Yummy Food and a Yarn Crawl

Yesterday, we had a little adventure -- a little yarn crawl followed by a yummy lunch at a raw vegan restaurant (105 Degrees). The yarn crawl included two stores which actually turned out to have very nice selections and yes, there was some buying done. I swear I am swearing off buying sock yarn next year but since there are still a few days left till next year, I bought some more. I also got some cool odds and ends.

Well, all that shopping works up an appetite and we headed over to what was a special treat for me: a return visit to 105 Degrees. I neglected to get pics of everything we ate, but did manage to snap a few:

This is the "BLT" salad -- instead of bacon, they season coconut and dehydrate it. Maybe if you've never had real bacon, you'd think it was bacon. But, it did taste good and as you can see, it was a big salad.










I spaced out and didn't take a picture of my first course or my lasagna, but remembered in time to get pics of dessert. This is the chocolate tart that I ordered and took home half of -- and it was very good.











And, this is the brownie sundae that SO had. He said it was good but the brownie was hard.









We also had a couple of alcoholic beverages which were very nice and overall, it was a great lunch...except for the embarrassing part where I threw my gum out in the bathroom into the can of dirty cloth hand towels instead of the trash can.

Later, we went out with the fam for a birthday dinner and then to see "True Grit". Here is SO holding my hand in the movies -- notice the spiffy gloves he is wearing. They are made from buffalo yarn -- we bought them at the second yarn shop where they had a nice selection of yarns from bison, yak, etc. What a treat to see the yarns in the stores instead of just drooling over them in magazines or online!!!

Exciting News!

It was a year in the making, but our little book of illustrated recipes arrived last night!!!



Probably for twenty years I've thought about writing my own cookbook. You know what? It's harder than I thought! Our little book has a recipe with a drawing for each month of the year -- recipes by moi and drawings by SO. We will be distributing them as little gifties this season.

We have lots of ideas for a sequel, too!

I guess this is my last post before Christmas...so Merry Christmas to my faithful blog readers! XO, TBD

You Better Watch Out...

You know who is coming to town!!!!

Who knew Santa liked to tool around on a chopper on Saturday nights in Baltimore? Take that, West Coast Chopper!











We braved the cold Saturday night to embrace a local tradition of going to see the lights on the homes of a short city block in downtown Baltimore on 34th Street. I'm not sure how many years this has been going on (I've gone for the last seven years), but it's really quite the scene. From Thanksgiving till New Years, this little street hosts thousands of people who walk the street to see the Christmas lights. It's hard to do it justice in the photos and there's no conveying the true ambiance, but this is pure Baltimore: kitschy, sentimental, and do it yourself. No money for Christmas lights? No problem -- build yourself a Christmas tree out of hubcaps or tin cans -- no problem for me -- after all, I'm the girl that has a crocheted tee pee!!











































This year it was about 35 degrees out for the the outing -- no too bad-- and there were a group of Mennonites singing Christmas carols and a burrito truck.

I will have very exciting news in my next post...just in time for Christmas, but you better watch out, you better not pout...

Knitted Gifts: Blessing or Curse?

I can't decide what people really think when I give them something I've knitted. I'm gaga for it, but I haven't lost complete touch with reality so I know that maybe these treasures feel like traps to some people.

But, I still can't help myself. Here's another Xmas gift ready to go:












In fact, I'm now officially done knitting for the holidays. The self-imposed pressure I put on myself about these gifts makes me want to start immediately in January stock-piling finished objects so there is no crunch come late in the year. I actually do start fairly early, I think, in August but maybe it's better to start right in January...or maybe it's not. Why change?

This scarf was knit on huge size 35 needles and I was finishing it up on Saturday while sitting at an estate auction. I plodded along till the end. After a short break, I took out something else I'm working on that's brown/pinks/reds and on much smaller needles and after about an hour, the man in back of me asked me what happened to the large needles. He thought I was still working on the same thing. I thought it was funny that he noticed it at all -- he noticed the change in the needle size but not the difference between the green scarf and the brown/pink/red shawl.

Starting next week, I will be travelling and in sock mode till the New Year. I'm looking forward to having a couple of new pairs of socks to parade around in.

Cookies Ka-Pow!

Presents, done.
Decorating, done (ok, that consisted of pulling out SO's wooden Xmas tree and hanging a wreath on the door).
Therefore, yesterday was dedicated to COOKIES.

This year we kept it simple -- just four good sturdy, but yummy types: Peanut Butter Balls, Lemon Bars, Chocolate Chips, and Iced Butter Cookies. Still, it takes all day and three people to pull it off, especially when there was a double batch of chocolate chip involved and the peanut butter balls seem to go on forever. But, of course, yours truly has a system for such things and I'd made the butter cookies the day before so they were perfectly ready to receive their icing and put together dinner in the slow cooker in the morning (Beef Burgundy -- pretty good).

And, I've decided that I may possibly be the world's worst food photographer. Frankly, it's the last thing I think of and I do it at the end of the whole process when I'm tired, but still I push myself to click the button because, afterall, Monday does come and there is need for a blog post. Now, onto the cookie pics --


First up, here are some peanut butter balls. Don't be fooled by the scant number. We made a big pile of these because, well, what is Xmas without chocolate and peanut butter?














Here are the Lemon Bars and some of the Chocolate Chips. This year and last, I used a recipe straight off the flour bag for the chocolate chips and I think they are as good as they come. Also, I treated us to some new cookie sheets a few weeks ago when they were on sale and it made life pretty nice.













Now, the Butter Cookies series of pictures featuring the festive designs of myself and my two cookie elves: SO and Daughter of SO.


These are my "creations". Personally, this proves I should stick to the cooking part. I believe these look like they were made by a first-grader or possibly kindergartner.










These are Daughter of SO's. I think they look very nice.













And, finally, we have SO's. Notice they are works of art. I fancy myself as his muse...:-)

Christmas on a $1!

Hey, calling all you budget-minded readers, let me introduce you to Christmas on a $1! Yes, you heard correctly: one dollar!!

This year, SO and I started the tradition that one of our gifts to one another had to cost a dollar or less. This sort of started out as a little joke, but then turned into a competition to see who could come up with the most spectacular $1 present.

The history of this goes back a few months ago when we went to an estate auction and I bought a set of three paint by numbers paintings for $1. There were two small ones and one large one -- all winter scenes. I knew immediately that I wanted to small ones for my guest bathroom and that I was going to set aside the large one for SO because he's been aiming towards decorating one of his bedrooms with a winter theme (old skis, ice skates, etc.). I figured it would be kind of funny to hide it away till Christmas and then spring it on him. Unusually, he forgot all about the third painting when he was hanging the two little ones for me.

Then, before Thanksgiving, we were putting up all the winter stuff and there was the need for the picture. I said, "OK, I guess I will give you one of your Christmas presents early." SO protested, thinking I was giving up something of great value before the big day. I sheepishly replied that he was getting his 33 cent present and reminded him of the picture.

At that point, we looked at each other and decided that there should always be a present for a $1 or less at Christmas.

Here is SO's 33 cent picture:














Now, SO was not to be outdone! Yesterday we were at an auction and he scored my $1 Christmas present:



This mirror is huge!!! It hardly fit into the Mini. I don't know how I will top this next year, but luckily, I can get started hoarding a year in advance.