Happy Easter!

I made hot cross buns again this year, with a few tweaks. Instead of using storebought candied citron, I candied some lemon peels and then used the resulting syrup to glaze the finished buns. I also cut the x's before the second rise, which worked better than cutting them after the second rise. I think next time I might try candying orange peels instead of lemon, since these had a little bit of a bitter flavor. Not bad though--I've happily eaten two today!

Aside from a quick stop at Susan's to deliver some baked goods and check out Pearl's awesome Easter basket (Susan is the master of making cute things with felt, pinking shears, and rick-rack!), our day has been pretty normal. After much deliberation, I decided not to do the Bunny on a Bike ride (I couldn't motivate myself to sew bunny ears yesterday). Hopefully I'll do it next year! Instead, we spent the afternoon doing garden projects.

I worked on pulling out the vinca alongside our house (Patrick made a good start on it a few days ago). Although the purple flowers are pretty, it was getting out of control. We're going to replace the vine with some bee- and butterfly-friendly PDX Habitat mix.

Before:

About halfway done:

Patrick busted out his woodworking skills to build a cold frame for our tomato and rhubarb seedlings. He used a $2 single-paned window and some hinges from The ReBuilding Center (apparently double-paned windows don't allow the full spectrum of light to pass through, resulting in leggy plants), plus some wood from a free pallet from Ecohaus. Patrick says it took more work than he expected to break down the pallet (and yielded a lot of rusty nails!), so I think next time we'll spend a few dollars more to get some ready-to-use lumber from The ReBuilding Center.

I think it's so cool that Patrick can just build something like this in a few hours. It's definitely a good skill to have. Next up: raised beds!

Hey, Portland folks! Egg Press is having a sample sale at their SE Portland warehouse through Saturday. We stopped by this afternoon, and I had a great time pawing through boxes and boxes of loose cards (most of them were seconds, but I'm not picky). In addition to cards ($1 each), they had some cute onesies and a $5 screenprinting station where you could have any item you wanted (within reason) screenprinted with one of 4 patterns. We had them print a baby seal on one of our reusable shopping bags. It's so much cuter now!

After our Egg Press visit, we biked over to Meat Cheese Bread for dinner. They had the smoker going out front, and it smelled so good! All of their sandwich and salad options looked yummy. We ended up sharing the Veggie sandwich (Granny Smith apple slices, honey butter (yum!), brie, and frisee) and the Smokey Chicken sandwich (smokey chicken salad, caramelized onions, and avocado). Both were very tasty. They use Little T bread, which is an added bonus. We shared a dark chocolate/mint Ruby Jewel ice cream sandwich for dessert. This place is definitely worth more visits in the future. Next time I think I'll try their BLB sandwich (bacon, lettuce, and beets!).

I'm trying to decide whether to sew up some bunny ears and go on the Bunny on a Bike ride on Sunday. It sounds like my kind of activity (cute costumes, bikes, and a potluck at the end!), and it's a once-a-year opportunity, but we have all sorts of fun stuff to do at home too. Hard decision...

Wonderfulness abounds lately! This past week we have done all sorts of great stuff (and are kind of exhausted, but in a good way):

On Thursday we went to Laura Gibson's record release/potluck with Lee and Pete. It was at The Old Church in downtown Portland, which is a beautiful community space. I brought a plate of Cook's Illustrated classic brownies (no picture, but you've seen them before). Somebody else brought pineapple upside down cake, which is an excellent potluck dish, in my opinion.

Members of the Portland Cello Project played for a little bit while people mingled and ate potluck food, and then we all settled into the church pews and enjoyed some music by Ah Holly Fam'ly and Laura Gibson, of course. Her music is so beautiful, and it was a lovely performance. I'm glad we went.

On Saturday I went to the Museum of Contemporary Craft for the Handmade Nation screening and subsequent crafty panel (if you're in Portland, you should go check out the Mandy Greer installation at the museum--it's amazing!). Handmade Nation was a great documentary, and I left inspired to craft more! Conveniently enough, there was a crafty get together at Susan's that afternoon, and I got to hang out with awesome crafty people from Portland and beyond (and Pearl!) and do some sock knitting. It was a great way to spend the day!

The weather on Sunday was absolutely beautiful, and luckily we spent a good portion of the day outside in the sun. We started out in the morning with a little 5k training (so far so good! It feels good to exercise regularly, and I'm glad to have Ladd's Addition nearby for quiet morning runs with Patrick). Then we rode our bikes down to the waterfront to attend our first ever rally (video snippets can be seen here). The point of the rally was to show support for alternatives to the planned 12-lane Columbia River Crossing bridge. Although some of the speakers used slick politician words that made me roll my eyes (like "boondoggle"), it was a fun time. I was especially impressed by Robert Liberty (a Metro councilman). That guy knows what he's talking about! I hope we're able to find a better solution for this bridge.

We didn't have time to make our own signs, but they were handing out extras at the rally, so I claimed this nice pink sign. If I'd had more time, I would have added a smiley face and some glitter to make it a little more Caitlin-style. We really couldn't have asked for a better introductory rally--we got to lounge on the grass in the sunshine for an hour or so, surrounded by cyclists in cute socks. I kind of felt like I shouldn't be enjoying myself so much--shouldn't we have to suffer to prove our support for the cause?

After the rally, we grabbed a late lunch at Greek Cusina and then rode our bikes to Crafty Wonderland, where we narrowly missed hanging out with our crafty friends. Oh well! We got to see a good number of them at a Blazers get together later that day, so all was not lost. I brought Cook's Illustrated blondies to the Blazers gathering (you have seen them before as well), and we enjoyed Josh's excellent homemade pizza (who knew banana peppers and tempeh were so good on pizza?!) and Sarah's perfect mac and cheese. Good times! Also, I found out that class registration is open for the Summer of Making at PNCA, which includes offerings from Susan, Sarah, Diane, and Denyse Schmidt. Wow! I'm really tempted to sign up for the Denyse Schmidt class, but I suppose we should save some of our money for fixing up this house we live in. The PNCA course is actually a bargain compared to the classes she offers in Connecticut.

Yesterday the beautiful weather continued, so Patches and I followed Patrick out to the backyard while he transplanted our rhubarb and tomato seedlings into milk cartons.

And then we grabbed some burritos at Taqueria Lindo Michoacan (fine burritos, and very affordable!) and ran over to Beverly Cleary School to learn about chickens! After reading a few books on chicken-keeping and attending a coop-building class and tour, perhaps this class was a bit unnecessary, but I enjoyed it. This was my last Urban Growth Bounty class of the spring. I want to learn more!

With all these fun activities, we haven't had much time to spend working on our garden, but I'm hoping we'll make some progress this weekend.

P.S. Have I mentioned lately that we love Portland? We surely do. I'm so glad we moved here!

