By the Way...

If you're wondering whether I'd dropped off the radar a bit, I did. I had the blog running on autopilot a bit, and also...got married, went on a honeymoon to Italy, had Thanksgiving with my family in Virginia, and then made my way back to Salt Lake City! Whew!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks, and I have so much to write about. Hopefully I get to even a third of it. There were wedding DIY projects, parties after parties, all gluten-free, gluten-free restaurants, and sightseeing, and more. I came back from Italy wanting to make everything I couldn't eat there gluten-free, and I'm currently swimming in Italian cookbooks working to make that happen. Plus, I'm happy as a clam playing with every single new kitchen toy we got as wedding presents. Now I realize why newlyweds always complain about gaining weight!

Despite all the fun new toys and growing list of dishes to try, after all our eating in Italy and again at Thanksgiving, I'm ready for some lighter fare. Since winter is quickly approaching, that doesn't necessarily mean salads, although we are enjoying some with our meals. Right now, lighter fare means smaller portions and more vegetables. So here's a simple roasted cauliflower recipe:

Wash a head of cauliflower, then remove leaves and stem. Slice the head into 1/2 inch slices, then cut each slice into smaller pieces at the base of the stems. Spread evenly in a single layer on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, then pop into a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes. Turn the cauliflower pieces over, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt again, and roast another 10 minutes. You can cook them a little shorter or longer, depending on how browned you like them.

Makes an excellent veggie side, or you can let the roasted cauliflower cool, then pulverize it in a food processor to make "rice." OR you could use the pulverized cauliflower for a pizza or quiche crust - just mix in an egg, then spread in the bottom of a pan and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until the crust is firm. I find this works better than the recipe I've seen floating around Pinterest, since roasting takes care of some of the excess moisture and brings out all those delicious sugars!

Never Perfect the First Try

It's hard to remember sometimes, but nothing's ever perfect the first time. You have a vision of what you want something to look like, you know more or less how you're going to execute it, and then it flops.

It happens in cooking.

It happens in knitting.

Dog Days

I don't know why, but these last two weeks hit me like a ton of bricks.

There's been work. And play. And for a whole week, fireworks until well past my bedtime.

It's been hot. There's been rain, which makes me do a happy dance every time I see it. (Yes, really.)

Sometimes this sort of thing makes me feel overwhelmed, but right now I'm just tired.

I guess they call this the dog days of summer for a reason. The dog is totally relaxed, just rolling around on his back and acting like I'm crazy for trying to do so much.

Last week, I wrote a series of posts about adventures in National Parks and Monuments. There's more to come, but I lost steam halfway through the week, and they're just going to have to wait until later. 

Maybe I'll see you here next week. I'm going to go have ice cream for dinner.

Mistakes are Fine by Me

So there seems to be this huge divide between Pinterest people and anti-Pinterest people. When it first came out I was in the former category, but then migrated to somewhere in the middle. Why? At first, it was copyright issues. Then, I realized that the same couple hundred things were making their way around and around and around and around. There wasn't anything new to see. And lastly, everything on Pinterest is so darn perfect. Who actually does that? Marketers quick to jump on the newest trend.

Now, I'm not knocking all the wonderful bloggers out there who really do make gorgeous arts and crafts and take wonderful photographs to boot. But mistakes are just fine by me. 

Take this dessert. I had intended to make a variation on my coffeecake, but the changes I made turned what was supposed to be muffins into a crumbly sticky mess. No matter. Scrape as much as you can out of the pans, and pop it in the freezer. You'll find some use for it. 

Like this: toast up the ruined coffeecake, whip up some cream, and top with raspberries. Instant dessert. (I'll even admit to having this for breakfast.)

See? Mistakes can lead to good things. When I obsess over being "Pinterest-worthy," I forget that mistakes can lead to valuable creative experiences. But only if I let them. Which is why mistakes are fine by me.

Have you made a mistake that led to a great discovery? Tell me about it!

More Bloody Cake

Remember how you have to ask? Well, some of my questions got me absolutely wrong answers. One guy just washes his dishes, and he was sort of rude about my questions. Scratch him right off the list. Even though his cakes are gorgeous, I need a cake that won't get me sick, preferable without an attitude.

