It's a thin line between love and hate

My life for the past week, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

No, it isn't. It's actually a broad gloppy painty line.

For instance:
I HATE painting trim, and I especially do not enjoy it in rainy humid weather. I have bad knees, and terrible eyesight, and ok most of the time I have a steady hand, but jeezely crap - I had to pick dark grey paint to go against that pale-yellow wall? EVERY mishap shows.

But I am done, and now? I LOVE the dark grey against the yellow. I carried the grey through into the powder room off the kitchen, which has like eggplant walls, and the grey looks great with THAT. It's the same grey I used for the trim in the basement, which is a pretty toothpaste blue, and that grey looks terrific there too. It is the L'Oreal Succulent Rose lipstick of trim colors - looks good on everyone.

Some other things to love and/or hate:



I LOVE where I am sitting right now. Since we made a new playroom/guest room in the basement...



(which is to LOVE), we were able to turn the old playroom/guest room into an office, with a desk for the computer, and a table for kids to do art and homework...



... and lots and lots of bookshelves. All that new shelf space meant that I could finally unpack the 27 boxes of books and comics that were stored in the basement and in the guest room closet (which is now freed up (for - whaaat?! - clothes? CRAZAY.) and consolidate the piles of books that were living all over the house...



... notably on the radiator cover in the living room. Not having piles of crap on this thing significantly enhances my calm when I walk in that room.

I LOVE the random doodads I found while unpacking those books, most of which have been in boxes since we left Brooklyn in 2002.



21-cent stamps (when was postage 21 cents?), photo stickers of me and Bob with no children, 1000 lire, and 260 rupees. Of course, when Bob went through his boxes, he found currency from Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe (the most devalued currency EVER IN THE WORLD. Way to go, Zim!). But then he's been to a lot cooler places than I have.

Of course, emptying all those boxes means that we have A FEW cardboard boxes to get rid of...



... and for some reason Baltimore's every-two-week recycling schedule has skipped a week, so I have to live with this garbage dump on my porch for another week. HATE. Thank god we have a covered porch, else all this shit would be brown paste, in all this rain. Have I mentioned the rain? Kind of hating the rain, too.

But I LOVE the way this turned out:



We replaced a window in the basement during the renovation, and I kind of liked the old, munged-up frame. Plus it's the first window Mao ever broke.

The FIRST WEEK we lived in this house, Mao was NOT YET TWO, and Bob catches him in the driveway throwing gravel at the house. I love that! So when the contractors took the old window out, I got the kids and Bob to peep in at me through the window hole, and I printed up the photo life-sized. Made a shadow box out of the old frame - didn't clean it up too much, and I kept the glass, consolidating the broken pieces with special glass glue. So now I have a permanent record of how they looked when we did this giant project. Sort of like handprints in the cement, you know?

I LOVE that I stopped at Wockenfuss this morning and got some for myself, rather than depending on my men to buy me chocolate for Mother's Day.



As Teri Garr says in Tootsie, "I know I'm responsible for my own orgasm."

I LOVE the new blinds in the dining room.



Boy did they not want to go up. That trim is as old as the house and has never been painted, which is beautiful, but damn is it brittle. We have these cordless honeycomb blinds all over the house, and I really like their clean lines and the diffuse light they let in - hey I can be minimal sometimes, not everything in my house is chartreuse-and-turquoise batik!

On the other hand, I am looking for big fantastic batik fabric for curtains for the sliding door, so if you see any...

I LOVE the unobtrusive light-cutting shade in the kitchen:



But I have to say I HATE the moire pattern it makes with the window screen.

We rented one of those giant storage boxes you can keep in the driveway for the duration of the renovation, and this weekend, My Hero Husband got it all the way emptied out. Significant milestone. But when the truck came to pick it up:



Let's get another picture of that, shall we?



Those ruts are TWO FEET DEEP. Plus there's broken concrete all through there. We're going to be on a home tour the first week of June. WHAT am I going to do? HATE big trucks and mud.

And speaking of rain, rainy springs really seem to bring out the ants.



Hello, ant. I am going to kill you now.



