Blackacre Wool Productions

Marriedz!

2010-03-21T19:52:00.004-04:00

Boyfriend and I are now officially married, as of March 9, 2010. We eloped to a beautiful B&B in the North Georgia Mountains, which was both eco-friendly (fresh locally-grown organic breakfast each morning!) and delightfully classy and luxurious.

We're very happy!

Still Alive, Still Unemployed

2009-11-02T21:30:00.002-05:00

The rejection letter toll broke 100 yesterday... !!!!! This sucks!!!!

More Food for Thought, Please

2009-07-20T22:19:00.003-04:00

I will write a bigger post later with all my new knitting and yarn-dyeing and adventures! But first... food for thought:

From Slate: Beyond BMI

The BMI Project

Headaches are really, really lame.

2009-05-09T13:14:00.002-04:00

When I don't get enough sleep, I get a migraine headache. When I get too much sleep, I get a migraine. When I drink too much coffee, I get a migraine. When I drink not enough coffee, I get a migraine. When I exercise, I get a migraine. When I don't exercise for a while, I get a migraine. ARE YOU NOTICING A PATTERN? IS THE PATTERN THAT THIS SUCKS????

yes, yes it is.

And for the most part, the medical establishment has NO IDEA what to do. Check out Paula Kamen's book "All in My Head" (espesh you Reagan, if you are reading, she addressed the sexist implications of the medical community's inability to address headaches).

complaining is satisfying

2009-04-25T20:46:00.002-04:00

I wrote a letter to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly today. The text is as follows:

"Please, for the love of God, fire Caitlin Flanagan. She's deliberately provocative of feminists and engages in Bill O'Reilly-style inflammatory discourse with disturbing aplomb. Such intellectual underhandedness has no place in The Atlantic's hallowed pages. Please, PLEASE never publish anything by her ever again."

I feel SOOO much better now!!!!

On Being an Adult

2009-04-17T12:28:00.003-04:00

Yesterday evening I made polenta, a béchamel sauce, and filed a FOIA request with the State Department of the U.S. federal government. I feel really, really grown up.

Of course, then I proceed to play video games for an hour as a study break. So... the jury's out, i guess!

Nazi Zombies!

2009-04-14T20:32:00.002-04:00

I am way more entertained by this than I should be. Shooting electrons is more fun than law school!!!

On Children and Mental Health

2009-04-11T11:49:00.003-04:00

In my Children and the Law class last semester, we talked about the Nebraska Safe Haven law that allows parents to drop children off at approved places, like hospitals and police stations, if they were unable to care for them. Safe Haven laws are designed to prevent parents from leaving unwanted newborns in dumpsters. The Nebraska legislature, however, neglected to place an age limit on the law (most specify that only children up to a year old are covered by the law). This lead to a shocking number of older children and adolescents being abandoned in the state, some being driven in from other states as far as 1,000 miles away.

Judith Warner, who writes the Domestic Disturbances blog for the NY Times, has a fantastic follow-up to this story here.

She focuses on the mental health issues implicated by the safe haven law, which is an issue that I feel very strongly about as well. After working in a Juvenile Public Defender's office for a summer, I was shocked by the number of children we saw with serious mental illnesses. These were not the stereotypical over-pampered ADD kids that the media or public perception discusses -- or in the words of Warner -- they were not "spirited Tom Sawyers who don't fit our society's cookie-cutter norms." They were kids who raged uncontrollably for hours, kids who used drugs to quell the voices they heard, kids who were diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or "just plain old" clinical depression or social anxiety.

This experience made me feel even more strongly that the criminal justice system picks up not only those who are criminal (which is a label I find useless anyway), but those who are sick as well. Particularly in poor areas where mental health services are nonexistent, people who have un-cared-for mental health needs show up in jail.

What I Did On My Spring Break

2009-03-26T20:38:00.003-04:00

I visited my parents in upstate New York with my sister over my spring break. It was still very cold and snowy, so we did inside things.

We made pretzels.

We also made candied orange peel. It didn't quite come out as I had hoped--the thicker pieces were still very bitter. But it was a ton of fun!

We drove past a gas station called Whitey's. Are they kidding me? Seriously? Whitey's? I had to take a picture.

My mom made dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) from scratch. They were FANTASTIC. They didn't have any meat, and they were almost slightly sweet--the recipe called for raisins.

