Domestic Whatever: Crochet and Uncrafty Beer

I missed my usual Thursday date for these posts because I was in Toronto, seeing friends, but Friday also ends in "day", so this is close enough for me. I'm still recovering from the holiday knitting, so the needles haven't been touched in a few days except in the most minimal way. You know, stockinette socks with self-patterning yarn. Not even finished, not worth a photograph. So here's what I've been doing with hooks instead:

Short and Sweet from Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker. A little, lacy cotton coverup, the perfect thing for Ontario's current windchill factor. Well, no, but I had this Mission Falls 1824 Cotton hanging around, giving me a guilt complex. It was a discontinued colour, so it was on sale, and since it was a yarn I had always wanted to use I bought 10 balls of the stuff- though the colour confounds. It's not quite terracotta, it's not really desert brown, it's the colour... of impulse purchasing. Or, according to the shade card of the now entirely discontinued yarn, "musk." It's been in my house for years, and after thinking about turning it into a drab utilitarian bag, I settled on this pattern. Not that my wardrobe largely features "musk" in any form, but I think it could find its place over a summer dress.

And this week's beer: Hop City's Barking Squirrel Lager. I found this in the LCBO and wondered what Hop City's deal was- I didn't remember seeing it on the Ontario Craft Brewers site. But it met my current beer requirements ("Anything but another IPA"), so I grabbed a can. Now, with the benefit of Google, I've learned that it's Moosehead's attempt on the craft beer market. The Creemore to its Molson, if you will, or the McCafé to its McDonalds. But I'll give even not-so-crafty beers the benefit of the doubt. Conclusions: not as hoppy as the brewery name and label promise, nor as flavourful overall as one could hope, but a respectable lager. Be wary of all that though, as I'm dealing with some leftover congestion.

When it comes to fake craft beers, I like to see major breweries offering better brews to the masses. But I would rather have them do so openly, rather than taking taps away from real craft breweries,or outshining them with larger marketing budgets. Still, I think good taste will often win out over good label design, which may be why, even two years after its launch, Hop City still has less space on LCBO shelves than Mill Street products.

What I Did On My Christmas Vacation

I spent my Christmas full of goodwill towards men and snot. I got a cold over the holiday, and provided a handy memento mori to my family, as a kind of short Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. "Ye too shall wither and die," I implied, while sitting in my room going through tissue after tissue. And also reading through that olde Yuletide favourite, Joan Didion's Political Fictions. Maybe a series of icy essays about the American political climate from 1988-2000 will never replace A Christmas Carol, in spite of their flawless diction. But with Newt Gingrich threatening to bring the worst parts of 1994 into the still-innocent 2012, it was timely. My cold is nearly gone, but a strange nostalgia for Bill Clinton's presidency remains.

Happy Holidays!

Pick your seasonally appropriate greeting.
Smitty and I wish you all that and more!

Domestic Thursday: Resting Mittens, Flying Monkeys

Oh God, Christmas knitting. I'm ready to convert so I never go through this madness again. Anyway, here are two sets of mittens- both versions of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Mitered Mittens from The Knitter's Almanac, and both made with Ontario yarns- that were mailed out to BC a few days ago. The red ones are, once again, Briggs and Little Tuffy in Red Mix, and have longer cuffs. The whites ones are made from Upper Canada Village yarn. It's spun on-site using fleece from the village's own flock, so think of it as the fibre equivalent of last week's beer.

The pattern has you knit the hand, then make the thumb by snipping one stitch and unravelling the others. Eeep. I did it this way, reluctantly. Apologies to my friends if the thumb spontaneously explodes once they put them on. Between this and her love of garter stitch (the devil's stitch!!), I'm not sure I trust Elizabeth Zimmerman.

Pattern: Lace Cable Socks by Véronik Avery, Knitting 24/7
Yarn: Lion Brand Sock Ease in Circus Peanut
Since we're on the topic of garter stitch, these lace cable socks, with their garter stitch heels and toes, are now completed. And not a moment too soon, as most of my knitted socks are hanging by threads. Literally. Well, they're not hanging, but patches have been worn down to the polyester. Now my feet can be chipper and warm in these orange socks.

