Baked

What is it about watching samurai movies that makes me want to bake? Or, what is it about baking that makes me want to watch samurai movies? It's hard to say which desire comes first, but these urges tend to arrive at about the same time.

The informal PPK poll listed Isa's peanut butter oatmel and ginger cookies as the absolute favorites for Isa cookie first-timers. Why fight the love, especially when you already have most of the ingredients?



The pictures are not misleading. These cookies are deadly. I was eating a ginger cookie as I made the pb oatmeal cookies. And then as I was eating pb cookie dough (or so it seemed). I was surprised to find that the ginger were my absolute favorites. This is no slight to the pb oatmeal, just that Ginger Snaps used to be my favorite cookie in a box and I've kind of missed them. No longer. I added chocolate chunks to half of the pb oatmeal. These cookies are normally gigantoid. I made them regular-sized and ended up with three dozen cookies. I planned on offloading some in my office today, but realized shortly out of the door that I forgot them. Tomorrow. The gingers, though? I've renamed them My Precious. Sivvie hasn't even had a chance to lick up a crumb.

Below is evidence of the what little real food I ate all weekend. Go figure. It was before I made the cookies. I knew I was going to watch The Prestige on Friday night so I tossed together a quick meal. I love stuff shoved in rice paper wraps. Particularly when accompanied by peanut sauce. Likewise, I've been eyeing the sesame-crusted oyster mushrooms "calamari" in one of the Millennium cookbooks for years. Of course, I could only find tree form mushrooms (mini chanterelles is what the Whole Foods sign called them). And I can't eat sesame. Oh, and couldn't be bothered to actually follow the recipe. In fairness, it had taken me nearly 20 minutes to find it which is about how long it should have taken me to make it. But here they are, hemp seed-crusted tree form mushroom "calamari." They were most excellent. Those Millennium folks are on to something.



But the rest of the weekend really did consist of nothing more than a few additional rice paper wraps, a bowl of soup, perhaps a dozen cookies (I'm being kind to myself I fear) and a couple of glasses of soymilk. I didn't even have a drop of alcohol this weekend, whatfor being to lazy to put on some real clothing and walk to the liquor store.

Perhaps if I had, I would have enjoyed Samurai Fiction more. I wanted to like this movie a lot. It was kind of funny. There were some halfway decent shots. But I think there were two problems. 1) It was the last samurai movie I watched that weekend so was being compared to the three above. 2) The movie really would have been much funnier if I had a few. But not having a few allowed me to knit lace and watch Japanese movies at the same time, so it was worth the sacrifice.



I kind of feel as if this cape will go on forever. It's daunting to have hundreds of stitches in one row of knitting. I have begun to wonder why I wanted to knit a cape to begin with. Capes are not practical. Where am I going to wear this? Why didn't I just pick a shawl? If this were a good, practical, superhero-style cape? Maybe. A Little, Red Riding Hood cape? Perhaps. But I don't plan on strolling through any Tuscan villas any time soon so I'm not sure what I'll do with it other than display it on my wall.

And this little bit of crochet pinned to my bathroom door? It's my first finished piece of crochet. I blocked it over the weekend and began the patchwork (sewn) back. I love the early days of a craft when you spend almost as much time figuring out how to cover your mistakes as you do making the object.