The second cake baker was absolutely sweet and wonderful. She gets food allergies, and explained the exact layout of her kitchen and why she couldn't guarantee gluten-free, even if she bought all new equipment. Basically, even if she bought new equipment, she wouldn't have anywhere to keep it safe from all that gluten-y flour dust. I absolutely appreciated her candor, but I was still no closer to a wedding cake.

Cue the emotional breakdown. Over cake. Yes, I know. So trivial, so ridiculous.

To make a long story short, the groom has now assumed all cake responsibilities - at least until we find a baker to meet my needs, that is. Then little miss design nut over here will jump right in. But finding a baker from across the country is not easy at all. Luckily, Mike is really good at asking all the right questions, and he's not one to get emotional over a friggin cake.

He's found at least one dedicated bakery that can do it, and we're ordering some cupcakes to test it out.  Until those arrive, we'll have to make do with this:

This cake with a blood-orange buttercream frosting and a blood orange sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and nutmeg, then broiled and cut up to top the cake. Not too shabby.

Now It's the Sweater...

Remember a while back when my mittens were killing me? Well, I got those all straightened out, and was feeling pretty proud of myself, so I decided to embark upon a sweater-knitting adventure.

I've had a few false sweater starts over the years. I got halfway through one tedious design before I realized the yarn wouldn't wear well, the fit was totally unflattering, and I didn't particularly like the color. I got all the way through another, only to realize it was way too big and my modifications were totally unflattering. But that was all a long time ago.

This time, I decided to knit Ivy. I'm a total sucker for a ballerina wrap sweater, although I don't think I ever had one during all my years of dance. So I figured it was time for a grown-up version. All in all, the pattern wasn't too difficult to follow, and was actually quite enjoyable.

Until it was time to sew it up. Somehow I got a front twisted, so after I seamed the shoulder and side seam, it looked like something M.C. Escher might have dreamed up. That wasn't such a big deal - I just ripped out the shoulder seam and set it right, which wasn't so bad since there were only about 20 stitches at the shoulders.

The real issue was the size of the sleeves. I should have paid more attention over on Ravelry, where nearly everyone who made the sleeves complained about how big they were. I made my length modifications, and wrapped it around my arm as I was knitting it to check the size, and everything seemed ok. Until I seamed it up. The sleeves were so baggy, I don't know how to describe it. Knitters usually worry about things being too small, but the real problem is when things are too big.

See those rough pink lines of stitching on the sleeve? That's where the edges should be - I've got as much as 3 inches of extra ease in some places!

No amount of seaming can fix that unless I'm willing to   do some machine stitching and cutting (which I'm not), so there's only one thing left to do....

You Gotta Ask

When asked, "What is jazz?" Louis Armstrong reportedly answered, "If you gotta ask, you'll never know."

Now, there is something to be said for intuition, for just knowing something at the core of your being. And those sorts of things are often so difficult to put into words because they're based on pure emotion. You know it or you don't. That's what art, music, and dance are for - expressing things were words are just inadequate.

Unfortunately, I seem to have let this quote influence me a little too much. I just don't ask. I'm afraid to ask. And when you (and I) don't ask, you (and I) often miss out.

Recently, I've been stressing out about my wedding cake being gluten-free. So I decided to suck it up and ask. I researched gluten-free bakeries in the area where the wedding will be, and came up with this list of possibilities some of which aren't dedicated gluten-free, and some of which are, but I'm not sure if they do wedding cakes because I haven't asked:

• AnnaB's Gluten-Free
• Apple Tree Cake Company
• Carolina Cupcakery
• Flour Child
• Three Fellers Bakery

There's just one thing. None of them are on the "approved vendors" list for my venue. I haven't asked the venue yet...but I thought I'd check with the approved vendors and see whether they can do gluten-free.

Out of five, one plainly stated on its website that it could not do gluten-free. Another I knocked out simply because I know what their kitchen is like, and didn't feel comfortable with a gluten-free cake coming out of it. A third emailed me back saying she couldn't do it safely because of cross-contamination issues. She was really nice about it, and I can totally appreciate her honesty.

To my surprise, the last two emailed me back to say they can do gluten-free! I'm still getting information from them (how they prevent cross-contamination being the big one), but if I hadn't asked, I would never have known.

