letting the good times roll

Sweet holy heaven, do I have a delicious looking series of posts for you.

The setting, as you may have inferred from the title: NEW ORLEANS! Aka the place with the food so good it ruins all other food for you. Forever.

In a decision that was a fun mix of naiveté, kindness, optimism, and my phobia of flying, Steve and I departed to and returned from New Orleans by car in an EPIC 16-HOUR-ROAD-TRIP. 16 hours both ways, that is. Epic. Crazy. The purpose of our voyage was to celebrate my sister’s graduation from Tulane and to have my trusty Camry available to tote her stuff home.

We opted to take a more leisurely pace on our way down, taking in the shockingly lovely scenery of Southern Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Missisippi.

A billboard inspired us to take an EXCEEDINGLY fun detour to the Mayfield Dairy. Question: who among you WOULDN’T love to go on a tour of an ICE CREAM FACTORY?!

The tour was a fun mix of history- the now-enormous dairy company began humbly as the son of a farmer experimenting with dairy farming on a small plot of his father’s land- a look at the astonishingly efficient and mechanized assembly line of ice cream production, and of course, a sampling opportunity.

I had the blueberry pie ice cream, pictured above, and it. was. marvelous. Freshness I’m sure played a role, since the ice cream had been produced literally down the hall. Since the milk gets delivered daily (something in the family of the milk of 20,000 cows. Can you even picture that?! I cannot), it seems a logical inference that it was local and from a recently milked cow. And anyway, it was just exceptionally well-made ice cream. My blueberry pie one was creamy and perfectly (but not excessively) sweet. The blueberries tasted fresh and delicious and the pie crust chunks- which were more like a sugary cookie- were a delight.

Steve got a caramel one that was also incredible- you know the monumental difference between the rich, dark, ever so slightly bittersweet caramel that pools at the bottom of crème caramel and the high-fructose-corn-syrup ice cream topper rubbish you buy at the grocery store? This caramel was in the former category. Mmm.

After a stay at the Bates Motel (well fine there were no dead bodies) in Meridian, Mississippi (a town recommended by my car guy, who’d also road tripped to Nola. Yes, it had lots of hotels but all of them were bafflingly full- apparently a lot of businessmen traveling to work at the local power plant?!) we at last arrived in the Crescent City, motoring in over a multi-mile bridge looking out on Lake Pontchartrain.

With stiff legs, we were immediately raring to go.

My sister led us through her truly beautiful campus. Stunning live oak trees with the most amazing canopy of leaves surround the buildings and lawns. The buildings are lovely and fit perfectly with the landscape.

And, of course, there is a tree completely draped in Mardi Gras beads.

After we assured her we were ready for some authentic New Orleans cuisine, my sister led us to the awesomely named Cooter Brown’s.

On the menu? Po’Boys. Ohhhhhhhhhh Po’Boys. This is not your last look at them.

I opted for the po’boy with fried Gulf shrimp, and oh what an excellent decision that was. The sandwich’s exterior was a long roll generously sprinkled with sesame seeds, perfectly toasted and then drenched in what looked like melted butter. Then the shrimp, which were ENORMOUS (is it just me or are Gulf shrimp supposed to be small? Wasn’t the case here!) were expertly seasoned and had an irresistible spice to them. They were also perfectly fried and not at all greasy. Oh and there were a TON of them. On top was surprisingly fresh lettuce and tomato and perfect pickles.

What a sandwich!

 

During our meal, Steve and I mentioned that we wanted to see some levees to get some context about Hurricane Katrina. Malindi laughed really hard and led us outside. Fact: in many places, a levee is a big pile of dirt. A couple feet high, max. Really puny and entirely useless looking. How on earth the entire city isn’t entirely underwater already is beyond me.

This was reinforced as we strolled around after our meal and saw water… everywhere. The Mississippi… being really huge. The mega-lake. It’s all pretty but it’s also… weird.My mother and my sister, on a previous visit to the city, had taken a hurricane tour. I would’ve liked to’ve had more time to do it, because it sounds like an interesting, if sobering way to see the city. Apparently as you go along the Mississippi by boat, you are looking down from the water into the lower Ninth ward. And, even now, there are many blocks where you can spot a set of stairs leading to… nothing, where houses were entirely washed away and never rebuilt.

