Domestic Weekend

One of the things on my life list is to develop more skills in the kitchen, via the great Julia Child. I'm already a fairly decent cook - I feel like I can say that confidently, based on the fact that I like to eat what I cook, my husband likes to eat what I cook, I'm asked to bring things to family dinners, and I've never poisoned anyone. I can follow pretty much any recipe and I've developed a few of my own. That said, I don't have much technical knowledge in the kitchen. So, I'm hoping that by reading and trying some of Julia's recipes, I'll learn a bit and become more competent in the kitchen. Plus, it's fun.

So today I decided to make Eggs Benedict, using Julia's Hollandaise sauce recipe. It worked perfectly, creating a smooth, rich, yummy sauce. I was a bit taken aback to discover, though, that the main ingredient in Hollandaise is butter - lots of butter. One and a half sticks, to be precise. Julia says that once one has more experience making sauce, one can incorporate up to two sticks, just in case the smaller amount isn't rich enough. Because I'm trying to practice intuitive eating, I tried not to care about just exactly how much fat was in this morning's breakfast...but still, that's a hell of a lot of butter.

Anyway, I also cast off on Amused today. I breathlessly tried it on only to discover....it's too big. The bottom ribbing fits my hips rather nicely, but the armholes and bust look giant. I'm wondering if maybe there's something about the top-down raglan construction that doesn't work for me. I've tried it on other sweaters and it always looks...off. My guess is that even though I have big boobs, my shoulder area is smaller. When I knit things based on bust measurement, the corresponding shoulder/arm measurement is too big. Not sure where to measure to see if that's true, though. Maybe high bust? Anyway, I also discovered that my gauge was too big by 1/4 stitch per inch. So, the combination of the two means that the sweater is too big. I gave it a wash in warm water, hoping to shrink it a bit, and it's drying now. Worst case, it will be a weekend sweater. Not what I was hoping for, but at least I'll get some wear out of it. I suppose if I were a perfectionist, I'd frog the whole thing and start again...but that's not going to happen.