(psst -- thanks so much for all of the sweet comments on the shawl, they were most kind!)
Lately I've been real interested in coming up with my own creations (rather than reproducing someone else's), mostly in the realm of designing knitting patterns. But yesterday afternoon I took it to the kitchen and made up this soup. Wanting to use what we had around, there are some rather specific and interesting ingredients (minced garlic & ginger stir fry; sweet corn soup), but I think it could also be made quite deliciously with more basic substitutions.
acorn apple soup
*serves 4 - 6
1 acorn squash, pitted peeled and diced (about 6 c.)
3 carrots, peeled & diced (2 c.)
3 apples, peeled & diced (3 c.)
1 tbsp. olive oil
16 oz. sweet corn soup (or vegetable broth. or whatever you have. but probably not beef broth, which was my other option)
1 tsp. minced ginger & garlic stir fry (or just plain garlic)
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp cinnamon (we have this incredible saigon cinnamon)
2 tbsp. butter
sour cream
salt
pepper
Put all of the above (except sour cream) in a slow cooker set on high for three hours (or medium/low for longer if you please). Go have a mexican hot chocolate with your mother-in-law at the chocolate apothecary
. Hunt through a thrift shop for wool sweaters to recycle with your honey. Come home, check on your greatly reduced and softened soup. Puree with a hand-held mixer or transfer to a blender (or mash it up with a strainer spoon). Add salt / pepper to taste, dish up and serve with a dollop (what a lovely word) of sour cream.
Its a real thick and hearty soup, the flavors matching the way it smells outside these days. Sweet but completely satsifying. And the colors, too -- our backyard is all awash with yellow and gold, the leaves coming down and coming down. We ate the entire batch at dinner.
Today, Margaret comes over for our home visit (to make sure we are all set to birth at home). Which means, cleaning. We have some little gifts / distractions for her, homemade applesauce and apple butter, and maybe I'll bake some cookie bars (we've got to use up those apples). So one last cup of coffee and full speed ahead.
Loading Room
I, young and in pajamas, sat with my grandfather in his loading room in the basement of their farmhouse. The vinyl seat of my chair had cracked and I could feel the sharp split and the foam poking out from it on the underside of my thigh. Guns lined the faux wood-paneled walls, hanging neat and even in their racks. We sat close to a long, low counter and there were three reloading presses on it, like bulked-out microscopes, and old Folgers coffee cans filled with cartridges, cases, jackets.
His hands, dirt-stained and sun-stained, swollen hard from field and tractor and fishing line. My hands, small, white, always fidgeting, picking at something -- my nails, my doll's hair -- and I cannot shoot a gun.
But for this, the quivering goose chick he puts in my hands, even now its softness hot from the incubator in the corner of the room, for this they are still, steady.
-6 February 2008
today, these went from their basket into a bucket ...
...and then were laid out on a towel to dry.
I got real lucky at an estate sale last weekend and found a whole batch of vintage handknit mittens. Knowing the time and effort and poured into anything handmade, I scooped up a whole bunch of them (at a ridiculously low price) and Sebastian got the rest (for even less!) the next morning. They are impeccably knit, mostly all wool and mostly unworn. I have a special project in mind for them, which will unfold before your eyes at a later date. But today was spent soaking and blocking, and bothering one of the porch cats with my camera until she arched her tail and sauntered away to a less bothersome porch.
In between mitten baths, I waited on hold with the printers for a good while to straighten out our thank you note order (we really do want to thank you for our wedding), made a talking message to my family on our new camcorder and then tried until I was quite cranky to figure out how to get it to upload to my little ibook (any suggestions? the usb connection with the camcorder registers on my "about this mac" page, but won't show up / open anywhere on the hard drive. all the help samsung offers is for pc. boo.) Also, made & canned another batch of applesauce, or mostly Sebastian did, but I stirred a bit and took the cans out of the boiling bath when they were finished processing. And looked up lots of apple recipes for the rest of the almost bushel of apples we have left from Sebastian's picking of a neighbor's tree. And did laundry. And grew a baby. And tucked the mittens back into their basket roast by the space heater (just like me right now). And settled in to watch some marx brothers and add the finishing touches to a long-time knitting project.
Good night.