Too bad the fireplace is sketchy ...

I keep chipping away at my reduce project, making some slow but steady progress. 

Today I decided that the file drawer needed to be dealt with.  This drawer has been a repository for everything, forever.  And today was the day for making a significant dent.

Before, during and after ...

  Look at that newly found space!

Out with the old and in with someone else's old!

In a case of synchronicity,  Spun Fibre Arts in Oakville, sent a note a couple of weeks ago about a yarn swap.  Fantastic!  I dove into the stash and came up with a number of items.  I dove a little deeper this morning, the day of the stash, and found a few more items to add to the pile.

The swap was fun.  A bunch of nice ladies who I think all left with yarns they will enjoy knitting.

I achieved my goal of coming home with less than I left with.  Most of the items above were taken by others in the swap which feels good.  And I left the small amount of remaining items for the Project Linus representative for blankets.  I would have used the yarns to knit for charity anyway and this should, hopefully, speed up the journey into the hands of others in the form of finished projects.  And I can concentrate on my charity hat knitting.  Win-win!

The new-to-me yarns to the right.  Two balls of my kryptonite, Noro or two different types, a ball of sock yarn and a couple of other pretty skeins.

Reduce

I have been listening to the podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin for quite a while. While not a new concept on the podcast, this year I was attracted to the concept of having a word for the year. The word represents an intention for how you want to spend your year.

Stepping back for a moment, I have always thought about new year's resolutions, made a few, but, like everyone else, lost sight of them shortly after jumping back into post holiday real life. When this Jan 1 rolled around, I did not have any fully formed thoughts to write down as resolutions. But, in listening to Happier, the concept of having a word of the year really jumped out at me. 

One thing frequently mentioned on Happier is the premise that "outer order leads to inner calm". I have lately been feeling overwhelmed by my stash of crafty things. I love them all but am surrounded.  I have been chipping away at the yarn for a while but not making much progress on the fabric. And there are all of those other fun things I have picked up at various places that I wanted to try but have never unwrapped.  So, I thought my word of the year (or maybe the next decade but we'll see how this year goes) is Reduce. 

Reduce the stash, reduce the number of items in my closet, reduce my weight a bit, reduce stress by working from home more often, just reduce. And it is working. Slowly, but working. I've started to make time for quilting once a week. I've been more targeted about finishing knitting projects, I have reduced my Ravelry queue and am not buying patterns randomly. I have found myself saying "reduce" to myself in other decisions I have made to date. And it is easier than having a list of 5 resolutions. It is one word, to be interpreted how I want to interpret it in the moment. And a pleasant side effect, reduce leads to reduced spending and a few more dollars in my jeans. Perfect. 

Just some of my stash to be reduced ...

North to Alaska

This summer, we went on a cruise to Alaska.  It was our first cruise.  And while I wouldn't rush back to take another cruise and will be very selective regarding location if we take a cruise again, it was the perfect way to see the sites on our way from Vancouver to Anchorage.  The fact that you can't get to Juneau by road is just part of the reason to travel here via cruise.

Alaska is stunningly beautiful.  The air is clear, the skies in late June only got as dark as the picture here, which I could really get used to.  Fortunately the curtains in our room were very good at blocking out the light so it didn't impact sleeping.  Since I can sleep most places, that might not have bothered me, but glad we didn't have to test it.

We had fantastic weather until the end when we were in Denali National Park and the mountain did not show its face for a second.  But that's how it goes with travel.

Our excursions off the boat included kayaking in the ocean near Ketchikan (fantastic), hiking in Juneau (also fantastic), and a jeep ride into the Yukon from Skagway (slightly less fantastic … two jeeps broke down, the off road part was not terribly exciting, but on the positive side, we saw two bears and got to go to the Yukon).  I purposefully picked excursions with a some physical activity involved.  Never being on a cruise, I wasn't sure how much activity this trip was going to provide but I was pretty sure that there would be a lot of food.  The activities were great, and with a couple of visits to the gym combined with walks around the deck, I kept active and felt a little less guilty for enjoying dessert after dinner!

The towns of Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway were nice to wander around and I had fantastic fish for lunch in Juneau and Skagway.  I had Halibut tacos in Juneau that I am still dreaming of.  The fish was so fresh and the tacos so creative and tasty, I would go back just to have them again!

