Unraveled Wednesday: 9/4/24

I'm happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today for the first Unraveled Wednesday in September. I've been working on my Sparkly Hitchhiker but it looks pretty much the same as last week except it has a few more teeth and some more rows of yarnovers. You've seen it plenty of times before so I'm sharing a potholder that has taken me way too much time this week. This pattern is a labyrinth so the top/bottom and side/side are not mirror images of each other. That makes it a little harder to weave (at least for me) because each row is different, with varying configurations of over and under. 

I'm leaving it on the loom until I have plenty of time to check my weaving. This one will be for Ryan, and he's detail-oriented enough to find any mistakes I've made. I think I've corrected all my mistakes and dead ends but I want to be sure when I bind off. It was a fun one to do!

I only read two books this week. I've loved Frindle ever since my kids read it in elementary school. Andrew Clements wrote a draft for a sequel before he passed away in 2019. His family worked with his Random House to publish The Frindle Files posthumously. I didn't write a review for Frindle on Goodreads; it seemed unnecessary for a middle-grade book published 28 years ago. But Frindle has a special place in my heart, so I was anxious to read The Frindle Files. In this sequel, Nick Allen has grown up and become an English teacher himself. While the original story taught readers about the power of words, The Frindle Files continues that lesson with the added question of whether technology can add or detract from the potential of language and how it's used. I didn't find this book quite as charming as the original, but I am grateful for Andrew Clements' draft and for his family and publisher making Mr. Clements' last story available to readers. Three and a half stars rounded up.

What are you making and reading this week? 

Tomatoes Are Tasty

Rutgers' Research Farm is only a few miles from where we live, and last week we went to their annual Open House and Tomato Tasting. I've been to the farm before, but I hadn't attended the tomato tasting, so I didn't fully appreciate what a wonderful place it is. (There was a lot to see so this is a picture-heavy post.)

We walked through several fields of sunflowers to find more than 50 varieties of tomatoes ready for our tasting pleasure. 

There were tents with small, medium, large, and cherry tomatoes. Some were more acidic than others, and a few bordered on bitterness. To be honest, after tasting more than 50 varieties, all I could really say was they tasted like tomatoes. There weren't any that really stood out for me that I thought we had to grow next year, but it was incredibly interesting that there are so many varieties with such great names. 

But it wasn't all tomatoes; the farm also grows fruit trees. There were peaches, apples, and even beach plums to taste. 

Pristine is a wonderful apple that tastes almost like a cross between an apple and a pear. I would plant a few of these trees if I could find them. 

There was a monarch lady there that we talked to for quite a while. She had caterpillars busily munching away on their milkweed leaves and also chrysalises. She was very enthusiastic and offered some hope for the future of monarch butterflies. 

It was 97 degrees and everyone was sweating profusely, so it was a bit of relief to hop in a wagon and go for a tractor ride around the 390 acres. I had a better idea of all the volunteers, employees, and students that it takes to manage the farm. 

There were pollinator gardens and I also learned that what I had thought was some sort of sedum was actually Joe Pye weed. 

Joe Pye weed , not sedum

And in case all this wasn't enough, there was also basil tasting. Rutgers has developed a regular basil variety that is downy mildew resistant (DMR), and they are working on breeding lemon and Thai basils that are also resistant. They had prepared giant pans of orzo with three lemon varieties and three Thai varieties. They asked all of the attendees to evaluate the taste and aroma of the six different test varieties so they could better evaluate the plants and their commercial viability. It doesn't do much good to have a basil that is resistant to downy mildew if it doesn't also taste good! We each got to bring home a regular Prospera DMR basil plant that is already available commercially.

I'll think of the great time I had at the tomato tasting when I'm using my basil in spaghetti sauce this winter!

End of Garden Goodness

John has been saying the garden is dwindling down for the past month, but last week all we picked were three miniature cucumbers, four tiny zucchini, a small bowlful of cherry tomatoes, and a few meals worth of string beans. John ate the string beans and I had the cucumbers, but I wasn't sure what to do with the cherry tomatoes and the zucchini. Then I came upon this recipe. I had most of the ingredients, and I'm always a fan of a one-pan meal, so I gave it a try.

This combination of Boursin, chicken stock, tomatoes, and orzo looks fairly unappetizing, but after 35 minutes in the oven, the addition of some shrimp, and some stirring, it turns into this:

I thought it was delicious, the kind of thing that I could eat way too much of because it's so good. I didn't have any spinach and was too lazy to go to the grocery store for just one thing, but it tastes great without spinach and is probably even better with it. John thought it had too much garlic, but Ryan says that's because he's afraid of too much flavor. 

And it's not all semi-healthy cooking with vegetables around here. The four little zucchini provided enough grated zucchini for a lovely cake.

I used this recipe for the cake and frosted it with a half batch of this cream cheese icing. I like it because it's not overly sweet. A zucchini cake was the perfect way to celebrate a season of making too many quarts of pickles, tomato sauce, and freezing and blanching loads of peas and beans. (Of course, I'll eat cake anytime!)

I hope you get to enjoy some delicious cake this week!

