Recipes and Patterns

Knitted Eggplant

Oddly enough for someone who uses a food recipe so rarely, I love knitting from patterns. There’s something very satisfying to knowing fairly specifically the end result of a knitting project, selecting the yarn, enjoying the clever construction and beautiful yarn, and getting the predicted product at the end. Patterns are definitely not for everyone, though. Today at my LYS, some spoke disdainfully of following patterns, as if they jailed the intellect. “I never follow a pattern.” “I just treat a pattern as a suggestion.” Are pattern-lovers mental sheep, or automata executing the steps of someone else’s intellectual property? Now there’s a fun idea for an amigurumi.

As someone embarking on her second year of knitting, I look back on last year and see the specific lesson that each pattern taught me: the baby hat taught me knitting in the round, the Girasole (Ravelry) taught me lace and how to read my knitting, Dryad (Ravelry) taught me cables, and I continue to learn from each pattern. I’ve also observed what pattern formats I like and dislike. Additionally,  I’ve found that designing knitwear is a great small business, and discovered different venues of advertising patterns. I’ve even learned the value of swatching!

Looking ahead, I find that I’m starting to want to enter the world of designing. While I would love to be one of those designers whose every pattern is worth sighing over, my goals are more utilitarian. Firstly, now that I have a supportive LYS, I would like to be able to sell some knits. Being acutely aware of intellectual property law and custom, I’ve been looking at the fine print at the end of my favorite patterns and finding that selling products made from the patterns are generally frowned upon, even from patterns that I paid for. Therefore, I’m planning on writing my own patterns so that I have completely guilt-free baby sweaters, toys, shawls, and mitts to sell for more yarn money. Secondly, I love to teach, and have always loved to teach, and a lot of patterns have nixed that too. Finally, as any other crafter does, I love to create, and I would love to see how other crafters take a pattern of mine and treat it the way I do a recipe: take it as a suggestion and creatively re-interpret it in unexpected and beautiful ways.

Being Whole: Certifications I Aim to Acquire

Ones I Have Achieved:
Bachelor of Art
Bachelor of Science
Medical Doctor
Kukkikwon certified 4th Degree Black Belt
Wife

Ones to Achieve:
Registered Massage Therapist
Ph.D.
Professor
Associate degree in Culinary Arts
Registered Yoga Teacher
Author
Mother

Iron Chef: May 2007 = Strawberries

What is "Iron Chef"? Iron Chef has been described as a "game show", though I tend to disagree based on the fact that creativity and inspiration are what win the day, not just blind chance and regurgitation of facts. Iron Chef is a Japanese television show with the whimsical premise of an eccentric gourmand who has Iron chefs and guests chefs face off against each other. In each episode an ingredient is chosen as the theme for a meal of multiple courses. Crazy dishes as well as hilariously voiced commentary make this show entertaining, though unfortunately no DVD's of the show were available the last time I looked. If I could just subscribe to the Food Network, I'd actually watch TV.

At medical school, 5 of us started having themed cooking nights about four times a semester. While none of us ever went as crazy as squid ice cream, it was a fun way to get together and enjoy each other's company in a homey fashion. We never got around to having a competition since most of our houses didn't have enough kitchen space, but good times and good conversation were abundant. Since experience and good conversation are especially valued by Sunny and I, I'm hoping to continue the tradition in New Mexico. An added twist is to try and make the theme ingredient something seasonal. At some point in time we might add something like a conversation topic, and this last meeting we did a bit of origami. Hopefully Iron Chef will expand beyond the demesnes of Truc-Ha and continue even after I move on and out of Albuquerque, but I'll have three or more years to establish it, so we'll see.


Cooking, I've observed, is an artform that can be 1) avoided 2) dreaded 3) practiced daily 4) mangled. I personally do a lot of survival cooking that I use shortcuts to make tasteful and somewhat healthful. I have a lot of excuses. Part of my problem is that I don't really enjoy grocery shopping; going to farmers' markets twice a month is a fun and community-conscious alternative, but it doesn't provide for the rest of the month. I could go on, but sometimes I think about the philosophy of the endeavor. A cornerstone of daily life, I've often used the preparation of a nice meal as meditation practice. I don't chop well or evenly, but if I concentrate, it gets better, and I relax. I have to concentrate on planning everything out so that the scallops won't be in the pan long enough to get tough, and so that the salad won't wilt. I don't tend to have side conversations, and the house is usually quiet, waiting for the meal. The results are very concrete as well as mental. At the end of the two hours of standing meditation, I have a yummy reward for my endeavors. Either that, or my attention wandered, and I'm scraping the burned part off the chicken. As any meditation student, I also try to educate myself. This is a great justification for trying the cuisines of many ethnicities, as well as spending time at gourmet joints like Graze (thumbs down) or Ambrosia (thumbs up). Thus, I think that anyone can develop themselves as a capable cook (and should), and I'm have a lot of fun doing it for myself and with friends.

References

Iron Chef article on Wikipedia

First part of an Iron Chef episode