Fantastik? Is some kind of ant neurotoxin - they're dead before they even feel the dart. And when you wipe up the dead ants? You're cleaning the counter!

STAY HUNGRY - Chili

You're going to have to bear with me. I have this tremendously earthshaking idea, and I have to rough it out visibly, because, unlike most of my great ideas, which affect only my family and sometimes co-workers and, much less frequently, my friends, who know me too well - to whom I really only have to vaguely explain an idea or, in more cases, just start ordering people around in order for those ideas to take monstrous, swaggering shape - this idea is being presented to People I Don't Know. And much as I like to think that me waving my hands around, gasping out sentence fragments, singing, and smiling encouragingly is a good presentation technique, in my heart of hearts I know I need a PowerPoint.

The Idea is a radio show that combines food and rock and roll. We like food, we like music. Blame my friend Sam, who out of the blue one morning told me that I should have a radio show with our friend Todd. I told him he was crazy - I still listen to Tom Tom Club - but maybe he's not.

Here's a combination of talking and music that might make a radio show about chili. There would also be a blog, with all the recipes online. Maybe with pictures. Me stirring shit up. Todd with food in his beard. It could be done.






So?


Chili.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Me and My Friends

It's chili season, no doubt. Chili works in winter because it's warm, you don't need hardly any fresh ingredients, AND you can make it ahead and carry it to the party. There are vegetarian versions that are perfectly fine, you can make it in a crockpot if necessary - which is kind of key at my house right now, as we are minus a kitchen, and, as I found out last week when I tried to make chili AFTER having packed up the spice cabinet, you can flavor it with almost anything.

Chili is important. No, just take my word for it. Chili is important. So instead of dealing out a whole hand of different recipes, we're going to walk through the steps involved in making chili, and trust that you can come up with your own variations. No, I'm lying. Nobody's going to trust anybody. We're going to have a batch of recipes up online.

M.I.A. - Galang

For meat chili, start the day before if you can, especially if you're using bones. Bones. Cheap cheap meat, braised for fucking ever, is the best start to chili. Pork neckbones are good, or if you're not ready for the bones, cubed stew beef is fine too. But that gelatin from between the joints is good stuff. It melts right into your stew and makes everything really soft and tender. Work up to the bones. You'll be ok.

So you start with onions in the big pot, sweated in oil. Make Todd dice the onions, he could use a good cry. You can be roasting the meat pieces in the oven at the same time, or just stick em in the pot to brown after the onions start to get translucent. Start adding chili powder now. The earlier the chili powder hits the meat, the more the whole thing is going to taste like chili. Some garlic, sweet or hot peppers or celery if you use it.

IMA Robot - The Hot Song

The next step, before you deglaze... Deglaze means you put liquid in to like boil up the crap on the bottom of the pan, it's kind of like cleaning as you go along... anyway, before you do that, sprinkle cornmeal into the bottom of the pot. Stir that around and let it brown a little. That way, when the liquid comes in, you have automatic thickening. It's always a pain to thicken chili later.

So what liquid do you use? Yes, I know, you want me to say beer. No, listen, if you haven't cracked a beer by now, my god, for pity's sake open a beer. It's definitely fun to deglaze your chili pot with beer. You just pour beer right in the pot, and it foams up and all, and you're like, hee hee I just poured beer in that pot! The plumber who installed a toilet in my kitchen this week said he steeps oregano in beer, then uses that beer, and that is some innovative shit, I think. You can't use much oregano in chili, it'll taste like pizza. But just a little, like this, that's a good idea.

But I deglaze chili with white vinegar. Maybe half a cup. Maybe more. The vinegar tenderizes the meat like a bitch, and you get this like mad-scientist roll of steam that you have to dodge out of the way of when it first boils or else if you inhale it, you go blind and lose all your hair, but after that, most of the sharp taste goes away. You taste the vinegar in the end result as just a little tartness.

Drink - The Jazz Butcher

Once the vinegar, or beer, or water or whatever boils down, but before it boils all away, put in tomatos. Two cans of whole peeled tomatos, smushed up with your hands, just stick your hand in the can and poke your fingers through the tomatos and smush them up and try not to think that they resemble testicles. Or, like, do, if that's interesting to you. Here's a good point to add more chili powder, and other seasonings.

