Friday, December 25, 2009

Lick the Cheese


I have always loved Christmas Day because from the time the kids were little it was our 'down' day, no plans, no extraneous family or drop-ins, just a nice big breakfast and some clean-up for the agenda. Then we got to play with our new stuff! I am continuing the tradition by playing with my 'new stuff' today too. All the pots and pans are in the sink waiting for TY's magic touch (which may or may not happen until he needs something in there!  TY does his thing on his own time and I've learned to just live with it, then swoop in when no one is looking and rewash the pans because they are still all greasy.

I don't know how a simple dinner got so out of control-  maybe at the moment I slid the hot roasting pan onto the counter and it landed on a pile of unseen plastic wrap...  which immediately fused to the pan and countertop, better even than Misty-fuse!  This meant I couldn't slide it back in the oven, all 15# of almost-done pork, so I had to re-do in another pan, clatter clatter of metal cookie sheets, splash splash of grease, drip drip of the pan juices to the floor which greatly inhibited the apple cider gravy efforts to follow (plus no brown bits to scrape up now that the pan was plasticized!)  I felt like Lucille Ball!  And let me tell you now, that a 15# pork roast is as graceful and light on it's chops as a hippo in a Disney ice skating sequence.  It goes were it wants to go.  In slow motion.



Oh speaking of hippos, I gave Hazel, who is stepping on two in a few more weeks, one of those doll within a doll within a doll wooden toys-  oh yes 'Matreshka' nesting dolls!, but each doll had hippos on it in different conformations.  We had found it at the CIA museum in DC and I thought hippos might be something she would like.  And she did-  she is quite familiar with hippos actually, from books and pictures and knows unfailingly that they hop.  She even demonstrated for me.  


Out trolling for more hippos I came across this  Amazing Hippo Blog, featuring today a Hippo Meat Tenderizer, but covering other 'interesting' hippo items like hippo-dermic needles.



But back to my mess here-  Hazel is the best, curious and careful.  And equipped with very sticky smudgy fingers.  It's not up to me to discipline her, only to keep her safe, so I spent most of my time watching her take the centers out of all the rolls to test them, pick with great care which piece of string cheese tastes the best by removing the less than ideal specimens half chewed, replacing it in the plate, and picking a better one, testing the Armenian spicy dried meat called basterma and proclaiming it not palatable so depositing it under the table.  And all the while being cheerful and sunny.  At one point TY dropped her on her head against a brick wall and she picked herself up as we all watched breathlessly waiting for a howl.  She rubbed her head and looked around and then one by one went around and said 'sorry' to everybody.  Oh my, she absolutely reminded me of why I think two year olds are the best age ever!  (And why 62 year olds are the ones I have to watch.)


Ten years ago we moved into this condo and immediately had our first condo meeting at the home of a young couple who had an adorable 2 year old little girl they had recently adopted from China.  We all sat in a circle discussing things that needed to be done when this little girl broke through to the center in her jammies, immediately headed for the tray of cheese and crackers, bent down and licked the big hunk of cheese!  Whenever I think of 2 year olds I think of Jen licking the cheese.  Perfect!  


On a different note, I got a Google Alert the other day, sort of a modern day 'were your ears ringing' thing when you're being talked about.  I got a full mention on flickr so went to see what I had done now and here was this:



A quilt made from my directions in one of the Kaffe books from a few years back.  I emailed the woman who posted the picture because, sigh, I love what she did with it-  love the reds!  She calls it 'Cranberry Relish'- isn't that perfect?  Her name is Sujata Shah and she teaches at a shop in in Bellingham Washington.  This is the first feedback I've had from the Rowan books and I'm happy things turned out so well.  But darn it, I like this one better than mine!  (Mine was called 'Orange Grove'-  all greens and oranges, not my typical colors unless there is a plop of purple involved!)  I LOVE the process I used here of stripping together different colors and then using that as my fabric-  that random hit of colors really intrigues me and I keep playing with it in my more traditional stuff.  Plus, those Kaffe shot cottons are UNBELIEVABLE.  



I just bought one of every one of the newer colors-  most are more subdued that the first batches, but still complex colors for solids.  Go to Glorious Color to see the newest line.  Oh-  and then go check the stripes there too (see the top layers above)!  I LOVE stripes!  

2 comments :

Sujata Shah said...

Sandy,

Just a little correction! I used to teach at ' QuiltWorks Northwest' in Bellevue, Washington.

Thank you for posting the picture and all your wonderful comments!

Sujata Shah

Deanna said...

I wish I had a name as cool as Sujata Shah, and love her quilt.

So envious of that Glorious fabric you bought. Those shot cotton colors are great to have on hand. Tell me, is that really a photo of your crown of pork roast? Scrumptious. Hazel is too cute.