A few weeks ago I was making ice cream from scratch. As I was pouring the custard into the machine, it occurred to me that I had forgotten the vanilla. No big deal, I thought. I had used a vanilla bean, and assumed that would be enough.
Twenty minutes later the machine had finished doing its thing, and I dipped a spoon it to taste before I transferred it to the freezer. I forgot the sugar too.
That was the start of things going very, very wrong here. My grandmother became seriously ill, and passed away on June 14. We said goodbye to her on June 17, and she's in heaven with my grandfather now, arguing about how thin to pound the veal, or how big a rib roast to buy.
Gram taught me how to knit when I was 8, how to stir the polenta so you'd get the nice crusties on the side of the pan, how to make a french knot, how to make strawberry jam, and how to seal tortellini so they didn't explode in the pot. I never saw her without her smile, and I never ever heard her raise her voice in anger. She was famous for her hermit cookies and pineapple upside down cake. The photo above was taken almost two years ago, at her 90th birthday party.
In the days following the services, I didn't feel much like knitting, but I still needed to be busy doing something. I picked up some old projects that had been hanging around (one of them for two years), and finished them. I destashed about 50 skeins of yarn. I wanted to clear the decks and start everything new.
Saturday I started a pair of socks with some yarn dyed by a dear friend. They look fantastic. And yesterday I made ice cream again. With vanilla and sugar.
