When Knitting Was a Manly Art

It’s been a wild couple of weeks.

We’re down two heads at the restaurant, both due to firing. One of the counter ladies had some questionable activity on the till that she didn’t want to come in and discuss and one of our cooks was fired for being overpriced and a pain in the ass.

I went from a bit over 30 hours/week to nearly 39 hours this next week, including a 10 hour shift on Monday’s and to top it all off, there was a basketball tournament in town this weekend with 56 teams competing and *of course* the winning teams showed up tonight about an hour before closing. Sigh.. Shut the Open sign off at 9pm, clocked out at about 10:15. Sitting here with a cold bottle of beer trying to wind down, but I need to get to bed soon, as I need to be back at the restaurant at 9:30 tomorrow morning. Yes.. But my paycheck will be wonderful.

Still plugging away on the third scarf and I even did a couple rows on the little sweater to just prove to myself that I knew where I was in the pattern.

Hopefully, more later

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For the 4th or 5th time since the first of December we woke to another dump of snow. About 7″ overnight and a bit still coming down. NOAA is predicting at least a couple more inches for us before this one is over.

And a quick picture of the little lace wash cloth I finished up. The pattern is called Dayflower. I knitted this lace pattern ages ago on my first circular lace shawl project from Shawls and Scarves (Best of Knitters)

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Did you ever have a song stuck in your head? I listen to *a lot* of country music at work and the following lyrics have been stuck in my head for days.

Come on in boy, sit on down and tell me about yourself
So you like my daughter, do you now? Yeah, we think she’s somethin’ else
She’s her daddy’s girl, her momma’s world
She deserves respect, that’s what she’ll get
Now, ain’t it son?
Y’all run along and have some fun
I’ll see you when you get back, bet I’ll be up all night
Still cleanin’ this gun

It’s from Rodney Atkins’ latest album, If You’re Going Through Hell, and it’s a father-daughter tale.

Another knitted wash cloth finished. Pictures later this week and I expect to restart on the little sweater towards the end of the week.

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Finished the second of three scarves for another of the young ladies at work.

This one is done in Lion Brand Yarn — Moonlight Mohair in the Northern Lights colorway.

This morning I put out a fresh block of suet and in less than an hour, our little local flock of Gray Jays discovered it. We had five jays standing in line to get their turn at the suet. Not a common bird at our elevation

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Mostly a quiet week so far, though tonight was a very busy one at the restaurant. While we barely broke $1000 all day for the first part of the week, we managed a $1300 $1700 dinner tonight. What does that mean? It means the three of us in the kitchen were humping our little butts for a solid three hours, but the owner should be happy.

Finished a simple little scarf this afternoon and presented it to the young lady I work work with. She was pleased. It was mindless and the only thing that saved it from being painfully mindless was the fact that it required me to increase a stitch on one side and remember to decrease on the other. While it was basically garter stitch, the increasing and decreasing caused a bias in the fabric creating the points at the end and the slanting of the stitch pattern.

Unfortunately, the other two young ladies I worked with tonight asked “Where’s mine?”. I’ve got a couple more skeins and as easy as these things are to knit up, I may just do a couple more.

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I’ve actually been knitting again for the past three days, though it’s been a little bit of nothing.

My Mom loves hand knit wash cloths and I decided I’d started an easy one to see how I felt about knitting again.

It’s a simple little pattern called Lacy Squares.

I’m trying to decide if I need to do another wash cloth or see if I can restart the little sweater. I’m not sure if the intended recipient of the sweater will fit it anymore, but one way or the other I’m going to finish it. Stay Tuned…

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First off… Still alive. Little sweater still not complete, but I’m working on it — Slowly —

Life is slowly turning around. I had two days off this past week and it looks like I’ll get two days off next week. We’ve picked up a couple of new people, including a guy with a printed resume and a recommendation from one of the big name pizza joints, but the owner is still pushing hours on me and we’ve managed to make more money on Thursday and Friday dinner than was brought in all day for the first part of the week.

I’ve been spending long hours in the restaurant kitchen lately and it seems that every time I turn around, there’s something foodie to relate to.

One of the gals I work with is married to an Hispanic gentleman and we talk about Mexican/Hispanic food from time to time. A little place in my closest city serves Mexican food and is consistently frequented by Hispanics. Along with the usual burritos and tacos, they serve the less usual. Like Tripa (Tripe) Burritos and Lengua (Tongue) Burritos. I’ve tried the Lengua and it’s quite good and next time I’ll get the Tripa. Jessica mentioned eating Pupusa when she was in Los Angeles and said she hadn’t had a decent one in a long time. This afternoon I discovered a little food cart in Portland selling made-to-order Pupusa and it was delicious. Hand made, grilled in front of me with homemade fresh salsa, a very nice cabbage salad, homemade tomato sauce and sour cream for $4.00. A delicious, filling lunch for less than McDonald’s. How can you beat that

In the mean time, I’ve been reading Anthony Bourdain’s Nasty Bits. While I don’t cook at any where the level that Tony does, his books do speak to me. Michael Ruhlman is my favorite overall food author, but the down and dirty of Tony Bourdain hits more chords for day to day work.

If things continue they way they seem to be going, I should be back to *somewhat regular* posting from here on out.

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A quick Friday post to let you all know I’m still around and still alive.

Work is still hectic. Still only two of us qualified to close the kitchen, and while I’m not getting much overtime, I’m still pulling 9-10 hour shifts and folks seem to think that late night pizzas are the way to go.

Life is a bit quieter, but only because I’m only getting a single day off each week and don’t have time to dwell on how crappy my life is…

Back to work on the little sweater. Most of one sleeve finished. One more to go and then the collar and we’re done. I’ll see if I can get some pictures later.

Harold McGee is a food scientist who wrote one of the most intriguing books about food — “On Food & Cooking: The Science & Lore of the Kitchen”. He also has a column in the New York Times that also dwells on the science of food. His latest article looks at The Five Second Rule. You remember the rule, right? If a piece of food drops on the floor and you pick it up in less than 5 seconds, it’s safe to eat. (If you don’t have a New York Times login, you can use BugMeNot for some usable username/password combinations).

Later….

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It’s been another long 9 hour day in the restaurant today and an early morning start again tomorrow, but I’ve been making slow progress on the little gansey.

Finished the front, the two shoulder extensions and joined both shoulders yesterday afternoon. I’m going to *try* to pick up stitches for the first arm tomorrow, but it all depends on what I feel like and what else is happening. By the way… This shot is really close to true color of the yarn.

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It’s been a rough week at the restaurant. We’ve had two people quit and our night manager is expecting a baby around the first of May and she informed the owner yesterday that she needs to cut her hours drastically and she’ll probably be leaving completely within the next week or so. And the owner hasn’t been able to find anybody to hire. We are currently at minimums to run the place and only with most of us putting in nearly 40 hour work weeks.

But, there has been progress on the little gansey. Finished the back this morning and will start on the front later today. Don’t you think it’s cute…

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