Sunday: Family time

After our busy Saturday, we had a restful Sunday, with the family together. We went to church, then lunch at Culver's.

Here are DD1, P, and DD2.



Here are C and F-DSIL.



Here are my mom & dad... mom isn't too happy I am taking the picture.



Here are DH and I.



After lunch mom & dad left for Michigan, and the rest of us went home and spent the afternoon enjoying the porch together. There was a walk, with puppies, some skate board, some knitting, a nice fire in the chiminea, some napping, and general relaxation.

It was a wonderful day!

Senza

We wanted my folks to experience the restaurant where their future grandson-in-law works, so we went to Senza. It was also my dad's birthday, so that was a very special treat too.

The minute we walked through the door they greeted us like long lost friends, and said happy birthday to my dad. Everyone was very welcoming, and they even gave me a hook to hang my purse from the table! The decor was updated since the last time we were there. They have walnut tables now, instead of the white plastic picnic tables, and a couple more of them. DD1 did the redesign, and it is very elegant now.

We had water, with a choice of still or sparkling. I can't remember ever having that choice before, but I chose still. Mom and dad had the wine, a different wine for each entree, chosen specifically to match the flavors.

My pictures are not the best. I didn't use my flash, so the colors don't pop, but the food was as beautiful as it was good. The description under the pictures is from the menu.

We had the 5 course meal. Between all of us we tried most of the items on the menu. We started with the amuse:


Amuse: hamachi, yuzu kosho, sweet soy. dashi

It was a bite of fish, and a swallow of cucumber ginger soda. The flower is a squash flower, and is edible too, but none of us ate ours. (This is a serving for 2 people.) It was good, and a good introduction to the rest of the meal. My mom's face after she tasted it was so funny... she was trying to figure out what the tastes were.

The next course was scallops for two of us, and petite greens for the other two:


scallop: fava, blueberry, onion caramel, oxalis


petite greens: crab, young coconut, peach, macadamia

The scallops were delicious. The caramelized onions were so good, the blueberries gave just a touch of sweetness. I used to eat oxalis in our yard when I was a kid; I always liked the flavor. Mom & dad had the greens. They had a little trouble eating it (it was hard to get a forkful in your mouth) but they said it was really good. Those are peaches, sliced so thin you could almost see through them.

The service made everything even more special. It was so fun anticipating the next course by what utensils were provided, all carried on trays cushioned with napkins.

This is the soup:


They bring it out with just the extra flavors and pour the soup into the bowl at the table:


vidalia onion: duck prosciutto, truffle, bianco sottobosco, corn

The pumpernickel was the crouton, the little white "blob" was ice cream (!), and the green is petite scallions. I think this was my favorite dish. It was delicious! The soup was sweet onion, and the other pieces just added so much interest and flavor.

My dad and I had the ribeye, and DH and mom had the agnolotti. This was the main course. It was served on such a large plate that it looked like not very much food, but there was plenty.


ribeye: cherry, black garlic, morel, mustard


agnolotti: maitake, juneberry, kumquat, thyme

The ribeye was so good! The meat was tender, and the cherries were the crowning touch. There was a little tiny cracker, and the mushroom (!).

The agnolotti is ravioli with mushroom, the kumquat added such a distinct flavor.

There was an extra course that we were not expecting at all. It is a cheese course. It was melt in your mouth good! Since it wasn't on the menu, I will have to depend on my memory. The cheese was served like whipped cream. It was almost the consistency of pudding, but still with a very strong cheese flavor. The eclair was stuffed with pureed raisin. Just wow!



For the final course three of us had the chocolate, and DH had the oatmeal. They brought dad's plate with a candle burning! (but they did not sing to him).


chocolate: coconut, banana, raspberry, pumpkin seed


oatmeal: pine nut, cherry, dreamsicle, apricot

The chocolate was simply delicious. It had just a touch of chili in it... I could feel it in my mouth afterwards, but it didn't make it hot. The coconut was just a mouthful of ice cream and there were a couple of little pieces of cake. DH had the oatmeal, and really liked that too. It had a contrast in textures, flavors, and colors.