Without much difficulty (thanks to the internet), I managed to find yarn stores in all of our ports.  In Juneau, I bought Alaska-themed fingering from Blue Moon Fibre Arts and some fabric with Alaskan motifs at the fabric store next door.

In Skagway, after much deliberation, I bought a skein of Qiviut fingering which was not inexpensive but the cowl that I've essentially finished is so soft that I almost can't wait for winter so that I can wear it … emphasis on the word almost.

The main benefit of going to Alaska on a cruise was the trip into Glacier Bay National Park and the College Fjords.  Breathtaking.  Our ship is one of the ones allowed to go right into both of these areas so the views were stunning.  It is so difficult to describe.  And to see these properly, you need to be on a boat.

So the trip north to Alaska was well worth the money.  I would love to go back and spend some time in one of the villages or at a camp in the bush.  I've added that to my very long places to go list.

Vancouver

A very delayed post on summer vacation which consisted of a few parts and which will hopefully get posted before our next vacation.  This year we went on an Alaska cruise.  More on that at a later time.  This post is about Vancouver.  Before and after the cruise, we spent a little bit of time in Vancouver.  Our approach to city sight seeing is to walk everywhere, which we did.  

On our first day there, before catching the ship, we spent most of the day in Stanley Park.  But on our way there, we stopped into a concourse shopping mall to pick up umbrellas and find somewhere for lunch.  And we found a fantastic place … the best Dim Sum I have ever had.  As a very in-the-moment kind of traveller, I have no idea what it was called or where it was.  This is the same for the fabulous Chinese dinner we had when we flew back into Vancouver at the end of the trip and the pub lunch by the cruise ship dock and Gastown that we had the next day.  Oh well.  Everyone needs to make their own memories, I guess but I'll try to do better in the future.

After lunch, it was on to Stanley Park, with the umbrellas we didn't need for the rest of the day and very satisfied tummies.  Stanley Park is beautiful.  There is no other way to say it.  And we only scratched the surface, walking about 6 km round trip through one section.  

After a stop back at the hotel to change we popped over to Gastown and looked around.  Very touristy but we found some great shops with Native Canadian art, spent some time talking to a man carving a totem pole and watched the clock steam away with all of the other tourists.  

On our return trip from Alaska, we spent most of our time walking again, this time in a steady downpour.  The purchase of the umbrellas was not a waste!

Our main focus this time was Granville Island.  I love it there.  Neat little shops to look around in, the food stands and the water.  I found a great quilt shop and another place with art supplies that I wish I could live close to for their classes.  I am pretty sure I could pick up some new hobbies there.  

We went on one of the cute little people ferry boats just because and ended up touring another part of Stanley Park as we made our eventual way back to our hotel.

My favourite thing about the area, aside from these guys painted on storage tanks … a bakery that I read about on the internet when researching, Beaucoup Bakery.  The peanut butter cookies are apparently the best things ever.  Not that I would have any idea.  I fully intended on the peanut butter cookie as we walked in but, on the counter, shouting my name, were chocolate rosemary cookies.  I love, love love chocolate and can say the same about rosemary, although perhaps with a little less passion.  Chocolate and rosemary together?  Rosemary used in a sweet preparation?  I had to try this mysterious combination.  And it was fantastic.  Super rich, almost like a brownie,  with a hint of rosemary and salt that just make the cookie sing.  

I vowed that I would get creative, suffer failures, but work to figure out how to make them when we got home.  And I did figure it out, but without any blood, sweat or tears.  The recipe is online!  And just as delicious made by me as I remember them being in the bakery.  Thanks to the owner for sharing the recipe with Food Network Canada.  And I should add that the bakery also makes good coffee and my husband quite enjoyed his chocolate croissant, but I'm glad I had that cookie.  

Motivation

I'm still feeling that motivation from the last post and the overwhelming desire to reduce the amount of materials in my crafty space.  That one is a bit harder due to a visit to the Knitters' Fair but if I keep the output larger than the input, I consider it a win.

As I was moving stuff around in an effort to at least reduce the number of bins full of yarn, I stumbled on this partially completed Farmer's Market bag from Weekend Knits that I started eons ago.  And by eons, I mean generously 3 years ago but more realistically 6.  I started it to make a dent in the random balls of Lopi I had picked up over the years, most leftovers from sweaters.  Given my recent attraction to fair isle patterns, little convincing was required to get going on this bag again.

