Quitty Prickly

January 01, 2015

Happy New Year (2015)!

Happy New Year, peeps!

I really wanted to begin this post by saying that the Poet Tree is back up, but it's not. Clearly a Grinch is at work in the city of London.

I just finished reading my 2013 New Year's post - HNY 2013 - and I am not sure what to say except that resolutions are meant to be broken; and my coiffure is lame:

Okay, enough vanity from me. In 2014, I didn't write a crossword (surprise) and I didn't finish a novel. I am not going to focus on my epic fail, instead, I choose to revel in the writing that I did do: blog posts, poetry, short fiction and nonfiction, and several knitting patterns.

Dare I make some resolutions for 2015? Let me think on that while I share my New Year's treat for you, my loyal readers. Here are two of my favourite, tried and tested seasonal recipes: Perogies / Petahe (pronounce that weirdass word like this: petta-heh) and Potato Latkes.

I recruit the family to make many dozen petahe at Christmastime. We fight, and roll dough, and fill circles with mashed potatoes and cheese, and boil, and laugh and fight some more. I have a lot of pictures to illustrate the madness that is perogy-making.

Seriously? I can't find any of my pics! They are gone. Dammit. Hold on.

Here's a poem to read by haiku master Kobayashi Issa. Enjoy it, while I go look for my missing pictures (ha ha, I'm hilarious).

New Year’s Day--

everything is in blossom!

I feel about average.

I really love these simple and funny lines.

*****

Okay, I found the pics.
Here are the perogies, frying in the pan in a LOT of butta:

Now they're on the plate, accompanied by a side of onions fried in butter, and a very large dollop of sour cream, and the whole mess is about to be devoured by me:

Apologies to those of you who are feeling less than fresh this New Year's Day. If you had been smart like me, and drank only 1.5 glasses of wine, you will think that these look delish! If you were feeling particularly merry last night and overindulged in food and drink, you might want to skip this post.

And now for the latkes.

My daughter is so sweet; she brought this amuse-bouche to me as I was typing away happily:

Holy shizzlesticks! It is so lipsmacking delicious, I am going to combust.

Here's a pan full of them, sizzling in hot oil:

If you haven't made either of these delectable nibbles before, I recommend that you start with the latkes. They're easy, and it's pretty hard to screw them up.

*****

PEROGIES

The recipe I have adapted is from kooky Ken Kostick's mother, Helen. You might remember Ken and his wacky cooking show, which I watched religiously.

I loved that show. Ken is no longer with us, but his recipes live on. Here is my adapted recipe:

You start by making the filling (red potatoes, milk, cheese, fried onion, butter) and the dough (flour, salt, oil, water). Super easy. I don't typically add bacon to my petahe, but some do.

Roll out the dough on a well-floured surface and use a thin glass to cut out circles. Place approximately a tbsp of filling on each perogy.

It is very important to properly seal the edge of the perogies when you fold them in half. Pinch all around the half circle, making sure that there aren't any holes where the filling can leak out when you're boiling them. You will only make that mistake once.

Drop 10 to 15 perogies into a pot full of boiling, salted water.

The petahe are cooked when they float up to the surface of the water. Remove the perogies with a slotted spoon and place them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet to cool. They can be eaten after boiling (the texture is like a dumpling or gnocchi) but I prefer them fried in butter with a big side of fried onions and sour cream. Fat city!

Oh yeah, baby.

Once you've finished boiling all of the perogies, cover the cookie sheets with saran wrap and put them in the freezer. Once they're frozen, remove them from the cookie sheet and dump them into large ziploc bags. If you try to skip the "freezing them individually" step, and chuck them into a bag and into the freezer right after you've made them, they will stick together in a giant frozen ball of perogy, ruining all your hard work. You will only make this mistake once.

Bags of homemade perogies make great gifts. People love them.

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/say-it-with-pierogies-jc-duffy.html

LATKES

This recipe is from Martha Stewart. I don't use sweet potatoes; I prefer to use red potatoes. Having said that, they are equally delicious.

