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We started the day with a tour of Casa Botlló, a remodeled building designed by Antoni Gaudí. It was an incredible experience to be inside such architecture. The house is known in Barcelona as the "house of bones" since there are a lot of skeletal aspects to it. To me much of it was "under the sea". There are very few straight lines inside, and there is a skylit shaft that goes through the entire building, tiled in blue.

I loved this ceiling treatment:

And this window which ran across the entire front of the house:

Gorgeous tile and ironwork on the back patio:

Looking out into the blue:

And the most famous part, up on the roof:

And perhaps the coolest part, the attic:

And the famous facade:

It was a sunny warm day and we went for a shopping stroll after the tour. We ended up back at the hotel and made a lunch from the food available there. Then we walked over to find the Palau de la Música Catalana. It is an awesome spectacle of modernista style, both inside and out.

We pondered taking a tour, but then decided to buy tickets for a show on Sunday night, so I'll post inside pictures on that day.

Then we walked over deep into the Gothic quarter through narrow streets

to the Picasso Museum. It has a large collection of his early work and is housed in several Gothic palaces. So the artwork is stunning and the setting is fantastic. I didn't take any pictures while there. Duh.

We explored the Gothic quarter for a while and I found a store that sold a huge assortment of Caganer. This is something that I have just learned about last Christmas and was amused to find in real life. These are small sculpted figures that are squatting and pooping. They are traditionally included in the huge Nativity scenes in Catalonia. Really. Go read about them and about the huge upset when Barcelona didn't include on in the newly commissioned 2005 Nativity display. It's a modern tradition that the Caganer depicts a famous personage. In the picture below, the entire top row are Caganers, and there are some obvious Christmas-themed ones below that.

And here's a close-up so you can see some actual pooping by Tin Tin!

I had seen a photograph of a multi-stories tall Caganer in a mall in Spain on Fail Blog at Christmas time. And, no, we didn't buy any!

We had a late siesta of our own and then went for cocktails at Rita Rouge, which is on the edge of the rough part of town. After that we went to Taller de Tapas for dinner and ate very well: Gallic ham (more like Danish boiled ham) with smoked Spanish paprika, the best tomato bread of the trip, salt cod fritters, delicious braised octopus, and langostinos on a stick. We found some fantastic gelato on the walk back to the hotel: B had creama catalana flavor and I had milk with cinnamon.

Spain did "spring forward" overnight so we had to deal with yet more time change.

We agreed to rendez-vous with Sandy and George at La Sagrada Familia. We were running late, but they were good sports about it, having found a café.

The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família was awesome! It was the best cathedral visit ever, even though it is still under construction. And there were lots of people there. And the toilets were under renovation.

I loved the more modern and organic design. I liked how it seemed more possible to worship Nature inside it.

I loved the ceiling:

And the windows:

And we got to go up high and walk down one of the spires:

And there was a cute man there:

We had more montaditos for lunch at Txapela, breaking Bruce's rule of never eating anywhere that they have pictures of food on the menu. In fact, the entire menu was pictures on the placemat.

And it was quite tasty! Sausages! (I'm still joking that those two asparagus spears in that sandwich were the only vegetables that I ate on the whole trip.) (Oh, and that sandwich is called a bikini. I don't know why.)

After lunch, Sandy and George went northward on the Passeig de Gracia, and we went south. We found a sweet shop with tiny little croissants in the window. How cute! (That's an espresso cup!)

We were to meet up for a good-bye dinner since Sandy and George were leaving the next day. But on the way to our hotel, getting on the subway, Sandy got pickpocketed. That pretty much ruined them for the rest of the trip. I don't blame them at all. At least all they got was her cell phone. But, alas, it had pictures from the Dali Museum and a video of the jewelry heart beating.

As an aside, this is the second trip we've taken with Sandy and George, and we've yet to tell them good-bye properly. The first trip, they were in getting massages when we were leaving. And this time, they opted out of going out and left the next morning.

We went for drinks at a really cool place right near the hotel, Boadas Cocktails, apparently the oldest bar in Barcelona. It was very old-school, tuxedoed bartenders behind a huge wooden bar pouring drinks from on high, walls lined with photos and autographs of famous patrons. (Later in the trip, we took a picture outside.)

Then we went to a place near our hotel that we passed every trip in and out, and called "the cured meat restaurant" because they had jamon in the window and lots of options on the menu. The real name of it is Julivert Meu. It's totally kitschy inside with pottery hanging form the ceiling. We ordered enough food for if Sandy and George had been there! We had the best jamon of the trip along with some lomo (pork loin) and two dried sausages, big salads, a huge duck confit leg, and three kinds of fish "carpaccio" (tuna, salmon, and cod; thinly sliced, raw, dressed with olive oil), two bottles of red wine, and a huge plate of make-your-own tomato bread (bread, with whole garlic and halved tomatoes on the side). Sadly, most of the jamon was gone before I decided to take a picture.

It was still supposed to be rainy the next day, so we decided that would be a good day to take the train to Figueres (about 1.5 hours each way on the train) to go to the Dali Museum. It turned out that we took the train into more rain than we were leaving, but by the time we got back to Barcelona, the rainy part of the trip was over. So, it turned out to have been a good decision.

We got a late start, still moving slow from the jet lag. We had a good walk up the main street, Passeig de Gracia, and had our first look at some of the modernista buildings.

Sandy and I got to knit on the train. We had a fun time gabbing and watching the Spanish countryside go by.

Figueres is a charming town with a lot of upscale shopping. The Dali Theater Museum is impressive. Dali himself conceptualized and decorated the whole thing. He is buried there. The outside of the building has giant eggs on it, as well as gold bread loaves and human figures. I didn't get a good shot of the outside because of the rain. (But if you click on the link, you can see pictures of the outside and more.)