The bag is slightly wider at the bottom than the top do to quite a large change in my tension since I started.  Life has been a bit more stressful so not a complete surprise.  But despite the bag's slightly bottom heavy figure, it turned out pretty well.  I don't think I'm going to bother lining it so probably won't use it as a market bag but it will come in handy for other purposes, I'm sure.

And to keep things interesting, I made a pair of Camp Out fingerless mitts from one of my Kitchener purchases.  I always forget how fantastic Malabrigo Rios is to work with.  Love it.  I'm tamping down the urge to go out and buy a sweater quantity by reminding myself of all of the other sweater quantities, not to mention unfinished sweaters, that are in the aforementioned bins.

Do It Again

Although it is still quite warm outside (but not even close to how painfully hot it was this summer), it feels like Autumn to me.  The sun is in a different place, the days are getting shorter, and I am getting the urge to knit all the time.  The urge to knit never really goes away, even in the heat, but Autumn hits and I want to finish Wips, start new projects and clear out stash, all at the same time.  And production generally keeps up with motivation.  It is a great time of year.

In trying to reduce stash bit-by-bit, I generally knit hats.  Three more done.  One bound for charity, I haven't decided on the blue one and a baby gift.  Photos of all taken, unoriginally, on the same deck chair.

In order, they are ...
 - the Spin Cycle Hat, knit with some Colinette I bought many years ago at the factory in Wales - this pattern hurt my hands and turned out very large (although it still fits me so it will fit someone out there with an equally big head and possibly more hair).

 - Sitka Spruce, a gift pattern at Christmas from Tin Can Knits.  This one hurt my hands too, a theme of some of the patterns I've been knitting the last little while.  The learning from this is to pick my patterns a little more carefully.

- the Swirl Hat, a gift for a friend who is due to have her baby any day now.  I made her a blanket, also green, so this will probably go in the box with it.  I always think a baby should have a hat.  Especially if Autumn actually arrives.

So on I go with my Autumn knitting.  I'm almost finished a bag that I can't remember starting and think I might actually add a few rows to one of my sweaters in progress.  Aaaah Autumn.

Candy Candy

I am hopelessly attracted to Noro Yarn.  Especially Silk Garden.  Every time I see it, I want to buy it, like candy.  I do resist occasionally but earlier this year, I went to drop off some hats for the 25,000 toques project at Main St. Yarns in Milton and saw an afghan, with each square made up of one ball of Silk Garden.  And I immediately planned make it.  I haven't crocheted in at least 20 years but a granny square is like riding a bike.  I loved the process and I love the finished project.  I had an excuse to buy Silk Garden at yarn stores I visited over the next few months which was also a fabulous treat.

The afghan is 24 granny squares, 1 ball per square (so not inexpensive but I've seen Silk Garden on sale quite often).  I joined them together with some leftover solid Silk Garden using a technique I picked up by googling.  And crochet is so quick.  I had forgotten that.  And for a while, I was able to indulge in purchasing candy without guilt.

Walk On

For a long time, I have resisted the lure of the wrist-worn fitness tracker.  I have wanted one but told myself that Map My Ride and the My Health app on my phone were enough.  But yesterday, I finally caved and bought a FitBit.  And am quite enamoured.  The arguments in my head that kept me from buying one in the first place still are sounding .... Will it make a difference in my activity level? In the short term, I can confidently say yes.  Beyond the short term, we'll see.  Will the wristband tell me anything more about my sleep that I don't already know?  I could tell without the wristband that last night's sleep was lousy but we'll see what happens on a regular night.  Do I really want another device to know where I am 24/7?  Not really but I still couldn't resist..

A couple of early benefits ... I have entered into challenges with some of my team at work who have recently bought FitBits.  And I've connected with a sister-in-law who I never see to challenge each other.  And so we walk.  Hopefully farther than my desk job regularly takes me during a day.  We'll see!

