This recipe was inspired by the fabulous Vegan Van's sammie, Planet Rock, an impossibly tastey combination of Toffufallo hot wings and ranch celery-slaw on a roll.

Mine is a pale approximation, but it's become our go-to baked tofu solution. (Getting a successful "fry" on tofu eludes me.)

Eat up!

Ingredients

1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce or Bragg's Liquid Amino Acids

1/2 cup Frank's Red Hot Wings Buffalo sauce

2 pounds tofu, sliced into 1/2-inch cutlets

Dusting of granulated garlic

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450. Line large baking pan (or two smaller pans) with baking parchment. Place tofu in a single layer on top of parchment. Brush with a layer of soy sauce, then a layer of Frank's. Dust with granulated garlic and bake for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and flip the tofu, repeating the brushing of soy sauce and Frank's mentioned above. Bake for another 20-30 minutes, checking so as not to cook tofu into an impenetrable jerky. You want your tofu to have a slightly touch skin and moist center.

Serve warm or at room temperature, alone, in sandwiches, stir fries or whatever your little heart desires.

I'm sitting here on an olfactory high.

If you love scent, and I'm sure you do, you must visit Dawn Spencer Hurwitz in Boulder. (But do it soon, she's great with child.)

Since viewing the YSL exhibit at the Denver Art Museum under the influence of parfum, I decided to seek out Ms. Hurwitz for advice.

Lacking the leisure and will these days to face the phalanx of spray-happy beauties in the cosmetics department, I've made do with an ancient bottle of Coco--long turned--a pretty cast-off from a friend (Gump's Baroque Pearl, lovely but not a love match) and a new sprayer of Chanel No. 5, which though still divine, smells tinny these days. (I thought it was "that special time of life";turns out they've reformulated to comply with allergen restrictions in the EU, for pity's sake!)

Then Aveda up and discontinued my other staple, Hana, a sweet woodsy scent I adored.

Enter Ms. Hurwitz.

That the universe conspired to send me to Boulder on business was synchronicity at its most compelling. How could I not?

Dawn has a small, charming studio in North Boulder called Essence and keeps regular hours, which you can find on her website. Her knowledge of perfume and perfume history is encyclopedic; when I mentioned three fragrances I loved, she said, "Oh you're an an aldehydic-spicy-oriental girl." Uh huh.

She proceeded to collect flask after pretty flask lining them up on her counter like a fight of wine. To test, she sprays her fragrances on cards, so as not to overwhelm your person. Then through process of elimination, you cull choices down to scents which she carefully dabs along the inside of your arm, testing how they meld with your body chemistry.

I bought the fragrance above, described on Dawn's website as:

"a fiery mélange of captivating spices, resins, and a hint of sultry rose. Not for the faint of heart and, oh, does it sizzle"

Yup, that's me alright. Still, these are the scents that make my eyes roll back into my head and wish for a fainting couch. This perfume is dark and full of romance, midnight rather than 6 p.m. I loved it.

She also sent me packing with samples of three other faves: Cimabue, which I'm wearing as I type (and already dropped into a digital shopping basket, imagine that); Cafe Noir and her riff on Opium, the ylang-ylang forward Euphorisme D'Opium.

Dear readers, how am I ever going to work if I can't stop smelling myself?

What to teach them?

This is a question I've been pondering for some weeks in anticipation of the Baby Blanket class I'm teaching starting tomorrow at Wild Yarns. The pattern is this simple baby blanket on the diagonal by Jennifer Casa. The blanket teaches yarn overs, bias knitting, changing colors/balls of yarn, but in four weeks I want to give them more than time to sit and knit.

I plan to ask where they stand vis-a-vis their knitting skills but where to dive in after that?

Where would you go if the entire world of knitting was at your disposal to teach?

(The above blankie-in-progress is knit in Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece.)

How did this slip past? Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and a Booker Prize?! What with my BFF traveling to Hever castle today--today!--how could I not use some of Mr. Nake-id's iTunes winnings to purchase? (The second part of Mantel's Tudor trilogy, Bring Up the Bodies, launches next week.)

If I hadn't been reading the NYT Book Review on the iPad...would never have known.

On the downside, this canny device is becoming something of a money pit. Hoping to jettison my laptop for commuting and travel, I bought the Zaggfolio, an all-in-one case-keyboard-stand, for a not-insubstantial sum. The design, so clever, out-Appled Apple.

Still trying to determine appropriate apps for seamless document syncing in Word.

But delighted to have something juicy to read.

You never see the front of the dress in any of the ads, but it's equally as fetching; a ruched swath of pink satin secures a (necessarily almost non-existent) bosom culminating in the dramatic anterior bow. Charming, especially accessorized as it was with two dazzling garnet bracelets.

We were at the Denver Art Museum two evenings ago for a tour of the YSL exhibit combined with bespoke perfume pairings, highlighting different features of the show. We'd stop and look at a garment, say a green, fur coat:

Scented cards were passed and sniffing commenced, lots of green notes in this one. The perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz is extremely knowledgeable and made smart connections between fashion history, perfume history, esthetics and things that smell just plain yummy.

