Some things:

1. I found my keys! But not before I managed the throw out the sad story to enough people to get several drinks bought for me Monday night. They were in a bowl on the kitchen table. Under some apples. Sigh.

2. It's raining today. I was trying to think of the last time it precipitated in a not-frozen way. It was a while ago. This feels like a spring rain, and it's nice. It's a good day to sit in the yarn shop and drink coffee and listen to jazz, which is exactly what I'm doing.

3. Fibre Co. Organik feather-and-fan cowl. This yarn is pricey, and for good reason. It's 70% organic merino wool, 15% baby alpaca, and 15% silk. It's certainly one of the loveliest yarns I've ever knit with. I've been just eyeballing this yarn for months now, and finally, the day I lost my keys (AKA the day of self-indulgence) I decided to work out a one-skein project with the stuff.

That scratch on my cheek is where Chester pretended to be loving me but then scratched my face. Kittens suck.

I Had a Bad Day, I Deserve Luxury Yarn Cowl

Materials
Yarn: Fibre Co. Organik, 1 skein. Color shown: Jungle
Needles: US 9 16" circular
Gauge: something like 4-5 sts/inch in st st. Gauge is not critical in self-indulgent bad-day projects.
Size: adult medium. (To adjust sizing, add or subtract multiples of 18 sts.)

Pattern
CO 108 Sts. Join for working in round, being careful not to twist. PM for join. Work Feather and Fan lace as follows.

Rnd 1: Knit
Rnd 2: Knit
Rnd 3: *(K2tog) 3 times, (YO, K1) 6 times, (K2tog) 3 times* Repeat from * around.
Rnd 4: Purl

Repeat rounds 1-4 seven times. Cowl will measure about 4" long. BO all sts (try and BO on row 4). Weave in ends. Voila!

I finished this in an evening, and I had exactly 24" of yarn left over.

WOAH finishing tip

I just got my mind blown on Ravelry. They're having a conversation over there about "Tips that make you go "d'oh." Guess what I learned? This is so cool, you guys. And it actually kind of made me go "d'oh!" because it was a little obvious when I thought about it. This is why I love knitting. You think you know it, and then it turns out there is something so basic, like binding off, that you don't know crap about.

So anyway, did you know that you don't have to thread the tail through the last stitch when you bind off? You don't have to make that little knot. You can just BO to the final stitch, thusly.



Then you pull on your final loop, like you are loosening it up in order to thread the tail through it, like a sucker.

BUT YOU DON'T STOP!

You keep pulling. Pull it right the hell out. I know that you are thinking that if you don't tie it off, it will all unravel. But man, trust me, I just tested this out, and it works.

BAM. Finished edge, nice, pretty corner, no wonky, nubby bump where you threaded through your tail.

How cool is that?

I luv you, Ravelry!

Bruce

List of Excellence

Hey dudes! Here's some stuff!

1) Our friend Katie graduated! I'm SO proud of her. She's amazing. She just figured out what she wanted and went for it and did it. That is so great, and I know she's going to be a big giant success. A Chef Success. Chefcess.

Here is the picture I took of her actually accepting her diploma.


She's the short one...see, I was so busy jumping up and down that I put my camera on manual focus. I'm pretty much awesome.

Here she is at her graduation party, with an apple and her cute mom. If you think I'm proud, you should see this lady. These parents were about to burst. Chef KT! You win!

2) The morning after KT's graduation party I woke up with a bunch of bruises on my legs and I have no clue how I got them. I probably got them in some really awesome way. Also I remember walking, in a tizzy, up to a friend of mine, holding my handbag up by a broken strap and exclaiming "My handbag broke!! What! What a crappy handbag!!! Can you believe that!" And he took it from me and handed it back fixed saying, "It wasn't broken, Libby. It snaps on and off." Well la di dah. Obviously I am ready to be a big mature business owner.

3) Lucy watches television when there is an animal on the teevee. Only animals. Even when the sound is off! How does she know? What do they look like to her? How? What?


4) The shop is coming along all fastlike. Brax and I are working really hard on it and we should have it open real soon. We'll tell you a date as soon as we know for sure. Sorry about the lack of precision on this--we just want to be able to open the doors the very minute we're ready.

5) Amazing potato cheddar soup!

a buncha potatoes
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
water
SALT
1 stick of butter
a couple cups grated cheddar

This recipe goes like most of my soup recipes. Katie is probably going to read this and be like, "Bruce, you're doing it wrong," since she is a big chef now and all. But this is how I do it, and I think it's delicious!

