When Knitting Was a Manly Art

I don’t do YouTube. With crappy dialup as my only available connection to the internet, I generally don’t look at sites that *require* broadband. But …. I was passed a URL and told I *had* to take a look. I loaded and waited — for a long time — but it was worth it.

Knitters and cats. Y’all will appreciate it. Please make sure you have sound enabled.

Wake up Cat

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A large part of yesterday was spent up in Washington at the Cedar Creek Grist Mill for their yearly Cider Press. They ran out of apples and cider before they ran out of people and some folks went home empty handed.

And a recipe for very simple Pumpkin Cake that’s perfect for this Halloween holiday and one that gets raves from everybody that’s tried it (and no.. It’s not one of mine).

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
4 large eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 (15-ounce) can plain pumpkin puree

Frosting:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, cut into 8 pieces and softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13 by 9 inch baking pan. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices in bowl. With electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat eggs, oil and granulated sugar until thick and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce speed to low, add pumpkin, and mix until incorporated. Slowly add flour mixture and mix until only a few small lumps of flour remain, about 1 minute. Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer pan to wire rack and cool completely.

2. For the frosting: With electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and confectioners’ sugar until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add cream cheese 1 piece at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Add vanilla and mix until smooth. Cake can either be turned out onto a serving platter and frosted or left in pan and frosted.

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Life is a bit strange right now. Neither good nor bad, Just not a lot of interest in much of anything right now.

Relationship with Eileen is the best it’s been in over a year, though the boyfriend is still in the picture.

We’re shorthanded at work again, I’m mostly working evening/closing shifts and it all leaves little time to mess around on the internet and for the most part I’m not doing anything interesting enough to report on. Mostly reading in my spare time, adding books to my account on LibraryThing. I can’t believe how many knittting books I have.

Very little knitting going on. Occasional stitch added to the scarf just to keep my hand in it, but nothing else.

Not much photographing being done either, though once in a while something catches my eye.

Saturdays have been my day to get away from it all. Just pack up and go somewhere, mostly on my own. Today I’m heading up to the Richland, Washington area for an “Apple Smash”. There’s a 100+ year old water-powered grist mill that will be pressing apples into cider and I’ll be joining the crowd.

A couple of weeks ago, I managed to *finally* get down to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon that’s the home of the Spruce Goose along with a number of very interesting exhibits.

And finally, no promises about when I’ll post again.. If my life ever straightens out, I hope to return to semi-regular posting, but I don’t envision that happening any time soon. About the only place I regularly touch lately is Twitter.

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