The smell of lilacs is like the nectar of the gods. The sad thing is, it only lasts about a week. So, what is one to do?
Well, in my case, I take a trip to Madison's Arboretum and stick my face in blooming lilacs for about an hour and a half. By the time I'm done, I've gotten my lilac fix (and I've sneezed my head off) and don't feel quite as bad when the blooms start to brown and drop.
So, let's start with the Arboretum (lovingly referred to as The Arb). The University of Wisconsin Arboretum is actually a research facility - acres and acres of land - gardens and prairies - that's used for environmental and ecological study. Their mission is to conserve and restore Arboretum lands, advance restoration ecology, and foster the land ethic." And, to the delight of thousands of people, it's open to the public for all manner of fun. The history of the Arb is fascinating and it's wonderful to know that all this gorgeous land (and water!) in the middle of our city will be preserved for the foreseeable future. My all-time favorite part of the Arb is the lilac grove. There are, quite literally, hundreds of varieties of lilacs. Large flowered, small flowered, double-flowered, trees, bushes, sweet smelling, spicy smelling, and even one that smells slightly of feet. Adjacent to the lilac grove is the cherry and apple grove so it's easy enough to wander from the heady scent of lilac over to the blooming trees for a bit of a palate cleanser. I love that the cherry and apple trees bloom concurrent with the lilacs. It makes the trip doubly fun. Here, in pictures, is a summary of my trip to the Arb last Friday. We had a stunningly gorgeous late afternoon promenade and stuck our faces in every single lilac bloom. Halfway through I started sneezing but, as the title suggests, allergies be damned - I was going to get my fill! Enjoy!
My friend didn't sneeze as much as me.
Blue skies and sun!
These are the tags on the trees - in case you want to identify the variety.
Look at the crazy curl on these flower petals!
Entering the apple & cherry tree grove.
Then we wandered into the maple grove.
This Norway Maple was one of the biggest trees I've ever seen.
I told you before about Cal Patch's online garment design course I'm taking...and how fabulous it is. Well, I have a finished product! A dress that I just adore. It is a simple tunic shape with long sleeves and a wide neckline.
Me mugging for the camera!
I could have chosen to make short sleeves, no sleeves, a collar...etc. That is the beauty of creating patterns from scratch. This freedom has rekindled my interest in garment sewing. Being able to make a pattern that is pretty darn close to my actual shape and then refining it even further on a muslin gives me a finished product that fits better than any commercial pattern ever has. It's more work on the front-end, but way less tailoring on the back-end.
My muslin taking shape.
What I love most about this class is that Cal starts with the basics of garment design. I feel as if I've learned the "best practice" way of drafting a pattern and fitting it properly. All without being snooty or too full of details that go over a beginner's head. I feel like I have a basis for doing more complicated designs.
The edging makes this dress.
The quilter in me wanted to use a bias tape edging around the collar as an accent. I made my own bias tape out of a coordinating (in my mind) fabric using this great tutorial. I did finish the edging by hand because I didn't want to see a stitching line on the front. But that was no big thing considering I recently hand stitched a queen-size quilt binding!
There's a great website called The Kitchn. I think it's a foodie off-shoot of another great site called Apartment Therapy - which I've visited often. I discovered the site because a friend of mine kept posting recipes from the site that REALLY appealed to me. I found myself "sharing" a lot of these recipes, just so I could find them again. (I couldn't just go to the site and start following it, like a normal person...)
The first time I ever had almond milk was, as a very young person, during a visit to Sicily to see my family. My cousin (actually my grandmother's first cousin), Nino, took me for a passagiare, which is the practice of taking a post-dinner walk around town. As is common, we walked to the town square to have a treat and he recommended the having the almond milk. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
Almonds figure heavily in Sicilian cuisine so I already had a familiarity and love for the taste but this was something else entirely - intense, smooth, slightly sweet. It was amazing. Unfortunately, commercial almond milk that's available here is too sweet and not at all like the drink I still have on those rare occasions that I get to visit Sicily.
So... off to try this, seemingly simple, recipe in my own kitch(e)n!
Step one: Soak raw, preferably organic almonds in water overnight or up to two days.
This step was easy - although I didn't read the instructions properly and I put them in a covered mason jar instead of an uncovered bowl. I'm not sure if this made a difference but the idea of leaving an uncovered bowl of soaking almonds on my counter seemed...um...disgusting and bug-attracting.
Although, after two days, this is pretty gross too
Step two: Drain and rinse the almonds
Yep. Done and done.
