Belgfrukter

This week was høstferie, the fall break, so both KE and E were home. I had to teach Monday and Tuesday, and had full six (!) hours of lectures to attend on Friday. We're all three in various stages of getting over last week's colds, so our energy level was pretty low.

I was feeling a little adventurous cooking-wise, and ended up making two different legume stews that both turned out pretty good. No pictures, because no matter how good it tastes, I can't get gloppy stew to look good with my minimal photographic skills.

The first dish was with red lentils, onions, garlic, ginger (we've rediscovered ginger, and are using a lot), carrots and celery. I looked a little bit at this recipe while making it (I'd love to make the actual recipe someday, as it looks really good too).

The second dish was a black bean chili. This time I actually followed a recipe, and again was really happy with the result.  I used dried beans that I soaked for 24 hours, and I made the chili the day before we ate it. It too was really good. I ended up substituting paprika for chili powder (which we didn't have), but otherwise kept close to the recipe. I used lots of garlic in both recipes; KE has been pretty skeptical of garlic, but he appears to be coming around. He mentioned that now that we're eating way less meat, the strong tastes of spices and garlic are more appealing, kind of as a replacement for meat flavors. I've always loved garlic, so that's great news for me. The other good thing is that both these dishes were painlessly vegan. It's actually really easy to implement vegan cooking, at least for someone who is interested in exploring the world of legumes!

I've finished the first arm and started the second on the Ung høst pullover I've been working on. It will be fun to put all the parts on one circular needle and start the raglan decreases. Bottom-up raglan projects are so fun because the progress is really visible once you get to that phase.

Gjeldsslave

There have been people working on paving our street for weeks and weeks now. It turns out it's not just a question of throwing down some asphalt. They have had to dig up (and by that I mean pound out huge amounts of bedrock) and lay an entirely new road bed and drainage. They're working right in front of our house, so the other night the three of us went out to inspect. Here's some of what we saw:

Yes, that rubble is actually the street. And here's what our house looks like from the road. Notice that we never finished painting the trim (boo!). This is at about 8 o'clock in the evening, and it was quite chilly. We can also really tell that the days are starting to get shorter (hence the headlamp on E).

Today I had a visit at home from a contractor to talk about remodeling our house. KE and I have been making plans ever since my Mom visited us this summer to bump up the roof (the "middle" section above) and add a second floor. The house used to be a duplex with two small units (both under 800 sq ft). When we moved back, we (well, KE) knocked a hole in the common wall and we took over both units. Now, with the prospect of my Mom moving to Norway in the not-too-distant future, we are hoping to convert the smaller unit back into a separate apartment for her and add living space upstairs on our side for the three of us.

The contractor thought our plans sounded totally do-able, but insisted that we really need an architect for the project. Fair enough. He also gave us a ball park estimate of about 1.2 million NOK (a little over $200,000 US). Ouch! But amazingly, that's still way below what it would cost to buy an apartment for her. Like about half as much! This housing market is totally insane.

We're not entirely frightened off by the price though (especially since KE is really happy in his new job), so I guess we'll be moving ahead with the plans. First step is talking to the architects that the contractor recommends.

Since our budget is going to be tight, I am celebrating by making this Lima bean soup. It's still simmering, but smells divine. We'll be eating a lot of rice and beans over the next few years, I suspect, but given my love of legumes, that shouldn't be a problem!

Rips

It's red current season here in Norway! It is always a joy to see these cheery, sour little berries hiding coyly under the leaves:

To celebrate, I made a batch of scones using the recipe from a blog called Kitchen Sketches, which is maintained by another American expat living in Europe. The scones turned out great, and I really recommend the recipe. I had a hard time getting a picture since they kept getting gobbled up:

I had to be quite firm with my family so as to be able to take this snapshot! I wasn't sure they'd work, as I didn't use fresh berries. Instead, I took a cup of the leftovers from making a small batch of red current jelly. But even with all the juice drained out of them, these eviscerated berries still tasted juicy and flavorful in the scones.