Some of the combinations on the menu make you wonder how someone could even think of putting them on the same plate, but they all work so well! After the first bite my mom and dad stopped trying to analyze everything and just enjoyed. They raved about the meal all the way home. We were not blown away quite as much as last time, because we expected a out-of-this-world meal, and we certainly got it.

The restaurant is doing well, and the reviews have been excellent. I also highly recommend it. By the way, all the food is gluten free! But that is just an added benefit. You wouldn't know it by any of the tastes or even textures of the bread.

We got invited to return soon, and we certainly hope to.

Wonderful Family Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend. My parents drove down from Michigan, and spent a couple of days with us; we did so much I will have to divide the pictures into several posts to keep from overwhelming things.

Mom and Dad arrived on Friday, mid-afternoon, and we spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the front porch. We went out for supper to Mishkenut, a very small local Mediterranean restaurant. I discovered my parents had never tasted hummus!? (I really can't say much, 10 years ago I had never tasted it either.) DH had the kufka, my parents had kabobs, and I had the fallafel.

Saturday morning, we got a moderate start and went out for brunch; then came home and rested. In the afternoon we went to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park.


(DH waiting for DD1)

We have been driving past this museum for years and years. A couple of weeks ago they did a "My Chicago" segment on it on the news, and I saw that it looked like a relaxing day; with plenty of places to sit; and it has a butterfly room! Our friends were giving DH plenty of grief about going to such a boring place, but it suited the day.

There were tons of butterflies!


On a docent's hand

The wings are getting raggedy

mom's arm


When you leave the butterfly room, you walk through the chrysalis room.


Freshly hatched!

We wandered through a couple of the other exhibits on the 2nd floor. These were some of DH's favorites:

Coyotes!

They had some nice dioramas of Illinois flora and fauna. You can also take a wetlands walk outside too, but we didn't take the time. Just looking through the windows we saw geese, ducks, and I think a swan.

I walked through the exhibits on the main floor, and decided that we have to come back and bring C. She has raised butterflies, and her newest pets are turtles:



(these are sculptures, but there were real ones too.) I did need her along to find the creatures in their homes; she can always find the ones that are hiding.

After enjoying the museum we went to DD1's apartment to wait for the next exciting installment of our day. Three of the four visitors napped, I knit.

Stay tuned!

Happy birthday to the Blog!

There were no comments on my last blog post, so I will not be giving away any of the stitch marker sets.

DH and I bought one succulent pot, and liked it so much we built ourselves another. They are very beautiful this year. Three of the plants have flowered this year. Aren't these coral flowers pretty?



This "purple" plant is taking over this pot. The plant in the front has been sporting pretty little yellow flowers.



The plants in these pots remind me of my grandma's house. She had a south-facing wide windowsill that was always crowded with house-plants, including a healthy pot of hen-and-chickens that always interested me.

I certainly have enjoyed blogging the past five years, and I love the fact that I have the diary of my handwork during that time. I wish I had started 20 years ago!

Blogaversary

Next week Monday is the fifth anniversary of my blog!

To celebrate, I want to give away one of the binary stitch marker sets from yesterday. In your comment please let me know which one you would like.

For your viewing pleasure here are Jake and Danny:

Things are still going okay with them, aside from some tussling over toys. 

New Project started

I finished 2 projects last week, plus my shawl the week before, so I felt perfectly comfortable in starting a new project. Here it is, modeling some of the new stitch markers in use. They are wonderful to use; no catching on anything, and just the right size.



DD1 spent the afternoon on Saturday, and while we were sitting talking on the front porch my hands were busy with this:



Three sets of binary stitch holder dangles. (They are not in order.) On the top set I added a blue bead to the red and white, just because it is July. I still have to make the soldered loops, but that will just take a couple of minutes.

