pumpkin yum

i really love food.  a lot.
since i stopped eating highly processed foods and have been avoiding wheat, i have had to let go of many treats.  i don't miss the actual food items per se (cupcake?  meh.  pass.) but I do miss some of the flavors that are treat flavors.

pumpkin pie is a flavor i really love.  at thanksgiving i made a pie with GF crust made from almond meal.  it tasted good but the crust was kinda lame.  it got too brown and didn't hold the pie effectively, which is what a crust ought to do.  i am still working on GF pie crust because i like savory pies to, but i solved the pumpkin pie flavored treat problem in a way that is natural and super yum!

i adapted a recipe i found on the web to my pumpkiny needs.  the original features no spices and uses carrots.  any squash or root veggie you can cook and mash would work for a variation of this.




pumpkin pie powerballs
adapted from  zuzana's powerballs via bodyrock.tv.

dry:
1 cup GF oats, ground to coarse flour/meal
2 cups almond meal
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or to taste)
3 tsp baking powder

wet:
4 tblsp honey
4 tblsp virgin coconut oil, liquified
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

coating:
1/3 cup almonds, crushed
1/4-1/3 cup sunflower seeds, crushed

• preheat oven to 325 degrees.
• crush almonds and sunflower seeds together for coating, set aside.
• combine all dry ingredients, set aside.
• combine all wet ingredients, then incorporate into the dry ingredients.  the batter will be somewhat sticky.
• scoop heaping teaspoonfuls of batter and gently roll into balls.  roll balls in the nut and seed coating and place on a cooking sheet covered in parchment.  i used a silpat.
• bake for 25 minutes.
• remove from oven and let cool so the balls will hold their shape.

yield: 38

calories: approx 75 per ball

these are super yum.  

if you go off the deep end and eat three it will equal as many calories as a candy bar but full of happy vitamins A, E, a few Bs, plus fiber with far less sugar.  snack happy!

egg on everything

scallions make everything yum

it is the end of the winter quarter at work, so new and shiny pictures are languishing on my camera and in my phone.  i am still doing things.  i have some great outfits and some knitting to share, but here is a quick hit for the meantime.

eggs are everywhere in my eating life right now.  one of my best girls and i enjoy finding new ways to incorporate a fried egg on top of nearly any dish that also contains veggies and rice as the primary ingredients. (i.e. bibimbap, mujadara, etc)  i am still egging n stop as well, but i have branched out into faux frittata.

i watched a bad movie in which Harrison Ford demonstrates his professional respect for a colleague through frittata (right?!) and i have been obsessed since.  last week i was using the mini sweet peppers from trader joe's.  this week it is spinach.  they all must be covered in my true love--scallions.

anything delicious can be made more delicious by adding scallions.

i am also going to take this moment to say that i am sorry that i didn't take a better angle of the pan.  those eggs are resting in my stunningly beautiful copper and stainless skillet.  you get just a sneak of the pretty all-metal handle there.  i am in love.  one day non-stick shall no longer reside in my kitchen, and that day shall be soon(ish).  after my last birthday i decided i will no longer listen to the people tell me not to buy nice things.

apparently we are all supposed to wait until we are marrying someone and register for nice things.  forget that.  life is too short.

scratch

Today I make chickpeas from scratch.  Dried beans will, hopefully, become happy usable little fellows for hummus, salad toppers, and to throw into dinner soups and sautees.

Other things I have made from scratch in the last few months...

1. bread! challah, no knead wheat, soda, cardamon, and several quick breads.
2. pizza dough.
3. scones.
4. gnocchi.
5. sweet potato oven fries.
6. divinty fudge.
7. rice milk.
8. greek yogurt.
9. pasta sauce.
10. whole roaster chicken and gravy.  this last one is only impressive because i made it for someone else (I don't eat animals) for Thanksgiving.  I learned this Turkey day that many people I know just go out and buy their holiday turkey or ham.  Too weird to me!

Of course I still make my own jams. yum.

nom nom nom

I don't do specific New year's resolutions.  I just try to decide what I want to do more of, less of, and something new I may want to try and leave it at that.  Less disappointment that way if I don't manage.

I love to cook, and I decided it is time to expand my repertoire so I can really put processed foods in their place--off my plate.  In that spirit, I tried three new recipies today.

Pictured we have, six-seed soda bread, which is my first soda bread.  (I started baking breads in the fall.)

