Can I bake my way to a scholarship?

Probably not.

Can I try?

Yes!

My school is having a cookie-baking contest next Friday. The prize is some amount of scholarship money, I think. (Really there is like no infomration about this anywhere save a few fairly non-detailed fliers on campus.) I need to select & perfect a recipe in between writing papers and studying for finals!

(This is clearly why I should've stuck with my ill-fated 50-cookies-in-'08 plan, because then it would be like I'd been training for this moment all year. But, um, I didn't, so there goes that.)

What would you submit? I want to do something unique, something that will stand out. Right now I'm thinking chai snickerdoodles would be a hit if I could kick up the chai flavor enough, but something with pumpkin also seems like a good idea.

Home & done with National Blog Posting Month.

Well I made it to the end! Believe it or not, I posted every single day in November. Topics ranged from the election to links I liked to events around the city to, of course, recipe links & photos of my knitting progress. A few of the posts were only long enough for me to say that I didn't really have time to post, but, hey, they still count.

All things considered, just yesterday I was saying that I wouldn't do NaBloPoMo again. It was kind of fun but also another thing to worry about each day, and who needs one of those? More than that I disliked the feeling of posting just to post, rather than posting because I had something to share.

Today I found myself reconsidering that, though, when I read that December's theme is Thanks. (November didn't have a theme.) I still won't be participating, but that's one I like and could see myself having some fun with. I think that's what I need, actually, a theme of some kind to keep me going. So perhaps I'll do something like that in the future, but for now expect to hear from me a little less often. Thanks for taking this little month-long journey with me and I'll see you when/if I manage to crawl out from under the mountain of homework I should be doing right now. ♥

Hola! No time for a real post, of course. I leave here at 1:00 tomorrow morning so I need to fit lots of fun (and packing) into these next few hours. I'll have lots to post tomorrow though!

We went to Lettuce Knit today! It was so so cute and I loved the whole Kensington neighborhood. There were so many cool-looking shops and restaurants and I'd like to spend a lot more time down there someday.

Making a purchasing decision at Lettuce Knit was damn near impossible but eventually I settled on some big dark red wool, which will likely become the Thorpe hat (I have some brown yarn at home for the trim). I still don't have my camera cord but I just did realize that Linn's computer has Photobooth, which is quite novel to me, so I can show you the yarn after all:



Linn just called to say she's on her way back here, so maybe it's time to stop using her computer for silly yarn photos. Hope you all have an excellent weekend!

Gratitude + food = a pretty good holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

My Thanksgiving dinner was just me & Linn at the very swanky 7 West Cafe, where I had pasta primavera, garlic bread, and some crazy blue raspberry martini and we split an amazing dark chocolate cake for dessert (I also had some of Linn's raspberry amaretto tea, which was delicious). I may be in the minority here, but to me that is at least 80,000 times better than traditional Thanksgiving fare (except maybe pumpkin pie). Linn's company also could not be beat, though of course having a holiday without family is a bit strange. Christmas is definitely soon enough, though!

Tomorrow we're going to Lettuce Knit and I can hardly wait! (Were I at home I'd be participating in Buy Nothing Day, but this is the best time for us to go and Black Friday isn't even that big here, so...it kind of doesn't count, right? Right. Oh, actually the website lists "international" BND as Saturday, so I guess it really doesn't count. Sweet.)

Hey I am in Toronto! I am also typing this on a Norwegian keyboard, which is...different.

Posting from here is not going to be easy -- I meant to bring my camera cable so I could just do simple photo posts each day, but of course I forgot it, so there goes that idea. I am going to try to put something up each day, though, if only so I can say I successfully completed NaBloPoMo.

Star-Crossed Slouchy Beret.

(stretched over a plate to block)
The good news: it's GORGEOUS!

The bad news: it's entirely too small for my head.

Some might say that the smallness is kind of a predictable result of using smaller needles than recommended, to which I suppose I can only say "...touche." I'm sure you'll all understand where I was coming from, though: I didn't have the recommended needles but I really really REALLY wanted to start the project right that minute and going out to buy needles is horribly frustrating and makes me grouchy and anyway lots of people on Ravelry said the hat came out big so maybe it would all work out? That thinking + a heavy dose of ongoing denial while knitting means I now sort of look like I'm trying to wear a yarmulke.

What can you do, though? I think I'll probably just donate this to some charity and try again soon with the proper needles. (I may get selfish & frog it for all that beautiful Malabrigo, but of course such soft yarn doesn't really hold up to frogging well, so I'm not sure that's a good idea.) Live & learn. The pattern is beautiful, easy, and quick -- not one I'll mind repeating.

In other news, I leave for Toronto early tomorrow morning!!!

Uh oh!

It's really late and I never did think of anything to post today, plus I'm in a serious hat-finishing frenzy. So I promise a real post (with hat pictures!) tomorrow. For now, look at this cute baby fox!

Everything about the pumpkin I cooked & pureed today was beautiful, even the stem:


This was probably the most productive Sunday I've ever had. I was actually out of bed & working on papers by 8 this morning. I kept that up for a bit, spent a happy hour knitting on my hat & listening to the radio, went to the grocery store, and then was switching between kitchen and computer for the rest of the day. My upcoming trip to Toronto means I wanted to prepare some good bus snacks and also that I really needed to use up leftovers.

For the bus I toasted pumpkin seeds and made these wholesome banana chocolate breakfast bars. They came out beautifully! If you have a sweet tooth like I do you might want to add just a bit of honey, especially if your bananas aren't yet in that super-sweet super-ripe state. I also think walnuts would've been wonderful, and I'm toying with lots of other ways to modify that recipe in the future. If any of them are great of course I'll let you know.

In the leftover using-up department, I reheated some of last night's crunchy cornmeal and topped it with garlicky sauteed spinach, which was absolutely the perfect thing. Now I'm getting hungry again so it might be time to pick at some other leftovers...

Splendid Saturday.

Today was pretty much fantastic. Here's some of what happened:

• I tried to go to yoga at the Lab but horrible construction doubled my driving time and I didn't make it in time. That was a pretty big disappointment but I couldn't stay upset for too long. For one thing, I got to hear the last half of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! and the first part of This American Life in the car, both of which had me laughing so hard I probably looked a little nuts to other drivers. (I can't wait to go stream the whole episode of TAM as soon as I'm done writing this.)


• At Eastern Market I drank hot spiced cider, ate roasted chestnuts, and got lots of tasty things. Since I'm leaving for Toronto on Wednesday (!!) I really didn't need too much, but it's always fun to look around.


• My friend Nick called while I was at Eastern Market and wound up coming downtown to meet me. We had no concrete plans, but a glance in the general direction of Campus Martius convinced me that ice skating was absolutely necessary. Eventually I talked him into it and we had SO MUCH FUN!! Well, ok, actually we were extremely awkward and sort of clung to the rail while small children zoomed past us at alarming speeds, but after a while we started to get the hang of it. Neither of us fell, anyway!


• We wrapped up our downtown adventures with hot cocoa at the Cass Cafe and a visit to the Science Center, which was pretty cool.


• Back at home I made a half batch of cornmeal crunch, using some local organic cornmeal from Eastern Market -- the farmer selling it assured me it'd been ground just this morning! I replaced the onions with leeks (mmmm, leeks) and I really like the way it turned out.

So maybe I didn't get through all the homework I meant to, but that's what tomorrow's for, right? For now I think it's time to go work on a hat & listen to some excellent radio. I hope you all had wonderful Saturdays, too!