three years

Two celebration posts in a row!

I celebrated my three year anniversary with Steve on November 6th. You can see where it all began- I wrote about the food, just none of the making out (just kidding mom!)- in this post.

Since our anniversary celebrations have really stretched out over a several week period, I’ll chronicle them as best I can, with the understanding that I’ve been a super slacker on the photography hunt.

In roughly chronological order:

The North Carolina State Fair. Also known as the first time I ate these:

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Fried oreos. On the suggestion of the Midwesterner. I spent the rest of the fair laughing at feisty goats and flaunting my awesome new cowboy boots.

Saxapahaw. A town in North Carolina whose name is just so fun to pronounce. We saw some rockin’ live music and Steve got some rockin’ bratwursts.

Halloween. Here is a picture of Steve and I:

 
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Our friends’ costumes included:
- Bats! Wings made out of old umbrellas. In the manner of Martha Stewart
- A pinata and a blindfolded guy holding a stick (couples costume!)
- Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood (not a couples’ costume per se, but thematically close)
- A cat, with a monkey (mother/child costume)
- A hipster (a lazy costume)

And here is what we ate (not including candy, OBVI):

When Steve makes chili, he usually does chili and cheese in a 1:1 ratio.. It was delicious.

The anniversary date (November 6th) itself.

We saw this band!

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Also known as Metric! We listened to them a lot when we were falling in luuuurve. They played “our” song last, acoustic. I cried like a little sissy baby. Shut up no I didn’t.

Here is a nice meal I made and enjoyed with Steve. Lots of farm fresh bounty, via either the CSA or the market.

 

The chicken I’d gotten at the farmer’s market from a vendor who I’ll likely NOT patronize again- I really prefer that my chickens not have feathers still in them… eeeurgh. I’d roasted it, then peeled off the skin (fortunately removing said feathers in the process). Then I threw together a not at all formal barbecue sauce that included vinegar, mustard, mango chutney, ketchup, soy sauce… random stuff like that. Go figure, Steve said it was like The Best Thing I’d Ever Made (which he does say about once a week but is still nice).

Also roasted some nice CSA purple potatoes with just olive oil, salt and pepper, and the last of a jar of salsa; underneath the chicken for a little shmaltz.

  

And simple salad with vinaigrette. As I recall, I threw some chutney in there too. Farm fresh arugula is DELICIOUS but also like DOUBLE STRENGTH of the wimpy stuff from the store, so I like incorporating a little sweetness into my dressing for balance when working with such assertive greens.

 

When I started making this meal, I did not yet know that Steve was coming for dinner. That is why it is so small! Fortunately, he and I had started making each of our own independent dinners before remembering that we were in luuuuuurve and wanted to eat lots of meals together. So he brought fried rice. It made for a well-rounded, colorful plate.

  

I’d also made some use-up-the-yogurt-lingering-in-the-back-of-the-fridge muffins. I’d snacked on an embarrassing number of them in the afternoon, and I gladly let Steve dispatch the rest for dinner.

So the next few days more fun was had.

Chiefly, seeing this guy:

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GAHHHH sweet holy heaven this man is hilarious. You knew this. But being in the same room as him while he is being hilarious is a particularly fantastic experience.

Finally, a random breakfast Steve made me. Because of the many things I love about Steve, his breakfast making technique ranks high. A lack of fear of butter plays a prominent role in this technique.

Here we have gently scrambled eggs and spinach with some homemade parmesan-roasted chips. Excellent mixed all together, with a good coating of hot sauce. Which, incidentally, is how Steve eats many things.

 

the sweet escape

How to entirely remove oneself from a week of crazy finals, crazy work, crazy everything…

Step 1: Climb Aboard.

Actually, climb below deck, to a magical nook with built-in bookshelf, skylight, and cute boy.

Ahhhhh.

Admire the “bar”. Admire everything, really, all these absurdly tiny and fun little nooks where you find little tiny things. It’s like a dollhouse. Of cleverness.

So my fantastic aunt and uncle have a fantastic sailboat. My aunt’s name is Jeanie. My uncle’s name is Tim. The boat’s name is Terrier II.

I had an Anatomy final. I had a Nutrition final. I had a chemistry final. I had an absuuuuurdly bizarre ostensibly not-an-interview interview, and then an official interview that turned out to not be a real interview (do you get it? Good, explain it to me). This all happened in two days.

I felt, like I’ve felt for most of the past few months, unfortunately, a time at which I’ll hopefully look back at as a very unhealthy period of my life (no horrific substance abuse or anything, just deplorably poor time, stress, and nutrition management), just… lousy. Freaked out. Tense. High strung.

