If you didn’t already see this knitters vs crocheters video on The Barefoot Cobbler today, run over there right now and take a look. It’s a bit long, but entirely worth it.

I suggest abstaining from all food and drink while watching it.

And yes, I do crochet. It’s still funny.

I think I’ll go watch it again.

Look what my sweetie made for me:

A holder for the cones of Habu Shosenshi Linen Paper A-60 yarn, for my Chinese Style pullover. This will let the yarn spool off the cones neatly as I knit, and help keep it from getting twisted and tangled.

Our usual routine is to go shopping at Costco on Sunday mornings, where I usually buy some sort of fresh fish/seafood for that evening’s dinner. Since I don’t know ahead of time what’s going to look good, I usually don’t have any specific recipe in mind.

This morning, what caught my eye was the sea scallops.

On the drive home, the Pontiff* asked me what I was going to make with them. I told him I had no idea, which was totally true. My usual plan of attack is to see what I have on hand, and then plug a few key ingredients into Google and see what I come up with for recipe ideas. I figured that since I had some eggplant and tomatoes in the garden, I’d probably do something with those.

I joked that since we also bought some strawberries,  I could probably search for scallops and strawberries and come up with some recipes. (And sure enough, I did - here’s one or two that sound interesting.)

But what I ended up making was this recipe for Bay Scallop Eggplant Parmesan. There were actually several recipes using scallops and eggplant that sounded interesting, but I was missing a few key ingredients for most of them. For this one, the only thing I didn’t have on hand was shallots. No problem - I just substituted some garlic chives out of the garden.

I did have to make some slight modifications, since I only had a smallish-sized globe eggplant (I have several Japanese eggplants, but those are too skinny for this recipe), and because I was using sea scallops instead of bay scallops. The recipe calls for stacking a slice of eggplant, then the scallops, sauce, and cheese - then repeating the layers. Since I didn’t have enough eggplant and I had the larger scallops, I just used one layer.  I also dusted the scallops with a bit of flour before cooking them, so that they’d have a nice seared crust. But otherwise, I made it as indicated in the recipe.

I could tell while I was making it that this was going to be a winner. And it was! I’ll definitely make it again. Some day.

I remember hearing once that most people make the same 10 or 12 recipes 80 percent of the time. That’s definitely not true in my household. Sure, there are a few recipes that I make repeatedly - but even then, I often make slight variations. Most of the time, I wing it and make something out of whatever’s on hand, often using the Internet to find a basic recipe. The good thing is that I get a lot of variety. The bad thing is that even when I find something really good, we might not ever have it again. But that’s part of the adventure of cooking, and one of the great things about the Internet.

For the wine, I used one of my favorites - Louis Latour Chardonnay. I’m not a big Chardonnay drinker, especially if it’s oaked. But this is a nice old-world, unoaked wine that’s a decent value - under $15. What didn’t go into the recipe went into our wine glasses for dinner. And it was an excellent accompaniment.

The tomatoes, eggplant, oregano, parsley and garlic chives were all from my garden. The saffron might have been too, if I’d been able to find those darn saffron crocus bulbs last year. I saw them at the farmer’s market a couple of years ago, but I haven’t seen them since. I may have to order some.

At any rate, if you like eggplant and scallops, you might want to give this recipe a try.

*”The Pontiff” is a nickname my husband’s oldest brother gave him when they were kids. I always think it’s funny when our nephew calls him “Uncle Pontiff”.

Yes, it’s another FO. This one was mostly knitted on my trip to Las Vegas last weekend.

Pattern: Susie, by Debbie Bliss, from Summer Essentials.
Yarn: RYC Merino Silk DK, 7 skeins
Needles: 3.75 mm / US 5
Size: Custom - see below.
Ravelry: Pattern page, and my project.

The pattern was written for Debbie Bliss Pure Silk DK, but I didn’t really want to make it out of pure silk, and was just keeping my eye out for something else. When I saw this RYC Merino Silk DK at Unraveled Sheep’s progressive sale, I decided to grab it. I’m not sure it was the best yarn choice, because it’s a little bit heavy and will probably be quite warm, but it feels and looks nice.

The smallest size said it was to fit bust size 32-34″, but with a finished size of 35.75. Hmmm. I’m not sure why you’d want that much positive ease in a ribbed top. I thought that even the small would be a little too big, so I decreased the total number of stitches by 12. Even at that, it’s plenty loose.

I also added 2″ to the length, but now I’m thinking that might have been a mistake. I might snip a thread and shorten it a bit.

Other than changes for size, the only modification I made was to add a little bit of short-row shaping at the shoulder seam, and doing a 3-needle bind-off instead of casting off and seaming.

I loved this series of photos… but as I took the third picture, it looked like all of the guys were looking at each other, and saying “Now what?”. (This was the entire crew - they had to shuffle around a bit to free somebody to attach the wall.)

It took the entire day, but they did get the garage up in a single day. The garage door is being installed right now, and then they’ll be back for more sheetrocking inside, and to pour the driveway.

Yes, that’s a parking lot behind our house. Fortunately, it’s almost never in use, so it actually makes for a quiet neighbor.