the saga of the ginger and the skirt

like a responsible unemployed bored-out-of-my-mind attempting-to-eat-healthy human, i made a grocery list and went to the store at 2pm.  $80 later, i had the fixins for 3 dinners, some veggie sides, breakfast, kitty kibble, some snacks, and cookies.  these cookies.  ginger molasses crackly topped crunchy-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside bliss. 

no seriously.  everyone who tries these cookies says OH MY GOD THESE ARE FRIKKIN AMAZING! 

so i busted out the ginger i made back in december and lo and behold, 30 days spent in an apartment above 78 degrees and IT MOLDED!  greenblack [probably] toxic fuzz eveeerywhere.  fuck.  so i got the emergency ginger out of the fridge [who has emergency ginger??] and peeled it.  ummm well it was about 2 weeks old and had a funny blueish tint.  so i stomped back to the grocery store at 7pm. 


1 pound of ginger and an hour and half later [umm $2.50/lb here as opposed to $4 in long island], i had candied ginger again!  and fyi...the ginger i had previously was fine.  the new stuff i bought had the weird blueish tint as well.  probably something to do with oxygenation/ginger growth cycle/chemicals in the environment/anger from the baking gods.  i ate it.  i didnt die.

typically one is supposed to let the ginger dry/cure/set or something over night.  but i wanted cookies at fucking 6pm.  not tomorrow.  so i chopped 3/4 cup into little bits and everything was all copacetic.  i followed my retyped recipe that i was pretty positive i had made 4-5 times before... and HELL THERE IS TOO MUCH SUGAR AND NOT ENOUGH BUTTER!??  after a frantic call home, we confirmed, no i had it right.  i just ...am insane.  yay.


but long story short, cookies = success at 11pm.  the rest of the candied ginger is drying and will be frozen tomorrow.  no more chancing that i use it before it molds terribly. 

and the skirt.  not so much a saga as a realization.  an epiphany if you will.

as it turns out, if you follow every direction in a pattern INCLUDING IRONING... making a skirt is cake.  almost too easy.  i used the free bossa nova skirt pattern from fabric.com and a nice gaudy rather pucci-esque [quilting?] cotton.  nonstretch, easy to iron, simple to cut and sew.  in about the same time as 2 batches of cookies, i had a skirt.  serged at the seams, double rolled hem at the bottom, and elastic casing actually perfectly aligned and sewed. 

its a new freakin day.