Amelia Earhart cap




Anthropology-inspired scarf




Both of the above patterns are on Ravelry. Every year I knit myself either a hat or scarf; this year I decided to make a matching set. The hat came out bigger than I expected, so I added little ties to the side. I'm about to seam up a second hat for a friend's birthday.

Below is the newest knit in my etsy shop. Hoping to add a few more knits soon, for the holidays.


Kate cowl

Smoke free for: 119 days, 4 hours, 47 minutes and 14 seconds
Cigarettes NOT smoked: 1788
Lifetime Saved: 13 days, 15 hours
Money Saved: $464.10

So I totally cheated and had one yesterday, and one last Friday. Maybe this sounds like justification, but a few a month is better than 10 a day.

Since I totally associate museums with smoking and smokers, I'm highly amused by today's quit tip:

Go To The Museum
Museums are great places in which to get away from the daily stresses of life. Many of them offer free admission on certain days. Look at paintings, sculptures, and other works of art, old and new, from around the world. Museums are quiet, there's no smoking, and there's a lot to explore. Sit or stand across from a piece of art that affects in you some way. You can experience pleasure and relaxation in many ways without smoking.

I photographed my Friday dinner party so I could prove to my mother that we use the stuff that she gave us. Basically, everything but the food, cups, and serving spoons came from my mother. Well... she even gave us some of the food (the sushi rice mix and the dashi I used to make miso soup).

1. vegan bento 10.9.09, 2. bento 10.12.09, 3. vegan bento 10.6.09, 4. veggie bento 10.14.00, 5. veggie bento 10.19.09, 6. vegan bento 10.21.09, 7. bento 10.22.09, 8. bento 10.26.09, 9. bento 10.27.09, 10. bento 10.28.09, 11. bento 10.29.09, 12. bento 10.30.09


Been craving Japanese food. Over the weekend, my friend and I took a trip out to the Asian grocery store. While her daughter had a meltdown in the store, I stocked up on good rice, seaweed, and sauces.

Most years, I knit myself a hat and scarf. So far the hat's done, a free pattern from ravelry. I have enough yarn left for a matching scarf.



Besides that, I'm working on a cowl for the etsy shop. But mostly, I'm doing grad school application prep. Much more time consuming than I expected.

My first knit for the etsy store! Available here. More knits to come, I just got two skeins of a kettle-dyed wool in a colorway that reminds me of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Last week my friend Karin celebrated her birthday by having a Spanish dinner party. So fun. And the food was delish, Aaron and I went over early to help cook.



appetizers



crostini with EVOO and pancetta
cheese with quince
pickled red peppers stuffed with minced parsley, arugula, capers, and anchovy
moroccan meatballs with raita


asparagus salad




paella




tres leches cake



from Salty Tart! Michelle also made the paella.



I'd totally make the asparagus salad again. So easy. Roast (or blanch) them, add store-bought vinaigrette, pomegranate, and slices of manchego cheese. Excellent at room temperature, so it's a great make-ahead. We also had braised endive with blue cheese cream sauce from a Jamie Oliver recipe. Involved, but yummy. Quarter endive, braise with butter, water/stock, and the juice of one lemon. Make a cheese sauce with heavy cream and blue cheese, add to the endive. I think blue cheese endive mac and cheese is in my future.

I loves me a good bargain and that's exactly what rue la la offers. Online sample sales for clothes, shoes, bedding, cosmetics, accessories. Both high-end and run of the mill brands. And men's too. Sign up here before October 10 to get $10 credited to your account.

Some brands they've sold in the last month: Pratesei bedding, Laundry by Shelli Segal, Spanx, Born shoes (men and women), Max Mara, Tahari, Cole Haan (men and women), kate spade home, Cosabella, D&G, Bare Escentuals (bare minerals), Clarks.

During high school, one of my chores was to cook dinner on the two weeknights that my mom worked. I come from a family of five, and two teenage boys and an overweight dad meant that I had to make a lot of food. Most of my family recipes are meant to serve five and cooking that amount still comes naturally to me. It's a bit problematic now since we're a family of two and Aaron eats one meal a day at home and he prefers things like sandwiches. I try to cook less food, but I worry that it doesn't look like enough and end up making too much. And then I get sick of eating the same food for a week. You can see it in the mosaic. I was so sick of green bean and tomato salad with lemon-mustard vinaigrette and curried wheat berry salad.