What seasonings can you use? Well, as I learned last week, you can make chili that tastes like chili with nothing but some Taco Hell hot sauce packets, coffee grounds, and sugar. I don't recommend it. The coffee grounds are for the color, in case you don't have the chili powder. I always put coffee grounds in my chili anyway, basically just to freak people out who are watching me cook, but I swear you can taste a little bitter depth from them in the end.

Tilly and the Wall - Pot Kettle Black

I use basic chili powder - they make chili powder from specialized chilis now, like ancho chili powder, chipotle chili powder, but I find those too strong, in a way. You use that chipotle chili powder, your chili is going to taste like nothing but smoked chilis. So, chili powder, a bay leaf or two, cumin if you're a sensualist. Cumin smells like my husband's gym bag, but in, like, a good way. So use cumin if that's your thing. Add in some hot stuff now if you want - cayenne pepper, hot sauce, red pepper flakes. Some sweet - molasses, brown sugar maybe, even maple syrup - and some bitter - if you didn't use vinegar before, put in a quarter cup now.

This is your pot of chili, and you're going to let it cook really low for a long time. You have to stir it every once in a while, but if it scorches a little on the bottom, that is ok. Just scrape the scorched part up and into the stew.

Memphis Soul Stew - King Curtis & The Kingpins

IF you're using meat on the bone, come back and poke at the meat from time to time. When the bones are coming apart, turn off the heat and let it cool. You'll have to fish out the bones, and don't be grossed out, this is one of the perks of being the cook. You fish out the bones, and suck the rest of the meat scraps off 'em, and chuck the bones in the trash. Yes, it's exactly like being a zombie, if that was your question.

Heat 'er back up, and if you're using beans, put them in about 45 minutes before the end. Also corn. I cannot stress enough - if there is one secret to chili popularity, regardless of all this mess about cornmeal and vinegar and bones, it's the corn. Put one can of WHITE corn in at the same time as the beans. NOT YELLOW CORN. Yellow corn in chili looks like poo.

Basic meat chili recipe:
1 to 2 lbs meat (stew beef, pork or lamb neckbones, etc. NOT GROUND BEEF.)
2 medium onions, diced
2 T oil
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup white vinegar OR half a beer OR 1/2 cup water
2 T cornmeal
4 T chili powder
2 28oz cans whole peeled tomatos, OR fresh tomatos chopped coarsely
2 T brown sugar or molasses
something spicy
OPTIONAL: 2 cans beans (dark or light kidneys, black beans, pinto beans), drained
NOT OPTIONAL: 1 can white or shoepeg corn

In a large heavy pot over medium-high heat, saute the onions in the oil. If using bones, lay them in a baking dish and roast at 375 for 30 minutes.

When onions are becoming translucent, add the meat to the pot, sprinkling with half the chili powder. Brown on all sides. Add garlic. Do not allow garlic to brown.

Sprinkle cornmeal into pot, stir, scraping, until cornmeal is fragrant. Immediately dump in liquid and stir, scraping browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add more liquid if necessary.

Add remaining ingredients except the beans and corn, breaking up the tomatos with your hands. Set to low heat, and allow to simmer, partially covered and checking frequently, for up to 4 hours, or until desired consistency is reached.

45 minutes before serving, add beans (if desired) and corn.


Vag chili recipe:
2 medium onions, diced
2 T oil
6 cloves garlic, chopped
t cumin
basil
pinch cayenne
4 small zucchinis, diced
1 red pepper, diced
jalapeno or two, chopped
1 cup celery, diced
3 T chili powder
2 T cornmeal
half a beer OR 1/2 cup water
1 or 2 28oz cans whole peeled tomatos
1 T brown sugar or molasses
1/4 cup vinegar
hot stuff
2 cans beans (dark or light kidneys, black beans, pinto beans), drained
1 can white or shoepeg corn
cilantro for garnish

In a large heavy pot over medium-high heat, saute the onions in the oil.

When onions are becoming translucent, add garlic, cumin, basil and cayenne. Do not allow garlic to brown. Then add zucchini, peppers, and celery and saute until zucchini is tender and celery is bright green.

