serinde

When a level 10 empathy healer can't drum up trade for a mission team, it is time to go do something else for awhile. Laundry, perhaps.

Or, "sometimes a two-headed goat is just a random mutation".

I am working out, trying to get rid of the I Have Not Gone To Aikido twitches so I will be able to sleep. audiovile is running through TiVo'd music videos & keeping me company.

0:01: Your humble correspondent: Oh blech, it's My Chemical Romance. Fast forward.
Steve: Now, they did have one damn cool video. It might happen again.

0:45: YHC: ...this is kinda okay.

1:15: YHC: It doesn't suck. I...almost like it.
S: Yeah, it's sort of a departure for them, isn't it? It almost sounds like they went to a party, had a really good time, and then came home and wrote a song.
YHC: Well, it's still about the woe of teenagerness. But it's not *whiney*.

1:30: YHC: Wait. This is really familiar.

1:40: YHC: IT SOUNDS LIKE GODLEY & CREME.

1:55: YHC: "Life Is A Minestrone", in fact.

I have some several updates stewing around to post, but they are back-burnered for continued mail system follies and a concatenation of other work matters. That is all.

(I realized now I never posted part 1. Oops.)

I decided this year to finally make good on my promise of several years' standing to Claire to fit her for a cotehardie. (It helped that I finally feel like my skill might possibly be up to the task.) I had the first go at it in, erm, March I think? Whereat even after paying close attention to having been fit myself any number of times, and consultation with sundry online sources, I simply could not get it to work. So I called in the Marines, and after our usual false starts at trying to get anything scheduled, Beth and Kasia came over last night to set me on the true course.

My Big Damn Error was that I failed to keep a straight grain across the front. (Also, it is noted that using a twill for your first effort is perhaps making your path rockier than it needs to be.) I also cut away too much at the armholes, having forgotten the pull-up-and-out bias stretchy bit of managing the top front, and leaving not enough to pin the stuff you're pulling to, though that was not tripping me up in my first attempt because I wasn't doing that bit correctly. I also should have kept the bodice somewhat longer--7" below the waist was Beth's thumbnail guide; basically, long enough to go over the widest portion of the hip.

I was somewhat comforted to know that my other large woe, to wit when I had the subject lay down for the moving-boobage-up portion of the pinning and the entire back of the garment kept creeping upwards only to be discovered when she stood up that it was horribly awry, happened again this time, much to the chagrin of my panel of experts. The cause for this appears to be because the subject's waist does not markedly go in (her figure is exceedingly slender) and so the body's natural curvature doesn't hold it in place when gravity is taken out of the equation. This is not a problem any of the three of us have. Ahem.

Kasia's advice on how to deal with inevitable puckering was very aikidoesque. UNIVERSAL APPLICATION, YO.

A recap of pointers & ideas:

1) Keep the center front straight--even laying it out and pinning it on a table is a reasonable start.
2) Mark the grain line, and then KEEP THAT LINE STRAIGHT. Also, mark the cardinal points of the smallest point of the subject's waist at each seam. You can even make your grain line "ruler" at the smallest point of the waist, though of course it may wander slightly as you adjust things.
3) The curvature of the center back is super-important; fit it, pin it, and sew it so that you get as precise a curve as you can while you're pinning everywhere else.
4) That puckering often means you need to release pins along the side seams, but not always where you think you do. Listen to what the fabric is telling you, but gently direct it where it needs to be.
5) When in the lying-down part, you take the front shoulder bits, pull up, THEN out. You are making bias stretchies on the idea of making the excess fabric that you might otherwise have to take a breast dart for go into the fabric that'll be cut away for an armhole. (The more breastage, the more difficult.)

We did not finish, but it's getting there. (Note to self: dinner should be faster.) We are meeting again next week, at which point the fitting should be complete and I should be able to fly solo. Until I have hysterics about cutting into the actual dress fabric, anyways.

Steve picked this album up last fall based on the recommendation of some reviewer or other (I'm not clear on the details). As often happens in these cases, its arrival was preceded by him constantly playing a few tracks he'd downloaded; and as often happens in these cases, I was just sort of vaguely aware of it and 85% tuning it out. My general impression was "somewhat-goofy, almost-parody of country rock, with a singer just nasal enough to bug me".

In the interim months, I became aware of a desire to hear the whole album. So I would play it in the kitchen, mostly still not paying attention. Then I ripped it to my MP3 player and actually listened to it, particularly the lyrics. Now I can't live without it.

It is possible I have overcommitted again. Maybe.

Saturday daytime was much yard and house cleanage, including hauling a plastic tarp covered with wet, moldering leaves (and mallard poop...yes, Mr. and Mrs. Duck are back) off the pool and pushing it into some sort of flatness on the driveway so it could kinda-sorta dry out. Saturday night was Bad Movie Night in honor of arkham1010's impending nuptials. Sunday morning: more yardwork. Sunday afternoon: deck party. Sunday night: MOR MOVIE!!1 Monday: (Woke up to mallard gang rape in the pool.) Post-party cleanup and final operational planning for this Aubrey-Maturin dinner and wine shopping with M & K for it and gardening at sweh's. Monday night: movies with dariodevil. And today, making A Plum-Cake The Size Of A Moderate Cartwheel for said dinner. Which I am a bit unsure about the yeast and I fear it may not rise properly. I guess I'll find out at, um, 9:45pm.

I still must wash more sheets, find my karate-weight gi top, and perform sundry girl-type ablutions. Also, relaxing would be nice.

