The Demon Barber of Sage Vegetarian Cafe

A dinner and a movie is a pretty cliched evening, but sometimes it's perfect. Last night Sean and I had dinner at Sage Vegetarian Cafe, then walked over to the theater to see Sweeney Todd. The dinner special at Sage was mushroom ravioli in a spicy red sauce with gorgonzola cheese, and it was so good I wanted to lick my plate. The side salad with house dill dressing and the dessert (chocolate walnut cake) were also excellent. I'll definitely be back to try the rest of the menu, which seems to lean towards Persian cuisine.

Sweeney Todd was also really good, if a bit intense for someone as squeamish as me. I spent a good 1/3 of the movie covering my face; for some reason the over-the-top gore bothered me much more than in, say, the Kill Bill movies (maybe because the victims were mostly undeserving in this case), and watching the bodies land with a crunch at the bottom of the disposal chute made me wince. The casting was perfect, and the singing was just fine, for a movie. Helena Bonham Carter plays the same raddle-haired, bosomy, insane gothy chick she's been typecast as ever since she was Ophelia in Zefferelli's Hamlet. It's her schtick, but I get a bit tired of seeing her in every. single. Burton. film. The clever wordplay in the songs, the dark, gritty sets, and the hilarious corpse-family-at-the-seaside montage were all very enjoyable, though.

Christmas 2007

A good time was had by all at the family Christmas celebration.

Cary tried out for Santa's sleigh team, but was disqualified due to her lack of 20/20 vision and tendency to be distracted by the word "cookie".

Dinner was pepper-crusted beef tenderloin, sugar snap peas and roasted red potatoes. The beef recipe, which is a favorite for special occasions in my family, is from a 1992 issue of Bon Appetit that I used to have but either lost or recycled at some point, causing a period of panic when I found that I didn't have it written down, either. The recipe isn't in the Epicurious database, so I was reduced to begging for it on the Epicurious forums. A kind soul tracked it down and posted it for me within a couple hours, but it turned out Mom had it in her recipe box all along. I've included it below because it's really good and ought to be available online.

Peppered Beef Tenderloin with Mustard and Horseradish Sauce

Ingredients

Sauce:
1 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons prepared horseradish

Beef:
2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns
2 teaspoons whole white peppercorns
2 teaspoons whole green peppercorns
2 teaspoons coarse salt
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature
1 cup loosely packed fresh Italian parsely, chopped
1 2-pound beef tenderloin, trimmed
Additional fresh parsley

Preparation

For Sauce: Whisk all ingredients in small bowl. Cover and refrigerate sauce until ready to serve. (Sauce can be prepared 2 days ahead.)

For Beef: Coarsely grind all peppercorns in spice grinder or blender. Transfer peppercorns to bowl. Mix in salt. Whisk mustard, butter and 1 cup chopped parsley in medium bowl to blend. Rub all over tenderloin. Roll tenderloin in peppercorn mixture, coating completely (can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Place tenderloin on rack set in shallow baking pan. Roast until meat thermometer inserted into center registers 130F for rare, about 35 minutes. Transfer roast to platter. Let stand for 10 minutes. Cut roast into slices. Arrange on platter.

Along with the sweater for Mom, I knitted Robin a couple of washcloths. This round one was a really fun project which I'll definitely make again.

I tarted up a plain-ish fairy door for Robin with flowers and some clay Happy Grass. It's hard to explain about the Happy Grass except to say that it's very HAPPY. And it's GRASS. Which is very HAPPY.

I also made some Spritz cookies, which turned out well due to the intervention of my sweetie. However, I regret to say that the cookie press did not survive the holiday, as I had to be restrained from flinging it through a window. I'm currently searching for a heavy-duty pneumatic Spritz press.

I got a plethora of wonderful Yule and Christmas gifts from everyone, including some great handmade soap, jewelry and glass from Etsy, sweaters, kitchen stuff, books, tea, etc. I just wish I had about 3 weeks of vacation to enjoy it all.

Near-disaster

In the unlikely event that mom is reading this, please don't read this until after Christmas Eve!

SPOILER SPACE

SPOILER SPACE

I tend of obsess over handmade gifts, worrying about whether the recipient will like them, whether they look too handmade-in-a-bad-way, and generally working myself up into a state of panic. This happened with mom's sweater, which I gradually became convinced was just too long and stretched-out. I had read in a couple places that the stretchiness of superwash wool can be improved by a trip through the dryer, so a few days ago I decided to wash the sweater again, this time in the machine on the "handwash" setting in cold water, and then run it through the dryer on Low.

It turns out that Laines du Nord Ciclamino is not superwash. It's machine washable in cold water, but DRY FLAT. I missed that part on the label and blissfully went through with my plan. By the time I retrieved the sweater from the dryer, it was thicker, fuzzier, and a whole lot smaller.

