Monday, July 05, 2004

Pasta Disasta

The other day I picked up tortellini and sweet Italian sausage for supper.  What I really wanted to do was pick up fast food - something I didn’t have to prepare and that wouldn’t heat up the kitchen.  But...that’s not terribly cost-effective.  So I was good and stopped at the market instead.  I knew this wouldn’t take much time to prepare and would be really good.

We tend to do tortellini very simply and, usually, without tomato sauce.  It is boiled in well salted water (if you don’t add enough salt to the pasta water, you won’t be able to add enough salt at the table for it to taste right) and then tossed with butter, garlic and lots of freshly ground pepper.  This time, I was going to cut the sausage into “coins”, fry that up and toss that in as well.

So, I cooked the sausage and the tortellini and tossed them together.  Then I ladled out the mixture (useful creature, a ladle, good for dishing out small, slippery pasta pieces) into two bowls, adding butter, garlic and pepper to both.  Then I shoved forks into the bowls, grabbed paper towels and headed for the living room.  We often eat there in the warm weather because the kitchen is so small and it’s usually cooler elsewhere - especially immediately after food preparation :)

I must have gotten butter on my fingers and not known it.  As I headed into the hallway, on of the bowls jumped out of my hands and all the pasta and sausages attempted to grow wings and fly.  They didn’t do too badly for insensate little lumps but, alas, the attempt failed and they all wound up on the hardwood floor.  Well, one landed on the throw rug in the hall, but there’s always one, isn’t there?

I handed the other bowl to Myria and set about cleaning up the mess.  This is always a problem for me.  I get so embarrassed and frustrated by my own clumsiness that I can’t bear the thought of anyone seeing the results of it.  I don’t want to talk and I don’t want help.  Just leave me alone and pretend it didn’t happen, please?

Sigh.  Of course when I had finished cleaning up, Myria insisted on sharing what was left and made a bowl of soup to help give a little more substance to the meal.  I could laugh about it once I had calmed down but oh man - sometimes I think I shouldn’t be allowed out in public :)


Revamped and re-started the Harry Potter scarf.  I’m going to be making two of them for my nephews and as they are still pretty young, I felt some scaling down was necessary.  That meant going to DPNs rather than using a circular but after the first couple of rows, it wasn’t a problem and I am quite pleased with the progress.


HP Scarf, Oldstyle

Three stripes down, twelve to go




The scarf is 48 stitches around (the stripes are 24 rounds tall, if you’re curious) and I’ve found that slipping the 24th and 48th stitch, every other round creates natural fold-lines on the inside so that the scarf lies nice and flat.

I also started the Cross Your Heart Scarf in the mystery yarn I wrote about last Friday.


Cross Your Heart

Cross Your Heart




The yarn is very shiny and slick and I’m beginning to suspect a rayon component.  This is being worked on US 5 bamboo needles and a good thing too!  I tried aluminum needles (hoping to be able to use a US 6) but it was totally impossible to maintain any sort of regular gauge, not to mention having to hold the needles and the stitches and the yarn in a death grip to keep things from sliding into my lap.  The bamboos are doing pretty well, though I would prefer wood - but the closest size wooden needle I have is a US 4 and that’s just too small.


Stitches close-up

Close-up stitches




Those bits of brick and slate drift across the beige in an almost Oriental fashion (at least it strikes me that way) and looks very pretty to my eye.  There are advantages, sometimes, in not knowing what to expect - if you enjoy being surprised.  I hope there’s enough yarn to give me a reasonable length (crossing fingers) as I have a velvet suit that this will look amazing with!

Which I will not, of course, wear when I am attempting pasta :)

Babbled by Robbyn on 07/05 at 10:55 AM
(4) Comments • (0) TrackbacksPermalink
 
trackback URL for this entry: http://wolfandturtle.net/Yarnpath/index.php/trackback/205/GjEbB1EA/
 
Trackbacks

No trackbacks yet.

Comments
  1. You know, I don’t have accidents like that *too* often, but when I do...look out! I’m like you - don’t look at me, don’t make sympathetic noises, just let me clean it up. I SO dislike looking/being clumsy. Grrrr!

    On a happier note, that mystery yarn is looking very good. :) I really love those colors - very sophisticated.

    Posted by Bron  on  07/06  at  02:44 PM
    Location :

  2. Ahh - Someone who understands!  On the other hand, I made pasta and sauce today (haven’t made sauce in years and had forgotten how relatively easy and good it can be) and didn’t spill a drop!

    I’ll probably never know what this yarn really is, but it sure works up pretty!

    Posted by Robbyn  on  07/06  at  03:09 PM
    Location : Over yonder

  3. I am a clutz, too.  But never with the boring stuff.  I have to be clumsy with the messiest, most expensive, most staining, irreplaceable, urgent stuff. 

    My mohair shawl better watch out, huh?  I like the colors of your mystery yarn, just enough of the reddish-orange and greyish-purple to make it stand out.

    Posted by Laura  on  07/06  at  07:05 PM
    Location :

  4. Oh Laura, do you ever have it right!  I never spill water but don’t hand me grape juice!  A mouthful in the bottom of the glass expands to a quart by the time it lands on the rug!

    Posted by Robbyn  on  07/06  at  07:33 PM
    Location : Over yonder

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.