Monday, 27 October 2008

• Lots of Random Verbosity

  Well, sorry about not posting Saturday.  I realize most of you wouldn’t have noticed, but my mother did, and I heard about it!  Saturday just ended up being a lot fuller than I anticipated.  Rae called during the afternoon to ask if I knew when the yarn store closed, and I talked her into taking me with her.  And by the time she came to pick me up, Lina’s class had finished and she came too.  Here is something I got:

  

  Now, I know this is needlepoint yarn, but I’m hoping it felts nicely and that my planned experiments work out!  And by the way, none of us left the store empty-handed this time!

  Speaking of experiments, I have something to report.  Over the last few days I made these objects:

  

  They are basically large roundish floppy wool pancakes made from Galway Paint on really huge needles (13).  Having finished with the knitting, I sewed them together rather loosely and stuffed them, again loosely, with fiberfill.  Thus producing a squishy little pillow that is 10 inches in diameter:

  

  Next step:  what happens if I try to felt it?  I knew what I wanted to happen.  But I had no idea what actually would happen if I tried to felt something that was already assembled and stuffed.

  But back to Saturday.  Rae had been fishing before she came over here, and guess what?  Her fishing rod has a pink reel. *glee*  Now I know why they make the pink pellet guns I saw in Wal-Mart when I got my fishing license.  Rae stayed till suppertime, and then we had to wait for Walter and Flynn to get back from work before we could watch parts 2&3 of the 3-part season ender for Dr. Who.  So the rest of the evening was spent on the edge of my seat, with my mouth hanging open, and my knitting royally fouled up on my lap.  By the time we all started breathing again, it was no longer Saturday and I still had to “pick” two chickens and cook the custard for homemade ice cream, so blogging didn’t even make it on to my list!

  Sunday was the day of our big Zambian dinner.  Only it didn’t end up being big at all, except in terms of effort.  Only one of the six people we had invited was able to come—our computer expert friend Peter, who is an MK from Swaziland.  He arrived just as Mercy finished frying the mandazis, so he was able to try one fresh and hot.  I had a huge pot of chicken “relish” and we made both rice and nshima (cornmeal mush) to go with it.  We ate outside as the weather was perfect and we could have a fire too.  I admit I felt a teeny bit sorry for myself over not getting to have any mandazis.  And I’m sorry, but I don’t think it would be possible to concoct a gluten-free version that would actually be edible!

  Dessert consisted of homemade ice cream—the kind you cook, then freeze, then take out and beat thoroughly to incorporate air, then refreeze.  And we had mango sauce to go on it, too.  Oh, you want the recipe? (Although it won’t be truly authentic unless you have access to fresh Jersey cream which is a solid at room temperature!)

  SAKEJI ICE CREAM

  This is the ice cream I had for dessert every Sunday dinner in boarding school.  We looked forward to it all week.  And the most horrific punishment of all was being sentenced to no ice cream or fudge on Sunday! (Don’t ask me how I know!)

  Bring to a boil, stirring constantly:

  2 cups milk

  1 cup sugar

  1 Tbsp. Cornstarch (cornflour)

   

  Beat 2 eggs very well, temper before mixing with custard and bring to boil again.  I like to blend the eggs in the blender, and then just add a very thin stream of hot custard with the blender on low until the mixture is nice and warm.  Then I pour the whole thing back into the custard, whisking mightily as I go.

   

  Pour through a strainer or sieve into a freezer container.  A wide shallow container will freeze quickest.

   

  Add 1 ½ cups of heavy cream, mix well, and cool.

   

  Freeze overnight.

   

  Take out of the freezer and scoop into your mixer bowl, along with 1 Tbsp. vanilla or other flavoring.  Beat on low speed until it is no longer “chunky,” and then beat on high speed until it at least doubles in volume.  It will take a LONG time.  I use the whisk attachment on my Kitchenaid mixer and it takes anywhere from 10-20 minutes for the volume to double.  So if you only have a hand mixer, it will be very tiresome, I fear.

   

  Return to freezer for several hours before serving.

   

  I missed out on most of the conversation last night because I realized on the way to church in the morning that Saturday’s absence of pressure had been due to my own stupidity/forgetfulness and that actually I had a lot of work to do on vocabulary before I went to bed.  So while others sat outside and enjoyed the fire, I was in the house with my computer frantically typing worksheets and making up contrived sentences to demonstrate the meaning of this week’s vocabulary words. *sigh*

   

  Eventually, Lina joined me and watched The Secret of Roan Innish while knitting.  Apparently she missed seeing it when the rest of us did.  And we both couldn’t help thinking that as far as we are concerned, it would be a very fine thing to live in a whitewashed cottage on an island off the coast of Ireland or Scotland.  Especially if the island could support a few sheep and maybe some angora rabbits . . .

  This morning I made it to the gym and then came back and tried to get the kids back on track with school.  Lina offered to take the three youngest on a field trip to the library to see a quilt show which is currently on display there.  I’m sure this had nothing to do with the fact that Lina has recently caught the quilting bug and now owns an assortment of fat quarters!  Sadly, however, the display had already been taken down.  All was not lost though:  quite a few library books came home with the kids!

  And this morning, Jasper started off wearing his Superman cape, but by lunchtime someone else was wearing it:

  

  Superdog!

  I put my knitted object through two heavy-duty cycles in my washing machine, and then decided to go ahead and dry it in the dryer for maximum effect.  I wanted it to felt as fully as possible!  This is what it looked like:

  

  Down to six inches in diameter!  And much firmer.  No more squishiness.  But it was still bigger than I really wanted it.  And it was almost spherical, which I hadn’t expected.  So back to the washing machine it went.  Sadly, the second agitating experience did not do much to make it firmer and smaller:

  

  My theory was that if I knit it very loosely and stuffed it loosely, it would shrink and felt to become very firm, with the stuffing very tightly packed inside.  I thought this would make a very nice pin cushion.  I made it really huge because I didn’t know how much it would shrink, and I had visions of it shrinking infinitely until it turned into a singularity and disappeared.  Obviously, this is not a danger!  It seems to have bottomed out at about five inches in diameter.

  I spent some time at the fabric store this afternoon acquiring various frippery for Mary’s bodice.  She intended to make it all herself, but her class load is so demanding that she never has time to do much beside study.  I’m hoping to do this little sewing project for her before Friday.

  And how about this:

  

  Walter noticed on the way to work this morning that a power line going through this tree (across the street) seemed to be sparking.  Well, tonight the tree actually caught fire and we had a fire truck and everything!  We lit candles in case the power got shut off, but so far it hasn’t been.

  Quote of the Day:

  Sunday morning when Spencer got up his hair stuck out in every direction like a dandelion.  When it was almost time for church, I noted approvingly that his hair had been wetted and smoothed down. 

  His response?  “I look stupid.  I look like a wimp.  I look like I never do anything dangerous or mighty.”

   

  

  • 8:16 PM
  • 313 Views
  • 4 eProps
  • 3 Comments