Put all the chopped up veg in the soup pot and put in just enough water to cover it. Add salt to taste. For me this is a bunch of salt. Let it boil for maybe 30 minutes. Then take out a few cups of the soup and put it in the blender and puree it. Put it back in the pot. OK. Then make a roux. (A roux is when you take some of the hot broth and put it in a bowl with a couple tablespoons of flour and make a smooth paste out of it.) Put the roux in the broth. Stir it on in! Stir in the butter. Then add in the cheese, a little at a time. Sprinkle, stir, sprinkle, stir, until it's all incorporated. Delicious! Really, really healthy low fat food. Perfect for vegans.

That's all for now!
Bruce

more soup

Brax,

The best use for a Crock Pot is this:

Before you go out and tear up the town and embarrass yourself with Demon Rum, put soup in the crock pot..

Either you'll come home at 3 AM wasted and be like, SOUP!!!!! Or you'll wake up the next day at noon all hungover and wanting to die, and if you are like me, your first thought will be "Hungry. Don't want to cook. No money, also don't want to get dressed and go anywhere. How food?" Then you'll stumble downstairs and be like, SOUUUUP!!!! Either way, it is genius.

The soup I am eating today is is squash and sweet potatoe. (Yes, potatoe. Bringin' back Dan Quayle!)

Bruce and Dan's Squash and Sweet Potatoe Soup

1 Winter Squash...Butternut, or Acorn, or whatever.
2 Sweet potatoes
1 white onion
1 Carrot
2 stalks celery (smellery)
half a stick of butter
Salt, pepper, nutmeg
water

Chop it all up and put it all in the slow cooker. Cook on low for 7 hours. I like to take half of it out after it's cooked and put it in the magic bullet, so it's partially pureed but still has some chunks. Related: I really want an immersion blender.

OK so I ate soup and I've been writing this post for something like 4 hours because I'm easily distracted and stupidly hungover.

Stopping!
Bruce

every seeeeeeecond of the night! I live another life!

Brax,
I am so into Heart right now. I started listening to them because I wanted to do "What About Love" at karaoke, which I did last night, and it was an excellent choice, and now I am in the Unstoppable Heart Zone. I think I'll do "These Dreams" next week.

Here we are at karaoke last night. So much fun! For one thing, I discovered whiskey and shared my new knowledge with Brax, and so obviously we were AMAZING all night.


See, I was at work, and there was Jameson. And I said, "I don't like whiskey! I never drink liquor. I'm nervous about this Jameson." And one of the chefs, a wise young man, said, "just drink it, it'll be fine. You might barf."

So heeding that excellent advice, I drank the whiskey and then I was AMAZING for the rest of that night. So last night Brax and I both got a shot of Jameson early in the night, and we sipped these shots and were happy. Also, it was a slow night so we both got to sing 4 times. Sweet!

So I'm on a knitting hiatus. NO KNITTING FOR 2 WEEKS. Except tonight when I will do some minimal book knitting at KPH. But other than that, no knitting for 2 weeks. Also: no holding my coffee cup in my right hand, no carrying heavy glass water pitchers at work, no writing for more than 30 minutes, reduced typing, and no chopping veggies (BTW, this product will change your life if your wrist hurts and you want to chop things. It will change your life even if your wrist doesn't hurt.).

Gotta let the ol' girl heal. It SUCKS, man. But winter is coming and I need to be all healed up so I can make scarves and sweaters and hats and mittens. And maybe socks, now that Cabbage taught me that it's ok to just make stockinette stitch socks, despite what the lace sock mafia tells you. Don't let them get to you, guys, there's nothin' wrong with a st st sock.

So instead of knitting or writing (i.e. my two favorite things) I've been...cooking! I made this really excellent lentil soup yesterday.

Here is the recipie!

Bruce's Delicious Easy-Ass Crock Pot Lentil Soup
makes a zillion servings

1 lb dry lentils
2 medium carrots
2 medium potatoes
3 stalks celery
1 large onion
1 clove garlic, smashed
6 cups vegetable stock or water (I used a little of both)
bay leaves
savory
salt and pepper

Chop up all the veggies using your Vidalia Chop Wizard. Wow, that was fast! Now throw everything in the Crock Pot. Cook on high for 3 hours. Eat.

