Rudi and I did some more tidying of the garden plot this month. I find if I do a section at a time I hate it less. I hate it even less if Rudi does it.

The big tufty grass-like things are bunching onion grass that we planted one of our first couple years in the garden. The greens at the bottom are sorrel, which we also planted ages ago and which just reseeds itself.

Our herbs, which are at the back of the plot, also mostly survived the winter.

This is the bronze fennel, which grew to a six-foot behemoth last year.

I’m still working on clearing this back section out, but there’s purple sage, oregano, and mint back, at the very least.

The strawberries and violets are doing well, but I’d like several more strawberry plants and haven’t yet found any.

I planted peas a month ago, and planted more last week, because a month gave me better insight into which peas had not come up. I plant half-rows of single types at the start of the season for precisely this reason, although I’m not always great about keeping track of which type is which. Some of my seeds dated back a decade, while others were new last year or this.

I also planted spring greens — chard, lettuces, spinach, kale, and some others. Again, I can tell you which things are in the garden, but maybe not which ones they are until they come up.

That second shot is from Friday, and the amount they’ve grown in a week is noticeable. They’re at the top of the previous shot.

Our bunny may be back, because I notice the seedlings I planted (kale and spinach) had been munched. Of course, I did also pull a happy slug off a spinach leaf, so it may not be vertebrates that are the culprit.

If you can plant something, even just in a pot, it feels especially good this year to see seeds coming to life. Peas and greens are hardy and can be outside well before the last risk of frost.

How does one plan for a weekend that looks a lot like a weekday?

Carefully. I will demarcate plans that cannot be done during the week and make sure I stick to them.

For instance…

I am actually going to bake with the sourdough discards Rudi and I shoved into our fridge this week. I’d planned to make overnight waffles for tomorrow, but didn’t realize it called for buttermilk when I was at the store earlier. It does look like I can make crumpets without issue…

We will sleep in. I have a video conference call first thing every weekday, which, while I don’t have to put a bra on for, does mean I have to have some kind of non-pj top on first thing. Tomorrow I’m sleeping in and then I’m going to lounge in a tank top and bathrobe for a while and not brush my hair.

I may go for a bike ride. It’s supposed to rain, but maybe it will lighten up and I can tool around a bit. Trails will be packed, so I won’t be able to go down to the canal and maintain proper distancing, but streets are probably adequate.

We will go to the farmers market. Yes, they’re still open. Yes, they are a bit challenging. But we’ll make it work. The restaurant across the street from me has on its to-go menu on the door a pasta that includes ramps, so I’m hopeful we might be able to track some down.

I’ll read. I’m having a heck of a time concentrating and am inclined to doze off if I sit still for too long.

I’m going to roast some squash. I have a pumpkin and a butternut squash and a gigantic pink candy squash and can possibly throw all three into the oven at the same time.

I’m going to wash sheets and towels. I meant to get to both all week, but didn’t manage to tackle either one.

I’m going to turn the heel of my sock. I took it out for a walk today, but instead of sitting, wandered over to the garden and the store and walked around a bit and talkd to my folks.

We’re going to call some West Coast friends who’ve been wanting to do a video chat. (I’d hate to get out of practice for Monday..)

If I encounter strawberry plants, I’ll be going back to the garden.

We’ll watch a film. My attention span hasn’t really been up to a movie, but I’m guessing Rudi will be glad to watch something that’s not just tv episodes, much as we’ve enjoyed the ones we’re watching (Frankie Drake, New Girl, Parks & Recreation, The Librarians, and Brooklyn 99).

I will be hosting a living room dance party, because we need some loud music and I need to move around a bit.

How will you be spending your weekend?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. So there’s this person who had, for the past few months, been baking bread several days a week and then giving it away on Twitter. I’ve entered their contests a couple times, but never won. Early last week, they mentioned they’d made a sourdough starter for someone who, it turns out, had gone out of town, and would any of us like it. Within a matter of minutes, several of us had raised our hands. The bread maker handed it off to the first volunteer, but reached out to the rest of us and said they’d be happy to make us starters, too. So last Friday, they dropped off several tablespoons of starter in a container, and Rudi and I started caring for it. Sourdough starter needs feeding and watering and changing a couple times a day for the first little bit, but we’re now pretty much at the part where we can dial it back to a couple times a week. See all those dots on the surface? Air bubbles. That’s how you know your sourdough is happy with you.

2. Suddenly, Clare and her original Three Beautiful Things blog popped into my feed reader this week after several years of dormancy.

3. We’ve all mostly settled, comfortably or not, into this new normal routine. I am working from home 8 hours a day and spending a lot of time on conference calls. It is boring, because all the things we’d do for diversity and distraction are mostly unavailable at this time. But, as Grey Kitten noted to me today, given the news, boring is good. We’re all texting and calling and Zooming with our loved ones, hoping for reports of boredom. Because, honestly, the alternative is really scary. I wish boredom for you and your loved ones, too.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

In this week’s episode of knitting and books from piles around my living room, we have my Wohin socks, now halfway into the first of three repeats of the heel flap pattern. Also, you can clearly see my yarn has shifted into golden from its original yellow. Yes, it does kind of look like a pineapple, or maybe an infected giraffe. But still, they are colorful and mostly cheerful.

