Star Scarf

 

My best friend has the best maiden name.  And though she admitted she would take her sweet, sweet time changing from maiden name to married name, this year’s birthday present was designed to celebrate her maiden name, and keep her neck and shoulders warm at the same time.

I got the idea over at Lana Red.

First, I bought a swanky pashmina on Etsy.  It came from India.  Or Singapore.  Not sure.  I think I was supporting an international artisan and not a Bangladeshi sweatshop, though, so that feels good-ish.

Then I had to make my fabric stamp.  Out of an eraser.  Without special stamp cutting knives.  Scissors it was. 

Bang up job.  Man, you can really see the cat hair at this magnitude.

Because the eraser I used was teeny-tiny once cut into awesome asymmatrical star-shape, I used my most awesome sewing scissors as a stamp-handle. 

Then I stamped the pashmina liberally and randomly with the purple-fabric-dye-covered star stamps.

Following this, I had a tiny meltdown regarding the colour combination and visibility of the star-stamps.  Had I bought special fabric stamp paint for NOTHING??!?!

Then I tried the scarf on for size: 

So, from afar, the stars are totally not visible.  Hopefully, up close, my friend knows they’re there.  If not, this blog will serve a dual purpose: to make me feel as though I’m an artistic voice in the wilderness, and to let her know that I didn’t just send her a stupid yellow pashmina but a stupid yellow pashmina with invisible purple star stamps.

Hurray!  Happy Birthday, friend!

Strangely Delicious, Predictably Gross-Looking

 

Rustic Spinach Tart – Recipe Origin Unknown

My boyfriend was home for reading week, and I figured this was the perfect opportunity for some domestic experimentation.  Doesn’t spinach pie sound awesome?  Didn’t think so.  And I like spinach.  A lot.

Step 1.  Gather bizarre ingredients.

Step 2.  Make a perfect pie crust using your grandmother’s recipe.  Perfect.

Step 3.  Pile weird ingredients on top of each other, atop half the perfect pie crust.

Step 4.  Cover it with the other half of the pie crust.

Step 5.  Flute it.  However one does that.

Step 6.  Bake.

Step 7.  Behold!  Your creation!

So, this looks pretty normal, but the clear presence of ectoplasm suggests something sinister inside.

It does kind of look like the Frankenstein’s monster of pies.  It tasted pretty awesome, though.  And I cannot express enough that the crust was perfect.

We couldn’t eat all of it, though, and left the remainder in my boyfriend’s parents’ fridge to find when they returned from Florida.  It was, perhaps, not the most generous thing I could have left for them.  Tee hee.

Salt Adventure

 

Mi Pescado a La Sal – Jamie Oliver’s Food Escapes

 

My father gave me this awesome cookbook for my birthday one year.  The only problem with the cookbook is that it calls for such crazy international ingredients that I basically have to take a trip to a major centre to be able to purchase the ingredients. 

First, I drove to Toronto to visit my boyfriend. 

Then I used ALL HIS SALT.

It’s mixed here with fennel, eggs and lemon peel.  I’m not sure how much the effort of peeling the lemons was worth in resulting flavour.

Then I pressed him into journeying downtown to Kensington Market for fish and sundries.

 

Though the recipe called for seabass, the closest thing the fish market we went to had was trout.  Luckily, we were able to meet Jamie’s totally enforceable requirement of sustainable catching due to the fish market’s ethics (not mine, I’ll take any fish, any time).

As I’m obviously opposed to sustainable seafood, I defaced the aquatic body by stuffing it full of earthly trappings like basil and parsley.

Then I buried it in lemon-fennel-egg salt.

And then baked the shit out of it.

Rewind: At the ethical fish market, my boyfriend eyed some oysters, bought them, then realized he had no oyster shucker.  So we went on a magical journey through Chinatown in the cold, carrying $40 worth of ethically magical fish and mollusks looking for the one store on Spadina that carries oyster shuckers, passing it once, giving up and then finding it on the way back.  Sigh.

The shucking went well, though, so we had these too.

 

And then I attempted to make the accompanying aioli, which calls for a mortar and pestle, which my boyfriend doesn’t own.  So I first attempted to scrape the garlic and salt together on a cutting board with the flat of a knife, and then I used all three of the food processors in my boyfriend’s apartment, all to no avail.  Jamie’s picture looks like yellow-y mayonnaise.  Tears ensued.  Behold, the failure aioli.

If you look really closely, you can see the chunks of garlic that the impossibly dull blades of the blender just pushed around the salty olive oil.  Sigh.  But, back to the fish!  Next I had to bust it out of its salty prison.

 

And then bust its tender, juicy flesh out of its own scaly prison.

And then drizzle it with failure aioli and side it with boyfriend’s delicious experimental couscous and accompanying olive and cucumber salad. 

Buen provecho!

The Best Dog Ever

 

My boyfriend’s parents are the worst people to get gifts for.  They have a lot of things already and they’re so into their routine that it’s really hard to get them something inspired that they don’t already have.  They also have the best dog ever.  So I came upon this website that gave them something functional but also celebrated their ownership of a pretty awesome dog (which is saying something, since I’m really not a dog person). 

Step 1.  Order very small quantities of expensive materials (that I could probably find locally but wanted to get at 11 p.m. in my pajamas) on Etsy.

Step 2.  Pay through the nose on shipping costs.

Step 3.  Fire up the hot glue gun.

