Stakes and Steaks

As the tagline says "Traveling Knitter."
I eat away from home A Lot. Steaks have always been an "at home" meal for me. I hate to pay restaurant prices for what is usually mediocre & I don't eat in expensive steakhouses by myself. And I don't usually do steaks on the road - no grill.
Digression - I saw Kobe Beef hot dogs the other day; WHY?!?!
Okay, I'm back.
TAO can grill a great steak. I mean wow. He's always had the knack, and it got even better after I developed the Knitter Family Marinade. Now my idea of the happiest meal is TAOs steak & grilled corn. It means we're together, it's been a good day, and the food will be delicious.

But as part of my skills rehab I found myself tempted by a ribeye in the butcher case. I brought it home but didn't do the Family Marinade. A quick sear in a cast iron pan, and center finish in the oven & I had myself a chain restaurant worthy steak. Matched it with some petite brussel sprouts, and had a nice dinner for $8 without all the noise/commotion of eating out.

It was a big step for me. Had it gone awry I probably would have flogged myself with recriminations for days. I mean really? A steak without a grill? Why would I even try? So the cost of failure would have been high - artifically inflated, but still high.

In the end, even though the meal was good, I don't know that I would do it often. Primarily because love is the best spice, and even a bad steak is better when I share it with TAO.





On a humorous note: We once feared that the elusive marinade recipe had been lost. We found it though, and it now is typed in 42 font on it's own sheet of paper and attached to the side of the fridge.

Is this thing on?

I know it’s been a long radio silence. For several reasons:
1) Sometimes life – or knitting – is boring and there isn’t anything to say
2) Sometimes life is exciting – and what I want to say can’t be aired publicly.
3) Sometimes – more and more – I write a post in my head then forget all about it. When I remember it, it seems like too much effort to reconstruct it.

photo credit: Cia de Foto via photopin cc

All that aside, I am finally at a point where life isn’t an endless whirl of treatments and doctor appointments punctuated by work and sleep. I back to doing some volunteer work, back to doing fun things with friends, back to just sitting with a book instead of going straight to bed, and most importantly – back on solid foods.

This means I’ve been doing quite a bit of cooking. Or learning about cooking. And thinking about food. Which brings me to this post. For years this was purely a knitting blog. Then I opened up a little and it became a little about life, a little about knitting. Now I am going to try another transition, it’s going to get more personal. There will be more stuff about what happens when you drive a strong woman to her knees repeatedly, more flailing about trying to get up. Not necessarily deep rich personal stuff; just more about the little blocks that build a contented life in the aftermath of a good “rug pulling.”

Right now my knitting matches my life. Nothing flashy or fast on the needles. Just simple lines, plain patterns, long term projects that don’t change quickly. So probably not a lot of knitting photos in the near future. Even my spinning is an 8 oz long gradient spin that won’t supply a lot of eye candy.

Back to the cooking: There are several articles and human studies regarding ketogenic eating and cancer. When my doc first broached it my initial reaction was basically unprintable. However, after several weeks of questions and research I realized that there were a plethora of recipes in what is currently labeled “Paleo/Primal” eating. That made the concept much easier to implement. So expect some posts about the interesting Paleo community/concept. For now I’ll just say that I feel amazing eating like this. I sleep better, my mood seems better balanced (aside from my hypothalamus being an arse sometimes), less of me hurts, and while I didn’t want to lose weight, I will say that my little fat pockets are smaller. I went home for 10 days and fed TAO this way & he says he feels better on it - less exhausted - and he dropped some fat pounds also. It does take some preplanning to “Just Eat Real Food” so expect some posts about those adventures.


In the meantime, thanks for being out there.


Oh crud! I just remembered I need to make some baby booties!  And that’s like life too <– sometimes things pop up Right Now.