Craftiness: Onions and Wool!

Hoo-ie, it is so nice to have my own place, my own kitchen!

I haven't completely immersed myself into French provincial cooking or German sausage making, but I've enjoyed cooking some excellent fall food, through which the humble onion and its cousins shine. When I've been cooking the past couple of weeks since moving to 811 I've noticed:

• I try to use up the ingredients I have on hand (this week: potatoes!) 
• I don't really like to grocery shop, so when I do it's probably for a specific meal, and that's when I'm most likely to buy meat. otherwise I'm cooking with vegetables and grains (which sounds healthy, but I wonder...)
• I'd much rather eat vegetables than fruit!
• Well, I'd much rather eat cheese before vegetables, but we all can't be democratic with our foods
• I really enjoy having an entire refrigerator to myself
• My favorite things to cook for myself are generally simple, heck even old school, and I'm excited to whip out the Women's Club of Alcatraz Cookbook I picked up while visiting there last year and crack open the Cooking with Campbell's Soup cookbook I picked up for free at the Ames Library sale 5 years ago.

Ah, the classic leek & potato soup recipe I picked up while living in England that's only 6 ingredients: vegetable stock, water,  milke, garlic, leeks, and potatoes. Bam! 

When the weather gets cooler, I have a visceral need to wave my true Minnesotan colors and make some hot dish. Yes, that's Cream of Mushroom Soup and Chicken with Rice soup. No shame over here, people, no shame!

 Ah, and this morning I made the best potato-shallot frittata to date!

Look at this beauty! I ate it all. 

So when I was cooking all this I realized I need to make a rug in front of the colorless sink.  And I had an epiphany: I started knitting a bunch of squares years ago with the intent to felt and sew them into a rug and had rediscovered the abandoned project while unpacking. Those, people, would be perfect for 811! So I spent last evening felting and blocking the squares, which I'll have you know, is akin to hand-washing one's well-stained clothing in Tanzania. It's intense!

This week I'll hopefully find time to sew the lil' guys together and a no-skid mat on the back and have a rug for my kitchen sink in no time!

Craftiness: Flor

People,

The living room is starting to take shape, get colorful! 50 pounds of Flor carpeting arrived yesterday.

Modular carpet delivered right to my concierge desk!

I have to admit I was a little  very disappointed when I took the green squares out of the box for they were clearly gray. (There in the upper right. Saddness.) Ah, but I, as a true Minnesotan, thought "that's too bad, but I'll get used to it," and emotionally moved on.

Organized and ready for assembly

But, hooray! It turns out those green squares are just like your favorite color-shifting chameleons and once we started laying them down, man, I was feeling good, they were so green!

Maiden barefoot voyage on a mossy green square

And here we are a few days earlier without the Flor installed. I mean, the place is already great--it just needed some color, eh?

A look before the Flor

 And, so, pending any size adjustments or square rearrangements, here's the final Flor design in my apartment (bonus points if you can ascertain what website my computer is displaying):

Bright and early at 811!

Don't worry, they're not glued down yet (with the flash off)

 And so, just as the sun feels like an old, familiar friend, so too is 811 starting to feel like a home. Bitchin'.