torrilin

And there's still a great big ball to go. It's now about the size of my fist, which is sorta a whole lot smaller than "almost a softball".

The weather is windy and raw, and the National Guard Post has their flag at half mast.

I've cranked out about 3 tufts of spinning this morning. I have 3 more set out for today. I did some swatching yesterday, and the 4 ply is definitely the right weight for the needles I want to use for socks... they're 2.75mm, so it'd be a fairly fast pair of socks. I'm sorta having a don't wannas fit tho, because I want to spin something different or knit on my shawl or something so I don't use up my pretty fiber so fast. I seem to view pretty fiber the same way I view pretty lipstick... I *hate* the thought of running out!

I'm debating about doing the yarn as a true four ply. I'm also debating about picking up the parts to throw together a lazy kate for winding plying balls. I found that while the cabled yarn is definitely the right weight and fairly easy to do... I didn't get the plying twist just right. It was *exceedingly* splitty to knit, and made me very sad.

to do:
get rice
make peach cobbler
figure out something for dinner and make it
empty dishwasher
load dishwasher

Since apparently I haven't properly tagged the final version with recipe, or done it up coherently...

Take some peaches. TJs sells peaches by 6, which is how I would buy them at the Culver City Market when I originally developed this. One group of 6 will fill or overfill a pyrex pie plate. 12-18 (depending on size) will fill a 9*13 pyrex baking dish. If you somehow have even more peaches, Corningware's french white stuff is deep enough that it's *almost* impossible to overfill.

Slice the peaches. If you have a lot of peaches for your dish, slice them as small as you can stand. I don't usually skin them, because it's a huge production. It works the same way as skinning a tomato. Also, I think the colors are pretty.

Sprinkle the peaches with sugar. I just use a regular eating spoon and look for all the fruit to have enough sugar that it'll macerate as it sits around. (Anna, I macerate with roughly double the sugar your mom does)

Season the fruit. If I remember I add a tiny bit of salt (I didn't at Anna's). I like it best with lemon zest and lemon juice, because you can still get yummy smelling lemons at a CA market just as peaches are coming in in May or June. Bill likes it best with cinnamon. You can also use nutmeg, clove, allspice or pepper, or some mixture that seems sensible to you.

If I have time, I shove it in the fridge to macerate.

Cobbles are just biscuits. 2 units flour to 1 unit butter, pinch of salt, spoonful of baking powder, milk to make batter. I usually add about 1/4c sugar for cobbler, but don't always. If I used seasoning beyond sugar and salt on the fruit, I'll often add it to the cobbles too. You can add pecans to the biscuits if you're cutting in butter, and this works very well. Almonds you'd have to chop and stir in.

It'll make any peaches taste like they were God's gift to humans, almost no matter how crummy they were originally. And the same theory works on almost any other stone fruit. Mostly, I use it on nectarines.

Casino Royale's opening... is really racist. Yes, I know it's set in Africa. Yes, it is reasonable that most of the "bad guys" are black. But there's no need to film it like a white supremacist X-men crossover.

I've got 8 oz of gorgeous orange, yellow, red and fuschia BFL. It's now torn to bits and sorted by color, and I'm sampling. My goal is to spin it all during the Tour de France, and get in bike riding every day of the tour. A secondary goal is to try and spin a mile of yarn in a day... I may not make it, but it'll be fun to try.

Samples down: cabled 4 ply.

Samples remaining: chain ply, true 3 ply

I'm not sampling a two ply because I'm looking for a sock weight yarn, and this is combed top so my default yarn in a two ply will roughly match the shawl yarn. That makes for too skinny for socks. WAY too skinny. Right now, I'm leaning towards the cabled 4 ply purely for the fun factor.

For weekend

garlic
whole chicken (2x, turn half into stock and poached meat for next week's lunches)
white wine that wants to be chilled (prosecco maybe?)

long grain rice

enchilada sauce
refrieds
taco chips
cherry/grape tomatoes

Also, got ginger. Time to set one of the chickens to poaching, with the spine of the second. I'm not dealing with the oven on for longer than I *have* to.