There was so much good stuff in the museum. Many things that I expected, but many things I didn't. I fell in love with these wild ink drawings that were on the first floor. But there were many large works to grab attention. Crazy sculptures outside:

This piece was GIANT (that's me for scale in the second shot - I'm down by that little nut thing in the left corner of the first shot).

That's a mosaic that looks like Lincoln if you squint.

Here's Bruce and Sandy posing in a spotlight being reflected off of an ornate mirror:

And here's George out in the rain:

And perhaps the highlight, Dali created a room that, when viewed from a vantage point with a special lens, is a tribute to Mae West:

After the big museum, there's a second stop that is an amazing collection of Dali's jewelry creations. We were all surprised and impressed with the jewelry. I didn't get very many pictures here because my battery was dead. But I did get this one, which we all agreed was the highlight:

The jeweled heart in the middle moved! It looked like it was beating.

We had dinner at a place that was recommended to George, Tapas 24. It's a wildly popular place with mostly counter seating, brisk and brusque service, and a palpable energetic pulse. We ate cheese, tomato bread, shrimps, black rice (made with squid ink) with squid ribbons on top, oxtails and beans, and country pate. The oxtails were disappointing. They had great flavor, but seemed not to have been cooked long enough.

With the rain over, we were in high spirits and didn't mind strolling back down La Rambla. Bruce and I decided we were going to go try to find an absinthe bar that Hemingway supposedly frequented. But, it turned out to be on the bad (west) side of La Rambla and after seeing too many hookers and fearing getting mugged, we abandoned the plan (wisely) and went back to the hotel and drank some wine and wrote out postcards.

Breakfast at the hotel was excellent. They had real croissants! (And lots of other good stuff.) I discovered a Spanish Nutella-esque thing: Nocilla. I liked it better than Nutella. It seemed more chocolatey and less oily.

We met up with Sandy only, as George was still ill. The day was rather dreary and gray and there were occasional rain showers. We went to the big food market, La Boqueria and strolled and gawked. I was both in love and awe with everything there. I still cannot make sense of everything we saw. I took over fifty pictures while there. Here are some highlights.

Lots of jamon whole, sliced, in cones; and many other types of cured meats:

Bones:

Fruits and vegetables:

Spices:

Candy:

Foie gras:

Insane amounts of seafood:

Some of which we had no idea what they were, like these things on the right side below. The sign says "percebe candabrico". They look like little monster claws.

Later on in the trip, we saw some people eating a big bowl of them at a sidewalk tapas place, but we didn't want to be rude and stare to see how they were eating them.

When we got home I investigated and found out that they are gooseneck barnacles. They are only eaten (and considered quite a delicacy) in Portugal, Spain, and Morocco. They are steamed and then one twists off a leathery outer coating of the stalk and bites the meat that was inside that is still dangling from the shell. The meat inside the shell is the sex organs and they aren't considered good. There's a YouTube video of how to eat them here. We didn't eat any.

And, of course, they had padrone peppers! (We loves these thanks to those Half Pint Farm folks.) We ate them several meals and they were exactly like how me make them at home.

That's probably enough about the market. If you want to see everything, go to my Flickr set for the trip.

After we left, we wandered and explored and shopped. We found a little bar with montadito tapas slices of baguette with tapas items piled on top, secured with a skewer. Many places are self-serve and they count your skewers to tally the bill. We ordered by pointing at things on the bar to get the three anchovy-egg ones and then said to surprise us with the other three.

We wandered a bit more and found a bit of home.

I was fading so we went separate ways. I crashed in the hammock and Bruce went exploring a bit more.

We met up with Sandy and George (who was feeling better) and we walked up into the Eixample for drinks and dinner. We found a bar at the Axel hotel and had drinks sitting outside. Then we had an excellent tapas dinner at La Flauta, thanks to David W. for the recommendation. We ate padrones, fried artichokes, jamon, asparagus and mushrooms, sardine fillets, foie gras, tomato bread, and creama catalana. This was probably the most upscale tapas we ate on the whole trip, and still it was pretty casual.

When we left the restaurant it was raining, a steady soaking rain. Nobody was very happy about getting soaked on the way back to our respective hotels.

We took the T to the airport. Again, cheap transportation, $4 total. The flights were typical and uneventful: cramped seats and shitty food in Economy Class. (I know, first-world problems for sure!) We had booked our flights separately because Bruce was using miles and I wasn't, so that meant that we weren't sitting together on either flight. On the trans-Atlantic one, we were across the aisle from each other, both aisle seats; that was a pretty good arrangement. Frankfort to Barcelona we were further apart, but I was groggily asleep for much of that one. That flight was less cramped and had better food.

We arrived in Barcelona and took the bus into town; more cheap transportation (€5.30 each). Bruce again proved his valuable sense of direction and orientation and got us from the Plaça de Catalunya to our hotel, Casa Camper in about ten minutes. (Once oriented, it's less than a five-minute walk from the hotel to the Plaça.)

Casa Camper was exactly as described on their website and on Trip Adviser. It was the perfect choice for us; we couldn't have been more pleased. (Go ahead and click on the link above and explore the website.) Each room is two rooms: a sleeping area with bath and shower and then across the hall a sitting room with hammock and terrace. They have 24-hour food and beverage service. Breakfast is included. They have a small staff; everyone is warm and welcoming. I ended up writing them a thank-you letter; the service was that good. There is a huge floor-to-ceiling window behind the bathroom sink (instead of a mirror, which is off to the side) that looks out on a giant wall of metal shelves with huge potted plants in each space. I won't post hotel pictures here since you can see it all better on the hotel's website.