I had a nice week in California and got to enjoy some beautiful sunny weather. Spring is a little farther along in the Bay Area, and the petals were falling from the trees. It was nice sitting on the grass waiting for the Caltrain shuttle after work each day.

And yay, spring was still in Portland when I got home! There are plenty of daffodils to look at, and tulips are just coming up. Excellent. The only problem is that I brought a cold home with me from California (it's such a pain flying when you're congested--I still can't hear out of my right ear), but I'm feeling better.

In fact, I'm feeling well enough to start Couch to 5k training with Patrick tomorrow morning. As I mentioned earlier, we're training for the Starlight Run at the end of May. I have no idea if I'll like running or not, but it's worth a try, and I could definitely use some exercise! Working from home has drastically cut down my daily level of physical activity.

This past weekend we went to a chicken coop building class and SE coop tour at People's. The guy who taught the class was really knowledgeable and entertaining, and he has developed a chicken coop that maximizes space while minimizing footprint and necessary building skills. He'll be selling plans for it soon (I can get you his contact information if you're interested). All four stops on the chicken coop tour were walkable from our house, so Patrick and I walked around our neighborhood and checked the out. One was just down the street from us, which was cool and unexpected. My favorite was a chicken coop that looked like a miniature version of an Airstream trailer, built by a local architect. I wish we'd had our camera with us! It got me excited for the Tour de Coops in July.

I know I always talk about fun things we did after the fact, so I wanted to try to mention activities in advance more often, so Portland people can participate if they want to. This Thursday I think we're going to go to Laura Gibson's record release/potluck (though I hadn't realized there would be tickets involved; I thought bringing a plate of brownies would be sufficient). I read in Willamette Week that Laura will be bringing a pie, which is what sold me on going :)

And then this weekend is the Handmade Nation screening and associated events at the Museum of Contemporary Craft. I'll be going to the Saturday noon screening and probably staying for the craft discussion afterwards. With Crafty Wonderland on Sunday, this is shaping up to be a full and enjoyable weekend!

Oh, and I think we might go to the Anti-CRC rally on Sunday (to show our preference for something other than a 12-lane bridge between Portland and Vancouver, WA), which doesn't promise to be fun, exactly, but I think it's worth participating in. I've never been to a rally before, so this will be an interesting experience if we end up going. It looks like it'll be pretty tame, as far as rallies go, which is fine with me!

Spring is here! Spring is here!

(That last one is from a house up the street from us. It makes me want to plant a star magnolia in our parking strip so we can enjoy it next spring!)

I'm off to California for work next week. I hope that there's still some spring left in Portland when I get home! I love this time of year.

It has been a busy but enjoyable week. I went to Twisted for the first time on Tuesday and spent an hour picking out beautiful Malabrigo wool for a few upcoming projects. I also bought a pretty nautilus needle gauge (they come in metric and US sizes--tough choice!).

Wednesday was Pete's trivia night at Zach's Shack (he's also doing trivia at Airplay for the first time next week (Thursday 3/26 at 7pm)--I'm sad I'll have to miss it!), and we managed to win some free hot dogs after a long dry spell. Yes! Patrick and I walked home listening to The Decemberists' live performance at SXSW on his iPhone, sharing a pair of earphones. (Does that make us hipsters? I don't think of myself as a hipster, but it sure sounds like something hipsters would do) The weather was mild, and when we got home, we sat together in the dark on our front steps until the performance ended. It was a nice night.

On Thursday, we hung out with Susan and Pearl and watched basketball, and then on Friday we got to go to Susan's first book event for Button It Up. She had many of the pieces from the book on display. These are two of my favorites.

After doing a reading from the book and talking a bit about buttons, Susan showed us how to make our own button hairclips, and then we all got to look through her pretty button collection and make some new buttony accessories. I added two new clips to my collection.

It was a fun time, and it was great seeing a bunch of our crafty Portland friends. Luckily, I'll be back in Portland in time for Susan's second book event, which will be at Bolt next Saturday (3/28) starting at 4pm. There will be button grab bags for people who buy the book, door prizes, and the craft project will be button magnets and pushpins (and I hear the hairclips may make a return appearance). I love that it's at Bolt--it's such a great fabric store! You should totally stop by if you live in Portland. We're planning on going, possibly with a stop beforehand at Livingscape Nursery's Chicken Fest (only 2 miles from Bolt) to check out the Old Time Fiddle Jam and maybe the chicken coop building panel, if we have time.

Life is good :)

My second attempt at making button cookies worked better than my first. I used the glazed butter cookie recipe from Cook's Illustrated, and the dough was much easier to work with than the first dough I tried. However, it was still kind of a pain getting the cookies to look like buttons (the holes in the middle tended to close up during baking, and adding any glaze or decorations obscured their buttoniness), so I only made a few that looked like buttons.

These cookies were actually at their best when I just followed the recipe (imagine that!)--roll out the dough, cut it into shapes, and glaze after cooling. The cookies were good rolled thick or thin, and the addition of cream cheese to the dough and glaze made them flavorful, flaky, and tender. I'd definitely use this recipe again for making cut-out cookies (maybe next I'll make some dinosaur cookies!).

Speaking of buttons, Susan's first book event for Button It Up is coming up on Friday at Powell's! There will be supplies on hand for making button hairclips, so people can leave with a little souvenir. Last week, Susan gave me a goody bag full of mixed buttons and two hairclip blanks so I could try my hand at making a few in advance. I was excited about this, since my button collection was small and uninspiring, composed mostly of the extra buttons that come with shirts and jackets. It's much more fun to make buttony things when you've got a good collection of buttons to choose from (based on Susan's box of buttons, the Powell's hairclip-making session will be all sorts of exciting!).

I couldn't resist the bag of buttons for long, so last Friday I dumped them out on our kitchen floor and sorted them with a little help from Patches. She was wary of them at first, but then she decided it was fun to roll around in them.

It was so relaxing sorting all the buttons by color and choosing the right button pairings for my project. I ended up making two hairclips (with two buttons apiece) and one magnet (with three buttons). Next time I'll use the glue Susan recommends in the book, since the glue I had on hand didn't dry totally clear. But it's good enough for a first try. I'm looking forward to making a few more at the book event on Friday!

In tangentially related news (re: organizing round things in the kitchen), I labeled our spice drawers a few weeks back. We don't have a good spice rack in our house (I miss our ironing board spice rack!), so we have been storing our spice jars in drawers. This makes it hard to tell which jar is which without taking them out one by one until we find the right jar. To make our lives easier, I decided to label the lids. I decorated 3/4-inch white circle stickers and labeled each jar. It makes me happy whenever I open the spice drawer!

It's exciting to see signs of spring here in Portland! Daffodils and a lone crocus have popped up around our yard, and we have other mystery bulbs poking up that have yet to bloom (maybe tulips?). A few trees in the neighborhood have even started blossoming!