The jelly itself is so pretty that I had to put it in a cut glass jelly bowl:

Not sure that it turned out as well as last year, as I think I may have over cooked it. Can you over cook jelly? The drips off the spoon didn't look at all like the picture in my cookbook, but eventually, after about 45 minutes I just decided that it simply had to be done, no matter how it dripped, and indeed it seems to be setting up nicely. With such a small amount (4 cups of berries makes 2 cups of juice which ends up being about a cup and a half of jelly), we're just going to use it fresh and not bother with canning. Since I didn't have a jelly strainer, I decided to make one yesterday. Neither KE nor my Mom thought it was going to work, but both grudgingly admitted that my improvised frame and strainer ended up doing the trick. I felt totally vindicated about my simple design:

It's something that I'll probably only use one day a year, but even so it's nice to have a piece of equipment that does the job right.

With my Mom visiting this week there's been lots of opportunity to sit and chat and knit, so I've made a lot of progress on the Bulgarian Pleated Skirt. There are only about 2 centimeters to go before binding off, but I can't resist putting up a photo to show the progress:

Such a clever pattern. It's been a gas to knit, and I think it will be great to wear this fall with wool tights, a wool sweater, and tall boots. I just wish I could capture the color, since the green is so much richer than this.

Agurknytt

There are few things in life I love so well as cucumber salad:

We're having this tonight along with poached trout, potatoes and sour cream--a classic Nordic summer meal.

I'm not knitting at all. Instead, I am obsessively preparing for a new acquisition: this week my iPad 2, (64gb wi-fi white, for the curious) which I ordered through work, is supposed to arrive. I can't remember the last time I got more wrapped up in a consumer purchase. This beats out buying a digital camera hands down.

Since realizing that the object may be in my hands within only a few days, I've been combing the internet compulsively trying to figure out what (if any) apps and accessories I need for doing the work I need to do, and trying to determine to what extent I will use the iPad for entertainment purposes as well (such as keeping E occupied on our upcoming flight to the US).

After being initially overwhelmed by all the applications available, I've decided that I really don't need very much at all, and that I can probably do 90% of my work through Googledocs. Once I've had a chance to set up my working environment and routines, I'll probably post about what I've come up with as the perfect minimum for a person doing humanities research on an iPad.

There are two rather spendy accessories that I think I'm going to break down and buy. The one is the Zaggmate iPad 2 keyboard case, which looks like this:

I know that there have been reports of problems with one of the ports not being robust, but I've been pouring through reviews of this and other keyboard cases, and keep coming back to this one. The price is $99.00.

The other coveted object is a Tom Bihn messenger bag designed to be appropriate for an iPad:

The model is called Ristretto, and I would be using it to replace the Timbuk2 laptop knapsack that I've been using almost daily since 2005. I should be ashamed as a former Seattleite that I'd not heard of the Tom Bihn company before. Even though the price is pretty high, this is exactly the kind of company and product I don't mind paying a little more for. I wish the padded section for the iPad and the edge of the inside pockets weren't a different color from the lining, but I guess I can cope with that. The price is $110.00. I think that's about what I paid for the Timbuk2 bag, though, and I really do use things like this for years and years. I may actually buy the one sized for the 11" MacBookAir (the price is the same, but the size is 335 x 265 x 120mm versus 305 x 235 x 120mm nix that, for it to be of any use I'd have to go up to the 13" size, which is 370 x 300 x 120mm, which goes for $10 more), since I think it would work better for carrying A4 and US letter documents around, which I imagine I'll still do, even with the wonders of the iPad (paper grading... which I'm supposed to be doing right now as I type...). Here's the Youtube tour of the bag that the company provides. 

So call me a lame, self-absorbed consumer caught up in the Apple cult. I promise I'll try to keep it to a minimum with the apps and the stupid games.

Rolig

Slowly but surely making progress on the Cowl Vest:

I made it through the waist shaping and up to the split for the armholes without incident. At least I haven't noticed any dropped or mistakenly added stitches, which is the danger when knitting stockinette with such fine yarn.

