Fat and Crafty.com

This is a sheep

This past weekend Leah and i were lucky enough to go to the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene Or. Held at the Lane County Fairgrounds it was a day of sheep, yarn , roving and just general fiber goodies.   Everytime we got near the sheep i’d go into giggle mode listening to them go Baaaaaaaa.  This was a big event for them too as they were bought sold and shown. We were not able to convince Aron that we *needed* to come home with a sheep. Thats probably good as it’s not in the lease agreement.

There was a competition  as well as fiber artisted brought their best work forward to share . What caught my eye was the fantastic felting done on these two projects.

Arent those raccoons adorable? The big mouth bass is something that would have been displayed at my home growing up, but only with a real fish.

i also loved this sweater
Looking at an Ashford frame loom made me want to pull my inkle loom at home out and get some use of it. After all, a looms a loom right?  Next year i’ll go back with a little more money and a little more time.  And maybe i’ll come home with a sheep.

There is more going on here then just food. On the knitting front I’ve dropped back from doing squares but am working on a crocheted shopping bag. The pattern was provided by Weaving Works as part of the Local Yarn Store Tour. I’ve finished half the bag and need to start the other half, once I locate my copy of the pattern again.

I’m loving how cheap the yarn for it is. I think I’d like to design a water bottle sling pattern similar to this.

The Noro I bought at J & J in Bellingham has been knit twice and will be ripped out twice. I dont like the way the yarn feels and hate hate hate the banana yellow that is in the pattern. I think I’m going to cast on again and make a Tea Cozy instead. I have a small tea pot from Central Market that would be adorable with its own little cozy.

This weekend is also the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene. I’m looking forward to going for the inspiration as well as the retail opportunities. Miss M and I have plans to take the spinning class offered by weaving works in July, so I likely won’t be getting any roving this trip. I might pick a little for needle felting, as I have a few needle felting projects in mind.

This just in, Jasmine makes a kick-ass Chicken Katsu.

I found a simple and easy recipe from All Recipes and printed it out. I asked her to read it out before I wrote it out again. It was simple enough she didnt need us to write it out again.
She took 6 chicken breasts out of the freezer, used the microwave to defrost them the rest of the way when they didnt defrost fast enough.

She portioned out the chicken, asked me to cut it in half. She portioned out the breading materials, and we turned the oil on on the stove. She placed the chicken in the oil, (hot oil!!) and even took them out to rest in the hot oven while we fried the rest.

I busied myself with the sides of rice and broccoli. She learned about cooks perrogative, meaning we sample the food as we cook, and make sure its not poisoned, as well as get to taste the tastiest bits. She didnt realize I always got more bacon then anyone else. (a guilty treat, If I’m making pancakes and wait to eat till everyone else has eaten then I’m having extra bacon)

She tried the Indonesian sweet soy sauce that we had decided to use as our accompaniment sauce. Near the end she got hit with a little hot oil whil flipping the chicken. Did she complain? Not in the least. This is one of those things that would have sent her crying before, but becasue she was making dinner she just pressed on.

She got to accept all the compliments, she got to watch people fight over the last pieces of her chicken.

Summary In the end Chicken Katsu didnt challenge her taste buds, but it did let me asess her kitchen skils. I now have an idea of what she can do. She can read a basic recipe, and follow basic instructions. She knows about cross contamination, and works to keep things clean as she works.

This is going to be a fun project.

With school out i’m working on two projects that were crying out at me as the school quarter ended. As the pressure to study for finals got higher and higher, both of these projects looked so alluring. Probably the big draw was that they were not chemistry. anyway, i’m finally putting some time into the projects and hope to have the first post for the first one done tomorrow.
The second project is starting, but wont be ready to post until next week at the very least.

Project #1 “The Miss Thing Project”

Why i am doing this.
One of the big frustrations with our 14 soon to be 15 year old is her lack of varied diet. She’s of the chips, pizza, ramen and hot dog persuasion. She does have some quirks such as a love for calamari, and the vegetable kingdom is typically represented by carrots, broccoli and a few other tolerated veg. Fruits? those don’t exist. Grains? Rice, white, hot. She recently decided she doesnt like mashed potatoes , for a reason unknown to all of us.

However she has also become quite the little otaku. She even went so far as to tell us at one point that she thought perhaps her ancestors were Japanese, because ” you never know”
No Miss Thing we know, you’re not Japanese. “But but” she prosted.

I’m going to take her love of Japanese things, and her disinterest in different foods and see if i can combine them into a summer project to get her cooking some of her own food and to get her eating in a different manner.

What are we going to do?

Chicken Katsu
Chicken Yakatori
Real Ramen
Yaki Soba / Yaki Udon
Sushi? (This might be a tough one, she doesnt like the seaweed)
Cold Soba/Somen noodles
Miso Marinated Fish
Teriyaki
Okonomayaki

I’m hoping to find a decent japanese cookbook, aimed at the novice cook, or even aimed at children.

What is my plan of attack:
First I’m going to try Chicken Katsu with her. Its something i know she likes, and should be a great starting point. This will allow me to gauge her interest and skill level.

For Chicken Katsu, i’ve located a simple recipe and will be writing it out for her. We’ll read it over together, discuss what side dishes might be nice. (i’m expecting we’ll do white rice and perhaps fresh greens) Then we’ll discuss what the recipe tells us to do and what we’ll need to do it with.
Then we’ll slowly walk through it step by step.

Once I’ve assessed her skills, i’ll offer her either the cookbook to look at , or 3 hand selected recipes. She’ll select the recipe, and we’ll talk about side dishes.
Then I will break the recipe down into further steps, and write it out on scratch paper. From that step, she’ll help me figure out what we need for each step, and work with me to complete each step.

I’m hoping that gradually we can get her to the writing it out stage herself , or reading it from the original source. For bonus points i’d like to point her at her favorite research tool and say “Find me what Japanese people eat on a picnic” and having us try a few picnic recipes.

It’s ambitious , and i hope that Miss Thing is up for it.