Susie Cupcakes

Since I'm still a lady of leisure, I've had lots of time to knit and watch Project Runway, which is brilliant and strange and filled with delights like dramatic pleating controversies. While not gripped by runway drama, I finished a pair of socks.

These are in Plymouth Yarns' Sockotta, a cotton/wool/poly blend that is surprisingly stretchable and comfortable to work with. It does some interesting striping at the straight parts and then a more confetti mix for the heel shaping.

The stripes are kind of tiger-y. Rawr.

Okay, as promised, it's After-School Cooking!

I don't really get the cover. Are they brother and sister? Because the arm over shoulder move (plus the "OK" sign) would never happen without someone getting a beat-down. They must be robots. I can see the girl's electrical wires!

The visuals that accompany the recipes are pretty sweet. Here is a trompe d'oeil "boy climbing baked potato" photograph.

This was before photoshop, people. Some poor intern probably had to X-acto that ladder out and paste it over the potato. But it was worth it. Oh, it was worth it.

The book is fond of the big, big closeup. Not of food, but of people.

I sort of think they had a lot of space to fill. Some of the menus suggest what to serve as a beverage, and helpfully include steps like: "Five minutes before meal: Pour milk into glasses." So I think they were stretching it a bit. Above, this girl looks pretty happy about her graham cracker-pudding-cherry pie filling dessert. Can't say I blame her. That looks like a classic upper Midwest elementary school lunch food. Mmm. Tastes like 4th grade!

This book is a little bit of trickery. Most of the recipes are things like "Juice and Ice Beverage" or "Frozen Waffle Plus Peanut Butter Treat." But then there's a whole section at the end that is just flat out dinner time stuff. Like "Chicken Bundles."

That requires wrapping chicken breasts around a cheesy filling and baking it. Any recipe that requires raw meat should not really count as "after school cooking."

Then at the end I discovered the following picture:

I don't know if he's dropping the noodle in or pulling it out. Let's get a close-up.

Poor girl looks like a bass on a fishing line. A happy bass, though. A pretty happy fisherman, too. Yikes. This family is . . . not right. But they look like they're having fun, so I'll give them the OK sign.

Time for Project Runway. Auf wiedersehen!