incogkneeto.com blog

Calgary Transit’s buses all displayed at least one Poetry in Motion banner, which would promote the art with a small section of some influential poet’s words. The other day I saw such a banner on a Metro Transit bus and nearly cried with nostalgic glee. It said:

Don’t go outside to see flowers.
My friend, don’t bother with that excursion.
Inside your body there are flowers.
One flower has a thousand petals.
That will do for a place to sit.
Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty
inside the body and out of it,
before gardens and after gardens.

It is very much like my favourite Rumi poem, which is probably indeed my favourite poem, which goes:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language - even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.

Hence such glee at reading.

We are nearly all moved in :) Daniel did a wicked job of unpacking last night. He organizes a mean bookshelf, utulizing his clever utilitarianism with stacks of books for bookends. I’m good with closets.

Going to swing up downtown while Daniel does musical errands in preparation for a recording tomorrow, then prepare our dinner which is Heidi’s slurptastic herb noodles. (I have chopped up the herbs and oh man, I just want to make a cilantro hand lotion or something!!) Daniel’s friend Nate is celebrating his 25th birthday tonight. I’ve never attended a party with a keg in attendance too, so add that to the list of growing-up milestones passed. I work tomorrow and begin training on milk this week! Very excited to work with the Synesso; its steam wand is particularly phallic.

I picked up two yards of incredible organic cotton sherpa to make some cozy winter pants, and have to get around to that soon because it ain’t too warm out yet when I catch my first bus at 5:40!

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Strike out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

amended italicized step: italicize if you would love to try.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (AND alligator)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine (tsk tsk! did I really grow up in Canada?)
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

I have had this idea transcribed into a recipe for a while now, and finally found the time and all the ingredients today. Crisps are awesome cause they are so darned easy to make - I would make a crisp over a pie any day. (well, except maybe banana cream.) A quality of a good crisp to me is a nice tartness, so I was a little concerned about abandoning my beloved Granny Smith for the tamer trio highlighting this variation. No worries, in the end - each of the fruits turned out surprisingly and perfectly tart.

I just didn’t feel like photographing this today. I’m sure it will be made again, so I’ll post photos then! For now, refer to memories of golden brown aromatic oats oozing sweet butter into tender fruit slices. Yeah. There you go.

Peach, plum, pear crisp with walnuts for Joanna Newsom

1 peach
1 plum
1 pear

Slice small, into 1/4″ thick and about 3/4″ long pieces. Mix together and pour into greased baking pan. (Crisps are usually done in 9 x 13″ glass pans, I used an aluminum loaf pan with no problem… just make sure to keep an eye on the baking process, either way.)

1/4 c (whole grain pastry) flour
3/4 c rolled oats
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Mix together.

1/2 c (1 stick) butter

Combine into flour mixture with pastry cutter until crumbly.

1/2 c walnuts, chopped

Mix in. Spread evenly over fruit mixture in baking pan. Bake in oven at 350F until top is golden brown, about 30-40 minutes. Serve by scoopful with milky moon. (Seriously, plain yogurt or vanilla ice cream.)

Bon appetit :)

Early yesterday morning I goaded Daniel over to the Dunn Bros across the street, because there is such a special feeling early Saturday morning. It could be my favourite time.

I was happy to entertain one of many subjects that sprung up for confabulation: meditation. Quieting the mind, as I like to approach it. I said we should do it right now. So after entertaining each other about how our relationship has become a joint stream of consciousness, we did.

Maybe like half a minute in, I remembered something I’ve been trying to remember about Saturday mornings for months, almost years. “Want to go to the farmer’s market?” I blurted. “Yes,” Dan said.

Sweeping away all those noisy, distracting thoughts-about-what-I-already-know, I found a hidden reminder waiting quietly underneath. Hidden too well, as those things are.

We did return with a quart of maple syrup and a lead on some yummy hummus, to follow next weekend with more cash on hand.

Good old quieting-the-mind, can you solve my debilitating memory problems?

I have everything I need to make these maple sugar cookies - except, tonight, the time, so tomorrow shall be the day of their creation!