You guys, this soup was seriously delicious. I love making soup. I love using my crock pot, too. My mom was asking me the other day if it wasn't pointless for me to have a gigantic awesome crock pot since I was a vegetarian, and I had to explain to her about soup. Also delicious beans and dips and stuff. But mostly soup. I'm going to do mushroom soup next. I've never made mushroom soup before and I bet it will be fun and also the jam.

Today is the first really autumnal day, and so it is good soup weather. I'm enjoying the chill in the air.

This blog post made my hungry. I'm going to go eat some soup now.

Luv,
Bruce

Super long moving style blog post of doom

Oh Braxie! Thanks for the moving well wishes.

I've been back in Ohio for less than a week, and I am covered with insect bites, bruises, and scratches, plus my feet are completely black on bottom. I wondered if maybe I was always covered in bug bites and scratches and bruises when I lived here before, and I just didn't notice it because I was used to it and all my friends were similarly ornamented. I asked KT if this was true. She said yes. Huh.

At the moment I am sitting in the new house, being sort of overwhelmed at the amount of stuff I have yet to do. The first floor is maybe 80% put together. Hey, good work! The second floor is an insane nightmare. For a minute I thought the bedroom couldn't get any worse, but then I decided to put together this dresser. Once the dresser is put together, I thought, I'll be able to put away all these clothes. Then the bedroom won't look like 15 drag queens used it to get fancied up for a show featuring vintage, punk, and DIY fashions of the last decade. My Chi will have room to flow. Things will be great when I put together the dresser, quoth I. Then I opened the box, got out some of the pieces and the instructions, got real intimidated and bored, and decided to go see the Sex and the City movie instead, which was really funny.

So that was a failure, but I've also been doing some homestyle crafting. Check my pot rack!


It's easy! Even people who don't know the right names for hardware things can do it.

You will need:

-1 pegboard cut to fit your space. Mine is 2X4. They cut it for me at the hardware store.
-pretty paint and paintbrush
-Hooks. NOT S hooks, they will not work. The hooks you want look like this. The young man who helped Matt at Lowes did not believe these hooks existed, but trust me, they do, and if that Lowes kid is reading this he should take my advice and investigate it, because what in the world would be the point of pegboard even existing if these hooks didn't exist? Oh, fabulous, a board with holes in it, why don't I hang some stuff on it, oh wait, I can't, they don't make hooks that will fit.
-2 small boards. The size will depend on the size of your pegboard. You'll want them to be about half an inch thick and a couple inches wide, and cut to the length of the pegboard. (These go behind the pegboard to get it away from the wall a little bit so you have room to stick the hooks in.)
-Another person to help you, especially with the attaching the pegboard part.
-Drill and long screws.
-a level wouldn't hurt.

I think you know where this is going. Paint your pegboard! Hooray! Colors! Find your studs. Mark where the top and bottom of the pegboard will be, and drill in your boards there, using the level to make sure you're, you know, level. Then attach your pegboard over top of the boards. Stick in your hooks. POT RACK. Under 20 dollars. Stylish and customizable.

We totally stole this idea from Julia Child, who was rad. She had an entire wall like this in her old school kitchen, which is, rightfully, in the Smithsonian. You can go there and stare at her big blue-green pegboard wall anytime you want. Have a drink, too. Julia would want you to.

Now, everybody, Brax is moving this weekend. I bet she's freaking out about packing AS WE SPEAK. Good luck, Brax!

Later,
Bruce

P.S. Thanks to all the move helpers, including Gabe, David, and Courtney on the DC end, Juan, Mom, and Tome on the Ohio end, and very most especially this here guy:

Honestly, I have exactly ZERO non-goofy pictures of him. Every single picture is in this vein. Even in the Christmas morning pictures from when we were kids, he's always dancing around with a box on his head or something.

Topher! You guys, not only did Topher come all the way to DC to help us load the truck, he also drove my car back with only my cats for company. He took the cats to my new house and gave them food and water and stuff hours before Matt and I arrived. Then, the next day? He helped us unload too. Thanks, Topher!

stuff I like.

Brax,

I am a obviously a lot like Martha and a lot like Oprah. No, I guess I'm not on the list of the 5 richest women in the world (yet! I'll be the world's first alpaca billionaire, you'll see.). I am like Martha, though, in the sense that I am crafty and I like to drink. I am like Oprah in the sense that I like to read books and I share her desire to bring great books into the average American home.