Something that may not make me warm, but will definitely make me chipper is The Flying Monkeys Smashbomb Atomic IPA. Made with Citra hops and varied malts, including Crystal malts, this is a pale ale that drinks like a bubblier version of last week's Black Creek IPA. The taste reminds me a lot of Florida-fresh grapefruit, and the assorted malts keeps things chugging along smoothly enough that the 6% AVA goes by unnoticed. Before you drink too many, check out the brewing information on The Flying Monkeys site. You'll learn just how often and how much hops were added, that is, at all possible times and in great volume. And now we finally have an answer to the question of which beer would go best while watching The Wizard of Oz.

The Iron Lady Trailer: Queen Elizabeth with Hairspray

The trailer for Dark Knight Rises came out, but you already knew that, didn't you? In all the hubbub, the trailer for The Iron Lady was also released, and I'll be interested to see how well it reflects the finished product. Growing up as the daughter of a man of progressive tastes, I was raised on a steady diet of gritty British social dramas of the 1980s. Acceptable video rentals were children's cartoons... or anything directed by Mike Leigh, Ken Loach and Stephen Frears, so Margaret Thatcher was my childhood boogeywoman. As Voldemort was to other kids, Thatcher- and to a lesser degree, Ronald Reagan- was to me. So I was surprised to see a trailer that made the Iron Lady out to be the heiress to the Virgin Queen. It makes me think of the spot for Elizabeth: The Golden Age more than My Beautiful Laundrette. If a filmmaker has a different ideological bent than mine, I suppose he can find more heroism in Thatcher's story than I can, since I think of her as a viper in pearls. But any movie, no matter how conservative, that casts the Falklands War as some sort of grand, just war I find both morally and factually questionable. Not that I was any great fan of the Argentinean junta, but as Jorge Louis Borges said, the Falklands War was like "a fight between two bald men over a comb." Well, it seems that the director, Phyllida Lloyd, has chosen to add driving strings to that comb fight.

Book Pile for December 18

Yep, it's that time of month again. From top to bottom:
1. Pop Business Book du Jour: Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, Michael Lewis
2. Can Con NF: Ethical Water, Robert William Sandford and Merrell-Ann S. Phare
3. Wannabe American Sophisticate Tome: Political Fictions, Joan Didion
4. Future Novel: After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, Aldous Huxley
5. Future Future Novel: Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

Domestic Thursday: Felting and Black Creek Historic Brewery

Pattern: Winter Slippers by Véronik Avery in Knitting 24/7
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Tangerine Heather
This one's a Christmas present, so I won't say who it's for. But I'll just hint that it's for somebody who always deserves to have warm feet. And who I hope only has feet about an inch longer than mine, because she wasn't here to try them on.

Pattern: Canadian Fusion Mitts by Greenelf Designs
Yarn: Briggs and Little Heritage
These appeared on the blog months ago, or at least a quarter of the completed set did. I actually finished the knitting for these guys while still in Victoria, but loved my roommates too much to inflict the smell of wet wool on them for a few hours. So it took me this long and a move to get around to felting them. I came close to overfelting them, but I'm sure they'll relax with a few wears. And, my God, they are warm.


I like to think of this week as A Very Special Episode of Domestic Thursday, because this week I'll be talking about... divorce. No. Actually, I'll be chatting about one of Ontario's most interesting breweries and the intrigue of cask-conditioned ale. Carry on. Black Creek Historic Brewery brews them like your (great-great-great-)grandfather used to, since it's part of a historic village dedicated to life in 1860s Ontario. The brewmaster, Ed Koren, even has to dress the part, but that doesn't stop him from being incredibly friendly. You can pay the village admission price and buy growlers filled with the village-made brew, or spend a few bucks more for a full tour with tastings. Bottled Black Creek Historic Brewery ales are also available at the LCBO, but they're brewed in a more conventional manner by two other breweries, including Flying Monkeys, to accommodate the higher volume.