Sometimes you just gotta ask.

It's All Coming Back to Me Now

So, as you may know, I live in a small apartment. We are blessed with a patio and dirt that I can actually plant in. I have a few plants who live in pots so they can come inside to stick it out during the winter...and my bay laurel was one of them. The only thing was, I left it outside and didn't water it for maybe a little too long.

I brought it inside anyways, and watered it whenever I thought about it, which if we're honest, was not very often this winter. 

It looked dead. All the leaves dried out and sounded all rattly. I kept meaning to throw it out, but didn't quite get around to it.

Imagine my surprise when I found this shoot growing from the base! It makes me pretty darn happy when life continues even when you think it's over. (An allegory for winter? Perhaps...)

Collection or Obsession?

I have a cooking magazine habit. It's bad. I have stacks and stacks of them. But as I leaf through them, I realize that I only ever cook one or two recipes out of each one.

It started in college, when I was working part-time at a shoe store. I know, a cooking magazine habit at a shoe store. A little odd. But we had loads of free time when the store was slow, and as long as we had done all our chores, we were free to do as we pleased. So I would often clock out and wander over to the bookstore, grab a cooking magazine, and while away the rest of the day at work dreaming about the wonderful things I might cook for dinner.  Later on, it just became a habit to buy a magazine when the cover caught my eye, even though I knew I would never cook Over 250 Fast and Easy Recipes! or 30 Ways to Fix Dessert from One Recipe! Sure, I learned a lot from these magazines and developed my own cooking style, but more often than not, I found I was disappointed by the empty promises on the covers.

I tried to counter the clutter years ago by tearing out the recipes I thought I might try and pasting them into a notebook. The number of recipes I thought I would actually try was sobering - only two to twelve per issue. And after a year or two, I realized that all the issues started to look exactly the same. Recipes got shamelessly recycled year to year. I cancelled the two subscriptions I had as quality spiraled downwards. (From those two magazines, I had maybe 30-40 magazines total, cooked about 25 recipes, made about eight recipes more than once, and found three regular dishes that I continue to make to this day.)

Even with all the cutting and pasting and discarding of fluff, I still have tones of food magazines. This one promises that if you buy it, you'll have a gourmet dinner on the table in thirty minutes or less and lose weight and your family will worship you. Number of recipes actually cooked from five magazines: 16. Number of recipes I make on a regular basis: 0 (unless you count roasted garlic, which is more of a technique I happened to learn from this magazine). This magazine's biggest downfalls: cheap paper, not enough pictures.

Next up - seasonal, local, gourmet magazines. These have pictures for almost every recipe, at least, and do a better job at laying out techniques. And much better photography. Number of recipes cooked from six magazines: eleven. Number of recipes I make on a regular basis: four. This magazine's biggest downfall is it's price, and I don't cook as many recipes from it as I thought.

Next up - allergy-friendly magazines. Live a full and happy life with [insert allergy/food intolerance here]. Delicious food without the allergens. Number of recipes cooked from eight magazines: one. Zero regulars. Caveat: these magazines have more information than recipes, and I've learned a lot from them,  and found tons of resources and gluten-free products. But their biggest detractor is that reading them makes me cry. Can't tell you why, but they do.

Last category: these magazines promise that if you follow the directions, your food will come out perfectly. They explain why each recipe works. They have pictures for every single recipe. They recommend certain brand based on focus group studies. Number of recipes cooked from eight magazines: fifteen. Number of recipes I cook on a regular basis: three. This is by far my favorite magazine, and I think the only one I will continue buying (but only as a very special occasion treat).

So why do I have so many magazines? They're cheap and quick and easy to pick up at the grocery store or airport, that's for sure. There's no commitment with a magazine, and I don't feel much guilt if it turns out to be awful and I throw it away.

But in the end, I think I much prefer cookbooks - the kind with lots of pictures and a good story to tell. I don't think I've ever seen a magazine that really told a cohesive story. That story is what brings me back, time and again, to the recipes. That story is what leads me to cook a recipe in the first place.

So now the only question remains - what to do with the pile of magazines?

I made bread!

