What I've been up to
Dec. 22nd, 2010 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neadodsTwo things of possible note to members of the flist:
Foodies/Tearoom Fans
With no piles of snow all over, this time I made it successfully to the Ladybug Tearoom's holiday spread, and spread it was! With four removes it went like this:
Plate 1: lasagene cups, cantelope/bluberry kebabs, cheese & bacon crackers, chicken salad cups, italian bread spread with gorgonzola and honey, and sausage ball with vidalia onion sauce.
Plate 2: choice of cream of sweet potato or cabbage/sausage soup and apple cranberry scone with clotted cream and lemon curd
Plate 3: pasta salad
Plate 4: lindzor torte cookie and pumpkin eggnog pie.
I've also finally found a tea I think I like without sugaring or latte-ing it to death: the house blend "Lady Kristin," which is made of marshmallow and blackberry leaves and just a hint of peppermint.
As with last year, it didn't make sense to drive 2 hours to the Ladybug, another 2 back home, and then a few days later drive 2.5 to my parents' place, so I left from the tearoom to my parent's new cottage in Lancaster. I'd been emotionally prepared to not go back to the house I grew up in, but having never seen even the sample cottage I had no idea what to expect. Fortunately, their new place is very lovely. Six well-sized rooms and attached 2-car garage, very white and bright, with lots of cherrywood accents. (Even the laundry room has cherry cabinets in it.) It's snug, them having gone from 4 floors and 4 bedrooms, and there's a dearth of overstuffed chairs to lounge in (apparently they plan on remedying that) but other than that, it's a really nice place. Mother's thrilled that for the first time in her life she has a guest bath; we're not all dodging around the same sink.
For the Knitters
There's LYS in Lancaster called Oh, Susanna with highly mixed reviews online. OMG, Do. Not. Go! I needed new needles - the Watson scarf was coming out all wrong (turns out that one of my needles was mismarked, leading to very uneven knitting... I'm now up to the fourth start on that bastard and if this goes south I think I'll give up on the whole project. But I digress) Anyway, I figured a LYS would have the Addi 16" circular I wanted.
First off, this woman only, and I do mean ONLY sells Inox Pryms. And I got an earful about how bad addis are and how people drive all the way from Philly to buy her pryms when I asked about the addis. Second, she didn't have a lot of 'em; I picked up the only 2 #8 circulars in the store. Third, the entire store ought to show up on one of those hoarding reality shows. There were only tiny goat paths through the stock - I had to push my way and lean to get to the needle stand, which was back in a corner. Pattern magazines were piled everywhere in stacks that had to be at least 2 feet deep, with no rhyme or reason, so you couldn't even find the afghan pile and start digging. I saw no single patterns for sale.
Let me put it this way - the clutter was so bad and stacked so many places that I couldn't even *get* into one room to look at the yarn. I could not physically fit through what was left of the doorway.
FFS, if you're in the area, give Oh Susanna a miss... unless you're really, really fond of pryms and don't mind a random selection.
Foodies/Tearoom Fans
With no piles of snow all over, this time I made it successfully to the Ladybug Tearoom's holiday spread, and spread it was! With four removes it went like this:
Plate 1: lasagene cups, cantelope/bluberry kebabs, cheese & bacon crackers, chicken salad cups, italian bread spread with gorgonzola and honey, and sausage ball with vidalia onion sauce.
Plate 2: choice of cream of sweet potato or cabbage/sausage soup and apple cranberry scone with clotted cream and lemon curd
Plate 3: pasta salad
Plate 4: lindzor torte cookie and pumpkin eggnog pie.
I've also finally found a tea I think I like without sugaring or latte-ing it to death: the house blend "Lady Kristin," which is made of marshmallow and blackberry leaves and just a hint of peppermint.
As with last year, it didn't make sense to drive 2 hours to the Ladybug, another 2 back home, and then a few days later drive 2.5 to my parents' place, so I left from the tearoom to my parent's new cottage in Lancaster. I'd been emotionally prepared to not go back to the house I grew up in, but having never seen even the sample cottage I had no idea what to expect. Fortunately, their new place is very lovely. Six well-sized rooms and attached 2-car garage, very white and bright, with lots of cherrywood accents. (Even the laundry room has cherry cabinets in it.) It's snug, them having gone from 4 floors and 4 bedrooms, and there's a dearth of overstuffed chairs to lounge in (apparently they plan on remedying that) but other than that, it's a really nice place. Mother's thrilled that for the first time in her life she has a guest bath; we're not all dodging around the same sink.
For the Knitters
There's LYS in Lancaster called Oh, Susanna with highly mixed reviews online. OMG, Do. Not. Go! I needed new needles - the Watson scarf was coming out all wrong (turns out that one of my needles was mismarked, leading to very uneven knitting... I'm now up to the fourth start on that bastard and if this goes south I think I'll give up on the whole project. But I digress) Anyway, I figured a LYS would have the Addi 16" circular I wanted.
First off, this woman only, and I do mean ONLY sells Inox Pryms. And I got an earful about how bad addis are and how people drive all the way from Philly to buy her pryms when I asked about the addis. Second, she didn't have a lot of 'em; I picked up the only 2 #8 circulars in the store. Third, the entire store ought to show up on one of those hoarding reality shows. There were only tiny goat paths through the stock - I had to push my way and lean to get to the needle stand, which was back in a corner. Pattern magazines were piled everywhere in stacks that had to be at least 2 feet deep, with no rhyme or reason, so you couldn't even find the afghan pile and start digging. I saw no single patterns for sale.
Let me put it this way - the clutter was so bad and stacked so many places that I couldn't even *get* into one room to look at the yarn. I could not physically fit through what was left of the doorway.
FFS, if you're in the area, give Oh Susanna a miss... unless you're really, really fond of pryms and don't mind a random selection.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 09:02 pm (UTC)Keep an eye on the forecast; we may be getting significant snow Sunday into Monday but nobody's sure yet. The WashPost weather blog is a good source for discussion:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/
no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 10:50 pm (UTC)Not that I really want to have another round of marathon shovelling....
no subject
Date: 2010-12-23 05:22 am (UTC)