1. bento 9.17.09, 2. all local bento 9.18.09, 3. bento 9.23.00, 4. bento 9.24.09, 5. veggie bento 9.25.09, 6. bento 9.29.09, 7. vegan bento 9.29.09, 8. vegan bento 9.30.09, 9. bento 10.2.09, 10. bento 10.5.09, 11. veggie bento 10.6.09, 12. bento 10.7.09

It's been over 25 years since I last owned wellies. Back then, I had two pairs: a red Hello Kitty pair and a yellow Snoopy pair. This time around I wanted to go for a neutral but still fun color, so I chose patent grey. And my timing couldn't have been better, it's rained at least once a week since I've gotten them.



Over the weekend I put away my summer clothes and brought out the winter ones. And ruthlessly purged my closet. There's a stack of clothes to be sold and I'm now in the market for a grey suit, grey work pants, several cardigans, a bag, and stockings. My goal: to have an edited wardrobe full of items that I love to wear that look fabulous on me. Need inspiration? Here's a great article. It's hard to stick to the program but I think it'll be so rewarding in the long run.

Introducing my new etsy store, mamichan makes, at mamichan.etsy.com.

It's been almost 2.5 months since my quit smoking date. It took about two months for my mindset to change. Earlier this month I had an epiphany: getting used to not smoking takes time. It reminded me of my lower back pain debacle from my early twenties; constantly being in pain and getting so used to chronic pain that I didn't even realize it when I was pain-free 7 months later. When I stopped craving the ciggies, I didn't even notice.

Honestly, I've had a few cigs here and there. The last batch was a few weeks ago at a party. The weird thing was that I didn't enjoy them (must be the Chantix) and they weren't what I expected them to be. It felt different somehow, not satisfying. For days afterwards I had a hacking cough. I'm sure there will still be times where I have the occasional cigarette, but it'll be the exception rather than the rule.

The oddest thing to come out of it is that I now eat breakast. Every day. The last time I ate breakfast regularly was when I was 16, which is half a lifetime ago. Whoa.

Cigarettes NOT smoked: 1053
Lifetime Saved: 8 days, 1 hour
Money Saved: $273.00

Earlier this week, I saw the documentary No Impact Man.





It was originally a blog, then a book, now a movie. Basically, Colin Beavan and his family (wife and daughter) attempt to live a year without making any net impact on the environment. The documentary charts that particular year in their life. While I think everyone should do their part to protect and save the environment, I could never imagine anyone taking such a radical leap of faith. They go without electricity, don't ride elevators or subways, don't buy TP (!!!!), become vegetarian and eat only local sustainable food.

I could get on board with the food thing but I would never give up TP. Um, necessity! And his wife felt the same way. Seriously, his skeptic wife was the star. Without her, the whole message would've been too preachy and liberal. I felt her pain when she couldn't buy the creamy Marc Jacobs bag.

But it's a nice way to live vicariously. And apparently, I like life experiments of this sort, as long as other people do it. Right now I'm reading A Year Without Made in China, where a family forgoes anything from China for a year. As I've mentioned before, Stefan Fatsis' non-fiction appeals to me (he played for a pro football team, lived biblically for a year, and also became a professional Scrabble player). And sometimes their experience becomes a catalyst for change. Reading Plenty and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle inspired me to read Michael Pollan's books and to focus on my own food choices. While I question their motives for having these experiences (do they truly want to? Or is it for publicity and to make a living as a writer? Would they have done it without the book/movie deal?) ultimately I find their life experiments insightful and fun to read. Because really, I would never suffer to do that so I'm glad they went through the pain for me!

1. vegan bento 8.20.09, 2. veggie bento 8.21.09, 3. bento 8.24.09 -- almost veggie and vegan, 4. totally local vegan bento 8.25.09, 5. bento 8.28.09, 6. vegetarian bento 8.31.09, 7. veggie bento 9.1.09, 8. bento 9.4.09, 9. bento 9.8.09, 10. veggie bento 9.9.09, 11. bento 9.10.09, 12. bento 9.11.09, 13. Hello Kitty bento 9.11.09, 14. bento 9.14.09, 15. bento 9.15.09, 16. bento 9.16.09

I was pretty happy about my Hello Kitty bento last week.