We checked in and went to sleep for a few hours. Then we met up with Sandy and George, our friends from Ontario who are stationed in Budapest for three years. They had some vacation time and went to Lisbon for a few days and then joined us in Barcelona for a few days. Here's me with Sandy in the sitting room at Casa Camper:

George picked up a nasty bug in Lisbon and wasn't feeling very well. We trooped around in some damp weather and found a cozy spot for some refreshments. Then we walked him back to their hotel. Then we wandered around a lot more and finally settled on dinner at Segons Mercat Fresh Fish & Tapas. And I think we did very well for ourselves on our first night just with no plan and picking something based solely on sight. We had: tomato bread (toasted bread rubbed with the cut side of a tomato, often rubbed with garlic first - ubiquitous); an eggplant, red pepper, and goat cheese timbale thing; tuna escabeche (seviche); chorizo; foie gras with sweet onions; grilled sardine fillets; jamón ibérico (I have lots of pictures of this to post later); bottles of red wine; and honestly the best crema catalana we had on the whole trip.

There was more wandering in the dark and damp night to get Sandy back to her hotel and then us to ours, but with Bruce, the master navigator, we did pretty well.

We tried to use as much public transportation as we could on this trip. We got Megabus tickets for getting to Boston and back. It was our first time on the Megabus. Sunday evening at the end of a lot of spring breaks made the bus completely full. We sat up top. It was comfortable but a little bit squished; the seats are narrow (too narrow for me to comfortably knit). There's also free wi-fi, but it's a bit spotty in the mountains of Vermont. But our fare for the two of us round trip total was $22.50 ($8 down and $3 back plus $0.50 for reservation fee) made up for all of it! And the views from the upper deck were great!

After arriving in Boston, we walked to the Ames Hotel. Bruce is a god navigator and it was hot weather and sunny (around 75 F), so the walk was fairly pleasant. Then we had a late lunch at one of our favorite spots,Neptune Oyster. We had a dozen oysters and split a warm lobster roll. We browsed some shops.

Later on, we walked to dinner at Eastern Standard. There we enjoyed more oysters (Sunken Meadow were a hit!), marrow bones, steak tartare, and a roasted haddock on spetzle. Everything was tasty and the portions are quite large. The wine service at Eastern Standard can be chatty and helpful; we always seem to end up talking about wine there. The only disappointment was the haddock which had an herb coating and too many different flavors in the accompaniments. A simpler treatment of the fish itself would have helped the dish immensely.

We were on the fourth floor of the Ames, the lowest floor we've ever been on. It was much noisier than we've noticed other times. The rumble of the subway vibrated all the way up to our room. Still it's an excellent hotel, we just need to remember to ask for a higher floor.

So there's this pattern, The Beekeeper's Quilt. It's a bit of certifiable knitting insanity. Go check out the link. Go ahead, I'll wait. If you have long enough, watch the video. She seems delightfully batty, no?

For those of you who don't want to click on the link, I'll explain: The pattern uses sock yarn to knit tiny hexagons (around 2.75 inches across, give or take), that are then stuffed to become "hexipuffs" which are ultimately joined together to make a puffy warm quilt.

I heard of the mania surrounding this wildly popular pattern and thought, "That would be a good way to use up my sock yarn scraps to make a crazy quilt." But then right after that I thought, "I don't want to have to knit a million little puffs to make a quilt. How long would that take?" So I wisely resisted the urge to buy the pattern and embark on this Fool's Journey.

Then one of my online knitting "friends" bought me the pattern as a gift. And I thought, "Well, I can knit a puff and see how it looks." So I picked my all-time favorite sock yarn scrap ball and knit one on October 12, 2011.

It's Colinette Jitterbug in Jewel. I made socks form it in 2008. The little puff delighted me and, alas, I was hooked. I made a few more.

Each one takes me about 30 minutes (45 if I'm alternating colors). They eventually get joined up simply by tying them together at the corners.

Then somebody linked to an online calculator that would tell you how many hexagons of x diameter one would need for a twin, full, queen, or king blanket.

We have a queen-size bed, so I dutifully input my data and pressed the button. 839. I said, "Oops, that can't be right. Let me punch my numbers in again. 839. I closed the whole browser window and re-opened it. Maybe there was a glitch. I entered everything again. 839.

"Holy crap! I need 839 puffs!"

Well, of course I've done the math for how long it will take in hours. I even figured out that after it's done it will weigh over 5 pounds. And I've made peace with the fact that it will probably be 5 years in the making. The picture below is still just using scraps from socks I have made.

Since then, I've made a few puffs a week. Sometimes I have made 2 or 3 in a day. Sometimes I make 2 or 3 a week. I've done some swaps to get more varied colors. I've bought some mini-skeins to help with get even more colors. The picture below is 86 puffs. It's roughly the width of my kitchen counter and about a foot long.

Last night, I made it to 100 puffs. And I said, "To celebrate 100 puffs, I am going to put them in our hollow glass lamp."

Only 739 more to go.

I am doing a self-motivating "sock club" for 2012. My goal is to try to finish a pair of socks every month. So far, so good; but perhaps it is at the expense of other knitting.

I finished these in January. I called them "Hot Tea" because the pattern is Cat Bordhi's "Darjeeling" and the colors reminded me of warmth (and fall leaves). They were just slightly busy in terms of stitch pattern. I'm well acquainted with this style of sock from the New Pathways book. There is decidedly more red in the sock on the left, especially on the other side where nearly the entire heel is a flash of red.

I quit my beloved sock yarn club in January. I'm amassing sock yarn faster than I am knitting it up. I can manage one pair per month fairly steadily. Anything more than that would be an effort. But with the sock yarn club, I was breaking even if I didn't get both colors offered in a month nor buy from other sources. Neither of those was happening, so I thought by quitting, I'd be able to start making a dent in my stash.