I also made smashed peas with ricotta, which is much better than it sounds and not very smashed at all.  Also, I picked up some French lentils at the co-op and made a delicious peasant dish, basic french lentils.  They are accurately named becaus the preparation is basic, but they taste very very good!

madness

(this picture has nothing to do with the post. i just like it. bees are awesome little creatures, and rW caught this one hard at work the day we picked blackberries and peaches.)

i have a pot of vegetable stock cooking on my stove right now, and the aroma is driving me mad. i know it would make a poor soup to just eat the pile of scraps that are currently in the pot, but it smells that good.

sunday at the farmer's market my favourite organic grower had beautiful carrots. they were still wearing their tops. the carrots themselves were no bigger than a finger and a beautiful ruby red color... like beets. when you bit into one, they were an electric orange color. amazing.

notice the past tense. they didn't last. but! the tops are living on in a stock*.

how to veggie stock...

in a 6 quart pot, combine...

tops of roots like carrots or beets, trimmings from your week's veggies (carrot tips, squash ends, tomato tops, scallion or onion greens, etc), any veggies past their prime (i used two orange and yellow peppers and a yellow squash), a whole bulb of garlic, two bay leaves, and a healthy dose of peppercorns.

top with enough water to cover but not overflow when the water boils.

cover and bring to a boil. once boiling, reduce to a simmer and allow to cook for 1 hour. salt if desired.

strain off vegetables and aromatics and allow to cool

freeze in manageable quantities.


*i, personally, would not add tops to a stock unless i knew where they came from. tops are where the pesticides are sprayed on root vegetables, and i would rather not deliberately cook pesticides into my stock . i know, i know... i can be such a hippie, but i hope to be an old hippie one day.

Too beautiful!

I love heirloom tomatoes because they are goofy looking. check out these pictures here. And here. (two whole pages on that second link!)

All grown at the Love Apple Farm in CA.


also food related yet not at all related to tomatoes... last night I worked a party for one of the theatres i am involved with, and i wanted to share that the food was awesome. I (of course) had none of the meat, but the side veggies were intensely flavourful and delicious and there were cupcakes.

topped with blueberries.

did i mention handmade chocolates? as well as cupcakes?

okay. here are the details.
the food was done by Oliver Friendly (yes! that is his name! and he is!) and his business is called Eat & Smile. he does private parties, meal delivery, weddings, cooking lessons, and so forth! the website is here. totally lived up to the raves the hostess made before he arrived!

my blender and i are no longer on speaking terms.

peas are one of rW's favourite vegetables. the local english peas are fresh on the vine right now, so i went out to the orchard where we picked strawberries to pick some peas. (season is short, gotta be fast!)

lately, the weather in the greater DC area has been trying to reenact the great stories of the bible.... or relocate itself to seattle. needless to say i was the only picker out in the PYO pea field in the rain. rain boots and an umbrella helped a lot, and i came away with 5 unshelled quart containers of peas. i shelled those babies as soon as i got home (watch a PBS documentary--it makes shelling fly by) and my 5 quarts yielded 5 and 3/4 cups of peas. what to make!

right away i blanched 2 cups and stashed them in the freezer for real peas post season. then i put a cup away to cook and eat tomorrow. tonight--a fresh pea soup!

after reading a few pea soup recipes online, i decided to wing it with what i have on hand. i wanted this to be simple and let the peas shine.

all was going very well until i moved to the blending phase of operations. my only options in pureeing are a traditional blender or a tiny mini food processor used exclusively for pesto and small batch jam.

blender it is.

little did i know that when one blends a hot soup, the top wants to explode. after sealing the blender and holding the top on, i was sloshed with pea soup. i tried again, holding on very tightly.... same. i managed to force all of my weight on top of the blender lid and i was able to blend the soup. however, i was covered in soup. as was my counter and kitchen floor. and i was burned. but just a little.

the good news is that the 75% of the soup that remained was delicious. here is my recipe...


Fresh Pea Soup
2.5 cups shelled English or garden peas.
1.5 cups (approx) organic vegetable stock
2 big cloves garlic, crushed
1/3 cup mild onion, diced
2 tablespoons butter

First, shell the peas, and dice the onion--have everything ready for a quick prep.

Saute the onion in the butter until just translucent. Add the crushed garlic and saute until lightly browned. Add stock, scrap down the sides of the sauce pan and bring to a boil.

Once boiling, add the shelled peas and boil for approximately 10 minutes or until they are tender. You will hear popping as the peas beak their skins and they will start to wrinkle slightly.

