I’ve learned that I don’t like being surprised by unexpected flavors in a food or beverage. A taste-surprise almost always means that I won’t like it.

Unexpected Flavors Are a Turn-Off

Look at the beverage in the feature photo today. Imagine taking a swig. What flavors, textures and temperature do you expect?

I know it’s difficult to assess without any context. Yesterday, Thaddeus and I had Indian food at our favorite local Indian restaurant (Cross Culture in Buckingham, PA in case you need to know).

It was a pretty standard meal order for us. Two salt lassis, naan and two entrees. Today’s entrees were palak paneer and lamb nargisi.

The first time Thaddeus ever ordered a salt lassi, I tasted it and hated it. I definitely had unmet expectations. I had had a mango lassi before and it was delicious…like having dessert. Despite the word salt in the new version, I expected it to be sweet. Since it looked like a vanilla milkshake, I expected it to have vanilla-like flavors. If you’ve ever had a salt lassi, you’ll understand why I was surprised.

A salt lassi is a yogurt-based drink with savory spices that make it taste a bit like buttermilk or watered-down sour cream with toasted cumin seeds and other Indian flavors. That first time, I couldn’t imagine why Thaddeus liked this awful beverage.

A number of years after that initial shock, I decided to try a salt lassi again. Knowing what to expect, I was able to appreciate this delicious beverage. These days, I couldn’t imagine having Indian food without one.

Readers’ Comments/Questions

Regarding the Expert Table demo pieces, LauraRose writes:

Wait! You are going to let other people steek your swatches?! That’s very generous. I thought you were just going to show people. I don’t know why I found that surprising, but perhaps it’s because if I was going to knit swatches for other to steek they would have been way less fancy.

The concept of the Expert Tables is to allow for informal interactions with retreat attendees on a specific topic. And typically, there is demonstration, discussion, a hand-out and the ability for participants to try some hands-on experience of the topic. So yes, the guys will get to prepare, cut, and sew in a zipper to these demo pieces. And most of them really aren’t that fancy. You’ll notice after the first one, I started using repeats that were easy to remember and follow.

Current Spinning/Knitting

I was able to finish plying up all the Black Bunny fiber blend and the Midnight Merino singles.

This ends up being 13.9 ounces, or 394 grams of yarn. It averages to about a worsted weight yarn. So I probably have about 800-900 yards of yarn here. Probably only enough to make a pullover vest and not a full sleeved pullover. But I’m looking forward to starting a new project with it after I wash and set it.

I also started a new knitting project.

It will be a simple scarf knit on the bias using two worsted weight yarns. The bluer colorway is CeCe’s Superwash Merino yarn in a colorway called Stained Glass and the orangey color is Malabrigo Rios. I’m liking the combination already.