Kitchen degooped. Peaches cut up for a small batch of cobbler (pie size, not army size). Taters frying with bacon for the feeding of creatures. Melty cheese out for the doctoring of taters.

Still need to do laundry. Ew.

Still need to do weights. More yay.

Need to make biscuit dough for cobbler

Need to solve the dinner problem.

Need to empty dishwasher.

Need to get back on the packed lunch wagon... possibly via roast chicken?

I should start laying in a winter stockpile now.

-2x large containers of gatorade powder
-25lbs jasmine rice
-10lbs sushi rice
-giant container of soy sauce
-20lbs flour
-20 lbs sugar
-6 cans tomatoes
-6 jars salsa
-12 cans vegan refrieds
-5lbs dried lentils
-5lbs other beans?
-case of canned soup?
-6x jars of curry paste

is it worth storing larger masses of potatoes in basement to save trips out?

that les baguettes are not just "the breads" but also "the chopsticks" in French?

In other news, my French is still terrible, but I can read this site well enough that I can probably place an order. Most of the ad copy is pretty straightforward, since it's a list of technical specs. I have a lot more trouble with the flavor text, since there are more words I don't know and verb forms I don't understand.

Guess I should keep listening to French podcasts tho, it seems to help up my understanding of the language by exposing me to new words and reinforcing ones I already know.

Chinese people are brutally frugal, male or female, married or single, young or old. Anyone that knows anyone of Chinese ancestry can easily attest to this. It is a mindset inherited from centuries of living with little means, unstable governments/social systems and saving every bit they can for an uncertain future.

Not really true. Most Chinese-Americans I know are just as improvident as those of European descent, but the improvidence takes a different form.

A friend's mother habitually buys things "because it's on sale!". If it's on sale, it must be a good deal, and so they have boxes and boxes of cold cereal, piles of underwear, stacks of khakis and more toilet paper than they could use in two years. She means well, but buys far more than they can use in a reasonable amount of time. All this excess stuff takes up a lot of storage space, and some of it will go off, get outgrown or shrunk out of before it ever gets used. Or the family will end up eating nothing but cereal for a week to "avoid waste".

For an American, the usual vice is impulse buying. We see a new thing, and it's so pretty and shiny that we have to buy it. Now. Still leads to stuffed houses and things not getting used. Very wasteful.

Taken to an extreme (and it doesn't take much for either of these to get extreme), these are both serious vices. A Chinese-American mother would be very annoyed with her child for buying on impulse, and the child would get a long lecture over it. A mongrel American mother like mine would be very annoyed with her child for buying more than is needed... it's a sin to waste. But pretending that your culture's vice is harmless leads to just as much foolish spending as the warned against vice causes.

A better mantra is reduce, reuse, and recycle. Ask yourself if you need the new thing or just want it. If you need it, do you need *that* much? This prevents excessive stacks of clothing and food. Can you reuse a thing you already have (or that someone else doesn't want any more) to accomplish the same purpose? This is aimed right at impulse buying, because it leads you to consider even an impulse purchase more carefully. And recycling encourages you to think about packaging, which is most of what gets recycled. Do you really need that package? Often, if you hunt around or plan things a bit differently, you can avoid packaging, or make it work for you.

Even getting things that are just for amusement is ok... but it needs to be something that gets used. My bicycle and spindles get used often, and give me lots of joy. I can *go* places and make yarn! But an exercise bike is a waste of money for me. I don't much enjoy sitting on an exercise bike, I want to *go* somewhere. Better to spend the money on studded tires for my bike and learn to ride on ice.

Whee, I have a meal plan for the next few days that won't cook me. Just the food. I found a nice hunk of tritip at TJs, so I'll sear it and cut it up into tiny pieces so we have quesadilla/pita/taco meat. It's a good sized hunk, so with a decent amount of veggie and cheese fillings, it should last us. There's hummus, a couple kinds of salsa, yoghurt, small tomatoes, and onion too, so making meals should be pretty doable.

Now for laundry. Yay?