Once the peas are tender, remove from heat and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes to prevent kitchen doom. Reserve a few tablespoons of peas to garnish. Then puree peas with an immersion blender or food processor. Return soup to sauce pan to reheat slightly if desired. Serve immediately. Garnish with a drizzle of olive oil, fresh ground pepper, or shreds of parmesan cheese.

fruit favoured weekend

rW and i had another weekend of activity, and i think, good times. we went out to the Butler's Orchard and picked strawberries on saturday morning.

it was lots of fun. right off 270 is this little nook of farmland with berries and flowers and happy people helping city dwellers pick fresh spring treats.

rW and i picked approximately 6 quarts of berries and i turned them into...

• freezer jam (3pts total)
• cooked jam (3 pts total)
• frozen smoothie berries (1/2 pt)
• two meals of dessert (strawberries in Liqueur 43)
  
• a breakfast of delight
• Fragolo (pictured)
  

Fragolo is strawberry liqueur, and rW and i are making some. this is his pet project and the incentive rW has for taking me out to the country, picking berries, and carrying things for me. isn't the color pretty? all natural too.

in addition to the strawberry jams i made, i also cooked up some orange-lemon marmalade, apple jelly, and spiced honey. i have been a canning fiend.

to see pictures of all our fun and games, go here....

Strawberry Picking

garden updates soon! things have been pretty active around here!

marmalade, slugs, and dumplings

once a show opens and i have enough time to do some things that are fun, i go for it!

last night i made peach dumplings! it sounds like a lot of work, but it really wasn't. first, the recipe was small (yields 4 dumplings) and second, the low fat crust ingredients are easier to work with than regular crust.

granted, there is nothing like an all-butter crust made with traditional flour, but i can handle whole wheat and a few alterations.

the filling was made of brown sugar, butter, raspberry jam, vanilla, and lemon zest placed in the hollow of a pitted peach. yum!

in other "yum" news, i am trying my hand at marmalade. lemon-orange marmalade. this is the first cooked fruit spread i have ever made. i was having a conversation with my mum earlier in the week about cooking spreads and she wished me luck but reminded me that the preparation takes a long time.

she wasn't kidding!
i spent an hour and twenty minutes, peeling oranges, chopping oranges, slicing orange peel, slicing lemons, and banishing seeds! now i am on hold for 12 hours while the simmered mixture sits. (i think this is how the pectin in the fruit pith joins the party.) while i hurry up and wait, i am going to get some different jars. i have pint jars, and i think no one wants to open a whole pint of marmalade. need something smaller!

speaking if things no one wants...
i have stupid garden slugs! gah. i planted marigolds at the ends of my containers because some animals think they are not yummy. well, slugs love marigolds, it seems! they also love all the other leaves on my plants. i have been reading anti-slug pages online, and now i just have to decide which technique i want to employ in conjunction with my deer repelling tricks.

several things

okay okay.
enough prodding. i've had things to do, folks. they are many. let's review.

1. go see Roundheads and Peakheads. running through March 15th at the Atlas Center, it was produced by Catalyst Theatre Company. buy tickets here.

2. Constellation Theatre Company, a theatre i am proud to be an Associate Artist of is being awarded the James Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company at the 2009 Helen Hayes Awards. okay. so i didn't actually do anything when this announcement came out. jump and down and stuff... but i had to share.

3. deer are awesome and have natural camouflage.

Looking Out My Back Door

4. i have decided i really need to sew through some of my fabric stash--especially the things i have already cut out to make for myself. see my sewing here.

5. i read The Friday Night Knitting Club. not as good as i had hoped. only it sort of was because my expectation was to not really like it as much as "i should". still i read it because customers are always coming into the shop and telling me "oh! you would LOVE it!". yeah. because i knit i will automatically like chick lit about a knitter? um. actually, you don't know very much about what i like beyond knitting, so it is hard to say i will like a certain book. yeah. so it didn't change my life. and the totally unrealistic portrayal of opening and running a yarn shop was a bit trying.

6. i have become a selfish garment knitter. my needles have focused primarily on vests and sweaters for me, and so far i am loving what i have made. all. for. me. muwahahaha.

7. okay. so i may have knit rW another hat and scarf.

8. owls are neat.

9. my mother sent me an awesome red hat for valentine's day.

