Monday, June 18, 2007

Jello Salad

Well, so far my Midwest adventure (aka visiting my homeland) has been a great time. Thursday I flew into Chicago and got to meet up with my long-time friend, Diana (see her wedding blanket here). As Diana is also a knitting enthusiast, and also the person who first taught me to knit, we of course had to include some knitting adventures in our trip. Our first stop was to Diana’s favorite yarn shop in Chicago, Loopy Yarns, which actually is quite fantastic. They have a great selection of high-end yarns and also some fabulous yarns at very reasonable prices. I found a couple of yarn brands I’d like to investigate more including Pear Tree Yarns of Australia and Frog Tree Yarns of Bolivia. The ladies working at the yarn store were fantastically helpful and knowledgeable. One of the workers, Lisa Whiting, is also a knitwear designer with some fantastic patterns that I will be repping as soon as she has them reprinted. Yay! Diana purchased some Frog Tree Alpaca to make a Slytherin hat for her hubby and we each picked out some sock yarn as we’re going to do our own little self-striping sock KAL. Picks to follow as soon as we get to the socks…..

When we got back to Diana’s place we had an exuberant show-and-tell of her yarn stash and my works in progress that I’d brought along. Diana showed me her new pride and joy… Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears and The Knitters Almanac both of which were immediately added to my wish list.


The coup d’etat of my reentry into Midwestern society for the week was our making of what I think is the official mascot of all Midwestern potlucks – the Jello Salad. Mmm… We made a lovely raspberry jello with Mandarin oranges. Fantastic! Why don’t we eat this more in California? I’m bringing it back.

Step one: Pour Jello powder packet in a bowl






Step 2: Pour in boiling water

Step 3: Add delicious canned mandarin oranges

Step 4: Refrigerate until firm









Step 5: Enjoy!!!














Friday

Friday, Diana and I decided we simply must do something cultural with our time as on my last visit the only museum we made a point to visit was the Swedish National Museum of Modern Home Furnishing and frankly we only made it to their gift shop, IKEA.

So this time we vowed to be better and decided to visit The Lithuanian Museum. I’m going to honest and say, this was not the best museum I’ve ever been to. Our introductory video to Lithuania was nothing more than a tourist propaganda video about the many merits of Lithuania’s beautiful nature and Medieval architecture, but it failed to touch on the fact that Lithuania is cold and dark a great deal of the year. The museum itself was just a few cases of Amber Jewels and some great examples of Lithuanian textiles:

Insert diana’s pic here

However, despite the museums time-worn displays and lack of funding, I was still sold. Lithuania is definitely on my intrigue-list and we wanted to learn more.

Our next stop of the day was Duke’s Lithuanian Restaurants, Chicago’s newest and fanciest Lithuanian restaurant (as far as I know there are only two Lithuanian restaurants in Chicago, but it’s still something). Diana and I apparently have the chick look of an Eastern European import because the hostest managed to speak to us in Lithuanan a few times before she caught on to the fact that we were just Americans. How boring. We decided to delight in Duke’s Potato Plate Sampler. Until this meal, I had no idea just how many ways there are to prepare potato-stuffed-meat and/or meat-stuffed-potato. Here’s the view:

Insert Pic here

I don’t think I’m going to be eating this meal anytime again soon. Nothing like a brick of potatoes in your tummy to help you go on an all-liquor diet for the rest of the day.

Saturday

Saturday I said goodbye to Diana, Carl and their lovely cat, Ninja, that Diana was kind enough to sequester to her bedroom for my stay (due to my extreme allergies not my hatred for animals). I met up with my parents and we headed off for our own Chicago adventure.

Our first stop was lunch at the Greek Island Restaurant. Pretty tasty. I was still feeling the effects of my Latvian extraganza and stuck with simply greens, but it was great.

Next up we swung by the Field Museum. This was my absolute favorite museum when I was little, but for whatever reason I was less impressed this time. Maybe I’ve been to too many museums now, each showing similar exhibits that I’ve become numb to the extrodinary displays that now replace the endless rows of cases filled with artifacts. I don’t know, I think sometimes the artifacts, fossils and art can speak for themselves without an overwhelming array of media and interactability. I think it’s ok to draw a firm line between museum and arcade. Let’s hope it never gets there.

