estrogenfest 2013

My boyfriend has been out of town. I miss him, and yet my life still ought to be fulfilling and enjoyable as he goes off adventuring with friends and family. So I’ve been living it up, girly style. Intensely girly style.

And I now dub it Estrogenfest 2013. To give you just a small window into a current example, as I write this I am staying in with my mom on a Friday night and we are dancing in the kitchen. While the cake bakes in the oven. So there you go.

The principles of Estrogenfest are the following:

-Rekindle the spark in my cat lady heart. Sheila’s gotten very fond of the Foof that has temporarily taken up residence in our basement.

I’ve been a particularly devoted cat parent because Sheila was acting like a bit of a psycho (she became absolutely terrified of my mother when she returned from a business trip) so I took her to the vet and they diagnosed her with a little kitten UTI aw. So we’ve been diligently giving her antibiotics wrapped in little hollow treats.

- Go on lots and lots of girly friend dates.

Obviously, I still spend time with my friends even when my boyfriend is in town (because I hope to God I am not That Girl nor will I ever be) but it’s taken on a particularly meaningful tone when I send texts requesting to hang out because I’m leaving town so soon (details forthcoming.) So I’ve tried to get while the gettin’s good with my local friends. And also eat girly food because my linebacker-appetited boyfriend is out of town.

The dates have included the following:
- Getting girly salads for lunch with my high school friend Lauren and her baby
- Having a dinner with my middle school friend Virginia (and both of our respective families) while getting to know her one year old and chatting with her about the next kiddo she’s currently gestating
- Noshing on girly crepes with another friend, Patricia, in Old Town while discussing her crazy mother, cohabiting boyfriend, and so on. After our crepes, I got to meet her new beagle puppy! Then, when she was giving me a ride back into town, I noticed a bag in her car that she was taking to Goodwill. So I promptly went through it and removed a number of items of clothing.
- Going on a daytime friend date with my girl Emily, a buddy from community college. She’s heading off to grad school so we’re both leaving town. We shopped, and a Bloomingdale’s store credit allowed me to purchase designer jeans for the first time, oh, ever. They make my bum look pretty epic, I have to say. This can’t become a habit. Then, to keep our estrogen stores up and running, we got Pinkberry for lunch and talked about boys. And then we went tea sampling. Yep.

So those included lots of girly food, but to be even more specific:

- Enjoy lots and lots of eggs for dinner

Because eggs for dinner will always connote singlehood to me. Not that I’m single. Not that I want to be single. Not that I’m dissing singlehood. Fact: I think it is a tremendously positive thing to be in a happy relationship and recognize that they are possible, communication is key, etc. etc. Fact: I also think it is a tremendously positive thing to be single. There is great freedom. Freedom to eat eggs, the individually packaged, nutritionally impressive, utterly easy and quick to cook, fabulously delicious food.

I’ve made two kinds of egg pies.

The first was absolutely AMAZING but wretchedly unphotogenic.

The basic idea:
- Tomato sauce, made from fresh or canned tomatoes, slow-cooked onions, olive oil, and lotsa fresh herbs- I used oregano
- Eggs cracked atop
- Cheese atop that. Swiss cause it’s what I had.

Dude, that’s IT! Bake it at 300 til the whites are set.

It isn’t a pizza, but some of its flavors are reminiscent of pizza. And it’s comforting. And you can eat it hot or eat it cold. And you can bake its small pan in the toaster oven, my single serving favorite appliance.

   

And this guy,

 

I was all pleased with myself for making a proper quiche crust, but the recipe I used (from Eating Well) was just… not very good. So I’m not going to share it.

But the filling was a simple and delicious mixture of mushrooms, asparagus, milk, and eggs. Topping of cheese.

(Okay, fine, this didn’t actually happen during Estrogenfest. The out-of-season asparagus being an obvious hint, right? But it went with the egg and veggie pie theme. And it was a great deal prettier than the tomato pie. Sue me.)

- Read girly books and watch girly TV

Can we TALK about Orange is the New Black on Netflix?! It’s AMAZING. I just binge-watched the whole first season. Are they making more? Do we know? Love it for its excellent dialogue, strong female characters, and copious laughs.

A confession: I cat-sat for my aunt and uncle the other weekend while they were out of town. It was lots of fun (their house is beautiful and a brief walk from the Mount Vernon trail so I did lots of biking and walking). That being said, I had raging PMS so in a final Estrogenfest confession, I will admit that I ate many servings of nutella while sitting on the couch watching Pitch Perfect with the cat. It was awesome.