Knit Think

Friday food

Sometimes it's good to get all fancypants and complicated. Sometimes it's not.

Especially when you have access to fresh things, like morel mushrooms:

 

and fresh asparagus:

 

There are so many inventive things you can do with these ingredients. But today's post isn't about invention. It's about simplicity. In a nutshell, I sliced the mushrooms and sauted them in butter. I tossed the asparagus with garlic and olive oil, roasted at 425F for 15 minutes, then sprinkled coarse salt, fresh-ground pepper, and a bit of lemon juice on top.

And maybe there was steak--and again, so many cool things you can do with a steak. But for this simple dinner, I took the steaks out of the fridge about an hour before I was going to grill them and rubbed them with olive oil, then sprinkled with coarse salt and fresh-ground pepper. After they'd rested at room temperature for an hour, I grilled them.

 

Heaven on a plate, with almost no effort. That's what summer's all about, right?

Gettin' all matchy with it

You know, before I got into sock knitting myself, I'd read all these other blogs that talked about how hard it can be to get variegated sock yarns to match up properly. Now I see what they mean.

See, here's my latest Opal sock:

 

And look at the next sock! It doesn't match at all!

 

Oh...do you think that the fact that these are different socks in different yarns might make a difference?

Huh.

The one on the right is the latest Nefarious yarn: Xenia Onatopp, from the Bond film Goldeneye, in the Monkey pattern from Knitty. I do love this yarn. It makes me feel all nefarious. Not a bad way to feel after an extraordinarily good Memorial Day weekend, yes?

And for the record--I have completed both of the Opal socks. They are done, done, done! But that photo was boring.

Friday food

Wow, some of you are rather eager to get to the alkeehol! All righty then, I've checked, and it's 5 p.m. in Nova Scotia. Time to toast our Canadian friends, who are most deserving of being toasted. Not to mention our European, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, New Zealand, and Australian friends (including the now-endangered Tasmanian devil).

Here's the cast of characters.

 

Some of these you'll recognize from last week's soda pop adventure. After I posted about the grape soda/pop-ginger ale first explored by Girl Detective, blogless Heidi suggested adding vodka, and there were several enthusiastic thumbs-up to that idea. Girl Detective, however, noted that she wasn't sure that would work.

 

So obviously it had to be done. Pretty, yes? But you know what? Flavor-wise, not so hot. The vodka addition didn't meld with the soda pop at all, and instead it was bitter. Well, snaps to Girl Detective, who got it right. There was also a suggestion from Deb that rum should be used. I'm not a big fan of rum drinks--or sweet drinks in general--so I didn't try this. Those of you who like rum, please feel free to check it out and let me know how it goes.

However, you may have noticed that there were ingredients other than vodka, grape soda/pop, and ginger ale pictured above. The most recent issue of Bon Appetit had what sounded like a delightful recipe for a grapefruit gimlet. This calls for 1/4 cup each ruby red grapefruit vodka, plain vodka, and fresh-squeezed lime juice (about two limes), plus 2 tablespoons simple syrup (water and sugar heated and stirred together until the sugar is fully melted). It called, of course, for special equipment.

  

A martini shaker! Combine the ingredients, add ice, and shake.

 

This? Is brilliant. Very similar to the Greyhound, but even better, with all that fresh lime juice. If you only like sweet drinks, this will not be your cuppa; it's very tangy. But oh, so refreshing, and delightful...

And now it's not just 5 p.m. in Nova Scotia, but in Quebec, and New York, and Vermont, and Massachusetts, and the Carolinas, and Georgia, and Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and Florida...not to mention poor Cheryl, who found herself stranded at the Detroit airport...

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Hic.

Stay tuned...

There will be a Friday Food today. But later. See, it involves alkeehol, and my plan was to make this concoction after attending the middle school band concert last night. However, after spending the evening next to a, shall we say, "energetic," "spirited" preschooler whose dad was feeding him Mountain Dew, ostensibly to calm him down, I came home with, shall we say, some "jitters" and a need not to have to think about what I was doing. So as soon as we're reasonably close to happy hour--and it is the Friday of a holiday weekend, which means 5 o'clock comes pretty early--there will be, shall we say, "adult beverages." Stay tuned!

I know it's not Friday, but...

This just couldn't wait.

Manly cooking

Friday food

Well! I'm so glad y'all liked my cheese-stuffed, bacon-wrapped, deep-fried shrimp last week!

This week we have something completely different, something sorta fancypants, sorta not.

Summer is coming, yes? Time for refreshing drinks? Girl Detective posted this week about a treat she used to get when she lived on the East coast, and how she had to recreate it for herself here. It sounded intriguing, so I decided to give it a try. It's pretty simple.

 

Yup--ice, Canada Dry ginger ale, and Boylan Grape pop/soda (depending on where in the U.S. you live, I don't know if you drink pop or soda. Here, it's all about the pop). So you see, not fancypants (Canada Dry) and fancypants (Boylan). You mix them together. Girl Detective recommended either half and half, or a mixture in which ginger ale gets the bigger share. I did half and half.

