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February 24, 2009
Yum yum
raw meat.
Originally uploaded by D.James | Darren J. Ryan
Tonight I splurged on a burger, fries, AND an Andy's Concrete. Yes, it was a bit much but hey, isn't that what Fat Tuesday is for? The concrete was with several friends who are giving up sweets for Lent. The burger was for me - that's right, I've decided to go vegetarian for Lent. I don't really know why... I just started thinking about it a couple of weeks ago, and it seemed like the right thing to do.
Posted by zarah at 7:47 PM | Comments (2)
Yowzers
IMG_3566
Originally uploaded by kerner
True sisterly love is 20 appliqued circles on a baby blanket.
I made great progress on this qullt over the weekend, but I'll have to wait for the big reveal until the baby shower in May. It's really amazing to me how much more I am enjoying sewing now that I am doing it more often. Changing the needle on my sewing machine makes a pretty huge difference, too. (It's just like buttah!)
Posted by zarah at 6:56 AM | Comments (1)
February 21, 2009
Quilt layout options
Quilt layout options
Originally uploaded by kerner
I am almost finished sewing together the 42 (!) squares that will make up the king-size quilt I've been working on since the beginning of the year. Now I have to decide how I want to lay out the squares - the left side is the more traditional courthouse steps layout and the right side turns every other square 90 degrees. Which do you prefer? (I think I know which one I like best, but I want to get some input from the wisdom of the internet.)
Posted by zarah at 11:12 AM | Comments (3)
February 20, 2009
Friday Night Concert
crowder1
Originally uploaded by SEOULMAN66
One good thing about living in Springfield is the extremely high-quality Christian bands that stop on tour here. My husband got us tickets to see the David Crowder Band tonight. I haven't been to a concert in ages, so I'm doing my best to overcome my homebody tendencies and get excited about it. I'm sure I'll enjoy myself once I get there and locate my husband. (He's been "hanging out with the band" this afternoon - I can't wait to hear about that!)
I hope you all have fun weekend plans!
ETA 2/21/09 - the concert was fantastic!
Posted by zarah at 5:29 PM | Comments (1)
February 18, 2009
Yes way, Jose!
IMG_3554
Originally uploaded by kerner
During my junior year in college, I studied abroad in Pamplona, Spain. I didn't have any particular love for Pamplona, Hemingway, bullrunning, or even Spain in particular, I just wanted to go somewhere to practice my Spanish. After going over all the options with my parents, they ruled out Mexico and Central America as too dangerous and the beach towns of Spain as too fun, so north-central Spain in where I ended up. If I were to do it over again, I would go to either Barcelona or Valencia, but Pamplona was probably a pretty good place for me to go, since it was a relatively small city for me to learn to navigate, as compared to Madrid or Barcelona.
I don't have any particular desire to go visit Pamplona again (although I did see the running of the bulls while I was there - and NO I DID NOT RUN, ARE YOU CRAZY?!?!) but I really want to go back to Spain. The last time I was there was on my honeymoon several years ago, but I have plans to hopefully go back in 2010.
In the meantime I have to get my Spain fix through cooking, travel books, Almodovar movies, anything with Penelope Cruz, and even that horrible travel series on TV with Mario Batali and Gwenyth Paltrow. Thank goodness my husband discovered Made in Spain, a cooking show on PBS that is hosted by Jose Andres, a Spanish chef who is famous for his crazy chemistry experiments with food (like, he will turn liquids into gels with weird chemicals and serve a bowl of chicken soup blobs instead of regular soup.) Luckily, on the show he mostly just visits different regions in Spain and shows their regional delicacies and tourist attractions. My favorite is when he recreates traditional Spanish dishes (and provides recipes).
The last episode I saw featured the region of Aragon and had a recipe for a traditional chicken dish called Pollo al Chilindron (chicken with lots of peppers) (bell peppers and smoked paprika, that is - Spanish food is not spicy at all!) I made it last night and it was really yummy - the only bad thing was that it took almost 2 hours!! I went for a jog around the neighborhood while it simmered for the last hour.
Here's the recipe - cross-posted from Jose's website.
Pollo al chilindrón
Chicken with peppers, tomatoes, onions and Spanish ham
Chilindron is a wonderful vegetable stew that comes from Aragon, where they grow astonishing vegetables in the fertile land near the Ebro River.
Serves 4
¼ cup Spanish extra-virgin olive oil, plus 3 tablespoons
4 chicken legs, thighs and drumsticks separated
Salt to taste
4 cups diced Spanish onions
1 cup diced green bell peppers
1 cup diced red bell peppers
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup thinly sliced and diced jamón Serrano (Spanish cured ham)
½ teaspoon sweet pimentón (Spanish smoked paprika)
2 cups plain canned tomato sauce
1 fresh rosemary sprig
1 bay leaf
2 cups flat mineral or filtered water
Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a 12-quart pot over medium-high heat. Season the chicken pieces with salt then, working in batches, brown them on all sides. Transfer the chicken to a platter and set aside.
Add the ¼ cup of olive oil to the same pot, and when the oil is hot, add the onions and peppers. Reduce the heat to low and cook slowly until the vegetables are dark golden brown, about 30 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon of water if the onions start to burn. Add the garlic and cook for 5 more minutes. Then add the white wine and cook until it evaporates, 4 to 5 minutes.
