Allez cuisine!

I decided to cook something elaborate for dinner tonight. This time of year means the return of pollen, which means that I start taking antihistamines more frequently until my system adjusts. Unfortunately, antihistamines tend to knock me out if I take more than one during a given day, so my sleep schedule has been kind of wonky for the past few days. This also means that I've been eating at odd times, and have been eating mostly pasta. And while I love pasta, I woke up this morning determined to cook something for dinner that would involve more than boiling some noodles.

So, after paging through one of my Best American Recipes cookbooks, I decided on an Ina Garten roasted chicken recipe and a Jacques Pepin potato recipe. Two French recipes. Where the heck is this coming from?

Anyway, because I love and trust Ina so much, I roasted my first whole chicken ever. (Not that this is a difficult thing to do, mind you. I've just never done it before.) And perhaps more importantly, I CARVED my first whole chicken, and did a pretty darn good job of it. I got a small bird, but even so, I have a big plate o' leftover chicken which I'm going to have some fun using up (I definitely see a chicken posole in my future). And this potato recipe may have replaced Michael Chiarello's Potatoes da Delfina as my favorite potato recipe ever -- excluding, of course, my mother's scalloped potatoes.

In knitting news, I am in LOVE with Rowan Cotton Tape. I have about 12" of shrug done, and this stuff knits up like a dream. It's lightweight, but it knits up quickly because it's bulky. The drop stitches are coming out really nicely. I may need more of this stuff in other colors. I'm wondering if it might make an acceptable sub for the Cache-Coeur Bergamo from Weekend Knitting...

(I'm so hoping I have my subject line spelled correctly. I took Spanish.)