Alison's Economic Rantery: Jon Stewart Edition

2009-03-13T19:55:00.002-04:00

MUST WATCH!!!!

Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer on The Daily Show

OMG ICE, WTF???

2009-03-03T10:21:00.004-05:00

So, this morning, I got up. I was tired, but I did it. I showered, I did my hair, I got dressed, ate breakfast, etc. I drudged down the treacherous stairs to my car.

The stairs:

We went VERY, VERY carefully.

While I was scraping the ice off my car, Boyfriend noticed that THREE SEPARATE PEOPLE who tried to get up the hill out of the apartment complex SLID BACK DOWN IT on black ice.

Yes, that is right. TRAPPED IN THE COMPLEX. I am HOPPIN' MAD!!!!!

This is DANGEROUS SH*T. One girl in a giant SUV almost fishtailed (albeit at 2 mph) into a row of parked cars. According to the neighbors, a van was completely stuck in the middle of the road at the bottom of the hill for 25 minutes. If someone hits my car I am SUING the university for not delaying school until noon. Also I will sue the apartment complex for NOT FREAKING SALTING THE STEPS. I just spent all that freaking time trudging down dangeorus freaking steps just to TRUDGE BACK UP THEM AGAIN.

I only like to miss class if I'm feeling lazy. I don't like to miss class because I'm TRAPPED IN MY FREAKING APARTMENT!!!!!

AUGH!!!!

SNOW DAY!

2009-03-02T07:22:00.005-05:00

OMG SNOW DAY!!!!

and thus it began...

This little tree normally stands straight up; it was almost totally bent over from the weight of the snow.

We helped our neighbors build a snowman.

This was at about 6pm:

The final count was about 6.5":

And this morning, the porch looked like this:

YAY SNOW DAY!!!!!! A day of knitting and snuggling on the couch. HOORAY!!!!

Alison's Economic Rantery: Economic Wizardry Explained

2009-02-21T13:01:00.006-05:00

First, watch this video. It's about 11 and a half minutes, but it is worth every second.

Crisis of Credit

This video does an AMAZING job of explaining the financial acrobatics behind sub-prime mortgages and why they had such a ripple effect on the financial sector. Brilliant! Descriptively, this is just about perfect. For you new media kids, this was some guy's thesis in a Media Design Program. On the vimeo info page for the video (found here) the creator adds, "For more on my broader thesis work exploring the use of new media to make sense of a increasingly complex world, visit jdjarvis.com."

Personally, I really want this guy to make a sequel--a predictive, normative explanation of what happens AFTER the financial sector is crippled. For example, what effect does this have on prices? Unemployment? The trade deficit? Do average Americans who didn't have a whole lot in their 401(k)s to begin with actually need to worry?

So: why does a collapsed financial sector matter? I think, in a post-dot-com-boom world, that everyone takes for granted that the interests of Wall Street and Main Street are intricately linked. (And really, what does "Main STreet" even mean? Small businesses? Average citizen's pocketbooks? 401(k)s only?) But those links are not so clear (For more on this, check out Thomas Frank's messy but enlightening book One Market Under God).

For starters, comparisons to the Great Depression are overblown. Although that was the last time that this country experienced true bank failures, we're just not the same country we were then, we don't have the same financial system, and it's extremely unlikely we'll ever reach 25% unemployment (for a better analysis of why this isn't the Great Depression all over again, read this).

However, comparisons to Japan's Lost Decade are far more accurate, and far more frightening. To me, that seems like a very plausible outcome for the US. Now, the Japanese economy and US economy are different from each other in very significant ways, so the comparison isn't always that great. However, as the NPR article linked to above points out, some of those factors made it easier for Japan to weather their economic crunch than it might be for us (high savings rate, etc). On the other hand, American entrepreneurship and willingness to take risky investments might climb us out of the hole that they got us into--it's impossible to know.

Next time on Alison's Economic Rantery: Demographic Trends and How Old People Will Save Us!

Prudence is My Hero

2009-02-20T17:47:00.003-05:00

I am a big fan of advice columns and etiquette books. They are fascinating. I was particularly impressed by Prudence's advice in the following column, in the letter from "Bloomless." Go read that one now (it's the third letter down).

http://www.slate.com/id/2211536/

This is my favorite part: "But you've got to realize the issue is not how you should have handled this to keep him from being annoyed with you. The issue is that you're worried about how to handle someone who's being emotionally punitive over something that's not your fault. Stop apologizing..."

