Pink Popcorn

When my sister and I were little Nanny, our maternal grandmother, would often have us for an overnight visit. One of the highlights of these visits was a special treat that we called "pink popcorn", which really does no justice to this sweet, salty and crunchy affair. We'd get ready for bed while Nan made the popcorn, then we'd close down the kitchen and take the popcorn to the living room, where we'd watch the Love Boat or whatever else might be on television, while Nan knit or crocheted.

A few years ago Nan gave me the recipe, and for some inexplicable reason I finally got around to making it this afternoon. And while I know time travel does not exist, let me just say that the minute I tasted this again I could practically feel myself sitting there on the couch in my flannel nightie, sitting next to my little sister with a bowl of popcorn in between us, with Nan sitting in the chair with her legs tucked up under her, yarn in her lap and instructions balanced on the arm of the chair. Powerful stuff, this is.

A few things about the recipe: first, I used a bag of microwave popcorn and it turned out just fine; second, you have to use butter - margarine won't work; third, any color food coloring will do, but once we had Nan make it blue and we swore it tasted different; fourth, as with anything involving hot boiling sugar be extremely careful, this is not a kid-friendly recipe; fifth, if kids are going to eat this, it might be worth the extra time to pick out the unpopped kernels; sixth, you have been warned, this stuff is like crack for anyone with a sweet tooth.

Ok, ready?

4-6 cups popped popcorn

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1 1/2 tablespoons butter

a couple drops of red food coloring

Powdered sugar (confectioner's sugar)

Spread the popped popcorn in a lightly greased shallow pan. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, water, butter and food coloring and bring to a boil while stirring. Boil until the soft ball stage (230-240 degrees). Gradually pour the syrup over the popcorn and stir until there is even coverage (it will get sticky). Sprinkle powdered sugar on top while it's all still warm. Let it cool a bit before eating - but not too long, as its best while still slightly warm. It will allegedly keep for a few days in an airtight container, but honestly? We've never had any leftovers.

Someone asked for a photo -- I suspect this will look like a bowl of popcorn to most people but if you look really hard, there's a hint of pink. I could have used another drop or two of food coloring.

The Requisite Annual Navel Gazing 2009

Like a lot of people, I find this time of year a good spot to stop and think about what I’ve accomplished and what I want to achieve in the coming year. I stopped making resolutions a long time ago, but I do like to pause and reflect about the things that are important to me, identify areas that I want to focus on, and outline baby steps I can take to move myself forward. And when I say “baby steps”, I mean exactly that – for example, in 2008 I set the goal for myself of simply submitting one essay for publication, which I did just under the wire in late December. The point was simply to put something I had written in the mail. I had utterly no expectations; in fact, I took consolation in the fact that the essay would never see the light of day. I was simply forcing myself to confront my fear of sending my work out.

(I recognize how weird this may sound for someone who blogs, but the thing about blogging is that unless you are, say, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, it’s very easy to assume nobody is reading the thing, and so it feels private…even when it’s not.)

Imagine my surprise when, six months later, I found out the essay was going to be published. When they asked me if the work “was still available for publication” (meaning, nobody else had bought it) I almost fell off my chair from laughing. Nobody else had SEEN the thing.

(While I had been published before, during college, it was a fluke of grand proportions involving my roommate’s brother desperately needing copy for a new magazine he was art directing, and him grabbing my first journalism class assignment off the kitchen table. I was so blasé about the whole thing that I was truly startled when I showed up at class and my professor was stunned that one of his students had been published. At the age of 21 I had no idea this was actually a big deal.)

At any rate, having this latest essay published was proof positive for me that in fact, baby steps can work, and so I set about to figure out other parts of my life that might benefit from them. In 2009 I had this vague notion that I wanted to figure out what makes me happy, after realizing that a succession of things (boyfriends, jobs, apartments) were not making me happy (shocking, I know). This wasn’t a goal that could necessarily be quantified, but through a series of baby steps I started noticing improvements in my mood. Eventually I stumbled upon Gretchen Rubin’s blog and officially christened my explorations as a Happiness Project. In 2010, as I continue exploring happiness, I’m going to follow Rubin’s monthly happiness challenge, where every month I will focus on a particular area of my life. I am not 100% sure how I will deal will all of her topics , so I may change things up a bit if something more relevant comes up. But there’s something appealing about this approach; I like the idea of devoting one month to something. It seems like it will be long enough to investigate and make some changes, but short enough so that I won’t get sick of it.

