So funny, the pun is gone in English… this cake is made from a recipe of a monastery in Bologna (in 1994 published in Tip Culinair, a Dutch culinary magazine that doesn’t exist anymore) and it’s a hell of a lot of work to make it. The Dutch expression ‘monnikenwerk’ (monk’s work, meaning a lot of work) is therefore appropriate. The topping of mixed dried fruit is 24 hours soaked in black tea with orange juice and cinnamon. The cake itself is made from honey, butter, chocolate, almonds, raisins, applesauce and spices. You have to cook it a long time in the oven and it is really, really special. Usually. I hadn’t been baking for a long time, so the cake could have been smoother and softer. But it was so relaxing to do, that I decide to do it more often. And, it makes nice pictures, don’t you think?

Guess what we are eating tonight? A wrap with sauerkraut, cheese and pumpkin seeds with a salad with tofu and a dressing from lentils. Isn’t that animal friendly and environmentally safe?
The John Adams Institute (of which I am a longterm satisfied member) organized a lecture by Jonathan Safran Foer based on his new book ‘Eating Animals’. No novel, but a story about why we could better stop eating animals, pardon meat. An infonovel.  Before the lecture I didn’t plan to buy the book and didn’t plan to eat just vegetarian. But Foer is a charming, convincing, honest, inspiring, humorous, wise man and a gifted storyteller.

So that’s why I will buy the book and that’s why we are eating the wraps and salad tonight. So, along Foer’s lines: today we are vegetarians and may be tomorrow. But that is what we will decide for tomorrow.

Well, first of all: let’s make 2010 a great and challenging knitting year with lots of fun! Hope you had as fine a turn of the year as I had with lots of good friends, good food and champagne!

New year’s day started with launching a knitalong for the Dutch Yahoo Sokkenbreilijst. I promised Zjanette/Culinette warm slippers and I wrote out a kind of pattern so that everybody/anybody can knit them. You can find the pattern (Dutch/English) on my pattern page.

And I finished socks for DH. He put them on for a picture and I haven’t seen them since. Yes, that’s the same man who didn’t want knitted socks.

With one foot in the new year I started another sock on a Sock Knitters Anonymous theme for December. She and she donated leftovers Opal 1290 to me, because I once knitted my second socks ever with them and gave them away. I loved the sweet colours of this yarn. The Victorian Swag socks show off these colours perfectly, as you can see.

And though I did not intend to join the SKA mystery sock for January, as soon as I saw the first photo’s coming I was rummaging for yarn and for beads in my stash . Well, it is a bit tricky combination Ewa’s yarn with beads but I’ll see how I succeed. Clue 1 is finished.

Tomorrow works starts. In the renovated building. I start with a class Development Psychology. Yes, that’s reality.