10. on the homefront, rW and i went out the friday of valentine's and had a yummy dinner. then we saw my show on saturday. i gave him a neat-o tie and he gave me an excellent back massage to combat the serious neck and shoulder tension that my work and hobbies create.

11. rW's record collection (see right) has helped return my love of taking pictures. the geometric shelves make a great backdrop for my fabric creations.

12. i have been trying some new recipes and adapting a few old favourites to be vegetarian. pumpkin bread. i couldn't find my version of my mom's recipe so i may have tried Betty's.

not bad.

13. best text message i have ever received: "Whenever i take Collin's socks off he has lots of fuzz between his toes. I always tell him we re going to send it to Aunt Yvette so you can make a sweater."


14. and a great knitting-related email.... "OMG, another tempting cablelicious project to tempt me! I sometimes wish I were an Indian god with multiple arms."

and that is life for now. i have a lot of knitting i should post. i realize that 2009 has been a very lax year for me actually updating the knitting content. i am still producing, it just isn' t making it to a blog near you.

i will try to be better.

my new blackberry

not that kind. the real kind.

this is homemade blackberry jam made by my FBIL who picked the berries with his BFF. i put it on my oatmeal yesterday for breakfast, and it was amazing!

this was the extra special part of my christmas present from my cousin and her culinary-gifted husband*. i wish i had a picture of the whole gift basket of homemade treats, but the basket had to stay in ohio. i squirreled away the treats in my checked baggage individually, and it has been well worth it!

in addition to the jam, there was a box of chocolate chip cookies, chocolate dipped pretzels, bags of homemade pasta, a jar of sauce, and one of my favourite parts--homemade cheese crackers!!

they were amazing. i could have eaten the whole box in one sitting. now you can make your own cheese crackers and eat them in one sitting too. go see the recipe on FBIL's blog here. i am actually scared to make these because i have visions of none of my handknits fitting after i eat a whole pan of crackers. AND this comes form the gal who hates Nips or Goldfish crackers. that says something for his little cheesy delights.

yuuummmmm.


*it is worth noting once again that the culinary-gifted man my cousin married cans his own blackberry jam. in case you didn't notice the canning part. you know, the thing that prohibits the rest of us lazy you-know-whats from making jam.

i made polenta

and you can make it too. go to Eating Cleveland and enjoy some step by step photos!

this was my first try.
it will be better next time because i have learned a few things.

1. i am short. this makes it hard to stir a pot on the stove. i need a shorter pot and a step stool. seriously, this stuff gets difficult to stir at the end.

2. 5 more minutes on the stove would have done a world of good. (see logic for stopping in item #1)

3. rWs oven sucks, and it needs to be dialed up to bajillion if i want to brown anything. i need to get him an oven thermometer before i try this again.

still, it was pretty good, and i plan to fry the leftovers per another EC suggestion. confession: i will make rW do it. i am bad a frying things. the closest i get to frying is sauteed veggies or the sizzle of pancakes. actual oil frying is a no go for me.

my grandmother can have peace

i made good use of those apples yesterday. this is my first apple pie.

i am not a very good maker of crusts, and this one is my first personal success. rW had some hand in it. he encouraged and helped cut shortening when my arm got tired.

it turned put pretty well.

the filling is made from the Rome apples we picked saturday and one Honeycrisp apple to throw in some textural variety and sweetness. i spiced it with both cinnamon and allspice.

now my grandmother can be a happy woman. it took 90 years to reach this point, but now she has the icing on the metaphorical cake... her wayward granddaughter has made a real pie. crust and all.

knitting content soon, i promise. i have been busy on secret knitting.

wet but fun saturday

saturday was a very busy day. we will start with the top story.

my super-awesome cousin gave birth to her first child saturday morning. His name is Collin Thomas, and you can see the photos on his very own website (with commentary by his father, a man of eccentric humour.) which i am sure will have frequent updates of cuteness.

the family expansion was happening in cleveland, so here in the mid-atlantic, we had a pretty typical weekend on our hands.

rW and i took a trip out to Mt. Airy, Maryland to pick apples and a pumpkin. it was fun, and we took a bunch of pictures. i even did some knitting on a mitten in the car.

the only hitch in the day was some inclement weather. we got pretty wet, but it was worth it. the pumpkin we found is as perfect as any pumpkin i have ever had. it has one slightly flat side, but someone clearly picked it up off its side and set it upright before it finished ripening and turning orange because it doesn't have too much of a deformed side.

i sort of also wanted to take home one of the fancy bright orange pumpkins that were already picked, but i am happy with our guy. rW will have to name him because i am bad at that sort of thing.

here is an album of our countryside activities....