I discovered the recipe in an American cookie cookbook (that I discovered on the shelves at work - a bakery) by the lady Dionysus of cookies: Nancy Baggett. My gloriously great aunt Jean blessed me with a copy of her International Cookie Cookbook, which inspired my plans for my future coffeehouse to include and emphasize not only a gourmet latte bar, but also a gourmet cookie bar. I wish I could afford to send every person who ever reads this blog a copy of this cookbook. Actually, I wish more that I could afford for myself a copy of each of her regional cookie-books, because there are many other gems like the following one that did not make the International cut. But obviously the best-of is an ok place to start!

Anyway! I had been enticed by some maple sugar at my nearby food co-op the other day, and I have been so good at abstaining from sweets for the past few days so that I could actually start denting my list of things to bake faster than it can grow (and for health reasons), so when I found this recipe I knew it was time…

I am going to share it before I bake it. Reformatted during transcription, of course, to my preferences :) Which, by the way, is very near to the formatting in my favourite cookbook (part of what makes it my fave), Simply in Season.

1 1/2 c flour
1/4 tsp baking powder

Thorougly stir together in medium-sized bowl and set aside.

1/2 c maple sugar
1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter, slightly softened
1/2 c sugar (I am tempted to experiment with removing this, but I must start making first attempts at recipes exactly as they are written)

Beat together in large bowl until very light and well-balanced.

1 egg
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat in until evenly incorporated, then stir in flour mixture until just evenly incorporated. Dough will be fairly soft, but if it is too soft to handle, let stand five-ten minutes, or until firmed up slightly.

Divide dough in half and place each portion between large sheets of wax paper. Roll out each portion 1/8-inch thick; check underside of dough and smooth out any wrinkles that form. Stack rolled portions on a baking sheet and refrigerate for about one hour, or until cold and firm.

Working with one portion at a time, gently peel away, then pat one sheet of paper back into place. Flip dough over, then peel off and discard second sheet. Using a 2 1/2 - 3-inch maple lead-shaped cutter, cut out cookies; if cutter sticks, occasionally dip into powdered sugar, tapping off excess. (If at any point dough is too soft to handle, re-refrigerate for a while.) Carefully transfer cookies to greased baking sheets, spacing about 1 1/2-inch apart. Reroll dough scraps until all are gone. Sprinkle cookies liberally with coarse sugar.

Bake one sheet at a time in upper third of preheated 350F oven for 6-9 minutes, or until just slighly coloured on top and faintly tinged brown at edges. Reverse sheet halfway through baking to ensure even browning. Immediately transfer to wire racks and let stand until completely cooked. Cool sheets between batches.

So the recipe seems to assume that you use two baking sheets, so as not to end up with melted gooey unshapely maple leaves as the soft dough lays on a hot sheet.

We’ll see how they go :)

I visited Anthropologie and Sur La Table today, and I cooed at many things but purchased only a select few: Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking, a set of six coconut wood spoons (because metal irritates my teeth when I use it to eat cold things), and a maple leaf cookie cutter for the cookies. (This was by far the hardest thing to find for them! It’s ’cause I’m not in Canada anymore, Dorothy…) Some of Anthropologie’s measuring spoon sets, such as stackable giraffes, make me wish I had not already replaced Daniel’s obtuse old one. I suppose I can survive without them. But I don’t know. Stackable giraffe measuring spoons…

On my way back downtown I had to stop at Target to acquire a hand mixer? egg beater? you know, one of those mechanical hand-held whisking devices. Because I can’t really afford nor do I need a mixer at this time, and if I ever make bread by hand, anyway, I won’t mind kneading it out in the process, which is the only thing I can think of wanting to make that is beyond the capabilities of a food processor or eggbeaterhandmixerwhiskything. The former of which I still need to acquire, definitely used since it’s the kind of thing many brides might receive only to never use and thus resell cheaply. So I got my… whisk machine, and isn’t it funny how the cheapest of a choice of products can often have the best qualities? Manufacturers just know they can con some people out of twice as much money for simply more attractive products. Anyway, I have also been on the hunt for an affordable new swimsuit, because my current one was bought out of cheapness and desperation and I want to be swimming a lot this summer. (Indeed I have a gym membership to uphold now) So, I tried this on, and they didn’t have my size in stock but viola! Here she is! My new suit! A glorious thing about tankinis is the tank can also make a great everyday top, and I know this one will. So this brings me happiness :) I am glad to have found something elegant and prettily designed but not loud. Soooo many suits I was finding with the right designs were way too loud in fabric choice.