I don't like doing chocolate dipped strawberries. Visually, it's very appealing. Texture-wise, I think things could work better. I don't like the contrast between the hard but not tempered chocolate and the squishy of a good strawberry.

I bagged some *really* good strawberries yesterday at the farmer's market. Strong scent, very ripe. Yum! And as I was making dinner, I mentally went over what I had. Chocolate, yes. Cream, yes. Lemon, no. Ginger, no. Sugar, yes. Flour, yes... Ok, so maceration was out, because I hate to macerate strawberries that are *that* good. And the no lemon means I hate it even more, because really if you're not taking it to 11 why are you macerating? But chocolate, and heavy cream... what if I tried pouring ganache over them?

I did not make enough ganache on the the first try. It takes 4 strips of a TJ's pound plus bar to make enough ganache for a single box of strawberries... I started with two. Break it into squares. Use a tiny splash of heavy cream to get to just barely liquid. Our stupidly overpowered microwave takes 15s bursts to be gentle enough with the chocolate and cream.

It's not *pretty*. This is ok. The textures match almost perfectly, which is what I wanted.

I need to make a pound cake, frost it with more ganache and stud it with strawberries. I think that would be even better. Pretty and tasty.

Since it actually works, I'm doing 10 minutes on, 20 minutes off cleaning binges.

Next ten minutes on starts with getting the stove wiped down, put back together, and oven insides wiped down.

I need to do a 10 minutes where I wipe down the top of the fridge, clear off the counter, wipe it down and put it back together. (that might be two, not sure) Was two. Damnit.

I need to do a second 10 minutes in the bathroom, getting rid of empty toiletries bottles and putting the vanity back together.

I need to do a 10 minutes where I remove fiber geekery from study.

I need to do a 10 minutes where I remove Bill's dead monitor from study, put the sad old boxen in the closet, and make a go of dismantling desk mess. (I'm *sure* this is more than a 10 minutes)

I need to do a 10 minutes where I dust the buffet and remove itamz we don't want and vacuum the dining room.

I need to do a 10 minutes where I take out trash, recycling, move dud boxes to storage area, get rid of tiny computer boxen, and get rid of old printer.

I need to do a 10 minutes where I go over a bookcase or two and dump books I don't want anymore into a box.

********

Hands and knees stuff: mop kitchen floor, mop bathroom floor, scrub tub

********

Laundry needs to be done. I think take a load down, run, and do a 10 minutes?

*******

I need to poke Clan Bernat to see if I can borrow a trailer for hauling off the load of stuff for Goodwill.

*******

I need to set aside a bag for loose change, so I can collect it all and turn it into a more useful form of money.

I've just finished a cup of cocoa, as a reward for unpacking my Penzey's box (which sounds silly until you think over how damn many jars I had to refill). I'm being a bit phobic about railroad tracks after my fall, and I'd have to cross the tracks I fell on to get home from Penzey's... so I was mildly imprudent and placed a mail order. Only mildly tho, as the order was packed *very* carefully. No packing peanuts, just a proper sized box and a sensible amount of paper to wrap the glass bottles. Small and *dense*.

I got 1lb cocoa powder, 1lb cocoa mix, refills of adobo, herbes de Provence, balti curry, and peppercorns... and then jars of chipotle, ancho and blended chili powder, and sample jars of vindaloo curry and garam masala. The garam masala smells *wonderful*. About the only things we weren't out of were Green Goddess (which mostly doesn't get used for salad) and thyme.

Now I need to go ride my bike over railroad tracks some more.

Um. No. Or rather, I can't spare a minute for you begging for money and trying to play on my environmental concern.

I ride my bike or walk or take mass transit. I avoid flying. I have been reusing water bottles for longer than you've cared. I was walking in to a freaking *thrift shop* in the hopes of bagging some nice summer clothes. With my nice reusable bag. I eat vegetarian roughly 2 meals out of 3. I live in a small apartment rather than in a giant house. I wash full loads.

My big environmental sins are: I use clothes dryers. I use air conditioners. And I do fly, just not often.