An aside: I have had more than one person tell me that they hate Oprah's book club because they assume that it is full of stupid books. This could be called judging a book by its cover. Oprah's book club is essentially a collection of some of the best books of all time. Yeah, people only read them cause Oprah told them to. So? At least they do what Oprah says and not Rush Limbaugh or something. I have a little bit of a snob factor about it--I hate seeing the big "O" seal on Hurston or Steinbeck. But whatever, she's getting people who would be reading Danielle Steele or not reading AT ALL to read fucking Hurston and Steinbeck. So I'm just saying people should like Oprah's book club.

Anyway, so I'm like Martha and Oprah in those ways and probably some other ways, like I am pretty sure we all three like pie. And now, we have another thing in common, because today I am making a list of things I love.

Here they are.

1) Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky.


Oh dear Lord in Heaven, thank you for Baby Alpaca Chunky. I will never tire of knitting with it.

2) My pajamas. If you were to call me right now and ask to borrow my favorite outfit, I'd have to send you these jam pants. They are made of organic cotton. I pretty much put them on as soon as I walk in the door every night. On Sundays, I take them off long enough to walk to the market. Then as soon as I get home I put them back on. I wear them with a cotton baseball-style shirt. It's really soft. MAN I love my jams. I hate knitting with cotton, but holey moley, do I love cotton pajamas.

3) Bumble and Bumble Brilliantine.


It's awesome! It is this weird stuff that makes your hair all shiny and sort of tousled-looking. You have to be careful, though, because it's easy to use too much and go from "tousled" to "heavy." I love what it does to my hair, though.

4) Yarnmarket. They are fast, they are efficient, everything is in stock and ready to ship, the customer service is great, and they're in Ohio. Obviously, LYS is preferable, especially if you've never seen a yarn in person. But when you need a specific thing fast, especially something weird like a 40 inch 10.5 Addi, and it HAS to be Addi because you're a big needle snob, Yarnmarket is where it's at.

5) The Playtex Thank Goodness it Fits Bra. Seriously, I was all THANK GOODNESS IT FITS! I just got three of these this week, because when I found out they made half sizes I flipped out and ordered a bunch of them. THEY ARE AWESOME. The best part is, they fit the way they're supposed to fit--that is, the number of inches they are supposed to be corresponds with the number of inches they actually are. I think that's pretty great.

6) The Cat Box.



The top entry cat box has intrigued me for some time, especially since we got Lucky Lucy, who likes to play in the litter box, and kick litter and poop out of the litter box, and all kinds of other gross cat stuff. Anyway, top entry litter boxes run about 30 bucks. But this sucker? $8.50 for the Rubbermaid tub, and 15 minutes with a box cutter to cut the hole. It's great! There is NO CAT LITTER on the floor, people. Also it contains the smell a bit too. AND it is easy to empty cause it has handles.

7) Baby Bears.




8) Dorothy Parker


Those are my favorite things today!

-Bruce

In which Bruce announces Big News, tells you what people of taste do with strawberries, and organizes her circs.

Everybody,

Man, guys, I’m sorry we’ve been absent for so long. I'm going to try and make up for the long absence with a looooong, informative post.

So where have we been? For one thing, Brax’s computer is broken, plus she’s got all kinds of irons in the fire. Me, I have been just plain busy. Here’s a thing I’ve noticed about life: changes come in clumps. Things are happening, man. To both me and Brax, and to the ball and chain, and to lots of other folks I know. Brax and I are both trying to figure out moving (to the same city! Maybe even in the same neighborhood! Me and Brax! Tearin’ it up!) and career changes and, you know, bright new futures and stuff.

What is a real shame is that I’m knitting lots and lots of stuff that I can’t show you. Why can’t I show you? Because this knitting is going to be published in a book! I don’t think I ever made a formal announcement about this book thing on here. I’m writing a knitting book with my buddy Karida over at the Neighborhood Fiber Company. This book will come out in 2009.

This also prevents Brax from showing off some of her knits because she is being awesome and knitting some of the book projects for me. Don't ever write a knitting book unless you've got lots of rad friends who will help you knit. I am lucky enough to have Brax and Cabbage who will knit for my book and make my life better.

So now that we've uncovered a big part of the mystery of the sparse posting, what else is going on?

I've been reading a lot of Sherlock Holmes. I have to say I have solved some of these mysteries before Holmes has. Did you know that that TV show House is based on Sherlock Holmes if he were a modern day doctor? It is. I just learned that from Google.