Step three: Put almonds and clean water in a blender
Again, easy enough. Although, don't fill the blender too full or it will spill over. I ended up doing my blending in two batches.
Step four: Pulse until almonds are chopped up, then blend for a full two minutes
So, seriously, two minutes is a LOT longer than you'd think. I actually set a timer and was surprised at how long this seemed. I'd highly recommend timing it instead of going on instinct or, I promise, you won't have blended it enough.
Step five: Strain the blended almonds
My first (failed) attempt
So...yeah. Here's where things got sticky (and messy). My first attempt was to use cheesecloth. That got me nowhere fast. The stuff just sort of sat on top of the cheesecloth not draining and, again, I wasn't about to leave it on the counter and just walk away for a couple of hours while it dripped - glacially slow. So, I strained in two steps:
I strained the milk through a fine-mesh sieve, pushing against the solids with the back of a wooden spoon, squeezing out as much milk as possible.
I filtered the milk a second time through coffee filters. The finer silt that was left was minimal but it made a difference in the "grittiness" of the milk. And I wanted the very smooth milk that I remember.
Part two of straining
The final product is smooth and very tasty. I chose not to sweeten it but, if I did, I would use a small amount of honey. The last tip I have is this: the actual recipe (link above) calls for 1 cup of almonds to 2 cups of water, with 2 cups of clean water to blend with in step four. I found my final product to be more watery than I would like and I think, in the future, I'll blend with 1/2 the water called for, in order to try to give the milk a little more "body".
Yummy on cereal!
Overall, it wasn't a bad first try although I would like to find a more efficient straining system.
Finally, what to do with the left over ground almonds? The recipe suggests using them "as is" as an additive in smoothies or yogurt (good addition of protein) or drying it to make almond meal which can be used in baking. I decided to try drying it out just to see what the process was like. The answer... long and arduous. LOL In a 200 degree oven, spread out on a cookie sheet, the meal took nearly four hours to dry to a point where it felt like almond meal. I had to go in occasionally and break up the lumps so they'd dry too. I now have a bag of almond meal in my freezer that I'll have to find a use for at some point. Maybe a coating for fish??
Oh! And the almond milk only lasts a few days to a week in the 'fridge so don't make a lot unless you're really thirsty. It will separate but that's not "going bad" - you just have to shake it. You'll know if it's bad because it will start to taste sour. A little honey could help extend the life because it wards off bacteria, for what that's worth.
Give it a try, if you like almond milk or think you might like almond milk. Then, on a warm summer evening, sit on the patio and sip a glass. You may feel like you're in Sicily for a few minutes. :)
What if I told you that you could knit something quick and completely adorable PLUS it would help tiny abandoned baby birds?
(not my actual knitting but LOOK HOW CUTE!)
My friend Melissa turned me on to a nest knitting pattern put out by our Dane County Humane Society's wildlife service. Knitted nests are the perfect cozy place place for abandoned babies to grow or even for nursing a sick bird.
(my actual knitting)
These nests are knitted with doubled or tripled cotton or acrylic yarn so they are really sturdy and washable. For my nests, I used some (leftover from a sweater) Rowan Cotton Jeans from my stash. I had two 50g balls and was able to make a nest from each (with very little left over) when knitting with the yarn doubled on size 6 dpns.
This pattern is so spot on. The bottom sits completely flat and the stockinette sides curl over just right to form a stiff nest with just enough give.
I went ahead and tied a nice knot on the bottom. This way it will be sure to hold up through a washing.
Folks who live here in Dane County can drop their finished nests off at the Humane Society. And for those folks outside of our area, I'm positive your own humane society, wildlife rescue, or Department of Natural Resources would have a use for these as well. A little research will most likely prove fruitful. I can vouch for this nest pattern though, it knit up beautifully.
Knit on friends,
Cassandra
PS - When I say this was a quick project, each nest took me about 3 hours. And that is with talking or TV watching going on at the same time.
You may have figured out from the title of this post that my swollen eye is the result of a bee sting. The dear girl got me right on the eyelid, just below my brow. Now, I'm not allergic to bee venom but, when you get stung where the skin is so thin and the capillaries are so close to the surface, everything swells up BIG. It was pretty impressive.
People always ask me about bee stings and I always answer honestly, "It's never the bee's fault."
Here's the thing... honeybees have jobs to do. They're busy and they don't have time to worry about the random person walking down the street or even coming near them when they're collecting pollen. A honeybee will NEVER, EVER sting a person for no reason. However, when you have a hive with tens of thousands of bees, and some of those bees are tasked with protecting the hive, there are certain rules that you must follow in order to avoid getting stung.
