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.

This is my Bambi. It lies at the snowy foot of my light tree and it is smiling all day long. So it must be happy.
I wish you a merry Xmas with lots of lights and friends.

Today it is 6 years ago that I wrote my first blog post. Just to try. May be I liked keeping a blog. Well, nowadays I’m not as active as I was, but I still like to write posts. I wished my work was less hectic and my life was less frantic so that more time was left for … whatever. Be that as it may: thank you for reading and commenting.

Back to normal. Almost Christmas. Holidays are coming. So, treat all those little girls, daughters and nieces, neighbour girls or school girls and take them to Coppélia. They will love it!

School is atrocious. We’re moving back to the main building, because the alteration is ready. This makes my happy. It didn’t make me happy that I had to pack myself. It’s finished now but one box.  I consider the year done. Just some meetings and a Christmas gathering and see if I care!

Nowadays you can learn almost every technique on your own. YouTube is a great help and on Ravelry there are more helping knitters than you can handle. But, if you don’t have much time, you certainly don’t permit yourself to learn a technique for something you already master in a different way. In short: why learning to knit toe up if you can do it cuff down? I still don’t know why, but I had this wonderful relaxed day with the Dutch Knitters Carla and Hilly and, what’s more, felt confident enough to start knitting on my own. The picture shows the first result.

I finished the November mystery sock from the Ravelry group Sock Knitters Anonymous in - another new technique - mosaic. It is a design by Star Athena named Miss Marple because of the mystery thing. My Miss Marple is in China because of the colours. This was not ‘tv knitting’, but I loved it! Besides, this sock gave me a lot of self confidence. I finally declare myself quite a knitter.

To wind up with: DH seems to like home-made knitted socks like home-made apple pie. He favours brown with blue. Or blue with brown. Whatever. As long as it is blue and brown. So here’s another variation on the brown and blue theme: the Gentleman Socks by Kristi Schueler.. One down, one to go.