Can I just say again how cool it is to see Peekaboo Mittens popping up all over the web? I'm beside myself. Anyway, I decided to make myself another pair (I only kept one of the test pairs I made) out of Kureyon. I had a few balls tied up in a poorly-executed multidirectional scarf. A few minutes of yanking, and I turned that scarf into this: What a mess! If this were any other yarn, it would have taken ages to wind into balls. But Kureyon is magic and I had these in no time: A matched set of Kureyon balls, ready to be transformed into Peekaboos. I think I'll try to make this pair smaller than my Brown Sheep pair - they're a little loose, but still oh so cozy.

Oh my Lord, have you seen this recipe for Peruvian Caramel filled Lemon Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream and Coconut? I must make these, if only because it involves making dulce de leche from scratch! OK, maybe not from scratch, but I've always wanted to boil a can of sweetened condensed milk for 2 hours. It's a little like defusing a bomb, I imagine. Didn't I see that on Alias? Wasn't there an episode where Sydney had to constantly monitor a seething can of condensed milk, kicking Russian spies in their nether regions while simultaneously suspended on wires above a pressure-sensitive floor? Plus there might have been an electric mixer torture scene? Or maybe that was on 24.

So, you wanna make your own space alien bread? Here's the recipe for your enjoyment, with my adaptations included. Buttermilk Oatmeal Bread, adapted from the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook 3/4 C rolled oats (not quick cooking) 1/2 C steel cut oats 1 C boiling water 1/4 C warm water for yeast awakening 2 t yeast 1 1/2 C buttermilk 1/2 C canola oil 1/2 C brown sugar 1 C whole wheat flour 4-5 C unbleached all-purpose flour 2 t kosher salt Method: 1. Place all oats in a medium bowl with boiling water, stir to mix well. Let stand 10 min, stirring occasionally. 2. In the workbowl of an electric mixer, dissolve yeast in 1/4 C warm water. Let stand 5 min. 3. Add all remaining ingredients to yeast, and mix for 10 minutes. Add additional all-purpose flour as needed, so that the dough just comes together into a workable mass by the end of the mixing time. 4. Drape a damp kitchen towel over the work bowl and let rise for an hour. Dough may or may not rise. Who knows why? 5. Dump dough on a floured surface and knead briefly to work out air bubbles. Shape into a loaf. 6. Put loaf in a greased 9x5 loaf pan. Let rise in microwave (see note) for 45 minutes. Dough should rise about 1/2" above rim of pan. 7. Preheat oven to 385 F. 8. Bake loaf about 1 hour, or until crust is deep brown. 9. Let cool in pan on rack for 30 minutes, then remove from pan. Gobble down! Note: To rise dough in a microwave, place a glass measuring cup half half full of water in microwave and heat on high until water boils. Let boil for about 30 seconds, then quickly open microwave door and place loaf pan inside, leaving the water inside. (If you're worried about superheating the water, just put a bamboo skewer in the measuring cup before boiling) This creates the warm, moist environment that yeast love the best. Just make sure that you don't accidentally turn on the microwave with a metal loaf pan inside! Yikes!

To whom it may concern: I am writing to express my displeasure at an advertisement aired this morning on Channel 5. I had just finished my bowl of frosted mini-wheats and was contemplating what to prepare for this evening's repast. Needless to say, my interest was piqued when the following commercial began: Scene: A high-end restaurant kitchen, chefs at their stations, preparing dishes that apparently generate a large quantity of steam. Voiceover: "Slow-grilled wild salmon, with crisp garden greens, simmered in a fragrant reduction." Image: A lovely piece of salmon criss-crossed with perfect grill marks, wet lettuce flying through the air. Of course! Wild salmon would make a superb Friday night dinner! I could serve a crisp salad alongside, perhaps make a ginger-soy reduction, or... Voiceover: "Inspiration for Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys - the restaurant-inspired food for cats!" Image: Lovely piece of salmon morphs into a plate of goo, disturbingly similar to cat vomit on a bed of lettuce. Oh, horrors! My stomach is irrevocably turned. How dare you make my mouth water for cat food! I feel sick. Voiceover: "Is it love, or is it Fancy Feast?" Image: Giant white fluffy cat licking its nostrils. It's the Fancy Feast, darling. And if you try to substitute the Friskies, she'll eat your kidneys right out of your gut while you're napping. In summary, I would appreciate it if you could keep references to human food out of cat food commercials. And are we really wasting wild salmon on cats these days? Is that why I can only find farmed salmon (color added) at the store? Sincerely, Nauseous in Seattle

More baking pictures! This one has to be seen to be believed. In a frantic attempt to use up some leftover buttermilk, I again turned to the Macrina Cookbook for a recipe. I settled on the Buttermilk Oatmeal Bread. I made a few alterations to the recipe, namely I only had about half the rolled oats required, so I substituted steel cut oats. I was a little afraid the steel cut oats would remain hard in the bread, kind of like buckshot. But they softened up nicely. I also had to add way more flour than called for, because the dough was super, super sticky. I almost thought the bread was a failure, because it didn't rise AT ALL in the first rising. And when I kneaded it into a loaf shape, I didn't hear the usual little puffffffts and thweeees of air being released from the dough. It was just a lump of solid dough. Not one to give up, I put it into the pan. Now, the recipe said that it made one loaf, but usually when I have pan bread, the dough only fills the pan halfway. As you can see, the pan was filled to the brim. Strange. After an hour in the oven, the yeasty beasties finally got off their microscopic hineys and got to work. I'm just glad I moved the oven rack down a notch before baking. Good God, have you even seen such a mighty loaf? It's almost like a creature from another planet. I think in the future, I might just divide the dough into two loaves. This is certainly impressive, but a single slice is a bit too much. And it's hard to slice thin, because the crown tends to tear off. I settled for cutting thick slices, then cutting those in half. But the flavor of this bread is fabulous. Sweetish, nutty, and moist from the buttermilk and oatmeal. Another winner from the great cookbook. Highly recommended!