Two Fridays ago, we drove down to Molalla to pick up some plants for our garden from One Green World. We were expecting it to be the kind of nursery that you could walk around in, but it turns out that customers can't wander around because of all the heavy equipment they use. Instead, you go to the front desk, order from their catalog, and they'll bring the plants out to you. The people working there were very nice, and they had two great big dogs on the front porch to keep us company.

We ended up getting a dwarf fig tree (negronne), three kind of dwarf blueberry bushes (tophat, northsky, and chippewa), and two kinds of table grapes (sweet seduction and canadice). We planted them last Saturday, even though the weather was a little erratic (it hailed on and off throughout the day). They seem to have handled the rough start just fine. I'm excited to grow fruit in our yard, even if we may not harvest anything for a year or two. I think we may also get a few dwarf apple trees for the backyard, but that can wait until next year.

Here are pictures of one of our grapevines and the blueberries and figs out front, though at this point, they just look like sticks in the ground.

The same weekend, we went down to Yamhill to take a soft cheeses class at Kookoolan Farms. Making soft cheese seems really simple--it's just a matter of using good ingredients. We learned how to make chevre, queso fresco, and cheater's ricotta, and then there was a cheese tasting at the end of the class. The class fee included a $10 discount off anything at the farm store, so we went home with a dozen beautiful eggs and supplies for making our own chevre and creme fraiche. I wish we lived closer so we could buy Kookoolan's beautiful raw milk (it's only available at the farm, since apparently it's illegal to sell raw cow's milk at grocery stores in Oregon). If we ever get into cheesemaking, Kookoolan will definitely be a good resource, as they sell milk, cultures, molds, and pretty much anything else you'll need. Plus it's a pretty drive out to the farm.

We went to another class yesterday. This one was about backyard beekeeping, and it was held at Pistils. It was taught by Will Dart, and it was about top bar beekeeping, which is apparently a much kinder, more ecologically sound method of keeping bees than commercial honey producers use. We learned all about the hive, how to catch your own wild swarm (he made it sound so easy!), when to harvest the honey so that you're actually doing the bees a favor instead of stealing their food, and lots more. It was a really fun class, and we left totally inspired to do a little bee keeping of our own. Two problems though: (1) there's no good spot in our yard for a hive (the bees' flight path would either run straight through our yard or into our neighbors' houses), and (2) oh yeah, I'm afraid of bees! He made it sound so easy and pleasant--maybe I could overcome my fear. Of course, we'd also have to convince our neighbors to go along with it, since you need to get permission from all neighbors within 100 feet (?) of the hive.

It really sounds like a good deal--you put very little work into setting up and maintaining the hive, and in exchange you get improved pollination in your garden and a bucket full of honey each spring. The bees benefit too--they get a home, and you help clear out the honey that they don't want at the end of the winter so they have room to make more. It sounds like he'll be teaching a few classes on how to harvest honey (at which real bees may be present!), so maybe we'll go to one of those and see how we feel after that.

Before the class, we got a quick lunch at Moxie Rx. I had intended to get the cheddar biscuit, as it came highly recommended, but it was sold out, so we got fried egg sandwiches instead. Very tasty! The Moxie Rx cart and adjacent enclosure are so cute! It was a very nice lunch.

Earlier in the day, we stopped by the Pinkham Millinery sample sale. It's so cool that Portland has a milliner, and Dayna's hats are so pretty and high quality! I found a super cute hat on sale (a black felt bucket hat embellished with beautiful bronze and black striped ribbon), but it was fancy enough that I wouldn't have worn it on a regular basis (it didn't exactly go with my Timbuk2 bag, puffy vest, and rain boots), so I couldn't justify buying it. I'll definitely keep an eye out for future sales though; she does beautiful work! And she says that her felt hats tolerate the rain well, so it seems like it would be a good investment if I can fancy up the rest of my wardrobe a little bit so a nice hat won't look out of place.

Speaking of fancy hats, we saw The Importance of Being Earnest at PCS a few weeks ago. The first act was a little slow, but it picked up from there, and we enjoyed it. The costumes were great--Lady Bracknell's hats were pretty over the top. One of them had a blackbird tucked among the ribbons and netting. It must have been fun to be the costumer for the show.

Today is Patrick's birthday--yay!! We had lunch at Little T, and we're going to have dinner at Clyde Common. I also made mini birthday cupcakes to take to trivia at Zach's Shack yesterday.

I made two kinds of cupcakes: 1) cocoa-buttermilk cake with chocolate malt buttercream (from Baking) and 2) date and walnut cake with orange cream cheese frosting (from Cupcakes!). Both turned out very nicely. The chocolate ones aren't super malty, but they do taste like good old fashioned chocolate birthday cake, and they seem like a good go-to recipe. The date and walnut cupcakes are reminiscent of carrot cake, and they're nice and moist despite using less butter than the chocolate ones. I like the date-nut cupcakes a smidge better, but I'd happily eat the chocolate ones too!

I want an excuse to make a nice big layer cake and put it on one of our cake stands, but cupcakes made more sense for this particular occasion.

In addition to making cupcakes, I got Patrick a bike jersey from Wabi Woolens (he made it easy on me and told me exactly what he wanted--phew!). I was really pleased with their customer service. Their workshop is only 15 blocks or so from our house, so the owner waived my shipping fee, and his wife delivered the jersey to our front door by bike! Patrick hasn't tried out the jersey yet, but it seems high quality, and it looks classy. I'm happy there are companies like Wabi Woolens in Portland.

Time for some celebratory dinner!

For those of you not on Ravelry but interested in my recent knitting projects (probably a pretty small group of people), here are two new items I've knitted while watching The Wire and Buffy on DVD. Both were made with old and scratchy acrylic yarn, so I probably won't end up wearing them that much. My main goal in making them was to ease back into knitting and practice some new techniques before breaking out the good yarn. Despite the scratchy yarn, I'm really happy with how these turned out (excellent patterns, Lee!), and I'd like to make them again with nicer yarn.

First we have the waving chevron scarf. It's a very easy pattern, but it still held my interest because of the color changes and traveling chevron. I used about 15 different balls of yarn in three color groups (blue/gray, red/pink, and purple/brown), and I changed to a new ball of yarn every 10 rows (every 30 rows for a given color group).

Next I made Vortex with the same yarn but in wider stripes, giving a very different effect. I made the no-point version, which actually had a small point (as Lee mentioned in the pattern), which I love! I also really like the wavy garter stitch brim. And it covers my ears and keeps them warm (which is something my current winter hat fails to do, so I end up tugging it down over my ears every 5 minutes). I definitely need to make another Vortex in softer yarn and gentler colors (the colors I used are growing on me, but I still think I'd feel self-conscious wearing the hat in public). I want to do my next one in dark gray and buttercup yellow, maybe with some skinny fuchsia stripes thrown in so it's not too neutral.

