culinary trials and tribulations

Yeah, that popover recipe. Small problem. The GF bread and flour mix is nowhere to be found in the stores 'round here. Irritating. I tried just the GF bread mix, and while the popovers do rise more than they do with the baking and pancake mix (are you all keeping these straight?), they're still not right. I'm not driving all over creation just for bread and flour mix, so will have to wait until the local stores start stocking it.

The newly minted Mrs. Martin (aka gwenniepenny) directed me to a blog called A Year of Crockpotting. I really like this blog for several reasons: the recipes are gluten-free, the author is honest about recipes that work and ones that don't (so you know which to avoid making or how to adjust them so they'll work - ie, learn from her mistakes), and there are funny bits sprinkled throughout. I made the fried rice earlier today, and it was super yummy. My only adjustments to the recipe would be halve the black pepper, add a dash more soy sauce and worcestershire sauce, cook the egg separately and add it in, and double the rice and veggies if you're making it for a family meal as the original amounts are only enough for one or as a side dish. Otherwise, this recipe will now be in regular rotation in my crockpot.

I've been making chicken and vegetables in the crockpot for my weekday meals, so I think I will try either the rotisserie-style chicken or the maple dijon chicken or the brown sugar chicken for this week.

I may also get crazy and try the granola recipe. And Mrs. Martin, there's a yogurt recipe too!

we now end our intermission

Today is my sister's and brother-in-law's 2-year anniversary. Happy day to them!

Yes, I'm still around, thanks for asking. Now that the degree is done and the thesis is approved, bound, and sitting on a shelf in the university library, the girl needed a major break from responsibility and deadlines and anything else she bloody well didn't feel like doing. Well, at least outside of the day job, that is. Hence, the lack of bloggery.

Said break involved a lot of knitting (project pictures will be posted in the next week or two), reading (Dorothy Wordsworth's journals, Franklin Habit's little book, and I'm about to start Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is perfectly appropriate seeing as I usually read P&P in the spring every year anyway), sushi meals with my sister (Sushi King's explosion roll is my new favorite), a long overdue manicure, and several instances of stumbling upon fun movies (The Hudsucker Proxy, which I'd not seen in awhile and watched while Em did my manicure, and On Approval, the black-and-white version; and I've just found out there's an updated version with Jeremy Brett and Penelope Keith, so I need to look out for that). I've gotten a hell of a lot of spring cleaning done too. I've got a load of stuff to put up on freecycle as a result of it - Karen-the-acupuncturist did her bit with the needles again.

The dust has now more or less settled since the company I work for had a recent spell of musical offices. We now occupy the entire floor, and we can now walk the entire perimeter of the floor without setting foot into the bathroom/elevator hallway. While I'm in a smaller space, which is missing a wall (hopefully only a temporary issue), it does have a window. We'll see how my SAD does this winter.

One thing I like about having a window office again is being able to observe what goes on outside. For instance, a large part of my view is of a parking lot, which is mostly empty. However, a police car appears in late morning, parks in the same spot, and disappears in the early afternoon. Is the police person waiting to pounce on parking lot speeders, or perhaps having a little nap, or maybe working on his or her novel?

Joe-the-office-roomie, who, in a probable fit of insanity, agreed to keep sharing an office with me, is rather fond of the glass pyramids on the roof of the mall opposite our office building. They remind me of I.M. Pei's glass pyramids outside the Louvre. No idea if one was the inspiration for the other.

We also have quite a view of the rainstorms rolling in and out during the day, this being April after all. It reminds me of my first visit to Australia. One afternoon, my mom took me to a Chinese restaurant that was on the 12th floor of an office building. She and Steve were regulars there, so the owner took charge of our care and feeding. We watched the storms traveling across the city while we ate and talked. Sadly, the restaurant isn't there anymore.

I managed to get out for an afternoon stroll between rainstorms today. All the greens are juicy looking thanks to the weather. The gardeners planted bright red tulips this year all around the space between the office buildings in this complex. The tulips look fab, as do the pinky-purplely flowers whose name I don't know, and the cherry blossoms were extra pretty earlier this month. However, the latter didn't last long as we had several windy days that caused petal showers all over the sidewalk.

I know my break needs to end soon because I'm ready to start a new writing project, I'm ready to send my novel/thesis out into the world, I'm ready for cello lessons, and I'm looking forward to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival next weekend - Jane and Gwen are going with!

stories come out in the knitting

I'm still waiting for the bound copies of my novel/thesis from the book binding company. I have to get two copies to the university by May 22nd, so still plenty of time.

While waiting, I've been gorging on yarn projects and reading and exercise.

I have four projects on the needles, plus Angel's babette blanket, which is crocheted, so not on needles (I find I crochet blankets and knit everything else). The thing with the babette blanket is that it's all different-sized squares, and when you seam them all together, they make one giant rectangle, so it's a bit of a thinker to arrange squares to not only get some variety in sizes next to each other but to also make sure that the whole thing comes out in the overall rectangle shape. A good workout for the brain.

The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is at the beginning of next month. I thought it might be nice to actually go there with something I've knitted, but rather than a sweater or a vest or something like that, I thought I'd make a cabled messenger bag, which will also serve to hold the yarn that I will inevitably buy. So that is one of the projects on the needles.

While knitting, I've been listening to podcast episodes of Sticks and String, which is put together by "an Australian bloke who knits." He's an astrophysicist who teaches at a Catholic boys' school. Fun stuff. And I may attempt an Alice Starmore "jumper" at some point after seeing the one he did. However, I've got enough on the needles at the moment, so the fair isle on steroids can wait.

As far as books go, I've been getting installments of The Age of Innocence from DailyLit via e-mail. I enjoyed reading Edith Wharton in high school and college, so it's nice to revisit her books. I just got a copy of The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl, and I may read Drood by Dan Simmons right after that. These two books are about Dickens' last uncompleted work. I finished The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry, which I enjoyed, as well as The Adventures of Sally by P.G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse often wrote about women as the exasperating troublemakers in his stories, but in this one, roles are refreshingly reversed, and it's Sally who comes to the rescue time and again.

I have a story simmering in my head, and I've been working out details while knitting. It's a variation on a screenplay that I wrote for my screenwriting grad class. It didn't quite work as a screenplay, and I should have stuck by my original instinct and done it as a novel. So my next novel will be what I should have done with the story in the first place. And it's a children's story, so a bit of a change from the grown-up story I wrote for my novel/thesis. Does anyone have any opinions on writing for children? I've read a lot of essays and articles that say you should not write down to children and you should use words they're familiar with. I'm going to try and keep those two things in mind with this next story.

Exercise has been a lot of cardio and weight lifting, and now that the weather is slowly getting nicer, walking. Although I've heard vicious rumors that there may be snow flurries tomorrow. Someone remind the people in charge that it IS April and we're just supposed to be dealing with rain right now to green things up. Appreciate it.