The Sweatshop of Love Blog

Since I got that Summer Sweater out of the way, I’ve been able to work on my other projects that have been hanging out on the back burner.

I separated the sleeves of the sweater pattern I’m writing. Cute, right? Tara’s Sweater inspired me to make my sweater stripped, and I’m working on it right now and looking at the picture of Tara’s sweater and it looks a lot alike! Right now I’m working on boob increases. It is hard to translate boob size to stitches increased, but I’m trying.

Working on it right now, you ask? One of the many joys of having a very old computer is that you have a ton of free time to knit, balance your checkbook, dance, whatever! while things are loading. I am never without a project while working on my Old Lady. Especially when I have a lot of programs going. Right now? iTunes, gchat, my photo editor, and this blog writing page. Old Lady is working hard. She is just lucky there isn’t a baseball game on.

If it is possible to die from an avocado overdose I’ve got to be close by now. After Saturday’s avocado soup and avocado salad, you would think I would have had enough of the stuff. Not the case! Yesterday PT suggested BLTs for lunch. With avocado, of course, though the letter is not represented. And if we are being technical, that is fake bacon. PT calls it bacon crackers, but I’m fine with it. I can’t remember what real bacon tastes like, anyway. This sandwich was unbelievable! Homemade bread, a little Miracle Whip, lots of tomato, romaine, bacon crackers, and a quarter of an avocado.

Then I turn around this afternoon and make egg salad with avocado for lunch. This is so incredibly simple: one hard boiled egg, 1/4 of an avocado, fresh cracked pepper. Mash with fork. Throw on toasted bread.

I’m sure I am alive right now only because my dinner last night didn’t involve avocado at all.

One of the best parts about being an adult is that you can eat pancakes whenever you want. Hungry at 3am? Pancakes! Dinner? Pancakes! Hungover and just woke up at 2pm? Pancakes!

Our excuse? The Logan Square Farmers Market treated us right again yesterday with a pint of fresh Michigan blueberries for $4. One pint of fresh Michigan blueberries? Pancakes! These were cinnamon blueberry pancakes and heavenly. The blueberries exploded when I cut into them, so the blueberry juices would spill onto the plate, mixing with the syrup I sopped up with my pancake! Stop. Just stop.

The potatoes were excellent, too.

I still had those pancakes on the brain when I was hitting my Goggle Reader this morning. A blog I just recently started following, Bakerella, had a blueberry pancake orgasm on her blog, too. And while you are over there, check out the reason I’m following this amazing woman in the first place.

By the way, my boobs are size 12 stitches. I’m ok with it.

My friend Colleen lives in St Charles, which is F-A-R. I don’t have a car so the only way we see each other is if she drives the hour through ridiculous traffic to Chicago or if I bike/train downtown then hop on a metra for an hour and 15 minutes.

1 hour and 15 minute train ride it is! I brought Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and read over a hundred pages round trip. I’m loving it! It is so funny and violent! And the integrity of the original isn’t lost of made into a joke. It is exactly what I wanted when I imagined one of my favorite books being laced with zombies.

Colleen met me at the train at ten to ten; perfect brunching time! We have a tradition of going to Nosh in Geneva, which is very close to St Charles, apparently. I’m suburb racist (they all look exactly the same to me!), so I never know where we are.

Usually our friend Shawna is with us and the three of us go, but Shawna is summering in Italy. Boy did she miss out on a delicious breakfast! Who would rather be in Italy when you could easily be in Geneva, IL?! Eating at Nosh?!

Certainly not me after I ordered the mushroom, caramelized onion, and herbed goat cheese (man I ate a lot of goat cheese this week) omelet, served with potatoes and multi grain toast. One of the great things about having a place like Nosh you have been to with your girlfriends a million times is that between the three of us I’m pretty sure we have ordered everything on the menu. There is no guessing! Everything is amazing, and this omelet didn’t disappoint. Caramelized onion in an omelet will be making an appearance in my home made omelets very soon.

Colleen ordered something that we always order, the pear polenta, which is always delicious. Nosh has a nice outdoor seating area that we took advantage of, hence Colleen’s hot shades.

Colleen and I, despite the heat, hit up Geneva’s Swedish Days, which was basically a huge sidewalk sale with food stands. Then we walked along the river where we made some new friends.

And we hit up a St Charles staple, Gramps Frozen Custard.

We love Gramps. We love Gramps so much that we walked like two miles in 90+ degree heat there and back.