Then Opal, a German sock yarn company that makes gorgeous colorways (often thematic) on a yarn base that wears like iron, released a series of eight sock yarns inspired by Van Gogh paintings. These yarns are brilliantly designed, often mimicking areas of the paintings when knit into a sock. So, I bought all eight of them. That's 2/3 of a year of sock yarn club. Oops.

And then after buying them, I had to knit one up immediately. So here it is, from painting to yarn to socks, Trinquetaille Bridge:

The pattern is another of Cat Bordhi's (Foxglove from New Pathways which is one of my two go-to vanilla-sock patterns). I love how these turned out and I have tons of yarn left over.

At some point toward the end of February, I was wearing a purple shirt and thought some purple socks would go good with it. I realized that even though I have a lot of purple sock yarn, I have no purple socks! So that made my March socks an obvious choice. Along with that, some of my online knitting buddies were doing a "Possum Along". (An "along" is where you join in with others knitting the same thing, swapping progress updates, pictures, and help when needed.) The group that I hang out in a lot on Ravelry is famous for staring Alongs and then they fizzle out. Somebody had suggested knitting things using New Zealand possum yarn. I just happened to have two skeins of Cherry Tree Hill Possum Sock in a variegated colorway with purple in it, Misty Moor.

It's 80% merino wool and 20% possum. I don't have any idea how durable it is as a fiber, and the yarn is pretty fine, so I'm doing it at a small gauge (2.0 mm needles). I have both socks done up to the mid-foot.

The New Zealand possum is an invasive pest (like how the nutria is in the southern USA). They have been trying to find some use for them, and someone discovered that their fur can be spun. However, they do kill them to get the fiber. (They kill a lot more just to get rid of them as pests than ever make it into yarn.) They're not quite as creepy looking as the opossum that we have here in North America, but I wouldn't say they were cute either.

We've had another great year in Vermont, surrounded by so many good things. We've spent a lot of time with friends eating fantastic food and drinking superb wine. Game nights, movie nights, Met HD operas, knitting, baking, yoga, special dinners at area restaurants: we're full-up on good stuff! For that we are very grateful. Here are some highlights for the year.

January: We went to Western Massachusetts to meet some online knitting friends of mine. It was a lovely weekend meeting new folks, buying lots of yarn at Webs, and reconnecting with a friend we'd not seen since 1991! We ate lots of oysters at Bluebird Tavern's annual event.

February: Bruce got to spend some time in Scottsdale, Arizona for work.

March: I had three days of knitting classes with Nancy Bush learning a lot of Estonian techniques for mittens and lace.

April: We met up with more online knitting friends in Lake Placid, where Mirror Lake was still frozen solid. But by the end of the month, it was time for the first bike ride of the season! We rode through flood waters on that first ride though; Lake Champlain had record flooding this spring.

May: Our team won the Vermont Restaurant Week Pub Quiz! We went to Columbus for our niece's high school graduation party. We spent a wonderful day riding roller coasters with our niece and nephew at Cedar Point. We're hoping for a replay this year!

June: Our fourth year riding bicycles from South Hero to Montreal with Local Motion, aka VerMontréal! It was fun despite high winds and flood waters and broken spokes and a room right over the disco in Montreal. I coordinated two World Wide Knit In Public Day knit-ins, one very rainy and one nice and sunny.

July: We took a culinary day-trip to Montreal with Mara and Spencer. Knitting friends Patty and Ben, visited us for a long weekend.

August: I went to Northern Virginia to spend a week at his office for work. We took a vacation to Quebec City. And of course, Irene hit Vermont. Luckily we had little rain or wind in Burlington, but our farmer friends were wiped out for the season from the river flooding.

September: We went to Boston for Labor Day weekend. And in spite of Irene, Kitchen Table Bistro held their Heirloom Tomato Dinner with Half Pint Farm!

October: My parents came to visit and finally got to see our new house; they'd missed visiting in 2010. We took my parents to the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival and had a grand time together. Instead of Rhinebeck this year, we rented a chalet near Mont Tremblant with Mara and Spencer, and Tom and Terry for a long weekend. Such a fun time! Bruce also went to NYC for work.

November: We spent a magical frosty evening around a bonfire celebrating Guy Fawkes Day. Festa week was again an indulgent success. And we spent a very short post-Thanksgiving weekend in Boston where it was so warm we didn't wear our jackets even once!

December: Christmas in Vermont. We spent the day playing games, killing bunnies and zombies.

I'm back on the horse, listening to Dickens novels in the order in which he wrote them. This has been a (very) long term project, lasting not so much because of the length of Mr Dickens' novels, but because I'm no longer stuck in the car commuting. But a couple of months ago, I decided that I could listen a bit now and then and knit. It's very nice for those evenings when B is out of town.

So I am now in the midst of Book The Third of Our Mutual Friend, his last complete novel. The book begins with a murder and the plate below shows the characters who will discover the body.

I am enjoying it muchly. Mr Dickens still retains the ability to capture moments, characters, and events absolutely perfectly. And, I think, his stories are so complex making things harder to keep track of, just so he can surprise the reader later on. Last night, in the midst of Book The Third, there was a Big Surprise that would have been obvious but for the fact that he artfully distracted the reader by heavy-handed foreshadowing of an imminent death. Then there was the Big Surprise and immediately in the next sentence, the death. It was a one-two punch that was extremely effective. I gasped aloud and then cried. That's some magic for me, the reader!