Sprinkle cornmeal into pot, stir, scraping, until cornmeal is fragrant. Immediately dump in liquid and stir, scraping browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add more liquid if necessary.

Add remaining ingredients except the beans and corn, breaking up the tomatos with your hands. Set to low heat, and allow to simmer, partially covered and checking frequently, for about 2 hours, or until desired consistency is reached. Adjust consistency with water or beer and cornmeal.

45 minutes before serving, add beans (if desired) and corn.


Cornbread:
1 c yellow cornmeal
1 c unbleached flour
3/4 t salt
1 t baking powder
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 c milk
1 egg
2 T olive oil
OPTIONAL: 1 jalapeno, minced OR half a red pepper, chopped fine

Preheat oven to 425.
Mix dry ingredients together.
Mix wet ingredients together.
Mix together.
Bake about 15 minutes.
My note in my handwritten cookbook says "Make sure you have ALL ingredients before you start."

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine

also makes a fetching cape, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

All right, I lied before about giving up on replacing the vinyl tablecloth that we've been using as a tree skirt.

I decided to make one.

I didn't come to this decision easily, mind you. I had to do much soul-searching (well, Internet searching) and I had to discover that such an item could be made using glue and felt and not with any sewing.

Also, I had an Idea. Jesus, next time I have one of those somebody just tip my head back and fill me full of bourbon until I forget my own name. Oh, I should warn - there WILL be uncontrollable cursing as I document this process.

The Idea was to decorate the tree skirt with the kids' hand prints. The Idea is that every year we'll get the kids to make handprints with craft paint and felt and we'll glue them to the tree skirt, so that we'll eventually end up with kind of a graphic representation of their growth. Didn't you always love putting your hand in the tiny plaster handprint you made in kindergarten?

So, I traveled to JoAnn Fabric. I bought 2 yards of grey polyester felt ($8 per yard) and 1 yard apiece of beautiful wool felt ($15/yard) in red, green, and ivory (so that each year we can do the handprints on a contrasting color of felt). I bought glue and craft paint and a pair of pinking shears.

I picked out a satiny twisted trim in crimson red. I stood there and thought to myself, "How much trim do I need? If the tree skirt is a 60" diameter circle... what is it? πr²? No, that's way too much. 2πr? Yeah!" I double-check when I get to the lady at the cutting desk. "What's the formula for the circumference of a circle? Is it 2πr?" The lady says, "I just multiply the radius by 4 and add a little when I have to do that," and I think to myself, "Jesus, no wonder there are so many accidents on the highway."

So at the cash register it is not lost on me that the semi-cool tree skirt I saw at Crate & Barrel was $80, and I am paying $90 for supplies to make my own. It was the pinking shears that did it.

I begin. I fold the grey felt in quarters, then 8ths to make a wedge shape. I trim it so as to have the largest possible circle. I cut out a smaller circle for the tree to go in the middle, and a cut from the edge to the middle.



I set up the kitchen for handprints. Newspaper on the kitchen table, paint mixed on a plastic plate. Ivory and a little gold, for a swirly effect. I lay out that expensive red felt. I think to myself, "Try not to kill anyone if the paint spills or if they smear the paint or... whatever, just TRY not to murder anyone." We make handprints without incident. Oddly, Mr. Four and Big Man have virtually the same size hands, even though they are almost 2 years apart.



I decided on ivory paint on red felt because red paint on ivory felt would look like a bloody hand, but now that I'm looking at this, all I can think of is the Uruk-Hai. Oh well.

I start gluing down the trim. Rather than mark out a border that is consistently 2" from the edge, I use my thumb. This works pretty well.



Until I run out of trim.

I am devastated. I was so proud of myself for remembering high school geometry, and I fucked it up anyway. I didn't make a circle of 60" in diameter, I made one with a 72" diameter. DUMB. DUMB! I am shy about a yard of trim.

So. I go back to JoAnn Fabric to get some more. I go to the JoAnn that has all my life been on the highway near my mother's house. It closed last year. I go to the JoAnn that is near where we live. They have the twisted satin trim in every color but crimson. I go to the JoAnn that is comparatively far from where we live. They, too, are out of red twisted satin trim.