Also on the way back downtown I passed Namaste Cafe, which I have passed many times before but always categorised as a restaurant rather than a hangout cafe. Which is accurate but it’s very chill, maybe not so much a place to set up home and crochet for hours but definitely a place that welcomes one of those passionate conversations that can sometimes make a meal out take hours. And when I talked to Daniel about what we would do when he got off work, he expressed disinterest in heading home right away, so I suggested we reprise there. It’s in a totally sweetly low-’tude house with the prettiest gauzy phtalo blue drapes I’ve ever seen on its bathroom window, a nice patio with lots of street action to watch, and offers an affordable, classy menu. If there is anywhere I would want to begin a career as a server (it is a come-to-you service place), the Namaste Cafe is it. And yes, I am thinking about it.

So that does it! :) That is where I will have my birthday dinner. I really want to cook a feast, but there just aren’t going to be enough committed people for it here.

I am also planning on braiding my wet hair to sleep on the night before, because it’s hella cute but too much of a pain in the ass to do more than, say, once a year.

It feels good to have many things to be excited about :)

I’ve had a number of very heavy grocery trips while Daniel is working during a day off of mine, but this one took the pancakes that I bought organic whole wheat pastry flour for. (I read the labels of various flours and realised all I really use flour for is baking, so…) And it doesn’t help when I find fabulously original things like DRY Soda’s lavender soda on the shelves, which make you buy them simply because of how persistently you doubt they’re actually as good as they sound. (Oh but it is.) Nor when you’re addicted to mangoes and watermelon. I’m always a little worried about breaking my collarbone again during these trips, but I suppose I am even more determined to endure them to strengthen it…

On the subject of mangoes: the other day I made what I’ll shorthand Heidi’s “quinoa-meal” (because it is so like my favourite way to eat oatmeal: blueberries and nuts and maple syrup) with our sweet, stringy, succulent yellow friends instead of berries, and I highly recommend you do so as well. Ms. Swanson’s blog functions as my second most-used turn-to recipe source. I wonder how many of us there are out there! Someday I will order her first cookbook because of how interested in grains I am getting, and because of her method of writing very basic, malleable recipes. The time certainly comes soon…

Some recent things:

We are trying out and loving cinnamon toothpaste :) Fennel isn’t quite astringent enough for a toothpaste, honestly.

Two brilliant concerts, quite the opposite of one another: Saul Williams and the Minnesota Orchestra’s performance of Schubert and Mahler. I told Daniel at the latter that I wouldn’t mind naming a male son Gustav, but I’m still fondest of Odin. For a girl we like Esther, for various commonly meaningful reasons but especially because I can sing Madonna’s “Little Star” to her every bedtime until she is old enough to do it better than me. Anyway! Saul was totally intimate and immediate and electric and erotic and had the best stage presence of any performer I’ve seen, and he ended the show with his encore: the first thing I ever heard him speak, ,said the shotgun to the head. He came out with a gorgeous headdress and gradually shed much of his attire. What a metaphor. He is such an insightful, important artist. Dan found out about the orchestra at the last moment, and bought the last-ish four tickets which naturally were also the four worst seats. But for listening to sounds in a good venue that doesn’t matter anyway. Ah, the kicker - when we arrived and picked up our tickets… someone in the front row must have cancelled, and so all that was between us and the harps was the hop onto the stage! Harp-plucking is such a beauty to watch. I was really quite distracted by it. Overall a huge treat… I hadn’t seen an orchestra since the tenth grade, on a choir/band trip to Vancouver. And were we all too young and antsy and on a holiday with all the people we spend the days with and full of deep fried chicken feet!… Or at least Andrew was so daring… good times…

Finally caved in to these shirred-butt undies from American Apparel, partly justifying the investment as research. And you know what? They are so comfortable! It makes so much sense! Other undies are so baggy. There are two cheeks! Bras have two cups. So why don’t panties have two sections? Well I guess thanks to American Apparel, and myself in the future because I can get 100% organic cotton jersey and make the leg holes higher and wider, there are now… aren’t there?
Closer and closer I get to the perfect undies :)

I maayyy become the manager of the bakery I work at :) boy do we need a formal one, and boy could I use the experience. Work has been particularly nutty lately, particularly work-all-day-with-one-ten-minute-break-and-still-you-can’t-possibly-accomplish-everything-that-ought-to-be-done. A day off was sweet, and what a sweet warm day for it. As usual I met Daniel for lunch, for which I ingested the most yuuuuUMAMI-licious turkey wild rice soup. My favourite soup. The time we spent together afterward seemed to last forever.