This coming week big things are afoot, and I'll be taking a little top secret trip next weekend. Right now feels like the calm before the storm. It's good to have something really simple to work on. But I have to confess that I haven't quite been able to shake my temporary fascination with variegated yarn. Rather atypically, I made an impulse yarn purchase the other day:

It's twelve balls (1212 meters) of Noro Silk Garden number 47. You see, I had a thing to go to in Majorstua, and my favorite yarn store in Oslo is in Majorstua, and I had a few minutes to kill, and it turns out they were phasing out Noro products and had a big bunch of this one color marked down by 30%, and I loved the color combination, and, well, I just couldn't resist. I've been so good about not buying yarn (I actually think I haven't bought any sweater quantities since our vacation in Denmark last summer, other than for my bias skirt) that I can't really feel all that guilty about it. The plan is a top-down raglan in stripes made by alternating balls, in the spirit of Brooklyntweed's Noro scarf. I can't quite explain why I am so attracted to these yarns... Jared Flood's description on the Brooklyntweed blog does a pretty good job of it.

In pizza news (yes, there really is such a thing as "pizza news" in my life at least), we have had a breakthrough with E. I've been trying for a couple of years to come up with a pizza that he will eat. He hasn't liked any of the plain kid pizzas we've tried, though he will eat pizza at other people's houses. I sort of started to develop a complex about this, because pizza is one thing that I almost always get compliments for, so it was demoralizing that my own son wouldn't eat what I made. Then recently, he took a piece of the pizza I make for myself, and he totally loved it. I was shocked, since it has tons of onions, black olives, mushrooms, spinach and garlic. Not your average kid fare. Yesterday I made one for him with most of that, and he gobbled it up, and then this morning he ate one of the leftover pieces of mine for a mid-morning snack. I'm totally stoked that he shares my taste!

Brodder

That's it! Today, November fifteenth was the day that I broke out my brodder, which is to say strap on spikes for my shoes. We had a centimeter of snow and the temperature is vacillating between freezing and thawing, so there's slippery ice all over the place. Sigh. It will be like this for the next four months.

I got my Bjørnson conference paper more or less done today, which is a big positive. I still need KE to proofread it, and I really should do a bunch more research for it, but I just don't have time. I so need to get back to work on the Peer Gynt book. I did my mid-month tally today, and I'm way behind schedule.

I also survived and actually really enjoyed our early Thanksgiving dinner for ten on Saturday. I spent two days cooking and I think I finally have the menu nailed. I even consolidated all the recipes from various sources into one document, complete with metric conversions and a shopping checklist. So I guess I'll be really ready for Thanksgiving in years to come.

No interesting knitting to speak of. I'm working on a very simple pair of fingerless mitts for office wear, and finished the first one last night, but it's too dark to take any pictures now. It's so plain that I may have to add some kind of decorative crochet edge to it. We'll see...

En lang dag...

This week is going slowly, slowly. I'm afraid it was a bit of a boring day for E, but I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm or energy for more than a walk to the library, unfortunately. We did have glorious weather today, which helped a lot, though. I think part of the problem for me is that there is just no relief from the constant attention-seeking. I had a maximum of seven minutes alone to myself at one stretch (I timed it), and for a lone wolf academic like me, not having any head space really knocks me off kilter. Okay, I admit it: I really miss work, especially since I'm in the midst of so much exciting new research. This makes me feel like a bad parent, but it's the truth...

The new sweater project is at a point where it is now worth taking a picture of:

I'm making this up as I go along. The plan is to do ribbing all the way through the pullover, maybe with a little cabling at the sides when I hit the waist, maybe a few increases over the hips. Not quite sure yet, and I'll just have to see when I get there. So far I'm super happy with the way it's turning out. I think this will be infinitely wearable. The two previous incarnations of this yarn were both cardigans, and I have developed such an aversion to cardigans that I couldn't wear them. To put it bluntly, my breasts and chest get really cold when I wear cardigans. Weird, I know, especially since every other knitting woman I know of--regardless of cup size--loves them.