Peel your potatoes, and put the peels in the composter. If you don't compost, it's time to start.

Do not use a box grater to grate the potatoes and onion unless you want shredded fingers in your latkes. Get that food processor out. I don't care if it's "hard to clean". Suck it up and save yourself some time and your fingers some skin.

Martha does not tell you to strain the grated potatoes, but I do this to remove the excess liquid. Let the potaotes sit in a colander for 20 minutes or so, or if you're in a hurry, just use your hand to mash the shredded potatoes down, forcing out the liquid through the holes in the strainer.

It looks like shredded mozzarella, doesn't it?

Quick aside. Did I mention that I love my food processor? Today, I wanted freshly squeezed o.j. so I thought I would try out the juicer attachment, but because I am a dunderhead, I misplaced the strainer part of the juicer. The processor wouldn't operate without it, so I McGyvered it with a plastic fork. Yes! This picture makes me very happy:

Now back to the latkes.

I also shredded a large sweet onion using the FP:

Onions are very juicy, so I strained them too. Don't cry! Onions are pungent and powerful, and tears welled up in my eyes.

Mix everything together (see recipe) and fry until golden. Serve with lots of full fat sour cream:

Stroking out here, but damn!, is that good.

*****

Happy New Year, everyone!

Optional musical pairing: Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines because I couldn't stop singing it this morning.

December 31, 2014

Pompom

Made this scrappy mashup from a LOT of Noro leftovers. I owed Gwen a hat for Christmas - so what if it’s 6 days late?

That is NOT Gwen modeling the hat. It's Gretchen, international woman of mystery. Laughing hard.

I am thinking that Gretchen should have gone with a less orange hue on her kisser:

If any of you are inclined to knit this hat, here's the pattern that I wrote (my first!):

POMPOM

Yarn - I used a lot of bulky and superbulky: Noro Iro, and Kureyon. You may want to hold together two different yarns (e.g. two stands of worsted to achieve desired thickness)

Pattern instructions

Cast on 82 stitches using cable rib cast on (k2 p2 rib) on a circular. Join, place marker. Knit until ribbing is desired height (I like ~ 2 inches).

Add in new yarns whenever you like, going for maximum stripey effect. I had some fun with slipping stitches to get that wacky pattern in the first band of fuchsia. If you want to try this, here is how I achieved that effect (if you don't want that, just skip the next couple of lines - go down to the +)

1st round: Colour A is the fuchsia. With colour B (greenish variegated here), *k1, slip 1 (with yarn in back)* for the whole row.
2nd round: With B, * purl 1, slip 1 (with yarn in back)* for the whole row
3rd round: Knit entire round with colour A

I think that it looks pretty good, but I might not do it next time.

+ Knit until hat measures ~ 6 inches tall.

Shape crown
1st row: k1 (k2tog, k6) 10 times. 71 sts.

2nd and every alternate row: knit.

3rd row: k1 (k2tog, k5) 10 times. 61 sts.
5th row: k1 (k2tog, k4) 10 times. 51 sts.
7th row: k1 (k2tog, k3) 10 times. 41 sts.
9th row: k1 (k2tog, k2) 10 times. 31 sts.
11th row: k1 (k2tog, k1) 10 times. 21 sts.
13th row: k1 (k2tog) 10 times. 11 sts.

Break off yarn, run yarn through remaining stitches, draw up and fasten off.

Make a GIGANTIC pompom. Attach and you’re golden.

Revel in your creative genius. :-)

Optional Musical Pairing - Doozer Knitting Song, natch.

December 11, 2014

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto.

In grad school, while researching intelligent agents / bots, I learned that the word "robot" stems from a Czech word meaning "forced labour" or "work".
I think that I spent most of grad school in a robo-like stupor.

When an opportunity arose for Nathaniel to join a robotics program - The First Lego League - I was so excited that I began to dance the robot, natch:

here's a glimpse of my magical moves

It's hard being this cool.