Washington

I've been telling myself for a while that I'll get back into posting to this blog.  So here I go, trying again.  This year, to date, has been a mix of big challenges with some very nice things in between.  I guess that is the experience of life compressed into the last 10 months.  After a really rough period at the end of last year and beginning of this year, I've had some travels that have really given me that mental rest that I so desperately needed.  While I'm not out of my mourning phase, I feel like things are starting to right themselves again.  Things will never be the same, as they never will be with big loss, but a new normal is on the horizon.

In addition to a lot of upheaval, I had one of those milestone birthdays that is an upheaval in itself!  I still feel like I'm 30ish, not my real age which I'm not even admitting to myself, let alone my blog!  So in between bad things, we went for a very nice trip to Washington DC.  It is a long drive from Toronto but not unreasonable so we set out.  I loved Washington.  As a Canadian, we can't help but be exposed to US history, politics, pop culture and so on.  So most of the sites in the city were "familiar".  We spent our 3 days there walking, walking and walking.  All along the mall (my favourite spot was the arboretum but I also recommend the Museum of the American Indian and its cafe for lunch), to dinner at Restaurant Nora (a delicious restaurant, conveniently located near Looped Yarn Works, a very nice yarn store where I managed to spend a bit of money, quelle surprise).  All of the war memorials were moving and my favourite presidential monument was the FDR Memorial.  Beautiful and not seemly well known based on the limited number of people there.

At one point on day 2, we rented bikes from the bike share (manly because my feet were killing me and I whined until we rented bikes).  And wouldn't you know it, my bike was a lemon.  I ride my bike all the time and this piece of less-than-stellar engineering made me look like a rookie.  The gears wouldn't change without a good amount of persuasion and the steering was suspect.  I'm not sure how much of the issue was the need for bike repair and how much was the part where I'm used to a very nice road bike … I'm blaming the bike but I guess you also get what you pay for.  We rode from just outside the Capitol,  through the parts of Arlington Cemetery that you were allowed to ride bikes (which was not very much) to Georgetown where, after a couple of tries to find an empty rack, I said good riddance and got back on foot.  I really liked Georgetown but, on a Saturday, so does everyone.  There was a bakery I was hoping to try but the line up out the door dissuaded me.  I considered that to be a positive thing in the end.  Given the other gastronomical delights we experienced while we were there, baked goods, no matter how good, were not really necessary.

On another portion of our DC hike, walking back to our hotel from the mall, we happened upon the Canadian embassy.  No matter where I roam, it is always nice to see a bit of Canada.

The Fair Isle Period

I am really attracted to knitting fair isle lately.  Specifically fair isle hats.  I think part of the attraction is that my focus on stash busting and a fair isle hat are a match made in heaven.  This one is called SchKnit Happens.  It is really just a hat recipe that requires some imagination (or a good fair isle chart book) to come up with the patterns.  I am not completely happy with my colour combos but like it overall anyway.  It was also good practice at learning colour selection and will hopefully set me up for choosing better on the next project ... the Crofthoose Hat from the Shetland Wool Week website.  Off I go to dive into my sock yarn leftover bits ...

Ten Thousand? Unlikely!

I discovered She Makes Hats when I knit one of her patterns using bulky yarn a few months ago.  Then the other day, I read about her goal to knit 10,000 hats in her lifetime.  Knowing that was a big number but looking for context, I compared it with my 52 hats since joining Ravelry and am impressed.  Inspired?  No.  I love knitting hats but am distracted too easily by other projects.  I will continue at my more moderate pace and watch Robin from the sidelines, cheering her on as she moves towards that goal.

In the meantime, I was able to contribute a stash of hats to the 25000 tuques project.  Thanks to Main Street Yarns for collecting them.  And there is Robin's hat in pink, top right ...

Synchronicity

When I was trying to follow The Artist's Way a couple of years ago, one of the things Julia Cameron talked about was synchronicity, which I remember as being essentially coincidences.  If I could find the book, I would write a better definition.  Anyway, I have had 3 synchronistic events lately that were hard to miss:

