flavor profiles and easy techniques for sprucing up a plate of vegetables or a simple piece of chicken or fish. I use them more than true basil pesto right now, but that could just be because my basil crop didn't do all that well last summer.

That first evening I used the fennel frond pesto with pasta and seared sea scallops. I may have added slightly too much parmesan, fearing the the pesto was still excessively garlicky, so the color suffered. Dinner was delicious anyway.

The next morning I dabbed fennel pesto on my scrambled eggs with some grated radishes and a scattering of pickled red onions. This was a revelation in flavors, everything harmonizing and playing off each other nicely. I've continued eating this combination since, it makes my mornings feel like spring even though we are in the depths of winter,

The big hit from Tenderheart was McKinnon's recipe for Garlicky Chili Oil. I've been slathering it on everything and am finishing up my second batch. Perhaps I've been a little excessive, but it is that good. She also has a recipe for Chili Crisp that sounds fabulous, but haven't made it yet, mostly because I am so besotted with all the components of this oil.

I also made McKinnon's version of celery soup. Here served with a drizzle of chili oil. I had recently grown bored of my previous celery soup recipe and this was a welcome change, even when using pale, anemic, winter celery from the grocery store. I think I still need to play with this recipe, or explore recipes a bit more. Celery soup is a good basic as celery itself is something I find I need only in small quantities, and then I am trying to use up the rest of a bunch before it goes bad, although celery does make a nice stir-fry, one I loved as a child. I wonder if my mother stir-fried celery as a way of just using it up before it went bad as well?

Still on a Tenderheart kick, I used McKinnon's recipe for hoisin sauce and a hoisin-glazed roasted cauliflower. Roasted cauliflower is something I do regularly in season, and I've been making my own hoisin for years, since I first learned I had celiac disease, when the only gluten-free hoisin I could find tasted nothing like the stuff I had been buying previously in my local Asian market. I still make hoisin, but felt my version was rather one-note and basic. I wanted to try a new recipe and I really liked the one I found in this book. This may well become my new base for hoisin, although I will probably tweak it a bit here and there.

During the big snow I was craving "brown food", slow-cooked, braised, warming dishes. I made myself a pot of chili and a big batch of chicken paprikas, which has been one of my favorite comfort foods since childhood. I also made Nigella Lawson's Oxtail Bourguinon, from Cook, Eat, Repeat. This made a large batch as I had 4 pounds of oxtail in the freezer. All that cooking meant that warm and comforting meals went into the freezer and I just finished off the supply this week. Perhaps that is why I have not been cooking as much recently. Anyway, that is the oxtail pictured above, with lots of carrots and mushrooms. It was very good, but not perhaps my favorite oxtail stew. I'm not 100% on that, as it has been a few years since I routinely made oxtail stew or soup. Something else that may need to change.

I also harvested an armful of bok choy before the snow, not being sure how it would weather the single digit temps. Luckily we had enough snow that it stayed under its snow blanket the entire time and survived just fine. I am still eating winter bok choy and broccoli raab. One of the new dishes I tried was a recipe for stir-fried bok chow with crispy tofu from Nik Sharma's new book, Veg-Table. This was supposed to be the January book from my cookbook club, and so far it is the only recipe have tried, although there are several that look tempting. They just haven't appealed to my winter-dining cravings for stews and long braised meats.

Anyway the bok choy was really simple, stir-fried with onion, garlic and a simple sauce made of soy sauce (wheat free tamari for me) and Chinese black vinegar. I loved the flavor the black vinegar added and it reminded me I do not use black vinegar enough, The tofu was cut in cubes, coated with bread crumbs and sesame seeds, and fried, yielding a crispy crust and a tender middle. The combined flavors were wonderful, with the textural differences of crisp and soft, and the bright savory flavor of the bok chow also enhancing the very mild tofu. The tofu would also be good with a dipping sauce, but I found it a little bland on its own. I think, once again, my seasonal tastes tend toward something more deeply savory; this might well be the kind of light meal I crave once the weather brightens.

February 13, 2024