preraphaelitepunk.com

Still immersed in getting up to speed with Ravelry, so no time or energy for a proper post. However, I did want to note that they have some great groups, including several for veg*ns, Browncoats*, Whovians, geeks of every sort, goths, and even engineers! This is so freakin’ cool!

If only my digital camera hadn’t died recently, I could take photos of my projects and my yarn stash and include them in my Ravelry notebook. My film camera is fine, and I used it in Vegas (shots to be posted once they’re developed), but I don’t trust the film camera for even moderate closeups. Waah.

The coolest project I’ve seen yet: a crocheted Dalek. Yes, a crocheted Dalek.

So nice to know I’m not alone. . . . :-)

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* Note for those of a non-geek persuasion: that means fans of the series “Firefly.” Whovians are fans of “Doctor Who,” but even the most cave-dwelling non-geek should have known that without being told. (Go back.)

Back from my family’s almost-traditional-now Thanksgiving in Vegas; more about that tomorrow (last day of vacation), if I can. The really exciting news is that I got my Ravelry invitation while I was away! User name is snarkyvegan, because I dislike my real name and “preraphaelitepunk” was too many characters and “moria” was already taken.

Even aside from the online community aspect, you’ve just got to love a site that includes among its registration profile fields “favorite curse word.” (And there’s a Vegas-related story about that, as well, which I may share if I get around to it.)

• Buns Under the Gun :: Save These Buns! (via Food Fight)
  Er, bunnies, that is. Help a sanctuary build a home for 35 rabbits “slated to be killed and sold for meat….However, the woman who has [them] has agreed to give them up and shut down her bloody trade for good - IF we can find a home….”
  (tags: animalwelfare animalrights vegan rescue donation)

• CQ Politics | FBI Hoped to Follow Falafel Trail to Iranian Terrorists Here (via Taste Better)
  “The idea was that a spike in…falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents.” Well, that explains all the black helicopters that have been trailing me. :-)
  (tags: news usa surveillance odd wtf felafel)

• BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Doctor faces Sontarans once again
  …also the Ood, and Tim McInnery (probably best known in the US for playing Percy and Capt. Darling on “Blackadder”), too! :-D
  (tags: scifi tv uk doctorwho)

• HSUS: Take Action: US: Demand Better Treatment of Breeding Dogs and Puppies
  Please consider asking the USDA to increase oversight: professional unlicensed breeders (puppy mills) often care disregard health and happiness of their breeding dogs or puppies, and contribute to pet overpopulation and suffering (neglect, ill health).
  (tags: hsus animalwelfare companionanimals pets dog activism)

Ha! I just spent something like $200 at Near Sea Naturals — something that, given Sid’s outrageous medical bills, I probably shouldn’t have done, but I got a little carried away. It may take a while, but I’ll eventually get a package stuffed with alloo and hemp (the latter in black, greeny-blue, and cinnamon) yarns for scrubbies, vegan (i.e., silk-free) recycled sari yarn for making a bag, and banana “silk” in black, spice, and patchouli for, um, hoarding and admiring and patting while I decide how I’m going to use it.

Take that, snooty local yarn store! If you piss me off, I shall go elsewhere and spend way more money than I’d originally intended with them, instead.

Rant the First: Why do potters insist on making mugs at least one of the following: (a) too small, (b) ugly colors, and (c) concave instead of convex so they would actually fit your hands as you grasp the cup? If I could afford the classes and studio time, I’d learn to make my own, but there’s no way that’ll be happening for a while.

Rant the Second: I will admit to being a temperamental customer, wanting neither in-your-face interruptions every thirty seconds nor to be completely ignored when I’m standing there trying to make eye contact so I can get a question answered. However, an extremely good way to piss me off thoroughly and make me swear, using colorful and inventive phrases, never to darken your door again is, if I should happen to be shopping with companions, for every single salesperson to select the same member of the shopping/browsing party to talk to, completely blowing off everyone else. It doesn’t make much difference whether I’m the blow-off-ee or the store’s golden child, actually, because the principle just annoys me: there are stores I still refuse to patronize because, while I was on shopping expeditions with my mom years ago, the staff would focus on me and pretend that my mother was invisible. Perhaps it has something to do with what a store’s target demographic is, or something, but it’s damned maddening and has resulted in a lot of lost sales over the years. (Cutting off my own nose? Perhaps, but it’s rarely a store that carries something unique and totally irreplaceable.)

