podcasts

Episode 34: Sunny Side Up

April 16, 2014April 17, 2014 by Sara

This episode includes the following segments: Ever-expanding Skill Set, The Back Porch, The Front Porch, Gratitude Journal, and Double Happiness.

LISTEN:

Ever-expanding Skill Set

There’s a fantastic dish at Spice Market, an Asian-fusion restaurant in NYC’s meatpacking district, or near it. Actually, it’s a very convenient location for lunch or dinner if you’ve been spending some time on the High Line. The dish is ginger fried rice. Mark Bittman has reverse-engineered the dish. He’s a genius, frankly. Deb Perelman recognizes his genius and has included the recipe on her Smitten Kitchen website. And now you can enjoy this intriguingly simple rice at home. It goes very well with any protein dish that is vibrantly-flavored — it balances out spicy and exotic notes. Topped with a fried egg, it makes a great lunch or light supper. I am one of those people who finds the interrogation of a fried egg too violent for a morning meal, so I prefer an egg like this served after noon, thank you very much.

Among my bulk bin purchases this month was a cup of pink rice from Madagascar. It wasn’t easy to find recipes specifically devised for this rice. I did, however, become caught up in the agricultural lore of “Dista rice,” which I talk a bit about in the podcast. I did manage to find a recipe for a pink rice pilaf from Whole Foods. Start by toasting the rice in a sizzling dollop of coconut oil and roasted chili paste, then use orange juice as a cooking liquid. Great with chicken roasted on the Big Green Egg charcoal grill.

The Back Porch

This week, I completed the Galactic Orbits top by Linda Skuja and finished plying 6 ounces of Wensleydale in the London Fog colorway from FatCatKnits. The fiber spun up into 390 yards of a sport/DK weight 2-ply. The extremely long staple length of this fiber meant that it was a very different spinning experience from what I’ve had so far. My wheel is empty as I decide what project to begin next.

The Front Porch

One new project went on the needles since the last episode. That is Farbklang “color of sound” by Simone Eich of WOLLWERK. This is an asymmetrically-designed scarf that is great for using scraps and experimenting with color combinations. Here is Simone’s completed piece. Mine will feature blues and greens, and lots of beads.

Another up-and-coming project is Tripartite, a swingy, softly-structured vest design by Stephen West. I have never knit with lace weight yarn before, but the versatility of this garment intrigues me and I think it will make a great layering piece for the summer.

Gratitude Journal

Learn some new vocabulary and make a contribution of rice to the World Food Programme by playing Free Rice.

Double Happiness

This week, I read a poem titled Egg by Ales Steger, a Slovene poet, in honor of National Poetry Month. It sums up nicely my sentiments regarding the fried egg.

Arrows and Doorways

The design for this super-cozy cowl was inspired by textiles in a hotel lobby. Concentric geometric shapes kept playing in my mind until finally I was able to chart the pattern and get it onto my needles. The interplay of this chevron-like patterning has a mesmerizing effect–while you’re knitting and when you wear the finished accessory.

Knit up a cowl with yarn from your stash, adding some magical new mini-skeins from your advent calendar, or exchange leftover yarn with a friend. The design invites frequent color changes, and makes an ideal knit for the advent season. It could be just as striking knit with two high-contrast colors.

While most cowls of this type are seamed within a band of a single color, this pattern incorporates a technique called stranded donut grafting, an incredibly clever and completely seamless graft that allows you to maintain colorwork patterning so that your starting and ending rounds are undetectable. Really! With many possibilities for color play and a new technique to add to your skill set, this cowl pattern is really an opportunity for knitters to level-up!

NEW PATTERN DESIGN!

ONE DARK BLUE NIGHT

This hat is the third in a series of patterns inspired by teachings in Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run with the Wolves. This time, I drew inspiration from Estés’ retelling of a Japanese tale, Tsukina Waguma or “The Crescent Moon Bear,” in which a young woman travels to the cave of an incredibly intimidating and ferocious bear. She makes several journeys to the cave, leaving food and quickly retreating, until “one dark blue night,” she musters the courage to stand her ground and ask for what she seeks--one hair from a moon-shaped patch on the bear’s chest--which she is granted. The young woman returns, triumphant, to the old healer who has sent her on this quest. She believes this single hair is the magic ingredient in solving the problem that plagues her. She holds it forth, but the healer tosses the hair into the flames. The young woman is in despair until she realizes the true lesson of her quest: that using her determination, courage, and patience, as she did with the crescent moon bear, will help her to confront the challenge at hand.

The moon phase motif of this colorwork hat is meant to capture the magic of a dark blue night--when the moon shines brightly overhead, the frosty air sparkles with possibility, and we succeed in summoning accumulated wisdom from deep within ourselves so that we can apply it to our own healing. Choose colors to conjure a wintery night sky, or select a palette of your signature colors.

Available on Ravelry December 20th.

Yarns at Yin Hoo