Later he registered us at a gym, because I want to swim every single day.

I am kind of curious about ordering earrings from the people I derived my wooden crochet hooks from, which they finish in the same pretty way. Something neat I have ordered recently and definitely is this stamp set from Hero Arts that I will use for the labels on the sold attire I produce for my attire label, the lack of which has been holding me back from finishing projects. The garment and the description and endorsement of the garment are one expression…

Daniel is working on ripping out some music from his soul :) Lots and lots of music, all the music that built up inside him while he succumbed to the corporate succubus. It is a wonderful thing to hear. Who needs human babies? Not us. He has sound, and I have yarn… and the equipment is as expensive as 2.5 children…

I need to write to his aunt.

The May Day Cafe in south Minneapolis tragically has no website I can link you to, so maybe I will have to make them one myself :)

I don’t remember where I first read about the May Day cafe - a newspaper or the Best of the Twin Cities (I no longer have copies of either) - but what I read impressed me: the May Day creates perfectly sweet, positively chewy lattes with homemade caramel. Not the pumped hyper-preserved bottled diabetic seizure, be it by mainstream Torani or upstream Monin. No - caramel made in a pan in the kitchen behind the espresso machine, pulled and squeeze-bottled before it reaches wax paper-wrappability stiffness. Always one to go out of my way for a new coffeeshop, especially one with raving reviews, I took the opportunity after lunch with Daniel yesterday to visit the May Day. And granted, this is written after spending about four hours there, so it’s a little early. But I am excited.

The May Day has been added to the currently mental list of dining places that visitors to the Twin Cities should not miss, which includes such gems as the Birchwood cafe and, strictly atmospherically, the Kitty Kat Klub, as well as the tiny list of really good coffeeshops. (for coffee: Kopplin’s. for decibal atmosphere: Cahoots. for nostalgia, and a good-sized bike ride to and fro: Dinkytown’s Espresso Royale.)

First of all, the approach. The May Day Cafe begins as a sign half-visible a block away, but from its bright colours you know you’ve found it. Then it unveils itself from behind cozy houses and tree branches as a textured, incredibly inviting blue cabin that feels like an eclectic discovery on a rural British Columbian or Californian harbour. I was awash with memories of Nelson, Victoria, Vancouver etc. I thought of the shop in California where I traded for money a divine concoction that was blended vanilla ice cream and espresso. The kind of tiny find that really has to be found, it isn’t common knowledge and it won’t be seen advertising in any newspapers (although I have now found a coupon for it in the Blue Sky Guide, which of all advertising venues I am most happy to see it using), but has the most delicious secrets you will regret having lived sort of miserably in new land for over a year for without yet knowing.

It is somewhat larger inside than it appears from the outside, but seating space could really be used more effectively. It is cafeteria-like, and it is a good thing that the clientele was comfortable enough to squish in like family though often strangers, but it would be good to incorporate diversity: some two-toppers for the most common customers: one or two people, couches, booths would be really spatially effective on the left between the bathroom and the counter. It is really currently arranged to host a few large groups. And it was fine. And it is doing very well with this as easily my biggest qualm. Also, an amount of space reserved for preparatory and employees twice the size of customer seating is visible, which I bet could be opened up to customers very well, like we are doing where I work now.

Counter servers were sweet, funny, and the diversity of age and gender I dream of my co-workers being, ranging from male and female about my age to male and female with white hair. I am really sick of working solely with other pretty twenty-ish females, and also only seeing them in coffeeshops. A coffeeshop that employs a variety of people has already guaranteed my return.