Add the jamón and browned chicken pieces, as well as any juices that have collected, and cook for 5 more minutes. Stir in the pimentón, tomato sauce, rosemary, bay leaf and the water and simmer over low heat for 1 hour or until the meat starts to fall off the bone. Season to taste with salt before serving.
Posted by zarah at 6:36 PM | Comments (2)
February 17, 2009
FO: U-Neck Vest
IMG_3553
Originally uploaded by kerner
Whenever I find multiple balls of nice yarn on the sale rack at my LYS, I start dreaming of all the little projects I could make with them - vests, nice big scarves, baby gifts, etc. I rarely actually follow through on these wild schemes, but! there is an exception to every rule. A quick little knit in the round vest pattern doesn't hurt my chances, either. I will probably wear this over a dress shirt more often than a t-shirt, but I wanted to take an FO picture and it really doesn't look too bad, either.
Knitting specs are on ravelry.
Did I mention hooray for random days off as a city employee? I never had President's Day off until I got the job I have now. (That's how I managed to sneak into the yarn shop for a photo op during daylight hours.)
Posted by zarah at 7:17 PM | Comments (3)
February 6, 2009
Stocking Update
IMG_3544
Originally uploaded by kerner
I finally, finally conquered the fair isle section, and am on to the very easy part of the stocking. Hooray! It's really cute, but I'm not looking forward to knitting another one. Luckily I've got plenty of time. =)
In weekend news, I have way overscheduled myself, so it will either be awesome or exhausting (or quite possibly both). Highlights include:
MSU vs. MU hockey game
Winter Clearance Sale at my LYS
Breakfast with friends
Gardening class
Decorate the altar for church (the sermon is on the basics of United Methodism... any ideas for the altar? I'm kinda drawing a blank as far as visuals are concerned.)
Pick up farm share veggies
Church
Teach knitting lesson
Hopefully exercise in there somewhere
Hopefully do some sewing somewhere in there
Well, it will be busy, but it's all things I love to do, so it should be great.
(Usually around Thursday or Friday I make a list of "my perfect weekend" and list all the things I'd like to do that weekend. It is amazing how often I can actually make it happen just with a little planning. It helps that my perfect weekend includes things like finding time to sew and read, and not jetting off to the Bahamas, so it tends to be a bit more achievable.)
Posted by zarah at 6:14 AM | Comments (2)
February 3, 2009
I give!
25things_001
Originally uploaded by Dave & Bry
Okay, after about a million people tagged me with this meme on facebook, I am finally giving in. Here goes!
Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.
(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)
1. I am terrible at making mixed drinks. It's one of those things I'm really glad my husband can do well.
2. I've had 3 pets in my life: Lucy, Hermie, and Superman. Can you guess which one was not a hermit crab?
3. I wish I had taken some business classes in college. A bit more physics/science/engineering wouldn't have hurt, either. Despite my decidedly anti-math college courseload, my co-workers seem to think I am a "quick study" when it comes to these things. I'm really just a good faker.
4. I wish I was taller - about 6 feet would do the trick.
5. American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance are my guilty pleasures.
6. I never expected to be a pastor's wife.
7. I almost never knit the same thing twice.
8. Sometimes I fantasize about being a stay at home mom - of course, that would require kids and I'm sure I'm overly romanticizing it in my mind. What - no bon-bon break at 3pm? (just kidding... put your mom-claws away please.)
9. I love to cook and make things the old-fashioned way. It makes me feel very connected to my grandmothers.
10. My favorite TV show is 30 Rock.
11. My favorite podcast is RadioLab.
12. I love being a part of a CSA (community supported agriculture), but I am a bit challenged by all the turnips.
13. I am making a quilt for a king-sized bed. Sometimes I am a little bit crazy.
14. I have competed in 2 sprint triathlons, 5 half-marathons, and countless 5Ks and high school track and cross-country meets.
15. At one point I held 3 track records at my high school. They posted the record-holders names on the wall in the gym - it was pretty cool.
16. I think my favorite food in the whole world is tortilla chips. I think it may be genetic.
17. I get absurdly excited about meeting "blog friends" in real life. I am going to visit Kelli next month and it's going to be so much fun!
18. I've been blogging off and on since 2003. Back then it was a law student blog that no one read. Most of it is pointless crap but it's the only journal I've ever kept and I really like going back and reading what I was doing back then.
19. If I could live anywhere in the US, it would probably be Colorado. If I could live anywhere in the world, I would live in Barcelona.
20. I am a terrible housekeeper - but I think I'm still better than my sister.
21. I once worked in an anthropology museum warehouse that contained a genuine shrunken head. (At least half the department faculty thought so, at least. I just wrote numbers on plastic bags of arrowheads.)
22. I still don't really know why I became a lawyer. It really doesn't fit with my personality at all.
23. I don't have any tattoos. Whenever people try to tell me I would like to have one, I tell them that I don't even put bumper stickers on my car.
24. I kinda wish I still played the clarinet. I was pretty good.
25. I love polka dots.
Posted by zarah at 7:49 PM | Comments (4)