One Friday afternoon, I load Mr. Four in the van and pick up Big Man and our friend Nature Girl from school. "We're going on a road trip, guys!" I chirp, and then proceed to drive ONE HOUR north to get to the JoAnn Fabrics that is in fact hell and fucking GONE from where we live. Luckily, they had the red trim. I had to restrain myself from buying the whole spool, just to fuck over some other desperate overachieving underestimating Christmas crafter. But the spirit of the season was upon me, so, loaded down with $2 worth of stupid trim, I bought the kids gummy bears and we headed back to the ranch.

May I say? JoAnn Fabric is, in general, an ok place to buy craft and sewing supplies. There are cheap remnants of fun fabrics to buy as dress-ups for the kids, there are bolts of crazy tulle and strings of sequins to look at with your kids. Granted, it takes a little patience for a four-year-old to hang in there while you're waiting in line to get your fabric measured and cut, or to not destroy the world while mommy ponders which of 14 shades of green embroidery floss would best represent the oak tree foliage in the background of yet another cousin's baby blanket, but there is frankly no need for the gauntlet of candy that you have to run in order to get to the cash register. Really, they can keep it together that far, but once they see the candy, it suddenly occurs to them how OPPRESSED they have been throughout the store, and they suddenly realize that mommy's buying all stuff FOR HER and they are getting NOTHING, and they suddenly must have a solid-sugar pacifier or else they WILL DIE.



Back home, I finish gluing on the trim. This time, I cleverly put a vinyl table cover between the felt and the table - previously, I had not realized that felt is porous enough for the glue to go right through, and I had glued the tree skirt to the tablecloth slightly.

I have enough trim left for a border around the inside hole too, which looks good. I cut out the handprints and glued them to the tree skirt too. This is the point at which I glued my hair into the project. Goddamn hair.



Almost done! Except for the JoAnn Fabric fiasco, this project didn't take long AT ALL. If I'd been at it all at once, a couple hours max.

I dug out some cotton embroidery floss and a needle to embroider each of our initials on our handprints.

Hm.



That green floss sure looks great against the red felt. Maybe I should embroider a border around each of the hands. AWWW, NAW! DON'T DO IT! The killer is hiding under the stairs - don't go down there!

Too late. I blew it. I have spent the past week and a half embroidering borders. I decided to do four different stitches, because, if you're going to fuck yourself, you might as well do it hard. Wait. That's - errrr.

Anyway. I pulled out my embroidery stitch book and found a couple good stitches, one of which apparently can only be done in a straight line.


Closed feather stitch in the book.


Closed feather stitch on the tree skirt.

You know what I'm going to say in the future about this part? I'm going to say that Big Man did it. Seriously. I'm going to say, "He was only six! Didn't he do a great job? For six?" Yes, that's right. I'm going to lie. If I say it often enough he will believe it himself.



The stitch I really liked, though - a nice sprigged stitch my Grandma used between the blocks of the wool lap blankets she stitched together out of the leftovers from making clothes for my mom and my aunt - wasn't in the book. I examined it closely and duplicated it. That was a nice little moment. Grandma's stitches were so even - she was obviously a machine when it came to these things. I have three of those lap blankets, and each one must have eighty feet of embroidery on it.



Tonight, I finished the motherfucker. Looks nice. My fingers hurt. FTW.

Arachno-philia

So the Big Man wanted to be a spider for Halloween. Perfectly reasonable costume choice, especially compared to previous years.

In fact, it was almost a work-free costume. My sister in law had made a spider costume for her daughter a couple of years ago - a black turtleneck with extra sleeves sewn on. I borrowed it and could have been home and clear. I was all stretching out, thinking about eating bonbons and all, especially after Mr Four decided he would use his same Scientist costume from last year and be the Mad Entomologist who created the monstrous spider and who was now studying him. Wow. Thanks, little boy - cute idea AAANND easy!

Unfortunately, the poetry picture books are in my collection at work, and one day while weeding I came across the version of Mary Howitt's The Spider and the Fly illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi.


Now, THAT spider is a classy spider. In fact, DiTerlizzi got a Caldecott Honor for him.

