huzzah! Clue 8 finished!

I really manage to impress myself sometimes - even by my own exalted standards. Really, I do.


Have finished Clue 8 of my SOTSii! (I LOVE lime green!!!) Only 50 more rows to go!!!!

Almost at the end of my measuring tape...

I now officially lurve this pattern.

Check out my bead highway!!!
(Must consider bribing Clarabelle to come to Canada and take some photos of it when it's finished, though. I love her lace photos!)

Now, the only reason I was able to finish yesterday (given all my skiving earlier in the day - two blog posts! Over the top!) was that I decided to fix one of my favourite quick dishes for dinner: perogies.

Bacon, onions and dumplings - what's not to like, anyway? And all in less than half an hour (twenty-five minutes if you're not doing the madwoman with the camera bit.

The Brouhaha Tutorial on the Art of Perogies

(Action photos and all). Serves two (or one and a half if you're me - JJ gets less as a couple get popped into my mouth from his plate. Chef's prerogative.)

First, fill a pasta pot or large saucepan with water and put on to boil.

Next, take one-half pound of strip (streaky) bacon, cut into 1 inch wide pieces and fry on medium heat 10 minutes or so until it looks like this. It's better to use a regular (rather than non-stick pan) and is worth the clean-up effort. Trust me.

There needs to be lots of fat. Don't pour any of it off (well, of course you can, but why?!).

Next, cut down an onion - I like those Vidalia or other sweet onions.

This is how I slice it for these...

Brouhaha Tip for Gourmetdom on the Cheap: always save your scrap stuff and skins from onions in a ziploc bag in the freezer. They're great for throwing into stockpots for the best lovely golden chicken or veg stock you've ever had. (Or, they can be used for dyeing yarn, or so I'm told.)

Then add your onions to the bacon in the frying pan.

Reduce heat to low and let sit - the onions should get nice and soft and juicy and caramelly.

Now, get your perogies from the freezer:

I used the potato and cheddar ones tonight. Perogies are the best. These bags cost $4.00 each and have 50 pieces each. And - these are the expensive ones!

Plus, check out the cute Mr. Perogie:

Right on, man!

Hey, why is this guy blushing more than the other one? Is it because he's on the blue label. (blue... get it? heh heh).

(Now, this will not be a big selling point for my mother. She hates ads in which they make the food into little cute cartoons, like the M&M guys:

Her theory - how is it good advertising for food to make it too cute and loveable to eat, anyway? She has a point, actually...but I like Mr. Perogie. So there, Mom!!)

Take 14-16 perogies and plop them into the now-boiling water (and yes, I assure you, "plop" is a chef's term of art. A little known fact. You'll never see it in cookbooks - it's a trade secret). Oh, put some salt in the boiling water, too.

Boil them for about 5 minutes. They will start rising to the top when done.

Drain and add to your frying pan.

Raise the temperature to high. Make sure the perogies are mostly near the bottom of the pan (I spoon the bacon/onion mixture onto the top) and fry for a couple of minutes on each side or until they turn a lovely gold colour).

Add some parsley, and eat! Mmm. You can put sour cream on the side - I think that's traditional - but I don't like sour cream. I use extra bacon instead to ensure the appropriate fat content.

And what will I be doing today?

Three guesses and the first two don't count.


Happy Sunday!

Inner workings of the mind of a so-called genius

...although you will surely question the above statement (aside from the "so-called" bit) after reading this. It will, however, give you a snapshot into how my brain works and my actions follow.

I'm probably just still mourning the passing of Hallowe'en fun...

On Tuesday night, I was sorting through old photos when I found these:




Anyone from Toronto will surely remember the Moose in the City project from the summer of 2000. 326 moose sculptured were scattered throughout the city. This was rather comical for some of us living here at the time... at least, it was for me.

My close friend Mr. Treasures from Trash has a side interest in photography, and at the time made it his ambition to photograph every one of the mooses (meece??). The day these were taken, I accompanied him on the downtown leg of the trek. I bailed on him three or so hours later after number 49 or so that day and headed to the pub.

As harmonious convergences go, on Wednesday when I was at the LYS for the Payday ritual (I was surprisingly abstemious, buying only a copy of Crochet Me), I came across a flyer for the upcoming Moose Show Festival of Fine Craft. I had never heard of this before, and took it as a sign that I should post my very own personal moose photos here.