I'm sure some people would look at this and cringe because of all the ribbing. For some reason, I happen to love knitting 2x2 ribbing. I think it has to do with my super-effective continental style of knitting. I barely have to change the position of anything to switch between knitting and purling, so ribbing is totally no big deal. I've been wanting a sweater like this for a really long time, but never found the pattern I wanted. I've now learned enough about the magic of top down knitting (especially from the Miss Honeychurch sweaters I knitted earlier this year) that I am able to design my own--yay! The ribs are a little wonky since I'm re-knitting the yarn, but I'm banking on it all smoothing out with a good soak and block at the end.

Today I made what I think must be my fourth or fifth dish out of Camilla Jensen's Bønner og linser. This one is called "Oreganofreste kikkerter," but since I didn't have any fresh oregano (and don't liked dried oregano very much) it ended up being Spisskummenfreste kikkerter" (cumin-sauteed chick peas):

The verdict was split. I loved it, KE thought it was just okay. I also made a thai green curry for dinner that got mixed reviews. That I just winged, but I realized half way through that I was missing a couple of essential ingredients. I forgot about fish sauce, which I always used to use when I made green curry back in the US, and I also didn't have frozen green beans, so I had to substitute with frozen peas, which don't work nearly as well for my idea of a green curry.

Flink pike

Traumatized as I was by last night's attempt to follow a meme designed for earnest homeschooling stay-at-home mothers, I really had to make up for things today, and golly it turned out to be a fun day. It started out with the brilliant idea to use up the left over mashed sweet potatoes in the fridge for bread. I scanned my cookbooks but didn't find anything, so I went to the internet and found this recipe for "healthy" pumpkin bread. I had to modify it some, but not much. Here's the result:

I'm glad I took a picture, because it's already gone! It was really yummy, gaining the stamp of approval from E and his friend who was over playing, KE, and me. I had to make some modifications on the fly, so here's the recipe for my version:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 1/2 or 2 cups (didn't measure) mashed sweet potatoes (could also use pumpkin)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons of melted butter

Mix the dry ingredients first, then add the wet. Pour into a bread pan lined with baking parchment, and bake for 1 hour in a 175 degree (celsius) oven. E did most of the mixing, which I think he actually really likes doing.

After baking, E and I ran some errands. We stopped by the green grocers, dropped off outgrown clothing at the UFF bins, picked up some staples at the grocery store, and did some fun shopping at the Kiwanis barn again. They're open from 10-12 on Tuesdays, so it's not often I can make it. I scored a great set of glass mixing bowls (kind of like this). It was missing one bowl, and when I got home I discovered that one of the two glass bowls we already have is the missing link, and it's even originally from the same set. Woo-hoo!

As if that wasn't enough domesticity, I also did a bunch of laundry and made a huge batch of hummus (recipe from Camilla Jensen's Bønner og linser, my current favorite cookbook) :

That's a full sized dinner plate. You're probably thinking it looks like cottage cheese. It's very lumpy because I mashed the chickpeas by hand with a potato masher. I still have a ton of chickpeas left over. I may try to put together a salad with the rest. The hummus isn't the best I've ever tasted, but I consider it a pretty decent first effort.

The universe rewarded me for my efforts. My good friend L from back in Eugene sent me a box of yarn from her stash! It was such a treat to open up the package and find:

Score!

Sykedag

Yesterday E got really sick. He coughed all night and was in miserable shape during the day. It got worse in the late afternoon. He slept for a couple of hours (he hasn't napped in the afternoon since his second birthday) and then was queasy and even threw up a few times in the evening. Poor little guy. So obviously he (and I) stayed home today. KE had classes all day, so it was a long stretch, though it went pretty well. E felt much better, so we mostly just played. I was particularly impressed with one of his projects: he got out his Brio train set, which he hasn't done in a long time, and decided to build an elevated track. He doesn't really have very many blocks, so we had to raid the kitchen. Here's the result:

Creative, no? We also spent a lot of time sorting Legos by color. E ate quite a bit, which was good since he basically hadn't eaten anything yesterday, and threw up most of what he did manage to ingest. In between playing, I tried to do a little house work: a couple of loads of laundry, some folding, and making a big pot of fårikål for KE who loves the stuff. Easiest recipe in the world: layers of hunks of lamb and chunks of sliced cabbage, some salt, some peppercorns, and a bunch of water. Simmer the hell out it for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, and eat with boiled potatoes. Barbarian food, but KE loves it. As I'm moving more and more in a vegetarian direction, it appeals less and less, so I boiled up a separate pot of cabbage in veggie broth for myself.