(There was also another Big Surprise in Book The Second that should have been obvious as well, but he presented it so artfully. The only tip off to that one was an abrupt shift in narrative perspective. But maybe I'm just good at turning off my analytical brain when I'm being told a good story?)

I also got a Kindle Fire for my birthday and have been trying out reading a book on it. The book I chose is John Irving's Last Night In Twisted River. Now I must admit that I have a mad love for Mr Irving's work. I have been hanging on to this last book in paper form for quite a while now. I started it once and put it down because I wasn't in the right moment yet. When I got the Kindle, I decided to try reading it on there and would have the paper book to fall back on if necessary. Well, I tore into the book on the Kindle and never looked back. I'm enjoying the mechanics of e-reading much more than I anticipated. I've even used the highlighting function to mark some favorite sentences... something I do not do in paper books. I like the bookmarking feature; it lays flat for reading while eating lunch. I thought I'd miss the concept of pages, but I am finding the percent read to be as satisfying as knowing what page I am on.

As for the story, it is quintessential John Irving at his best. I'd been tipped off that it was a return to good places for his work. I am loving the story thus far (being in the middle of Part II - 23% read). I love how Mr Irving breaks so many rules that have been drummed into me as a budding writer: He tells instead of shows. He tells instead of shows a lot. He ruins the end of events, sometimes, by revealing the outcome at the beginning of the scene. He seems almost trapped into using certain themes and plot devices (handlessness, bears, being a writer, missing fathers, and so on). But there's something about all of it that works for me. And, although I cannot wait to see how it all turns out, I am savoring every moment of this journey.

The day after Thanksgiving, which some cultures call Black Friday, we drove down to Boston for a quick trip. We stayed at the Langham which was a new spot for us. It was nice. The room was small, but comfortable. The staff was notably good and seemed genuinely interested in us having a nice stay.

We had dinner on Friday at Towne Stove and Spirits. It was a fun spot. The menu is eclectic and interesting. There's a side-menu that is a "lobster bar" and has smaller lobster items to add to the meal. I had seared scallops in a pumpkin bisque to start; then a salad of arugula, the "last" summer tomatoes, and burrata; and then a grilled lobster tail (from the lobster bar menu) that came with some house-made Terra-style chips (plaintains, sweet potatoes, parsnips). I started dinner with a cocktail of smashed blackberries, whiskey, and lemon juice that was terrific! Both our meals were excellent quality. The service was off a bit, but we didn't really care. They brought us our salads twice but we sent the seconds back. Then there was a lull before the main plates came out. So they gifted us a giant plate of maple cotton candy. It was yummy and I hope it made them feel better. We weren't upset in the least. There was "dinner theater" right next to us: a table of 13 celebrating at least one birthday. The honoree was a thin older glamorous woman done up like an old-time Hollywood movie star. Her (twin?) sister was similarly attired and we overheard more than one waiter say the words "Sunset Boulevard" out of their earshot. The guest in charge of the whole party was being a total jerk to the staff as well, so there was plenty to enjoy. After our complimentary dessert, which looked like a barrister's wig on a plate by the way, we had dessert drinks just so we could watch some more. (And there was a new table with two terribly drunk couples adding to the entertainment.)

Saturday's dinner was at Coppa and was fantastic! We're adding it to our list of must-eats for Boston. It's got kind of a local casual hole-in-the-wall vibe. The menu is printed on the placemats, for example. They have innovative cocktails and excellent small plates with a snout-to-tail philosophy. We shared everything. We had a charcuterie sampler, and after discussing what we might want on it, we opted to let them pick. We got mortadella, duck prosciutto, coppa, pate di campagne, and coppa (I think). B took a picture which I am now stealing and posting here.

After that, we had a plate of fluke cruda with olive oil, radishes, and chili oil (excellent!); a salad of apple slices charred lemons, and burrata (OK, so I have a thing for burrata); and half orders of two pastas. One was a special that was pappardelle with a non-traditional Bolognese sauce that had goat and something else and chicken livers in it. It was heavenly. And I selected the house-made chestnut fettuccine with wild boar ragu and roasted chestnuts. It was rich and meaty and chestnutty and delicious!

They don't do much in the way of dessert there and that was fine. We were well-fed and happy.

Other highlights included a tasty lunch at Wagamama and meeting up with M&SW (who were there visiting family) at Maria's Pastry Shop in the North end where we ate sfogliatelle and I ate the best cannolli of my life. Seriously. And I've had good cannolli before.

Other than eating, there was the usual shopping. I hit the Nespresso store to restock and also got the new limited-edition variations: cherry, chocolate, and vanilla. I've only tried the cherry so far. It's tasty. I never would have imagined cherry flavored coffee. I scored a sweet Norwegian-style sweater at Macy's for a ridiculously low price. On the way home on Sunday we stopped at Trader Joe's to restock some pantry items. And then on to Crate and Barrel where I fell in love with (but didn't yet buy) a beautiful liquor/wine cabinet bar thing. The key-word here is "yet". (Swooning over the pictures even just going to find the link. That is so not me.)

The weather was freakishly warm the whole time we were in Boston - we didn't wear our coats once, even at night.

Unsurprisingly, after Festa Week and this Boston trip, I'm feeling fat. So this week thus far food-wise has been severely restricted.

This morning I woke up and was lying in bed remembering general and specific Thanksgivings and thought I'd share.

Growing up, Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday. We'd go to my paternal grandmother's house and have a big meal. Grandma (Florence) always put one dried corn kernel on each plate and said it was to remind us that on the very first "Thanksgiving" (before the Pilgrims had figured it out with the help of the Native Americans) that was all they had to eat. The grandchildren always reacted with the same astonishment and disbelief and were thusly increasingly thankful. She always made a special pan of stuffing just for my Grandpa (Andy) that had extra sage in it and was baked to a crisp. It was understood that that foil pie pan of stuffing was just for him. There was always a relish tray on the table with celery sticks, carrot sticks, olives, and pickles. My maternal grandmother would attend. My parents each being an only-child, our family gatherings were held with everyone in attendance. My grandmother's dining room was small and the table was expandable, and all of us got to eat in the same room around that table, crammed into that little dining room.