There is no recipe for this one. There's no trying. We ran out of bread, and the store was out of the kind I normally buy, so I decided I could make my own for a change.

There's just one thing. My idea of a recipe is more like a suggestion. A guideline. An estimate of what you'll need, how long it might take, and the temperature at which you might consider cooking it. 

Guess how well that goes with baking gluten-free bread?

Not as bad as you might think, as long as you're willing to really work at it. I decided, in all my brilliance, to use potato flour, which apparently sucks up twice as much moisture as any other gluten-free flour I've ever used. Which meant there was an immeasurable amount of extra liquid - beer, milk, olive oil - that went into the dough.

When it first came out of the oven, I couldn't stop eating it. Alas, after a night in the fridge it had dried out considerably and turned into something that resembled slightly moist cardboard.

But still. I made bread!

You Are What You Eat

I'll go on and on about this to anyone who will listen - you are what you eat.

And what you eat is what it ate. So you are what you eat ate. It gets zany quickly, I know.

But here to back it up - it tastes better and is better for you too.

Which is why I purposely look for milk, cheese, and butter from grass-fed cattle.

Oh, and the fact that if I don't, strange things happen. Like the allergic reaction when I bought a different milk. Some might say that I shouldn't be consuming dairy products at all. Maybe they're right. All I know is that I'm fine when I'm consuming dairy from cows who ate what they were supposed to eat. And I'm okay with that.

Winter of My Discontent

 I don't know what to say. It's beyond cold here, and absolutely miserable. One day last week, the sun finally came out and the snow started to melt. It got up to a downright tropical 46 degrees Fahrenheit. I thought, It's going to be ok.

Then I looked out the window.

After it all stopped, this is what it looked like:

Not a ton of snow, in the grand scheme of things. But it's not the snow. It's the temperatures. Lows ranging in the -3 to 3 degree region, and highs in the low teens. I was not built for this kind of weather.

Just a five minute walk (wearing long underwear, cashmere sweaters, every kind of handknit imaginable - socks, scarf, hat, mittens, plus a coat) has me chilled to the bone. 

I don't know how people live like this, but I've taken to knitting furiously against the cold. And soup. Lots of soup. 

There's this sweater. (Only my third. Maybe it will work better than the previous two.)

And then there are these socks. I didn't bother to block them once they were off the needles - they got five minutes worth of pictures, and then they went right on my feet. 

 Please, send some warmth my way. Lots of it, and soon.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

We have really lucked out with this dog. We make sure he gets plenty of exercise, and we work hard to train him (he's up to 20 tricks. 20!), but he is at his core a very good dog. With the exception of nibbling on Daddy's Rainbows once or twice, he's never eaten our shoes. And he can curl up next to Daddy's shoes, like he did here, without us worrying that he might start to eat them. Good boy.

What Does Shame Look Like?

 Hi guys! It's me, Odie! I've come to beg for your help because these people have subjected me to the worst shame imaginable...puppy mittens! (Except they keep calling them kitten mittens, whatever that means)

 Anyways, it's been really cold here and there's lots of snow, which I think is really fun. But there's a ton of salt too and it sort of hurts my little paws every now and then. Mommy got really freaked out when I started limping, and she looked at my paws and saw I'd worn through the thick skin and looked irritated or something.

 I think she overreacted because I'm a tough guy and all that, but she ran right out and bought me these goofy sock-mitten-paw protector thingies. I'm really nice to her when she tries to put them on me, but I really don't like it. I think it looks ridiculous.

At first, they made me walk really funny, but now I've got the hang of it you'd think I'm a pro at this. Don't tell Mommy, but they kindof make my feet feel better because I don't have to step on the salt anymore. But still, please, come rescue me. Or at least make it warmer.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

What a year 2012 was. I graduated from law school, moved across the country, and passed the bar exam. I had a contract job for a while, but that project is long gone and I'm looking for something new. I lost thirty pounds. I started this blog.

I guess you could say I managed to achieve a lot in 2012, but when I look back that's not what I think about. I remember the food I ate. I remember Arches, Zion, the Grand Canyon, and even Breaks (nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the South...it's nowhere near close to the Grand Canyon, but has a beauty of its own). I remember seeing the Golden Spike, Timpanogos, the Great Salt Lake. I remember getting our first puppy of our very own, a cuddly little guy who has quickly grown up into a brilliant and wonderful dog. I remember getting engaged to the love of my life. I remember discovering - and taking control of - my own health.

