Bet you didn't expect to see me again so soon! (Day 37)

But I had to let you know about the fun and frolic I had today. I was in a domestic way. Wait, that sounded wrong. I wanted to get a running start on the scarf again, trying to get through the darn thing before Christmas. Any Christmas, this millenium. So I spent a lot of the day knitting like a fiend, literally KNITTING, back and forth, back and forth, like a typewriter all day long. Good Lord, can I just say I'm really sorry I started this up? I mean, I want one for myself, actually, and I will make the second one, but I'm going to take my own sweet time on it when time comes for my scarf.

Anywhoo, I also made a wonderful, wonderful, incredibly delicious Napa Cabbage Salad with Buttermilk Dressing from Smitten Kitchen. For what it's worth, I have yet to pull a loser off her recipe roster, and I have gotten quite a few exquisite dishes I plan to make several times over, whenever I can. I also have her Lime Meltaways on queue for the baking. I love limes like a pervy lime lover (and I find it strange that she thinks it strange that her husband loves to eat limes; what's so strange about that? Limes taste way better than lemons, imho), and while you can always adjust a basic sugar cookie recipe to use lime juice instead (substitute for the lemon juice), I think it's good to have a recipe tailor-made for the lime lover.

Yeah, so, cabbage salad. I made it using the pre-fab coleslaw in a bag mix, and it worked wonderfully. I would have taken a picture, but I snarfed it down. Urp. Good eats (although I did add a little extra dressing; I had a bit too much cabbage from the bag).

Then, I did something quite unexpected: I made a recipe I got in a chain e-mail. You'd think I was smarter than that, but.... I was quite shocked, actually, by the result. The recipe is for Cake in a Cup, and here's how it's done.

4 Tbsp cake flour (I used regular flour)
4 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp cocoa
1 egg
3 Tbsp milk (I used whole, because I love whole)
3 Tbsp oil
1 mug (I used a Christmas mug with a jolly Santa on the side, and I suddenly begin to sense a theme)

Mix (in the mug) and microwave on high for 3 minutes (1,000 watt oven).

Now, when I say "Tbsp", the picture in my e-mail shows (and I mean) a silverware tablespoon, like a soup spoon, not an actual measuring spoon tablespoon. Slightly heaping, but not outrageous. Just aim for something approximating an actual tablespoon, and you will get the same results:

A heaping tube of chocolatey goodness. Who knew? Next time, though, I will put it in the microwave for a little shorter time, use a little less flour (not quite so heaping), and maybe use more milk. I like my cakes a bit more gooey inside. It's edible as is, though, and I will tinker with this to make again. Actually, I think the most egregious error I made was to let it cook for the full 3 minutes. Tomorrow night, we cut it down to 2.

Anyway, here's the progress I made on the scarf:

The red, gray and yellow stripes and part of the huge chunk of green up there towards the needles are brand spankin', and I'm getting ready to do a massive run (the largest chunk of one color in the whole scarf; 54 rows) in the light tan. I'm not sure the wee bit of tan skein I've got attached will make it all the way through, I'll probably have to tie a new one on at some point. But then I'll be almost halfway through, and I have a bottle of wine from Ohio (Ravenswood Winery Blackberry Wine) earmarked for the "I'm halfway through the first damn scarf and haven't killed anyone yet with a garrote of 100% wool yet and perhaps a piano wire or two for tradition's sake" celebration.

Here's a full-length, reclining shot. Isn't it sexy?

And look! 37 1/2 inches! Wooo-hoooo! I'm nowhere near half done, but I'm close enough to taste it. It tastes like moth-proofed yarn, but it's mighty tasty.

And one, final, brief gripe. Yeah, so I've had lots of telly playing lately and every time the Brideshead Revisited commercial comes on I grind my teeth in a fashion that would make my dentist most unhappy if he knew. There's this little quote that just makes me want to commit vehicular homicide on a certain, snotty movie reviewer: "The movie the intelligent moviegoer has been waiting for...." What, you're not an intelligent person if you prefer movies that don't leave you feeling psychically unwashed from the overdone "people who have money are wonderful" message and the heavy handed religious message (not that there's anything wrong with religion, as I have one, I just don't particularly like it slapped across my face like a wet herring)? And the main character's soppy, and (frankly) boring ruminations that made the last chapters of that book just so impossible to read? So, because I'd prefer, on the whole, to go see The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor because, even though it's not high-tone drama and, yeah, the plot is pretty lame, there's lots of explosions, Jet Li and Brandon Frasier looking all googly cute in it? Just because I prefer eye candy, I'm some sort of troglodyte? Or, if you prefer the literary version of it, I'm some sort of morlock? Bite. Me. Once I graduated with my master's, I declared myself done with suicide literature. I read nothing that does not entertain me, because I'll be damned if I'll waste any more good money on books that bore, then exhaust, me into depression so deep there's not enough Prozac in all of Eli Lilly's manufacturing facilities.

It's almost enough to make me dislike Emma Thompson. Only Stranger Than Fiction absolves her of this particular choice of roles.