Friday night, finally done with all of it, I stayed up til two am just wired in my living room, unable to turn my brain off, watching a marathon of My Drunk Kitchen (which, for the record, was awesome. I’m not complaining that much).

And we headed up to Maryland and met up with the fam and drove up to a sweet little marina near Annapolis and we LEFT CIVILIZATION!

Steve celebrated with this homemade Chipwich second breakfast:

(I ate like five of those damn ooey gooey amazing chocolate chip cookies).

Once we were due for proper nourishment, I brought out some homemade white bean and Swiss chard soup. Vair nice. Lamb stock is a convenient thing to keep in one’s freezer. It elevates anything.

 

Jeanie got out Triscuits to serve with it. Excellent!

 

For the next few hours… seriously, I have no idea what I did.

Talked? Sure. Looked at scenery? Sure. Not really sure what else. An issue of Vanity Fair was involved. Lots of Diet Coke (it’s vacation, damn it).

Steve, newly a sailor boy, swabbed the entire deck. Seriously.

The point is, I kind of did nothing. It is great.

And then it was appetizer and cocktail hour!

More triscuits, soprasetta, and GLORIOUS GLORIOUS CHEESE. God this cheese was amazing.

This. Buy this:

 

And I enjoyed my first DARK AND STORMY! Holy cow.

A Dark and Stormy contains dark rum, ginger beer (not ginger ale or it won’t be delicious), and lime.

Seriously, Steve and I may make these for every gathering we ever host again. It is the most perfect cocktail. Plus, as I pointed out, the lime is good for sailors since it prevents scurvy. And ginger prevents seasickness! And rum makes me laugh.

Jeanie made a yummmmmy chicken dish with capers and red peppers.

 

And then pasta (which turns out to be kind of a pain to cook in a galley that has, yknow, teeny baby burners and very little counter space and a wee dear little sink for the colander and so on. My aunt is great).

The pasta contained frizzled proscuitto (yum!) and lots of wonderful fresh asparagus (yum!)

Stirred (carefully, on a gently rocking boat)

And dinner was a fun and crowded and chatty affair.

And then you light the dear little lamps.

  

And retire to the dear little cabin which has dear, dear reading lights.

And then I proceeded to have my best night of sleep in yearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs. Years! Rocked by the waves into dreamland.

Steve not so much but he did get to pee off the side of a boat, which is basically every man’s dream.

I woke up warm and cozy, drenched in good sleep, sun coming in the skylight. Coastal weather report blasting on the radio (I mean Tim is ship’s captain, so that is his prerogative).

And then Jeanie brought me coffee in bed! Dude, my dad’s mother was the QUEEN of bringing hot cups of tea/hot chocolate/coffee (depending on the individual and their age) in bed. It is the BEST tradition. I am bringing it back for my future houseguests. And Jeanie does it for her (boat)guests because she is the BEST.

And we sort of meandered back to port and got off the boat and went back and…

I JUST DIDN’T WANT TO GO BACK TO THE REAL WORLD WAHHHHH.

So Steve and I took off on one of our epic walks (cause yknow, after a day consisting of sitting down and eating, one does actually crave activity). Ten miles or so.

A nice midpoint was Del Ray.

First visit to The Dairy Godmother.

Steve just did the damn thing with a sundae. I got a strawberry rhubarb sorbet which should have been awesome except the rhubarb got lost :(

And then more walking.

And then an impulsive Groupon Now because in fact, in fact, the day I woke up in a cabin was also the day I woke up having been the girlfriend of my cute Steve boy for a year and a half OFFISH. Isn’t that nice?

A mini celebration. At a CUTE little Lebanese place that I wouldn’t’ve known about without Groupon. Layalina

Pretty, if slightly ridiculously ornamental, inside.

Warm, if not homemade bread.

 

Dizzying choices of mezze. Was very very very very pleased with what we selected.

This was like a quesadilla of delight: pita grilled filled with the most wonderful beef filling. Almost sweet; could it’ve been pomegranate molasses?! And pickled turnip, mm.

 

And the veggie sampler. AGH SO GOOD!

Starting at your 2:00, that’s pickled cabbage, some falafel (let Steve dominate that one), hummus, baba ghanoush (howwwwww do the Arabs do it so amazingly?! I have yet to make good baba ghanoush myself), fattoush salad, and last but certainly not least the most amaaaaaaazing green broad beans stewed with tomato.

