greek stew and aprons

Parki came over last night. Good to see him; we haven't gotten together since before I left for California. I made another Moosewood cookbook recipe: Greek Stew. No meat...just potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic, lemon juice, oregano, parsley, feta grated on top just before serving. Both Parki and Jeff liked it. Wow, two edible homecooked meals in a row...maybe this cooking thing isn't -quite- as scary as I thought, at least for basic stuff.


And to tell you the truth, I actually had fun cooking. (ssssh, don't tell anyone).


Really. It was sort of like making mudpies, except you were hoping to eat what you were creating. I'm not an elegant cook...I chop onions horribly inefficiently and cry while I do (it was only after I had finished that I vague remembered that periodically rinsing the knife under cold water would have helped), put in the lemon juice way too early, chopped the ends off the beans instead of de-stemming them by hand because I was too lazy, badly scraped one knuckle while grating the feta etc. But it seemed to end up okay in the end.


We watched a documentary about the history of Genesis (the band). Even though I'm not as much of a Genesis fan as Parki and Jeff, I did find it interesting. Still fell asleep on the couch near the end, though. After Parki left, Jeff played network Quake with friends (a Friday night habit). I dropped by the FilkHaven IRC to chat a bit, then crashed.





Did a whole bunch of work on my children's novel yesterday and this morning, which made me very happy. :-)


Practiced some pentatonic scale exercises that Jeff Bohnhoff taught me on guitar when I was out in California (thanks, Jeff!).


Going out today for dim sum with Jeff, Parki, Bryan, Scott, then we're off to see Monsters Inc.


The picture at the top of this page is of young Casey and Riley Kwinn. Beckett made their costumes, can you believe it? I was in California when she made the hoods. I've always considered sewing a flavour of true magic. I mean, think about it...someone who can sew will take a rather dull-looking piece of cloth and turn it into something you can actually WEAR, something FUNCTIONAL. My mom used to sew all the time. Most of our childhood clothes were handmade, though I didn't appreciate it at the time.


I used to hate sewing when I had to take Home Economics back in grade school. I hated HomeEc even more than I hated Phys. Ed. Except when we got to cook and eat things, that is. The appeal of the gentler arts of sewing, knitting, and crocheting totally escaped me. I remember spending a major part of a term having to sew an apron. An APRON. I mean geez, can you imagine any teacher assigning that sort of thing now? Only girls took HomeEc back then.


So while the boys got to do cool stuff like carve wood and make lamps, I was at the sewing machine. Or rather, picking out stitches because I had sewn a pocket on the wrong side of the fabric, or screwed up the hem somehow.


When I was finally finished, I got an A+ on my apron. I even remember my HomeEc teacher showing my apron to other teachers. When she gave it back to me, I took it home and then forgot about it...I definitely had no plans to actually -wear- the thing.


Anyway, watching Beckett at the sewing machine brought back a lot of HomeEc memories for me. But I also felt a twinge of envy. How cool it would be to be able to sew something that wasn't an apron and have it look GOOD. :-)





Blatherpics:


- Riley and Casey in Halloween costumes made by Beckett.


- Jodi and Rand at OVFF.


- Andrea and Nicholas.


Today's Poll: (Suggest a poll question)

As an adult, have you ever used a sewing machine?