I think this is a HUGELY important point. People who wonder how nice, sweet girls end up with abusive men should look at this one closely. The writer was concerned about how to handle her boyfriend--she was not outraged that he was so ridiculous to her. He got upset and "emotionally punitive" as Prudie puts it, which is a FANTASTIC phrase, towards her for something that SHE HAD NO CONTROL OVER. This is how women get sucked into cycles of domination and control. If he can convince her that this is reasonable behavior, fast-forward ten years, and he's drawing up a marriage contract. (That link is fodder for an even longer, more outraged post that I don't have the energy to write right now).

Now, I am sure there is another side to it--I know that if I were in boyfriend's shoes, I would certianly be concerned about a mysterious dozen roses showing up at my girlfriend's office. However, GF did not hide them from him--she assumed they WERE from him. How is that evidence of cheating or anything untoward? Where is the trust?

But still--this letter highlights the importance of stepping back from your relationships (all of them, not just the romantico-sexual ones) and taking a good, long look at what's going on.

Happy Corporate Romance Day, a little late

2009-02-17T20:05:00.002-05:00

Like the V-Day Haters out there, I think that Valentine's Day is a big corporate scam designed to get people to buy flowers and candy, but... we celebrate it nonetheless. Boyfriend and I went out on Friday to a lovely dinner at Porterhouse Grill, which was delightful, and then we went to see Friday the 13th (on Friday the 13th, natch).

Long story--both Boyfriend and I love horror movies, and our first date was spent at a horror movie (The Descent, which was FANTASTIC) and then getting tanked with our friends downtown. It was a freakin' awesome first date, actually, so we thought going to a horror movie on Valentine's Day would be appropriate.

Here's to taking back romance from the corporate facists!

Blackacre Yarns

2009-02-16T18:53:00.002-05:00

My yarn shop is up!

http://blackacreyarns.etsy.com/

I had a great time dyeing yarn with Caryn (she's at http://bluemuttdesigns.etsy.com). There was a lot of experimenting going on, but honestly, I'm absolutely delighted with the results. I've already cast on a pair of socks for Boyfriend with a skein I kept for my personal use.

I'm so excited!!!! :D

Recipe Review: Lamb and Eggplant Pastitsio (aka Greek Lasagna)

2009-02-10T19:11:00.002-05:00

Lamb and Eggplant Pastitsio

Ingredients
For lamb sauce
1 large onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 lb lean ground lamb
1 garlic clove, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 lb eggplant, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 (28- to 32-oz) can crushed tomatoes

For cheese sauce
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1 garlic clove
1 whole clove
1/2 lb feta, crumbled
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 large eggs For pasta
10 oz penne (3 cups)

Preparation
-Make lamb sauce:Cook onion in oil in a 4-quart heavy pot over moderately low heat, stirring, until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Add lamb and sauté over moderately high heat, stirring and breaking up lumps, until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, salt, oregano, cinnamon, sugar, and pepper and sauté, stirring, 2 minutes.
-Stir in eggplant and tomatoes and gently simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until eggplant is just tender, about 40 minutes. Remove lid and simmer, stirring occasionally, until sauce is thickened, about 15 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper.
-Preheat oven to 425°F.
-Make cheese sauce and cook pasta while lamb sauce is simmering:Melt butter in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, then stir in flour and cook, stirring, 2 minutes. Whisk in milk and add garlic clove and whole clove, then bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Reduce heat and simmer, whisking occasionally, 5 minutes. Add feta, salt, and pepper and cook, whisking vigorously, until cheese is well incorporated.
-Beat eggs in a large bowl and gradually add sauce to eggs, whisking.
-Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until just al dente, then drain in a colander. Toss half of pasta with lamb sauce and half with cheese sauce.
-Assemble pastitsio:Pour pasta with lamb sauce into a wide shallow 3-quart baking dish, spreading evenly. Spoon pasta with cheese sauce on top, spreading evenly.
-Bake pastitsio, uncovered, in middle of oven until bubbling and top is golden, 25 to 30 minutes.
-Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Borrowed from Epicurious: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Lamb-and-Eggplant-Pastitsio-105595

