Yarn, silly, happy

I just got one of a kind Jack Harkness yarn as an incredibly thoughtful Christmas present. It contains seed pearls. I am going to knit a snood for my femmest fannish darling cinnamonteal with it.

Having looked at the project that spawned the yarn, I'm seriously considering commissioning the Martha in the same series. (The spinner didn't mention oxblood in the color set, which I'd strongly suggest adding, but it's otherwise a lovely expression of Martha's kick-ass practical awesomeness. I'd be top of the world wearing a Martha hat.)

In less awesome news, I lost my black/white/grey striped knitted hat last night. I made it a few months ago and I've loved it dearly. We called the relevant businesses and I hope it turns up, but... sigh. The trip I knitted that hat on, I lost my prior fedora. I have a history of losing hats and jackets. I find it really frustrating as I tend to choose single workhorse items that I bond with and want to wear every day unto death. I miss my hat. :-/

From the department of So Seattle It Hurts, overheard at Doghouse Leathers last night: "I'm just here for some supplies. Can I get some of the local organic poppers?"

He was not joking. They did carry them.

By the way, I highly recommend Doghouse if you're in the Seattle area and want to support brick and mortar leather/kink resources. I've been in there a number of times, and while they state their mission is to support the mens' community, I have always, ALWAYS felt welcome in there, no matter my presentation, much more welcome than at the Crypt or anywhere else. I feel more at home there than at Babeland.

NRE continues to be fantastic. I served at a cigar party! As a third gen non-smoker, I find this all delightfully surreal.

Borscht! Two gallons.

I say that I don't cook. People who cook tell me I cook. The defining feature seems to be that I don't like to spend any time chopping, stirring, washing dishes, or otherwise minding food, so I will "cook" something with more than 3 ingredients and no stirring maaaaaybe once a month.

But when I set out to cook, say, borscht, I look up a dozen recipes online, squint, take the average, and then decide which direction I would like to optimize. I'm told this is called "creating a recipe." So.

A triple recipe of Vegan Borscht, which comes within an inch of filling my 2 gallon pot so I can live on it for weeks:

( Start with three ounces of dry porcini mushrooms... )

Hm. I overbought a bit. I still have ... enough for another batch of everything but the mushrooms and onions. By the way, the mushrooms cost as much as the rest of the soup put together. If you just shrug and use vegetable bouillon instead, I won't fault you.