Joining Ravelry has definitely reignited my interest in knitting. It also doesn't hurt that all of my friends in Portland are crafty. It inspires me to be more creative, which is great!

I've made a few batches of ham and bean soup this winter. I'm always impressed that you can throw a bunch of ingredients together, and a few hours later you have soup! We keep a few ham hocks in the freezer, I make sure to have a can of diced tomatoes on hand, and of course I have a stash of dried beans (I love the beans!), so it's just a matter of buying whatever looks good at the farmers' market and putting it all together. The soup in the picture below used dried chanterelles, carrots, a couple stalks of old celery, and some purple-top turnips, and I threw in some elbow macaroni for fun. It helps that I work from home so I can make soup during the day instead of having to do it on the weekend.

We broke into the brioche bun stash in the freezer and enjoyed a mini batch of pecan-honey sticky buns one weekend and raisin-almond schnecken the other. Both were good but not amazing (I'm still glad to have more waiting in the freezer though!). I think the brioche dough is excellent; I just haven't found the optimal filling/topping yet. I think sticky buns are too sweet for us (we must be adults now!), and I'm kind of lukewarm about using raisins in baked goods. The search continues...

I made my favorite classic brownie recipe from Cook's Illustrated to bring to a low-key Oscar party at Lee and Pete's place (we played Oscar bingo, which definitely made the Oscars more entertaining!). Not only do these have everything I look for in a brownie (crackly top, gooey insides), but they are quick to make and use ingredients that we normally have on hand.

Most recently, I made chocolate and vanilla sables using the Cook's Illustrated French butter cookie recipe. My original plan was to make button cookies, because Susan had mentioned that she was thinking of making some in conjunction with the release of Button It Up (it's in stores now--yay!), and I started thinking about all the different ways in which you could make a cookie look like a button and decided I needed to try them out (these are the things I think about when I'm supposed to be falling asleep). After the fact, I checked to see whether anybody else had made button cookies, and apparently it's a relatively common thing--go figure!

My plan was to find a slice-and-bake butter cookie recipe and then (1) slice into rounds, make an indentation with a smaller circular object, and poke out four holes with a drinking straw (very much like these) or (2) use two colors of dough and make the button pattern while forming the roll, millefiori-style (i.e., make 4 small cylinders of chocolate dough for the holes and embed them in a larger cylinder of vanilla dough). I tried both techniques using the sable dough, and both failed miserably because the dough was too crumbly. Bah! I gave up and made plain old round cookies instead.

The cookies, though not buttony, were still tasty. I think I'll give Option 1 another try using a different recipe. I would probably need a very forgiving dough to have Option 2 be a success, so I'll skip that for now. After that, I should probably stop with the button cookies, since this project has increased our household butter consumption pretty dramatically.

We've been having a good time in Portland, as usual! Let's see...

We went on a moss and lichen nature walk at Tryon Creek State Park a week or so ago. I learned so much about moss and lichen (not a hard task, since I knew pretty much nothing about them beforehand). Patrick seemed to already be an expert--he already knew the story about Alice Algae and Freddie Fungus before the guide told it. We almost went on the Cones, Cones, Cones! walk the following weekend, but we figured we'd hold off for a little while. How great to have a state park so accessible!

My favorite thing about moss is sporophytes. They're so tiny and elegant! Look at the field of sporophytes we discovered right in our backyard! (this adorable thimble garden makes excellent use of sporophytes as well)

After the walk, we went to Fat Albert's in Sellwood for brunch. I got a humongous breakfast burrito (I ate half of it for lunch and the other half for dinner). The food was fine. It was the kind of restaurant with cheap, large portions of typical breakfast food. I can see the appeal, but I prefer yuppie brunch--fresh, local, etc.

It was weird--Sellwood reminded me of one of the upscale shopping districts along the SF peninsula (main streets in Menlo Park, Burlingame, etc.). It definitely has a different feel than our neighborhood. No offense intended to Sellwoodians, but I agree with our realtor--it's the kind of neighborhood we might want to live in 20 years from now, but not at the moment. But we'll probably return when we're ready to buy an armoire for the guest/craft room--Stars Antique Malls have a bunch of promising pieces.

I have been educating myself in the ways of the urban farmer lately. The weekend before last, I went to a goat-keeping class at Pistils, which was super informative. (And I had my first Laughing Planet burrito--sweet potato and black bean with tempeh!). The instructors brought one of their goats, who was sweet and mild-tempered. Unfortunately, it made me realize that we don't have nearly enough space or time to get into goat-keeping (I kind of already knew that, but this made it very clear). See, not only do you need to house a goat, you need a friend for your goat, and you need to keep getting your goat pregnant ("freshen" her) every 2 years if you want her to keep producing milk. And then where do the baby goats go? All too much to think about with a yard as small as ours. I think we'll stick with chickens. But I did learn that there are a few goat co-ops around town where you spend 1/7th of the money and time that you would normally spend on a goat, and you get 1/7th of the goat's milk in exchange. Seems like a good compromise, though I don't think we want to commit to something like that just yet.

I also went to a class about fruit trees and vines taught by Glen Andresen, offered as part of the Urban Growth Bounty program. It's so cool that Portland has this program! I learned a ton at the class, but I wish it could have been twice as long. I want to know more! Luckily, I'm signed up for another class with Glen--all about cane fruit! We're also signed up for a bee-keeping class and a couple of chicken-related classes in the near future. I love it here :)

Friday was a light work day for me, so I went to Little T Baker for lunch (their turkey sandwich with apple chutney and cream cheese is a favorite). When I walked in, I saw a familiar-looking man posing for a picture with his wife in front of the blackboard. A little later, he made a quick visit to the kitchen and then left. I finally figured out who he was (after he was gone, of course)--whole grain bread visionary Peter Reinhart! If only my brain worked a little faster, I could have shaken his hand and told him how much Patrick and I like his cookbooks. Oh well, at least I had my yummy baked currant donut to keep me company (I like that they included the hole with the donut).

Later that day, I rode my bike to NW Portland and ate an ice cream cone outside, which means it must be springtime, right? People don't eat ice cream outside in the winter! I tried the Kentucky bourbon ice cream with cocoa nibs, from Cool Moon--very nice, but maybe a little too grown-up for me.

This weekend we went on a walk around our extended neighborhood--first to the newly established Urban Farm Store (run by a very friendly couple; we'll definitely be frequent visitors when we get chickens, if not before) and then to the Portland Running Company to buy me some new running shoes (since I've been wearing the same shoes for general athletic use since college, I think). Star asked recently if anybody was interested in doing the Starlight 5k Run with her, and I decided I'd try it out. I've been wanting to try the Couch to 5k program, and the run we'll be doing involves costumes, which is exciting! So I guess I'll start training sometime soon. How weird--I've never run of my own free will before. It was always part of a PE class, and I hated every minute. Hopefully this will be different. Luckily, Patrick will be running with me, which should help keep me motivated. I'm excited!