1.  A couple of weeks ago, I rode on the Don Valley Parkway in the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Ride for Heart.  And it was the worst day (well, if it had been snowing it would have been worse, or a lightening storm perhaps).  Anyway, it was rainy and cold.  But as I rode up to York Mills, I thought, this isn't so bad.  It is wet but I'm warm enough from the climb up.  No big deal, I thought.  Until I went back down the hills to Exhibition.  And my feet got soaked.  So soaked, my shoes made squishing sounds on the downstroke.  It seems that going downhill through puddles kicks up a lot of water.  Then I felt cold.  Really, really cold.  About 5 km away from the end, I started singing in my head some lyrics to the Bastille song, Pompeii, mostly the chorus and, more frequently, the lyric ... "how am I going to be an optimist about this?"  Anyway, I finished the ride and, feeling quite a bit like a popsicle, made it back to the car where my husband was waiting to drive me home, changed in the parking lot (hopefully there were no cameras and if there were, I really didn't care), started the car and what came on the radio?  First song.

2.  This morning, a co-worker was telling me a funny story about an interaction with another colleague who I have never met and and never thought I would meet.  This afternoon, I was on a conference call and who was one of the presenters?

3.  This morning on my way to work, I was listening to the podcast #Herstory which is a series of 50 podcasts talking about inspirational women.  The podcast this morning was about Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who I had never heard of before.  Tonight, while finishing dinner, my husband and I were watching Jeopardy (further evidence of my geekdom) and who came up in one of the clues?

Back to the Start

I still really like the idea of cooking the world.  Getting waylaid by the broken foot put a damper on the idea and then I just got distracted by other things.  So I'm trying again.  Since my random globe trot lacked focus, I decided to start at the beginning with Afghanistan.  Mostly.  By that I mean, there was a little move away from 100% authenticity but I'm ok with that.

The bread and the meat portion of the meal were from Flatbreads & Flavours, a book I've had for many, many, many years and rarely cooked from.  

The bread ... Afghan Home-Style Naan was very good.  It tasted like most whole wheat flatbreads so wouldn't say it distinguished itself in any way.  But it was good.  And looked fancy with the cuts in the centre of the dough.  The downside ... there were sesame seeds everywhere and, despite best efforts to clean them up, I'm confident we'll be finding them around the kitchen for a while yet.

The chicken ... Chicken Street Kebabs with Mint and Yogurt Sauce.  Very tasty.  One of the things that kick started me back into this project was that a number of recipes I was finding in various cusines made use of the grill.  Since warmer weather is here, somewhat, the grill is getting a good workout and I'm always looking for ideas that depart from the same old tried and true recipes.    

Finally, I turned to Global Table Adventure (which I don't want to copy in this project but am going to use as a resource and possible source of some ideas ... why let all of her hard work go to waste!), for Burani Bonjon, or Spicy Braised Eggplant, a very tasty eggplant and tomato combination.  While I enjoyed the whole meal, I would have to say that this was my favourite part.  

At this point, a little bit of cheating happened in my Afghan menu.  At around 5, I got worried that I didn't have enough food.  Since our friends were arriving at 6:30, I didn't have a lot of time to research another recipe and get to the store to buy the ingredients.  So honey roasted carrots came to the rescue.  I rationalized that carrots and honey are part of cuisines the world over and found both in google searches of Afghan recipes.  Also, for dessert, I couldn't pass up the fact the rhubarb is in season, is sprouting in my garden and grows in Afghanistan.  So Rhubarb Crisp it was!  

So while not 100% authentic, most of the meal was as close to "real" as possible.  It tasted great and I'll be making both the chicken and the eggplant again.  

The Lemon Squeeze

There is that saying about lemons and lemonade that I'm constantly reminding myself of as I go through the broken foot journey.  The lemonade I'm trying to make is awareness through paying more attention to the world around me.  And what have I learned and observed?