DNC - Does Not Compute - is a five strong team that has been meeting on Friday afternoons since mid-September. They've been building and programming a robot that looks just like this:

image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektro

Just joshin'.

That's Elektro, the world's first "modern" robot. He was exhibited at the 1940 World's Fair with his sidekick Sparky. Elektro walked, spoke in the neighbourhood of 700 words (using a 78-rpm record player), smoked, and blew up balloons - all essential tasks for a 20th century robot. You can watch original footage of Elektro on Youtube if you'd like to learn more.

Here are Molly and Nathaniel with Baymax, the team's Lego Mindstorm robot:

The kids have spent months honing Baymax's capabilities.

For those of you who like to read cut and pasted Lego League jargon, here's a description of the First Lego League program:

"... the children do the work; [they] program an autonomous robot (using a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® robot) to score points on a thematic playing surface, create innovative solutions to a problem, all while being guided by the FLL Core Values. These three elements - the Robot Game, Project, and FLL Core Values - make up what we call our yearly Challenge. Teams also fundraise, create a team identity, and talk to experts in the field."

FLL's mission is to "inspire young people to pursue studies and careers in the fields of science, technology and engineering... our vision is of a world which celebrates success in these fields, and in which young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes... "

Awww. It warms the heart.

Speaking of heroes, the kids' coaches built a regulation size competition table in their basement so that DNC could practice with Baymax on an identical surface.

Each team has two-and-a-half minutes to navigate their robot through as many challenges as possible.

There was definitely a festive and electric air at the competition. This shot of Maya and Brock makes me laugh because Ed Holder (Minister of State - Science and Technology) is about to photobomb them:

Sidenote: Ed Holder is surprisingly funny. In his speech, he made two (bad) puns (are there any other kind?) One is too painful to repeat, but I like "Canada kicks Bot!"

I snapped lots of pics of DNC's competition:

RoboStallions

Lego My Lego came in first place and are on their way to the provincials

I was impressed by everyone's team spirit, and also by the Lego soap dispenser in the washroom :-)

In between matches, the kids visited with representatives from Mad Science, Western Engineering and Science Camps, and unLondon (which focuses on the intersection of art, media, digital, technology and maker culture to enable unconventional ideas and innovative solutions).

The UnLondon booth was my favourite because of their fun robot toys. We were all obsessed with the Sphero (a glowing ball that you use your smartphone or tablet to control):

Nathaniel and I liked chasing it around the room, and maneuvering it between people's legs (the maturity of the 45 year old woman is equivalent to that of the 11 year old boy).

There was also a large selection of objects made by a 3-d printer. My favourite was this purple foot:

A 3-d printer / industrial robot is a truly amazing thing. I am not sure if you can see the texture up close in this pic, but that foot is made up of thousands and thousands of layers, each one with a "typical layer thickness of around 100 µm (250 DPI)" - whatever the hell that means. Let's just say that each layer is super-duper-thin.

The fellow manning the booth told me that the Chinese had recently 3D printed two concrete houses. You know what, I keep meaning to look that up, but I haven't yet so let's see if I can find a picture.

Wow! Check this out:

images from: http://www.designboom.com/technology/3d-printed-houses-in-24-hours-04-24-2014/

The process can build 10 eco-friendly concrete houses in just one day. That is unbelievable! Now there's a practical application that I like.

We also enjoyed seeing the robots that local high school students built:

These bots have corporate sponsors, flashy lights and speed.

Here's "The Hat" tossing a ball to a childbot :-)

Ta-da!

Now back to the Lego bots.

After their first two bouts of competition, DNC were not in or anywhere near the lead. Here's Coach Mark giving them a pep talk:

they look dejected

After the final few bouts, things turned around:

And DNC took third place in the robot challenge, with judging for the remainder of the challenges to come.

At the awards presentation, all the participants got up on stage to do the Cha Cha Slide with Ed Holder. Hilarious.