Unraveled Wednesday: 8/28/24

I'm happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today for the last Unraveled Wednesday of August. The Sparkly Hitchhiker has grown with some yarnovers and a few more teeth.

And I'm enjoying knitting Justin's hat inside out, thanks to Kat's tip. 

I'm not sure I see trees yet when I turn it right side out, but I have reached a temporary stopping point. My kit had two balls of the ivory color that is used at the crown and none of the lightest green, so I'm just waiting for the right yarn to arrive. Then I'm sure the trees will be obvious. :-)

I finished a NetGalley book this week, Pretty Dead Things by Lilian West. I was drawn to the cover illustration and the description of this book: a young woman discovers long-lost wedding rings in a jar full of marbles, buttons, and costume jewelry that she purchased at an estate sale. Jars like that are the first things I look at in thrift and junk stores, and even though I've never come across anything especially valuable, I still like that feeling of undiscovered treasure, even if it turns out to be a beautiful blue marble or a special cut glass button. Cora wants to do the right thing and return the rings to the family that they belonged  to, so this creates a cozy mystery as she sets out to find who this might be. This mystery is pursued in dual timelines, and I personally enjoyed the 1940s timeline more than the present-day one. The characters were a bit more interesting, and I found Cora bland and naive in the present day. I do wonder why she was getting married as she didn't have any interest in planning even a simple wedding, and her fiancé seemed unhappy with almost all of the choices she was making towards returning the rings.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on December 10, 2024.

What are you making and reading this week? 

Unraveled Wednesday: 8/21/24

I'm happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today as August flies by. After finally finishing my HotM last week, I cast on for two new projects.

The first one is a sparkly Hitchhiker. I have no idea why I was so set on knitting one with sparkly yarn, but it seemed like that was all I could think about, so that's what I'm using. You can see the sparkles in the ball of yarn, and I can assure you that they are there in the Hitchhiker, too. 

The next one is a Christmas hat for Justin. I saw it on Instagram a while ago and knew that's what I wanted to knit for him this year. I ordered the kit from Nancy Bates Designs, and I also ordered a whole skein of Malabrigo so I could make the brim long enough so it could be folded up. I've only done one row of the colorwork so it doesn't look like much so far, but this is the third time I've gotten this far. Colorwork is not one of my best knitting skills, so I have to concentrate on getting Goldilocks tension (not too tight, not too loose) and keeping my floats short. I think I'm getting the hang of it. This is what I hope the hat will look like by December:

I read a couple of books last week. The Bletchley Riddle was the pleasant surprise I had hoped for. I love books about Bletchley Park, and this middle-grade historical fiction provided a great story with plenty of details (Alan Turing and explanations of the Enigma Machine) that were interesting and educational. The story is told in short chapters, alternating between brother and sister Jakob and Lizzie at Bletchley Park during World War II. Jakob is hard at work trying to decipher German codes and Lizzie is an observant messenger at Bletchley. They are unsure of whether their mother is alive or dead so that part of the novel provides a personal storyline. I learned some things about Polish codebreakers that I was unaware of and thought this intriguing novel was worthy of 3.5 stars rounded up.

 Thank you to Penguin Young Readers Group and Edelweiss for providing me with a copy of the book. It will be published on October 8, 2024.

The second one, Soldier Sailor, was more than I hoped for. My own children are 31 and 33, but Claire Kilroy has written a novel that took me back and immersed me in the early days of motherhood. Soldier Sailor was an authentic, intense, emotional book to listen to, when your world is reduced to just you and the child and you are living in sleepless, chaotic isolation. I've read plenty of other books about motherhood, but I don't think anyone has managed to capture all of the emotions so well as Claire Kilroy. She has written about all the difficulties a mother might encounter like exhaustion, loss of independence, and lack of clear thinking, but also with humor and hope about all of the unsentimental love she feels for her child. Soldier Sailor will undoubtedly be among the best books I read this year. This one was five wonderful stars.

"And you know, men, men, men nod solemnly at that Blade Runner speech—tears in the rain and fires on Orion—and they feel themselves part of a noble endeavour, believe they’ve experienced something epic right there with a beer on the couch. Here’s my ennobling truth, Sailor: women risk death to give life to their babies. They endure excruciating pain, their inner parts torn, then they pick themselves up no matter what state they are in… and they tend to their infants."

What are you making and reading this week? 

A Gathering of Poetry: August 2024

It's the third Thursday of the month so I'd like to welcome you to A Gathering of Poetry. I came upon this poem when I was reading some poetry earlier this month and was struck by how applicable it was. John's older brother, Jim, died from malignant melanoma in 1986 when he was 29 years old. I'm telling you this not to express sadness (even though it was tragically sad and drastically altered their family forever) but to say how often I've wished that my own sons could have known Jim. He was an independent thinker, very creative, able to make almost any part he needed when fixing an old truck or his motorcycle, artistic, and a kind soul. I used to think of Jim when Ryan would make complicated pencil drawings, and I see Jim reflected in Justin's deep interest in wildlife. Jim used to come in from mowing and get a drink from the kitchen faucet, and both of my boys do the same thing. I welcome poetry that makes me think about what we all have in common and what connects us, and this poem does. 