January’s topic is Energy, and while I’m not yet sure what Rubin has in mind, I am going to define this in three specific ways: physical, emotional, and consumption (as in, electricity). There are some basic things that I already know affect my energy levels …but I’m interested in exploring this further. Like, for example, every few months I think to myself, I really should take a basic multi-vitamin, because my idea of good nutrition is a grilled-cheese and tomato sandwich. I run out and buy vitamins, take one, and then promptly forget about them for another few months. What would happen if I actually took one every single day? Totally a baby step. And maybe I won’t feel any differently, but it’s possible that it might just boost my energy a bit. If not, no harm/no foul. Likewise, I know that there are a number of small things I can do to reduce my energy consumption, including unplugging my rarely-used toaster, DVD player, and printer. Small things, but still valuable.

If you’d like to play along, visit Rubin’s blog or check out her upcoming book (I have no relationship, business or otherwise, with her; I just like her blog). Also, another good source I've found for “annual life planning”, for lack of a better term, is Chris Guillebeau’s blog.

Purple Redux Done

If you've been wondering where I was...I was back in purple land, making a second quilt for my youngest niece. I tried my best to make it "exactly the same", although it was not possible to make the patchwork match precisely. Because I had to buy more fabric to make this one, I think it is possible that I have more purple fabric now than when I started these...

A Few of My Happy Things

It's snowing out and for some strange reason I am WIRED; cannot sleep at all. Since 'tis the season and all that, plus I haven't written about my happiness project in a while, I thought I'd share a few things that made me happy this week.

1) Harney & Sons cinnamon spice tea. Here in the Boston area it can be found at Au Bon Pain, Barnes and Nobles, and Roche Brothers. It’s a very sweet tea – no need for sugar-and I find it extraordinarily comforting, plus it smells very holiday-like. It is caffeinated, although they do sell a decaf version; I don’t recommend drinking the regular stuff before bed (although I have been known to ignore my own advice and curl up at night with the tea, a blanket and a good book).

2. The new catalog from Halcyon Yarn. When I was a kid in rural Maine, the arrival of the new Sears catalog in the mail was a big deal – my sister and I would fight over it, then spend hours poring over the clothes and toy sections, circling the things we wanted Santa to bring us. The Halcyon Yarn catalog is smaller, but no less full of dreaming...at least, if you are prone to dreaming about fiber projects. Every time I get one of these in the mail I start thinking about how much I’d like to try weaving or spinning, but the last thing I need is another hobby. Also? downtown Bath, Maine, where the store is located, is one of my favorite places on the planet.

3. Knitting. I virtually stopped knitting for about six weeks, a combination of other projects percolating and repeatedly forgetting my knitting bag. Re-resolving to finish something (anything!), I fished out a sock project from my UFO (unfinished object) pile. Shockingly, the first sock was literally five rows away from being done, which is sort of odd; I’m guessing I was probably knitting on the train and had to stop suddenly to get off, because I can’t imagine what else would have stopped me from kitchener stitching a toe. But I digress. The point of this is to say that I was reminded that there is something about repeatedly making tiny stitches with excellent sock yarn on wooden needles that I find ridiculously comforting.

4. The Tori Amos “holiday” album, Midwinter Graces. This is not your typical sing-alongChristmas carol album, but even if you don’t consider that a good thing this CD is worth investigating. Even if you are not particularly enamored with Tori Amos, it is worth investigating. Don't be put off by the fact that she looks possessed on the album cover (what were they thinking?!). The songs are beautiful interpretations of traditional Christian and pagan themes, creating new out of the old (which ought to shut Glenn Branca up). A few of the songs can even survive the holiday season. My favorite on the album is her version of “Jeannette Isabella” – it makes me happy every time I hear it.

5. David Sedaris. I’ve been re-reading his books of essays this week, plus the current New Yorker has a story by him in it about sea turtles, and I am yet again marveling at both his humor and his essay construction. He simutaneously makes me want to pick up my own writing again and want to burn everything I have ever written because it will never be as good as his stuff.

6. NPR. For some odd reason the planets have mysteriously aligned and I can now, finally, get NPR on my clock radio. I am swooning to again wake up to Steve Inskeep’s voice (although…still miss Soterios Johnson from my NYC days…). There was recently a Morning Edition segment where Neil Gaiman (writer of "Coraline" and friend of Tori Amos – “Neil says hi by the way”) was talking about audio books, and there was a short clip of him interviewing David Sedaris. I was amused, not the least of which because Sedaris...well, he has kind of a strange voice. In fact, I have a hard time listening to him and honestly, if he wasn't so funny, I wouldn't even try. Which reminds me, it's about time to pull out his "Holidays on Ice" book!