Needless to say, I managed to skip a few of those rules on Sunday.
Here are some things to know - basic rules for mitigating bee stings:
Don't wear dark clothes if you're going to interact with a honeybee or hive. Large black, brown, or navy blue masses approaching a bee or a hive looks like a bear or similar threat. This is why bee-keeping suits are generally white.
If you don't wear any other safety equipment when working with a hive, you should always wear your veil. Honeybees instinctively know that the eyes are the most vulnerable part of a mammal and they will dive bomb your head if they think they're under attack. (Can you guess what I WASN'T wearing when I got stung?)
Don't make sudden, fast movements around a bee. Don't swat at them or yank their hive boxes apart. Just move slowly and steadily. I've been able to successfully scoop bees up from my clothes, or a curtain, or the window and cup them in my hands to take them back outside. I almost always bring a few hitchhikers into the house with me after a hive check.
Listen to your hive. If the buzzing starts to ratchet up to a higher pitch, they're getting agitated and are more likely to sting you.
Don't walk barefoot in a heavily bee-populated area. This would seem like common sense, wouldn't it? I've stepped on more than one honey bee in my time.
Now, this last one is up for debate. Popular wisdom says not to wear sweet smelling perfumes, lotions, etc. because you could attract bees. However, actual scientific research has proven this to be untrue. Regardless of which is right, I don't risk it. I try to avoid poking around the hive if I have any artificial scent on my body or clothes. Of course, there's nothing I can do about my hair - my shampoo and conditioner have scent - so maybe that's why my bees like to sit on my head. LOL
So, when I say it's not the bee's fault, what I mean is that I haven't done my part to appropriately integrate into their world. On Sunday, the bee who stung me was a guard bee - tasked with protecting the queen. She shot out of the hive the minute I started to remove the frame that had the queen on it and she "bee-lined" straight for my face. In my hubris, I wasn't wearing my veil because the bees were so docile and sweet that morning. In other words, it wasn't the bee's fault.
One last tip about honeybee stings. When a honeybee stings, it releases a pheromone that the other bee read as "danger" and it makes them more prone to attack. You'll hear the buzzing get more high-pitched. That's the time to walk away slowly.
Remember this, if you get stung by a honeybee, the bee that stung you dies. It's a "one and done" deal for them so please try to respect the fact that she thought she was doing her job and she sacrificed herself for the hive. :)
My eye is better and I'm none the worse for the sting but, needless to say, I'll be much more careful and remember my own rules in the future.
I've got a real problem with sizing lately. Between the debacle with the tunic for me and the sweater I'm going to tell you about today, you might start passing some judgement on my skills.
I recently finished one (of the two) holiday sweaters for my boys. Wait...what? The holidays were almost half a year ago. Yeah, well those cables took me longer than expected. Plus, I've been distracted by a lot of drawing in the past year. I'm sort of on a drawing bender (please refer to title of blog for explanation). I'm shooting for new sweaters for next holiday season :)
It looks like nothing is wrong from this angle. Just wait.
The pattern I chose to knit is Mariah by Janet Szabo.
Ms. Szabo has a lot of designs in her collection (one more beautiful
than the next btw) and so I'm assuming whatever went wrong was me, not
her.
Anyway, one is finished, and it's not perfect. I realize now that I chose the wrong size for my boy (or maybe my gauge was off, but I actually don't think so). Even though I took the proper measurements, the whole thing is way too wide. If I knitted it longer in the arms and torso it probably would fit me!
Woo, this is one wide sweater.
The actual knitting part of the project was great. I loved the cables and as always, it was a thrill every time I saw them emerge from nothing. Knitting cables is magic. If you've never done it, you should. They are actually not as hard as you'd think, but you do need to keep your wits about you.
There were two things I did to make the cable knitting process as foolproof as possible on this project. First, I sliced apart the pdf cable instructions and created my own all-inclusive cable chart to work from. I couldn't handle remembering if I was supposed to be looking at chart A, B, C, etc. Also, I always kept a lifeline in my knitting...because unknitting cable stitches is one of Dante's circles of hell. (For those who don't know what a lifeline is, see this video. I actually use dental floss for this because it's easy to slip in and out without disturbing the texture of the yarn.)
Anyone with a pet bird will know who frayed these pages.
In my defense on the neckline, I did extend the saddles a couple inches on each side to try to minimize the neck a little, and it still turned out rather huge. This sweater is borderline Flashdance.