1. I have learned to have a little more patience.  Like most people in the big city, I'm generally in a rush to get where I'm going.  A broken bone will not be rushed to healing.  Particularly when you are 40-something.
2. I have learned to pay more attention to my surroundings - there is that other saying about smelling the roses.  It is easy to point yourself to where you are going and ignore everything in between.  When you are one of the people being knocked into when others are on that journey, you appreciate the impact of that attitude on the world around you.  
3. I have learned that not all mobility issues are visible.  People talk to you when you have a cast on your foot.  And you learn about their injuries (the lady also recovering from a broken foot but about 4 weeks ahead of me so in shoes but still limping), the lady I used to sing in a choir with who told me after we got to our destination and after she had given me her seat, that she had a knee replacement.
4. I have learned that it can be tricky to get around Toronto when you need some degree of accessibility.  I am at least mobile on two feet but try to get into a taxi with a cast on your foot when you have to jump over a snowbank to get there.  Or, when you are having trouble walking and realize that the elevator is pretty much at the opposite end of the platform from the accessibility car on the train or it is out of order.  I'm not sure what someone in a wheelchair does when that happens.
5. I have learned how kind people can be.  There are the many people who have held doors, the people who have given me seats on the train, the bus driver who got out of the bus to clear away the snow that the city couldn't be bothered to have dealt with and then held my hand to help me out.
6. I've been reminded of how much I love being outside.  I have been pretty housebound in this snowy, icy winter and am really missing my long, weekend walks.  I already appreciated these walks but will now do so even more when I get back to them.
7. I have yet another reminder of the benefits of being fit.  I don't know how I would have gotten around the first several days with the foot if I hadn't been strong and fit.  Never mind leveraging myself in and out of the bathtub.  At least the quickly acquired stool installed in our basement shower has made this easier but I still need to do a lot of one-legged squats in my morning routine.  This realization has kept me exercising through the injury.  Thanks to the Nike Training app for the Ab routines and previous bouts of personal training that have taught me what to do with free weights. 
8. I appreciate the Canadian medical system.  Sure it might take a little longer to get through the process and I wouldn't mind a few more minutes to chat with the doctor than he has had time for,  but the system has been really good to me through my injury.  Sure I had to wait in the emergency room but the only thing I had to pay for was parking and the removable boot.  I could have had a plaster cast for free but really???
9. I have learned that you can get a lot of knitting done when you have a broken foot and need to spend a bit of time lounging in chairs with your foot up.  Nine projects and counting.

I do miss my car.  And curling.  I can't wait until I can drive myself around so I'm not so trapped in the house.  My husband has been a fantastic chauffeur but he hasn't been here 24/7 so I've had to amuse myself in the house a bit more than I'm used to.  Another big contributer to #9, above.  It's a good thing there has been a lot of curling on TV.  It is a bit harder to watch when not playing but at least I'm hopefully absorbing some strategy I can use when I get back on the ice.  

 

Vietnam Part 1

First off, I really need to figure out how to take pictures of food.

Secondly, since I'm essentially trapped in my house due to the broken foot, I look for any excuse for my resident chauffeur to take me somewhere.  The other day I got a coupon via email from Indigo … buy one book, get the second 50% off.  Road trip excuse found.  I pulled up my Indigo wish list full of cookbooks, created in hopes of winning the "win your wish list" contest and I was on a mission.  And sadly the contest is over and I did not win the wish list contest.

The first choice was easy.  How to Eataly is a book I've heard about, read about, seen various places and the library doesn't have it.  One look and I was smitten.  A lot of that has to do with the layout but it also has good articles on Italian ingredients and tasty-sounding recipes.

The second book took a little more looking.  Other than 3 for Christmas, I haven't acquired a cookbook all year so this was a real treat.  I looked at a bunch of nice books and rejected them all for one reason or another, mostly due to close enough similarity to books already in my library.  Then I spied The Slanted Door by Charles Phan.  This is a book that really appealed to me when I borrowed it from the library.  It is also completely different from others I own and in line with my International project.  In the cart it went.

Of course, I was then itching to make something from one of these great new books.  Since the amount my foot tolerates being stood on is finite, I am not able to embark on anything too ambitions.  So this has been my main recipe search criteria.  Several recipes in The Slanted Door fit the bill.  I've thrown out the bread and cookies goal for now and concentrated on a salad and a main.

The salad was Jicama and Grapefruit Salad and was delicious.  I have never had Jicama before and I am absolutely going to be eating it again.  Along with cabbage, candied pecans and grapefruit, there is a reason this is one of the Slanted Doors most popular appetizers (as it says in the recipe intro).

For the main course, we had Shaking Beef, the signature dish of the restaurant.  I must confess that if the picture hadn't looked so pretty (much prettier than mine, hence the need to figure out food photography) and if it hadn't been the signature dish, I think it might have completely escaped my notice.  But I felt like beef, it didn't require a barbecue (too cold outside to be interested in barbecuing) and off I went.  It is simple to make, the ingredients are all on my shelves, add some beef, onions and watercress and … wow!  So very, very, very tasty.