After my shoe purchase, we tried to stop at Bakery Bar for a snack, but they were closed! This is the third time I have tried to go there and have been thwarted--twice because I forgot they're closed on weekends, and once because I got there 5 minutes after closing. I have similar problems with Black Sheep Bakery--the location near us is only open on weekdays, and we went there once on a Saturday and were left treatless. That neighborhood definitely needs a bakery that's open on the weekend! We almost stopped at Bunk Sandwiches earlier in the day, but we weren't hungry enough yet, and the line was long. We need to go there another time, since Patrick's such a sandwich enthusiast.

We ended up going to the cafe adjoining Rejuvenation, and then we took a quick stroll through the shop and ogled their collections of old things (what project can I do that involves skeleton keys?).

I decided to do a fun baking project over the long weekend and tried my hand at making brioche. I used the recipe in Dorie Greenspan's Baking (it's funny--even though I have a better track record with Cook's Illustrated recipes, I'm drawn to the recipes in Dorie's book because the pictures are so pretty. And she's certainly delivered her share of winners). It involved three sticks of butter, and the outcome was delicious (not surprisingly)!

Brioche-making definitely calls for a stand mixer, as it required a lot of mixing. We are lucky enough to have a KitchenAid (thanks, Mom!), so all I had to do was stand at the counter and watch the chunks of softened butter gradually disappear in to the dough. The dough chilled overnight in the fridge before shaping and baking. Brioche dough is such a pleasure to work with--it's dense and satiny, and it rolls out beautifully.

The recipe yields enough dough for two loaves, but I made only one loaf and used the remaining dough to prepare and freeze sticky buns and raisin-almond schnecken (based on the Brioche Raisin Snails recipe in Baking, but using almond cream instead of pastry cream as the filling, as she suggests). I love the sticky bun assembly process--rolling the dough, smearing softened butter over it, sprinkling liberally with cinnamon sugar, rolling it tightly, and--my favorite part--using dental floss to neatly divide the roll into 1-inch rounds of deliciousness. For some reason, I find the floss method so much more enjoyable than using a knife--wiggling the floss under the roll, looping it around, crossing the ends and pulling until the roll is cut. So tidy! Now our freezer is stocked with breakfast pastries ready to be baked on a lazy weekend morning.

We used most of the brioche loaf to make meatloaf sandwiches (Patrick used this Cook's Illustrated recipe, and it turned out really well, though it was time-consuming), topped with melted Monterey Jack and caramelized shallots. Super tasty, but definitely something to enjoy in moderation (with a heap of roasted broccoli on the side).

I made bostock with leftover brioche and almond cream, and Susan, Pearl, and I had a little tea party on Tuesday afternoon. It was a nice treat. (Side note: In my head I pronounce "bostock" with a hearty German accent (bo-shtock!), since that's the language I learned in high school, but I assume it's a French word. I'm not sure how it's actually pronounced. Does anybody know?)

At the opposite end of the healthiness spectrum, we've had two yummy lentil dishes recently. The first was lentil-walnut burgers from The New Moosewood Cookbook. I used rehydrated dried chanterelles for the mushrooms, and I added a little grated Parmesan to the burger mixture. We ate them on little sourdough rolls, topped with ketchup, mayo, and pickle slices. Good stuff! The lentil burgers were a little softer than meat burgers and had a tendency to squish out the sides of the roll with every bite, but I think that could be solved by serving them on a soft hamburger bun. I would definitely make these again.

Our second lentil dish was from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian--lentils cooked with garlic and topped with gingery spinach, fried onions, and feta (instead of the recommended plain yogurt). We had this dish at Tree's sister's house in Seattle a few years ago, and we were really impressed (so impressed that both Tree and I bought copies of World Vegetarian for ourselves soon after--in fact, I think Tree bought hers at Powells right after the Seattle to Portland ride). It's simple and healthy, but so tasty! We ate it with homemade heart-shaped flatbread (recipe from Baking Illustrated) in honor of Valentine's Day.

I made chocolate pudding for dessert, since it's one of Patrick's favorites, and we had all the ingredients on hand. I used the Tartine recipe again, with 1% milk instead of cream and whole milk. Good stuff!

While working our way through the third season of Buffy tonight, we realized that we inadvertently named our sweet kitty after a gross zombie cat. Specifically:

Cut to the library. The caged cat is on the table. Oz is inspecting it closely, apparently not bothered by its stench. Willow is engrossed in research. Cordelia keeps her distance while Xander shares Oz's fascination, but from a bit further off.

Oz: It looks dead. It smells dead. (Xander nods in agreement) Yet it's moving around. That's interesting.

Cordelia: Nice pet, Giles. Don't you like anything regular? Golf, USA Today, or anything? (sits opposite Willow to help research)

Giles: (comes down from the stacks) I'm trying to find out how and why it rose from the grave. It's not as if I'm going to take it home and offer it a saucer of warm milk.

Oz: Well, I like it. I think you should call it Patches.

Sorry, kitty! We think you're much better than a smelly yowling zombie cat.

In fact, it just so happens that Patches is famous! She modeled Susan's cute pet tags for CraftStylish. Pretty fancy, huh?

I had a nicely spontaneous day today. For lunch, I decided at the last minute to meet up with Susan, Pearl, Sarah, and Josh for waffles at the Little Blue Waffle Wagon. I was so glad to get to catch up with everybody, and man are those good waffles!

Toward the end of the day, Patrick and I decided to catch the next showing of Coraline downtown, so I rushed out of the house and onto the next bus, and I made it there with 10 minutes to spare (Patrick works downtown, so he didn't have far to go). I had heard great things about it from my crafty friends, and it definitely lived up to the reviews. It had so many beautiful details, and it's exciting that it was made with such care right here in Portland! I definitely recommend it.

Two of my favorite details in the movie were the stuffed squid-cat in Coraline's other bedroom and the chicken oven mitts in the other kitchen. I totally want to make us one of those oven mitts. Hmm, but then we'd have two chicken items in the kitchen (the first being our chicken art from Pistils), and that would inevitably lead to people giving us only chicken-themed gifts for birthdays and holidays, which is not a road we want to head down.

What an exciting group of birthdays we have this week--Lee's yesterday, Lincoln's today, and the entire state of Oregon's on Saturday! (I love that the Oregon 150th birthday mascot is a Sasquatch, though I think actually seeing him in person would totally freak me out)

Considering that it's Lincoln's birthday today, I think it's fitting that we happened to see Kevin Noonan (the creator of our excellent Lincoln portrait) walking down Hawthorne this afternoon. What a funny coincidence!

