knitting away…

I started knitting a few years ago when an old roommate taught me.  Thanks KRISTA!!!  Since then I think I have taught just about everyone I have lived with, my mom,  and the now the girl I volunteer for at Room to Grow.  It is such a neat hobby!  You can virtually do it anywhere, it only requires a couple of supplies, and it’s a great conversation starter!!! 

A few weeks ago I finished the first of MANY baby projects for one of my BEST friends, Melyssa, & her baby boy.  I got a late start on this because of the chaos that has been my life the last few months, but I ended up finishing it before his birth.  Yay!!!  I knitted a matching beenie for him too, hopefully it will fit.  I think this is my 7th baby blanket with roughly the same pattern & I am looking to switch it up a little bit for the next one… 

 

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I have been working on a scarf for Nick made out of the yarns we picked up on the Aran islands on our honeymoon.  I wanted to get this done by Thanksgiving, but I am not sure I am going to make it.  I am not quite half way done, so I better get a move on.  :)

 

  

Three weekends ago we took the bus (Fung Wah) into Boston to see Lindsay.  The ride was 4+ hours so I took a new knitting project along with to occupy my time.  Unfortunately in the hubbub of rushing to catch an earlier bus, I left all of my knitting & snacks below the bus on the way out there, so I whipped this up on our way back to NYC.  I have tried numerous hats for myself over the years and they have all been just OK, UNTIL this one -

 I think I will call this the “fung wah”

I found a pattern on Lion Brand’s web-site & I LOVE IT!!!  Now I want to make one in every color…

grandma strom

One of my favorite memories as a kid was getting together with my grandmother to make potato pancakes.  It was a traditional meal that her family brought over to the US from Czechoslovakia (I think?)  In the beginning, my mom, sister, & I used go to over to my grandparents house for an afternoon and cook up a storm.  My grandfather never liked the smell of the house during our party, so in the later years, he brought my grandma to our house to stink it up.  It was always the same, she would come in tow with a large metal bowl full of mashed potatoes she had made the night before, her cast iron pan, rolling pin, and rolling mat.  They would enter the house and my grandpa would announce “Meals on Wheels has arrived”!  So cute!!!  My grandmother would roll out the mashed potato mixture on a lightly floured mat so thin you could almost see through them, then they would go into the hot pan with a little butter and cook for only a couple minutes on each side until they started to bubble and brown, once removed – we stacked them on a plate with a pat of butter in between each pancake.  (I should mention that my sister had her own little thing going on on the side, she liked to make “mini” pancakes and cook them along side the larger ones.  Not sure at what point this started but it was cute!)  This would continue until all of the potatoes were gone and we had a towering stack!  We would each snag one here and there and start tearing off pieces to enjoy.  When we were all done, we would all sit down & eat together.  I am not sure why, but these pancakes were the most scrumptious meal!  

This tradition continued at least once a year until my grandmother passed almost 10 years ago.  Since then, I have tried numerous times to recreate these and every time had the same disappointing result.  And this time all the way across the country in my little dorm kitchen was no exception.  I can’t seem to roll the pancakes thin enough without them breaking apart… I got SO frustrated this time, I put an egg into part of the mixture to hopefully bind everything together.  This helped, but they did not end up looking like I had remembered & they had to cook longer because they were thicker.  I still had a batch of some that I managed to roll as thin as I could (with a glass cup because I didn’t want to buy a rolling pin), these were the best ones & tasted the most like what I remembered.  The whole process took about 2 hours and I still didn’t achieve the end result I wanted.  Not sure why I keep hoping for a different result when the process is the same!  I am convinced that there is something that I am missing. 

Even though they weren’t what I was hoping for, they were still edible and Nick and I devoured all of them…

 

my mess, on the plate are my attempt at rolling out the original pancakes

in the pan, they are very small and thick

John Mayer

As many of you know I am a SERIOUS John Mayer fan.  He is playing two concerts in NYC while we are here, the first of which is already sold out!  I was planning on trying to get tickets to the second one in February at Madison Square Garden tomorrow & then I was notified that he will be giving a secret show tomorrow night in Brooklyn for free.  The idea of these “secret shows” is weird to me…  Apparently they happen all of the time, artists will notify fans via email, blog, or in this case , Face Book of their secret show (which are usually free?).  Anyway, I was ecstatic when I saw the post on Face Book late last week!  Hopefully I will be there in time and get tickets.  Wish me luck!!!  I will keep you posted.

