Sit. Stay. Good blog.

 Appetizer
What does the color dark green make you think of?

The pants I’m wearing right now.

Soup
How many cousins do you have?

Jesus Christ, does anyone have an abacus? On my mom’s side, I have eight first cousins. On my dad’s side, I have nine first cousins. And my step-mom brought me another six first cousins. Do I talk to any of them regularly? Maybe one or two.

Salad
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how honest are you?

I’m about an 8. The preceding sentence is false. The preceding sentence is false. Huh?

Main Course
Name something that is truly free.

Butterflies.

Dessert
Using the letters in the word SPRING, write a sentence.

Sizzle prizzle rizzle izzle nizzle, g.

So a little while back, I mentioned that I had taken up embroidery. Well, my friends, I have not only taken it up – I have attacked it with a vengence!

Stupid me forgot to take pictures of my first-ever project, a set of tea towels for my mother-in-law that we gave her for her birthday. The towels had cat heads and roses on them (much cuter than it sounds), and turned out okay for a first attempt.

Since then, I’ve made five more towels. Okay – I know what you’re thinking. “Sitstay, who the fuck needs that many towels?” I’m glad you asked, anonymous stranger. No one needs that many towels. No one needs more than one pair of shoes, either, but variety is the spice of life and I loves my flavors. Let’s move on.

After the cat head towels, I made a bitchin’ set of towels that I can’t talk about right now. In due time, my pretties. In due time. And yes, I did say “bitchin’” up there because the towels are indeed bitchin’. Photos will come after an undisclosed amount of time. That’s all I have to say about that.

Next it was all about me and my love of sushi, and here’s where I can start posting some pictures for you to enjoy:

This is now hanging on my oven door. Here are some close-ups:

Mmm hmm. I got mad skills, yo.

After the sushi towel, I made a nifty space towel for a friend. I was going to give it to her today, but she’s playing hooky. Maybe I’ll see her tonight at ye ol’ sushi train.

Since I’ve pretty much gotten the hang of iron-on transfers, I decided to go way out on a limb for my latest project. Inspired by a desktop background Mr. Awesome found on 4chan (do not click that link at work… seriously… also, the fact that Mr. Awesome knows his way around 4chan is both fascinating and disturbing), I bought some transfer paper and made my own creation.

Behold! The first in what I hope will be a series of absurdist intertubes humor projects:

I am overcome with the sheer awesomeness of this towel. I finished it last night. I don’t know what I’ll do next… any suggestions?

One must have a mind of winter
to regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

One day, there was a picture of a cat. It was not Caturday but this specific cat was so long it became a meme and, though the day was not specifically the day of cats, this cat’s length became famous.

Another Friday, another Friday’s Feast. Bon Appetit!

Appetizer
Given the choice, would you prefer to live in the country or in the city?

My first reaction is the city, but a much larger, more active city than Kansas City. Some place with great entertainment options, a historical character, and most importantly, lots and lots of ethnic restaurants. New York sounds good.

However, there are times when I look out my kitchen window, over the field that sits behind our house, and I see deer running past, or I hear geese call to each other as they come in for a landing on the lake a few blocks away, and I think that the country would be nice, too.

Soup
Who is the cutest kid you know?

I don’t really know very many kids. My nephew Noah is cute. That Suri Cruise is cute enough to make me question the non-existance of Xenu. That’s all I got.

Salad
Fill in the blank: I couldn’t believe it when I heard ___________.

A girl I knew in high school, who was, um, how should I put this delicately… was very friendly with the guys… anyway, I found out she’s gay. It makes perfect sense now, but hearing that for the first time kind of blew me away. I never would have guessed. In fact, she was the very last person I would have suspected. Anyway, I had lost touch with her for years and am really glad to have finally reconnected with her.

Main Course
If you could star in a commercial for one of your favorite products, which one would you want to advertise?

Hmm… I really, really love my Prius and welcome the opportunity to tell anyone who cares about it’s fantabulousness. I think I’d rather do a print ad, though – I can’t stand television commercials anymore.

Dessert
What type(s) of vitamins and/or supplements do you take on a regular basis?

I take a multi-vitamin when I remember… does caffine count as a supplement?

Hmm… sometimes WordPress formatting makes me a sad panda. Ah, well. Such is farm life.

I’ve been sewing like crazy lately. I’ve already finished two projects and have started on a third. Pictures will come whenever I get around to taking them.