Gramps always has vanilla, chocolate, and twist, but then they make 4 or 5 special flavors of the day, which Colleen and I took advantage of. Her cookies and cream was amazing, my peppermint was delightful. We ate slowly to put off our steamy walk home.

Cooking with Colleen is like what non-cooks want cooking to be. Every time I make food with this girl I don’t even realize I’m doing it. It’s what I picture Joan Cleaver was like in the kitchen. She chops, she mixes, and out comes an amazing meal.

No kidding, she whipped up this dinner in 10 minutes. That is a strawberry, cranberry, avocado, toasted almond, blue cheese, balsamic vinaigrette-y salad and avocado soup. I’m a cooking dawdler, apparently, because I know that would have taken me half an hour to put together. Colleen mashes some avocados and asks me to chop up some strawberries and I turn around and everything is done! She can whip up a mean pasta dinner in about 7 minutes, too.

We took that salad to town. I could have eaten it straight out of the bowl and never looked back. I make salads and they are chocked full of veggies and for me there is no other option. Strawberries? Duh! Cranberries? Allyson, get it together. Embrace the possibilities!

After dinner I read about zombies while getting very sad Tigers updates (1-8=OUCH) on the train back to the city while watching black clouds roll in. My tummy was full of amazing food, though, so that cut the pain of the Tigers loss and the potentially stormy bike ride back to Logan Square. I made it somehow, dry but for the sweat rolling off my upper lip. I knew a nice Saturday night in was exactly what I needed, so I watched the storms roll in. Me and the zombies.

Yesterday PT and I got up early and biked downtown to check out the new modern wing at The Art Institute. It has been a LONG time coming and we were both really excited that it was finally ready for visitors!

We biked down Monroe towards the Art Institute and right away we saw something we had never seen before; people were walking on the bridge over Monroe, connecting Millennium Park with The Art Institute! We parked our bikes and were immediately greeted by people from Target with chips, water bottles, and pamphlets about the new wing. Target was sponsoring the opening weekend festivities, including free admission, and the chips were a delicious snack.

We walked through the doors and into this gigantic room! It opened at 10:30, we got there at about 10:35 and this picture was taken at maybe 10:42. I think all of Chicago was as pumped as we were because the place was packed, and this is as empty as we would see it.

We worked our way through the first floor, which was where the featured exhibits were. By the time we got upstairs and to this balcony, opposite the entrance where the first inside picture was taken, it was hard to move around comfortably, there were so many people there. We didn’t mind.

We were here checking out some free art!

Mom – LOTS of Picasso.

To say that the setting for The Modern Wing is distracting isn’t right. ‘Distracting’ has a negative connotation that I certainly don’t mean. The way that all the outer walls are all glass keeps reminding you where you are. You are between the beautiful and historic Grant Park and the biggest rooftop garden in the country, Millennium Park. Both parks are between Lake Michigan and the breathtaking Chicago skyline. Why would you want to have walls when you can see these unique landmarks and monuments all the time?

My favorite part of the Modern Wing was the Architecture and Design exhibits, naturally. I loved this display of chairs and lamps.

I really wanted to sit on that wire chair. It can’t possibly be functional, right? And I’m pretty sure I’m going to try to give my wall blue felt cancer sometime very soon.

While we were looking for the balcony and the bridge we were so excited about walking across, we stumbled upon this terrace that everyone was very adamant no one walk on.

After some serious searching we found the balcony. We think you can only get to it by walking through the coat check and into the elevator hidden around the corner, but it could just be all the people were hiding the normal entrance.

When you walk out of the museum and onto the bridge you get the full scope of the Chicago skyline. This picture is looking north west back onto Monroe, where Target rolled out the red carpet to welcome everyone into the Modern Wing. Below are the South Shore and Metra train tracks.

You can see the balcony at the top of the museum.

PT and I kept having those ‘holy shit, we LIVE here’ moments. If the opening was in January we would probably be less amazed, but this city is amazing from May-October. It is tolerable in November, December, and April. But it is May, yesterday was beautiful, the view of the city from the balcony and bridge was breathtaking. The new Modern Wing is one of the coolest places I’ve ever been. All of these things are less than 5 miles from my house.

Despite getting yelled at for:

1) PT’s bag was too big

2) No water in the museum

3) No water on the bridge (but chips are ok)

4) No flash (that was an accident!)

and awkwardly running into a boy I kinda dated for about three seconds, the Modern Wing gets two enthusiastic thumbs up.

