As Kat Knits

I have long been a fan of Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s The Splendid Table and some years ago, I began subscribing to her Weeknight Kitchen. It really is lovely, once a week I get an email with a recipe and some Lynne Food for Thought!

Over the years, she has sent out some wonderfully delicious recipes, and because they are a “Weeknight” meal, they are simple and easy to prepare.

This week’s recipe was no exception, but it was a departure for my usual Cooking Comfort Zone.

Amazingly, I had most of the ingredients in the house and only needed to get a couple of things – another key to her recipes, they are both good and made with ingredients you have in your pantry.

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…or, why all good things eventually end.

I have been knitting for a number of years now and when I started out as a new knitter, someone recommended Knitter’s Magazine to me. I bought several issues, but I never found anything inside that I really wanted to knit.

As I slowly gained some knitting proficiency, I began to look at other knitting magazines. I thought the things in Vogue Knits were lovely, but the magazine that really caught my fancy was Interweave Knits.

Every month there were dozens of items that I wanted to knit… far more choices than there was time for me to spend knitting them!

My appreciation for Interweave Knits grew, and I did what all faithful readers do, I subscribed and six times each year I received a tool that helped me improve my knitting. It helped me learn new techniques; it challenged me to step out of my box.

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The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently – Friedrich Nietzsche

I have the distinct pleasure, or misfortune as it may be, of being an acquaintance of an actual card-carrying member of the infamous Bohemian Grove Club.

Telling stories was “Bill’s” favorite thing to do from shooting animals on an African Safari to his travel escapades; he had a story for every occasion, but most of all he loved telling about his trips to Bohemian Grove.

I remember at the time not being overly impressed by the tales he regaled us with; like the “martini machine” or to “running naked” in the redwoods with the likes of Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, or James Baker. Lest you think I am kidding about the running naked in the redwoods, here is what President Clinton had to say about the Bohemian Grove, “The Bohemian club! Did you say Bohemian club? That’s where all those rich Republicans go up and stand naked against redwood trees right? I’ve never been to the Bohemian club…”

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It has been a day of progression, learning, and letting go. I have always told myself I am a process knitter rather than a product knitter, and today I learned that that is most certainly true. I cast on for this sweater some two years ago or so. I painstakingly knit, and knit, and knit, and knit some more on it and as you can see, the end was in sight. One sleeve and the neckband was all that needed to be finished for this sweater to move into the “product” pile. However, I hated it. I did not like how it fit, how it looked, and how it felt… I kept telling myself that it would “grow” on me and wait until more of it is complete and then see how you like it. There were months on end that it languished in my knitting bag while I ignored it, living by the “out of sight, out of mind” policy. Well, all that changed today. In my process of life simplification, I have begun to address all that is “unfinished” in my life, which includes all various knitting projects in all their varied states.

Today, it was this poor sweater’s Day of Atonement…and in the Knitter’s vernacular, the tinking process began. (Tink: (verb) the opposite of Knit, Knit backwards)

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