I didn't get as much knitting done as I would have liked today. If I really wanted to, I could probably get the front of the Aran sweater finished tonight. I only have about 4 inches to go. I've also continued to think about the blue alpaca scarf, and the more I think the more I want to go back to the plain (but curly) stockinette. I've been reading up on applied I-cord edges, and I think that might be the thing. Here's a sweater pattern that includes it, and that has a good video demonstration. It would be an incredibly tedious project, but I think the end result would be pretty great. We'll see if I ever actually do it...

Today was obviously a wash work-wise, but I did get a big package in the mail from Riksteatret with material on their big 1997 Peer Gynt extravaganza (four different performances based on the play that toured the country in one season). Lots to sort through there. Plus I got word over the weekend that my article on Nikolaj Frobenius' Teori og praksis is accepted for publication and without revision. Those of you who are academics know how rare and thrilling that is. I'm particularly pleased since it is a very essayistic and loose article.

If E needs to stay home tomorrow, KE will skip classes so that I can work. I have to get my lecture on Asbjørnsen and Moe ready for Wednesday, find some missing bibliographic references for the Frobenius article, and if I'm lucky get a little more writing done on the "Mediating Peer Gynt" chapter (Working title. Not sure I'll keep it).

Små skritt

Although I finished the knitting of the Lanesplitter skirt lickety-split, it took me quite a few days to make it to the fabric store to pick up elastic for the waistband, and even more days to get around to sewing it up. This morning I whipped it up in less than an hour. Very satisfying. So now I finally have a finished object to report:

I think everyone who has looked at it thinks it's hideously ugly, but I stubbornly continue to think that it's cool. E was eager to get in on the photo session. Crikey that boy is getting tall!! If you look closely you can see that his lip is split. He took a really bad fall during a walk in the woods at school. Poor boy. The only good thing about it is that it hurt to suck on his pacifier, so he agreed to not use it for a few nights. So far he's gone three nights without it, and really hasn't complained at all. So maybe there's hope that he'll stop using it all together. I'm cautiously optimistic.

The other day I finally got my act together to make one of the recipes from Camilla Jensen's Bønner og linser, a salad called "Limalime":

As you can see, it's a mix of lima beans, pea pods, tuna (amazing organic Italian from the local health food store--who knew?), arugula, red onion, and a potent lime-olive oil dressing. It was pretty scrumptious, I have to say. This is just the leftovers. It's a little late in the season for a summer salad, but I've been wanting to make this since I bought the book back in July. So I'm a little slow...

I finished the knitting on the Fanakofte yesterday, so today I'll start the finishing. I have to:

1. sew down the hems (one sleeve and the body)
2. sew in the yarn ends (both sleeves and body)
3. sew machine seams for the armhole and front steeks
4. cut the steeks
5. knit the shoulders together 
6. pick up and knit the neckline 
7. sew down the hem around the neckline
8. pick up and knit buttonhole and button bands
9. sew down the hems of the button and button hole bands
10. sew around each buttonhole
11. buy buttons
12. sew on buttons

Phew. That's a lot of work when you list it all out. I probably won't be done until next weekend. In fact, as I look at it, I'm finding that list pretty demoralizing. Gah! I'm getting a little itchy to start my next project though. I'm thinking it's going to be Lissuin (Ravelry link for those who are in the loop) with the yarn I bought in Denmark this summer. Still not quite ready for Fulmar, for some reason. I should really finish the Aran sweater I started earlier this summer though...

P.S. A friend from high school posted this clip on Glenn Beck from The Daily Show on Facebook. It is so good I have to repost here:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Back in Black - Glenn Beck's Nazi Tourette's
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

It's a perfect send up of Beck's habit of crying Hitler and Nazism every time the left does something he doesn't like. What a piece of work.