Among the various savory and sweet dishes, the green hummus was a big hit. Best in show, though, went to the homemade salame.

The half that didn't get consumed on St. Patrick's Day

When I brought it to the table, someone asked if I really made my own salame.

Looks like the real thing, doesn’t it? And it even has some green it it, courtesy of the pistacchi.

Only after cutting a few slices it became clear that it was a vegetarian salame. :)

By the way, I’ve been thinking about those Italian lessons, but haven’t had any time to get started. Mostly it’s that I want to figure out a plan of attack and I am not sure how to proceed. In the meantime I leave you with a few Italian words:
• salame al cioccolato = chocolate salami
• pistacchi = pistachios
• all’italiana = Italian style

In Italian we say salame, not salami, when we talk about one item. Salami in Italy means more than one salame. Several Italian words that have made it into English have been modified and often Americans use the singular where Italians use the plural and viceversa.
We say lasagne (plural) and Americans say lasagna (singular). Just so you know.

Happy Spring!

Piadina romagnola

Hey, thanks for the comments and emails. :)

While the knitting languishes in a dark corner, I am trying to figure out where to put my energies next, ’cause by the way my jeans don’t fit anymore it’s clear that I need to do at least something that does not involve food.

In January I tried 16 new recipes; in February 17. This can’t go on, though Ben is not complaining. YET. Maybe he will when his jeans stop fitting.

Piadina e coppa

Someone suggested I revive an old idea that I explored briefly in my old food blog (tantarobina) — teaching a little bit of Italian. I remember that preparing those few posts took a lot of time and planning, but I did enjoy it. I am not sure if I would have an audience… are there really that many people trying to learn Italian? Most people I know are more interested in Spanish, but then this is California and that makes a lot of sense.

Let's not count the calories, shall we?

I think my dough is ready to be rolled. Making my very first piadina today. We’ll see how that goes.
___

My piadina was not perfect, but definitely edible. In fact, we consumed most of it.

Buon appetito!

To make up for the loss of knitting, I’ve been spending more time in the kitchen. Cooking and baking is not great for my hands but at least the movements involved are less repetitive than in knitting and it’s easier to be careful. These past two months I’ve been trying lots of new recipes and our dinners have been more experimentatal. Some things have come out well, others have been complete disasters.

No pictures of food because our kitchen is very dark and, between that and artificial light, my food photos are nothing to brag about. But I leave you with tonight’s main feature: Kelvin jumping on Ben’s shoulders at the end of dinner. This may turn out to be a good-bye post, and I know some of you are still fans of Kelvin. :)

Happy holidays to you all, wherever you are.

Piper didn't seem impressed by the yoke. I don't think he can see all the colors.

We were actually very lucky that our next-door neighbor, who is connected to a different grid and got his power back within eight hours, let us string a cable from his house to ours so we could hook up one thing at a time. Mostly we hooked up the computer so Ben could work and then a little space heater, but we still we had to throw out all the food in our fridge and freezer and it was cold (I know, I know… Southern California cold). All my pasteis de nata, all the croissants and baguettes, the shrimp… It was sad.

My eagerly awaited package from Sweden

But in the middle of it all I received a special package form Sweden, my Christmas present to myself: a Wild Apple pullover kit. That’ll keep me busy for, uh, six months or so? There hasn’t been much knitting going on here in the past couple of months following yet another hand injury and distractions of various nature. Now I hope to get back to it. A Bohus kit is a thing of beauty and I find it especially appealing at Christmas time. A book, a fire, a kitty, and a Bohus project. What more can a girl want?

Wild Apple pullover kit

I didn't want to steal images, so this is not as cute as the real blue penguins in their colorful sweaters. For those, follow the links in the text below.

Please, check out the Worldwide Campaign To Knit Sweaters for Penguins to prevent them from ingesting poison while they wait to be cleaned up.

These tiny sweaters are a quick knit. Instructions for the Penguin Jumper in 8ply are on Skeinz’s spring newsletter.

Now I have to find some wool of appropriate thickness. 8-ply doesn’t mean much to me, and unfortunately there is no mention of gauge so I’ll have to guess based on the needle size. It also seems to me that it would be easier to knit this in the round up to the wholes for the wings (are they called wings?). What do you think?

The birds are my favorite, especially the little goofy ones in the first few pages. There are more books in this collection of charted designs and I hope to get them in the future.