Domestic Sunday: Beer and Cookies

I've decided to spare you all another knitting post, since the blue baby sweater has already been yanked out once, so progress on that front is sadly minimal.

Instead, here are some cookies. I've been stringing Dan along with the promise of more of these maple pecan buttons, after I had made some for an office cookie exchange in December. Thursday I finally made good on that promise, and here they are:

The recipe is delicious, simple, and yet somewhat tedious, which is probably why I delayed making them. However, if you have the time, to make the dough, chill it, roll it into balls, bake those, cool them a little bit, roll the balls around in icing sugar, cool them completely, and then roll those suckers around in icing sugar again; well, you can find the recipe in Regan Daley's In the Sweet Kitchen. I had typed up a condensed version yesterday, but then Blogger ate my post, and I'm too bitter to try again. The book isn't out of print, like I once thought; Amazon has some paperback copies available, so you should really buy one now.

But if anyone asks nicely, I'll try to send the recipe via email.

This week's beer is actually from last Tuesday. I had no commitments that night (except to the cat), so I decided to stop by Thirsty and Miserable on my way home. There's a short list of bars I keep that are free from pretension, without falling over the line into crusty. Thirsty and Miserable is on that list; so are Hole in the Wall, Wise Bar, and Dave's. These are the sort of places where you can read a book at the bar, as I did with a pint of Kensington Brewing Company's Hops & The Grain Merchant. I really liked this beer, and if it's still on draught somewhere near you, give it a try. It has a hoppy profile, but the rye and dark malts keep it complex and quite drinkable. There's a danger in that though. I'm not sure what the ABV is, but I do know I was feeling pretty good when I left the bar, and this was just after one pint.

Big City Blues

I never really stuck to one dream job in my youth, but my ultimate goal was constant: get the hell out of Guelph and live in a big city. That Guelph was, comparatively, not all that small or boring was a discovery I was not prepared to make. It wouldn't have fit into the narrative I was attempting to write for myself, of a provincial, lumpy girl about to transform into a sleek and extremely cosmopolitan woman.

This meant going to school in Montreal and eventually moving to Toronto, though I've remained ever-lumpen throughout all of those moves. And yet, with my three year anniversary of Toronto residence having come and gone, I can confidently say that I've achieved my goal.

AND, OH DEAR GOD, I NEED TO LEAVE.

Why? Because Toronto is making me into a bad person. Or rather, Toronto is stripping away the veneer of sweetness I built up in smaller spaces, to reveal the angry hosebeast within.

Almost everything I experience in the city seems to go into my ledger of disrespect. People who walk two abreast and expect me to press myself against parked cars just so that they can pass. People who block the doors on subways. People who sit on the outside seat of public transit so their purse can have a window view, even during rush hour. TTC people who are rude. In fact, let's just say that the entire TTC experience is generally a giant checkmark in the "Go to Hell" column.

Because I'm young, female, and evidently unwealthy, I'm easy to ignore. However, because of most of those things I am also not actively avoided, and so the daily friction of interaction in this city is starting to take its toll. I've even found myself preparing to be irritated by someone, taking a certain gleeful joy in the thought that this time--THIS TIME--I am going to assert myself and stand up for my right to occupy space in this city! And then I'm actually disappointed when they step aside, and hold the door open for me, or even say sorry.

I started to reflect on my fermenting rage-ahol last Thursday, after an encounter with a TTC employee. I was trying to get to an appointment, was told my one TTC employee to use one gate only to get yelled out by another. While I would like to say that I responded with both kindness and yet an unwavering sense of self-respect, I did not. Instead, I was rather rude and snippy. 

And then the rest of my ride was filled with guilt.

See, the issue is that I have all of the rage inside me, but not quite enough self-confidence to keep the flames a-burning. Instead, I'm tossed between resentment and regret. "Oh! That person thought I could just be bodychecked off the sidewalk! OH! But now they think I'm mean because I glared at them. There's a stranger that thinks poorly of me. WHATEVER SHALL I DO?" What I should do: move to a smaller town. I'll have wide open spaces, homes I could potentially afford, and neighbours who express their aggression with savage gossip instead of face-to-face confrontation. Hooray!

Domestic Wednesday: More Knitting, Some Hometown Brewing

With the baby blanket winging its way to Colorado, I decided to try some new baby knitting. I already had some yarn on hand, six balls of the now-discontinued Patons Baby Bamboo, so I just had to pick a pattern. Generally, I like to knit baby stuff in bright, gender-neutral colours. This is a matter of personal aesthetics and, to a lesser degree, personal politics. I'm ambivalent enough about the gender binary to find the choice between colour-blasting your baby pink or blue to be a little... stark.

