After practically having a heart attack during the Davidson game, I've recovered and the Final Four madness has set in! I've spent the better part of today looking at various articles, pictures and videos about my beloved Jayhawks.
This is a video from the Welcome Home at the Fieldhouse last night. Tell me, how many places can you find 6,000 fans at 1:00am on a Monday?
The quality isn't the best, but if you are any sort of a KU fan, this will bring a tear to your eye and some serious goosebumps to your arms!
The Mafia and the Machine, by Frank Hayde was a book I randomly came upon when reading about the Sicilian mafia's ties to Kansas City. I ended up ordering it from Amazon and read it in about 2 days. The book was relatively short and easy to read and was helped by a lot of interesting material that the book covered.
The "machine" is a reference to the Pendergast political machine of the early 20th century in Kansas City which controlled the city through voting fraud, intimidation, and political favors. The names are familiar to most Kansas Citians, when we read about William Rockhill Nelson and the Kansas City Star's opposition to the machine, as well as Pendergast's contributions to the city, such as Brush Creek and the paving of a large portion of the city by Pendergast's Ready-Mix company. The book also details the lives of the machine's founder, "Big Jim" Pendergast, as well as its successor, T.J. "Boss Tom" Pendergast. The most interesting part of the machine's portion of the book is the machine's relationship to Harry Truman's political career and his friendship with Boss Tom, despite Washington urging Truman to essentially ignore Boss Tom.
The Sicilian mafia's activities in KC comprised the second section of the book, including the Valentine's Day Massacre at Union Station, the River Quay saga, and the KC mafia's ties to Las Vegas. Columbus Park served as home to the Sicilians, housing nearly 18,000 Italians at its height, which has now dwindled down to 300. The book did a great job at highlighting the characters in the mafia rather than emphasizing its activities. From machine-appointed police commissioner John Lazia to Nick Civella, the boss of the KC family, the reader learns of the people who were quietly a strong influence in "wide open" Kansas City from the prohibition era to the latter half of the 20th century. Many local names and places are easily recognizable to Kansas Citians, making the reading experience especially interesting.
Overall, the book did a great job at discussing the history of Kansas City, including its reputation as a growing, lively, city which transformed into its current state of having very little of an identity. The influence of both the machine and the mafia over the formation was fascinating, making this book an easy start at discovering the city's formative influences that extended to what Kansas City is today.
We had a few dinner pics saved up, so I figured I'd do a dinner round-up! The first pics were of my delicious corned beef I made for St. Paddy's Day. Sadly, the pics I have look like I had already eaten off of the plate. I don't think that was the case, but I'll spare you the pics. It was delicious- I threw a corned beef in the crock pot with some beef broth, a beer, the spice packet that comes with the beef, some brown sugar, and some garlic. I think that's it. It was VERY good! We used the leftovers to make corned beef hash. Yum!
Tonight I made a Ham, Gouda and Carmelized Onion Frittata I didn't really follow a recipe, just followed my standard quiche egg/milk ratio and tossed the other ingredients in. I did make this in 2 separate pie pans to keep it a little bit crispy and to speed up the cooking time! We were hungry! It was pretty tasty, though next time it could use a thicker cut of ham.
Finally, some more knitting content! My Clapotis, in Rowan Damask. I have no idea how long it took me to finish this, all I know is that I finished it somewhere in the midst of residency interviews on one of many painfully long flights or sitting in an airport somewhere! I do remember that I did one less increase than called for in the pattern, because I wanted it to be long enough. It certainly is long enough! I knit this not knowing if I would ever really wear it, but I used it quite a bit as a scarf. I haven't quite mastered using it as a shawl or any other fashion accessory yet!
I've been on a real reading kick lately (except for the books I NEED to read), which is supposedly a good thing. I received this book as a Christmas gift, so I was happy to actually take a break to read instead of doing the things that turn my brain to mush, like playing Wii and drinking beer. I still do plenty of those things, of course.
The book is Bleeding Kansas, by Nicole Etcheson. I've been interested lately in knowing more about the bloody formative time period for my native state, so I figured this book was as good a place as any to start. Most Kansans generally know about the northerner free-state Jayhawks and John Brown fighting against the Missouri slave-state faction, led by folks like Quantrill. The situation was obviously more complex.