All that is a slightly long way of saying that the customer service at the yarn store a block down from my flat rather sucks. Particularly for a small business — I’d expect that sort of crap from a mega-chain store, but not from a local independent. I’ve been in there twice now, and been somewhat annoyed each time, but being blown off repeatedly and ignored when I tried to make eye contact with staff to ask where they’ve moved the freakin’ hemp yarn or vegan recycled sari yarn was it: I’m fed to the teeth. I’ll order it off the Internet instead. :-P

In case the subject line is confusing (not that confusing subject lines have ever stopped me in the past), tonight’s two topics are (1) how happy I am to have my copy of Veganomicon, and (2) a bit more about the knitting I mentioned in my previous post, before Errol’s battery conked out on me. (And in case anyone’s been up at night wondering how Sid the Beetle is, he’s fine. Total cost for repairs and general maintenance that was needed anyway — oil change, tire rotation, and whatnot — was over $850, but at least he’s happier now and no angry dashboard eyes are glaring at me any more.)

Veganomicon
We all owe a tremendous debt to Isa and Terry for their previous cookbooks; even those I haven’t bludgeoned into borrowing my lending copy (i.e., the one without the spills and general cooking smudges) of Vegan with a Vengeance have, if they know me in real life, probably had items from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World shoved at them — and they’ve generally been happier for the experience. The latest installment is, as expected, equally great. I’ve only had a chance to try three of the recipes since getting my copy Thursday evening* — the chocolate brownie waffles, cornmeal-masala roasted brussels sprouts, and parsnip chips — but all have been, thus far, excellent. (Friday night, I also tried the salt-and-pepper tofu that is online-only; next time I’ll add more pepper, because I’ve gotten weird about black pepper in my old age, but it was rather excellent. I also added a thinly sliced zucchini and some shiitake mushrooms to the garlic and ginger, before adding the tofu back into the pan. Yum. [Note: The PPK forums are temporarily down, but they should be repaired soon. Try the link later, or, if you need the recipe immediately, e-mail me; I've clipped it to my Google notebooks.])

It’s my habit to flag spreads that have at least one recipe I want to try; with Veganomicon, this has turned out to be a little counterproductive, because nearly every spread has a flag:

It probably would’ve been more efficient just to flag the spreads with recipes I wasn’t interested in trying. o.O (Photo taken with Errol’s built-in camera and flipped, because I still can’t find the freakin’ card reader for my digital camera. Maybe I can figure out how to fix the built-in card slot that Nyman the PC has, because this is getting way beyond ridiculous.)

Anyway, the only problems I’ve noticed so far have been comparatively minor: like the previous two cookbooks, most of the recipes make 4 to 6 (or more!) servings, which is a hella lot for one person. There are a few typographical wonkinesses and probable instances where the spellchecker was sadistic and evil (e.g., p. 194, tip, “Simple tear up your old bread,” and several others that I noted but can’t seem to find now), but those are minor and don’t detract from the book’s usefulness. Typos happen, and usually you can tell that a slightly wonky sentence came about because the text was being tweaked and revised, but the revisions were implemented a little haphazardly. (Again, if anyone cares, I’ll start annotating my copy as I go through, to be able to give citations.)

Slightly more puzzling was the sprouts recipe calling for 6 T of peanut oil in the crumb topping, because that gave me a gruellike substance instead of the streusel-like crumbiness I’d been expecting, but it still turned out well. Yum. No, really: v. much yum. (Never thought I’d like brussels sprouts, but roasting them makes them seriously good, and not earwaxy at all. Honestly. I have been known to eat an entire pound of the roasted mini-cabbage things for dinner.)