I know it seems like we just ate all weekend (and, uh, basically did), but this was a nice, vaguely light and healthful sort of thing.

And it concluded with Greek/Turkish/Lebanese coffee (which are all the same thing; and the name of which depends on the ethnicity of the person who is describing it).

Well, the coffee is the same but this place added CARDAMOM! Yes yes YES! Served in that delightful long-handled serving vessel (we Greeks call it a briki).

 

And in the wee dear espresso cup. I made Steve drink it and Mr. Coffee hater loved it (even I as a very small child would have sips of my mom’s Greek coffee. It’s also quite sweet, traditionally :D)

And though they didn’t have decaf, I grinned and drank the real stuff, and still got into sleep feeling a squajillion times better for my little escape from the world.

one year

Steve, bless his heart, got his days mixed up and thought November 6 was a Saturday, meaning he accidentally arrived at an oil pipeline protest 24 hours early and made delightful anniversary plans for us for a day that was not our anniversary.

What it basically meant is that I got a multi-day anniversary extravaganza celebration weekend of delight :D And get ready, cause we did some serious, serious eating. In one weekend, we did a year’s worth of eating to celebrate a year’s worth of being together, essentially.

One of the fun things we did was the Appalachian Trail! Stove was very excited. (And, for the record, requested that I take this dorky picture)

We embarked at Sky Meadows, a park with great views that I’ve visited many times. It’s particularly dazzling this time of year with the foliage and whatnot.

Also, I knew for a fact there was an actively-fruit-producing apple tree adjacent to the parking lot, having scaled it and harvested some on a previous visit.

This time Steve did the honors.

Chomp chomp! This was a surprisingly sweet and delicious even late in the season. Yes, clearly it was a little cold.

 

Butt, warming me up quite nicely with some serious cardio, the first hour of the hike was almost entirely vertical, so I was quite happy when we took ourselves a break to refuel.

I’d packed sammiches.

TJ’s whole wheat flax tortillas; smear of fava bean dip; sprinkling of that awesome Arab cheese I was raving about; shredded carrot; arugula. Smashing.

I also had a few bites of buffalo jerky I’d picked up at the farmer’s market (chipotle flavor was better than teriyaki) and the roasted sweet potato (why not?) that Steve brought. He dominated those items, though :D

We ended up spending three and a half hours on the trail, reveling in the sunshine. Steve’d been excited to hike the Appalachian Trail because it’s generally nice for a Midwestern boy to experience actual changes in altitude and there’s just a whole cool mystique surrounding the Appalachian Trail.

It was beautiful up there, but with the signs that go, “West Virginia- take a left and walk for dozens of miles” (okay I’m paraphrasing) you really do kind of get the interstate feeling. A big, pedestrian highway on the mountaintops.

Anyway, we were deliciously tired upon the completion of our hike, and ready for serious eats.

Steve looked at me imploringly and said, “Can we go to the all you can eat Korean place?”

Ladies and gentleman, the delicious and troubling named Il Mee.

I had told Steve about it, he had salivated, I had wanted to save it for a day when I’d gotten a serious quantity of exercise.

Seriously, what ISN’T this place?

You arrive to a table with a grill on it, so you know there’s the traditional cooked-tableside Korean barbecue.

Sure enough, a wide variety of meats and seafood in various marinades.

But you look at the action-packed buffet through the pretty dark wood booths and realize… this will be so much more.

There are scads of covered hot dishes. If you are interested in sort of the food court experience, you can get every typical Asian thing- spring rolls, pork, noodles, and the like.

I am always drawn to the uniquely Korean selections like thin crepe-y pancakes made of seafood and/or kimchi

And the local specialty of Korean double fried chicken (!) and something I’ve only seen here- glazed Korean sweet potatoes, which are paler in color than American

Totally unique kinds of fish I’d never even heard of

     

And an absolutely epic display of kimchi and other pickled vegetables. By far the most unique and exotic part of this buffet.

 

But lest we forget…

Oh. My. God.

So. Much. Sushi.

All kinds of dazzling selections of sushi, with unique toppings (slivered almonds?!) and shapes (lookit the lovely cucumber rolls!)

Wash it all down with exotic beverages, sweet rice or cinnamon flavored. Some so-so fruit…

A baffling but entertaining soft serve machine!

Obviously, we were going to get our eat on.

Okay. So let’s suffice it to say that when I eat at an all you can eat buffet, I really eat  all I can eat.