This led, of course, to thinking about crafts (quelle surprise!)... which led to ruminating about an apartment I had lived in some ten years ago and more. This photo directly followed the moose shots:



A cozy (very cozy indeed) basement apartment. This photo represents about 1/2 the square footage in the place. Seriously. The ceiling was 5'6" high. This didn't bother me, but my then boyfriend was six feet tall and couldn't walk upright in the apartment. Good thing he lived out of town. In other words, rather "bijou"... but the rent was the right price and the landlords were nice.

I lived in this apartment for most of my law school career. While living there,
I made a table with some old tiles my father had gotten as leftovers from a construction job a buddy of his had done (or so he said... but it is entirely possible that they came off the back of some truck. Of course, being in law school I didn't really want to hear the whole story. I got the table (an IKEA special) for five bucks at a yard sale.

However, the table quite literally did not fit in my apartment, so I couldn't display it until I moved to Parkdale:



With the cigarettes, popcorn and general detritus of life removed, it looked somewhat better:


I used this as my main living room table (once I climbed high enough in the world to actually afford a living room) for about eight years. Then, having gotten tired of looking at it and having climbed that little bit further, I bought a living room set. The table lost its legs to another project (a standing chess board, which sadly got broken when someone fell on top of it at a party). Accordingly, its new home is here:



What would I do without a storage room in the building? I'm sure I would have wrecked my back by now taking out all this junk. And junk it is. Whenever I have to make a visit down there (for the odd seasonal item which actually still has utility and value), I wonder what on earth would possess me to hold on to (inter alia) the following:

- two old phones
- an ancient power drill
- some pillows
- cassette tapes (I haven't had a cassette player for approximately three years)
- a broken dehumidifier

I then think about tossing it all... for about a minute. Then some long lost treasure (such as a metal Player's cigarette box) catches my eye and I lose all impulse to clean it out, "just in case..." (quotation marks intentional).

The long lost treasure discovery for 30 October 2007 was this:



My father, who was an upholsterer, gave me this some time back. It was a remnant from a job and he noticed the perfect little picture in the centre. So, he mounted it on particleboard and gave it to me.

I had it hanging in my apartment for quite some time. However, it wasn't really "me" and so it got banished to the storage locker when I moved into this building three years ago.

Now, I'm going to try to jazz up the border and see if that improves my liking of it. Stay tuned.

On my way back up from the storage locker, I had to stop into the laundry room to see if there were any offerings from the Other People's Junk Goddess. Bonanza!!



Unfortunately, no craftables. However, some excellent books. Four cookbooks!!! (just as I started a cookbook exchange at work in part to rid myself of cookbooks. I guess I can always stick some more in the storage locker.

I also found this Gap fake suede bomber jacket, size medium!

Look at the fancy lining!!


I shall have to figure out what I can do with that. JJ doesn't want it, although I think it would look fab on him. He pointed to a rip on the elbow.



You can hardly see it! And now I finally know why I felt compelled to buy that bag of leather scraps last month... which is lost somewhere in the stash room at present. Maybe I can replicate this, for example:


(A fab 70s leather jacket which I scored on Roncesvalles some years back for $10.00! The lable says "Aegean Leather - Styled in Paris" - does this actually mean "Made in Taiwan?" Hmm...) I guess this is why I bought that bag of leather scraps last month from Perfect Leather, which at present resides under the computer desk! Everything happens for a reason...

(I can hear JJ sighing loudly next to me. He must know what I'm writing about...
JJ is not a big fan of the Treasures from Trash school of thought [although he did enjoy the picture book of London and the "Wok With Yan" book I scored in this haul]. This is perhaps understandable as he grew up during war time with older siblings and perhaps did not own anything new until he started to work. Good thing he hasn't figured out where all those Eddie Bauer sweaters I have so lovingly gifted him actually come from!)

So, all in all, a good and creative day was had by me the night before Hallowe'en. I leave you with this pretty picture of broken tiles and electric blue grout:


And, just in case you thought I gave up knitting:

This is one of the works in progress - a blanket made out of a long-abandoned sweater back (entrelac seed stitch argyle - what the hell was I thinking!). Using up worsted/aranweight wools from the scrap pile.