Domestic Tuesday: Completed Socks and Cider

I'm beginning to think lifestyle blogs are all a giant scam to keep us buying chalkboard paint and succulents. Some of their authors maintain that they have full-time jobs and/or kids, but I don't trust them.

Why? Because it's taken me months to finish my Pomatomus socks. And I couldn't even take a decent picture of them. Real lifestyle blogs would have finished ten projects and also directed a photo shoot for each one. The yarn pooled in a major way on one sock, so this is the best you'll get. So far the yarn (Rowan Fine Art in Yew) is warm and fuzzy. I think they'll be perfect when the colder weather finally hits.

The cider I was making was actually ready before these socks were finished, sadly. And the first batch from the Under the Sink Cider Co. was... okay. Extremely dry. Probably not bringing home any awards any time soon. However, nobody has died from consuming the cider so far, which makes me confident about trying another batch. Should I mix in some pear juice, or just stick to apple for now and buy some profesh yeast? I'm not sure yet. Either way, I should probably make some labels so I can register our ciderworks's mascot, Squishy the Dirty Old Sponge, before someone steals the idea.

Domestic Wednesday: It's Cidertown

This post is a two in one type situation, because it's hard to get more domestic than this cider. It's currently fermenting just a few feet away. If it's drinkable, I'll call my home production set-tup the "Under the Sink Cider Company" and our mascot will be an old sponge. If it isn't, we shall never speak of it again. I bottle on Sunday. 

What, it's a jug of cider under a sink. What did you expect, Ansel Adams?

I've made small batches of beer before, to rather middling results. These results tasted worse when I considered the time I spent brewing them. It was a whole day's worth of work (not including fermentation) that tended to turn my kitchen into a sauna, for beer that was pretty meh. Cider seemed like a way to slowly get back into DIY drinks. It's more like making wine: pour apple cider into something. Add yeast. Wait. (Also, sanitize EVERYTHING.) Of course, people who take this sort of thing seriously will question my methods on my first batch. I just bought some local President's Choice cider and pitched in half a leftover packet of yeast from a previous brewing attempt. It's english ale-style yeast, so who knows what horror I'll uncap in two weeks. Something delicious? Or something that makes me believe in the existence of a cosmic, unknowable evil, one that happened to be sitting under my sink for two weeks?

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.

Ontario Cider Week Recap

 

I used to be a cider drinker. I hadn't quite developed my taste for beer, and I didn't get wine, so cider seemed like a fraught-free thing to order. Then I discovered the Snake Bite/Black Velvet (terminology dependent on bar), a deadly combination of stout and cider.

And I'm so very sorry, beer purists. But it's good.

It was also probably the grease on the slope I slipped down into becoming a craft beer drinker. The Guinness lead to other macrobrews, then to similar styles from local breweries, and eventually to me drinking specialty one-off casks brewed with three different adjuncts and twice as many hops. Along the way, cider was left behind.

But only by me. While I was busy with beer, others in Ontario were doing interesting things with cider. In an echo of the craft beer movement they were perfecting the standard pub cider, while also expanding the boundaries of what a cider could be. The options are no longer limited to Strongbow (except on the shelves of most LCBOs) - West Avenue, Brickworks, Puddicombe, Spirit Tree and more are all doing wonderful things to apples, including mixing them in with raisins, cherries, and ginger, and seeing what settles out.

And what settles out is mostly good. I finally reunited with cider last week, after discovering Ontario Cider Week. At the All-Day All-Ontario Cider event at Bar Volo, in fact, I reunited with exactly seven of ciders. The West Ave Crab and Cherry and their Ginger Rhubarb were my favourites, the Crab deliciously tart, and the ginger pleasantly spicy. This was enough cider to dampen my existential life crisis to a dull roar. On the patio, in the sun, chatting with people I would probably never, ever see again, life seemed okay. And cider? It was better than okay.