What everyone's getting this winter gift season

I love to eat. I think food is one of the great pleasures in life. Over the last year or so I have also started cooking more.

Based on a Wall Street Journal review I bought One Big Table: A Portrait of American Cooking, 600 Recipes from the Nation's Best Home Cooks, Farmers, Fishers, Pitmasters, and Chefs.

Just randomly flipping through it, I looked at about a dozen recipes. Of those, about 5 were by SouthEast Asian refugees, one was Persian, and the rest were Latino and European. I love that mix!

There are also stories about the places, the people, the histories behind the foods.

I think I'm going to give it to everyone I know who cooks. Or eats.

And in that spirit, since I couldn't make it to Sister's house for Thanksgiving, I finally made her a sushi toilet roll cover. It's something she's wanted for a while.

It's the embroidering for this that made me want to take up crewel work. I did buy some muslin and a hoop, and got some books from the library. But have yet to do any embroidering beyond this sushi thing.

I started knitting a scarf instead with the gorgeous red/orange/gold silk yarn I got in Savannah a few weeks ago. It's the perfect antidote to all the grey winter weather.