Vogue Knitting Review

Knits Men Want has been reviewed on dozens on blogs and I thank everyone for their kind words. But this month something truly wonderful has happened. We got reviewed in Vogue Knitting Fall 2010. And all was right with the world.

Come Cook With Us

Mark and I are spending most of November on the road teaching cooking classes. Please come and cook with us.

Nov 6th we're headlining at the Pittsburg Food Festival, cooking from our book REAL FOOD HAS CURVES.

Real Food Has Curves is a fun and ultimately rewarding seven-step journey to rediscover the basic pleasure of fresh, well-prepared natural ingredients: curvy, voluptuous, juicy, sweet, savory. And yes, scrumptious, too. In these simple steps—each with its own easy, delicious recipes—you’ll learn to become a better shopper, savor your meals, and eat your way to a better you. Yes, you’ll drop pounds. But you won’t be counting calories. Instead, you’ll learn to celebrate the abundance all around. It’s time to realize that food is not the enemy but a life-sustaining gift. It’s time to get off the processed and packaged merry-go-round. It’s time to be satisfied, nourished, thinner, and above all, happier.

Later in November, we'll be teaching at Central Market schools throughout Texas. All recipes from our book HAM: AN OBSESSION WITH THE HIND QUARTER.

Sat., 11/13. Fort Worth Central Market. 6:30 to 9:00 pm

Sun., 11/14. South Lake Central Market. 5:30 to 7:30 pm

Mon., 11/15. Dallas Central Market. 5:00 to 7:30 pm

Tues., 11/16. Plano Central Market. 6:30 to 9:00 pm

Fri., 11/19. San Antonio Central Market. 6:30 to 9:00 pm

Sat., 11/20. Austin Central Market. 6:30 to 9:00 pm

Then finally, we're doing our cooking show and teaching classes on Holland Americas Amsterdam from January 14 to 26th Lima, Peru to Bora Bora, French Polynesia. It should be a blast. Please come and sail AND cook with us.

x-mas gifts - some people get ketchup

Okay, I don't knit gifts for every one. This year our beloved editors and publishers of our cook books and food magazines are getting homemade ketchup.

First on the list comes a thank you to my neighbor (well she's 1.5 miles down the road, but when you live in the country that counts as being a neighbor) Marty. She and her husband Chip have a huge vegetable garden and donated 50 pounds of tomatoes to the cause. This is their gorgeous house and gardens where the tomatoes came from.

When I ordered the 20 qt all-clad stock pot I thought that would be the largest pot I could ever imagine using at home. I was wrong. It took 2 batches to process all those tomatoes into ketchup. First I had to chop and cook them briefly to soften the skins. Then I passed them all through the food mill to remove the skins and seeds.

Next, I added ground onions (a quick whirl in the food processor did that nicely) along with a little sugar (only about 2 cups for this entire pot), a touch of salt, and cider vinegar that I infused with cinnamon, fennel seed, all spice berries, star anise, garlic, and dill seed (from my own garden of course). Then began the fun. Reduce, reduce, reduce. This large pot took 13 hours to from wet and soupy to thick and ketchup-y.

Knitting Things We Don't Like

It's kinda the whole subtext of my book, Knits Men Want. Even if you find it boring to knit, so plain, so monochromatic, if he wants it, knit it anyway. Well, as a male knitter, I rarely have a chance to knit for women-folk - usually doing up oversized sweaters for me and Mark. Or thick warm socks for hiking boots or wearing in front of the fire. Knitting thick and bulky has become ingrained in me. Lace? Not likely.

And I've always said that sock yarn is for sissies. No man wants to wear thin little hand-knit socks knitted out of what looks like dental floss (albeit colorful dental floss) on toothpicks.

Then at dinner last week, in a moment of supreme generosity and love - brought on by my true admiration of my friends Rich and Faye along with bottle of incredible Cabernet, I promised them each a pair of hand knit socks. Rich will be easy. As a guy and he'll love a pair of bulky warm socks. Faye, on the other hand, is very feminine and only a sleek, sexy but funky pair of socks are going to do.

As you probably guessed, I don't keep much sock yarn in my stash, so I traded half a dozen skeins of Rowan SilkKid Haze for some Claudia Hand Painted fingering to knit Faye's socks. If you haven't used Ravelry to search other people's stash and swap things around, you don't know what you're missing.

Am I looking forward to using 2s (if my gauge swatch lets me, 1s if I must)? Absolutely not. But I push my students to try something new all the time. And I encourage every woman who complains that her man only likes bulky boring and dark things to give up the colorful yarn and tiny needles for a while.

I'll get a taste of my own medicine over these socks, but I expect that I'll be better knitter and a better friend when I'm done.

Great Sale Going On

I love to share the wealth. While it lasts. There's a killer sale going on at Twisted, in Millerton, NY.

It's a great shop where I teach on Wednesday evenings (6 to8) and Sunday mornings (11 to1).

Kim's put a ton of yarn on half price, like Aslan Trends Cotton, Natura, Greenland Merino, Seduce, and much more.

But it's only on until Columbus day, so act fast.