Scraps of April

Clearing out the odds and ends of unwritten blog posts from this month.  Here, in no particular order, are the things I intended to write  at greater length about but didn’t.  And I’m all about the moving on, looking forward etc., so this probably all you are going to get.

Limoncello

Steeping

My dear friend Jurate went to Capri and brought me a back a lovely tea towel with a recipe for Limoncello on it. I love Limoncello, and decided to give it a try, using Meyer lemons, which just happened to be on special at the grocery. After four days of steeping, the infused vodka gets strained and mixed with simple syrup. So good!  The Meyer lemon flavor definitely came through, a more perfumed sort of lemon.

Visitor

Cathy had most of a day to spare after Sock Camp, and we had made plans to go to EMP/SFM, then drop her off at the train station so she could catch the Empire Builder  back to Wisconsin.

The EMP part worked fine:

Best purple/pink ever!

The “show off  handknitted” socks part worked fine:

Where elite feet meet

Cathy’s dainty foot is in the sock she made from one of the yarns from my yarn club. My less dainty foot is in the sock I made from the Socks That Rock yarn that she gave me last year.

The find some lunch part worked fine:

What's coming next?

Here Cathy is looking (in vain) for tamago at Marinepolis Sushiland.

The get Cathy to the train station part seemed to work fine . . . until we got a call on the cell phone as we were heading to the freeway. She had misremembered the departure time, and missed the train. Oh no! We circled back, picked her up, and hoped we could make it to Everett in time to catch the train at the next stop. Zooming into the freeway, deftly moving through traffic, things were looking pretty good until the freeway came to a screeching halt. They were repaving large portions of the roadbed and three lanes were blocked for several miles. So we took her to our house, poured her a glass of wine, and let her settle in with some knitting.

At rest

Cathy managed to get a ticket for the next day’s Empire Builder, we had a spare bed for her, so it was all good.

Onwards to May!

The Goodness of Pork Belly

I’ve been seeing packages of pork belly at H Mart, a fabulous Korean market/mall that now has a branch near me.  After finding some very yummy-sounding recipes for it on the ever-useful Internet, I bought a chunk to try.  This recipe for Five Spice Braised Pork Belly looked like a great place to start my pork belly adventure. I simmered it for about 4 hours, and it could have done with another hour or so, I think, as it didn’t have the falling-apart quality that is mentioned.   But oh, my!

Mmm-mmm good!

Savory, rich, delicious, tangy — it is amazingly good.  If you try this, do make the vinegar sauce at the bottom of the page — it is the perfect accompaniment. Please note the bok choy in the background — steamed, not fried, because with that much pork fat, fried bok choy would just be silly.

Care package

I had to send my daughter in college across the country a few things in the mail, and as Easter was approaching, decided to send along some candy as well. But not just any candy, it had to be special. Like this:

Say it with candy

Because nothing says “Happy Easter” like overdressed rabbits snuggling under a poisonous mushroom. And not just any rabbits, but happy German peasant rabbits.

Then this . . . errr . . . leaped out  at me at the grocery store:

Say you'll be mine -- forever.

Perhaps the creepiest movie tie-in ever.  Beyond weird.  

And not only that but collectible!

One of three

I’m so glad to have a daughter with as sense of humor as odd as mine.  Happy Easter, Alex!

Fit To Be Tied

The Danish Tie Shawl washed and blocked beautifully.  I didn’t pin it out,  just patted it into shape.

The striping and curves make for such elegant lines, don’t you think?

Artsy shots become obligatory.

And yet, it’s comfortable to wear, amazingly warm, and very practical to work in, as it is tied in back and the arms are free to move. It’s the same style that is worn by the  Fishwife in this statue in Copenhagen. If only I had a halibut to carry around!

Serving Wine At Its Time

Some Merlot, please

The :Nota Bene 2006 wine release party was a fine event.  This is third year we’ve gone, and this small winery located in a light industrial area of south Seattle continues to go from strength to strength.  The grapes are sourced from eastern Washington, from the Columbia Valley, Yakima Valley, and Red Mountain appellations.  We first became aware of them when co-owner Carol Bryant asked Greg to come  to the party in 2007 to sign a book for her husband, co-owner Tim Narby, who is a big fan. She gave us some wine, we bought more, and have been coming back ever since.

Carol, Tim, and Greg

Tim just happened to have a copy of City at the End of Time on hand, so got that signed this year, and we sipped our way through the new releases and chose a case to take home.  They have a great Futures Club, where pre-ordering a case at the end of the year gets you a very nice discount on wine that you can taste, choose, and collect in March.

No wine for the baby

Everyone had a lovely time, even if not everyone had wine.