We got to hang out with Lee and Pete last night at Zach's Shack trivia night. I wasn't very good with the trivia this time (though I did remember Cha Cha DiGregorio's last name), but it was still fun. On the way home, we impulsively hopped off the bus at Hawthorne and 12th and stopped by the Potato Champion cart to try and win free fries by answering a trivia question (about potatoes or serial killers). Unfortunately, we do not know as much about potatoes as we thought, and we did not win any free food. We comforted ourselves by buying some fries instead, and we ate them on our walk home through Ladd's Addition.

I like Potato Champion--not only do they serve delicious fries and operate out of a cart painted by Scrappers!, but their employees all dress like lumberjacks. Don't you think this should be Patrick's Halloween costume this year? He just needs a trophy full of potatoes and an axe, and he'll be all set.

We're getting to the point in our lives where our friends are starting to have babies, which is very exciting! It also means more opportunities to make knitted baby items, which is nice, because they are such quick little projects. I recently made a couple things for Nat and Sara's baby-to-be (yay!). I tend to knit pretty infrequently, but I'm hoping that now that I'm in Portland surrounded by super-crafty people, it'll motivate me to make more things.

I decided to knit a hat and mittens (I used this Norwegian baby hat pattern and this mitten pattern). I had such a nice time knitting the first set that I made another set (in a slightly smaller size, so hopefully something will fit the baby at the right time). Those mittens are so cute! I have no idea if they'll fit a human baby though. They seem awfully small...

It has been a very nice weekend so far. Yesterday, Patrick and I walked down to Genie's Cafe for lunch. I had a yummy vegetarian eggs benedict, and he had biscuits and gravy. The walk there was a little chilly, but the sun was out, and things had warmed up on the walk back. We discovered a chicken coop only a few blocks from us and spent a few minutes watching the hens scratch around in the straw.

We also stopped by Everybody's Garden Center. I don't think they'll meet all of our garden needs (they're more focused on hydroponics), but I think they'll be very useful when we're ready to start some tomato seedlings (though there's also Urban Flora nearby). (Do you think we'll get on some sort of government watch list for buying things from hydroponics stores?) We also tried to visit Concentrates (which looks like it'll be a great resource for making our own fertilizer, and for when we get around to raising chickens), but they were closed. Oh, and we also had to stop by Sock Dreams because they were only a few blocks away :)

When we got back home, we spent some time sitting in our backyard, enjoying the sun. There are bulbs coming up all around the perimeter of our yard, which is very exciting, since we weren't expecting them, and we don't know what kind of flowers they are. What a nice early-spring surprise!

I think I mentioned that our house came with a couple rose bushes. While reading about rose maintenance last fall, I found out that you're supposed to prune your roses when the forsythia blooms. As it turns out, some thoughtful previous resident planted a forsythia bush near our side porch. We were excited to see a few flowers on it already, which means it's time to prune the roses! I'm actually not sure if I need to do much to them, since I cut them pretty far back around Thanksgiving, and most of their buds are facing outward, as they're supposed to.

Man, I love the first signs of spring. How exciting! I think there might also be a baby asparagus plant in our front yard, so I'm excited to see if that does anything.

We picked up Steve Solomon's Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades at Powells a couple weeks back, and I learned so much from reading it! I think it'll be a really helpful resource. It definitely has more personality than a typical gardening book, but I enjoyed that. It also talks a lot about what can go wrong, which can be a little discouraging (like symphylans--he really hates those things! I had never heard of them. Who knew such evil lurked within our soil?!), but it's good to know what to look out for.

I started planning our garden last night, and I'm excited to make it a reality. We're going to start with a vegetable plot in our backyard and leave our front yard planted with grass and flowers (and a few perennials around the edges), in an attempt to avoid the dreaded symphylan (you're supposed to rotate your crops every three years to avoid them, so we'll do vegetables in the back for three years, then move the vegetable garden to the front and have grass in the backyard). I think it'll take a lot of work to get things going (especially this first year), but I think it's a worthwhile pursuit. It would be nice if our yard were a little bigger (it's pretty small because we're close to downtown and because there are five houses on our block instead of four), but it's an acceptable trade-off, given how much I like our neighborhood.

I think that this year will be very garden-centric for us. In addition to starting our first real garden, we're also signed up for a couple urban agriculture classes through the Urban Growth Bounty program (so cool!), and I'm hoping that I'll actually get around to trying my hand at canning this fall. There will also be a few free classes at People's Co-op that we may attend, and there are even more classes being offered around town (Pistils and Livingscape Nursery come to mind). I'm tempted to take classes about bee-keeping and goat-keeping, even though I'm pretty bee-phobic, and we have no room to keep a goat (Patrick has declared that the goat can't live in our garage). It just seems like it would be so cool to make our own honey and goat milk! But I think that will have to wait for a bigger yard. If we can get a chicken coop and vegetable garden up and running in the next few years, I'll be satisfied.

Yesterday, I also processed some winter squash (mostly delicata) that had been sitting around for a few weeks. Normally I just cube them and roast them (delicata squash are great because you can eat the skin), but I decided to try making squash puree in the slow cooker, since it seemed easier than hacking up 10 little squashes. I just put them all in the slow cooker with a few tablespoons of water and cooked them on low for 4 hours (until a knife pierced them easily). Then I let them cool and scooped out the seeds and scraped the flesh off of the rind. It was really easy! I'd definitely try it with some of the bigger winter squashes, since it's always a big production preparing those (though our mallet and cleaver typically make quick work of them).

I was originally going to make some sort of winter squash soup with the puree, but instead I decided to strain it overnight so I could use it like canned pumpkin. A few layers of cheesecloth in a colander, and I was good to go.

I froze half of the puree (similar to the approach I use for leftover tomato paste--I scooped out 1/4-cup mounds of it onto a cookie sheet, and then I transferred those to a ziploc bag once they were frozen), and I used the other half to make waffles this morning. I added a little finely chopped crystallized ginger to the batter and sprinkled chopped pecans on top after the batter went into the waffle iron. They were yummy, but I think if I made them again, I'd reduce the number of eggs and increase the amount of sugar. And maybe halve the recipe, since it made 12 waffles (I'm glad waffles freeze well!).

We hardly ever drink tea with breakfast, but I recently bought a black tea assortment from Stash (Portland-based, yay!), so we had a little breakfast tea along with our waffles. It was nice :)

I had planned to go to Crafty Wonderland this afternoon, since that's always fun, and I want to support our local crafters, but that means getting dressed and riding my bike, which seems like such a lot of work! It's awfully tempting to just sit on the couch in my pajamas all day.

I'm not feeling too wordy tonight, so I'll do this in bullet form:

• A couple weekends ago, Patrick planted trees in the Woodstock neighborhood (did I tell you he's a Friends of Trees assistant crew leader?), and I decided to tag along and ladle out soup to the volunteers post-planting. It was a nice chance to get out and meet new people.