My photo posting is a few weeks behind, so I'm only now presenting pictures of my Macrina Buttermilk Biscuits: I think next time I'll try to generate a squarer shape, if only to facilitate injecting the warm biscuits with raspberry jam (not shown, because we gobbled them up too quickly!) The special dough folding technique (pat dough into a rectangle, fold into thirds, repeat) did give these biscuits flaky lightness as well as moist richness, and I'd bet the technique would improve biscuits made from Mark Bittman's trans-fat-free recipe that has become my biscuit standard. I'll be making these biscuits again. And again. Did I mention they were good? Anyway, stay tuned for more pictures, including pics of my award-winning casserole! Anyone care to guess which category I dominated? Anyone?

Brace yourselves, here comes a tangent. So I made good on my self-promise to make at least one of those tasty recipes: the Macrina biscuits. Oy, they turned out GREAT! The only problem is that the recipe calls for vegetable shortening (AKA Crisco), which of course contains trans fats. Oops, first I typed "trance fats" which I think is the term used to describe fats that are so good you black out for a second. Fats like Plugra butter and Saint Andre cheese. So I'm partially powered by trans fats this morning, and I tell you, I feel GREAT! Anyway, I thought I had heard of a trans fat-free Crisco, so I looked it up on the Intarweb. Sure enough, there's Crisco Zero. (Not like Coke Zero). Pennies from heaven, right? Well, it turns out that Crisco Zero is made from fully hydrogenated (i.e., saturated) vegetable oil. So I'm not sure this is any better, health-wise, than butter. And according to this thread on Slashfood, it doesn't really work as well as good old-fashioned tranny Crisco. Which makes me nostalgic for NYPD Blue, because that's where I first learned the word "tranny". And not in an automotive sense. Oh, I miss Sipowicz. And then I'm reminded of my favorite quote from the Simpsons, and surprisingly it comes up quite often in my daily life: Marge: Homer, I don't think you should wear a short-sleeved shirt with a tie. Homer: But Sipowicz does it. Oh, yes he does.

Recipes I simply MUST try: Foolproof Pad Thai at Chez Pim Layered carrot cake at Jumbo Empanadas BBQ candied cashews at Kirsten's Home Adventures in Cooking. And add to the list the old fashioned buttermilk biscuits from the Macrina Bakery and Cafe Cookbook. Oh, I've got a lot of cooking to do!

Sometimes TV can be so, you know, fictional. It really burns my biscuit when television shows create scenes and situations that simply aren't realistic. Like, when the epidemiologists on Medical Investigation traveled to outbreak investigations by black helicopter. Or, how the criminalists on CSI carry guns. Or how Lorelai Gilmore knit four feet of a 12" scarf in an hour. Or how Jack Bauer recovered from two years of Chinese water torture and being shishkabobbed within 45 minutes. (But would 24 be as much fun to watch if it were just 24 episodes of Jack in the ICU?) I often wonder why some flights of fancy (i.e., the entire premise of Lost) are acceptable, yet others exceed my ability to suspend disbelief (i.e., building a free clinic in 8 days on Grey's Anatomy). I think the more minor stretches of reality are tougher to ignore. In any case, this whole subject came to mind because I am currently blogging from an improbable location, one where you might find Rory Gilmore snuggled up with a laptop in a cold open, were Rory Gilmore a blogger and not a... whatever she is this week. I'm sitting in a comfy easy chair, beside a glass wall overlooking an indoor swimming pool as dozens of swimmers turn laps. It's surreal, the flickering of the pool lights and the constant motion of the water. Kind of like blogging at the human aquarium. Look lively, mates! Thar's a manatee! If only I had a mocha latte at hand, this would be a perfect TV scene. I do have a TV star-worthy fancy knit scarf, at least. So we'll see if tonights super-dramatic Grey's Anatomy where Seattle is crumpled into a ball and hurled at the sun is annoying or great. The TV announcer claims that "everyone will be talking". We'll see about that.

Look, I made some hats for Minestrone Soup's hat drive for Boston Children's Hospital! Everyone gather around and congratulate me. Just kidding. I figured since the request was specifically for fun fur hats, I might as well get rid of the fun fur that's stinking up my stash (not literally) and make some kids happy in the process. I hope. These hats are pretty awful, so I threw in a cute raspberry hat with a crocheted flower garnish for good measure. Apparently the kids in the cancer ward like crazy hats. I get that. Actually, the thing I am most proudest of is actually getting the dang things in the mail. Congratulate me for that.