I think it was my sophomore or junior year of college (1982 or 1983), my parents had an exchange student from Belgium living with them. His name was Terry. I had been taking enough French in college that he and I could have pretty decent conversations in French. I remember being in the car with him on the way to grandma's house for Thanksgiving and he got really angry about not knowing what pumpkin pie was. He was trying to understand the whole Thanksgiving thing and I think pumpkin pie was the last straw. I tried to explain it but in the end told him just to wait and see. When we got there, it was still something foreign to him, but he liked it. I remember that that dude could eat a lot!

I vividly remember Thanksgiving 1984. B and I had just met two months earlier. I'd had a difficult run-in with my parents and opted to spend Thanksgiving in Lexington, Virginia, with B instead of going home. So it was our first Thanksgiving together, my first one away from my family, and my first one to cook. It was a beautiful, crisp, clear day and B and I put the turkey in the oven and went for a walk all around Lexington, visiting both the W&L campus (where we walked every day) and the VMI campus (where we hardly ever went even though it butts up against the W&L campus). I took my camera along for the walk and have scanned in some pictures:

The last picture is our table set for Thanksgiving dinner. There is a jar of Grey Poupon mustard and a plate bearing a can-shaped jellied cranberry sauce. Fancy! And that rose has a bit of a story involving very serious declarations of love and intentions to marry, but that had happened well before this day.

I have generalized memories of Thanksgivings in Houston while in grad school and then more in Los Angeles and others in Virginia. We didn't always cook for ourselves. Sometimes we went out to dinner. I enjoy both options.

Thanksgiving 2000 was the first night we spent at The Ledge. We had moved our stuff in earlier in the week. That Thanksgiving dinner we ate at the Red Fox Inn in Middleburg and then we drove home to sleep in our new home. We ended up buying The Ledge almost exactly a year later.

Somewhere in there, there was a terrible Thanksgiving where I found out on Wednesday evening at around 5 PM that I would have to work the next day. B and I had plans to eat out so it wasn't really a big deal except for the apparent casual disregard that my workplace had for my plans. It ended up that B and I drove separately to our dinner that year.

This year we are also going to dine out. And, as coincidence would have it, I need to work today. But telecommuting is not nearly as bad as having to drive to an office. I can spend time with B and still do necessary work tasks. Then we're off for a short jaunt to Boston.

As I pause to be thankful, my list is filled with the usual things: I'm thankful for a wonderful husband, for excellent friends, and a loving family. I'm thankful for our house and for life in Vermont. I'm thankful for my job and my health. I'm thankful for yarn, bread dough, and words - three things that give me so much fulfillment. I'm thankful that I have a very good life.

Saturday evening we attended the "Good-bye Riverside Location" party at Bluebird Tavern. It was a grand all-you-care-to-eat feast for $40 (plus a cash bar)! There was a seafood station with raw oysters, shrimp ceviche, cod fritters, crab claws and probably other stuff that I cannot recall. There was a long table with charcuterie (tureens, cured meats, and sausages - including a tasty rabbit tureen) and cheeses. There was a whole pig, some beef, roasted chickens, really fantastic barbecued quail and a bunch of vegetable accompaniments. The kitchen kept up a steady supply of burgers, fries, and pouteen. And there was a dessert table with cookies, cobblers, pots de cremes. I know I'm forgetting things. It was a stroll-about event, but one could sit at a tavern table for a while as desired.

In addition to all that good food, we knew lots and lots of people there. It really was a good party! I got to see the new baby for whom I knitted the most recent Baby Surprise Jacket (shown here) with some adorable bunny buttons that B picked out. (He's a good button-picker-outer, which is surprising since he has a button phobia. Really.)

Many thanks to the good folks at Bluebird Tavern for a wonderful evening. Special thanks to Jenny for taking such good care of us! (Love you!) Now we are very excited for the opening of the new spot downtown!

Sunday we slept late and had a lounging morning. Sunday afternoon we had friends over and played a rousing game of Killer Bunnies. Tables were turned, revenge was wreaked, weapons were launched, and bunnies died. A good time was had by all.

Sunday night I made thin-crust pizzas with my newest happy discovery, King Arthur Italian-style flour. It makes the best thin crispy pizza crusts. We topped these simply with a smear of red sauce, some pepperoni and some fresh mozzarella.

I learned a cool trick for making the thin crusts from the KA website. I use this recipe for the crust. In it, the hint is to roll the crust between two greased parchment pieces. It works like a charm! We both love cracker-thin crispy pizzas and this baked on the parchment on our stone gives us exactly the crust we love. I should note that I make three large pizzas from the linked recipe rather than two; I roll it out as thinly as I can while staying inside the limits of 1/2 sheet pan sized parchment. Leftovers are good warmed in the toaster oven.

Monday was back to work and a necessary trip to Costco. Not too exciting. Except I did make some tasty soup with dried lima beans and dill in the pressure cooker and then some shredded fresh beet greens to finish it off. And they had fresh canterelles which will become garlicky pasta sauce tonight.

There's been a long-standing lament in our house, and we're not alone: Vermont doesn't have good Mexican food. And by Mexican we are super inclusive: Tex- Mex, Cali-Mex, New Mex-Mex (that was good in Northern Virginia of all places). Recently several spots have opened up in and around Burlington that have addressed the lack of choices for Mexican food, but have not really improved the scene very much. The newest place, in Winooski, probably wins for best Mexican in the area now (stealing the title from the chain, Moe's).