I did order the caramel latte (prepared very carefully by a male my age) and it was slightly sweet and chewy and perfect. Caramel, aka scorched sweetness and coffee is one of my very favourite flavour combinations, along with passionfruit and chocolate. I was so intrigued by the delicacy of the espresso flavour that I had to order one alone, despite that I had only yet consumed a mango, two eggs and two slices of toast all day by four o’clock, and I need a little more than that to not end up hyperventilating when caffeine is taken. So I also had a green salad, whose dressing was described by the grandmotherly lady sitting next to me with her toddler “friends”, not even her own blood kin, on a playdate, as “drinkable by the cup”. My espresso did not have much crema left by the time I sat down with it and my salad, which by the way together totaled like $4.45 for a salad serving the size we charge $6.95 alone for where I work, but it was indeed consumable ungarnished by any boob juice or burnt sweetness. A rare thing.

Clientele was very un-snobby, very low key, very friendly and unafraid of interacting with strangers. Also definitely alternative. Very unusual qualities to find all together in the city, a precious thing truly akin to the big-town harbour cafe that May Day feels like. Lots of bicyclists, even on the rainy day ;)

I also discovered, by leafing through local photographers’ greeting cards up for sale, the Mayday Parade hosted by the Heart of the Beast puppet theatre. Looks like a good time :)

I am taking Daniel to the May Day on Sunday, and looking forward to it.

For my birthday I am going to treat myself to some birch syrup and do such things as:

• make bison jerky with it
• make cheesecake and scones other oven goodies with it
• make ice cream with it
• sweeten cold-press coffee with it
• can you say baked birch butternut squash?

I have also read about creating apple syrup by boiling down apple juice and that sounds intriguing. It would be grand to harvest fresh fall apples, juice them at home, and immediately make apple syrup.

You know, these little discoveries can mean totally sourcing my own income someday… investing in real estate would not be so bad if I could have a yard of apple trees that I can harvest for the cost of their maintenance :)
a loft downtown, though, which is my inherited real estate investment… not really my idea of home, despite downtown being my ‘hood. (That is about contrast)

I also want to have mulberry trees for my silkworms to dine on, and harvest their silk peacefully and spin it into yarn to make wedding dresses with. I originally wanted to spin and crochet my own silk wedding dress but didn’t know how to do either yet so it wasn’t worth the investment/learning stress. It would be interesting to do one of these each year, over the years I would maybe garnish enough reputation to be able to coordinate specific commission…
just an idea :)
This reminds me that I had a dream about drop-spindle spinning.

Today proposes a warm, persistently rainy day. It is the first day of my weekend after a seven-day workweek. We woke up late because I can’t distinguish between AM and PM when setting alarm clocks :)

Daniel went to work. I am going to tidy the foot-high floor of our closet which is clothing and anything biodegradeable sitting around, then take a bus to downtown Minneapolis to find umbrellas and harvest ideas at the library. He will punctuate my day with lunch. Maybe I’ll join him at work after that.

I happen to adore rain. It is cleansing, and I like how it slows everybody’s pace. The world moves like a race and I’m not that competitive. Rain is a referee.

Yesterday after work I got on the bus to our evening destination and it was so empty for that bus, so I was not shy about claiming the entire seat with my luggage. Then I got absorbed in the Citypage’s best of the twin cities issue and suddenly the bus was busy and there was a man sitting on my things. He mumbled, oh sorry. I wouldn’t bother with this story if it wasn’t the third or fourth time it’s happened to me! Weird. It’s hard to say, hi, can I sit here? isn’t it?

Yes, and far easier to just sit on my watermelon! Of which he earned none.

There is lots to crochet. The connecting row of a skirt, a cardigan, and a hoodie which I have been reworking and reworking since before the mid-March San Francisco trip. But it’s a sweet design so no hard feelings, just carpal tunnel.

Also, I bought some dandelion greens and lemongrass at Whole Foods the other day, and need to figure out what to do with them. I think the best/only use for a digital library would be cookbooks on a PDA, because you’re at the grocery store and you know you’ve seen an amazing recipe for this seasonal ingredient but you don’t remember it or any of the other ingredients, thus a second grocery trip there will be. Unless of course, you had all your cookbooks in your pocket…