Step 4.  Realize I have to find an awesome picture of the puppy.

Step 5.  Turn off the hot glue gun lest you burn down your apartment.

Step 6.  Find an awesome picture of the puppy on your boyfriend’s facebook.

Step 7.  Use the work photocopier to make the appropriate photocopies.

Step 8.  Grind your teeth as you cut the puppy out of the very expensive fabric you purchased on Etsy in the middle of the night in your pajamas.

Step 9.  Fire up the hot glue gun!  Again!

Step 10.  Glue the dog onto a bag.  Grind your teeth as you do it.

Step 11.  Put the bag away, patting yourself on the back for a job well done.

Step 12.  Pull the bag out a few weeks later to agonize over whether this was a great gift idea or not.  Realize that some of the glue has come loose in storage.  Weep copiously.

Step 13.  Fire up the hot glue gun…

Step 14.  Give the gift to your boyfriend’s parents.  Read feigned enjoyment into their thanks.  Weep copiously.

Step 15.  Feel sheepish when, months later, you realize they use the bag for transporting dog toys when the best dog ever stays at doggie daycare.  Sigh with weary contentment.

Baby Terror!

 

Here’s how I made these cute little baby shoes for my cousin’s firstborn.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/tamika---baby-shoes-in-garter-stitch-and-easy-lace-stitch

 

1.  Learn of cousin’s impending natals (like nuptials, right?) in an email from your father.

2.  Vow to begin knitting extravagant and complicated thing immediately.

3.  Re-learn of cousin’s baby news in a text message from your cousin.

4.  Take the Lord’s name in vain at your inability to remember important things, like your cousin’s baby news, your boyfriend’s birthday, your keys before locking the door, etc.

5.  Find baby shoe pattern online since that’s all you’ve got time for now.

6.  Buy the ugliest colour of yarn you can find.

7.  Begin knitting.

8.  Stop knitting for a matter of months.

9.  Knit like a madwoman because shit, she’s at like 36 weeks now.

10.  Finish the project. 

11.  Hyperventilate into a paper bag because the shoes seem big and you have no idea how big baby feet are.  Engage in hysterics because your life is not in lockstep with all the breeders out there and maybe you should hear your biological clock ticking but you don’t…oh shit, there it is.  Continue to hyperventilate through your hysterics because you don’t know how big baby feet are and you have nobody to breed with right now.

12.  Realize that procreation at this juncture in your life would be followed shortly by you locking yourself out of your apartment with your unattended baby sitting next to the oven where you left ALL THE ELEMENTS ON while you take your boyfriend out for dinner because you secretly forgot his birthday the day before.

13.  Realize that you’ve misplaced your cousin’s address.  Again.  Send her a facebook message intimating same.  Read more impatient tone than you ought into her response which contains only the requested address.

14.  Lament your colour choice one last time prior to shipping the package.  Resign yourself to being crazy childless second-cousin lady for the foreseeable future.

The Weirdest Fusion Guacamole Ever

 

Fire-Roasted Shrimp with Guacamole (Food & Drink Spring 2012)

I love guacamole.  I love shrimp.  The title of this recipe sounded amazing.

Start by making chili honey.  Realize after the stores close that you have less than half the required amount of ginger.  Question why there is ginger involved in a guacamole dish.

 

Place chili honey ingredients in a pot.  Decide that any ingredient called “hot pepper” equals jalapeno at my grocery store.

Produce the chili honey.  Question whether or not one can produce honey if one is not a bee. 

Chop an amusingly shaped red pepper.

Question the wisdom of putting red pepper (even if amusingly shaped) in guacamole.

Really question the wisdom of putting SESAME OIL in guacamole.  Mash it up anyway.

Peel and devein the shrimp.  Wonder if the “freshwater shrimp” label is legitimate.  Become very concerned about whether or not freshwater shrimp tastes ok.

Pan fry (fire roast?) the shrimp, drizzling it with chili honey (which contains no actual honey).

 

Plate two shrimp as directed in the recipe.

 

Eat the remaining shrimp, dipping directly into the guacamole bowl.  Marvel at the total overabundance of guacamole.  Let it go rancid in the fridge over the next few months.  Continue not to clean it up.

Country Grammar

 

No-Bake Macaroon Cookies (Jessica Lewis via Cook Along With…..Hammonds Plains District Girl Guides of Canada)

 

I cooked up a storm this weekend, so I was glad to find this no-bake recipe on the list.  I love macaroons.  They’re tasty, and easy, and help you win friends and influence people.

Concern yourself for hours over where to find a whole coconut, and how to shred it appropriately.

Assume they meant package.  Puzzle over how big a package.  Use the package you’ve already got in the cupboard.

Puzzle over the interesting use of commas in the first instruction.  I see they opted for regular comma and superfluous comma, but not Oxford comma.  Strange.

Mix together the oats, cocoa and coconut.

Boil together the sugar, butter and milk.

Wonder why the hell they call it a no-bake recipe if you still have to contend with boiling sugar-butter-milk mixture.

 

THAT LOOKS TERRIFYING!  If I were baking, it would be confined to the inside of my oven.

Mix the wet and the dry stuff together.

Wonder aloud how anyone ever decided they might try to make this.  Wonder why they didn’t stop at this point.  Doesn’t that look gross?

Spoon the mixture onto a cookie sheet and let cool until hard and not sticky.

 

Ply your friends with them for future favour extraction.  Muah-ha-ha-ha!