Guimauve de Soie ("Silk Marshmallow") was a personal fave and I adored her riff on the classic YSL fragrance Opium. Some weren't to my liking, too floral or ethereal or eau-de-windex for me. But all interesting.

And isn't that the way with scent? Part mood, part chemistry, part personal preference. Drunk from scent, the clothes might have been even more compelling. Will return to the exhibit, not under the influence of ambergris and oakmoss.

Intrigued? The perfumes are available at the Denver Art Museum gift shop and online.

We are blessed in many ways here at Chez Nake-id with some things coming easier than others. But one very weird, delightful way in which we're blessed: We win door prizes.

Skis. Knitting needles. Dinners. Wine. Beer. T-shirts. Bowling. Now Mitch has walked away with an iPad (64G, plus cover and iTunes gift card), which he's passed along to his glowing wife.

Even better, the money for the drawing went to a wonderful organization, which helps low-income seniors live in the beautifully run Eaton Terrace community.

We're thrilled and will use it well. And currently taking all recommendations for writing and knitting apps!

I went to a writer's gathering last night and the speaker enjoined us, when thinking about magazine articles, to find our verb.

Is that a little like Stella and her groove? Especially for scribners of a certain age?

So in approaching today's post, bleery-eyed, I thought, fine: How 'bout "besotted." This post is besotted with the latest issue of Vogue Knitting dedicated entirely to crochet.

Featuring just about every crochet hook on the market as well as the latest news and pattern scoop, the issue showcases the work of Nicky Epstein (the Rose Duster will make you want to play hooky--for the next year--and stitch it right up), Kristin Omdahl (oh for the body to wear that dress!), Mari Lynn Patrick and more.

Definitely worth the price of admission for the eye candy alone. (Not to mention the trenchant book reviews, ahem.)

Knitting? Who's knitting?

Dear Students of Knitting:

Greetings. You have begun studying a craft that will, should you decide to pursue it, expose you to a world of animals, color, art and lovely people. This is a decision you should make lightly. Knitting should be fun and not a burden, something you do to enjoy not prove something.

Keep in mind that as with everything, the journey to competence is exactly that, a journey. If you started piano lessons tomorrow, you wouldn't expect to perform a Chopin nocturne next week. The same is true of knitting, which, I can assue you, is far easier to master than the piano-forte.

That said, do you see the hot mess pictured above? This is a sweater I'm starting, Norah Gaughan's Aeneas, though you wouldn't know it now. Currently it's a tangle of cursing, missteps, gauge swatches, aborted beginnings and $150 in yarn that doesn't get gauge.

And, I've been knitting longer than most of you have been alive.

Knitters, this is what love is: A tangle of cursing, misteps, false starts and expense on the way to becoming more fully realized.

Consider this:

This corpulent tabby has me wrapped around his furry paw. That doesn't mean I don't want to put his tail in the juicer when he shreds magazines, baits Stanley or scratches the sofa. Likewise when the knitting goes awry, I want to toss it to Antone to have his way with it.

The point is: Mistakes will be made. By me, by you, by the kitty, by me toward the kitty, by everyone knitting. You don't get out of knitting class without making mistakes.

Perfectionism has no place at the start, in love or knitting. Perfectionism will keep you from the adventure before it's  begun. There is a place for care and quality as you progress; attention to detail makes beautiful garments. But allow yourself the pain and pleasure of being young in a task.

I promise, you will improve. But in the meantime, recognize that this is one of the rare times in your life where it's OK to suck.

Hugs and kisses,

A Beginning Knitting Teacher

If you look closely you can see a bee enjoying a good long drink in the lower part of this photo. Good on him. He's making more crab apples. And, if he's a honey bee, he'll make some of that, too. And, there I'll be, standing on the sidelines, eating tree bark and paper towels while my.

Dear readers, my cholesterol results came in. And after a year of tofu, green juices, and, yes, the occasional onion ring or muffin, my numbers remain remarkably stable at: Bacon.

It's not as if I altered my diet slightly by pulling the skins off chicken breasts and eating oatmeal now and again. Oh no. I up and chucked red meat, white meat, swimmers, curds and whey, Greek yogurt, Chunky Monkey ice cream and more, and along the way suffered all manner of indignity at the hands of friends and family, happy to have additional reason to send guano my way.

The nice people at the 9Health Fair did not make me happy this year.

Will I go back to being a flesh-eating omni?

Unclear at this point. Will be seeing the doc this week and looking into the carbo-cholesterol connection. But I've drunk a lot of vegan Kool-aid in past months and adore the cuisine. So we'll see.

Meanwhile, trying to enjoy the blessings of spring. I can still smell and eat the flowers.

If it weren't for Ms. Cheryl Oberle, my spinning wheel would get about as much use as the juicer. As it is, the group of spinners she gathers monthly are so talented and informative that it behooves a lazy spinner to shoulder the Big Wood and head out the door.

For example, did you know you could purchase modular spindles with screw-on shafts, so you can keep spinning without unloading your spindle? Or that a drum carder has a feature called a licker-on? Heavens!

More startling is that the Big Wood has produced a second ball of plied yarn this year. From Fleece Artist Silk Wool Sliver (65% wool/35% silk).

Thank you, Ladies. You are an inspiration!