Some friends of ours host a coffee social at their house most Sundays. One of the parents in the family has been away for several weeks and so the hosting duties have fallen on other families in our circle of friends and I had volunteered to have it fall on me this week. I enjoy being able to entertain but I had hesitated because I don't feel like our house can accommodate as many kids as their usually are at this event without the noise level becoming excruciating. Swine flu saved me from having to find out, or prevented me from finding out that I was wrong, depending on your point of view. Since Niels' class seems to be getting it and a couple of kids in Stefan's class have been sick with something that also sounds like it could be it I didn't want to invite a separate group of children to our house when we could be coming down with it any day now. I'm sad that I'm unable to even try having them over but I really don't want to be responsible for spreading it around.
In my attempts to keep the sickness at bay in our house I made a recipe today that came from a small pamphlet at Whole Foods. I can't find the recipe on their website, though, it's called "Better Than Chicken Soup". I find the name somewhat strange since I did use homemade chicken broth at part of the soup but I guess the other ingredients also have immune boosting powers: garlic, turmeric, shiitake mushrooms, kale (i used spinach), squash (I used pumpkin), cayenne, ginger, lemon and miso. It also called for astragalus root which I don't have on hand. I wonder what that tastes like. I made it as a side to dinner and Stefan and I were the only ones who ate it. I thought it was fairly spicy but he didn't comment about the spiciness until I did. I think it would also be delicious with cubes of tofu added to make it a more filling dinner soup.
I didn't manage to trick myself into thinking people were coming over and cleaning up thoroughly but I did get as far as decluttering the dining room side of the kitchen counter. That part of the house is a clutter magnet as most horizontal surfaces are. I need to pay more attention to it on a regular basis because it's too easy to just pile stuff there and ignore it.
No knitting in this post yet! I don't think I'm much farther in the sweater than the last picture. I went to get my flat tire repaired but rather than sit and knit while they fixed it I walked across the street to the Japanese market to buy rice. I did knit one row when I got back before the car was ready. One row! How exciting is that?
the sheep free knitter 