New Friends

I haven’t known Anna very long (and I certainly don’t feel I know her that well), so I was a little surprised when she invited me to her birthday dinner. I was also a little apprehensive – I wasn’t sure that I’d know anyone. In any case, I arrived at Cambridge One, and was pleasantly surprised. I did know a few of the people there, and everyone I met was really nice. I had some interesting conversations, and met lots of new people. I’d also never eaten at Cambridge One before (I’m really not sure how this has happened – I’ve eaten in most places in Harvard Square), and it was good. I particularly enjoyed the portebello pizza.

On Friday night, I had a lovely long dinner at Tanjore, followed by ice-cream at Christina’s, with Jason and Anna. It’s been a long time since I’ve had dinner at Tanjore (although I often go there for the buffet lunch, which is also excellent), and I’d forgotten how good it could be. We ordered all vegetarian food – including a few things I’d never had before: the Baigan Bhurta and the Malai Kofta (both are delicious). After ice cream, Anna went home, and Jason and I walked to Kendall to see The Lives of Others. I’d heard plenty of good things about this movie, and it really is worth seeing, but it is incredibly grim (and quite long, too – so you have to endure a lot of grimness). Whenever I see movies set in Communist regimes, it always strikes me as completely foreign to me. I guess it is my luck that I really have trouble imagining what it would be like to live in a Communist country.

We’ve been having some very mixed weather here in Boston. Sometimes it’s beautifully sunny and warm, and it really seems like spring has arrived, but the next day will be cold, windy, and snowy. It’s very hard to know what to wear when you leave the house in the morning! (I was caught without an umbrella last night, and had to buy one to walk home with). Needless to say, it’s not particularly helpful when, during a cold, snowy moment, your mother sends you a beautiful photograph of Cottesloe beach at sunset. This scene is so familiar to me – I know exactly where Mum was standing when she took this photo – and, combined with cold weather, it makes me incredibly homesick!

I’m still enthusiastically gardening, in hope of some more reliable spring weather. I’ve become a bit more organized and methodical, buying peat pots to germinate seeds in, and showing some restraint with how many seeds I put in a pot at a time (in my first plantings I more or less tipped in the whole packet). I’ve got quite a few seedlings at the moment (and hopefully more on the way). At the moment, there’s:

• Moonflowers: These are some really serious seedlings. The beginning leaves are easily an inch across, in both dimensions. I have visions of evening drinks on my balcony, accompanied by the fantastic scent of these flowers.
• Grandpa Otts Morning Glory: I don’t know that you can really have moonflowers without having morning glory to compliment them. They’re of the same family, so the morning glory seedlings are very similar to the moonflowers, although their leaves are much smaller.
• Fine Leaf Chives: I use chives quite a bit when I’m cooking, so these are a must. They’re just poking their heads through the soil in a grassy looking way, but I’m sure they’ll be delicious when the time comes.

Sew…

I bought a sewing machine. I did some extensive research, and it really seemed like the Janome Jem was pretty much the perfect beginner machine. It arrived last night. It is pretty much perfect. It’s astoundingly light (I can pick it up with one hand), and it’s a lot more solid looking and feeling than I had imagined it would be. A bit has been made of the fact that it has no stitch length setting – you just pick one of three from the stitch selector – but this is fine with me. It took me no time at all to get it threaded and set up (bobbin included) – it’s almost exactly the same system as my mother’s Bernina – and I was off! I shortened my new pair of jeans. No problems sewing through three layers of denim, although I did slow down at the seams (where I was sewing through six layers of denim). I’m not sure I needed to though. I’m still getting used to the location of the presser-foot lever, but other than that, I’m very happy with it. It’s everything I need, and nothing I don’t.

One of the more fun things I get to count as “work” is organizing craft classes. Last week I organized a class where we all learned how to make balloon animals. (I didn’t teach the class – I just organized it!). In any case, we all mastered the balloon dog, and I also made a balloon swan, but I’m not sure I could repeat the trick (dogs, I can – I made a lot of them). We had some families with young children show up, which helped make the class a lot of fun (I think we would have had fun regardless, though). What really amazed me was just how robust the balloons were. We ordered these fantastic Q260 balloons from T. Myers Magic, and the instructor bought a bunch of pumps with her (which we really needed – those balloons would have been tough to blow up without them!).

Easy Cooking

Stéphanie and I held a second dinner party a couple of weekends ago. This time, it was my turn to make the main course. Last year, I bought a couple of (mainly) vegetarian “easy supper”-type cook books, one of which was Simple Suppers, from the Moosewood Collective. I’ve been meaning to try it out, but hadn’t had a chance. This was the moment to test it. I ended up making the Beans and Greens Risotto. I was a little apprehensive, as it uses ingredients I’ve never really seen in a risotto before (a can of beans?), but it was delicious. I ended up using red kale instead of escarole (which doesn’t seem to be in season right now), and for the first time ever while making risotto, I did heat the stock, etc. in a separate pot. As much as it pains me to admit it, it does make the whole thing faster and easier, even if you do have more dirty pots at the end of the night.