Want to know the craziest thing of all? My little one loves it. He wears it all the time, even to school. So, that is sort of a win because I've knit sweaters that fit him beautifully that he never requests to wear. I think part of his attraction might be the color. It is golden-yellow dreamy! The yarn is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Tumeric. I never got tired of that color when I was knitting. Never!
Now, here's my dilemma. Do I charge ahead and make sweater #2 from the same pattern? Or do I try something else? I better make my mind up soon. The holidays are only 7 months away...
Kraft Foods has been trying to rebrand Miracle Whip as an "edgy" condiment. A condiment appropriate for the outsider. A condiment for the young radical.
In simplest terms, Miracle Whip is mayonnaise mixed with salad dressing making a sweeter, bolder-tasting spread that can be used in place of its more refined cousin. Developed in 1933, the new "salad dressing spread" premiered at the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago. According to the Kraft Foods archivist (seriously), the spread was a "instant hit". All that sugar appeals to an American palate.
By comparison, mayonnaise was invented in France in 1756 by Duke de Richelieu's chef. In 1905, the first ready-made mayonnaise was sold at Richard Hellman's New York deli and, in 1912, mayonnaise was mass marketed and called "Hellman's Blue Ribbon Mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise has never felt the need to rebrand itself. Maybe that's the prerogative of a condiment that is a staple of French cooking and has been around for over 250 years.
Regardless of which condiment is "better", this post is about advertising and the, frankly, painful-to-experience campaign to make-over Miracle Whip (now referred to as MW).
The mass-produced food industry is no stranger to overwrought ad campaigns that try to convince a gullible public (usually children or young adults) that snack chips or breakfast cereal or American Cheese Food is so radical and awesome that the buyer will gain some borrowed equity of coolness by the sheer act of having it in their cupboard.
There is something so forced and "wrong" about these campaigns. Certainly, those of us who work in marketing, advertising, or business can recognize what these companies are trying to do and (hopefully) don't fall prey to the message. But, what about people who DO actually fall for it? If Kraft Foods screams it loud enough and long enough, how many people will start to believe that they'll be as provocative and cutting-edge as the MW ads imply?
There is no doubt that we all choose our brands based on the perception we wish to project. However, is it reasonable to expect people to think of Miracle Whip as a cool, radical product instead of a standard ingredient in most 1950's salad recipes?
To their credit, Kraft's 2012-2013 campaign focused on the polarizing nature of mayo versus MW. It was a very risky move. It's possible that a consumer could identify with the mayo-loving celebrity instead of the MW-loving celebrity, thus swaying them over to mayo. Although, the sheer nature of the campaign was to admit that people were already deeply entrenched in one camp or the other. If nothing else, it was a fun campaign that recognized and celebrated the "battle of the condiments" even if it didn't seem to advance the product in any significant way.
Kraft may have been better served by more directly acknowledging its roots and updating the narrative. Happy families creating new food memories with the addition of Miracle Whip would have been a lovely nod to the past while re-introducing the product to a younger audience. But, that's not the direction they chose. Perhaps because Hellman's Mayonnaise was celebrating their 100th anniversary and advertising nostalgia and recipes, MW felt that they needed to position themselves as diametrically opposed.
Either way, it's tough to make condiments interesting. Perhaps the best (and possibly the most successful) ad campaign for a condiment was Grey Poupon's "One of Life's Finer Pleasure's". These informative and slightly humorous ads transformed the Dijon mustard into a common household staple.
Grey Poupon was acquired Kraft Foods in 1999. In 2013, Kraft "updated" the original, groundbreaking ad with this version:
The 2013 ad was nominated for an Emmy award for best commercial. Kraft seems to be nothing if not predictable in their advertising approach. Funny, sure. But how does it advance the brand?
So, what brought on this little treatise? A text message that read: "Do you find Miracle Whip's insistence that it's an "edgy condiment" as bizarre as I do?" which lead to a five minute discussion of how annoying the campaign is - at least to Cassandra and me.
What camp are you in? Are you an outsider? Radical and ready to challenge the world with your bold decision to use Miracle Whip? Or are you old-skool and enjoy the refined ("boring" according to Kraft) taste of mayonnaise? As I write this, I'm eating french fries with mayo to dip. I guess you know which camp I'm in. ;) Don't fall prey to crazy ad campaigns people! Take it from a marketing and advertising professional. Find brands you can believe in and choose your products wisely. My words of wisdom for today. - Alex
