Waxing nostalgic - from stem to stern

Reducing the number of journals I read regularly and trying to keep up with those people that I already know IRL or share multiple common interests (whether listed on LJ or not).

I cannot find my Jojoland Swirl Shawl pattern. I've been looking, on and off, all week AND I purposely set out to destash today in the hopes of, er, uncovering the pattern. I've gone through every bin of yarn and still no fucking pattern. This pisses me off because I can see the damn thing in my head... It's not that I don't have anything else to knit, it's that I wanted to knit THAT NOW.

Plus side - Penelope is making biscuits on my butt. That's the prize I get for sitting on the edge of her current sleeping chair. D'aw!

ETA: Pattern found. Knitting skills went to bed an hour ago. Should follow them there now...

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open it to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the next few sentences.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Replace all rings if any ring is worn so much that the piston ring gap exceeds the wear limit.

From the Clymer manual for my wee Honda.

Just re-registered and re-insured the Ghia. Got a tow coming out Friday to take her to Howard. Howard's gonna fix shit.

Getting ready to go tag the wee Honda. Then, next week? I'm on the ROAD, bitches.

Farewell Triumph. We hardly knew you.

Since we're out of food (and kinda have been since having the Swede's car in late July and not going to the grocery store and stocking up on, among other things, BEANS), I stopped by the co-op last night and got some dinner inspiration (as well as a cup of free lemonade). I went in wanting tofu and stir-fry, but I left with something completely different.

large can of diced tomatoes
squash, zucchini, baby eggplant
pre-made polenta loaf
half a white onion
minced garlic
red pepper
overripe jalapeno
olive oil
red wine (that was poorly corked and thus better suited for cooking than drinking as it's taken on vinegar-y properties)
small can of sliced black olives
generous clippings of basil from the garden
garden-grown parsley for garnish

I started by cutting the leftover onion half into quarters, then thinly sliced it before adding it to a stockpot with enough olive oil to coat. As the onions cooked, I added garlic (way more than most people would use, but we like garlic), and once the onions were translucent, I added some of the liquid from the can of diced tomatoes. While that cooked down, I diced a red bell pepper and a leftover jalapeno, then adding that to the pot. I let the peppers soften and then added a generous amount of wine (a cup, maybe more). I let that cook down some more, went out back, cut the basil and the parsley, chopped the basil, and added the basil, the olives, and the rest of the can of tomatoes. I left the sauce to simmer for about 90 minutes on the back burner.

I rinsed and prepared the rest of the vegetables for oven-roasting. I sliced the yellow squash length-wise, I cut the wee eggplant into little discs, and I halved and quartered the zucchini. I threw all of them into a Pyrex casserole and coated with olive oil before over-roasting for about 45 minutes - low and slow, baby!

I then thin, diagonally sliced the polenta loaf and lightly pan-fried that. To serve, I placed several slices of warm polenta on one half of the plate, a generous portion of roasted vegetables on the other half of the plate, and then topped with a thick and hearty homemade sauce.

I'm calling it Awesome Sauce and I want to make more of it and can it. I seriously think it could bring about world peace.


* or, as puttanesca as I'll make it. No capers, no anchovies.

Ran around this morning, covering ground from West Philly to Center City to the far Northwest before making bread and eating chili with the Mighty Swede (his was out shopping, mine was working). Fruits of my errands: 10 bottles of wine (yes, I need them all), 2 cases of beer, a case of hard cider, and some sodas; new spindles from ME delivered via special courier; some groceries, including ingredients for a yuppie salad for the SnB tomorrow; and Lush.

After lunch, I touched up the paint on our gate and finished cleaning the back yard. I can't believe how gorgeous the weather was today and I'm just so pleased that tomorrow's forecasted to be as gorgeous.

Tomorrow morning - laundry, dishes, and ice. If I get a chance, I might do some yarn/stash organization or I might just say fuck it and sit on the deck and knit until people come over. I have my doubts that I'll be finishing my Olympics-knitting, but that's what I get for selecting a thinner yarn and needing to rework the pattern some. I am 2.5 balls in and almost at 8 inches, but at 300 stitches a row, I'm tempted to scratch this "event" and spin some Black Bunny Fiber instead.

Also, Facebook? Srsly? Facebook is like the old Friendster...

I like to ride bikes.

I knew I wasn't going to sleep in much today, but seriously? Up and alert enough to do image processing by 6:30? WTF?

Oh well, I guess I'll use this time to make some omelettes, too.

Finally got to see my dear friend Chloe and her husband Felipe yesterday. Hard to believe they've been married two years! I remember their wedding like it was yesterday, *sniffsniff*. Anyway, Felipe is straight-up Colombian (he's applied for citizenship and that whole process was sped up with him marrying a citizen, but he's still looking at years of waiting) and since Mike and I are always willing to try new cuisines (Mike especially moreso than me; I'm willing so long as I can have some sort of warning or investigation beforehand), the four of us went to a Colombian/Latin American restaurant for dinner: Holy Cow Grill.

After having Felipe check and double-check with the kitchen about certain dishes and the presence of flour (oh, Felipe is so sweet!), I settled on an arepa and some frijoles. I kinda suspected those two items were already sans wheat, but believe me, it does not hurt to check! Had I been more adventurous, I could have gone with the rest of my party and ordered the country platter - steak, chorizo, pork strip (a strip of pork with meat, fat, and skin), avocado, egg, plantain, rice, beans, and an arepa. I probably wouldn't have eaten the pork strip or the fried egg or the plantain, but that dish also looked 100% wheat-free. Good to know

Anyway, we have a nice leisurely dinner and Felipe and I both cleaned our plates (admittedly, I did not have nearly as much as he did). As we drove back to their house in Hamilton Township, the four of us thought we were going to pop. In fact, my stomach hurt for much of the night and I had to fight off the urge to succumb to the food coma as I was driving home. The food was really good, not too spicy, but full of flavor. I definitely want to try my hand, now, at making arepas - they're so simple and yet so delicious.