We took a walk over to Lake Michigan and said hello to Opera, and the fishes. I tantalized PT with stories of what Lake Michigan is like on the other side, which we will be seeing next weekend!

We were tourists in our own city, which is good for you, once in a while. To get a chance to be a tourist in the city you live in is something not a lot of Americans get to do. PT and I took advantage of it yesterday.

I finished my sock during the Tigers game last night! I got to knit happy because they have been looking great this series (told you).

I even got started on Sock #2.

For lunch we had potato stir fry with broccoli, carrots, onion, and green pepper.

To get me to not dump him after the baseball debacle this week, PT made me Avocado-Mango Chicken for dinner last night.

It was excellent! I told PT I could still dump him at any moment, and it is all resting on the next Tigers Twins series, but I appreciated the dinner.

I’ve just been notified that tonight’s dinner will have a clam element. PT discovered Mark Bittman’s blog this morning and might be getting carried away. He is talking home made pasta with spicy red clam sauce and muscles? This is going to be good.

Me, my mom, and avocado plants go way back.

Last summer when I was camping in my mom’s front yard for 6 weeks my mom started an avocado pit. Just like I was 5 and she was teaching me about photosynthesis, we watched that thing like a hawk. First is split! Then it grew some roots! Then in split at the top! Then a plant started growing out of it!

Then I had to move back to Chicago and be a big girl. I visit the plant sometimes, though, and it is getting huge! It is like a little tree now. So my mom made me one.

At Christmas.

Over the past 4 months it has gotten really wrinkly, the skin of the pit has started peeling, and I keep cleaning off the mold/slime that is building up on it. I would give up on it if it wasn’t so funny.

‘How’s that pit?’ My mom asks me during every phone conversation.

‘Fucking worthless!’ I yell, and we laugh. I just can’t imagine her asking and me stammering about how I needed the space for basil. That isn’t funny.

But I still want an avocado plant so about a month ago I threw a pit into this old yeast jar using sewing pins to hold it up.

I took a peak the other day and saw the little root trying to stick out! I immediately ran over to the pit I set up a couple weeks ago.

You can see it split from the jar!

So, officially that other pit is dead. I know that it is dead, but I’m pot committed to this stupid pit now! It has been sitting on my shelf for months. Mom? What do you think?

Without a newsletter to redesign and send out and everything Sweatshop related to send out, I had some extra time on my hands this afternoon! I’ve got some bread baking in the bread maker, I’ve got some lentil soup on the stove top, and I made myself this big salad and half an egg salad sandwich.

It rained and rained and stormed and rained some more. There are only two things to do when it storms, and I did a lot of both this weekend.

I’m prone to exaggerate, I realize this. I own up to it. I say a million when I mean 12. I say forever when I mean 20 minutes. I can safely say that this is the best pizza I have ever made. Teriyaki, shrimp, onion, spinach, and garlic pizza with mozzarella and goat cheese on wheat crust. PT and I split it and it was gone in 7 seconds. I mean, like 25 minutes.

After that pizza, though, I needed to cool it. I have gained three pounds this winter and I know that isn’t a lot, but you let three pounds slide one winter, two more here, four more there and you are on The Biggest Loser.

Saturday brunch was breakfast burritos. As you can see I only had one, but put the equivalent of a second burrito on the side, without the tortilla, saving me 200 calories. The burrito insides were potatoes, lentils, corn, fresh PT guacamole, tomatoes, and spinach. These were excellent! And I’ve never made them before.

For dinner I dropped some bread again, making this not only open faced sandwich, but bottomless sandwich, too, saving me about 400 calories. I dug around in my freezer and found some fake chicken and bacon, so we made chicken bacon guacamole sandwiches…

… and a side of Lentil and Spinach curry. It doesn’t look like much but it is one of my favorite crock pot recipes.

Sunday for dinner we had an avocado left over, so we made avocado egg salad, tuna salad with avocado, and carrot fries. I had mine open faced, using the mushroom part of my bread loaf because it wasn’t getting thrown away!

So I tried not to be a fatty, though it was hard to do since between eating I just sat and watched the first season of Lost while knitting.

For some reason the picture I took of my sweater dress progress didn’t work, but I did get this little gadget from Lucinda yesterday that holds your needles together so your yarn can’t accidentally fall off of them while traveling, or while your cats play with it when you are at work.

My sweater dress is coming along! I’m about to seperate the sleeves and I can’t wait for it. I have 366 stitches on my needles right now, and that is a lot. I’m going to get a picture to work for next time so I can show it off!