Winter Woes

Canada- A few acres of snow.

                                Voltaire

Can the earth be so far from spring?
 The roads now are snow-banked and we are back to knee deep snow on the walkways.  A sharp-as-needles wind blew today and I didn't want to take off my gloves when refilling the feeders.  This season has been rife with frost warnings and road hazards -ice, black ice, slippery ice conditions warnings (as if ice is anything but...), and white outs.  I wish we were allowed to use studded tires or better yet, chains.  I understand in some provinces you are. 
It seems the weather is our most important topic here in Canada, but we can't be blamed for that. We just  have so much of it, no matter the season.  And so much of our weather, if it doesn't describe us, certainly describes our activities.   I heard this on the radio, forecast for today bad, tomorrow, worse. Ahh, February.

Meanwhile back inside...

This is the shawl I am knitting.  I have used 2 balls of the wool and have 1 more to go.  Wish the photo could show just how lustrous the wool is and it is also not doing the blues justice at all.  It is wonderful to knit and has worked up very fast.

This was a post from last February and I was interested to see how the weather was affecting my writing at the time.  Even more frigid this year, and I just heard on the radio that  many birds have died because of the cold temperatures.

A Jelly Roll To Eat

I grew up with a mom who made jelly rolls a lot.  I think it was her basic 'go to' dessert.  The fillings were often different, sometimes lemon, sometimes strawberry jam, sometimes stewed blueberries.  It would be years before I understood why it was such a great little dessert.  A basic sponge cake that bakes in a mere 12 minutes and can be dressed up with whatever you have on hand makes it a great dessert.
This was Hubby's dessert for Valentines.

By the way, this particular jelly roll is a little flatter than usual because I only had two eggs to use instead of the three.  I have seen recipes that call for six eggs which I'm thinking would make a very fluffy, high sponge.  Some time I will try that.

For a summer time dessert, I've lined the roll with ice cream and popped in the freezer.  Then I just take it from the freezer, cut off what I need and let the slices thaw a little before serving.  It works surprisingly well.  Oh, and I've also made this as a chocolate sponge too.

Meanwhile here is my recipe.

Basic Jelly Roll

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cold water
1 cup cake flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. lemon flavouring
icing sugar
strawberry jam

Beat eggs well, add sugar and continue to beat.  Add water, then sifted dry ingredients.  Lastly add flavourings and spread batter in a sheet cake pan.  I usually grease this pan, line with wax paper that I also grease.  Bake at 400 degrees F for about 12 or 13 minutes.
I have a clean cloth sprinkled with icing sugar ready for when the cake comes out of the oven.  I wait a couple of minutes and then upend the cake onto the cloth. Let cool a little more and then peel off the wax paper carefully.  I roll this up including the cloth from the narrow end and let cool completely.  Unroll, remove the cloth and spread whatever filling you are using, jam, jelly, lemon curd, whatever. Don't worry if it cracks; you can cover up any flaws with a little frosting or cream.  Roll up again and it is actually good to eat like this; you can really taste the sponge this way.
 But this time I iced it with some whipped cream and added a few strawberries, being Valentines and all, which made it a pretty dessert as well.  

Anne Enright's The Gathering

No two people read the same book.

Apparently, each person can even have a completely different reaction at different times to the same book.
I had read this book several years back and was not overly impressed.  I picked it up one day during the holidays and it was like, presto, suddenly the words resonated and I couldn't put it down.

Anne Enright is an award winning Irish author.  This book of hers, The Gathering, won the Man Booker Prize in 2007.  The Hegarty family is gathering to mourn the loss of a brother.  All the aspects of going home, reuniting with siblings and extended family, the reliving of  memories, good and bad, are all explored. Lots of fodder there for a good tale.  But the story line is not the strength of this book for me; it is the unique turn of phrase and words given to Veronica, the sister who was closest to the dead brother, as she relays the narrative.  Certain passages meant enough to me that I made a copy.
It was not surprising when I mentioned this book to several people and received a ho hum response.  One person even said, "and don't tell me to read it again".
 So what can I say.  Some books just seem to be like that....you either love them or hate them, I guess.

Meanwhile, this was my non-fiction read lately, Kate Hubbard's Serving Victoria, Life in the Royal Household.  Other than a few surprising facts, it was not really that insightful. Much attention was paid to the six people closest to the queen during her 63 year reign. This chronicle of their movements with the royals was a little tedious. It comes as no surprise that this queen and her family had enormous egos that had to be catered to by the servants closest to them; I guess, hence the title.
 Queen Victoria's stable of servants reached past the 300 mark and they would occasionally find people living in the house who were never hired and had no job there.  That's how many people were milling about the palace.  Many of the servants had under servants themselves; the layers reached all the way down to the royal rat killer who also had an assistant.  All of them horribly paid but well fed which in itself made it a desirable job for the times.
My interest in all things royal continues.  I don't know why.