Pumpkin' and Apple Pickin'

later saturday evening i went to a cocktail party at my friend Jen's apartment. i met her new man (well, new so to speak, they have been friends for a long time, but they started dating this year.) and caught up with a few old friends.

all in all, fun and busy.

17

last night i made 17 bean + barley soup. these are the beans before i soaked them. pretty!

it was delicious.
i served it up with pumpernickle bread and halves of delicata squash stuffed with veggie sausage (or "fauxusage", if you will). it was delightful. i had never had "sausage" stuffed squash before, but as i said of faux meat technology... there have been advancements.

i am pretty sure that fake sausage just tastes like smoke and spices, but it works for me.

i am on a store model knitting spree. i have a cowl on my needles right now that is made of cotton and angora blend--fluffy! this is the 2nd one this week that i have designed myself. photos soon.

sweet life

i have been doing secret holiday knitting that the blog readership cannot know about (hi family peoples. what up.) so i will share a so-not-me project here today.

this is a store model for the shop. i designed the pattern to be given out with the yarn, which as you can see is sort of silly. i plan to see if i can knit a second one in a plain yarn for more long term use in the shop.

the details....

Ruffled Drawstring Hat
designed by kittything
free with yarn purchase at K+S=B

knit in one skein of Scholler+Stahl Sweet Girls (100% acrylic) on size US 10.5 needles. fits a toddler or young child (16"-18" head).

started: october 4, 2008.
finished: october 20, 2008.

i started knitting this and then realized i didn't have a real plan. so i set it aside, designed it out in my head and finished it in one sitting yesterday while watching the movie Airplane!.

because it is store model (needs to be easy to knit) and it the yarn is a little tricky, i knit the hat flat and seamed it rather than knitting in the round.

the ruffles are goofy. you make them by grabbing only part of the ruffled section of the yarn and knitting or purling only the edge. on the knit side, you purl the ruffles, on the purl side, you knit the ruffles. it is opposite in order to keep the ruffles on the right side of the work. strange.

the cute thing about the pattern (never mind the yarn) is the drawstring top. a little girl can pull her ponytail through the top of her hat. cute!

in other news...
i had my head shots taken on sunday (and had to miss a BBQ at my aunt's house for it! grr!) and they went better than the horror show in my head. hair and make-up was easy. she didn't lecture me about home hair dye or going to a dermatologist, so that was good.

photo shoot was also good. we will see how the pictures turn out. i think i was done up a little on the vintage pin up side, and my glasses were problematic with glare so i had to take a lot without them. but i am sure there is something i can use.

last night i made a favourite dish from my childhood--macaroni and cheese omelet! it is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. macaroni, egg, extra sharp cheddar cheese, fake bacon, salt, pepper, milk, frying pan. cook it. delicious.

prior to last night, i only have eaten it once since i went veggie. it is sort of bland without the bacon. now fake bacon technology has caught up and i was able to make it with the fakcon (as rW and i like to call it) and enjoy a slice of childhood once again. i also substituted in whole wheat macaroni.

i bet the whole thing could be made vegan, but i am opposed to soy cheese for personal reasons.

holey wow.

this is piece of unblocked lace. um. that's why it looks so goofy and relatively bad compared to other projects i have shown here. don't worry, it will be pretty before the end of next month!

this is the christening shawl for my future nephew. mama knows i am making it for the bambino, but i hope my FBL doesn't tell her i posted a progress photo. ahem. this project is really giving me a run for my money.

i am a new lace knitter, and this has been a learning experience.

i have decided that non-repeating patterns are difficult for me. i can't memorize the knot motif so i am glued to the chart row by row. i would be in agony of i were knitting this to a full stole size with repeats of the knot chart.

but i am not!
and it will be beautiful and worth all the careful chart reading when i have knit the last stitch, blocked it so it looks like something and a new wee person is wrapped up in it.

in other news...
i finished rW's tie. it is beautiful. i don't have modeled photos yet because we have both been very busy this week. i had 2 first rehearsals, 2 production meetings, 1 nineteen hour work day, 3 shifts at the shop, costume fittings, and a partridge in a pear tree. i'm glad it was only a 4 day week!

