Tampon Angels and Steamed Pudding
Yay! Finally, Ryan has linked to the directions for making tampon angels to hang on your Christmas tree! I sent her this link months ago, on account of being So Fond of her, and carefully and sweetly didn't post it myself, on account of the feelings aforesaid, and even now am sending you over to her site to get these directions. (Note to stepchildren: Don't be silly. Of course you're not getting a set of these from me in your Christmas box. Never even occurred to me. You're safe. Really.) She's also posted the link to TamponHenge; as she points out, the two craft projects go nicely together. Would look, I might add, really cute, under the Christmas tree. And sacred and holy, in scary sorts of ways.
New day! The invalid rises from her bed and makes steel-cut oats for breakfast! The child won't eat this dish, alas, even though oats are the food of pretty much all of his people that I know of -- he's a Northern European melange, with the heftiest portion from the British Isles, and I'm pretty sure that our entire household is genetically engineered to subsist on oatmeal. But I need Hefty Sustenance, which God knows steel-cut oats provide, and Sam has to go do the grocery shopping by himself, and, since this includes the Christmas shopping, he needs Hefty Sustenance, too, so I made them, and too bad if the child doesn't make it through the day. "Cheerios," my eye.
I'm determined, this year, to conquer a Dickensian steamed pudding. I've never actually attempted steamed pudding before, so it's not like it's ever defeated me, but I have an enormous respect for it, as it seems mysterious, and it might well kick my butt. But I'm going to cook one. Yep. This year. For Christmas. Need to start today, though -- I've got a Delia recipe that looks good, involving ginger in syrup, and since we can't actually buy ginger in syrup around here, I have to make it. This is a three or four day process, which I learned from my copy of The Joy of Cooking -- long, but not difficult. Much.
Sam got some holly to stick on top of this Dickensian pudding, and then we'll need to set it on fire, as well. Now, the usual way to do this is to pour brandy over it and set it alight, but we don't have any brandy around here, and aren't planning on getting any, or any other alcohol, for that matter, so we've got to use another method. I've got some cookbooks from the 50's which show such desserts being served alit by the method of surrounding them with sugar cubes soaked in lemon extract and then set on fire, but this is tacky, because the white sugar cubes are visually jarring against the brown pudding.
So Sam and I bought demerara sugar cubes, which are brown, and will therefore not be tacky. Or at any rate, not as tacky as white ones. This is the season of moderate tackiness, anyway -- at what other time of year could you possibly get away with wearing green and red at the same time?
As to knitting -- I'm going great guns on the "Fusion" pullover, and must soon decide what to start next. I'm pining for a Fair Isle, and I've got the materials for Starmore's "Queen Anne's Lace," so I might start that. But maybe not. I'm leaving, right after Christmas, for the MLA conference in San Diego, and I need to take a project that's more or less mindless. Mind you, once you get a Fair Isle started, it's more or less mindless, but maybe I want to take something involving fewer color changes. The grey cashmere pullover I've got planned, for instance.
Oh, the choices.
New day! The invalid rises from her bed and makes steel-cut oats for breakfast! The child won't eat this dish, alas, even though oats are the food of pretty much all of his people that I know of -- he's a Northern European melange, with the heftiest portion from the British Isles, and I'm pretty sure that our entire household is genetically engineered to subsist on oatmeal. But I need Hefty Sustenance, which God knows steel-cut oats provide, and Sam has to go do the grocery shopping by himself, and, since this includes the Christmas shopping, he needs Hefty Sustenance, too, so I made them, and too bad if the child doesn't make it through the day. "Cheerios," my eye.
I'm determined, this year, to conquer a Dickensian steamed pudding. I've never actually attempted steamed pudding before, so it's not like it's ever defeated me, but I have an enormous respect for it, as it seems mysterious, and it might well kick my butt. But I'm going to cook one. Yep. This year. For Christmas. Need to start today, though -- I've got a Delia recipe that looks good, involving ginger in syrup, and since we can't actually buy ginger in syrup around here, I have to make it. This is a three or four day process, which I learned from my copy of The Joy of Cooking -- long, but not difficult. Much.
Sam got some holly to stick on top of this Dickensian pudding, and then we'll need to set it on fire, as well. Now, the usual way to do this is to pour brandy over it and set it alight, but we don't have any brandy around here, and aren't planning on getting any, or any other alcohol, for that matter, so we've got to use another method. I've got some cookbooks from the 50's which show such desserts being served alit by the method of surrounding them with sugar cubes soaked in lemon extract and then set on fire, but this is tacky, because the white sugar cubes are visually jarring against the brown pudding.
So Sam and I bought demerara sugar cubes, which are brown, and will therefore not be tacky. Or at any rate, not as tacky as white ones. This is the season of moderate tackiness, anyway -- at what other time of year could you possibly get away with wearing green and red at the same time?
As to knitting -- I'm going great guns on the "Fusion" pullover, and must soon decide what to start next. I'm pining for a Fair Isle, and I've got the materials for Starmore's "Queen Anne's Lace," so I might start that. But maybe not. I'm leaving, right after Christmas, for the MLA conference in San Diego, and I need to take a project that's more or less mindless. Mind you, once you get a Fair Isle started, it's more or less mindless, but maybe I want to take something involving fewer color changes. The grey cashmere pullover I've got planned, for instance.
Oh, the choices.
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