boo and yay

i finally went to the wychwood barns farmers' market today, and... well they are purists about only having local products, and i wanted veg, and it's february in ontario, so all they had were a few potatoes and cabbages. less than exciting.

they did however have non-food items, such as this:



the stall also had lovely yarn as well - and according to their website (still very much a work-in-progress), there is more to come!

filmy

ok in addition to seeing more knitting in the movies lately, it seems there is more knitting behind the scenes as well... in an interview with meryl streep on jonathan ross's film 2009 she discusses how she, amy adams, and other actors conducted an on-set knitting circle while filming doubt; and in her excellent book knit 2 together, tracey ullman discusses how she rediscovered the joys of knitting on the set of a dirty shame. it's not surprising really considering how much time on set is spent waiting, waiting, waiting!

ooh, it's been awhile

have been far to busy this past month - the xmas thing, dinner for six, out-of-town guests, horribly sick, more guests (we've had five sleep over in the last month), a birthday party for baby to which we invited more people than we realised, helping a friend move, hosting refugees of the great blackout, helping a friend with immigration issues, having family over, and again horribly sick. i have managed to make a few little things along the way though - a hat for cousin oliver, a scarf and vest for harry, and thankfully i got a boatload of cooking done last week before being felled by "something viral," so we won't starve. but not a lot of time to do much.

i did however finally get around to seeing lars and the real girl, which i cried through like a baby (i grew up in a small town like that, but there wasn't any rallying-around-the-lonely-nutter that i recall - quite the opposite), and which made me feel a little crafty - lars wears a knitted baby blanket throughout, and church ladies come over and knit and embroider. and in typical synchronistic form, just as i was thinking again about knitting and movies, i stumbled across this list of knitting references in movies. brilliant.

we did it!

we survived christmas!! not everything got done that i wanted done (but that involved tearing down a wall) but the dining room was set up nicely, there was way too much food for everyone (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, shredded sweet potatoes with garlic and fresh sage, chestnuts braised in port, red peppers stuffed with fennel, and green beans), even if it was all a little overdone because someone didn't tell me three o'clock that our guests had confirmed that they would arrive at four (i had asked them to arrive at three for dinner at four), and then they didn't arrive till gone four-thirty anyway...

no matter! tg loved the gloves i knit him, baby siena's mum loved the hat and mittens i knit for her, everyone was suitably impressed by the shelves, and more importantly, our guests did all the dishes! and we have enough leftovers i won't have to cook for days.

and speaking of leftovers, i almost forgot the best part: when we were little, we used to always have a sara lee frozen pecan coffee cake on christmas morning. after going without for decades, a bought one maybe five years ago, and... it was foul. it tasted like aluminum with a sprinkling of vanillin and msg. so after failing to google anything that looked right to me, i freestyled a recipe and was extremely pleasantly surprised with the results - not least because i have had no success with yeast-raised things in years, not counting the nyt no-knead bread. so i was thrilled that it rose at all, more thrilled with how puffy and light and moist it was, and also thrilled with the taste (the proof of the pudding being in the eating).



so here is my recipe:

christmas morning pecan coffee cake

dough:
1/2 cup warm water
3/4 tsp white sugar
1/4 oz yeast (one package)
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted

topping:
2 tbs soft butter
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup pecan halves
2 tbs flour
milk for brushing

frosting:

2 tbs soft butter
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 TBS milk

dissolve sugar in warm water in a bowl. sprinkle yeast over and allow to sponge (about 10 minutes).

combine flour and sugar in a large bowl. make a well in the centre. pour in yeast mixture.

beat egg together with milk and pour it into the flour as well. stir together, add melted butter, and stir until well combined. cover with greased waxed paper (or a butter wrapper) and set in a warm place to double in bulk (about two hours).

meanwhile, make topping by creaming together the butter and sugar. put 3/4 cup of pecans (save the rest for decoration) in a food processor with the flour and pulse until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, then add to the bowl with the sugar and butter and mix together.

punch down the dough, dump out on a floured board, and knead for five minutes, until dough feels silky. add more flour if necessary, but it should be quite soft.

roll out into a circle about 1/4 inch thick and 16 or so inches in diameter. make 12 cuts from the outside edge about 1/2 of the way to the middle.



lift the dough gently into a greased and floured pie plate or quiche dish. sprinkle topping in the middle. take one of the twelve strips of dough, twist it once, fold it in towards the centre of the plate, and sprinkle with topping. repeat with remaining strips so they all overlap towards the centre. sprinkle with remaining topping and pecan halves. set in a warm place to rise until double (another two hours).

brush with milk and bake for 35 minutes at 350 F.

make frosting by creaming together the butter and sugar; stir in vanilla and milk. drizzle over coffee cake and serve hot or cold.

feeling guilty, or not

okay, so i was feelign kind of guilty that i haven't sent out all our christmas cards yet. about a third went out weeks ago, a dozen went out today, and the rest are still to be glued/signed. argh.

but then when i mailed today's lot, the mailboxes were so full they wouldn't close properly. really. i guess i'm not the only last-minuter.

so what's left to do before the 25 december rolls around?

i've knitted & felted the baby's stocking, but haven't lined or embroidered it yet. my own stocking doesn't even have my name on it. i dream of having a cute new dress and making pyjamas for the baby; we'll see. living room is sorted. dining room is a mess. tg's gloves are almost done (one finger to go!). there is some baking to do, and of course the cards. and ordering a turkey and making stuffing.

i need more time off!

yahoo!!

finito! well, i haven't done any painting obviously, and i do want to drive a few more nails for stability's sake, but other than that, voila!


please ignore the dusty footprints on the sofa... the world is my stepladder.


and note the artful placement of paint cans in hopes of flattening out one of the shelves that has a bit of a wow to it.


and now, i am going to finish off my bowl of leftover mincemeat, and sleep for as long as possible.

holiday madness day three - finished! or not!

five o'clock - time to tidy up & get baby. i've got all the shelves installed on one side (yay!) but not the other (boo!) fortunately the cutting & installing of shelves is the fun part. quick and easy. here's the done bit:


and here's the day's biggest time-user: the part where i had to shape the wood to fit around the crown moulding:


this old radio is completely non-functional (bought for $5, i intend to replace its innards with innards that function) but works great as a weight.