That Feeling When You Begin a New Stitchery

Feeling impatient and teary when I am normally patient and stoic I took my temperature.  Perhaps I am sick and don't know it.  But no pretty normal; then it hit me...maybe this is what cabin fever feels like.  I've lived in my share of isolated places so you would think I would know what cabin fever is, but I can't say I do.
 The cougar talk has stopped me from doing my big walks and just dashing to the bird feeders is not enough fresh air and exercise. And though I'm not an exercise lover, I know my body and mind feels better for it, especially if I can get it outside. In a bit of a doldrum I guess.
Lately I've been inside for four or five days at a time.  Even stepping into the garage is like walking into a freezer.  Maybe it's my age.   Anyway, that's enough moaning which I can't seem to stop doing ... Sorry you had to listen to that.
On a positive note, getting in lots of stitching time!
I'm feeling pretty good about finishing up a couple of projects lately so I decided to reward myself by starting a brand new embroidery.

This is a cross stitch kit by Anchor called "Wren and Magnolia".  It features the art of Jill Schultz McGannon.    The bird and nest with blue eggs are sweet.  I started to feel a little lighter as I prepared the aida cloth.  When I was ready to make the first stitch I began to feel excited.

It's fairly large...almost 14 x 14 so that's a lot of counting.  I think I will use a pencil to lightly shade the squares as I stitch just to help me keep track.  When I was younger, I didn't need to fiddle around with such an aid.

The embroidery floss colours are soft, earth tones.  As I'm noticing more lately, I can only work on this in daylight.  Poor eyes won't take the counting of the tiny holes at night even with my special lamp.

When I was ready to make the first stitch I felt my mood brighten. You know that feeling you get when you are just starting a new project you know you are going to love working on, that's what I was feeling. I'm working on the nest first and will save the best, the bird, for last.

Knitting Again

What's On My Needles

Finally settled on the wool.  I made my way to a local shop called WoolTyme where I know they offer one of the best selections of wool around.  It is located in an industrial type park and though the entrance is an unassuming little doorway, inside it is huge and the bins of wool go on forever.  These are sorted by gauges so right away I was able to find the aisle I needed for my Mistake Rib scarf pattern.  The price ranged from about $3 to $15 a ball in my aisle.  I chose an in between wool perfectly suited for a scarf that cost just over $5 a ball.

I'm finding this Patons Classic Wool very soft and easy to knit. It is labelled DK for double knitting which basically means it is an ideal weight for socks, scarves and sweaters.   The strands do not separate or get pesky in any way so it's smooth sailing/knitting.  The colour, Claret, is actually a deeper burgundy than the photos are showing.

A night of Breaking Bad (finally up to Season 4) and Land and Sea episodes got me to about five inches completed.  So far, so good.  I like how the 'rib' is turning out.
A fact I came across in searching out wools... New Zealand has 4 million people and 40 million sheep.  My lovely New Zealand fellow bloggers can correct me if that is wrong.
 Make no wonder though that so many wonderful wools originate there.

Kitchen Living and Jenny's Chocolate Crunch

We are doing a lot of living in the kitchen these days.  I'm dragging more and more of my hobby stuff to the big chair in the corner that is closest to the wood stove.  We had a little break in the frigid temperatures but then it snowed steadily yesterday and though the forecast said 2 to 4 cm, at least 15 cm actually fell.  Last night when I was cooking supper and deciding on a dessert and the snow had stopped, the view out the kitchen window had such a pretty blue cast I had to take a picture.

I couldn't resist trying this recipe for Chocolate Crunch that Jenny at Romany Quilts had posted last week.  It is super easy with just a few ingredients and makes a quick little sweet.  Hubby loves all things chocolate so I kind of knew he would like it.  I had a piece too and it is very tasty.  I baked mine in the oven which gave it lots of crunch.

I didn't have a square pan so baked it in a round...

Don't worry, when I 'faired' it up to make squares, the cut off round edges made an extra crunchy treat.

It is delicious and  hubby loved it. 

You can find the recipe at Romany Quilts,  the post for  Monday, February 16  and here is a link:

http://romanyquilting.blogspot.ca/

A Couple of Reasons Why I'm Not a Ballerina

A friend forwarded a video of his daughter dancing.  She is a bona fide ballerina having spent many years training and working in New York.  I'm captivated by her performance but it is not the beautiful leaps and toe stands that intrigue me.  I'm in love with her hand movements.  She appears to have longer than average arm-span and her hands at the ends move like tiny angels, fluttering, waving, flourishing, signalling.  I replay the video several times just to watch what those hands convey to me. Imagine going through life with hands so lovely and expressive.  Sort of like the girls on Price is Right or even Vanna White. 
I wonder about her feet though.  Ballerinas, I've read, have ugly feet from the extreme beating they take, and often require elaborate wrappings to protect them from pain and aches.  I've read a ballerina can tell if she has gained as little as an ounce; weight and the look of the bodys' bones are so important to the dance.  I think of the Black Swan and her poached egg for breakfast and Karen Kain and her story of a life of anorexia and bulimia to fit into the tutu.
So many reasons I could never be a ballerina.  My hands are so average and I suspect my fingers are shorter than they should be for proper proportion, my knuckles too pronounced... I'm a person who has never missed a meal in my life (a lie, I think I missed supper once in the mid 80's because I had strep throat, but I remember sipping beef broth before going to sleep).  I can't imagine the level of self-deprivation and devotion the love of that particular dance seems to demand.  I guess that's why we absolutely adore ballerinas and their beautiful fluttery fingers.