Sister has been really digging on Jackson Browne lately.

It got to be spring up in here, with the cherry blossoms!

And the birdies in the trees!

And the strawberries! Why do people spend a bunch of time doing stuff to strawberries, cuttin' them up in pieces, putting sugar on them etc, when you can just spend a fun-filled 15 minutes dipping them in chocolate? DELICIOUS! Easy! Fun! Preserves the strawberryness of the strawberry.

Here is what I did:

Ingredients:

1) Some nice pretty delicious strawberries.

2) One bag of the fanciest semi sweet chocolate chips your grocery store has. Know why? Because this recipe only uses two ingredients, and the fanciest chocolate chips my grocery store has are only about 5 or 6 bucks, so why the hell not? It's dessert! Go crazy!

Melt the chocolate chips in the double boiler (you want to keep the water at a simmer). Dip in the strawberries and then lay them on a baking sheet with some parchment paper on it.
Stick 'em in the fridge for a little bit. Maybe an hour? They're great. Next time I'm going to dip a mint leaf in with each strawberry for added awesomeness.

Ok, and last but not least, I have organized my Addi Turbos into the most organized state they have ever been in. I've devised a system! I was all shop-shop-shop for a circular needle case and I have to be honest: many of them were real ugly. So no. Many of them were waaay cute and made by awesome, creative craftspeople. Those were the best ones, but you guys, I just didn't want to spend 40 bucks on it. My friend Ellie uses a lure case from the Bass Pro shop, and that seems to work really well for her, but I was intimidated by the fishing website, and also it was still a little more than I wanted to spend. So I went to Staples and bought a lime green binder and some plastic page protectors in pretty colors with tabs. BAM! Needles organized, under 10 bucks.

Enjoy your weekend, buddies!
Bruce

Apron time 2008

Bruce,

Sometimes when I get home from work, I just feel like putting on some great tunes and hanging out in the kitchen. Sometimes, I'll tie one on....an apron that is!!
Aprons are the best. Don't you just feel so productive while you're wearing one? So put together? Maybe there's something psychological going on there. Anyway, I just thought I'd dance around my kitchen listening to Chuck Berry and bake something. I decided to be really ambitious and make a pot pie!!
I decided to make it in a 9" pie plate, using a top and bottom crust. I've never made a pie crust, and the results were...okay. I think I added a little too much water to the bottom crust, but the top crust turned out great!!
For the filling, I used lentils, tofu, and some vegetables i had lying around the fridge. Mushrooms and asparagus and stuff. And, of course, onion and garlic and seasonings. Then, I baked it according to the directions for a pie with a top and bottom crust. I got the pie crust recipe from my mom's old Better Homes cookbook from the 60's.

Of course, when I went to upload pictures of the baking process, this is all I took.
Apparently, I needed a little "assistance" of the yellow tail variety.

Here's the finished product:
I tried to cut the vent-holes in the shape of a tree. But it tasted pretty great. Good enough for some crazy apron wearing wino dancing around to chuck berry all night.

LYLAS,
Brax

Springtime springity spring spring spraaaang

Brax,

Spring is totally on it's way! So happy.

Today Matt and I went to IKEA and bought rugs. IKEA is the place for rugs. We got lot of 'em, for a very good price. They are for our new house! New house! That's right, the house in Columbus. I got a nice deep blue rug and also a nice bright green rug. These will go in my office. Because in addition to having many, many closets, my new house has a little corner room full of windows which is waiting to be turned into my very own office/craft room. I hope none of my DC friends read this and get offended--I love you guys! But I'm ready to go home.

We're making lots of plans for the new house, and the move, and the future, the jobs and the changes, and blah blah blah. It's all very exciting. What else is going on here? The usual. Love weekends, hate weekdays, very, very, very busy. Maybe this busy.

My cousin and his wife just had their first baby, a little boy, and I have knitted him a Tomato Hat.

Now, hypothetically speaking, if you were to make the Tomato Hat, you'd want to print out this lovely free pattern in COLOR. Because maybe if you didn't, you would maybe waste a bunch of time wondering why the pattern said *K1, K9* around. You would be saying "that just means knitting! Knitting! What? What?................What?" Cause, you see, the leaves part of the hat is in stranded color work. And if you'd printed it in color it would have said *K1, K9* which, of course, would have suggested using two colors. I know, it should not have taken me a long time to figure that out. But it did! Anyway, I figured it out eventually, and here is the hat.