You should go have brunch at Eden Alley some Saturday. It runs from 11am – 4pm, and our favorite thing to get is the I-Can’t-Decide trio – small plates of any three brunch menu items. The coconut vanilla french toast is all kinds of good.

I bought these on eBay, new in the box, for less than half the retail price. Fabulous shoes at discounted prices make me happy.

I’m reading a book called The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation. It’s an anecdotal history of the gourmet food movement in the United States, that started in the middle part of the last century. The best part so far: When Julia Child’s husband writes to his brother about his wife’s new passion for French cooking, he mentions that she’s so engulfed in her craft that he only lately catches glimpses of his wife’s brash character, as during one meal preparation when she accidentally grabbed a hot pot handle and exclaimed, “Ah! That’s hotter than a stiff cock!”

Maybe it’s just me, but I love the thought of a foul-mouthed Julia Child.

Has anyone else been feeling baffled by economics? I find it hard to sympathize with people who are finding out the way-out-of-their-income-range house they bought a couple of years ago is now suddenly hard to pay for and way out of their income range. I know lenders got greedy, but so did buyers. Thanks for screwing it up for the rest of us, greedypantsies.

I also don’t understand how a company can get bailed out by taxpayers, while at the same time those who were running the company are taking home seven, eight or nine figure salaries. Something is seriously fucked up with that.Mr. Awesome is reading a book called  Naked Economics. In it, the author posits that if we look at wealth distribution as a pie, with everyone getting a certain size slice, and if the pie gets bigger, and the sizes of everyone’s slices gets bigger, too, then what does it matter how big your slice is, if yours gets bigger? I guess I see the logic in that. If I didn’t know how big the other slices of pie were, would it matter?

The book also includes a study where participants were asked if they’d rather make $110,000 a year, while everyone else in the world made $200,000, or if they’d rather make $100,000 while everyone else made $85,000. Most people said they’d rather make $100,000 while everyone else made $85,000, even thought that meant they’d personally be making less than in the first scenario. I suppose it’s all about perception – how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you. That said, I think I’m personally better off not paying attention to the fescue on the other side of the cul-de-sac.

“Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip.”

Could be a crack head, who got hold to the wrong stuff, and it told him to get up in the tree and play the leprechaun. The world may never know the truth.

Bobble-headed cat,
What do you do in the night
When I can’t watch you?

Aren’t those photos interesting? This weekend, we bought a close-up filter that will let us take more shots like those. I find the perspective allowed by this filter fascinating. In the two shots above, for example, it’s as if the cat has his own secret life that happens when humans aren’t around.

I’m really looking forward to using the filter with food photography. Some of the best shots are those extreme close-ups of the frosting on a cupcake, or crispy skin on chicken. We’ll see what we can do with it later this week. In the mean time, our filter-less lens took some great shots of Saturday’s dinner – savory asparagus bread pudding:

Doesn’t that look yummy? Not only was this dish delicious, it was really easy. With asparagus in season, I will definitely be making this again soon. Tonight, we get to eat the leftovers, and may sear up some scallops to accompany if we’re really hungry.

I found out about Friday’s Feast from Logtar. I like this format, and enjoy exercises like this sometimes because they’re a way for me to say something about myself without having to be all that creative. Prefect for a Friday.

Appetizer
If you could be any current celebrity for one whole week, who would you want to be?

For better or for worse, the first name that popped into my head was Anthony Bourdain. He gets to travel the world seeking out the best food on the planet. So what if he has to eat a  whole, living cobra every once in a while – that’s but a small price to pay for culinary and cultural adventure.

Soup
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), how much do you enjoy talking on the phone?

When I was a teenager, I loved talking on the phone. L-o-v-e-d. I got my own phone line for my 13th birthday, and would literally spend hours per day on the phone talking about who-knows-what. Now, I don’t spend an hour on the phone per week. I don’t mind it in small doses, but no more hour-long conversations for me, thank you. I don’t like talking on cell phones at all, and I’m not really comfortable with the Wal-Mart accessory du jour, the bluetooth earpiece.

Salad
Name a charitable organization to which you have donated (or would like to).

I’ve donated to the Humane Society, and take lots of stuff to the Nearly New Shop, which donates proceeds to a battered women’s shelter.

Main Course
What is a food you like so much you could eat it every single day for a month?

Sushi. Love it. As a particular type of cuisine, I could eat Vietnamese food every day forever.

Dessert
Have you or anyone in your family had the flu this year?

I don’t know how, but I’ve managed to avoid it. Mr. Awesome had some stomach bug earlier this week, but not the flu.