I also recently made Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding. I used the recipe that my family always uses for this, and used good quality Valrhona cocoa powder (again for the first time). What a difference a good cocoa makes! This was without doubt the richest and most delicious version of this recipe I’ve ever made. If you’ve never made a self-saucing pudding, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Basically, you start out with something approximating cake batter, with chocolatey sugar-water on top, and then, when you remove it from the oven you discover that you’ve got a cakey dessert with a delicious chocolate sauce underneath – just like magic!

Mum recently sent me a photo of my newest cousin, Spencer. Isn’t he the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? He’s about 11 months right now, and I saw quite a bit of him when I was in Australia over Christmas, and really can report that he is this adorable in real life. He’s a beautiful quiet baby. I’m sure he has his moments, but he’s generally just lovely to be around, hold, and play with.

Signs of Spring

There aren’t many signs of spring outside (in fact, the weather has been unpleasantly cold recently), but inside there are signs of green, pushing up through the soil.

These are Bibb Lettuce seedlings. I really have no idea how the lettuce in the pot on the balcony thing is going to go, but I’m optimistic. These little plants germinated incredibly quickly – less than a week – so I must be doing something right! I’ve moved them into the kitchen where they sit by the window, soaking up some sun.

My paperwhite bulb has also been growing at an alarming rate.

It turns out that paperwhites are pretty much ideal for vase forcing. They really require no special treatment (I think they’re even less tempramental than hyacinths, if such a thing is possible). I’ve got more cherry tomatoes and thai basil seedlings than I know what to do with – I’ve had to find friends willing to adopt them! I’ve got a single Better Boy tomato plant, and all the Perfume Delight sweet pea seeds I’ve put in are up. Sweet peas are funny plants – they really do go straight up at an incredible rate for the first little bit – you can’t help wondering when they’re going to get around to putting out some leaves.

It hasn’t been all gardening here, though. There’s been time for some knitting, too.

I’ve finished Mist, the cardigan I was knitting for my grandmother – and in time for her 90th birthday! Sadly I didn’t have time to get to the post-office until late this week (her birthday is on Sunday) so it’s unlikely she’ll have it on time – still the weather is apparently quite warm in Perth at the moment, so it’s probably OK if it’s a few days late. This really was a lot of fun to knit, and the resulting cardigan is incredibly warm (I’ve tried it on) – I’ll definitely be ordering kits from Kim Hargreaves in the future.

I have a secret goal in life: I’d like to knit all of the Socks that Rock colorways.

This is light-weight Barney Rubble, and I’ll use it to make some of Kate Gilbert’s Generic Socks – just as soon as I finish my Claudia’s Handpainted socks (I’m over half way – the first sock is done, the second is on the way). I’m pretty much sold on Kate’s sock pattern. I’ve been making them with a picot edge (Kate describes how to do this in the pattern) and I like it a lot. I’m not sure if I really would prefer a short-row heel, but the heel flap is fine for now – and I think it does give some extra reinforcement, which probably isn’t a bad thing. While I was putting browsing Flickr, I stumbled across this amazing scarf, made from Medium Weight Socks that Rock yarn – it’s broadened my Socks that Rock ideas considerably.

I finished Magic For Beginners on Wednesday. This is a book I really wanted to love, but just didn’t. I mean, at the very least, it’s got a great title.

It’s a collection of short stories, most of which start off normally enough, but which move into the magical or supernatural at some point. Maybe it was a little too magical for me? (Or a little too science fiction? It’s often a fine line between the two). I didn’t hate this book – I just feel ambivalent about it. It never really pulled me in, and I wanted so much more from it.

I finally got around to seeing Casino Royale over the weekend. I’m not sure that it’s showing in cinemas any more but I caught at MIT’s LSC. I’m glad I did, as it’s definitely worth seeing on the big screen. Daniel Craig makes and excellent Bond, and the movie was everything you’d expect a Bond movie to be, although it was definitely on the long side. My one complaint: product placement. It would be nice if it were a little less obvious.

Kelly & Family

It’s a little disconcerting when your school friends start to have children! Kelly’s the first of my high school friends to have a baby, and she sent me some beautiful photos of her new daughter, Caitlyn. I missed out on meeting Caitlyn while I was in Australia (she was born at the end of my visit), but I’m looking forward to catching up with Kelly and her family when I’m in Australia in December.