My Take
So, this dish is FREAKING DELICIOUS. It's like lasagna, except Greek-flavored. The only critique I have is that I might increase the spices in the lamb sauce--it comes out very mild, just a hint of cinnamon, oregano, and garlic. But other than that, it's PERFECT. Relatively easy to make, it's actually simpler to construct than a standard lasagna (fewer layers!). It does make a lot of pots. But it is HEAVEN IN A DISH. The recipe feeds a lot of people, too--I would say you could get eight servings out of this recipe. It's just cheesy and meaty and pasta-y enough to be comfort food, but **relatively** healthy. I looked at other pastitsio recipes when I was deciding which one to make--one I looked at made the same number of portions, roughly, and used a STICK of butter instead of just 2 tblspoons, and had the same amount of feta and lamb.

The important takeaway, here, though, is that this pastitsio thing is FREAKING AMAZING. Oh my goodness, like I can't even tell you. YUMMERS!!!!

FREEDOM and blogging mojo

2009-02-02T09:55:00.002-05:00

So, my 80 PAGE PAPER OF DOOM is born: it is now 104 pages, and it is DONE. PRINTED. EL FINITO. CAPISH. Wait, I'm not sure that last one is right. ANYWAY.

I'm hoping that getting that monkey off my back will lead to more blogging mojo. This is the third blog since 2002 that I've started, and I never really got into the hang of it. The first blog was for random emotional journalistic ranting, and blogger ate it when I didn't post in it or log on for 6 months, and I'm kind of a little glad, hehehe. My second blog, a knitting blog, I could never get into--I had blog envy. All the other knitbloggers out there are so witty, and such amazing knitters, that I felt I could never compete!

Thusly, Blackacre Wool Productions was born. It's going to be for me to say whatever I'm mulling upon in my head, and for my close friends and family to keep up with me. Now that I'm done with the PAPER OF DOOM, I'm hoping that my impulse to write interesting things will increase.

But, for right now, all I am really thinking is OMG THANK GOD ITS OVER!!!!!! w00t!

What I Have Done So Far Today

2009-01-30T14:28:00.004-05:00

8:40am: Wake up

9:25am: Finish delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese and heirloom tomatoes, and toast

9:25am - 10:12am: read an article about Chuck Schumer in the Atlantic Monthly while procrastinating on 80 PAGE PAPER OF DOOM

10:12am - 1:20pm: Work on 80 PAGE PAPER OF DOOM, feel vaguely pleased with self at caffeine-induced productivity

1:22pm: notice Dallas in the litterbox acting oddly (he has been eliminating inappropriately all week)

1:24pm: call vet

1:37pm: arrive at awesome vet who will see me right away

1:45pm: vet gives giant guilt-inducing lecture about male feline urinary tract infections and how serious they are, vet leaves exam room

1:50pm: vet returns with antibiotics, to be given by pilling cat TWICE DAILY FOR TEN DAYS

2:00pm: load cat, yowling hideously, into car

2:09pm: arrive home, cat continuing to yowl hideously

2:09pm - 2:32pm: chase Dallas frantically around house with pill in hand, trip on pile of books for 80 PAGE PAPER OF DOOM

2:32pm: give up on pilling cat until Boyfriend comes home from work

2:33pm: return to 80 PAGE PAPER OF DOOM, miserable and exhausted.

2:35pm: feel vaguely pleased, somehow, that all this only cost $60.

New Cultural Understandings

2009-01-10T14:37:00.001-05:00

Boyfriend attempts to explain his culture to me, thusly: "Sweetie, the proper term is not 'redneck.' It's 'Southern-American.' And also, it's not 'hillbilly'--it's 'Appalachian-American.' Get it straight."

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-09T21:40:00.002-05:00

This is my New Year's Resolution Diet:

Diet Industry is Idiotic, TV needs new type of segments in January to replace holiday food segments from October-December

Take THAT, diet industry!

Colbert Report + Fiber Arts = AWESOME

2008-12-06T16:56:00.001-05:00

I was tipped off to this segment from the Colbert Report by Lime & Violet--but for those who haven't seen it--check it out!