If you're used to drinking lager right out of the fridge, cask-conditioned ales will BLOW YOUR MIND. They're unpasteurized, unfiltered, and undergo a secondary fermentation in the cask from which your growler is then filled. Some differences: you have to drink it fairly warm so you taste the flavour and not the cold, it's cloudy, and it's barely bubbly. I brought home the India Pale Ale, since its flavour was a complex citrus instead of a hoppy roundhouse kick to the jaw. Being too fond of modern dental care and not having my XX chromosomes stop me from voting, I've never wanted to live in an earlier century. But cask-conditioned ale is one thing worth dragging into the present.

A Tribute to Alpha Flight: Fighting for Peace, Order and Good Government

Alpha Flight. Northstar is on the far left, Guardian is second from the right and Puck is the little guy at the bottom.

Whatever may happen under the new Canada-US border agreement, we will still be sovereign when it comes to superheroes. You don't know about Alpha Flight? Think Captain Canuck is our only hero? Please, Alpha Flight is like ten Captain Canucks. Or at least one Captain Canuck (Guardian, aka James MacDonald Hudson) and nine other assorted Canadian stereotypes. Created by John Byrne in 1979, Alpha Flight first tried to retrieve Wolverine for the Canadian government, as they probably had to cut 30 arts grants to afford that adamantium skeleton and wanted it back. Eventually they branched out of cameos in X-Men and into their own series, which waxes and wanes in and out of existence as the circulation figures permit. They're in an off period at the moment. Alpha Flight's latest series was canceled in October. But it's a team worth looking into, to see which Canadian traits are deemed essential for consumption by our neighbours down south. These traits include, apparently, short, hairy bouncers from Saskatchewan named Eugene (Codename: Puck). I'm not sure what to make of that. But I will take pride in Northstar, aka Jean-Paul Beaubier, who was one of the first openly gay characters in mainstream comics. Although a separatist could argue that he was Québécois, and not Canadian, I will maintain that Alpha Flight is one of those rare places where the two solitudes are reconciled.

Patrick Chan And Figure Skating Drama

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot

There's a lot of drama in sports, but there's no sports drama like figure skating drama. For one thing, there are sequins. Canada had some recently, when a months-old interview with Patrick Chan surfaced on Reuters. Chan said he felt unappreciated in Canada, and compared it to the support he likely would have experienced competing for China. The Canadian public... proved him correct by largely reacting with indifference. But I could have predicted the response of people who did care, like this Globe and Mail letter writer:

"His reflections on how much more support he might have if he were skating for China seem insensitive to the fact his parents were fortunate to leave an oppressive Communist regime and find a welcome home here."

This may be all the defense I can muster for someone who gets to wear a "billowy red shirt and black slacks accented with slashes of red" as part of his day job, but the insensitive thing might be comparing his thoughts on which nation claps louder for a triple lutz to ignoring an oppressive regime. The real question may be how much any country should care, or pay for, athletics programs that seem to function as the bragging chips of nationalism. But that’s a question that could fairly be asked of any amateur athlete, and not just one whose parents happen to be Chinese. Overall, this all takes away from the real news in skating: Half of the French ice dance couple was dressed like an honest-to-Set mummy for their free skate. My word.

Domestic Thursday: Socks, Tea Cozy, Winter Beard

Pattern: Acorn Tea Cozy by Véronik Avery, in Knitting 24/7
Yarn: Briggs and Little Tuffy in Red Mix
I promised my friend Joel a tea cozy. About 20 months ago. First I knit one, then I knit another. I'm still not proud of the second one, which I should have really knit with the yarn held doubled to produce a stiffer fabric. But if I balance the top just so, it will still stand up and look acorn-like instead of flopping over. I mailed this to Belgium anyway, where Joel has traitorously decamped post-graduation. Hopefully he won't take this as some kind of veiled commentary on his virility, of which I am happily ignorant.