This happens for several reasons

1. I want to get my money’s (or, after tense negotiations over the past several days, Steve’s money’s) worth
2. I am an indecisive Libra and want to try everything
3. How often does one get to eat enough sushi. Sushi is so expensive a la carte!
4. I was a genuinely starvin’ Marvin, having hiked for three and a half hours with a smallish lunch
and finally
5. I am addicted to food.

With that in mind, Plate #1, a mixed bag. Things I thought were old friends were less great on being reunited.

 

The mussels were fat and pretty good. The green beans were in an excessively thick and sweet sauce (they were at the bottom of a pan that was later refilled; perhaps party of the problem). The kimchi and oyster pancakes, usually one of my favorite Korean foods, were SO disappointing: bland and cornstarchy. Barely ate any. The glazed sweet potato slices (the mahagony colored cubes) were also something I had fondly, fondly remembered from my previous visit to the restaurant and were a whole lot of blah. The tempura was the saving grace of the plate. I mean, I only ate a bit, picking out the hot peppers. But dang, hot peppers in tempura batter? Count me in.

Next: sushi plate. Now we’re cookin’. Now we’re feeling good.

Everything on this plate? AWESOME.

You will never in a million years get me to describe every roll, but I will tell you that I basically tried one of everything- minus ones that included fake crab, since I don’t like it; and that the highlights included any of the ones that contained pickled veggies (the Korean trademark!)

^^and that shooter thing in the cup which tasted- I swear, fish, fish roe, pickled veggies, zippy sauce and all- like a taco.

Plate 3, slowing down but not daunted:

   

A few more nibbles of some of my favorites on the sushi; the green beans, which were better and fresher once the tray was refilled; a tempura shrimp; a mini-crab cake with a tangy and spicy soy-based sauce drizzled on it; a squid ring, a tofu strip, and in the center:

 

The most curious rice cake blob stewed with veggies. Totally great.

While you’re all judging me for the amount of food that was, let’s check in with the boy, shall we?

He also enjoyed healthy helpings of sushi and buffet items, but he experienced true joy right at our table, watching the barbecue happen.

Spicy marinated beef, pork, chicken and squid went onto the grill raw…

And came off it smelling amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing. And tasty, too :D I tried a bit of each thing (more than a bit of the very tasty beef and squid, which I greatly preferred to the fatty pork and dry chicken).

Vastly overestimating his need for condiments, Steve went a little nuts by the pickled vegetables.

Tried to help him finish them off—they were all super tasty. That stuff in the lower left hand corner seemed to be, to the best of my description… pickled omelet shreds? Like, someone had cooked a flat pancake, thin sliced it, and tossed it together with a spicy sauce. It was totally great!

Back to my consuming and consuming :D

I enjoyed cups of both of the drinks, cinnamon and rice. Both were quite sweet and quite tasty.

 

Then I thought I was nearly finished but I happened to pass by the hot pots that I thought merely contained steamed rice and observe someone helping himself to PUMPKIN SOUP!

So I went crazy on that.

Times two.

Tasted rice-y, somehow. Hmm. Oh and great, too, obviously. Love all pumpkin always forever the end.

And some mediocre fruit (ate only the soft white parts of the melon) and I thought that might be a sweet red bean rice creation but it was only a regular red bean (and slightly undercooked at that) rice creation so I tried a bite and headed off.

The evening concluded with a riotous impromptu 90s dance party (it all began when Steve burned me an anniversary CD featuring a 90s dance remix of Total Eclipse of the Heart, one of our karaoke signatures).

Okay, actual anniversary.

We swore to each other we wouldnt’ plan something fancy, as we both get a little neurotic when something becomes an Occasion and a Big Deal and there are all these high expectations and it gets a bit competitive and we liken it to an “affection arms race”.

So we kept it casual and just hung out at Steve’s.

But then I felt compelled to dress up cause my boyfriend so often sees me dressed like a bum. So then he felt compelled to look nice.

He also did a snazzy ‘round the back movement while setting the table.

On the menu Steve decided to cook one of his favorite things I’ve cooked for him (and everyone else on earth; it’s one of my favorite summer recipes): corn and basil cakes. Agh it’s so good.

Even in November. With frozen corn :(

A lot of it has to do with the fact that I use cooking spray… and Steve fries it in butter!

 

Quite beautifully golden, eh?

 

He also made some olive-oil heavy roasted asparagus that was marvy

And roasted sweet potatoes, an ingredient Steve didn’t know could come sans marshmallow topping til he met me.

 

Here’s to many more, Honey Badger.