Tour de Fleece 2013 #2

So we are one week into the Tour de Fleece, and I am really glad that I didn't set crazy goals for myself.  I didn't make a whole lot of progress on the spinning front this week, as I was either working overtime or had evening plans nearly every day.  It was a great week though (except for the whole having to work thing but we don't need to talk about that!), so I'm really not complaining.

I got to see lots of family and friends, and eat lots of amazing food.  Basically when I'm not thinking about knitting, talking about knitting, or actually knitting, I am thinking about food, talking about food, or eating the food.  It's a good life, what can I say?

I went for a delicious sushi dinner at Naru Sushi with my BFF on Wednesday, followed by bubble tea at Kawaii Crepe which was also delicious.  I don't have any pictures of anything because I was too busy shoving everything into my face hole.  It was not a pretty sight.  Actually I'm not sure about that, luckily I don't have to look at myself eating sushi.  But I can imagine that I wouldn't look very cute doing it.  

The notable item that I ordered (and ate ALL of... except one piece that I had to share), was called the Island Roll.  I ordered it mostly because the description intrigued me, but it ended up being quite delicious.  It was peanut butter, tempura crumbs, cucumber, and BACON.  Then if that weren't mind blowing enough on its own, it was topped with smoked salmon, avocado, bbq eel, and unagi sauce.  It was the peanut butter that drew me in, and the bacon that sold me.  It definitely worked.  Honestly, I'll order pretty much anything if it has bacon in it.

Then yesterday the Enabler and I went for dinner with some friends to Bistro 7 1/4.  I'd been there a year ago and it was amazing, so I had high expectations for the return trip.  None of the other three members of the group had ever been there, so I was hoping that my recommendation was a good one.

One of their specialties is moule et frites (mussels and fries), and the other thing they do well is small plates, so we decided as a group to just order some mussels and bunch of small plates and share everything.  It's never certain how something like that will work, but it actually worked really well.  Most things were easily dividable into four portions, and one of the items that only came in threes, they were happy to give us an extra one.  We had scallops with bacon jam, veal and foie gras sliders, duck fat potatoes, and mussels with beer, bacon, and cheese.  There were other dishes too, and every single dish was incredible.  None of them had ever had mussels before, but apparently when something is covered in beer and cheese and bacon and cream, it lessens the apprehension.  We ate everything.  After we had eaten all the food, and even though none of us had room, we still decided to have dessert. Why?  Because there was a dessert that had bacon in it.  It was a maple bacon blondie with ice cream, bourbon caramel sauce, and pretzel pieces.  It was exactly as delicious as it sounds (which is super delicious).  Somehow we managed to roll out of there and make it home, but I will admit that I was not hungry this morning, which for me is an occurrence as rare as steak tartare.

Ok, so this isn't turning into a food blog, so I guess I should throw in some pictures and talk about some spinning.

Well... as I already mentioned I didn't spin as much as I wanted to this week.  I finished one bobbin of the fibre I started spinning last weekend, and am not quite halfway through the second bobbin.

I guess I want to finish the second bobbin and ply them in the next few days?  Next update will probably be after that happens.

So for now I will show pictures of my finished and blocked Hanami.

I love that the two sides are not symmetrical.  One edge has a little ruffle, and the other edge has little beads.  Depending on my mood I can wear it with one side featured more prominently than the other, but both are beautiful.  The only thing is that it's too nice to wear to work, and it's too hot outside to wear it most days anyway.  I guess this will have to either wait until fall or until I'm dressed up and inside with the air conditioning turned up.

One last thing for today, because apparently this is a food blog after all.  The Enabler and his buddy started brewing a couple of batches of mead a couple of weeks ago.  One of them is a cherry vanilla mead.  Today was the day that he transferred it from a carboy that had all the cherries in it into a new one with no cherries, and added the vanilla beans.  It looks like this.

Maybe that doesn't look good to you, but I gotta say I'm looking forward to drinking it in... 6 months or so.  Stupid mead and its long fermentation time...  Guess I'll have to find something else to drink (for now).

Cheers!