Incoherent Scribblings

Stitching and Learning

The Stitching Blogger’s Question of the Week is:

Do you know it all or is there something out in the stitching world you still want to know how to do?

I started cross-stitching about 6 years ago, which I think is just about long enough to get the basics down really well. However, there are many specialty stitches out there that I would like to learn and many threads and fabrics that I have not yet had the opportunity to work with.

I think that I learn something with every piece that I work with. For example, about a year ago, I did a piece on black fabric and learned that I don’t especially like working with black fabric.

“Passing Admirers” is the first piece I have ever stitched on linen and I have learned that I really like the way the fabric feels in my hand. “Passing Admirers” also has a small amount of bead work on it. I have yet to do any bead work and while I am looking forward to it, I imagine it will be quite a learning experience for me.

In conclusion, I think that one of the reasons that cross-stitch is a hobby that I have kept up with over the past six years is because I learn new ways of expressing my creativity with each new piece that I stitch.

Da Vinci and Databases

On Friday I finished The Da Vinci Code and about a month or so ago, I finished Dan Brown’s other Robert Langdon book Angels and Demons.

Some time before I read The Da Vinci Code and shortly after I read Angels and Demons, I read a comment from Petite Anglaise where she compared Brown’s writing style to that of a “seven year old who has swallowed a few reference books.” I got a good chuckle out of that comparison and personally, I think she might have something there!

Even so, I have to say I kind of liked these books. Normally, when I read a “who-done it” story I figure out who did it before I get to the third chapter. While Brown’s books don’t exactly fall into the “who-done it” category, he did keep me guessing as to who exactly the antagonist (for you non-literary types, that is the bad guy) was until almost the very end. On that alone, Brown gets a “thumbs up” from me.

That being said though, there is something in The Da Vinci Code that I must complain about; and that is the encounter that Langdon and Sophie have with the librarian in London. Brown doesn’t go into too much detail about what the librarian looks like except to mention that “[t]he horn-rimmed glasses hanging around her neck were thick.” And while I am slightly aggravated by this stereo-typical portrayal, what really bothers me is how the reference librarian at this library does (in my opinion) a substandard reference interview and subsequent low-quality database search.

I won’t talk about the reference interview here, but any fellow librarians reading this will know what I mean. The problem is that the librarian searches a specialized database like she is doing a Google search. There is nothing wrong with Google searches, but few library databases return relevant results if you attempt to search them like you do the web. One of the cornerstones of library database Boolean searches is using the words “and,” “or,” and “not” to include or exclude terms and the librarian in The Da Vinci Code blatantly does not do this! Luckily, Langdon and Sophie’s meeting ends with them finding what they need, but as a librarian I was very perturbed by the whole scene.

So, not only does Mr. Brown write like a seven year old who has swallowed a few reference books, in my opinion he could also really use a lesson from a reference librarian on how to conduct a proper database search!

BlogExplosion Injury

Due to a BlogExplosion injury, the wrist on my surfing (right) hand, has been extremely sore since around midday on Thursday. I attribute this repetitve stress injury to the number of hours I have been surfing BlogExplosion the past week discovering new blogs and earning a butt-load of credits. Today, my wrist is better and I have been able to check my email and do a minimal amount of surfing, but I am still trying to take it easy with it.

Not only was my wrist too sore to surf yesterday, I couldn’t cross-stitch either! Oh woe is me, to be unable to do my two favorite things! To console myself, I went shopping and bought some new DVDs and enhanced my stash a bit.
Hopefully, I will be back in surfing and stitching form soon.

The Best Stuffing Ever

I have been having a bad craving for stuffing. I am a big fan of Stove Top, but they don’t have it here in Germany. So, I thought I would be adventurous and try and make my grandma’s recipe for homemade stuffing (with a few variations of my own). The fact that this whole “stuffing endeavor” corresponds with Thanksgiving is merely a coincidence. I am really pleased with the results, and must once again reiterate… Seriously, this is the best stuffing ever!