From the weekend:

♥ Almost fall weather. The kind where a cardi or hoodie helps.
♥ A bike basket. So far today I've used mine to cart tomatoes from the farmer's market, levain loaf and olive rolls from Rustica, wrapping paper from the Paper Source, and craft goods from Art Materials.
♥ Art Materials on Lyndale. ALWAYS go to an art store before going to Paper Source. Same stuff, costs less.
♥ Indian spiced mini donuts from the Chef Shack.
♥ Ripe tomatoes, being made into sauce (for sausage, peppers, and eggplant).
♥ Mussels in the fridge for an easy and quick dinner.
♥ Using my mom's batik tablecloth from Malaysia.
♥ A silver knit Armani dress and Dior-esque sunglasses. I donated stuff to the thrift store and used my donations to get the stuff AND I still walked out with $15 in cash.


From sometime this past month, stuff I'm still excited about:

♥ A new source for locally made pita bread. Cheaper, tastier, and closer to our house than our old source (who I am boycotting for a variety of reasons). Score!
♥ Homemade hummus! Making your own is so much tastier than buying it. (And I only made it because of the aforementioned boycott.)
♥ Redecorating Aaron's man room so it can also be my craft space.

It's been a while since I wrote about anything besides food. So, style. We're getting closer to fall and I've been thinking of new additions to my wardrobe. I'd love to find a great grey suit this fall. My ideal wardrobe would be full of high-quality timeless, cross-seasonal pieces I love that can be mixed and matched easily. Easier said than done. For me, the initial cash outlay to buy clothes is the biggest obstacle so I look for things that can be worn during multiple seasons or ways to stretch my dollar. Shorter summer dresses as fall/winter tunics by adding leggings or skinny jeans and a long sleeve shirt or cardigan. Scarves as belts, necklaces, bracelets. "Making" new necklaces by clasping together a few bracelets. Wrapping a bracelet a few times around your wrist to create a chunky bracelet. And there are little things you can do to bring new life into an older piece of clothing. It can be as easy as mending holes. Or Swapping out buttons, adding trim, and taking in/letting out hems.

I'm drawing inspiration from these two:



1. Untitled, 2. Circle Scarf dress


On the left, a re-vamped T; on the right, a strapless dress fashioned out of a circular scarf. It reminded me that I've been meaning to wear my cotton scarf as a halter top.

Other tips out there?

Last August, I embarked on the eat local challenge. August is almost over. This year, I forgot to officially sign up but did it anyway.

What a difference a year makes. Buying local food is second-nature now and it's no longer a challenge or hindrance, but a lifestyle choice. The availability of local food declines in winter so I used our CSA's overabundance of beans to blanch and freeze green and dragon beans. Cheap local sweet corn was blanched and cut for frozen corn. I made refrigerator pickles and seriously debated getting a canning set to preserve more food. Maybe next year for the canning, though I will never be a true locavore. Too strict for my tastes.

Aren't these dragon beans pretty? If only they kept their color after the cooking process.



Today's lunch was an unintentional all-local and vegan bento. Thanks again to The Heavy Table for the link.



Everything (mizuna, dragon and green beans, 2 types of squash, 2 colors of beets, yellow mini tomatoes, a green zebra tomato, a cucumber) except the wheat berries were from our CSA. And the wheat berries were grown, produced, and purchased locally.

Whole grains. What else should I be eating besides quinoa and wheat berries? We like things that can be made into a salad (like a pasta salad) or thrown into soups.

1. bento 8.5.09, 2. bento 8.6.09, 3. bento 8.7.09, 4. bento 8.10.09, 5. bento 8.11.09, 6. bento 8.12.09, 7. bento 8.14.09, 8. bento 8.18.09, 9. bento 8.19.09 -- veggie and ALMOST vegan

Domo arigato Mr. Roboto to:
♥ The Heavy Table for the new links to my flickr photos;
♥ Patrick for choosing me as a Vélocouture July favorite;
♥ And last but not least, Sal of Already Pretty for using one of my photos.

Another CSA veggie photo by yours truly is on the Heavy Table blog (it's the carrot one).