In terms of the broken foot, I'm now two weeks in, four weeks to go.  I'm really hoping the soft callus is forming nicely and I'll be back to curling before the end of the season.

Detour

My plans to include a couple of international cooking nights over the holidays took a bit of a nose-dive down the stairs on Saturday.  The resulting break in my foot and the related new footwear do not combine to make standing on my feet a very attractive option at the moment.  Hopefully this will improve as the weeks of recovery march on.  

So in the meantime, I have not been cooking extensively.  Still throwing some things together and significantly curtailed a dinner party to a Korean noodle stir-fry.  Since I stumbled on the recipe when looking for something easy, I did not even do sufficient research to determine if it was influenced by the North or the South.  So I'm not sure if this dinner really counts.  Given that we combined the noodles with a pre-mixed Asian slaw from the grocery store and cookies from the freezer, I'm pretty sure that when I have stopped feeling sorry for myself, I will discount this as a meal in the quest.

I am finding time to organize magazine recipes and knitting patterns.  And finally got my home access working for the office so I don't have to lug a laptop around with me.  I am also catching up on TV episodes on Netflix, re-watching sappy romance movies and reading.  

So, while I am really missing my walks, curling and general active-ness, I have at least found some distractions.  I just hope that I don't gain 20 pounds over the 6 weeks I'll be sitting on my butt!

Another thing I have had more time for is surfing in which I found a couple of good articles:

 - Bone Fracture Healing Explained.  Very interesting.  

 - How to Survive a Broken Foot .  I have already tried some made up reasons for my foot.  While skydiving (bad landing) and rappelling (banged my foot on a rock) are two that instantly came to mind, I also think hang gliding as a variation of the skydiving could work too.  There is the soccer injury but, while I have not played soccer since I was about 10, given the number of people who do, this might actually be believable and therefore not as entertaining.

So onward.  Five more weeks and counting.

England

I recently bought "Eat the little book of fast food" by Nigel Slater.  I picked it up from the library first and was quite taken with it.  Further to this project, and in general, I want to get more interesting in my cooking especially during the week and this book has already helped me cook outside the box.

While flipping through yesterday for ideas, I saw a recipe for chicken with bread sauce.  I've never heard of bread sauce.  My husband, who lived in England for 5 years, has never heard of bread sauce (but being the type that has never been huge on food, I'm not going to take him as an expert).  But it sounded tasty, Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver both describe bread sauce as an English concoction, I really like Nigel Slater so I was inspired.  My next International night would be England.  No dinner party, just my husband and I, but away we go!  Now, the State Department website lists Great Britain and not the countries within so I've just expanded my list of countries, meaning that instead of the 20 years to complete the countries in my original estimate, I'm now up to 20.5 years!!

With the bread in the sauce, I was on track with my goal of including bread in these international meals.  Along with the chicken, I wanted some vegetables other than the potatoes in the recipe.  Since I was already reading Jamie Oliver regarding bread sauce, I decided to look for a salad in his British recipes section and came up with Root Vegetable Salad - a mix of vegetables I either don't usually eat (radishes and celery) or don't usually eat raw (beets and fennel).  Then there was mint, which is one of my favourite tea and chocolate flavours but not, for some reason a favourite in the cooking department.  And, in my mind, a very English herb.  I think this relates to the lamb and mint sauce stereotype but whatever works.

While bouncing around on Jamie Oliver's site, I noted a crumble/crisp in the British recipes section.  Hah - I thought that was a North American thing but apparently it is British in origin - this according to Jamie Oliver and Wikipedia.  And it is my favourite dessert in the entire world (no exaggeration and not likely to change no matter how many desserts I try during this project).  The menu was done.  Forget the cookies (Jaffa cakes would have been fun to make) but crisp it is.  This is a bit of a cheat because I make it all the time but who cares.  It's my project so I can make the rules!

All was good.  I love the salad (which is good because it makes enough for a large dinner party and we'll be eating it for a few days yet) and the bread sauce was also really tasty.  All in all, a really good dinner and not what I would have expected for the English portion of the project, which made it even more fun.