I immediately had a vision of the costume I would whip up for the boy. Find a little suit at a thrift store, rip down the side seams and insert extra arms cannibalized from little black sport coats, stuff the sleeves, run a seam across each stuffed arm to make an elbow, and attach all the sleeves together with ribbon.

I'd punch fake eyes through the brim of a hat or something, and I'd find him some fancy little gloves.

Oh yeah.

Thing is, I don't sew. I don't own a sewing machine. And, as far as I know, you can't actually make something purely out of vision.

Did not stop me. I collected all the supplies, went to JoAnn Fabric and found fake eyes, found a fleece headband at Target, scoured the thrift stores til I found a suave little suit. Couldn't find black sport coats, oh well, navy blue is close.

But I really was going to throw in the towel until, oh, Tuesday of this week. I had the other costume, and really, not knowing how to sew was an obstacle. And then all of a sudden on Tuesday, I borrowed my neighbor's really nice sewing machine, found a pair of scissors, and just - did it.

I remembered some Home Ec stuff from the truly dim past - like how to cut the thread and how to bring the footer down, what you call the little spool in the bottom (a bobbin!), and the fact that there might be a hidden compartment in the machine where maybe just maybe I would find a seam ripper. There was! It was totally like Adventure!

Spider suit, rear view, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

I kind of effed up the elbow seams - you can see that at least one is totally at the wrong angle - and I didn't have any stuffing for the arms so I used plastic grocery bags, and if I had to do it again I might re-think the rather yonic design on the back... but all in all, it came out a lot like my vision. And the boy loved it. He looked great. He danced like Shiva, he invented martial arts moves, he scurried along the ground. He insisted we add antennae with blue pompoms.

And it was all Tony DiTerlizzi's fault.

Special

I embroidered this baby blanket for my cousin's forthcoming baby girl last Friday. It was a BIG change from my usual embroidery projects, which have taken anywhere from a week to, let's see, six years (and counting) to complete.

I'm a bit proud of this, I think it came out well. I did the whole thing more or less freehand, plus I tried a new stitch - the bullion knot - and I used almost all my favorite colors. It's the whole reason I do embroidery actually - the floss comes in such amazing colors.

Other accomplishments this weekend:

• I read To Kill a Mockingbird, almost in time for the Big Read event Sunday night. Oh well, the food was amazing and I sat with great people who had read even less of the book than me and who let me eat their frog legs (I saved the beautiful little bones, they look like tiny Q-tips!).
  
• I skipped dinner Saturday night, went from work straight to the neighborhood wine tasting, and ended up in my kitchen making my friends try all the disgusting things in my refrigerator. Hee hee!
  
• My fridge is on Fridgewatcher.com.
  
• I made the Indians lose with my optimistic thinking.

More candy for me!

Halloween is the best. Best holiday. Best color scheme, best iconography, best outfits, and best shopping - with candy, one size fits all!

I just lifted a new paperback off the shelf written by a guy who REALLY gets it. Titled Extreme Pumpkins, it's all about the best ways to gut a pumpkin, how to get 3-foot flames to spurt out the top of a pumpkin, and how to make a bathtub full of blood.

But I wouldn't have blogged about it if it hadn't made me laugh out loud three times. Three times. That's my threshold. If you're once, twice, three times funny, you're gonna get blogged.

1. Cannibal pumpkin. A big jack o'lantern with a teeny screaming jack o'lantern wedged in its mouth. Yeah man.

2. Puking pumpkin. An ill-looking jack o'lantern with pumpkin guts welling up and out of its mouth (and nostril, nice touch!).

3. Punk rock pumpkin. Painted flat black and then carved, this jack o'lantern gets staples for eyebrow rings and a piece of hose clamp for a lip ring.

Additional over-the-top Halloween projects are documented in full on the man's website. Go forth. Scare the neighbors.

Double self-portrait (Thinking about The Arnolfini Marriage)

arnolfini

I am not a "maker of objects," as they say.

Man, I had a professor at NYU who got so excited when one of my fellow students described himself as such that I thought the chopsticks would vibrate right out of her tight little bun. What a stupid term. You're an artist, you're a carpenter, you're whatever, but god knows you can be more specific than "maker of objects." Pffft.

