so, so excited!

I am so thrilled with my birthday present...two FQ stacks from AMH.  Now, to gear myself up to actually cut into them, and then to decide what to make.  The home dec weight is a really nice, weighty fabric; perfect for one of these?  Speaking of which, I really hope the "big project" she's been working on is a book, because I miss her blog, and that would at least be something worth the break.

As an aside, I tried a new recipe for dinner tonight; I used chops rather than tenderloin, but everything else was the same.  We also skipped the sauce because I have a thing about cooking a marinade, even though I know that when it's boiled for so long at such a temperature, blah blah blah, it's safe--but the only thing I can think of when I'm eating it is what if that bite had the one remaining bacterium from the meat?  So it was sauceless, which may have been why I actually didn't like it that much.  But I include it because I took some photos, and am realizing I have much to learn about the art of food photography, like you find here or here or here.  It's a goal.  So here's the pork:

or, here's the pork:

I think my favorite photo is the second; though it's messier (including sippy cup), it's more interesting than a blob of meat on a plate, especially when my camera skills are in the just-starting-out-with-a-point-&-shoot realm.

Served with cheese rice (maybe should be called rice au gratin, but my mom always called it cheese rice and that's what I call it too); kind of retro, I hope, because it's the only side dish to be eaten with pork in my opinion.  At least I added broccoli.  And we had a baguette from some real French nuns, via the farmer's market (it's Thursday, team!).  My nun today wasn't very friendly, but she gave me a break on a chocolate croissant, so I liked her just the same.

On the docket tonight...a season premiere and some knitting.  Our TiVo had better get himself warmed up--it's that time of year again.