Morocco

In an effort to reenergize my cooking, get together with friends more regularly and reenergize my interest in blogging, I've copied an idea I first heard about on a podcast which referenced Global Table Adventure.  The idea is to cook food from every country in the world over a certain period of time.  On Global Table Adventure, Sasha cooked a different country every week.  Since I'm not that ambitious, and we're getting into the time of year where curling takes over most of our spare minutes, I'm going to aim for once a month.  Twice if I'm really lucky.  This means it will take me about 20 years to complete this project.  We'll see if I can stick with it!

The other thing Sasha did was cook the countries in order.  This was my original plan.  I went to the US State Department website and picked up the list of countries and started to comb my cookbooks for ideas.  I was all set to start with Afghanistan until I thumbed through The Slanted Door cookbook I had in the house from the library and decided that I don't really want to wait 19 years for the Vietnamese dinner!  So I've decided to wing it, crossing off countries as I randomly journey the globe.

The other thing I want to do is use recipes I already have stockpiled.  This may mean some issues with complete authenticity but I'm not sure randomly selected web recipes (which I will also use as a source) offer a complete guarantee either.  So here goes.

First up, Morocco.  Why Morocco?  We were in the car when we set up a dinner date via text message with my in-laws.  So my first thought was, why not take advantage of this opportunity to kick off my project.  And Morocco is quite straight-forward.  I have a tagine, I've made Moroccan food before and it doesn't require a full day in the kitchen.  Since I had less than a full afternoon, this seemed to make sense.  So, I searched Eat Your Books, Pinterest and Paprkia and came up with a decent menu.  

As an aside, I'm going to try for two common themes as I cook around the world.  Bread and cookies.  I am guessing all countries make some sort of bread (I'm counting rice paper wrappers in the case of Vietnam).  And I'm hoping most also make cookies.  This is a selfish hope because I really think the cookie is the perfect dessert.

The cookies for this meal, called Moroccan Sugar Cookies by food.com were simple to make.  I did run out of vegetable oil so combined it with another oil that made the cookies taste a little grassy.  Lesson learned but they did taste really good with the North African Mint tea we enjoyed with them after dinner.

The bread, ksra, or Moroccan Anise Bread is from Flatbreads & Flavours, a cookbook I've had since 1995 and rarely cooked from.  It was delicious.  The book has really interesting essays and stories about the food too.  One item I found interesting is that people often take their homemade breads to the bakery for baking, covered in a distinctive cloth so that they can tell which bread is theirs when they go back to pick it up.

In terms of the rest of the meal, I made Moroccan Carrot and Red Lentil Soup from A Cedar Spoon, which had a very nice blend of flavours.  The last minute addition of lemon juice and a fresh coriander garnish gave the soup a hint of freshness.

The tagine was from a go-to winter book, All About Braising and was quite similar to a few other recipes I found.  Chicken, olives, moroccan spices and preserved lemons combined to make a warming, flavourful dish.  Along with couscous (with some sautéed onions and pistachios), this was really satisfying and the chicken was fall-off-the-bone delicious.

So, off to a good start.  Next stop might be Vietnam.  Or maybe something from the Southern Africa cookbook we got when we were in Botswana and Namibia a few years ago.  Decisions, decisions.  All I know is that the plan will include bread and cookies!

Free to decide

I was half-heartedly thinking about riding in a Mountain Equipment Coop ride this morning but the Knitter's Fair is on.  What to do?  What to do?

The first would have been good exercise and a nice bike ride.  The second, a reward for the big bike ride last weekend and a morning surrounded by yarn.

In the end, it was not hard to choose.  The sudden cold weather and rainy skies, combined with the lure of all things knitting, made the decision even easier.  And now my yarn-buying diet is over.  Although, given that I had to travel an hour to get to Kitchener, could I lump the purchase under the category of travel yarn buying?  A bit of a stretch.

I didn't go too crazy.  Just a few skeins, one sweater quantity, a couple of sets of needles and two really nice bags from Alison Ruth Designs.  And I prevented myself from buying more than four balls of Silk Garden.

I was able to show Rae from Stix & Stones my Foolproof from her knit-a-long.  And hi to Gail and Susan who I saw in line at opening and then never again.  Hopefully they had as much fun as I did.  What am I saying, of course they had as much fun as I did.  Who wouldn't?