So stop whining at strangers, and start going out and doing yourself. Be the change you want to see. Me? I'm gonna keep supporting a rail station here in town so I don't have to fly to go places.

I was feeling icky yesterday. Upset tummy, hot and cold flashes (very very minor, and not fast flashing). No dizziness tho, so I didn't think I was *really* sick. Food helped at lunch, and cold water helped, which is not at all normal for sick. So we tried going to the Old-Fashioned bar for dinner... it's downtown on Cap Square, right next to L'Etoile.

After devouring half of one of their roast beef sandwiches, I felt *much* better. So I ate the other half, more slowly. They use an interesting garlicky creamy sauce with another flavor that I can't place. The beef is cold, rareish, and very good. The bread is toasted, buttered and seasoned with salt and a flavoring I wasn't placing. There's a bit of lettuce to help hold things together, and pickles. And the sandwich isn't stupidly thick or stupidly large. It is human sized! I also got onion rings, and they do the thin and crispy kind, which is perfect with that style of sandwich.

Their big schtick as a bar is that they have beer from almost every brewery in Wisconsin (the law dictates that brewpubs have a laughably low number of barrels per year, so it isn't necessarily possible to get every brewery). We managed to order two almost identical beers, which was amusing. Mine was a relatively light porter, Bill's was a Very Hearty Bock. Both were very tasty, tho his was better. Not everything is on tap, but they have a good 20-30 tap choices, so you will have a shot at something nice.

Dessert (yes! I had ROOM FOR DESSERT!!!) was apple pie with cheddar. Yum! The top crust was a crisp topping, which I didn't much like... their bottom crust is quite good, and the crisp topping wasn't anywhere near as good. The cheddar was delicious. (yes, I know. the heathens who don't like apple pie with cheese have lots of other choices and y'all can be quiet while I have a nice dessert)

Best yet, the bill came to about $35... two sandwiches, two beers, two desserts. Any place else, I'd expect to be over $40 for that meal.

(just... don't order their signature cocktail... they're barbarians and make it with brandy instead of whiskey, and they turn it into a fruit salad. get the beer instead, they're a nice Wisconsin bar and they like their beer.)

I made it up the hill to the Capitol! Yay!

Powersave discoveries: xubuntu is more power efficient than Netbook Remix. The Intel video driver has a pretty serious OpenGL bug that wakes up your processor a lot.

Tow/cotton blend is harder to spin than I remembered. It's got a solid inch to inch and a half staple length, is probably as directional as regular cotton, and twist locks more easily. I've gotten a lot more skilled, so most of the cotton I was spinning was a shorter staple length. It's taking some doing to figure out how to manage the slower moving twist for tow/cotton. Once it's done, it's gonna be very nice. It makes a very sturdy yarn/string.

An idea just hit me on how to handle the red/pink/orange/yellow BFL I bought. Split by color, and just do a tweedy yarn with however many separate plies works for the colors. I'd also been meaning to try this fiber spun from the fold for a fluffier yarn, and this plan should work well for that.

I'm hungry again. I fixed the salsa problem once I found the bottle opener (beer bottle openers are great for deforming jar lids *just* enough to break the vacuum seal). Also, I'm cold. On the one hand, it's bad since cold weather leads me to hide at home buried in polarfleece. On the other hand, it's good since we've run the A/C for less than 12 hours so far this year.

I'm plotting how to con my dad into bringing my bike with if I go up to camp with him this summer. Nice bike, snuggly bike! I want it with me so I can go to town by myself. There is a chance I might need to kidnap my old bike, since then we'd have two and my sister could come with on expeditions to get into trouble in the Great North Woods.

Since Az hunted me down... ;)

Yep, I have a Dreamwidth account. Right now, I'm not posting there. I do have some invite codes if anyone wants them. I haven't figured out how to echo posts from LJ to Dreamwidth or vice versa, and I'm having more fun doing battle with Ubuntu setup or making yarn, so it's likely to be a bit. The user ID is the obvious one.

Also, I can't get into my jar of black bean salsa, I'm hungry, and wwilliam47 is off gaming. This is very deeply distressing.

Edit: no more codes for now :)