An alterative expression of creativity

It appears that my current main obsessions are cooking and knitting. It keeps surprising me because a few years ago I'd never have thought that I'd end up loving such domestic, home-making things. I'm not an artist, I never will be, but I consider myself to be creative and it appears that these crafts are the outlets I've found for that.

Anyway, my new sweater is progressing apace. I've finish the back of the shrug section and joined to start knitting the arm in the round. Gave it a quick try last night and, despite my misgivings, it appears that the fit is just right so far. Even better, the Cashsoft felt amazing against my skin so I should end up with a sweater than doesn't itch me. Hooray!

It's October, which means that winter is fall is here and winter will be on top of me before I know it. Last winter I found acquiring good fruit and veg and issue. Although that has largely been resolved by the farmer's market and Pete's, I'm still starting to conclude that my current breakfast of grapes, granola and plain yoghurt is not sustainable. The grapes that I picked up this week are flavourless and I can't imagine that they'll get better as the winter goes on. Plus, they're not exactly eating local and sustainable!

So what can I do for breakfast that's healthy and nutritious? I'm thinking that I need to look into breakfast muffins - homemade, of course - so on Friday I'll make a trip to the bookstore to have a look for a suitable recipe book. I want things that aren't too sweet and are preferably filled with fruit, nuts, bran and other healthy things. The kind of thing that I can heat up in the microwave and enjoy with a glass of milk, possibly accompanied by a small bowl of granola-and-yoghurt, and feel warmed and comforted for the day. They'll need to be good for freezing, so that I can make batches and defrost a few at a time, and having a variety of recipes to try would be great.

Yup, I need a new recipe book. I may also look for a soup book. I really fancy making soup. My biggest regret right now is that I didn't steal my mum's copy of the Covent Garden soup book when I visited in February. She said I could because she never uses it!

I'm going to end up with so many recipe books at the rate that I'm going :-)

Agatha Christie binge

I'm on an Agatha Christie kick. One might even call it a binge. I blame it all on netgirl_y2k, who mentioned The Body in the Library in a recent post and got me thinking Christie-ish thoughts.

I'm currently on my fourth Christie in three weeks. My sister enabled it by presenting me with four more (that I've never read!) from a second hand bookstore as a thank you for putting her up for a few days. I don't see myself emerging from the Christie kick any time soon. After all, I have twelve in my own collection (er, sixteen) and I'm sure the public library can help as well. This is also the reason that my sister and I watched The Unicorn and the Wasp on Monday. Doctor Who and Agatha? Bring it on!

One of the amusing parts was that the book that the Doctor showed at the end, Death in the Clouds, was the Poirot that I had just finished. Heh.

I think that after work on Friday, I'll take myself down to Chapters. There I shall spend some time browsing the cook books before buying some hot chocolate and spending a pleasant time reading Christie and drinking cocoa. It's supposed to rain on Friday, which makes the plan even better. Sitting inside a bookshop drinking hot chocolate while it's raining outside makes me very happy.

Then I'll buy groceries and treat myself to sushi takeout. It's entirely possible that I'll follow that up with two episodes of Grey's Anatomy (having not watched last week's episode) and call it a thoroughly lovely evening.

Damn, when did I get boring?