I mentioned I finished a couple of projects. Here is a hand towel made out of cotton thread. I like how it turned out, but I did not enjoy knitting it. The crosswise stitch you can see is a yarn over that is pulled over the 2 next regular knit stitches. It was not a fast knit, and then cotton is not as much fun to knit with either.



I also finished a cowl with lace-weight hand spun yarn. I love how this one looks, but I will have to wait until cooler weather to find out how it feels.



At our summer program at church I am teaching knitting. Here is one of my students doing her homework. G is the same age as C. Isn't this a wonderful picture?

We are considering remodeling the house to look like a shoe. We have added P's dog to the mix... since P & C's dad is moving Danny would not have had a home so we took him in. He is another golden retriever. So far things seem to be going okay... hopefully it will only get better.

Jewelry for your knitting

I have been thinking about stitch markers for a couple of weeks now.

(Stitch markers are used to keep from having to count your stitches every time you do a row, or to separate repeats on a lace motif, or to show the beginning of your round, or to mark where to make the increase/decrease, etc.)

Here is my current project with a hodge podge of stitch markers. To show the beginning of the round I have a small matrushka doll, that was a gift from Moonsilk Stitches, a couple of split ring markers, a couple of flat markers that look like they were punched out of a sheet of plastic, and a ring. They get the job done, but they are not very inspiring.



On my Citron shawl I didn't use markers, but I should have. I had to make evenly spaced increases (24 of them!) on rows 13 and 19 of every repeat. I ended up counting all my stitches before every one of those rows...

Of course you don't really need ring stitch markers. You can always tie a little circle out of some left-over yarn and use those instead, but what is the fun in that?

When we went to the Midwest Fiber Fest, I said that I was going to shop for stitch markers. I wanted some pretty ones. I didn't find any that I liked. There were some that had charms on them, but I was afraid those would get caught in my knitting (plus they were way expensive, 2 markers for around $7). I kept looking and found some markers I liked, but they were included in a kit that I was not interested in buying. However, the girl/knit designer/kit maker was there, and said she had made them herself (hmmm) and had soldered every joint so they wouldn't catch on anything. (more hmmm.) They were cute, made out of wire for the ring, and a bead dangle; one of the dangles was different so you could use that one to show the end of your round.

I thought about that for a while, thinking of what would be needed (beads, check; soldering gun, DH has one, check; wire for the rings, store has those, check; head pins for the dangle, should be some in stash, no, back to the store, check; know how to solder, not so much; know how to do a wire wrap, know the theory, but not up on the practice).

So I stopped at the bead store (such a sacrifice!) and got wire and head pins. Checked You Tube for information on how to do a wire wrap, and tried a couple (not impossible, hopefully will improve with practice). DH took 5 minutes and showed me how to solder.

Here's the set-up for the soldering:



Here are the first two sets I made. On the left are rings that were wrapped around a size 13 needle with chain mail rings on them. There are 2 colors and I tried to represent Roman numerals with the different colors. (I had wanted to use indigo for "I," and violet for "V" but I didn't find mail rings in those colors.) On the right are bead dangles (plain old Mill Hill beads) and the rings are sized on a size 8 knitting needle. Of course, you cannot use a size 8 needle with them, since the dangle wire took up some of the space, so these would probably have to be used for socks or smaller.



Then I started going through my bead soup bucket and found and made these (size 13):



and these (only 5 of these pretty beads):



and these (the orange one can be your end of row marker):



(I have a lot more of these butterfly beads... )

Here is where my craziness took me, though:



These are on a size 10.5, so will be good for working on worsted on down. There are enough to mark 24 increases. Actually, there are 32 of them, and they are in binary code. It starts with 0 on the left, and goes up to 31 on the right. I want to try this again with different colors, and maybe even bigger beads. Size 6 beads would show up really well. It is going to be fun trying to keep them in order until I can get them into my project.

It makes me smile just to look at them, even though my inner geek is showing. (For my mom, check it out, the design is capicua! [translation: palindromic].)

Which ones are your favorite?