It will be too big for the baby, because he is brand-new fresh. But it's a 6-12 monther, so he can wear it in fall.


I'm trying to think of other things to tell you. It seems like there should be other things. I am on a serious immune system fortifying mission. I've been sick all winter. This is bullshit, and unusual, I am usually not sick. So I asked my friend Lily, who knows all about nutrition and natural remedies, to give me some tips. On my own, I've been drinking lots of green machine and C booster and eating lots of oranges and spinach and stuff. Among other things, Lily said:

"Make this: mix the juice of several lemons with a couple cups of water in a sauce pan. Set the heat to med/low. Add an inch or two of ginger either minced or grated, honey to taste and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Let simmer, but not really boil, until the flavors come together and it reaches full potency...depending one how much time you have, say 20 minutes. Sip until you sweat. This is amazingly therapuetic!"

I haven't tried it yet but I'll let you all know how it works out.

Later, buddy!
Bruce

Brax,
I've got knitter's wrist! Like tennis elbow or something. I don't know, I think it is tendonitis, but WebMD thinks it is probably gout. Regardless, my friend Mr. Hix says to do these exercises from this website for it, and I did them and they totally helped.

-Bruce

Carpal Tunnel Exercises

Carpal tunnel exercises, exercises you can do to help prevent, and ease the pain of, carpal tunnel syndrome. Below are 6 carpal tunnel exercises that you should at the start and end of your work shifts, as well as after any breaks you have throughout the day. These carpal tunnel exercises are simple and only take a few minutes.

Stand straight up and extend both arms straight out in front of you. Extend your wrists and fingers acutely as if they were in a hand stand position. Hold this position for 5 seconds.

Now straighten your wrists and relax your fingers.

Keeping your wrists straight, make a fist and squeeze it tightly. Hold for 5 seconds.

Keeping your fists clenched, bend you wrists down. Hold this position for 5 seconds.

Straighten both wrists and relax your fingers again.

Repeat steps A-E 10 times, then stand up with your arms relaxed by your sides.

These carpal tunnel exercises are simple and don’t take very long. We recommend you do these exercises anyway, evey if you don’t have carpal tunnel syndrome. These carpal tunnel exercises will help prevent carpal tunnel syndrome.

Holiday, celebrate

Hi Brax, hi Gentle Readers,

Merry Christmas! I hope you're all enjoying your holiday season.

I sure am. Favorite present? FANCY NEW CAMERA. Y'all are going to be seeing some niiiiice pictures of my cats doing cute stuff from here on out.

So in honor of the holiday, here is an easy holiday craft. Wrapping paper!

You will need:

Tacky Glue
Some wood blocks

Foamies brand craft foam sheets (you can get this at the craft store)

Paint

Plain brown package wrapping paper--they have this at Target, apparently. I think the Scotch company makes it.

Draw shapes on the foam. I can't draw. The ol' ball and chain drew the shapes, he is good at that. He also cut them out, I'm real bad at cutting too. If you don't have an artistic type handy, you could also cut a shape out of a magazine or somethind and trace it.

So draw your shapes on the foam sheets, and then cut them out and use the tacky glue to stick them to the wood blocks. Guess what you have then? Stamps!

I am pretty sure you smart, crafty folks can see where this is going.

Take a little paint, and you know, put it on the stamp and then smack it onto a freshly wrapped gift...


The plain brown paper can stand up pretty well to the paint, it didn't bleed through at all.
Delightful. This was honestly a really fun way to spend an afternoon, and the recipiants of these cleverly packaged gifts tried real hard not to tear the paper.

Brax--see you new years eve!

-Bruce

Bruce,

I decided to take my day off on Thursday this week, because I had a lot to accomplish. I had to go to the gym, buy groceries, pick up some holiday presents, etc. Also, one of my co-workers will be leaving the company after about 6 years. She is awesome, and we will totally miss her! Don't tell anyone, but one of the other directors is making a gift basket for her, and I decided to try my hand at some bath bombs to go in the basket. (Just in case any straight guys read our blog, a bath bomb is a thing you drop in the tub, and it gets all fizzy until it dissolves. It also makes your bath all moisturizing and smells good and stuff)

I got the basic recipe here. The ingredients are as follows:
Baking soda, citric acid, fragrance oils, and witch hazel. Yes, I bought the witch hazel at the family dollar. You also need a squirt bottle for the witch hazel (I just used the "cat discipline" squirt bottle) and some kind of a mold. I used a soap mold for this batch. I bought it at the hobby lobby for $1.50.