The Best Stuffing Ever Recipe:

¼ cup butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1-2 stalks celery, chopped, depending on taste
4 cups unseasoned, dry bread cubes
1 Tablespoon dried Parsley
1-2 teaspoons Poultry seasoning, depending on taste
½ teaspoon Sage
Dash salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 ¼ cup chicken broth

• Preheat oven to 325 F (or 165 C).
• Melt butter in skillet over medium heat. Add onion and celery, cook until tender, stirring occasionally.
• In large bowl, combine bread cubes, parsley, poultry seasoning, sage, salt, and pepper. Mix well. Add broth and onion mixture. Stir gently until moisture is absorbed.
• Reduce oven heat to 225 F (or 100 C). Transfer stuffing to baking dish and cook for 30-60 minutes stirring occasionally. Add a little bit of water while stirring if necessary.

Serve with chicken (we had Chicken Kiev tonight, but that is another recipe) and enjoy!

A Turkey-Free Day

Well, today is Thanksgiving. Yesterday, my good friend and former roommate, Brooke, had her labor induced. I am anxiously awaiting news of how everything went and what she finally decided to name the little bugger. (I do have a baby sampler to stitch after all…) Today, I am mostly thankful that she is finally getting to live her dream of having a baby and hope everything went OK for the two of them.

Otherwise, Thanksgiving Day is pretty quiet on this side of the ocean. Believe it or not, the first year I was here when I called my parents to wish them a happy Thanksgiving, they temporarily forgot that Turkey Day isn’t a holiday all-around the world and asked how Thanksgiving was celebrated here in Germany! Parents… Gotta love ‘em!

In contrast to many Americans, Thanksgiving has always been a fairly relaxed occasion for me. My family is very small (I have one blood aunt and one blood uncle, that’s it) and when I was a kid, all of my family lived in the same town as I did. We never had to travel far and even though we did get together for lunch or dinner on Thanksgiving, it was never a really big production.

The biggest problem I have with Thanksgiving is that I don’t like turkey, pumpkin pie, or cranberry sauce. Period. However, until my grandmother died about ten years ago, we had our own turkey-free tradition. And believe it or not, it was yours-truly who started it.

I spent a lot of time with my grandparents as a kid. They only lived about two blocks away and since my mom worked and I refused to go the babysitter with my sister, I went to Grandma and Grandpa’s almost every day after school. I don’t exactly remember how old I was (probably about seven), but one year, a week or so before Thanksgiving, when my grandma was starting to plan the Thanksgiving menu, I heard her discussing the turkey with my grandpa. Never shy about these sorts of things, I piped up that I didn’t understand why we had to have turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I didn’t like it. Grandma asked me if I had any suggestions for her. Whether or not she was taking me seriously at the time, I don’t know… she was probably expecting me to suggest macaroni and cheese or peanut butter and jelly or something, but she listened. Anyway, I suggested she make fried bread.

You may be asking WTF is fried bread? Well, the name is pretty self-explanatory, I think. My grandma had this recipe for “sweet bread” that she would make into softball-sized buns. But instead of baking them up, she would stretch them thin and fry them up in a skillet. When they were still hot, we would lather them in butter and devour them. I don’t expect you to understand, most people don’t, but everyone in our family loved it when Grandma made fried bread.

So, I suggested instead of turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas, we have fried bread. She told me she wasn’t so sure about that, but would make me a compromise: If everyone else was OK with it, we could have fried bread on one holiday, but had to have turkey on the other. I may have been only seven, but I recognized a good deal when offered, so I agreed. In the next few days, everyone (my mom, dad, sister, grandpa, and uncle) agreed to the “fried bread on one holiday” suggestion. And from then on, we usually had fried bread on Thanksgiving and turkey on Christmas. (I still didn’t like turkey, but would usually eat a sliver of breast meat along with mounds of Grandma’s homemade stuffing.)

After Grandma died, Thanksgiving was really never the same again. Mom tried to make fried bread to keep our tradition alive, but it never really turned out. Then a couple of years later, Mom and Dad got divorced and my sister and I tried to make fried bread for Dad, our new stepmom, and stepsister and while it turned out OK, they didn’t really appreciate it. Finally, I moved far away and didn’t spend Thanksgiving with my family every year anymore. And while the story could have a sad end, I learned last year that my sister made fried bread for Dad, herself, and my then 3 year old niece for Thanksgiving and, in true family tradition, my niece loves Grandma’s recipe for fried bread!

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you celebrating it!