 

Pretty, yes? Foamy, tingly, tasty, sweet but not too sweet. Kind of like a better Kool-Aid. Refreshing.

Then it occurred to me--what if I went totally fancypants and upgraded the ginger ale?

 

Fancypants ginger ale!

I mixed that with the Boylan grape pop(soda).

Um.

No.

It was bad.

Those two fancypants ingredients did not get along, not whatsoever. Gross. Ick. Urgh. Blech. Bitter, nasty.

Down the drain it went, and gentle workhorse Canada Dry came to the rescue.

Ah...a mixing of cultures.

Friday food

But first:

 

Star Trek collector glasses from Burger King! You have yours? No? Oh, right, I forgot--I'm a geek and you're not.

On to the food. Today's recipe is dedicated to Chris, for reasons that will become apparent later.

This past week was Cinco de Mayo, and in keeping with my family's proud tradition of celebrating ethnic events we have no relationship to whatsoever--as long as there's good food--we had a Mexican feast.

Usually we go the taco/enchilada/quesadilla route. This year I decided to get a little more adventurous. I pulled an old Mexican cookbook off my shelf, a Time-Life Williams-Sonoma series edition ('cause nothing says Mexican like Time-Life Williams-Sonoma). Teen 2 was watching me look through the recipes, and he was quick to veto dish after dish: "That has onions." (News flash, kid--nearly everything I cook has onions.) "Too many peppers." "Too many spices." "I don't know what those green things are."

Odd that this is the kid who will willingly try just about any food that's put in front of him--but show him pictures, and he becomes a fount of negativity.

Anyway. We found one that was mutually agreeable. And how could it not be?

 

Jumbo shrimp and cheese. So right off the bat we're in tasty territory. The recipe is quite simple. The shrimp, which I purchased already peeled and deveined, needed to be butterflied (I also pulled off the tails) and stuffed with a tablespoon of shredded Cheddar cheese.

 

Really, you could just about stop right here and cook these puppies and be happy, right? Wrong. Because then you'd miss the piece de resistance.

Oh! Now it's time to talk about Chris. You all know her as a blogger. But secretly, away from the blog, she is a massive enabler. She stealthily keeps me apprised of all sorts of things that are smack dab in my central interests. Dias de los Muertos, for example. I've learned about many cool things from Chris. And she's also aware of my other passion:

 

Bacon!!!!! So Chris, for all the bacon oddities you've pointed me to--bacon salt, bacon soap, bacon everything--this recipe is dedicated to you.

See, you take your cheese-stuffed shrimp and wrap them in bacon, securing them with toothpicks.

Let's just pause to admire the brilliance of that.

 

OOooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh. Yes.

At this point, the plate goes in the freezer for an hour. My understanding is that keeps the cheese from melting too fast when it's cooked.

In the meantime, mix together some sour cream and adobe sauce from a can of chipotles, which serves as a delightful dipping sauce (and, I suspect, would go well on other things).

 

And make some side dishes. In this case, rice and peas was made, because that's what the cookbook suggested, and who am I to argue with Time-Life Williams-Sonoma?

Once the hour in the freezer is up, it's time to fry those little preciouses in oil heated to 375F.

 

It only takes 3-4 minutes per batch. Your kitchen will smell divine. Your family will crowd round in awe and admiration. They will nearly come to blows over the last couple of pieces. Even as DH notes in wonder, "I can't believe I'm eating deep-fried bacon."

Seriously, I could put these on a stick and make a fortune at the State Fair.

But then Time-Life Williams-Sonoma would probably want the profits. So maybe I'll just make them at home.

More book talk

But before I give you the answers to Monday's quiz, a quick note: on my other blog, I'm having a contest, and the winner will get a signed copy of my book, plus some other fun MN goodies! So go! Sign up!

Also! I'm signing up for the Southern Reading Challenge. Since the Chunkster Challenge seems to have bit the dust, why not? The three books I'll read are: The Habit of Being, letters of Flannery O'Connor; The Help, by Kathryn Stockett; and To Kill a Mockingbird (it's just been too long).

OK. The question was, what books do these opening lines belong to? There were a couple gimmes in there, but I think I truly stumped a lot of people. Such a delightful feeling, that.

1.       When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her.

Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett. LOVE this book.

2.       1801—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with.

This is one of the gimmes--Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, a.k.a. the ultimate emo.

3.       Now I believe they will leave me alone.

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. Seriously? One of the best books ever. That said, I've

been in two different book clubs where opinion was sharply divided between those who loved it, and those who hated it. In one club, the book actually changed hands as one of the haters, who’d bought it, happily passed it over to a lover, who’d gotten it from the library.

4.       Master was a little crazy; he had spent too many years reading books overseas, talked to himself in his office, did not always return greetings, and had too much hair.

Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Oh, such a beautiful, hard book.

5.       It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Here’s the other gimme: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

6.       Harriet was trying to explain to Sport how to play Town.

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. I read this numerous times growing up, then hadn’t read it in years until my oldest, then 10, read it, and I read it with him. It holds up amazingly well.