An aside: isn't the hobby lobby creepy? There were all these other soap molds in the shape of crosses. Once I bought some breath mints there in the shape of jesus fish. They were cinnamin.

Okay, the first thing you do is combine one part citric acid to two parts baking soda. Where do you buy powdered citric acid, you ask? You can usually find it at a health food store, or I found some at the Anderson's (It's a down-home kind of grocery store combined with a hardware store...it's supposed to be like a general store but corporate) in the canning supplies aisle.

The recipe says to mix 'em real good. Hey, will your mom pay me if I feature a Guenther Trucking mug in every blog post?

Next, you can add your fragrances, and also your coloring if you care to. I decided to opt out of adding coloring. First, I didn't have any powdered color like they used in the recipe. Second, I don't really want to ruin my coworker's life by staining her tub purple or something. She rents.

I decided to use lavender and rosemary oils for the smell. I did about 2 tablespoons of olive oil (because it's moisturizing), and just splash-splash-splashed away with the smelly ones. My whole kitchen smelled awesome! For once, it didn't smell like my downstairs neighbor's crazy meat smell. In the recipe, she uses almond and grapeseed oils instead of olive. I'm imagining other smell combinations for future bombs, like almond vanilla. Oh look out!

Okay, after you combine your colors and your smells, you add your witch hazel. But don't just dump it in your bowl....you have to spray the witch hazel from your squirt bottle into the bowl a little at a time while you stir. This is to make the mix sort of stick together a little bit, but NOT TOO MUCH! If you add too much witch hazel (like I did on the second batch, not pictured), your mix will start to fizz and it will be bad news. I was using both hands and probably my teeth for this step, so there are no pictures.

Finally, when your batch starts to kind of stick together when you moosh it in your hand, it's time to put it in the mold.

Be sure to pack them real tight. That way, you get a rock-hard, sturdy bomb.

For the second, too-fizzy batch, I used a metal muffin tin. Also a bad idea, because it wasn't flexible enough for me to get the bombs out. I had to pry them out with a knife, which made for fizzed-out, misshapen muffin bombs with knife gouges in them. I will not be giving those out as gifts.

After your bombs sit in the molds for about 5 minutes, tap them out so they can air dry.

See that little guy on the right? He'll be my test bomb. I call him "junior."

Place your bombs somewhere the cats can't get 'em, and let them air dry for 4 or 5 hours.

Your kitchen will smell awesome!

It's a scent that will calm even the most savage of beasts:

So there you go: my day-off adventure.

See you next Friday!
Brax

Picklestorm II: Revenge of the Cucumbers

Dear Loyal Readers,
We are happy to present you with the second installment of the pickleventures of Mason, our roving blogger from the Great American Northwest. Please enjoy.
-Brax

PICKLESTORM II:

Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

or

Smoky Pickle Breakdown

or

The Empire Smokes Pickles

or

Insert Oral Sex Joke Here

Everyone has a dream. I have two dreams. Sadly, both of them involve pickles. This past Saturday, I made one of those dreams come true. I actually lived out a dream. Fuck. YES!

While I won't divulge the second of my two dreams (for fear that some clever bastard will steal my briny thunder) I have documented the events surrounding my quest to impart a smoky flavor into a dill pickle. And I did it. I have made smoky pickles and now my place in the annals of human history is secured.

Let's get cracking…

Here are some of the more basic ingredients. The usual suspects (note the addition of mustard seed):

Since these are going to be smoky pickles, we'll need a special ingredient. How do you get smoke into a pickle? Easy.

I'm kidding. Obviously your basic cigarette will never work.

Here's what you really need:

Filterless cigarettes. A little harsher, but more natural.

OK, I'll knock off the lame jokes and extremely lucrative product placement. Here's where the smoke flavor really comes from: smoked salt.

This stuff looks like street drugs - and costs almost as much - but it smells smokier than a house fire.

Things are starting to come together. The phone calls have been made to the Enemies of the Enemies of Crispness and they are en route.

Time to get the pickling music fired up.

Who's good at keeping secrets? OK, no one tell my dad that I bought dill from a store:

This dill lacks the flowers that I made such a big deal about in Picklestorm I. I hope I haven't made a grave error. We'll know in a few weeks. Let's press on and not allow ourselves to get bogged down in details.