BUT. I also didn't want my friend to have to field any sass from strangers who assumed her baby had to be a boy because of the colour of their wee cardigan. So I'm trying to find middle ground with the Baby Valentine sweater, though so far I've only managed to screw up the increase rounds. This makes me wary of the lace that's coming. We'll see.

I also went back to my hometown, Guelph, this past weekend. They have a new-ish craft brewery, Royal City Brewing, which warranted a field trip. I had tried some of their beers at previous Society of Beer Drinking Ladies events though, and had mixed results. But the brewery surprised me. I enjoyed everything they poured from the taps, even the one fermented with kombucha. Which, as an aside, I can't imagine a more Guelph-like beer than one with freaking kombucha in it, unless they also threw in some grass from Hillside and a loaf of With the Grain bread during the mash.

A particular standout was the Smoked Honey, which found the right balance between smokey and sweet, and was tasty both from the cask and from the keg. I bought a bottle of it, along with a bottle of the 100 Step Stout, which I poured for myself on St. Patrick's Day. I didn't like it as much as the honey beer--this one was a little too thin--but it was fine too. And now I have another reason to go back to Guelph, besides my dad's coffee and my mom's advice.

Domestic Monday: Big Bad Baby Blanket and Endless Cider

After endless rows of stockinette and seed stitch, the Big Bad Baby Blanket is done and ready for a trip to Colorado.

And the baby isn't even born yet! This almost never happens when I knit for a baby. Usually they're saying their first words just as I'm casting off.

In spite of the time crunch, I loved knitting this. I knew the Koigu would be soft and squishy knit with a single strand, but doubled? Its texture makes me want to knit an adult-sized version, then quit my job so I can spend all day rolling around on it. Fortunately, the cost of Koigu keeps that dream out of reach. My only frustration was realizing, after too many rows had gone by to easily fix it, that one strand of yarn had been dropped on at least two stitches. The mistakes are barely noticeable; they're tearing me up inside.

As for this week's local beverage selection, bottle after green plastic bottle of u-brew cider kept me hydrated while knitting. My Christmas gift to my brother was booking cider-making at Fermentations! (exclamation point theirs.) It was less hands-on than I expected, but I'm not going to complain when we were left with 44 half-litre bottles of the stuff, which we split equally. We chose a Normandy-style cider, and it is very dry and wine-like. It reminds me a bit of the Brickworks cider you can find around Toronto. Sadly, it looks like Dan and I have almost finished off our stash. We have one last bottle to drink. Then I should probably borrow that juicer, get my one gallon fermenter back, and try some experimental small batches of cider. If the experiments don't kill me, I'll report back to you.

BC Dreamin'

If you haven't gathered from the sheer level of bitching on social media, parts of North America have been really, really cold over the past few weeks. Seasonal lows. Frozen pipes. A pale rider: and his name that sat on him was Death, and so on.

I've been surviving as best I can, with wool socks, subway tokens, and warm thoughts of a return to British Columbia. It didn't help that Quill and Quire seemed to present the perfect out a few weeks ago. Galliano Island Books wanted a part-time bookseller.

Why, I thought, I could be that part-time slinger of literature!

While going from a full-time to part-time job may seem like a demotion to some, this one isn't. At least not in my mind. It would be going to a part-time job on Galliano-freaking Island. That's like working cash in paradise. Not quite perfection, but as close as you can get without also having health benefits or an RRSP contribution plan. There would also be books and, one would hope, a discount on those books.

I even started to develop a plan to supplement my part-time income. Rent would be fairly inexpensive, as I was planning to purchase and then live out of a Delica van. Even if the Delica was more expensive than a cozy little apartment. Would that apartment be able to drive me to the beach, or come with a rocking bullbar? Doubtful.

The Delica could also become the manufacturing centre of my second source of income, Marty's Foraged Jams and Preserves. BC loves that stuff. All I would have to do was to come up with a full line of flavours that forced local delicacies into increasingly bizarre couplings and retailed for $15 (open to a barter system though). Suggested varieties: blackberry and seaweed, cattail and spruce tips, currant and pot from the neighbour's grow operation.

I described this plan to people. They laughed, I laughed. I was emphasizing a certain BC skillshare mania for effect, though it probably applies to about 3% of the BC population. I never applied for the job. But. But, underneath the absurdity of the foraged jam operation (which would probably lead to a Delica-shaped inferno in the middle of Galliano Island) is a genuine longing for British Columbia. I've always wondered if I made a mistake moving back east. I wonder a little more when it's the coldest February in Toronto in over a century, of course. But, even in spring, I would probably move back if I was given reason enough to do it, or full-time hours.