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/212027/december-03-2008/nailed--em---radical-knitting

Recipe Review: Butternut Squash and Red Pepper Casserole

2008-12-03T21:40:00.002-05:00

Ingredients

3 1/2 pounds butternut squash
1 large red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan (about 2 ounces)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400°F.
With a sharp knife cut squash crosswise into 2-inch-thick slices. Working with 1 slice at a time, cut side down, cut away peel and seeds and cut squash into 1-inch cubes (about 9 cups).
In a large bowl stir together squash, bell pepper, oil, garlic, herbs, black pepper, and salt to taste. Transfer mixture to a 2- to 2 1/2-quart gratin dish or other shallow baking dish and sprinkle evenly with Parmesan.
Bake casserole in middle of oven until squash is tender and top is golden, about 1 hour.

Borrowed with love from epicurious.com

My take

Wrestling with butternut squash isn't easy, but it's really fun.

If you have never worked with b-nut squash (that's what all the cool kids are calling it these days), I have some advice:
First: wear gloves, because you will get orange weird gunk on your hands. I promise. Trust me.
Second: watch a clever little online video about how to peel a squash, for instance, here. Watch before peeling. Life will be easier.

Once the squash is conquered and cubed, the rest of the recipe was pretty dang easy.

My problem is this: what came out of my oven kinda sucked! All the reviews on epicurious are super-positive, but my dish BOTH TIMES I MADE IT was burnt on the top and bottom and yet the squash wasn't cooked all the way through. The parts that seemed to have cooked normally were DELICIOUS, particularly the red pepper which had almost caramelized, but the squash was really disappointing.

What am I doing wrong? I have decided that it must be one or more of three options:

1. my squash was unripe (it was lighter-colored than most of the ones in the videos online)
2. my oven sucks (but the thermometer said 400 the whole time!)
3. everyone on epicurious.com is lying to me

Who knows? If anyone has any butternut squash advice, I'd appreciate it! I really love b-nut squash when I have it at other people's houses or at restaurants, but I apparently can't cook it. The recipe was a lot of fun though.

Conversation with My Mother

2008-11-30T13:48:00.005-05:00

Please note, I haven't seen my parents in a year and a half, having moved literally a thousand miles away to take a job/enroll in law school.

Time: right before final exams

Place: my house

*ring ring*

ME: Hello? (I always say hello as though I don't know who's calling, even if it displays "Mom" on the caller ID, because she firmly disbelieves that the phone can know who is calling and will shout, "HOW DID YOU KNOW IT WAS ME???" if I answer "Hi mom!").

MOM: Hi honey, it's me.

ME: Hi!

MOM: Is this a good time?

ME: Sure, I'm studying, but I can take a break. I'm at home.

MOM: Good! You should be studying! This is the only time in your life that you'll be a second year law student. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fourth of July, they all come every year. You'll never get another chance to be a second year law student, so if you screw it up, it's screwed up for good.

ME: Okay.

MOM: So the reason I'm calling is I wanted to tell you about this baked apples recipe I made--you put BUTTER in the middle of the apples, not heavy cream, and it comes out much better.

ME: Good to know! I've been wanting to try making baked apples.

MOM: Yes, you should try it. But only after finals. Now you need to study. Do you have an apple corer?

ME: Uh, actually, I don't think so. I've never needed one before.

MOM: I have four or so sitting around so I can send you one in the mail.

ME: They're probably pretty cheap, I can pick one up before I make the recipe.

MOM: No, really, it's my pleasure to send you one, I have so many I don't know what to do with them.

ME: Well, okay, but if only if you were going to send a package anyway and it's no trouble.

[more talk about baked apples and apple recipes generally]

MOM: I will send you a little study care package with some apple bread I made. It's delicious. You can eat it while you study. You know, I was thinking, do you eat lunch at your desk? You can probably get more studying in if you take meals while you're at the computer.

ME: I try to take breaks to do things like shower, eat, check my mail, buy groceries and run errands, etc.

MOM: Well, don't take too many breaks. Remember this is the only chance you get to be a second year law student. Don't screw it up.

ME: Thanks Mom, talk to you later.

MOM: Bye! Remember to study and floss!

*click*

Cf. What a Normal Mom would say: "Hi honey, your dad and I miss you so much, we hate that you weren't around for Thanskgiving because you had to study. I'm sure you're studying very hard! Remember to take breaks to take care of yourself--your health is more important than your exam grades. I hope you had a good time with [Boyfriend]'s family. You'll do great on your exams! Don't worry! I love you, Mom."