Dear Santa,

I’ve been a good girl this year. (sorta)

I fell in love with this cookbook today when I was at Borders. It’s written by the authors of cook’s illustrated and it has all the snotty international recipes I’ve been struggling with, curries, pad thai, paella, it even has a recipe for Naan – which as I predicted would be awesome made in a caste iron skillet in lieu of a tandoori oven. Its awesome, its amazing. I wants.

If you give a girl an international cookbook written by cooks illustrated, she will surely want a retro apron from anthropologie in order to fully exude domestic snobbery in her college kitchen crack-den.

Mmmm long inseams, ’nuff said.

I read through both the Ten faces of innovation and the Art of Innovation – I have to say I like this one better because it outlines exactly what it takes to work at IDEO. How awesome would that be? Umm yeah.

And finally – a tall cozy bathrobe. Because I’m sick of running in a towel to the bathroom in a house that doesn’t heat well…

Thank you santa, I’ll leave cheze and carrats for your raindeer.

Thanksgiving fun!

I got a brief respite after finishing my gigantic research paper on “The loss of the front porch in American suburban architecture” which was just about as much fun as it sounds. Just before coming home I got hit with a really crappy cold that totally knocked me down – but at least it knocked me down while I was home, so I could share it with my family!

Thanksgiving was great, my mom and I brined a turkey which was tender and delicious. As you can see, thanksgiving was delicious and bountiful – with all the trappings of family and whatnot.

(the gravy from hell – it just wouldn’t set)

On black friday we slept through all the nasty shopping madness (hate!) and cozied up to Lizzie Anne’s with Lemonjello’s coffee and knitting at hand. I loved seeing you all! And I’m sorry to those of you I missed (Mary and Michele! Christmas I promise!). People drooled over my Intelligentsia Raglan, and hopefully it helped Lindie sell some Tahki Donegal Tweed

My only real crafting accomplishment is that I made a tea-cozy for my little cute porcelain teapot I got a few years ago. My friend said it reminds him of Dobby – which is telling I suppose.

I made it out of a wool sweater from the salvation army that was felted. It was fun. Not much more on that subject.

Life now consists of finishing up various knitted gifts, applying for jobs (shit…), sending in my art school portfolio, and exams. How come my upper level history classes always have their finals within an hour of each other? That’s way too many dates to cram for… uggh.

Knitting is always sexy!

So I felt obligated to post at least SOMETHING before I go to my job. Nobody would take my shift tonight, so while I should be working on a paper, instead I’ll be pretending to care about old men lapswimming. Ech.

Here’s my progress on the Intellegentsia Raglan – getting super excited about wearing this, pretty sure it will inspire me enough to write all these gd papers.

Sorry about the photo quality. I need to figure out how to take better pictures. Other than writing papers, life is pretty good. I can’t believe how stressed out I am this year (wasn’t senior year supposed to be easy?) My drawing class is easily the biggest time commitment – which totally threw me for a loop. But band is finally in its last leg, so hopefully I’ll be able to do what I always do: freak out at the last minute to get my classes in order before the end of fall semester. Thank you MMB.

And now I’m just facing life choices – do I go to CCS? Or do I get an intro level job at IDEO and work my way up the ladder until they pay for my school? Man I would love to leave Michigan after graduation. Hmmph, grrr. etc.

Okay time for lifeguarding. Ciao bellas – Sweatergirl

Intellegensia Raglan / Cast iron fun!

Here’s the progress I’ve made on my self proclaimed Intellegentsia raglan. And on a similarly cheesy note, I’m glad to have joined the top down revolution. I’m following Stephanie Japel’s instructions for her top down cardigan but I’ve modified it a bit and added this lurvly cable design. I finally just taught myself how to do cables – OH MY GOD its so easy that I’m totally kicking myself for taking this long to buckle down and learn it. The yarn I’m using is a really nice aran tweed (Tahki Homespun Donegal Tweed). I can’t wait to sit in my favorite hole in the wall cafe to flirt with grad students over… “Socialism and the disappearance of the front porch from American architecture” God, I can’t wait to write that paper, due in two weeks. ugh.

In other procrastinatory news, I’ve been playing around with the our cast iron skillet. On Sunday I made a beef stew and a caramelized onion pan bread. The stew was basic, and the bread was easy. I used the recipe from my copy of “How to Cook Everything” which I stole from my mom last time I was at home. Basically you just caramelize the onions and smush the dough over it and cook it in the skillet. It forms this amazing caramelized onion crust on the bottom of the bread. The only thing I would change in this recipe was that the bread was kind of bland, I’m thinking it might be really good with dried rosemary sprinkled in the dough would be perfect.

Tonight I made another great dinner with the skillet. I made a pan seared butterflied chicken with potatoes. I had a bunch of potatoes in my pantry that were getting close to the point of no return. So I butterflied the chicken and pan seared it skin side down in olive oil, and then I chopped up an onion and a few cloves of garlic and put it all in the middle of the pan and laid the chicken over it so that the onion garlic would steam through the chicken. Then I surrounded the entire thing in sweet/baby red potatoes. Oh boy, it was delicious. I think this is possibly the best way to cook a chicken, its so tender and amazing. I ate with my little sister Nick (yay for co-ed service sororities). I love having good food and friends to share it with, cheesy? Maybe a little…

I know it seems like I waste a lot of cooking, but this is really the first time I’ve cooked for fun this year. And then I have food for the rest of the week… at least that’s how I try to justify it .

Do I regret it? Hell no, it was delicious.

MSU Bound

Iden just sent me a link to these apron’s on Anthropologie’s website.

So you might say that this is definitely on my wish-list. I love the idea of taking the next step to be thoroughly domestic.

Delaying bedtime to knit…

So I stayed up late to finish my ribbed shrug. Its a little bit too small for me and since I think Allie would really love it its going to be her x-mas present (Shhh no one tell!). Here are some pictures:

My housewife didn’t feel like taking the effort to get off the couch to take the photo so the quality kind of sucks. I guess you can only ask for so much at 2 am. Well – time for bed.

Ciao, Sweatergirl