I really thought I'd ruined almost 4 months of work in an hour. However, after trying the sweater on, I realized that this might not be the total catastrophe I feared.

THEN:

NOW:

I actually like the sweater better now, and I think mom will be happier too. The fabric is dense and plushy. The arms still come all the way down to my wrists, and the length was shortened just enough. All in all, I'd say it's an improvement.

Because I can't not take a quiz...

...given that etselec posted her results...

Your Score: Fennel

You scored 50% intoxication, 25% hotness, 75% complexity, and 0% craziness!

You are Fennel! You're a cool cat. Crisp, clean, fresh, and extremely complicated. You're like quantum physics or modern jazz. Think Niels Bohr meets Ornette Coleman. You may look normal now, but once you sprout, you look kind of, uh, funny.

Split pea soup and giant socks

If you're not feeling well and it's cold and rainy outside, there's only one thing to do: make soup. I made a big pot of split pea soup yesterday, but decided I needed something bread-y to go with. I didn't have time for yeast rolls and I didn't feel like making a huge mess on the counter rolling out dough, so after some searching around in my cookbooks and online, I found a recipe for cheddar drop biscuits.

I didn't have chives on hand, so I used some finely chopped fresh rosemary instead and swiped the biscuits with melted butter after taking them out of the oven. I can't recommend this recipe enough. They were fantastic and reheated well in the toaster oven for breakfast. Next time I may try using some whole wheat flour and see how that turns out.

In Giant Sock for Mom news, the Giant Sock is complete (!!!!!!!) and can be seen here.

Risque tub pics and Yuletime reading

I finished mom's "giant sock" while staying home yesterday evening with a cold, watching the George C Scott version of A Christmas Carol on DVD. This morning it took its first bath, and I took a picture of it splashing around in the tub:

(I pixellated the photo to avoid any possible glimpses of wooly naughty bits.)

I've been thinking about the movies and books I like to pull off the shelves this time of year. The above version of "A Christmas Carol", "A Muppet Christmas Carol", and "Blackadder's Christmas Carol" are my top 3 movies, closely followed by the various Rankin-Bass animated specials, the Grinch, and "A Charlie Brown Christmas".

The original version of A Christmas Carol (really just a 5-chapter novella, it's very short) is a quick, entertaining little book; the first time I read it, I was surprised by how witty and tightly written it was, compared to draggy Dickens behomoths like Our Mutual Friend. I also like to read The Ark by Margot Benary-Isbert; it's technically a YA novel, and it's unfortunately long out of print (I got my battered copy at a library sale as a kid, and I treasure it now that I know I can't replace it easily). It's the story of a German refugee family struggling to survive after WWII, and the descriptions of winter farmlife and Christmas preparations make it a good seasonal read. In a similar vein, Carrie Young's Nothing To Do But Stay, a collection of memoirs about a homesteading Norwegian community in turn of the century North Dakota, has great stories about huge holiday meals and a crazy uncle's surprise purchase of an enormous Christmas tree.

Design your own hideous holiday sweater!

Get your tacky on and design the perfect Christmas sweater at http://weloveholidaysweaters.wehatesheep.com/.

I spent today doing stuff I've been putting off for weeks: finishing the quilted bag for my Grandma, doing tons of laundry so I have something to wear to my workplace which requires not-jeans 4 days a week, getting Christmas cards ready to send out, etc.

In this picture, the bag doesn't have the binding sewn down and the button's not on there yet, but it's ready to go as of now. As soon as I scrape off all the cat hair and loose threads with the lint roller, that is.

Village of Terror

All is not well in the seemingly peaceful village of DickensianYuleClicheTown.

For example, why is the blood-spattered rector, Trevor Uvula, hurrying out of the Church of St. Quaintlyanglican with what appears to be a pig's severed leg?

What mental breakdown has led accountant Nigel Marinara to begin merrily exposing his tomatoes to unsuspecting passersby?

These little scamps might find it amusing to roll a giant snowball topped by a napping cat over the Full Moon Outhouse Carolers(tm), but what will the residents of DickensianYuleClicheTown do when the entrance to their only public restroom is blocked until Spring by three frozen corpses?

These carousing German tourists (including the very strapping, three-eyebrowed lass with the prominent Adam's apple) have been drinking on the public square since their arrival, exhorting young and old to sample from their keg of dank Bavarian brew. Is their visit merely an insult to good British beer, or the start of a sinister plot involving bad techno and Lederhosen?

At the other end of the square, Cornelius Farfalle and The Shrunken Heads have been performing their accordian/monkey organ/Tuvan throat singing music for several days without a break. Is this merely street entertainment gone wrong, or the perverse ritual of some religious cult?

As eccentric billionaire Orville Squirt serves his dog Kobe beef meatloaf on a silver platter, and herds of rabid reindeer roam the streets attacking abandoned cookie concessions, who can say what dire fate will befall this formerly bucolic hamlet?