Adventures in the kitchen.

Me: Here, try some of my yogurt with the carrots.
Daniel: Wow, this is really good. What did you put in it?
Me: Basil, oregano, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
Daniel: Ooh, it's the basil. I want some in mine.
Me: You have Nutella in your yogurt.
Daniel: So? [dumps in basil] Mmmmm.

Things I made this week.

Sopes! Daniel and I were at Walmart, and I noticed queso fresco next to my (consumed daily) cheese sticks. I never, ever thought I’d see Mexican cheese in the Midwest. Daniel then convinced me it was okay to spend $2 on masa harina (which Walmart also had!). So we had sopes twice last week. And it may have been the best thing I've eaten in months. That’s not entirely true, but there is something primally soothing about fried corn, refried beans, and queso, and I could probably go for some right now...

Blatantly copied from Pinterest. I had some embroidery thread lying around and some boring work to do, so I combined them with something I probably spent half of my childhood doing—tying spiral knots. And now I have the celebrated no-tangle headphones promised by a Pinterest post.

Also taken from Pinterest. I, weirdly, had some bronze-colored jewelry wire. My needle-nosed pliers are sadly somewhere in California, but I found some decent substitutes in our tool kit.

Things I made this week.

Surprisingly, the crystallized candied ginger was not my main aim. I ventured into the local Asian market for the first time back in the fall, about a month after we moved here. While there, sudden inspiration prompted me to search for boba that we could make at home, a recurring theme in this too-short blog. I came across some frozen rice balls in the freezer case, and I decided they looked enough like boba to be what I was looking for. Some quick internet research, of course, reminded me that I was looking for tapioca balls, not rice balls. So the pink and white rice rejects sat in our freezer.

Until this week. After googling what turned out to be Vietnamese on the rice ball package, I surmised the little treats were meant to be boiled and served as dessert, often in a ginger syrup. So I dutifully picked up some ginger and made a syrup. The rice balls ended up being close to gag-worthy in my Western mouth (soft, sweet, glutinous blobs, etc.), but the syrup was divine, as all things ginger tend to be. I saved the boiled ginger pieces, rolled them in sugar, and consumed them within 24 hours (with Daniel’s help, of course).

All that ginger triggered a taste memory that brought me back to the Barr’s ginger beer we picked up on a whim when we were in Scotland last summer, which led me to google Barr’s ginger beer, which led me to amazon.com, which led me to purchase a 24-pack of ginger beer, ecstatic in my newfound realization of the profound reaches of globalization and with an Amazon gift card burning a hole in my work inbox. But that’s another, less interesting story.

Like a year ago, I promised Daniel that if he stopped wearing his worn-out t-shirts, I would make a quilt out of them. I had never made a quilt before, but that wasn’t going to stop me. And it didn’t. Because Rachel had gotten my sewing machine up and running, I felt empowered enough to make this thing happen. I cut a raft of 12-inch squares, pinned and sewed them in columns, and then sewed the columns together. I attached a blue flannel backing, and that was that. It’s terribly, horribly uneven in some spots and definitely needs some spot mending, but I did it.

It was my dad’s birthday, so I sketched a wintry scene for his card that looks quite similar to our neighborhood, minus the apartments and campus buildings (too complicated for me). We have a veritable deer infestation, but they’re beautiful nonetheless.

One skein's worth.

A cell phone cover seems superfluous at first. But the amount of time my phone spends in subfreezing temperatures made me seriously consider the amigurumi tutorial I came across.

Continuing my cowl pursuit, I went for this maple leaf scarflet. I don’t know why the concept of a scarflet had never occurred to me before I did some hardcore crochet googling this month, but it hadn’t. Scarflets give all of the gratification without the long-term commitment of a regular scarf.

Me + 3-day virtual conference = cowl and Swiffer sock.

Somehow, at some point, I became fascinated with the idea of cowls. It may have been the point at which the temperature dropped below 20 degrees. At first I aspired to a large, drapey production, but I ended up with a smaller adjustable one that seemed to suit my purposes better.

I keep every button that comes with clothing, and I forced myself to use a couple here. I’m sure in the back of my mind I will continue to think, “What if I need them?” But frankly, I have no idea what they belong to, and I can’t remember the last time I lost a button on anything.

When the twins were here, I sat through three straight days of a virtual conference on critical thinking questions. So I crocheted, of course. One of the results: a reusable Swiffer sock.

Shannon put it to quick work. The twins made dinner and did the dishes almost every night they were here—totally spoiled us.

Retroactively presented.

 When we were in Cleveland for Thanksgiving, my aunt and uncle gave us this little tree, which plugs into a USB port and lights up, as our “Christmas tree,” since we’d be back in Ohio for the holidays. It was incredibly apt, considering our laptop-centered lives. It also served as a place to store Angelica’s Christmas present. I had picked up a tiny B crochet hook a couple of year ago but never had the time to experiment with such thin thread until December. I was trying to craft earring-sized medallions out of a lightweight cotton yarn, but they were simply too big for normal tastes. This tiny thread, though tricky to work with, meant I could use the patterns I wanted and still come up with something someone might actually wear.

Rachel and Shannon texted me the week before Christmas asking for crocheted legwarmers. I wasn’t sure I’d have the time or the ability, but I managed to get through two sets (and aggravate my carpal tunnels). I didn’t use particularly special yarn, so they don’t drape as nicely as I’d like them to, but my sisters are cool enough to make them work, I think.

Robot love.

For Christmas, Daniel and I decided to set a $10 spending limit for each other. Some chance Etsy browsing led to an embroidery pattern that I kind-of sort-of imitated because it was too perfect. Daniel’s debate team nickname is and was “Robot,” so anything robot-related, be it Marina and the Diamonds’ “I Am Not a Robot” or the 826 literacy center in Ann Arbor, is an instant favorite.

I had never embroidered anything in earnest before, so I was gratified to find that you can backstitch pretty much anything you can draw. The fabric I chose is probably better suited for cross-stitching (I also didn’t realize that there is a difference, or that you can embroider just about all fabrics), and the large holes meant my finished product probably isn’t as refined around the edges as it could have been. But I was satisfied enough to hang it in our living room and to make Daniel accept it as a present. He got me a Michigan wife t-shirt, one of those things I’m embarrassed to admit I really wanted, which matches perfectly with his birthday present.

Honestly, though, the entire town dresses this way. I don’t think anyone owns any other colors of clothing besides maize and blue, except maybe their black North Face coats.