Saturday night we ate out at The Italian Village, a long-time Chicago tradition of my parents. Apparantly it predates me, which to me seems quite old (after all I will be 25 this summer).

Monday, June 11, 2007

Dazzling Daiso and Delicious Dim Sum

Best weekend ever! Well, maybe not ever, but it was a pretty great weekend filled with lots of knitting and great people, so it was right up there. Friday night I hit up Beckett's Irish Pub with Kate and co. and I think we have officially become old women as we just wished that darned-musician-would-turn-his-music-down-so-we-could
converse-like-civilized-people-gosh-darnit. But it was a great time

Then Saturday was the long awaited and much anticipated Daiso and Dim Sum adventure in Daly City, hosted by the ultra-hip knit-one-one. Here are some photos of the excitiement at Daiso, "Japan's No.1 Livingware Store."


Kate admires all the possibilities in the "Household Platsics" room

Shaleece debates just how many things she needs for only $1.50 each

The Queen Bee herself wasn't messing around - she found a lot of good deals, but it's ok they were "for the business"

After making hundreds of really important decisions over which knick-knacks we needed, we headed over to Koi Palace for a well-deserved lunch. This was my first Dim Sum experience, and although I happily ate everything put in front of me, I'm glad I wasn't sitting on the end of the table where the decisions were to be made. I don't think that's an experience for amateurs.


We ended the day with a trip to a knitting store in South San Francisco, Cottage Yarns. Obviously one can't go on a knitting field trip and not buy any yarn, so I had to get two balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran which I've already knit up into a wonderful hat.


The finished hat:

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Friday Night Knitting Club

Well, it was a wonderful night of knitting, chatting and fine wine at Ms. Libby's this month. Libby certainly outdid herself on the food (I think she even trumped me and I'm unemployed with nothing better to do that make hors d'oevres). The Cherry Chocolate Almond Poundcake went over well, but I don't think I'm going to make it again anytime soon. It was good, but not enough better than the much easier pound cakes to make it worth the effort. So that's my review of that. :-)

Here are some pictures of we lovely ladies:



Adelina showing off her progress from last month on her Noro Silk Garden Scarf.

Kate, Carrie and Cordelia (lovely alliteration team) knit away...
(notice how Cordelia is just starting her baby hat...)



Because here it is, finished! Too cute!










Finally, here is Ms. Elisa modelling the "before" shot of my soon-to-be-felted tote. This I made out of some lovely mohair yarn I got in New Zealand mixed with some Cascade 220.



All-in-all a fantastic night!

Friday, June 1, 2007

In which I bake a cake

It's been an exciting week here in Berkeley. I've gotten to do some organizational work for the lovely Ms Sile (nothing excites me more than organizing!), I attended a fabulous knitting soiree at Entrez! (the cutest little shop in Oakland) and tonight I'm off to knit with my girlfriends. Who could ask for anything more? (Well, maybe a date would be nice... but that's neither here nor there). So in honor of tonight's gathering I decided to complete my next cake out of The Cake Bible. I got this book for my roommate, Lindsey, for her birthday, and I've been working my way through the cookbook, so far I've made:

-Lemon-Poppyseed Pound Cake
-Deluxe-Double Vanilla Pound
-Chocolate Bread
-White Spice Pound Cake
-Golden Butter Cream Cake with Royal Honey Buttercream Frosting
-Sour Cream Butter Cake with Royal Honey Buttercream Frosting

and today.....

Chocolate Cherry Almond Pound Cake

This has been by far the most labor-intensive of the cakes I've made, in fact it's taken me about three days to put it all together. First you start by making brandied cherries:Next you toast whole hazelnuts and grate them in the food processor:

And then you chop a lot more chocolate that you would think to:
Then I put it in all in the oven and said a little prayer....



So it looks pretty delicious... let's just hope it tastes proportionally good to the amount of effort it took.

Next up on the lineup: Golden Almond Poundcake!