We have had a lot going on this last month & I have not been blogging, but rest assured posts to come of my knitting projects, cooking adventures, and our weekend trip to Boston will be coming soon.  Stay tuned.

broadway…

One of the best things about Nick being a student at NYU is that we get amazing discounts to Broadway shows.  So far we’ve been to see Avenue Q, Oleanna (with Bill Pullman & Julia Stiles) and tonight was “next to normal”!  It was fantastic!!!!  but very emotional…  It was about a woman (& her family) who became bi-polar after the death of her 8th month son 17 years ago.  She & her husband got married because she was pregnant with her son and then he ended up dying of an intestinal blockage.  Her son, Gabe, is present throughout the play and toys with his moms mind through song.  The actor who played Gabe was PHENOMINAL!!!  He stole the show!  The couple had another child after the death of Gabe, a daughter, and she is deprived of her mothers love / attention / devotion / and so on because her mom is too self-absorbed with grieving for her son.  The play chronicals her struggle with treatment & how it tears their family apart.  By the end of it, I was in tears bawling  (as was most of the audience)!!!  It is my favorite play so far!  As we were leaving, I told Nick that the next play he picked had to be a little bit more lighthearted, I can’t take the sobbing…  This weekend we are going to see Carrie Fischers autobiographical one-woman show “Wishful Drinking” about her adventures in Hollywood, substance abuse, & mental illness.  It’s supposed to be funny, but we’ll see…

We have been going to shows on weeknights and are usually rushed because Nick has class most nights, so we end up running to catch the play!  Since it was a lazy Sunday & we didn’t have to be crammed for time we made sure we left early and got uptown in plenty of time & walked around the surrounding streets where other plays were showing.  We walked by the Theatre where Jude Law is playing in Hamlet and there were barricades up and people congregating so not knowing what was going on, but thought it was important, we decided to stick around…  AND we saw JUDE LAW!!!  He came out of the theatre and signed some autographs and got into a black Escalade and was driven away.  Pretty cool!!!  If I can figure out how to post the video I will!  :)

the best night

Last night while Nick was in class I made my FAVORITE dinner, roasted chicken!  I was a little nervous because although we’ve been making this dish for years, Nick is always the one to prepare the bird and get it in the over.  I usually chop the veggies.  :)  It always looks so disgusting when he’s taking out the insides of the bird, but luckily they package it all up for you in a neat little plastic bag.  And then the fun part came – smoothering the chicken with butter, GARLIC (yay!!), salt & pepper, and stuffing it with lemons.  I was unsure of the direction the bird should sit, breats up or down, in the end I put them down.  Apparently there isn’t a wrong way, some people like the breasts down because then they are more tender and juicy, Nick usually does it the other way (& I think this is the way I prefer because then the skin on the breasts is nice and crispy!)  If you can’t tell, I like white meat!  It turned out so YUMMY as always, I think it’s pretty hard to screw up!  I bought a cheap bottle of white wine from Trader Joe’s to enjoy with the meal too.

After dinner we watched the Yankee’s game & the Office!  I was ready to just stay in and relax for the rest of the evening when Nick announced we were going out on an adventure!  I was less than THRILLED…  I gave him a hard time the entire time I was getting ready wanting to know where we were going.  And he refused to tell me, saying things like “I think you will like the place”, “we are going to meet some of your friends” (which I ONLY have one here!), “maybe we’re going to see a person or something you like”.  And I’m supposed to be excited about going out?!?!  Mind you, if I tried to spring this on him it would NOT fly!  He would refuse to get dressed unless he knew exactly where we were going!!  Anyway, we get out the door and on the subway (RELUCTANTLY) to go uptown!  We exit the 6 train at 59th St and head west (I have no clue where we are, and he says (in true Nick fashion) “there’s a 20% chance that we might be lost”!!)  Ugh!!  We are walking down this cute street with sparkling lights and big white balloons tied to all of the storefronts & railings and come upon SERENDIPITY!!  I had sent Nick an email earlier in the week raving about their famous FROZEN hot chocolate.  Let me just say it was AMAZING!!!!  I had the original and Nick had the peanut butter one (my fave, but it was kind of rich), the glasses were huge and we felt like we were going to have to be rolled out the door!  The kitschy interior and the Tiffany-esque  lamps only added to the experience.  Definitely a must see when you are in the city!!  (Thanks Alice!)

 

So, hopefully next time Nick tries to surprise me I will go with the flow a *little* better!  :)   Thanks for the treat Nick!

lucky

wedding “video” from our photographer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GqOvBMn474

Unnecessary? hmmm…

Today I was g-chatting with my sister trying to find a good winter coat and got TOTALLY sidetracked…  She turned me onto this indie clothing web-site Mod Cloth!  While I don’t NEED a new dress right at this second, our good friends Scott & Brittney are getting married on New Years Eve in Tempe, AZ & think one of these LOVLIES would be perfect! 

 

Paris at Dusk

 

Precious Dress in Opal

 

Champagne Toast Dress

 

The Bow Must Go On Dress

 

Which would you choose? :)