On Cooking Fish

We have a new fishmonger up the 'wood. They're very good. The first time I went in, I was dizzied by the sheer variety of fish on offer; I love fish but almost never eat it as Mr Z does not like fish that is not fresh (and by that he means, still kicking) and also because, well, I don't really know much about cooking it. The conversation went thus:

Fishmonger: Hello madam! And what can I get you?
Me: Er...some fish.
Fishmonger: Sorry, we don't have any fish.

Funny. They are a nice sort. The head fishmonger keeps a bag of lollies to hand out to children that go in with their parents; I love this because firstly, it is quite olde-worlde-local-shoppy, and secondly, he is being extremely clever, because the shop naturally hums of fish and by giving the little ones lollies he is creating a pleasant association with that smell. I don't know whether he's though of it like that.

It has been my mission, therefore, to try a new fish every week. I have been having snapper and hake for lunches (hake is the winner), and I have tried sea bass, which Mr Z cooks extremely well; monkfish, a la Delia; sprats, which led to some extremely amusing angst on my part ("They're so small, I can't eat them! I feel awful! But if I don't eat them, THEY'LL HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING!"); fish kebabs for the barbecue, which were a win, and calamari, which were not; and last weekend, some whiting.

The fishmonger is very helpful and will do almost anything you want with the fish before bagging it up. Here he had descaled and cleaned the whiting, and cut it into largish chunks for me. He recommended tossing in egg and then flour before shallow frying.

His advice seemed good. I was a bit worried I might undercook it so I left it in the pan for 10 or 15 minutes in the end.

I served it with a spectacular pasta salad made with leftover cooked pasta and leftover guacamole. It was all very delicious. I liked the whiting a lot.

I have since bought Mitch Tonks' fish recipe book and am looking forward to getting stuck in. Mitch Tonks owns Rockfish in Bristol, where I had one of the best restaurant meals ever, so I have high hopes for the contents of his book.

My only issue with the fishmonger is that he keeps live lobsters, sitting on the ice. It makes me very sad. Yesterday the biggest one appeared to be trying to pinch his own nose with the smaller of his graspers (the big ones were obviously rubber banded up), perhaps in an effort to commit suicide. I can understand it a little better if they're in a tank, but it seems so cruel to have them lying on the ice like that, and they really don't look happy. Perhaps I am wrong and they don't mind it, but it is a struggle not to buy them and then pop down to the Weston and release them.

I do have a bit of a soft spot for lobsters and crabs, though. Knitted versions of both are in my Ravelry queue.

June Goals

Late, so late! How is it June 9th already?! I blame the Queen. She may have had an amazing Jubilee celebration that I very much enjoyed...celebrating, but I cannot get the hang of half term being in June. I feel like somebody has hoodwinked a week away from me.

• Cast on for a new garment.
• Cast on for a new accessory/baby item using something that was stashed before 1/1/2012 - that 65km of yarn is not going to knit itself, after all.
• Run some helpful after school sessions for the upcoming "Bring Your Own Device" day I have been planning, so that hopefully my colleagues will be mostly on board.
• Plan an assembly to get students on board also.
• Plan BYOD workshop for the History conference. I am starting to have a panic in the pit of my stomach that I cannot shake - this is now less than a month away, and marking starts in two weeks, and after that there won't be any time to do anything, argh! And breathe. 
• Something housey...hmm. Measure up for the shelves I want in the spare room.
• Get rid of the spare room bed. Anybody want a 2 foot 6 single bed? Free to a good home!

Weekword: Bird

Sally picked this week's weekword: BIRD.



We have a lot of birds visiting our garden. Mostly big fat pigeons (we call them coos) like the one above, and a large number of blackbirds (we call them dickories), but for the past few years we've had robins and blue tits, all of whom are much too quick to be caught on camera (by me, anyway - Mr Z has some lovely pictures of a robin somewhere) and, this year for the first time, a group of goldfinches who have come and picked our copious dandelions clean.

I quite like watching the birds, as does the mitten, who loves to sit half-in-half-out of the back door guarding her property, or under her favourite bush in the garden where she has a chance of swatting the baby birds as they conduct their flying lessons between the two fences: luckily she has not caught one so far this year. We do try and keep her in a bit more, even though I feel really mean; but she has a terrible habit of sitting by our next door neighbour's fence, looking straight up at the bird table in the garden next to that, which is owned by a very grumpy and unpleasant sort of man who we fear might harm her if she manages to catch a bird feeding at his table. He dispatched the squirrels robbing it a couple of years ago so I think our fears are probably grounded.

Anyway, Mr Z has got to be a crack shot with the water pistol and is working hard to train her out of her wily ways under the bird table. The birds seem unconcerned. They quite like the cat, to be honest. She leaves fur all over the fence posts which they love. We see them in pairs: one collecting, the other swinging on a piece of the bamboo that grows at the end of the garden, acting as a look out. I think there's some marvellous poetic justice in them lining their nests and coddling their young in the fur of their aggressor.

Good word! Go and have a read of the other posts, won't you?

Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt: May

Emma is still picking the topics for this - please go and have a nose around everyone else's pictures too!

Something I Have Made
What? You want me to show off my sailor top again? Oh, OK...

It's not finished, but the body of it is and tonight I picked up for the hood/collar so I am hoping it will be done this weekend. It is a perfect fit, I am very pleased. This picture demonstrates the pipin before and after stitching together.

Inspiration
My stash!

 

So. Much. Stash.
Going through it all has inspired me all over again: if only because, hey, it's a little embarrassing to have this amount of yarn in the spare room...

Urban
Capri

Maybe not quite the usual urban, but Capri was some very pretty townage and it reminded me quite a lot of Bristol, with its pastel-coloured houses marching across the hills.