Also, on a side note, while looking for a project bag to put this sock in, I opened one and found last year’s Sock Madness socks in there. I’d started the second sock already, which is very exciting!

On the reading front, I raced through and enjoyed Jen Wang’s latest graphic novel, Stargazing, although not as much as I loved The Prince and the Dressmaker.

I continue apace with the latest Veronica Speedwell mystery, The Murderous Relation. I’m making it last, since I can’t return it to the library right now anyway. (They locked all their book returns until the library reopens.

I’m sort of stuck on my audiobook, Helen Hoang’s The Bride Test, because one of the two main characters is about to do something cringeworthy, and if I don’t listen, she can’t do it. To be fair, she also can’t get through it and to her happy ending, so I will have to resume soon.

Finally, I just started Homerooms and Hall Passes by Tom O’Donnell. Haven’t heard of it? It’s the latest role playing game that will take you from the mendacity of your usual plundering and quest solving and plunk you down in a suburban middle school. Life will never be the same for this elf, barbarian, magician, and knight.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see how everyone else is sheltering in place.

You share finished knitwear. (Usually, though it’s Friday.)

Before you all get excited, I finished this shawl in 2018. I’ve worn it a handful of times, although mostly only for fancier occasions.

This is Andrea’s Shawl by Kirsten Kapur. I started it for the Tour de France and Ravellenic Games in 2016, and it only took me 18 months to finish.

I have no idea what the two yarns are. I have their labels in some knitting bag and will update this post (or, at least, my Ravelry project page) when I next stumble across them. I do know I bought all three skeins (two pink and one blue-green, both different brands) at Looped (the yarn shop around the corner from the Burrow) specifically for this project.

Similarly, I have also neglected to record what size needles I knit this with. What did I record, you might ask? Good question!

I did not alter the shape of the shawl from how it was written, which is slightly diamond-shaped. I had meant to, but then forgot and decided not to rip out, but just to keep going with it. I’m glad I didn’t bother, since I was able to block it to only be mildly angular at the top, and it adds a bit of interest to the neckline.

In general, it has the prettiest border of anything I’ve ever made. It was so pretty that I bought a shawl pin to go with it before I’d even finished knitting it.

The shawl pin is a Rajkovich Design (now Silver Siren Designs). And they do go together perfectly!

Stay tuned for modeled shots of shawls finished in 2019 and 2020!

So, here’s the thing: I don’t actually do a lot of cooking. And even my baking is way less than I think it should be. But … I love buying cookbooks. I am a sucker for them! It’s gotten bad enough that I now force myself to take them out of the library and won’t let myself buy a copy unless we’ve made a recipe out of them.

But, at the moment, no one’s libraries are still open. (That’s true, right? Chicago finally closed theirs, right?) And we’re all stress baking. So, if you need a new cookbook, let me give you some recommendations (and a link to one of my local bookstores, which will ship them to you for free through the end of the month).

So, here are ten of my favorite cookbooks, with thanks to That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesdays:

1. Marion Cunningham’s The Breakfast Book — Hands down, my absolutely most-used baking book.
2. Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden & Martha Holmberg — A great option if you eat seasonally and lots of veg.
3. Teeny’s Tour of Pies by Teeny Lamothe — Teeny is a local baker who wrote a cookbook where you can make mini pies in cupcake tins
4. The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu Jaber — Actually more of a foodie memoir, but with Middle Eastern-American recipes at the end of each chapter, including my favorite hummus recipe.
5. Electric Bread by Suzan Nightingale — My favorite cookbook for my breadmaker.
6. Any Moosewood cookbook — Honestly, I buy these any time I see them at a used bookstore, which isn’t as often as you’d think, in part because their recipes are straightforward, vegetarian, and well loved and, therefore, home cooks don’t often part with their copies.
7. Laura Werlin’s Great Grilled Cheese — Okay, so this is less great cookbook and more just inspiration in a book when I’m wanting melty cheese in a different way (brie with apricot jam, for instance).
8. Perfect Pops by Charity Ferreira — Popsicles are very comforting and can be made while you sleep.
9. The Joy of Cooking — Because sometimes you just need an all-purpose, no nonsense cookbook to give you the bare basics.
10. My grandmother’s collection of recipes — Sorry. You won’t find this in the bookshop, but it is one of my most treasured possessions.

I have not cooked from either of these cookbooks, but they would be next on my list to buy: José Andres’ and Matt Gouldings’ Vegetables Unleashed (it’s only a matter of time before he adds Nobel Peace Prize winner to his resume) and The Hot Bread Kitchen by Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez (all bread products originated by the women who have trained/work at this NYC immigrant-friendly bakery). I have read all the recipes in the latter and would absolutely bake my way front to back.

How about you? What are your favorite cookbooks/baking books?