And, because this dinner is Saturday and that will clear my list of crazy projects, I have developed a new one:
A Typical D&D Adventuring Party Hike; or, Just How Heavy *Is* 50 Feet Of Rope?

There. You are now caught up.

For reasons I couldn't explain or indeed formulate, I pulled Brokedown Palace off the shelf for my commuter reading yesterday, in spite of the fact that it's not a book I generally enjoy reading (a wholly different matter from whether it's good or not; it's excellent, in case you wondered). This proved to be an entirely correct choice.

Attempted the Veal and Ham Pie this morning. Labor-intensive, yo.

( A brief disquisition into the nature of raised pies )

So, I raised my coffin, which went more easily than I expected. I made my forcemeat (which they say to use bacon, and don't specify what kind so I assume they're using American, which probably isn't right; but it don't signify). I made my filling (should have cut the pieces smaller). All of this went tolerably well. I put it all together, and found that the filling was higher than the pie. Oops. Well, so the crust will be concave. OK.

First major hitch: I had a bear of a time rolling out the top crust. It had been sitting far longer than the rest of the dough, which did not help. (I think in future I'll roll it out at the same time then wrap it in a damp towel.) But I managed to get it on. Then went to pour my cup of stock in, only to find that the damn filling was so full that I couldn't hardly get half of it into the pie. I'm not sure whether that matters, since the meats I were using in this case are reasonably tender, but nothing I could do at that point anyways. So, put it in the oven.

1.5 hours later, took it out. There was some leakage, though not too much. I let it cool a bit and cut in, whereupon TONS of juice started running out. It had not gelled into gravy at all. I don't know whether I should have dredged the meat in more flour, or whether I should have let the pie cool completely for to congeal, or whether it's supposed to be like this. I think it's not right, because you're supposed to be able to "slice it...for a pretty Side-Dish", and right now you slice it and all sorts of meat comes tumbling out.

Tastes okay anyways, but the flavors aren't really blended, which a more gravylike interior would have helped. Also, it desperately wants HP sauce, which we are out of. Woe!

In other news, yesterday's pork loin roasting turned out okay--it was indeed done by the time we needed to leave, and was remarkably juicy and nice. Mind you, I got it from the specialty pork butcher so it should have no matter what I did to it; but nevertheless, I feel a bit more optimistic about the spit-roasting thing. (OTOH, the spit itself has some design issues that vex me greatly.)

Meta-note: I find I'm much less stressed about experimental baking than cooking. Because I'm more comfortable with baking, I guess?

Anyways, last night was unexpectedly clear, so I seized the opportunity to try a few quick small items that are intended to be served during the dessert course or when taking coffee after dinner. Both worked out well, though not much what I expected.

Shrewsbury Cakes: In spite of the name, this is more or less just a spice cookie biscuit of the refrigerate-the-dough, roll-out, cut-out, bake variety; so, pretty familiar ground. This particular recipe is flavored with coriander (which I had) and mace (which I didn't, so used allspice instead, oh well), which may seem odd, but it's tasty. Not too sweet, either. The only minor difficulty I had was, and they do warn you about this in the recipe, that I rolled out the first batch a little too thin, which changes consistency and, oddly, flavor. I suck at eyeballing dough thicknesses. I think I'd also make them smaller--I cut them out in diamonds about 3.5" long.

Maids of Honour: These are small puff-pastry tartlets with a filling of ground almond, rosewater, lemon, and some things which make you fat to thicken & bind. It was a little more troublesome; the recipe recommended taking your puff-pastry, cutting out circles, and putting them into "medium" muffin tins. What's medium? What's large? I think mine might be large. Because, you see, it's supposed to make 2 dozen and I don't see how the heck the amount of filling the recipe makes could stretch that far unless you were doing mini muffin tins. I ended up using the small, individual tart pans I'd gotten before Christmas for making mince pies. This worked tolerably well (though they're a pain to grease); perhaps I'd fill them slightly less in future...although the recipe does say to fill 'em almost to the rim of the pastry lining. (I also think the flavor combination would be very tasty with pistachios instead of almonds.)

Today's project was supposed to be Raised Pies, but spit-roasting turned into such a Goddamned circus that I ran out of bits and never got that far. Also, I failed at finding the right kinds of bacon and veal.

No Regency-era English dinner was complete without a roast of some kind. This was prepared by jamming a spit through it, putting it in front of a bright, clear fire, and having some poor underpaid scullion turn it. I do have a fireplace, but it's not really suitable for that sort of operation; so I thought I'd employ Science! and get the electric spit attachment for our grill.

Surprisingly, I found the right item without hassle (and it was on sale, huzzah), and assembled it this morning. I intended to start by doing two small chickens (the ones that are generally on sale at our local store for 99c/lb.) for lunch. HA HA HA

Item the first: the prongs on the fork bits that hold the meat on are somewhat too widely spaced for small chickens of the 3-4 lb. variety.

Item the second: that might have been less of a problem if I had one fork going in at each end of a single piece of meat, but when you have two chickens lined up, this doesn't work so well.

Item the third: the stupid thumbscrews holding the forks in place keep loosening, which makes for all kinds of hilarity.

Item the fourth: Recipe I was using said to turn the burners to "high" for 10min., then down to medium for the rest, and that it should take 1 to 1.5 hrs. The bloody things have been on there for two and a half and I am only now thinking they MIGHT be done.

I suspect that all of this will work better with a larger, single joint of meat. I will try that next weekend, I think.

OTOH, I made carrot slaw by making it up entirely, and I think it's pretty good.