7.       It never ends. I watched him through the spyglass to see what the game would be.

Property by Valerie Martin. Chilling. Thought-provoking. One of those books that just stays with you, long after you’ve finished it.

8.       It is after midnight on one of those Friday nights when the guests have all gone home and the host and hostess are left in their drunkenness to try and put things right again.

Music for Torching by A.M. Homes. If you like dark humor, Homes is right up your alley. How can you beat a book that opens with a drunk, bored suburban couple setting their house on fire, just for something to do?

9.       The grass was white with frost on the shadowed sides of the reservation hills and ditches, but the morning air was almost warm, sweetened by a southern wind. Father Damien’s best hours were late at night and just after rising, when all he’d had to break his fast was a cup of hot water.

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich. Oh, man, do I love this woman’s writing.

10.   The story so far: I have been writing a column in this magazine for the last fifteen months. And though I have had frequent battles with the Polysyllabic Spree—the fifty-five disturbingly rapturous and rapturously disturbing young men and women who edit the Believer—I honestly thought that things had got better recently.

Chris was close—this is Housekeeping vs. the Dirt by Nick Hornby, a sequel to The Polysyllabic Spree. Wonderful, funny essays about reading and books.

So…how many of you are going “D’oh!!” right now?

 

Book meme

I saw this over at Adventure in Reading, and it was too fun to pass up.

1. Pick 10 of your favorite books. 2. Post the first sentence of each book. (If one sentence seems too short, post two or three!)
3. Let everyone try to guess the titles and authors of your books! (I'll take guesses in the comments)

1.       When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her.

2.       1801—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with.

3.       Now I believe they will leave me alone.

4.       Master was a little crazy; he had spent too many years reading books overseas, talked to himself in his office, did not always return greetings, and had too much hair.

5.       It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

6.       Harriet was trying to explain to Sport how to play Town.

7.       It never ends. I watched him through the spyglass to see what the game would be.

8.       It is after midnight on one of those Friday nights when the guests have all gone home and the host and hostess are left in their drunkenness to try and put things right again.

9.       The grass was white with frost on the shadowed sides of the reservation hills and ditches, but the morning air was almost warm, sweetened by a southern wind. Father Damien’s best hours were late at night and just after rising, when all he’d had to break his fast was a cup of hot water.

10.   The story so far: I have been writing a column in this magazine for the last fifteen months. And though I have had frequent battles with the Polysyllabic Spree—the fifty-five disturbingly rapturous and rapturously disturbing young men and women who edit the Believer—I honestly thought that things had got better recently.

 

 

 

Friday food

Yes, it's late. Bear with me. Teen 1 had yet another birthday this week, and his birthday present was a trip to Myth Nightclub to see a bunch of bands including Lamb of God and Children of Bodom. Guess who picked that present.

See, here's the thing. If you live in/near the Twin Cities, let me just say that I live in Eden Prairie, and the Myth is in Maplewood, which is sort of like leaving L.A. for a concert in NYC. To make things even more fun, a couple members of Lamb of God staged a meet-and-greet at Capitol Guitars in St. Paul. That's sort of like stopping in Atlanta on the way to NYC.

Sure, I exaggerate. Would you expect anything less?

Anyway. There were, like, five bands. The show started at six and got done shortly before midnight, leaving a long trek back to the Prairie. I'm not the kind of person who can just crash as soon as I arrive home--I have to sit up and read for a while or watch TV. So, yeah. Short on sleep today.

In case you're wondering how I spent my time while The Teen and his friend went to the concert, I spent most of it at a Caribou Coffee, knitting merrily away (finished a whole gusset!) and eavesdropping a very entertaining group of hunters who went from discussing entrails to a spirited discussion of who's the bigger diva, Stevie Nicks or Christine McVie. This discussion was prompted when one of the hunters flipped open his camera phone and started showing off pictures of big bass he's caught and found some photos of Stevie Nicks in concert.

Word to the wise? If you're in a public coffee shop? Talking loudly? And there's a quiet middle-aged lady hunched nearby, knitting furiously, not looking at you, and she stops every now and then, grabs her cell phone, types a quick text, and goes back to her knitting? Chances are really good that she's Twittering about you.

I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, again. Recently I finished a fine biography of Flannery O'Connor, the great Southern writer whose work I love. I learned many interesting things about her. Especially about her favorite drink.

Coke and coffee. Say! Doesn't that sound exactly like something a sleep-deprived person needs? I'm fully aware that Coke made its own version of this some time ago (Coke Blak, anyone?), but that was gross. Just like lemon-flavored colas are gross, whereas a cola with fresh lemon is delightful and refreshing. Therefore, I felt this deserved an opportunity to shine away from the Coca-Cola factory.

 

So I brewed some coffee, poured it over ice to halfway up the glass, poured in some regular Coke, and stirred it.

Umm. Didn't feel the love.

So I tried the Diet Coke.

 

Yeah. No. Not so much. The regular Coke was better, a little sweeter, not surprisingly. But overall? Flannery, my dear, you can have it.

I'll still love your stories.