At any rate, I’m all happy with my new cookbook, and have a shitload of new recipes to try. Most of them are savory and dinner-ish, so unless people want to come over in small, studio-apartment-friendly batches for dinner parties, with my lack of a dining table and my dog who wails mournfully when you eat garlicky food in front of him, probably there will be little sharing. Go get your own copy.

Veganknitacon
I’ve been experimenting of late with knitting; I’m still on my first project (well, my first since my unfinished Doctor Who scarf I did in high school), but I do indeed plan to finish it and move on to new projects. Currently, the “bathroom scarf” — so named because I unfortunately chose a cotton yarn in chocolate and latte, and then only later realized that that was the color scheme of our bathroom at work — is several feet long, enough to reach almost two spans; if I hold one end in each hand and stretch my arms out, I can almost straighten both wrists. However long that is, that’s how long the scarf is; I’m really bad at judging distance by eye. It’s ribbed (k2 p2, 32 st wide, if anyone cares) and striped, and if I’d chosen a thicker yarn I’d probably be finished with it by now, but in my concern over getting a fairly tight yarn that wouldn’t shred and lead to unintentional gains, I wound up selecting one that’s quite thin indeed: about the thickness of Fenric the iPod’s synch cord. Oops.

Anyway, I find that I rather like knitting, though I did get a few odd looks and a comment or two at the VW place yesterday. It’s lightweight, portable, and — unlike reading, at least for me — can be done while listening to music or watching television. I can’t quite knit while carrying on a conversation, at least not without knitting when I should’ve purled, or the other way round, but I’m getting there. Also, ten dollars’ worth of yarn will keep me busy longer than a ten-dollar book.

Not that I’m about to give up reading, of course. (Perish the thought!) It’s just nice to have another alternative to reading, when I’m short on cash for new books, or can’t find any new books that seem interesting, or have inexplicably forgotten my book (or finished the one I brought, and don’t have another with me) and need something to do. (Did I mention it’s also nice to listen to music at some time other than when I’m driving or cooking dinner?)

The down side, of course, is that Nigel is irrevocably convinced that all soft, squishy objects are necessarily his toys, so if I want to knit at home I have to wait until he’s conked out for the night, and then furtively pull the yarn and needles out without waking him. Otherwise, the hope and excitement on his face as he tries to steal the balls of yarn are just heart-rending. Poor little widgey. I tried giving him his very own skein of cheap acrylic to play with, but that works only as long as I’m actively interested in his yarn, as well; the instant my attention diverts to my own yarn, he tries to snatch that, too. Probably a metaphor for something. . . .

Another down side is that, if you’re not using acrylic, non-animal-fiber yarns can get reasonably pricey. I found some gorgeous linen yarn in a deep, rich purple shade, and would love to make a long, drapey, bell-sleeved lacy pullover with it, but the stuff is $20 a skein. At six or seven skeins for a sweater, that’s kind of beyond my budget at the moment (especially after Sid’s medical bills yesterday).

Still, I do think I like it and will keep up with it. There are plans for knitting scrubby washcloths of hemp or alloo yarn, akin to the expensive ones you see in natural food stores; possibly also soap cozies (also used for scrubbing). Fingerless gloves and arm warmers are in the wings, waiting for the right yarn to come along. I’ve also promised Sarah a scarf in black and pink — hopefully using the alien-face illusion knitting approach pictured here at far left, though I could try to adapt the pattern if she’d prefer something other than an alien wrapped around her neck. I’ve located a couple of vegan knitting blogs (note to self: must update blogroll; it’s sadly out of date), and am on the waiting list for Ravelry, about which I’ve heard good things — and only 10,391 people are currently ahead of me on the invitation list! Woo, and indeed, hoo.

For any future knitting-related blogs, I shall try to put any geeky details (about yarn, pattern adaptations, whatnot) behind a cut or on a linked page, so only those who choose to view it actually have to see it. I figure that’s the least I can do: details about food and modifying recipes are potentially interesting to everyone, or at least everyone who eats, but the (I can’t believe I’m typing this) knitty-gritty (sorry) details of yarn and its applications might make some few people glaze over and pass out, thus leading to unfortunate QWERTY-related accidents as they face-plant into their keyboards. I just can’t take that risk.

