My niece once mistakenly referred to my migraines as “migrations.” I think that’s the first time I ever *really* laughed about these awful, debilitating headaches. Luckily, I haven’t had a migration in months and was feeling cocky. Wouldn’t you know it, though, one took hold last week and I am only now starting to feel better. Consequently, I’ve been spending the day catching up on my chores, like laundry and dishes, and haven’t had much time for the fun stuff.

I did, however, venture into the kitchen last night and made a roast beef. It looked and smelled divine.

The vegetables were divine. The meat was tough and stringy. A major disappointment!

While I was spending so much time propped up in my favorite armchair, I decided to work on a secret project for my mother. A couple of years ago, she had fallen in love with a sweater she saw at one of my local yarn shops. It’s a Norwegian design (Dale Tiur 11103), but I can’t find a picture of the finished item anywhere on the internet. It’s fairly traditional. It’s covered with eight-point stars and a pair of stags strut across the front of the cardi. Here’s the tiny bit I’ve done so far:

It’s going to be a MAJOR challenge for me. All that color knitting on tiny needles, cutting steeks… My tension is uneven around the hem, but I just can’t bring myself to unravel it all and start over, so I’m forging onward. I’m getting better at it with every round I knit. By the end of this project, I’ll be (a) totally insane and (b) a much better color knitter.

I was born into a family of food snobs. The bad side of having so many foodies around meant there was always lots of calorie-rich food available. Whenever we got together, I swear I automatically gained 50 pounds.

In general, though, the familial food snobbery was a good thing. My mother, an exceptional cook, always made sure we had plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. That, in itself, was a feat of ingenuity. Southwestern Wyoming in the seventies wasn’t exactly a mecca for good produce. She cooked wonderful meals, many of which were good old comfort food. Others were like an introduction to exotic parts of the globe. They were full of rich spices and unfamiliar ingredients. They satisfied the stomach and fired up the imagination–we wondered what it would be like to visit the places where those foods were commonplace.

My paternal grandfather, despite an allergy to wheat, ran his own bakery. That man could make the most delectable butterhorns and the tenderest, most flavorful dinner rolls I’ve ever had. I’ve tried and tried for years to replicate the treats he made for us, and while good, they never have measured up to the high standard he set.

Anyway, if you had ever asked any of the cooks in my family to try a recipe calling for cream of mushroom/celery soup or a couple of handfuls of breakfast cereal, they would have looked at you askance. Cooking with pre-packaged foods like those would most likely result in something unappetizingly gloppy or bearing a regrettable after-taste. So, it tickled my funny bone to have discovered that the secret ingredient for a long-time family favorite is corn flakes!

Now’s an especially good time to try this recipe out, since it’s apple season!

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It has grown downright chilly and damp in this part of the world. We’ve been harvesting lots of goodies from the garden: cucumbers, gigantic pattypan squash and these lovely Royal Burgundy beans:

They’re bush beans, which means you don’t have to fuss with crazy creepers, they’re very prettily colored and they taste great. There’s only one downside. They look like this after you cook them:

How disappointing is that? It’s kind of like waking up to find your date from the prior evening wasn’t quite as handsome as all that beer made him seem. Not that I’d really know what that experience is like.

Ahem.

If you really want to enjoy the season, there’s nothing like apple pie. I made this one last night, following a recipe for the crust from Everyday Food (July/August 2008). The crust is the best I’ve ever eaten, but it’s fussy to work with. I’d never use it to make a lattice pie top, for instance. It’d just crumble to pieces and look like a regular mess. However, if you want a crust that TASTES divine, but looks rather humble, this is the recipe to use.

The apples were just right too. I’m not sure what variety they were…just plain little green things (not Granny Smiths), a bit bruised and scarred, but juicy and spicy. Our friend brought them across Puget Sound just for us to try. We counted ourselves lucky to receive such a wonderful gift.

Meanwhile, I’m working on a doll for my daughter. Two funny things about it:

1. Both Sam and Claire were freaked out by its blank face. Using pins to create a dopey smiley face reassured them it wasn’t a scarey monster. (Makes me wonder how they’d react to Waldorf dolls with their blank faces…or, is it something with the shape of this doll’s head?)

2. One of the kids in the neighborhood saw the half-finished doll sitting in my recliner. She wanted to know if I was making The Stinky Cheese Man. That one still makes me laugh. I don’t know if I’ll be able to call it anything else, even after it has a real face and some hair