A Drink of Water

by Jeffrey Harrison

When my nineteen-year-old son turns on the kitchen tap

and leans down over the sink and tilts his head sideways

to drink directly from the stream of cool water,

I think of my older brother, now almost ten years gone,

who used to do the same thing at that age;

 

And when he lifts his head back up and, satisfied,

wipes the water dripping from his cheek

with his shirtsleeve, it's the same casual gesture

my brother used to make; and I don't tell him

to use a glass, the way our father told my brother,

 

because I like remembering my brother

when he was young, decades before anything

went wrong, and I like the way my son

becomes a little more my brother for a moment

through this small habit born of a simple need,

 

which, natural and unprompted, ties them together

across the bounds of death, and across time . . .

as if the clear stream flowed between two worlds

and entered this one through the kitchen faucet,

my son and brother drinking the same water.

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Harrison, Jeffrey. "A Drink of Water". Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness & Connection, ed., James Crews, Green Writers Press, 2019. 

You can read more about the poet here. 

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Unraveled Wednesday: 8/14/24

I'm happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today on this second Unraveled Wednesday in August, with a completed Hitch on the Move. 

When I knit my first HotM, I wished that I had made it larger. This time I made sure it was big enough. 

As soon as it's cool enough for shawl-wearing, this is going to be keeping me warm.

I was a bit nervous during my last row and binding off. This little ball is all I had left of the cobalt yarn, but it worked out perfectly. You can see more details here on Ravelry. Now I'm winding yarn to make a regular old Hitchhiker. It's been a while since I knit one and I've missed it!

I read three books last week. The first was Nonfiction by Julie Myerson. Despite its title, the book is a fictionalized account of a mother's painful experience of her daughter's addiction. I chose this one from the library because of the interesting title and beautiful cover but I was not prepared for the gut-wrenching story within. The writing seemed to lack emotion at times and there were also places where the timeline was confusing because everything is narrated in the present tense. Myerson previously wrote a book The Lost Child: A Mother's Story in which she shared the story of her son's addiction. Critics called it a "moral failure" and a "betrayal not just of love and intimacy, but also of motherhood itself." Nonfiction seems to be more of the same with a different title. For me, the subject matter of addiction wasn't dealt with very well whether this was fiction or nonfiction and I gave it three stars. 

Next was some straightforward nonfiction, Volume Control by David Owen. My sons had been nagging me about getting hearing aids and my husband (who has hearing aids but rarely wears them) had been telling me that I mumble, so after a visit to the audiologist showed a mild-moderate hearing loss, I did get some at Costco. They helped and I wore them for about three weeks, but then I started really listening to what I was hearing. I did not like how it sounded like I was hearing in a cave or at the end of a long tunnel. Thanks to Volume Control and David Owens' excellent chapters on hearing aids, I now know that I object to the occlusion of my hearing aids. I will experiment with some smaller domes and fiddle with the settings on the app, but now I know the correct terminology to use if I need to return to the audiologist.

Aside from addressing a personal issue, Volume Control was a four star book I wish I had read decades ago when I could have used ear protection while mowing and listened to music at a lower level. At least now I understand the importance of ear protection so I can help preserve my remaining hearing. The author also covers deafness, cochlear implants, sign language, tinnitus and the lack of help for that. I wish I had read his chapters on hearing aids before I bought mine. There is valuable information for consumers on the incredibly high markup, along with other options patients might want to explore. Bose is not just a company that makes speakers but they also sell something called a Hearphone. It sounds intriguing and I might have checked into it if I hadn't already spent loads of money on hearing aids. This was an enjoyable and informative book about a subject that people don't think about until it's gone.

Lastly, I enjoyed Frostbite by Nicola Twilley. It's been a desperately hot and humid summer here, but that has made it a wonderful time to read about the "cold chain" of refrigerated storage in Frostbite. In this interesting work, Nicola Twilley gives lots of details about refrigeration and how our food arrives in the grocery store. She works in a frozen food warehouse for a while; I've always thought this might be sort of a fun job (I do like the cold) but it turns out to be quite dangerous and not a lot of people can manage more than a day or two. She watches while an engineer and co-founder of an HVAC start-up builds a refrigerator in his garage and I was surprised at how easy it was (as long as you've got the four crucial components). There is a lot about the history of ice, icehouses, storage and transportation before refrigeration in its current state existed. These parts were probably my least favorite, but there are so many facts that I wasn't even aware of that I did enjoy. I knew apples were often picked and stored for a year or more before they were available in the grocery store, but I didn't know that King's Hawaiian Rolls arrived at the cold warehouse warm from the bakery and were cooled gradually to avoid condensation and stored for several months. I was not aware that warehouses exist that are not just cold but also climate-controlled with different atmospheres to selectively ripen produce like bananas and avocados.

The author asks the question, "Has refrigeration made us healthier?", looks at ways that the future may not be refrigerated, and visits the Global seed Vault in Svalbard ("refrigeration's great promise to preserve the future of food"). All in all, this was a four-star, fascinating look at a subject I had simply taken for granted that answered more questions than I had ever imagined.

What are you making and reading this week?