So mostly when we want good Mexican, we do it at home. And one of our favorite home treats is fish tacos. Sometimes we get all fancy and do some sort of sautéed or broiled fish, other times we go more home-style and do fish sticks. (I know! Fish sticks! I should go put that on my list of guilty pleasures.) But two fish sticks on a warm soft corn tortilla with some coleslaw, some sliced green olives, and some tomatillo green salsa is pretty darn good and pretty close to the fish tacos we used to get in Southern California. That's what we ate last night. We fancied it up with some crushed avocado because we're like that sometimes.

And, to be sure, the Mexican food scene in Burlington is a whole lot better twice a month on Saturday mornings, to the tune of Colorado-Mex. Our very good friends at Half Pint Farm are doing breakfast burritos and enchiladas at the Burlington Winter Farmer's Market. We've sampled breakfast burritos with green salsa (described here) and the cheese enchilada plate today. Both were excellent and HPF would easily win best Mexican in the area except they lose points for only being available at the Market in winter.

We have high hopes for the new taco place that is to open in the old Sadie Katz space, run by the Farmhouse Tap and Grille folks. Fingers crossed!

And in case you were wondering, in the "Red salsa versus green salsa" debate, I fall wholly and completely into the green camp.

Last night was a welcome Quiet Evening At Home. We had a nice dinner of leftover cider-glazed chicken and some fall vegetables... and another 1-pound loaf of the master recipe of Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day. (I have one more loaf from this batch, my second. Then I'm going to do a batch of the pain de campagne recipe and then I'll do a blog post about it all. Soon,

loop.)

Then we watched half of a recently acquired DVD of Joan Sutherland's performances on the Bell Telephone Hour (1961 - 1968). A few times during the performances, B and I just looked at each other with our mouths agape. She's called "La Stupenda" for a reason! I love how all the high notes are such pure bell tones and in the trills and runs I feel like I can hear every note. Does anybody sing like that nowadays?

Of course I know that she "sacrificed diction for tone". I'm OK with that exchange. And she didn't look the part of any fragile young thing. I'm OK with that as well. The one thing I did notice was that she held her head tilted back almost the whole time she was singing. I suppose these days someone would have broken her of the habit. Or maybe they tried and she didn't do it. I really need to read my signed copy of The Autobiography of Joan Sutherland: A Prima Donna's Progress. Perhaps some of these things are discussed therein.

And as for the Bell Telephone Hour, how cool is that? They had these rather elaborate sets for her to sing on and gorgeous costumes. I wonder if they were borrowed or just television studio stock? I'm too lazy to investigate much. But it does remind me of the production values of say, The Lawrence Welk Show (which they rerun on PBS on Saturday evenings and I should record it).

As with all of my blog posts, your mileage may vary.

Last night we went to the Met HD encore of Mozart's Don Giovanni. This opera has such a special place in my heart and in my operatic history. It was the very first opera we ever bought on CD; the 1986 DG version conducted by Karajan with Samuel Ramey as Giovanni. I've listed to that CD hundereds of times, I'm sure. Don Giovanni was also the first opera we ever saw on stage in Houston, back before they even built the Wortham Center. I've seen productions since, but that one will always color my perception of any performance.

The Met's production was excellent. Everyone sang extremely well. Mariusz Kwiecien is perhaps a perfect Giovanni; he's handsome and sexy as well as an excellent singer/actor. (His performance in Don Pasquale is also grand.) Luca Pisaroni's Leporello was the ideal compliment to Mariusz's Don. He has such a great face! And he looks and sounds similar to Mariusz, which is important to the plot. The two of them together rather stole the show.

The women were excellent as well. My only complaint is that I like my Elvira played with a bit more fire (in that long-ago Houston production she was an angry fiery red-head and wore gorgeous emerald green). I thought Frittoli's Elvira was fine, but she played up more of the tragic love-sick side. I thought Marina Rebeka's Anna had more of an edge to her and I couldn't help fantasizing how it would have been to have the two of them switch roles.

Ramón Vargas is a delight to listen to. Don Ottavio is something of a thankless role. People usually laugh at him. But he has two of the most beautiful arias for tenor that Mozart ever wrote (in my opinion, mind you). His Dalla sua pace was gorgeous. And he polished off my favorite, Il mio tesoro with nary a wayward breath or gasp. And those are some very long lines to sing!

The theater wasn't full, but it was well attended. There were two women a few rows behind us who were guffawing at everything. At one point I turned to B during an ovation and said, "Who knew Don Giovanni was such a knee-slapper?" By the end we were looking at each other and laughing every time they let out another round of horse-laughs. I wonder if they are out-of-work laugh-track recording artists?

After the Don was dragged to hell we came home and had a "picnic" in front of the television, as we like to do after the opera. I had made bread and we enjoyed that, along with cheeses, ham, pâté, and olives, all spread out on a cloth on the floor.

Yesterday was a good birthday. It was pretty much what I like to do on my birthday, except for the having to work at my job part. It was a quiet day. I got to talk on the phone with some friends and some family. There was a grand dinner with other friends. There was yarn. There was cake.

Birthday dinner was at Trattoria Delia, one of our local favorites for celebratory meals. We met up with TT and TF at Drink first and enjoyed pre-dinner cocktails. It was pretty quiet at Drink. Trattoria Delia, however, was packed. Even on a Tuesday night, it would be hard to get into it without a reservation.

I ate a lot; too much actually. But it was my birthday so I don't care. I've only had coffee and soup so far today, so I'm already making up for it.