Anyway, I'm no artist. But I sort of always wanted to give something a title like MMPI (Self Portrait in Yellow). Artists. Lord love 'em but they can be pretentious.

So I was making banana chocolate chip pancakes this morning and staring idly into this pot lid, and I found myself thinking of the convex mirror in Jan van Eyck's The Arnolfini Marriage...

Any ideas?

knitting

I learned to knit. Well, I "learned" to "knit".

The above abomination of wool is what happened when I combined a beautiful ball of yarn with some random instructions off the Internet.

Oh My God you say. Put It Away you say. Hey but come on! I finished it, didn't I? I tried different combinations of the knitting and the purling; I bonded with my friends and relatives and neighbors; I even got a little better at counting there toward the end.

It's also a little timeline of interactions: I could show you the point at which Gretchen showed me I was holding the string too tightly; where Kate helped me to not do it backwards; you can see where my mom taught me how to purl; and a couple inches from the end Heidi showed me how to cast off!

So you see, it took half a dozen people and oh, at least 4 months for me to knit something that is too wide and short to be a scarf, and uh, too wide and short and irregular to be actually anything.

You know who it fits? Mr. Three. If Mr. Three were the shawl type, this thing would be the perfect shawl for him.

Banana chocolate chip pancakes

2 cups of Bisquick
2 eggs
1 banana
1/2 cup applesauce
enough milk to make a medium-thick batter (about 3/4 cup)
3 chocolate chips per small pancake

Mix it all together. Nonstick griddle over medium heat. I drop the chocolate chips on after I put the batter on the skillet.

Banana and chocolate always taste great together. I put in the banana and applesauce so that I can get some extra fiber and vitamins into the boys. The chocolate chips mean that they eat a ton, and because of the chocolate, I can avoid [scream of terror] maple syrup. Small children and syrup should NEVER be in the same room, in my opinion.

And while they're eating, they tell me what the pancakes look like: "This one looks like a grasshopper's face!" "This one looks like space!" "This one looks like you, Mommy!" Mm-hmm. Very rewarding.

Bob's rum of love

Bob's rum of love
Originally uploaded by pwilnyc.

Cut up a whole pineapple and jam it into a big jar.

Split a vanilla bean and put it in too.

Also a piece of brown Mexican sugar (piloncillo) to the tune of about 2 Tablespoons.

Pour in as much rum (Wray and Nephew overproof is optimal, Myers dark is second choice, a mix is also good) as will fit.

Stick in the freezer for a couple weeks, or leave it at room temperature for half a day.

Strain through cheesecloth into a pitcher, garnish with lime.

Drink in moderation. Seriously. This stuff is so smooth that it will Mess You Up.

UPDATE: This picture has been getting a lot of conversation on Flickr.

• Q: "Doesn't the glass break?" A: No, the mixture doesn't freeze so there's no expansion.
• Q: "Is the pineapple edible?" A: Bob says the pineapple is wonderful when you start with a nice ripe fruit - he served it at the Church Council of Greater Seattle and apparently they were enraptured by the pineapple. When we did it the other day the pineapple was a little mushy, but Bob says it wasn't much of a pineapple to begin with.

In addition, Bob would like to disclose the fact that this recipe is adapted from one in the Coyote Cafe cookbook. He had one of the fanciest meals of his life there, in Santa Fe, accompanied by this drink, which they called a Brazilian Daiquiri.

I'm reading (listening to) Heat, the book by Bill Buford about his time in the kitchen at Mario Batali's Babbo. Maybe people shouldn't write about restaurants. As in Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain's funnier book about Les Halles, the kitchen staff come off as immature, griping, coked-up children who have somehow gotten ahold of sharp knives.

I loved Bill Buford as editor of Granta, but this book is half a biography of Batali, who kind of doesn't merit biographizing, and half an account of Buford's tutelage in food preparation. There's nothing really new here. And I tell you, it doesn't help that the guy who's reading it sounds like he should be narrating a documentary about Renaissance art. Every time he has to read a cussword it's like it's in verbal quotes.