Least of all mine. Blargh. I’ve spent roughly the past two and a half weeks suffering under its cruel tyranny, and am only today beginning to feel myself again. Worst of all, I am not suffering alone. The plague is making the rounds at my store. The booming coughs can be heard throughout the building, and the smell of menthol is nigh unbearable. Sigh. Gotta love the wintertime, huh?
It has, on the more positive side, engendered a serious longing for some comfort food. I roasted a chicken a little while back, because I really like roasted chicken. Neimah, however, does not. He will actually wrinkle up his nose at the leftovers, which is extremely unusual. In an effort to make myself feel better and to coax him to eat the rest of the chicken bits one finds after all the choice slices of breast have been taken away, I present: Chicken and Dumplings.
This is the first time I’ve tried such a recipe, and I really liked the way it came out. It works so well for the leftovers that I think this may become a common compromise in our house. You can make the stock out of reconstituting the pan drippings from the roast with some hot water, and the already-cooked chicken practically melts in your mouth after a little time simmering. The dumplings are simple and cook up puffy and soft, and even reheated did not have the rather gluey texture of a lot of recipes.
The time off of work also led to quite a bit of knitting. I turned out a pair of socks that left me rather nonplussed, so I won’t bore you with them. I did, however, manage to make this pretty thing:
It’s the Pfeiffer Falls Hooded Scarf from the IK Winter 2008 issue. I knitted it out of some really lovely merino/cashmere blend from Colourmart, a British company that takes Italian mill ends and winds them up for handknitting. 1800 yards only cost me $36 USD, including shipping, and I’ve got plenty left over for another project. The yarn is rather stringy-looking on the cone due to the oil they use to keep it compact, but after a nice wash and block it blooms into a soft, slighty fuzzy, and SUPER warm fabric. In an ideal world I should probably have used something a bit thicker that would have made for a denser project… I can already tell that the scarf ends are going to grow a little bit more than I’d anticipated. In spite of all that, I love it. The pockets are handy for holding on to some of my handhelds when I’m on the floor at work, and it does keep my head warm without messing up the hair. ; )
That’s about all that’s rolling about at the moment. I’ve just started rehearsals for Titus Andronicus, so there’s not much to report on that front. There are a couple of other fun projects that I might spill about soon, though, so be on the lookout!