Sweet! The Enemies of the Enemies of Crispness are here!

L –R: Hart and Jason, musician friends of mine. Jason does pull-ups. Me? I'm a push-up man. When the two of us hang out, we sort of complete this weird, muscular circuit. That came out wrong. Again, let's press on.

ERIC! You devil…

You guys remember Stacey. She coined the term "Picklestorm" and took many of the pictures in this series that feature me and my hairy arms.

Meet Chelsea . In this photo she is demonstrating the proper foot position for cucumber scrubbing.

Unbelievable.

She was the Rookie MVP(ickler) on Saturday:

Take a bow, Chels.

To be honest, the dudes didn't do a ton of work. What you can't tell from these pictures is that the living room crew provided excellent vibe that sustained the efforts of the kitchen posse. Like it or not, that vibe will be evident in the flavor of the pickles.

Here's a quick, inappropriate aside. See that lamp? It's from my mom's old house. It had been in my parents' bedroom from my earliest memories. I'm pretty sure this very lamp was present at my conception.

We've got a much larger gang for Picklestorm II, yet we're making exactly half as many pickles as we did for Picklestorm I. If this trend continues, next summer I'll have 50 people crammed into my place and we will produce a single pickle of such extraordinary vibe, flavor and crispness that it will possess the power save or destroy our planet. Imagine!

Enough fiddlefucking around. Let's make some smoky pickles…

Brine time! Forgive the smug look on my face. That is the expression of man who is living out a dream.

Note the painted portrait of meat on my kitchen wall.

Let's talk hot liquids. Really hot liquids, along with obsessively well-scrubbed cucumbers are the foundation of successful canning – especially when you don't double-boil the finished product. Double boiling has got to be the chief enemy of crispness. I'll trade safety for crispness all day long. To keep everything hot, my own father pioneered the foolproof Three Pot Method.

1. A pot of boiling water where the lids remain sterile while they await their final home atop a jar of pickles.

2. Mother brine: the big pot of boiling brine which feeds…

3. Baby Brine. Keep Baby boiling, too. Baby is much easier to handle than Mother. You pour the contents of Baby Brine into the packed jars.

Lids:

Loading the jars… We used small (pint) jars, due to the HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL nature of this batch.

Grape leaves, dill, garlic, peppercorns, mustard seed, cucumbers…

And now, the special ingredient is added. This is an historic moment. We used about 1/16th of a teaspoon of smoked salt for each pint of pickles. I wanted to use more, but Stacey kept me from going apeshit. And she was right, OK? Let's move on!

A little swig of whisky to help beat the heat (the kitchen was a sweaty, vinegary environment):

My parents must be thrilled right now.

Yes, this is my pickling shirt. It was a gift from my big sister who lives near DC (and who was probably not conceived in close proximity to the lamp from an earlier photo).

Back to work. We've got the seasonings and the cucumbers in the jars. Time to hit 'em with hot stuff from Baby Brine. Note the right hand: use a butter knife to fish out a lid from the boiling water. Do not touch the underside of the lid with your filthy fingers.

This is what it's all about, right HERE. This is an Enemy of the Enemies of Crispness in full glory.

Heaven, for me, will look something like the above picture.

Screw the neck down on the lid

And just like that, we're done. Let the jars cool upside-down and wait for the real world to come creeping back into your kitchen, supplanting that magical, pickle-making, dreamy feeling.

But let's not allow ourselves to get maudlin. WE MADE SMOKY PICKLES!! VICTORY OVER THE ENEMIES OF CRISPNESS!

Many thanks to my corporate sponsors and the participants of Picklestorm II.

Again, the basic recipe:

Brine:

3 qts water

1 qt vinegar

1 cup salt [plain]

Boil water, salt and vinegar together 1 minute

Pack cucumbers in jars with garlic, dill & peppercorns, mustard seed, (this is where you can get experimental) with a grape leaf on top.

Pour boiling water, salt and vinegar over and then seal.

Suggestions: use a scant cup of salt [3/4 cup].Use apple cider vinegar.

PS: Since this was an experimental occasion, we made just seven pints. I'll pop open the first jar in about a month and post the results. If you hear nothing from me, it will either mean that the experiment was a total failure (.0003% probability) or that after taking a single bite, I sublimated into a being of pure delight and left the physical world in a briny, smoky flash.