• That same weekend, we were lucky enough to be invited to a potluck at Sarah and Josh's place (yay, potlucks!). I made my favorite ginger snap recipe (from Alice Medrich's Cookies and Brownies), and Patrick made almost no-knead whole wheat bread (so good!), and we brought a little caramelized onion jam and a few cheeses (fromage blanc and Mt. Tam--the former went better with the onion jam). It was a good time! We made strata with the leftover cheeses, bread, and jam, as well as some muenster and sauteed cabbage and shiitakes (based loosely on this recipe), and it was really good! (but the cookies were prettier)

  

• We went to another one of Pete's trivia nights at Zach's Shack last week, and although we didn't win any free hot dogs this time, we had a good time, especially during the TV theme song round. All that childhood TV-watching was good for something--I identified the Fraggle Rock theme song in only a few seconds!

• We walked to trivia night (a bit of a hike, but it takes just about as long as the bus normally), and along the way, we were offered free samples of gumbo! There's a new Creole food cart at 39th and Hawthorne called Po' Boys (it's based out of the Swine and Grind cart, which apparently sells biscuits and coffee in the mornings). The guys there were really nice, and we talked briefly about file powder and the Fleet Foxes before heading to trivia. Oh, and the gumbo was good too (they have vegan and exceedingly non-vegan gumbo).

• I try not to talk about work on here, but I thought it was worth mentioning that one third of my coworkers were laid off last Thursday. That totally sucks. I guess this bad economy thing is for real. I'm very grateful to still have a job, and I hope they'll all find wonderful new jobs quickly!

• Last weekend, I got together with Susan (and baby Pearl!), Sarah, and Diane for yummy breakfast at Cadillac Cafe (excellent French toast!) and crafty shopping at Knittn' Kitten and Bolt (and a little post-shopping snack at Petite Provence). What a nice way to pass a Saturday morning! Bolt is full of beautiful things (I may buy some of the spoon and plate fabric third from the top for kitchen curtains):

  
  

All caught up. Phew!

I went to Nicola at 220 Salon for a much-needed haircut last week (at Susan's recommendation), and I was really happy with the results. I asked her to cut it like Miranda July's hair, and she did! For one night, I had Portland-appropriate hair. It doesn't look quite as authentic when I style it, but that's to be expected. It still looks cute even when I do very little to it, which is a relief.

I had shown the same picture of Miranda July to the woman who cut my hair at Rudy's a few months ago, and she did a pretty good job, but not as good as Nicola did. I'll definitely be seeing Nicola for my next haircut.

That evening, Patrick and I met up with with Lee and Star at Zach's Shack to check out their weekly trivia night (Wednesdays at 9pm). Lee's fiance Pete coordinates the trivia nights on a pretty regular basis, and he was running things that night. We knew it was a Pete week because we had talked to him a few days earlier when we went out to celebrate Susan's birthday after the Handmade Nation book signing. Not only did we have a good time talking with a bunch of awesome Portlanders at this get-together, but we also ended up sitting next to a familiar-looking guy who turned out to be our favorite Lincoln painter, Kevin Noonan! I love Portland serendipity.

Anyway, we had a great time at trivia, and our team won a round, so we got free hot dogs! Very exciting :) I'm pretty sure Pete's hosting again this Wednesday (I'm glad he's willing to come up with new trivia questions on such a regular basis, because it sure is fun for the rest of us). Time to cash in our hot dog cards and try to win more free food!

Patrick worked from home on Tuesday so we could watch Obama's inauguration (yay!). We walked down to the Clinton Street Theater and watched the broadcast with a theater full of happy Portlanders (probably a lot of the same people who were there on election night). It was a good day :)

That evening, we went to see Apollo at Portland Center Stage. It was just coincidence that we had tickets to see it on inauguration day (the show dates were randomly assigned when we bought our season tickets), but it was definitely appropriate, since it touched on the Civil Rights movement, among other things (space shuttles and Nazis, mostly). I had no idea what to expect going into the theater, and when I heard that the show was over 3.5 hours long, I was a little wary, but it turned out to be an amazing production. The sets were really striking and must have taken a long time to assemble (like the set for Act 2, which took place inside a document storage facility and involved immense stacks of hundreds of Permapak boxes), and the combination of dialogue, video, music, and dance kept things interesting. It was really thought-provoking and moving. If you have four hours to kill and are open to seeing a non-traditional performance, I'd recommend it (plus there are tasty cookies for sale at intermission. I had a hazelnut tassie, which was exciting since I had just seen the recipe in Edible Portland).

Speaking of cookies, while I was paging through Dorie Greenspan's Baking in preparation for National Pie Day (which I also learned about in Edible Portland), the recipe for honey-wheat cookies caught my eye. The pseudo-wholesome combination of wheat germ and honey appealed to me, so I baked a batch last night. They turned out nicely--pillowy soft with a good amount of lemon and honey flavor. I bet they'd be good with tea. I wouldn't rank them among my top 5 cookies of all time, but next time I get a hankering for wheat germ cookies, I'll know where to look.

Happy Pie Day! Such a nice feeling to wake up in the morning and know there's pie waiting in the kitchen.

(I used my go-to apple pie recipe--Damn Fine Apple Pie from In The Sweet Kitchen)

I just bought a letterpress card with this Dylan Thomas poem on it:

"I love you more than all the flannelete and calico, candlewick, dimity, crash and merio, lussore, cretonne, crepon, muslin poplin, ticking and twill in the whole Cloth Hall of the world. I have come to take you away to my emporium on the hill, where the change hums on wires. Throw away your little bedsocks and your Welsh wool knitted jacket, I will warm the sheets like an electric toaster, I will lie by your side like the Sunday roast."

Isn't that pretty? It makes me smile :) I think I'll frame it and hang it on the wall in our future nursery.

Did you know that I was named after Dylan Thomas' wife? I actually haven't read much of his poetry, but I can see why my parents liked his work.

One of the consequences of having coded this site myself instead of using Blogger or something similar is that it's definitely not cutting edge. For instance, I have only just today added an RSS feed (instead of adding it back in 2005 when everybody else did). I feel silly that I didn't do it sooner--it was so easy!

Anyway, if you're interested, my RSS feed is here. I hope it makes your life easier!

We were running errands on Hawthorne this morning, so we stopped for brunch at Belly Timber. It's located in a nice old Victorian house, and I liked the way they combined embossed wallpaper with paint. I wonder if we could do something like that in our house.

Everything on the menu sounded great. We ended up sharing the seasonal fruit with lavender syrup, smoked salmon benedict on potato latkes, and bacon- and banana-stuffed French toast topped with maple butter and housemade Nutella. Although the French toast sounded amazing (and tasted very good), I think the benedict was actually my favorite.