after the crazy week, rW went out for dinner last night. it was fantastic. we went to Franklin's in Hyattsville (why do they not have a website? or why is it so hard to find?) and i was pleased this go around. i used to go there all the time in grad school, and it was great, but over the last year, it was really sucking. i was pleased to see that this time we had good food, fast service, and a wonderful server.

this last point is especially important to me. i have had the lamest servers there every time i have been in the last year and a half.

we had a relatively simple dinner. beer (yay brew pub!), fresh made rolls, and salads. my salad was mix greens topped with grilled peaches, rd onion, blue cheese, pecans, and a sherry vinaigrette. rW had a salad of mixed heirloom tomatoes, red onion, and slices of feta cheese finished with a lemon dressing.

i cannot even describe how delicious the lemon dressing was on his salad. it is even difficult to describe the dressing itself, it was so unusual.

we went to the attached general store after dinner, and it inspired us to buy a puzzle. a jigsaw puzzle. yes, we are preparing for our geriatric years now.

750 pieces of pretty coastline. i think it is an italian sea town. i will keep you posted as the puzzle develops and my grey hair comes to visit.

beet dis... RAK!

i joined the Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) group on ravelry. in the group forum you post a wish list and other people post a wish list and if you can fulfill a wish, you do. they can be knitting related and non.

my non knitting related wish was for people to send me beet recipes, which they have!

i told rW about this and he sent me a RAK as well. sort of.

arrrrrrtissssst

too much. (part II)

see that fine pair of preppy bags*? yeah, i only own one of those. the other sitting next to it belong to my #1 girl... my cousin. she drove out thursday for a very last minute visit.

it was great!
while this visit was the exact opposite of my mum's in terms of amount of stuff smooshed into 2.5 days, it was just as enjoyable. highlights...

i took jess to Plato's Diner in College Park. she declared their ravioli The Best Ever.

we shopped. well, window shopped. very little buying was done. we just looked at baby stuff at buybuy Baby and Ikea and hit The Container Store as well. there was some buying at Ikea. jess thought it was pretty amusing that she (the pregnant lady who doesn't even really like wine) was buying wine racks.

i bought an underwear drying hanger thingy that looks like a green octopus. it is absurd, but i love it.

speaking of absurd things you love, we had a nice visit with our aunt, uncle, and cousin. we even bought along rW to be judged by them. (ha.) there was dinner and conversation. and wine. we took a trip to the "art gallery" to see our little cousin's photos from her art show, and rW got to look at a box of old 45s my uncle had in the basement.

speaking of rW, he took jess and i out for italian on saturday night. he and i don't usually have pasta so we sort of had to hunt to find a place. we ended up at Ottelo's in dupont. i think the whole Ottelo's experience need its own highlights section.

• through a series a judgement errors, we ended up in dupont on the day of the Pride Parade. this would have been fine, and maybe a little fun, if i had not been confused about the location of the restaurant. we had to cross the parade twice because of my 'oops'.
• our aunt called in the middle of our wandering and confusion and left a message saying she hoped we did ot get caught in the parade. thanks, AUnt C. but at least jess can go home saying she saw drag queens, lesbian hot-rodders, and the gay square dancers.
  
• by the time we got to Ottelo's, it had started to rain and we were sort of soaked. it took us some time to recover, and the wait staff seemed too anxious to make us order 3 minutes after we waked in the door dripping.
• my arugula and radicchio salad was the best ever.
• did i mention the attentive wait staff? they were super friendly and great, but i found them edging on annoying. we had 2 waiters, the host, the water server, and a runner from the kitchen all after us. and they were making me feel self-conscious and high maintenance because they would bring me things i didn't ask for like i was acting like a princess to get them. at the same time, they were teasing me! i am not a fan of being teased by people i don't know.
• all that being said, the food was good and they were super nice, so i would probably go back. i think i would just not wear a dress and hope more frumpiness would help.

finally, i am excited jess got to come out now because i wanted to see the little baby bump. she didn't look pregnant the last time i saw her, so this was sort of cool. i should get to see her one more time before the big arrival day. it seems silly, and i know she is having a baby, but seeing the change makes it sink in more.

oh, yes. and reminds me that there is a lot of knitting to be done! the knitting updates won't be as frequent because some of this baby goodness is going to be a surprise.

which reminds me, i have finished the knitting on 2 store models. now i just need to sew them up. yay!


*for the record, there is nothing wrong with owning a preppy bag. i will say the preppier navy and green belongs to jess and the cream one is mine--a gift from jess at her wedding rehearsal dinner.