Seven Cs

C is for cookies. Despite many temptations, the cookie monsters in this house are steadfast in their choice: Ruth Wakefield's classic Toll House chocolate chip cookies with double vanilla and 150% chips, no nuts, dough chilled prior to baking, at peak about 20 minutes out of the oven, a fleeting moment when the cookie is warm, not hot, the crumbs have become very crisp, yet the chocolate is still almost liquid. The cookie monsters even demand these for Christmas and other holidays. Their connoisseurship does not admit chips other than semi-sweet chocolate – no milk chocolate chips, no crushed potato chips, no butterscotch or cinnamon or Heath Bar chips, no mini-chips, no chunks. The most recent nefarious experiment was to use a few sweet dark chips instead of semi-sweet. It failed ignominiously – the adulteration substitution was noticed. Needless to add...

C is for chocolate, which really ought to be added to the USDA food pyramid in its own category. The Field Museum in Chicago has an excellent traveling exhibit that includes natural history, social history, economics and Fair Trade, and free samples (!).

C is for Citius Altius Fortius (Latin for Faster Higher Stronger), the motto of the Olympics. In that spirit, inspired knit bloggers in the blogosphere are offering various Torino Olympics (February 10-26) knit-alongs, buttons and links below.

      

• For competitive types, there's the 2006 Knitting Olympics, hosted by Stephanie. She would seem to be in training for the 2010 Vancouver games and has six rules, over 1,800 participants, a movement to ban the mighty Wendy (who isn't interested in playing), and gold medals – only gold medals.
• For calm process knitters, there's the Eddie Along inspired by Eddie the Eagle and hosted by Margene. She has two roolz, one of which is enjoy the process.
• And for charming slackers, there's the Homer Simpson Olympic Knit-along aka Too Lazy to Make a Button hosted by Susan. She has three rules, a motto, and beer.
• No Olympics is complete without collecting buttons. Some of my favorites are over at Bead Slut and JenLa. The latter pretty much captures my feelings.

   

C is for caritas, the Latin root word (as long as I'm on a Latin kick) for charity. Many knit bloggers support charitable causes, which is commendable. I knit my bit, particularly prayer shawls, but tend to keep my charity knitting off the blog.

C is for controversy. I find the current struggle over the ownership of certain words – such as "stitch," "and," "'n," "bitch" – leaves me cold. Commerce and plenty of corporate attorneys are involved, of course. Jenna gives her usual penetrating commentary in her aptly named Stitch v. Bitch; more partisan views may be found elsewhere.

C is for Chinese or Asian Lunar New Year, which this year fell on January 29, although some people celebrate for pretty much an entire month. Happy New Year! It's the Year of the Dog, also the Year of the Sox, 200Sox. I do seem to be obsessed with socks this year.

And C is for cotton and cashmere and camel and for cable and the ubiquitous Clapotis. That's my mini-version under the plate of cookies. The cookies, incidentally, barely lasted the photo shoot.

(See the rest of my ABCs.)