For antipasti, I had the duck leg confit, which is one of the best ones around. They serve it whole and broil the outside so the skin is crispy and delicious. I think it was on eggplant something or other, but with the tasty duck, I don't care what it's on. There's only been one time ever that I went there and didn't get the duck leg, and that was when they had sweetbreads as a special.

For primi, I had a half-order of the pasta with the creamy mushroom sauce. This is another of my favorites there and I am sometimes tempted away from it, but I always am happy to return to it.

For secondi, I had osso bucco with risotto alla Milanese. They do it right, there; and it's usually too much food and I bring some home. I ate it all. ::burp::

Their desserts aren't very good, in my opinion. So I didn't eat anything there. But B had stopped on the way home for lunch and got us a maple-walnut cake from Mirabelles. So we had slices of that when we got home.

Today, my real birthday present arrived. B bought me a Kindle Fire. I've not played with it much yet, but I am looking forward to exploring the world of e-reading and all that.

So far being 49 is good!

Last night we went to Asiana Noodle Shop with W&S. (It's downstairs on Church Street, and is the reason "downstairs" has become a long-running joke in our family.) It was yummy as always. I still maintain that their chirashi sushi is one of the best deals in town.

I've enjoyed so many good wishes from friends yesterday and today. I feel truly blessed. More tomorrow.

Sunday was a quiet day. We slept a little late and hung out at home. I was browsing a new cookbook, How To Eat Weekends. It made me have a craving for Vietnamese food, so we went to Winooski to Pho Pasteur, where I enjoyed my usual fare: spring rolls, egg rolls, and barbecued pork bún.

B had cashed in some of our credit card points and we had gift cards for William Sonoma. The All-Clad large roaster was on sale. So we got that, kind of as a joint birthday gift. As an added bonus, the rack also fits our All-Clad chicken roasting pan. And since we were downtown, we went to My Little Cupcake and got cupcakes for evening dessert and had one in-store too! Yay for tiny cupcakes!

For dinner last night, I made a recipe from How To Eat Weekends that was chicken parts in a cider glaze with fried sage leaves for a garnish. It turned out to be quite tasty. I also made some kale and a loaf of bread to go with.

I was perusing boxes the other day and found a bunch of old photographs that aren't sorted in my photo boxes or stored digitally anywhere. In that same box were some old calendars. I remembered I was doing a long-term project that was taking the old calendars and going through them and capturing dates of past vacations and operas and the like. So for a while yesterday I was mentally lost in 2000-2002. I'm pretty good at sleuthing out things that are puzzling, but I'm stuck on a weekend at the end of May 2000 that has some cryptic notes on the calendar. "The Gathering begins" and some more days that mention "The Gathering." I suspect something, but need to confirm dates and can find no other mention of it anywhere. Very strange.

I think another long-term project is going to be scanning in the pictures in that old box. I know it has all of our pictures from when we did our car-touring Ireland trip. That will be slow going with my scanner, but there's no rush to get them all done at once.

Even though I'm writing about Sunday, it's Monday and I'm knocking at the door of 49.

We had a lovely day yesterday.

It started with meeting a bunch of "the gang" at Chef's Corner in Williston where we had delicious breakfast. Most folks had some variation of eggs Benedict but I had the French toast because when we go it's usually later in the day and the French toast is all gone. It was light and crispy-edged, smothered in blueberry compote and delicious.

After breakfast and lively conversation we headed off to Kitterage Foodservice Equipment & Supplies. The idea was that if things were sold in packs that were too much for one person, two or more could split it up. Mostly everything folks bought was not in need of splitting, although we did get a case of little cast iron gratin bakers and split it with another family. I ended up getting a tool to open five-gallon pails which I've needed for a while for my soap-making fixed oil pails. I also got another version of a garlic press since we both hate the one we currently have had for years.

I spent part of the morning assembling a beuf en daube Provençal to marinate while we were out. Hunting and gathering included stops at Dedalus Wine to pick up our club wine and some other items, and Dormition Greek Orthodox Church to shop their semi-annual pastry sale.

In the evening, we had our "usual" family dinner at home with TT and TF joining us. We had some pâté from Quebec and some Vermont cheese, both with black truffle in them and some other cheeses and olives with some home-baked artisan bread. I made the beuf en daube in the pressure cooker (it's one of our favorite recipes), along with some fingerling potatoes and a green salad with orange segments and an orange vinaigrette, and a sampling of Greek pastries. T&T always bring good wine and the conversation was lively as expected, especially since we'd not seen each other for a couple of weeks (which is rare). There were toasts to birthdays (B's, mine, and TF's) and to Festa Week in general.

I'd brought down Ticket To Ride to play, but we ended up talking about foreign and domestic travel plans and looking at DK Eyewitness Guide books for Chicago, London, and Paris. Good times!

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September 2013

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Page Summary

Barcelona Vacation, Day 7: Casa Botlló and the Picasso Museum
Barcelona Vacation, Day 6: La Sagrada Familia
Barcelona Vacation, Day 5: Figueres and the Dali Museum
Barcelona Vacation, Day 4: La Boqueria
Barcelona Vacation, Days 2 and 3: Boston to Barcelona via Frankfort
Barcelona Vacation, Day 1: Boston
In which I admit to embarking on a bit of knitting madness...
In which sock knitting for 2012 touches on tea, art, and death...
The year that was 2011...
Of some things literary...
In which there is a short jaunt to Boston...
Thanksgiving memories...
Catching up on last weekend and Monday... and an unintentional rabbit theme.
Better Mexican food...
La Stupenda
In which a statue comes to dinner...
In which I am now 49...
Festa Week - Birthday Eve
Festa Week - Sunday
Festa Week - Saturday

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