I would happily return to Belly Timber for brunch or another meal if we're in the neighborhood. And speaking of brunch places in Portland, I'm hoping we can make it to Screen Door and Simpatica for brunch soon. We've heard great things about their brunch offerings, and based on the awesome dinners we've had there, I'm eager to experience them firsthand!

While I'm writing, I wanted to acknowledge that 2008 was a really good year for us, what with moving to Portland and buying a house. I'm so glad that things have worked out and that we love Portland as much as we'd expected to. Pretty much every day it occurs to me how lucky I am that this is my life. I'm grateful for it.

This year should be interesting. I think we're nearing Baby Time, now that we've taken care of the wedding, house, and cat (so predictable!). The plan (as much as you can plan these things) is to get pregnant around September of this year. Having a baby is a scary but exciting prospect. I think we're ready. Hmm, but if I think about it for too long, I start freaking out. Us, have a baby? That's absurd!

This should be a fun year :)

Hmm, it appears that I haven't written in a while, based on my backlog of food photos. Let's see...

We had a nice, low-key New Year's Eve. We went to Bar Avignon (a cozy bistro/wine bar) for dinner, because it had been featured in the Willamette Week food guide, and it's only a couple blocks from our house. Since it's a wine bar, I figured the food would probably be unremarkable, but I was wrong--everything we ate was awesome! The standouts were the meat and cheese board we ordered (fra'mani salami and truffled pecorino cheese with Buzzing Canyon honey* and slices of perfectly ripe red Bartlett pear) and the potato-leek soup with truffle oil. I had actually ordered the butternut squash soup, but I'm so glad they got my order wrong, because the potato-leek soup was excellent. I've always been on the fence about truffles, but I loved both the truffled pecorino and the truffle oil in the soup. We definitely need to go here again.

(*The honey is harvested locally in Estacada, and you can buy a jar of it at Bar Avignon to take home. We may do that next time)

Conveniently enough, our neighbors' frozen yogurt/custard shop (Tart) is just a couple doors down from Bar Avignon, so we stopped in to thank them for taking care of Patches when the snow was too high for the catsitter to get to our house. And of course we got a cup of frozen yogurt while we were there. I was super excited to find out that they still had their seasonal pumpkin frozen yogurt. We had it topped with chocolate mochi. Yum! We were lucky to come in when we did, because they switched to a new flavor this week (I think it's eggnog--another seasonal favorite of mine). I guess my enthusiasm for their pumpkin yogurt must have been clear, because they knocked on our door a couple nights ago and gave us the last quart of it from their shop. Awww...I'll have to make them cookies or something to show my gratitude.

We ate dinner pretty early, and Bar Avignon was supposed to have a fun banjo/guitar act later in the evening (they were setting up some fancy balloon arches when we were there). We walked back around 9:30, but the place was packed, so we just headed home and watched Season 3 of The Office until midnight, and then kissed and watched some far-away fireworks. It was a nice way to ring in the new year.

We're still working out our family food traditions, and it's looking like Dutch Babies might become our traditional New Year's Day breakfast. They're easy to make, and they look impressive. This is the second year that we've made them. Patrick used this recipe, and we topped them with jam, since we didn't have any lemons in the house.

Later that day, our college friends Chrissy and Gunny were in town, so they stopped by the house, and Chrissy stayed for dinner. I made Lasagna Bolognese after seeing Neven's Christmas lasagna. It was definitely tasty, but I prefer my lasagna full of gooey mozzarella. It was nice to shake things up though.

(Let me interrupt my talk of food to mention a funny coincidence involving Neven. See, Patrick reads various computer-related blogs, and he has been following Neven's Flickr photostream for a while. A month or two ago, we got a catalog addressed to Neven in our mailbox, and Patrick recognized his name and realized that he must have been one of the tenants who lived in our house before it was our house (we later found out that he lived there pretty early on and had moved away by the time the house was on the market). And then about a week ago, we got a package from Amazon addressed to Neven and Christa. He stopped by and picked it up over the weekend, and we showed him around the house and talked briefly. I looked back at his photostream, and he has all these pictures of the house from when they lived there. That's our kitchen (with very impressive cakes!)--and our neighbor kid! It's pretty cool. My favorite part is that a Yosemite park ranger (who knits!) lived in what is now our guest room. That explains the Yosemite sticker in the closet. It's one of my favorite things in the guest room. So yeah, small world! I hope we run into Neven again at some point; he seems like a cool guy (his Thanksgiving dinner in 2007 involved an harmonium and a gravy drinking contest!).)

Also on New Year's Day, I got around to making pie dough cookies with some leftover scraps that I had frozen during my Thanksgiving pie-making endeavors. I used Nigella's periwinkle recipe from How to Eat (click on the photo for paraphrased instructions). I think this is my favorite way to use up pie dough scraps so far.

We drove way out to SE 122nd Ave on Friday so I could visit an ophthalmologist for a macular consult (my optometrist saw something weird when he was looking at my retinas, so he sent me there for a second opinion). It appears that I have some lacquer cracks, which isn't surprising for somebody as nearsighted as I am. The ophthalmologist said that there's nothing to worry about right now, and we'll just keep an eye on them at future annual checkups. That's good. Even better is that the doctor's office was only a couple blocks from Puerto Marquez, which was also featured in the Willamette Week food guide. Just as WW said, their bean dip was super tasty, and their seafood offerings were good (I had a burrito with shrimp, fish, and octopus!). I wouldn't drive all the way out there just to get more bean dip, but if we're in the neighborhood again (say, at Fabric Depot, which we totally would have checked out if my eyes hadn't been all dilated from the ophthalmologist), I'd definitely make a return visit.

Next, there was more cooking: stuffed acorn squash (no particular recipe) and a fine batch of chocolate pudding.

I was thinking it would be nice to start having real breakfasts on Sundays (it seems like a pleasant thing to do), so on Sunday I made some oatmeal raisin custard from The Breakfast Book, but it tasted, as you might imagine, like eggy oatmeal. Not great. But I'd still like to try some of the more unusual recipes in this book. It'll be an adventure. However, we have agreed that next Sunday we'll make waffles or pancakes--playing it safe to make up for the oatmeal custard strangeness.

Patrick got in on the cooking action too--he made his first loaf of bread! He used the recipe for basic white sandwich bread from The New Best Recipe, and it turned out great! Coming inside on a blustery day to the smell of baking bread is a wonderful thing.

The same day, he also cut down half of our giant piney shrub with his bare hands (and a pruning saw) so that he could put up the storm window on our stairwell window (much needed, since it's a very drafty window, and right now we're using a sheet of plastic and some tape to keep the drafts out). In contrast, I spent the whole day on Ravelry. But hey, check out this cute owl sweater I found! I totally want to knit it once the pattern is available.

Before:

After: Cutting down the shrub uncovered a whole new window (the one next to our basement stairs), and now when I'm going into our basement, I can see the outside world. Very exciting!