The Holiday

Three stormy days at my parents' house with my nieces produced the following:

Aviator Bunnies, from a pattern by Hillary Lang. I had hoped these would be easy enough for the girls (ages 7 and 9) to hand sew, but alas that was not the case - the pieces are very tiny. Had I access to a photocopier, I would have tried enlarging them just a tad for the girls, but as it was I spent an afternoon sewing these up. The girls did the stuffing, though, and I think they may have overstuffed the heads because the bunnies wouldn't stand up on their own (or maybe they aren't supposed to?)...next time I may put beans or something in the bottom to weigh them down. But SO cute, and I'm anxious to make more. I think they would be great tied to Christmas packages!

Next up - paper dolls. We used a doll pattern from the current issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors that was intended for sewing with cloth, but we used oak tag paper for the bodies and leftover scrapbook materials for the clothes and accessories. I was surprised at how intently they both worked on this project, and how they both quickly figured out they could use the body pattern to make clothes from it. J. gave hers mismatched socks (which to me looked like an excellent pair of boots), and G. gave hers a mini-dress. (J. very sweetly left hers on my mother's pillow before she left to go back to California!)

Finally, a tie-dye project. A few days before Thanksgiving, my youngest niece announced she wanted a "tie-dyed Thanksgiving" - I think she was just being silly, but I found a kit at the fabric store along with some plain white T's. I thought my mother was going to ban me from the house when I showed up with permanent dye, but we snuck down to the basement after Thanksgiving dinner while the rest of the adults were in food coma mode. The girls' brother declined to participate, but we made him one anyway.

I had a great time with the girls making these projects, but must confess to having been a tad anxious about leaving the cat alone for a few days. Intellectually I knew he'd be just fine, but I was a little worried about him getting lonely...and a little worried about there not being anyone around to stop him from using the wood cabinets as a scratching post. As it turned out, I opened the apartment door and stepped in cat food...I'd forgotten to put away his new bag of cat food, and even though I had left ample food for him, he decided to go the self-service route:

Project Litter Box

One of the challenges of having a cat in a small apartment is the location of the litter box. In my current situation, I really only had one option - the floor underneath some built-in shelves in my bathroom. Mostly it's a fine solution, but I have to confess that while I'm soaking in the bathtub the last thing I want to see is the cat doing his business. And when company comes, especially young children, I wanted to be able to "hide" the box while still allowing Wilbert access to it (for all the obvious reasons).

After living here 5 months, this afternoon I finally got around to making a little curtain. I used a small tension rod and one yard of ridiculously cute bird fabric* - which I had bought just because it was so cute. This literally took half an hour to sew up. All you need to do is cut off the selvedges and square up the fabric, then hem the sides, the top, and then finally the bottom. I sewed another seam in the top hem so there is a sleeve to put the tension rod through, which gives the top a bit of a ruffle. In this case one yard was perfect in both length and width. I wasn't exactly particular about my hemming, either - I used the iron to double-fold the edges and then just sort of eyeballed the seams. I mean really, the cat will be the only thing really looking at it...but if you are a bit more detail-oriented, it would have taken another whole 10 minutes to be really accurate about the hemming. And, voila:

I'll leave it half-open for awhile, 'til the cat gets used to it. Those fake flowers on the right? Those would be what he kept knocking off the back of the toilet seat. (Not to be outdone, I got up yesterday morning and found an entire, brand-new roll of toilet paper in the bowl...clearly, the cat has declared the top of the tank an "item free" zone.)

*Fabric is the "Starling" print by Alexander Henry

Back to Regular Programming

I had a lovely weekend in NYC, where I learned that pretty much anyone who is anyone in the NYC theater world has been on Law and Order and All My Children. I was also reminded of the fact that you have to be careful about what you say around 4-year olds: my friend's husband made a comment about cats being just as clean as humans, and I retorted, "Well, I don't know about you, but I don't lick MY butt". Hysterical laughter erupted from the 4-year old, who then spent the next few minutes improvising with words that rhyme with "butt" and "poop". We'll see if I'm ever invited back.

Once home, it was back to the sewing machine. These blocks will not win any prizes - they were very difficult to square up and hardly any of the points match. At a certain point I just gave up trying - I just wanted to sew, and not be too fussed about the results. I do, however, really like the pattern, especially the pinwheels that form with the background fabric when you piece the blocks together (the white ones here). I think by all rights I should add another row...except I'm out of blue and green Bali strips. Not sure if I'll improvise with some other fabric, or just call it good enough and add some borders:

I'm trying to decide whether to start sewing the second purple quilt next, or actually commit to finishing something, be it sewn or knit...my apartment looks like a graveyard for unfinished projects right now. The problem is, every time I go through the fabric or yarn to "de-stash" I discover more material for a new project...right now there is some really cute baby sheep fabric just taunting me from across the room. *sigh*