Transport
London buses!

 I was in the smoke last week for a conference and got off the bus early to walk down Oxford Street - it was a novelty for it to be so quiet. It looked amazing in the sun: very clean and tidy and with the flags and buses stretching as far as I could see. It felt very, very British. I'm sorry my phone isn't better at pictures because this doesn't do it justice. It's totally time for a new phone.

Motifs: Graffiti
It's not exactly a motif, but it is one of my favourite graffiti finds, from the wall of the local battered women's shelter a few years ago -

Yes, sometimes, I suppose it really does.
I feel a bit sad about this one because Bristol has some absolutely gorgeous street art, particularly around the People's Republic of Stokes Croft, but I only ever seem to pass it when I'm driving. There was also the See No Evil urban art project last year which I am hoping will be repeated.

Thanks for picking, Emma! Hopefully see you next month!

May Goals Round Up

I'm all out of kilter with my days today. I was just trying to work out how I could subvert this into a Tuesday ten post; yet all day I have thought it was Thursday. Wrong on both counts! But whatever - it's only two days until half term and I only have four lessons to teach between now and then so it doesn't really matter.

Here's my goals round up and it's a good one!

Knit something from stash yarn - even if it's just a little thing.
 I have cast on for a new accessory using some beautiful Colinette I received as a gift a while ago. It's a sort of neck, cowl, stole, shawl thing. I will pair it with the dichroic glass beads I bought at FibreFest in 2009. Double stashbust!

Begin knitting a new garment.

 Yes and it is nearly finished! Sort of. Ahoy, Sailor is all knitted and just waiting for some kind of collar/hood and the sleeves. I am stalled for the moment because I am trying to figure out how to pick up and knit a sailor collar instead of following the pattern directions.

Sort through and re-organise stash and ensure it's all catalogued and photographed (I'm so geeky, I love doing this - I feel like it's cheating to put it on the list, tbh)
 Yes, and it was enjoyable as I thought it would be, although I feel slightly overwhelmed by how much there is. Ravelry says it's 65km. But, on a positive note, I have my next five garments lined up and ready to go.

Visit the tip to get rid of some stuff.
Well, I didn't actually do this. But I intend to go next week. I keep putting it off because there's always a massive queue of cars and it smells bad. I did recycle all the cardboard this evening though, come to think of it. 

Research and plan an activity using the iPods so that I can stop panicking about going to that conference in July and having nothing to say.
 Sort of - I have done a few activities with the iPods and it is going quite well. I feel more confident about the conference but there is still a chunk of work to be done on my workshop. I am hoping to get some of that done in the next two days, and next week: definitely before marking starts on June 21st, anyway.

Finish rewrites on the book with good grace.
At least they were done! I might have rushed it a bit towards the end and they are coming back again for a second pass this week or next. I am a bit bored of it now, tbh. I also need to start work on the peripherals - the perfect answers to all the exam Qs, for example - so that I don't have to squeeze those into three weekends in term time. Little and often, as I keep reminding myself. 

I am currently enjoying a trip back to my youth with this 90s Groove album I downloaded yesterday. It is like being a teenager again. I can almost relive the panic of my year 11s as their exams wash over them! Thank goodness all that's over.

Ahoy, Success!

I love it when a plan comes together.

It may not look like much (taken, as it was, without a flash using my phone, and then hastily "snipped" because I haven't got round to d/l'ing paint.NET - yes, this is the same navy garment I blogged about yesterday) but it represents a  triumph for me.

I have been thinking about how to create this for a long time. I tried what I had decided, which was sort of short rows - I knitted four rows in white on these stitches, Kfb into the first and last stitch to avoid curling on the advice of someone on Ravelry. It didn't quite look as I thought...so I stitched the top white row together with the bottom white row, et voila! The piped effect I had been hoping for. I can't stop looking at it, because it's so straight and perfect.

(Please ignore those wonky stitches at the end, the rest of it makes up for it in my eyes).

I haven't been quite so obsessed with a knitting project in a while; I just want it to be finished right now. Curse you, job. Curse you, sleep.

Hello, Sailor

I've had a hankering for a navy garment with Naval detailing on it for a while, ever since I saw a sweater in River Island that had piping embroidered onto the front. It took a while to find the perfect yarn and the pattern most easily bent to my will, but happily I am now well on the way to success.

The pattern is from last summer's Interweave - the Amelia Hoodie, which is knit in cotton, has all the shaping on the back (I really love the little kick-out) thus enabling me to play around with the front, and which I already owned. Result. The yarn is Sublime Egyptian Cotton in the shade Dotty. Ange at knitting group discovered this first and I think, between us, we have bought the entire stock. It is lovely to work with and really crisp, and the navy is a really lovely shade - the picture does not do it justice.

The construction is interesting. You knit eight patches in a variety of stitch patterns, then whipstitch them together, pick up and knit bottom up in the round. I decided to whipstitch in my accent colour of Frothy, which was not sensible - I see myself unpicking it all and stitching it together in navy because it looks messy. i have added a white stripe and will eventually do an applied i-cord around the bottom in the cream.

I'm pleased to say I have added quite a lot to it since this picture was taken yesterday - I'm at 12 inches and starting the bust increases. I am almost ready to knit the first of three elongated bobbles I have planned. We'll see how that goes.

I am full of knitting plans at the moment, which is just as well, because I catalogued some stash today and felt a bit overwhelmed. I have 55km of yarn now, not including the Cascade and Lamb's Pride which are hanging around for various projects and which I am too lazy to catalogue. I spent some time matching yarns ith patterns and now have at least five cardigans ready to go. Better get on and finished this one, then!