Mossy Cottage Knits

Playing With Your Food

No posting on Friday, Dear Readers! I'm taking a one-day vacation to catch up on all the little tasks for The Mysterious K's birthday that I've put off.

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Yesterday in the break room at work I was nattering with a co-worker about food likes and dislikes, good food versus bad food, and selectively eating just the part of bad food that’s good—which reminded me of one of the high points of my teenagehood. (Yes, Big Sister; here comes the lemon cupcake story!)

One evening, when we were in high-school, my sister and I went to our monthly Bible study and, being the inherent feeder and nurturer that she is, she baked and brought to the meeting some lemon cupcakes. Now, I am passionate about lemon, anything made of lemon. I love lemon cake; I eat lemon chicken whenever possible; I always order a slice of lemon with my soda—and steal the lemon out of TMK’s iced tea to supplement it; I love lemonade and even drink it hot in the winter; I can eat lemons “neat;” and don’t even get me started on Lemonhead candies, which do make your lips and cheeks implode but are still so heavenly—so I was very much looking forward to our snack (more so, to be honest, than the hour of biblical and theological discussion, which always disintegrated into discussions of who was “saved” and who wasn’t, which further disintegrated into discussions of who was “cool” and who wasn’t, which further disintegrated into discussions of who was dating whom, which further disintegrated into discussions of who was “doing it.” We were just teenagers, after all.). But I was destined to be disappointed because the cupcakes turned out to be barely edible. Drat and double-drat.

After a few minutes of very unChristian-like sighing and grumbling, my friends and I decided the best way to get over our disappointment was to play a rousing game of badminton. Only we couldn’t find a birdie. Hmmmm—smallish, roundish cupcakes that were inedible; a badminton game without a birdie. (You can see this one coming, can’t you?) We proceeded to lick the icing off the cupcakes—see “eating the part of bad food that’s good,” above—and to whack them back and forth across the badminton net. They proved to be the ideal projectiles: They were firm yet springy and bouncy, they made a soft yet satisfying plastic “boing” noise when you smacked ‘em, they could be hit an astonishing number of times before the least little crumb fell off, and there wasn’t the faintest possibility of anyone putting an eye out with one. And when Cupcake A eventually disintegrated, heck, we just licked the icing off Cupcake B and picked up where we left off! (I don’t think my sister has ever forgiven me for this. At least, she’s never made me any more lemon cupcakes.)

Then there was the time she tried to make a “chocolate cabbage” which involved deconstructing an entire head of cabbage, painting each individual leaf with melted chocolate, letting the chocolate harden, peeling the cabbage leaves away from the chocolate, and reconstructing the head of using the chocolate “leaves.” I believe she still has a picture somewhere of her kitchen when she was done: chocolate on the appliances, chocolate on the floor, chocolate on the ceiling…and an only slightly cabbage-shaped chocolate lump on the counter. (Big Sister, you are not alone. A link just for you...)

Knitting Knews
I’m in that blah space where I’m finishing long projects where nothing changes much from day to day, at least not enough to make the project photo-worthy, or I’m making a “second” of something you've already seen.

I'm almost done with the first Dublin Bay sock, which, for some reason I just sense will never be blessed with a mate—dunno why. My First Official Erratum: If you're knitting the sock, knit the foot until you're more like 1.75" inches away from the total length, not the the 2" the pattern says. The 1.75" will give your toes that little extra wiggle room!

Dye Garden Dyegest
So far, so good with the indigo! The Mysterious K says I should start more plants. Melinda, do you have any experience with indigo? What do you think? Will I need more than the five or six plants these seedlings will eventually become?

And on the not-for-dyeing plant side, here is a picture of TMK's lupine seedlings. For any gardening Dear Readers (Fran, Debra, Perclexed—you out there?), for the lupine, TMK is using "the poor man's Jiffypot"—toilet paper rolls. I believe the benefit to this is that the toilet paper rolls are waaaay cheap, are certainly easy to come by, and can be planted in their entirety in the ground so you don't disturb the seedling roots. The toilet paper roll will eventually disintegrate and compost.

Posted by Ryan at April 7, 2004 10:40 AM