Another pattern from Knitting 24/7 that at least seems destined for greater success,are these Lace Cable Socks. I'm a little wary of the garter stitch toe and heel, but I'll give Ms. Avery the benefit of the doubt. For now. *Gives squinty eye in the general direction of Montréal.*

And here's this week's beer, the Winter Beard Double Chocolate and Cranberry Stout from Muskoka Brewery. This is the beer I was hinting about last week, the rare chocolate stout brewed with actual dark chocolate and real cranberries, along with the expected chocolate malt. The result is heavy on the caramel flavours, with a cocoa kick. I smelled the cranberry but didn't really taste it. The ABV is a decent 8%, which explains why my Mom went from disliking to loving the beer after one glass. Even if you don't want a heavy, sweet stout this Christmas, it's worth buying to hang the adorable bottle on your tree as a kind of awkwardly oversized, perhaps semi-depressing, decoration.

Book Covers I Have Loved: Eat Me, Kenny Shopsin

This is one of my favourite cookbooks, and it has one of my favourite covers. But Eat Me is not the book I cook from the most. Of its 288 pages, I have made only three recipes. But it changed my life. In a world of tomes about El Bulli and Pollan-penned tracts about our diets, I was beginning to stress out about dinner. A casserole? Laziness! Buying pre-made kimchi instead of fermenting it myself? Shameful! But Kenny Shopsin, the foul-mouthed, philosophic cook, showed me the light with four letter words. You make good food, don't use shitty ingredients, find some shortcuts and don't give a fuck about the fat content.

He also came up with the idea of mac and cheese pancakes, so he's clearly a genius. And his daughter, Tamara Shopsin, shows that it's in the genes with this beautiful cover. The perfect, bright colours, the fun font, and the cut-out egg with the pull tab. It tells you not to pull, but of course Kenny would and you should too. Instead of the title and author info, you'll see a plate of breakfast.

My Team, Mon Amour

This post was inspired by something ridiculous I read on Grantland. Bill Simmons got a letter from a reader who compared the Buffalo Bills to a bad relationship. And I quote (in part), "You know, the kind where you are dating a guy and he eventually becomes comfortable with you and feels like you are such a good pal he no longer has to impress you by buying gifts and taking you to nice dinners and next thing you know you are in a relationship that is so non-exciting you decide to break it off." Which made me think- what if I described all of my favourite sports teams as oddly specific and extremely detailed boyfriends? Read on to see what happens when a simile is pushed too far.

Hi, honey(s)! (Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty Images North America)

NFL
The Green Bay Packers: They're like that boyfriend you have that perfect relationship with, and it irritates everybody else. Eventually you take the irritation nationwide by being profiled in the "Vows" section of the New York Times. You'll say stuff like "I always admired his/their integrity, notably the fact that they are the only publicly owned team in the NFL" and they'll say stuff like "She was always there for me, we could collectively talk to her for hours" and then there would be a picture of you getting married in Central Park or whatever. Some years might be rougher than others, but you'll always work through your problems with a package vacation at a Sandals resort.

NHL
The Montreal Canadiens: They're like that French-Canadian boyfriend you had in university, who wore scarves really well and came from a preeminent Montreal family, but had a lot of baggage. Now and then he would have a meltdown and destroy your apartment, or maybe just a part of Rue Ste. Catherine. Every year you figured would be *the* year, but he never really brought home the hardware and eventually you stopped expecting him to. Now you dodge his calls.

NBA
The Memphis Grizzlies: They're like that boyfriend you had because you were both 10 and you thought the drawings of angry grizzly bears on his duotang revealed a tortured soul. He had a rat tail and you held hands by the chainlink fence. Then his dad got transferred to an office in Memphis right after Christmas. You're not sure what he does now, he might have been on strike for a while, but you're sure that's he's long since stopped spelling "neighbour" and "colour" with their proper u's.

MLS
The Toronto FC: They're like that high school boyfriend you dated for no other reason than geographical proximity. Eventually you broke up when you went to school in another province, and he started working at Milestones Bar and Grill.

MLB
N/A: You don't have a baseball team/"boyfriend." You hate baseball. If baseball teams have to be boyfriends, then you are an out and proud baseball lesbian.

