podcasts

Episode 33: Black Is the New Green

April 8, 2014 by Sara

This episode includes the following segments: The Back Porch, The Front Porch, A Little Bit of Learning, Ever-expanding Skill Set, and Double Happiness.

LISTEN:

The Back Porch

Complete: Deviate, a shawl design by Lisa Mutch, in the squishiest superwash Merino sock yarn dyed up in Fresh Flannel by Heather of Highland Handmades. I should have been working on some other projects, but I couldn’t resist this really cool design and very pleasing garter stitch texture. It’s a winning combination.

The Front Porch

It’s time to think spring with craft projects as well as culinary ones. This week, I’ll be starting Galactic Orbits, a crocheted tank top by Linda Skuja. I’ve made her Triangle Cowl at least three times. I’ve decided on an organic yarn of wool and cotton in a gorgeous peony color. My plan is to complete this top in time to wear it to Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.

A Little Bit of Learning

Is black the new green? My endeavors with the Bulk Bins Cook-along are more to do with experimentation and improvisation than nutrition. Still, it’s difficult not to investigate the nutritional value of ingredients that are new to me. This week, I cooked black rice for the first time. This recipe for rice pudding yields a subtly sweet, luxurious dessert. The rice grains are soft, but still a bit chewy. Incredible. And I learned that black rice contains even higher levels of immune-bolstering vitamin E than brown rice, and as much anthocyanin (an antioxidant) as blueberries.

Rice is great if you’re really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something. — Mitch Hedberg

Ever-expanding Skill Set

Sunday morning’s searches for a springtime rice dish turned up some fresh ideas. I added a few of my own improvisational touches and came up with this recipe. What flavors do you associate with spring? For me, sweet peas, artichokes, lemon and mint are the essential elements.

A Taste of Spring Warm Rice

Pour 1 1/4 cups water into a medium saucepan. Add 1 tablespoon butter, 1/2 teaspoon salt, the juice of 1/2 lemon and 1 tablespoon dried mint leaves or 1 mint teabag. Bring to a boil. If using teabag, simmer for 3 minutes then remove bag. Add 1 cup brown California basmati rice. When rice boils, reduce heat and cover. Simmer for about 45 minutes, or until all liquid has been absorbed.

Meanwhile, set a large earthenware bowl on the counter and add ingredients to it as you prepare them.

Saute one small, diced onion in a bit of olive oil. Add 1-2 cups diced ham and warm through. Add these ingredients to bowl, along with 1 cup fresh or frozen petite peas and 1 cup quartered artichoke hearts.

Spoon cooked rice into the bowl and toss to warm all ingredients. Garnish with chopped fresh mint, sliced scallions, and additional lemon juice or grated lemon rind.

Double Happiness

It’s April — National Poetry Month. I’ll be ending each episode with a poem. This week, I’m reading “Daily” by Naomi Shihab Nye. This poem reflects the importance of craft and the beauty of objects that get a lot of use. Nye has a special ability to make the ordinary extraordinary in her poems.

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