This year, I'm in transition. For the first time in my life, I'm not in school. I guess you could say I'm an adult, but I'm not really sure how to be an adult. In a year's time, I want to look back at 2013 and remember that it was the year I achieved financial independence, the year I started to learn how to be a grown up.

But more importantly, I want it to be a year of friends. Of creativity, confidence, and learning. I want it to be a year of health, of not just discovering health, but of having it, enjoying it, thriving with it all year long. And I want to enjoy the little things, to relax, to smile, to laugh.

Here's to 2013.

These Mittens Are Killing Me

Every now and then, I launch into a creative frenzy. I heard it best described once by a lady who taught a class I took. She had compiled thousands of stories to use in her classes. One student wondered at how she could possibly have done so much and kept up with it. She shrugged, and said, "That was a kick I was on a few years back. I'm onto a new kick now."

That's me.

Right now, I'm on a knitting design kick. I'm trying to do this, I'm trying to do that, yada, yada, yada.

The first design is in limbo. I don't even want to talk about it.

The second design is for cashmere I bought on a recent visit home. I needed a sharper set of needles for the project I brought with me, and I found some lovely cream cashmere on sale for a song.

Hopefully, it will be a mitten and hat set, but at the very least it will be a pair of mittens and a matching headband.

If it doesn't kill me first, that is.

I poured over stitch dictionaries. Five or six of them. I sketched. I swatched. I started.

And then I ripped it out. I had the pattern slightly off the first time, and my stitches were anything but even. I sketched again. And swatched again.

And then I ripped it out. Again. The pattern was right, but I couldn't follow it to save my life. So I ripped back to a spot where I knew I had it right. But then I wasn't sure. So I ripped back to the cuff, where it had to be right. Right?

Nope. I hadn't even cast on the right number of stitches for the cuff. Argh. I ripped it all out.

So finally, I knit a full swatch of what the pattern ought to look like. I marked off every single row as I did it, and I might just have finally figured out this darn pattern. (Yeah, I know, the one I designed.)

The only silver lining to all this is it's a pretty sturdy yarn that has taken to ripping out without getting all nasty. I'm just not sure how much it can take before it starts to look crappy. And I'm not really interested in finding out.

Time to cast on again.

Maybe soon I'll have something to show for it. Or maybe it'll be time to move on to a different kick...

Food News and Other Things

What a week. My home, Virginia, which typically takes the brunt of many hurricanes, was blissfully spared from this one. (My other home, Central Appalachia, got a blizzard that put a lot of people out of power and water, but the damage was nothing compared to New Jersey and New York.)  We were high and dry the whole time (in our new home, Utah), but we've watched this week's incredible scenes unfold just the same.

Please take the time to donate to the Red Cross. Always a good cause, always tax deductible, and right now  working around the clock to help people devastated by the storm. 

On a lighter note, some interesting things in the news this week:

Exercise gets better and better.

Celiac might be influenced by the season of birth

What's in your rotisserie chicken?

Less smoking = less sickness. 

Make mine mini

My Happiness Project

I read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin several weeks ago, and have been planning my own happiness project ever since. It's that kind of book - the kind that you can't put down, that gets you thinking, that's really worth a read.

What is a happiness project? Basically, it's reflecting on what makes you happy, joyful, anxious, and sad, then making concrete resolutions to make yourself more happy and less sad/mad/etc., then following through on those resolutions.  It sounds simple, but if you really want to see some big changes, it takes a lot of work. As Rubin repeats throughout the book, "Happiness doesn't always make you happy."

First Snow

Last week. I'm not a big fan of snow, but it is pretty to look at.

Gathering

I've been off the radar recently, letting the blog run more or less on autopilot.  But that doesn't mean I've been running on autopilot. I've been doing professional training, seeking a professional mentor, and starting at a new job (it's a contract deal - project-by-project, but it's been keeping me busy). That's not all. There's cooking and eating and taking care of the puppy. There's keeping the apartment more or less together, dishes...the list goes on. Life goes on.