Canada's Hollywood... is South of Wawa

In the two or so years since graduation, I have lost the habit of reading academic writing. So it was no surprise that I ended up mired in the swamps of Canada's Hollywood. I checked it out expecting a breezy discussion of Canadian filmmaking, and found instead a rigorously-researched, footnoted and factchecked inquiry into the history of governmental involvement in Canadian film. There were even... tables. I shouldn't have let myself be fooled by the gold foil on the cover. I should have checked the spine. The University of Toronto Press imprint would have been fair warning.

But persevering was rewarding, if you count the gift of guilt. The guilt of my weak support for Canadian movies, in particular. I'll see about one every month or two, compared to dozens of American or European films. There's no reason for it, I've seen Canadian movies I've liked. Great ones like Léolo and Mon Oncle Antoine. And ones that aren't great, but you can't help liking more anyway. Like South of Wawa, which has some lovably inept hockey scenes and tonnes (yes that's metric, we're in Canada) of smalltown Ontario. How can anyone resist a movie whose tagline was "Endless Love - Passionate Dreams - Cream-Filled Donuts"? Apparently some of the raters at IMDB could. But don't listen to the haters, watch it yourself. If you do, I personally vow to see every Canadian movie that comes my way. Whether that includes American movies starring Ryan Reynolds, I leave you to decide.

Domestic Thursday: Whoopie Pies and Stout

American Thanksgiving has passed. The piped-in carols have arrived. The Christmas season is upon us. Truth is, I have always loved Christmas, in spite of my atheist cred. But even those who don't get as excited as I do by the sight of holiday specials on the TV schedule likely appreciate the baked goods and booze. Recently, I made a recipe that combined them both.


Meet Gingerbread Whoopie Pies with Rum Filling, the star of this week's domestic Thursday. The cookie base comes from this McCormick's recipe, which uses lemon crème for the filling. I ignored that part. Not nearly boozy enough. Instead I found a recipe online for rum buttercream icing, which seemed like an awesome idea, especially since I had some Kraken Spiced Rum in the cabinet. With a slightly I've made these twice this season. Paired with a Dark and Stormy made from the same bottle of rum, they've been making my spirits bright and it's only the first of December. Just imagine how jolly/bloated I'll be when the 24th comes around.

Instructions:
Cookies: This recipe, with some minor alterations:
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch of cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling: Slightly adapted from this recipe:
1/2 cup softened butter
1 package powdered sugar
4 tablespoons rum
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Mix dry ingredients (flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg, cloves and salt) in a medium bowl. Set aside. Beat butter and brown sugar in a large bowl with your mixer until nice and fluffy. Add molasses, egg and vanilla; beat well. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until well mixed. Press dough into a thick flat disk. Wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 350°F. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. (I've found I've had better results getting cookie spread, and thus more manageable cookie sandwiches, if I press the balls flat-ish before baking.)
3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges of cookies just begin to brown. Remove and cool completely. COMPLETELY. Otherwise your icing will melt all over the place.
4. Beat butter for the icing with a mixer until nice and creamy. Slowly add about a cup of the powdered sugar, beating slowly until blended. Add the liquid ingredients (rum, milk, extract), beating until blended. Add powdered sugar until you get the consistency you like.
5. Assemble whoopie pies by taking one cookie, topping the flat side with a decent amount of icing, then adding another cookie on top. Then eat.


And here is this week's domestic beer, the Smoked Oatmeal Stout from Trafalgar Ales and Meads. Since my last experience with a smoked beer was like drinking a liquified charcoal briquette, I was wary. But this was only subtly smoky, and as hearty as any good stout. While we're on the topic of stouts, I was shocked to find out that most "chocolate" or "coffee" stouts are rarely brewed with either of those foods, with the flavour coming from the darker roast of the malt instead. There are exceptions, and I hope to talk about one of them next week. But oatmeal stouts are brewed with real oats, which makes them smooth instead of particularly oat-y. So, drink this or McAuslan's, and you won't be drinking A PINT OF LIES.