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*Note that it is a very bad idea to bring a cookbook for reading while you’re trapped in a car dealership while your vehicle is being serviced, particularly if you haven’t had breakfast, will be there for several hours, and cannot eat anything out of the machines because even the freakin’ Bugles have dried milk in them. The drooling and involuntary whimpering sounds also tend to upset the other customers. (Go back.)

Sid the Beetle is up on the rack today, because his check engine light and airbag light are on. Apparently, the latter is caused by the sensor for the passenger-side seat belt being off-kilter, so Sid doesn’t know whether he should alter any airbag deployment to accommodate a passenger; the former is being caused by a bad glow plug, which apparently is the diesel equivalent of a spark plug. (I learn something new every day.) Eh. Could’ve been worse, I suppose.

(Please forgive any typos I might make: I’m using Errol the Macbook on the VW dealer’s free wi-fi, and I’m still not as accurate as I’d like with the flat little keys.)

Apologies for the very intermittent postings of a non-link nature lately. While our headquarters are being refurbished, we’ve moved to a temporary building on the other side of I-85, which has added 2 miles (about 3.2 km) to my commute and at least doubled the amount of time I spend commuting. Leaving at 5:00 meant it often took an hour to drive 7 miles (11.2 km) to my home; leaving at 6:00 means that I can, very occasionally, make it in 35 minutes (45 minutes is more common, though). Thus, I’ve been working a weird compressed schedule that means I get home late almost every day, but have every other Friday off; this is both good and bad. I like having the extra weekdays off — if nothing else, VW service is unavailable on weekends except for general maintenance, so I would’ve had to take a vacation day to get Sid seen to — and having one less commute every two weeks means less sitting in traffic, and thus (I hope) less pollution.

On the other hand, it’s annoying getting home at nearly 7:00 most days. I’m generally too wiped out to do much cooking, and though I will faff about some on the computer, I’m usually too annoyed with the world to blog much. It’s a little frustrating, and I miss being able to spend 45 minutes or an hour messing about and preparing dinner — on my most ambitious days, I’ve generally been preparing VeganYumYum’s tomato cream sauce* and dumping it on kamut fusilli; most days, I’ve just slapped together a tofurky sandwich, peeled an orange, and considered myself somewhat fed.

My diet’s gone downhill since moving to the new building, too. We’re in kind of a sucky location, with all the traffic of Buckhead but none of the interesting places within walking distance; there is a natural food store about 5 minutes’ walk away, but they don’t carry produce (!!!) and only had one type of hummus (sun-dried tomato), which quite frankly was way too sweet for my taste. There are no good grocery stores around, so if I don’t bring my own lunch, I’m SOL. Unfortunately, given the time I get home most evenings, I hardly ever get around to prepping a lunch to bring, so I’ve been relying heavily on soy yogurt, oranges (nicely portable), pita chips, and meal bars. I really must do better.

The lack of places to go over lunch at least has helped make up for the slightly longer commute, though, because most days I just go sit in my car and listen to music (lately, mostly The Puppini Sisters) and, oddly enough, knit. Autumn generally afflicts me with a craving for wearing sweaters and fluffy scarves and ridiculous bobble hats, possibly as a reaction against the intense heat of our summers, but it’s hard to find exactly what I want, pre-made, in non-animal fibers. Thus, I’ll DIY.

(Er, there was going to be more, but Errol’s battery is redlining and I forgot to bring his power cord. Must go now before I lose all.)

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* I generally mod VYY’s recipe by upping the Tofutti cream cheese a bit, omitting the EB, using a full teaspoon each of oregano, thyme, and rosemary, and adding sploshes of olive oil and Braggs. The original is good, but I wanted more of an herbal kick. Oh, and I also generally use canned whole tomatoes, undrained, because it’s impossible to find really proper tomatoes if you don’t grow them yourself — rather a difficult trick in a studio flat without a balcony.(Go back.)