I found it really interesting to read about all the competing interests involved in stacking the vote for either side when deciding whether or not Kansas would permit slavery. I had no idea about the political squabbles and various failed constitutions that were formed in an attempt to provide some rule over the territory. The book went into extreme detail when describing these different political factions and their competing interests.
I was hoping for a little more description of the violence that erupted; after all, it WAS "Bleeding Kansas." There was a fair amount of detail about the violence, including the infamous burning of Lawrence and the Pottawatomie murders, but I was surprised that there was little else.
Overall, I found it rather informative and interesting to fill out some of the holes that were in my working knowledge of Kansas history. It was also gratifying to read about the importance of what is now a "fly-over" state. The book was certainly worth the reading time.
Happiness is... ...finding out you get to spend the next four years at your top choice of residency programs! I matched at Wake Forest and couldn't be happier!! Reading the letter on stage was very strange, and I was so excited I even kicked up my leg after I opened my envelope and read what it said!
Guess we better start house hunting in Winston-Salem! I can't wait!
I Matched! Further details, like the actual location where I matched don't come out until Thursday, but at least now I know for sure! Such a relief! And also scary. It finally hit me today that I am going to be a doctor. And now I'm contractually bound to do just that! Yikes!
Made some delicious soups the past couple of days. Friday night I made "Grown Up Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup"! Creamy Tomato Basil Soup
Fresh Mozzarella and Basil Grilled Cheese
Yum. That's all there is to say about that.
I made some lentil soup this afternoon, because I had a hankering, and all the ingredients on hand. Plus, I had some chicken broth I wanted to get out of the freezer. I'm going to start making a concerted effort to use up the food we have, because I don't want to have to waste food when it comes time to move soon!
Served with a dollop of sour cream. It turned out very well- I think I'm going to be making this a lot more often. Pizza from d'Bronx for dinner. Yum. Yum. Looking at the pictures makes me hungry all over again!
So, this blog started as a knitting blog and has been sorely lacking in the knitting content lately. And by lately, I mean the last 3 months. Sorry about that!
I got on a hat kick a while back and then knit a couple more recently, after I finished my Starsky.
First up, I learned how to cable, with this cute little hat. Made it with some Wool-Ease I had lying around. If I can figure out how to line it, I'll give it to my friend Meg.
Next, I decided to learn how to do some stranded knitting with Center Square from Knitty. I'm really proud of this one, although it is too big for anyone with a normal sized head to wear. I think my tension was absolutely whack from the stranding- I held one strand my "normal" way (english) and one strand continental. Using various Paton's Classic Merino Wool I had around the house.
Check out the guts. I'm so proud! My first stranded knitting! I made a few more hats recently. This one was from a free pattern from Rosi G, that I found on Ravelry, using the softest yarn ever. Misti Alpaca. I want to roll around in a huge pile of that yarn. Not even joking about that. This was a super fast knit and is so cute! I found the buttons at The Studio. Finally, I made the ubiqutous Unoriginal Hat from the Yarn Harlot's blog with some deliciously soft Harrisville Heathered Wool. This went to my sister in Chicago, because she is the most grateful knit-gift reciever! You hear that, people? If you are grateful, I will knit more things for you! I just realized I never posted about my Clapotis. I'll do that later this week. Spread out the knitting joy! And of course, I still need to post my Starsky!
Full details of all my projects are on Ravelry (I'm Pan over there). I'm too much of a lazy blogger to drag up all the details right now! And I need to get working on Jerm's huge socks!
Sort of weird, but we made calzones the other day and I had a leftover piece of Rosemary-Garlic Chicken. I decided to make my calzone with chicken. I could have made it fancy with Roasted Red Peppers or Sun-Dried Tomatoes, but I didn't. Regardless, it was still pretty tasty! Geez. It took like 783 tries to get these pics to upload. Weird.
Kelli! You'll get your prize at knitting. And it doesn't involve BaconSalt or FunFur! Thanks to everyone for the comments! Nice to know someone reads this blog!
In the mean time, there's been food and knitting, but somehow I got lazy and stopped posting dinner pictures. We did have leftover pizza a couple days this week, so not too much cooking, but here's a recap.
Meatloaf.
Pasta Alfredo with Peas.
White Bean Dip with Pita Chips recipe courtesy of the fabulous Giada, inspiration courtesy of the fabulous Katy Knitting content coming soon. For serious. My Starsky is done and is awesome, but I don't have any good pics yet. Will work on this!