Anyway, New Orleans is a different kind of city. In many ways. I will wax philosophic about it more in future posts.

One key example of the uniqueness of Nola is that after our meal Malindi urged us to get daiquiris. Never mind that it was 1:00 in the afternoon; we were in New Orleans! Land of public drinking, where one can order a drink at a bar to go, then stroll down the streets sipping a daiquiri! Ridic.

Guess which one was mine and which was Steve’s?

 

It was a fun novelty enjoying a pina colada while walking around, but I knew sugar+booze+sunshine could give me one hell of a headache if I kept drinking. So I really only had a little. Steve finished his and was then sugar-stunned for awhile.

We kept walking.So you know how everyone talks about the New Orleans architecture? Yeah, that. It’s amazing.

We strolled along Saint Charles Avenue, a street that’s essentially a series of gorgeous old mansions. Now, I live in the DC suburbs, an area where god-awful McMansions are perpetually appearing, with their tacky vinyl siding extending to the furthest corners of their tiny lots. While these houses were huge, they were also stunning: high quality materials, thoughtful architecture, myriad oak trees and beautiful gardens lending perspective to their size.

I’m not going to lie, it’s a little disorienting seeing such a large, concentrated, publicly available demonstration of affluence in New Orleans, a city where poverty and crime are at a level I consider frightening and wrong. However, it is undeniably beautiful. And even more normal-sized houses have a unique charm in New Orleans.

 

We continued through beautiful Audobon Park, then over to Magazine Street, a great place for eating and shopping. I loved how stores were interspersed with pretty private homes. It was not too commercialized and very walkable. Blocks further down that were crowded with restaurants and the appearance of an American Apparel saddened me; I wish more cities had streets that were allowed to be pretty and distinctive, rather than falling prey to complete and total commercialization.

One of our favorite spots on Magazine Street- and something that I think should be a required stop in Nola for any food lovers- was Sucre, a truly amazing bakery.

 

Virtually everything for people who like sugar was there. Beautiful and uniquely flavored gelato (I once sampled a basil and coconut flavored one that tasted like Thai curry); beautiful pastries like you’d find in a Paris bakery; cupcakes; homemade chocolates. Wanting something light, special, and delectable, I opted for macarons!

Sucre’s flavors were amazing. Along with typical standbys- strawberry, pistachio, coffee and the like- they also had truly innovative flavors. I opted for three (I did share them… sort of): the hazelnut, which was filled with chocolate; the carrot cake (!); and the white chocolate with lavender (!!!!). On our follow-up visit to Sucre (necessary!) I got that white chocolate lavender one again. It is a winner of a combination; the herbiness really cuts that cloying sweetness of white chocolate. I envision some homemade ice cream inspired by this confection in the future.

The night ended with dinner cooked in Malindi’s apartment (our job was to use up her groceries; Steve did his best, eating something like seven hot dogs during the trip); a trip to The Boot, a bar right by campus that does triple shot drinks for four dollars (oh college); and creative sleeping arrangements due to me poorly communicating about a need for an air mattress.

The accommodations were considerably nicer at the bed and breakfast where we brought my mother after picking her up at the airport the next morning.

I mean come on when you go in through the courtyard you know this is gonna be classy.

The story of my family’s relationship with The Chimes, this truly amazing bed and breakfast, is a lengthy one. Some facts:

- We learned of its existence from our neighbor, a man who was in charge of logistics for Reuters during Hurricane Katrina. Reporters and photographers needed a place to stay and post their stories, so Larry arranged to just bring in a generator and rent out the entire bed and breakfast. And they had as pleasant an experience as anyone could during Katrina, because they had somewhere beautiful and harmonious to stay.
- When my sister’s appendix self-destructed last year and I was frantically trying to book flights and accommodations to New Orleans while my mom was frantically trying to tie up loose ends at her office, I called Jill, the lovely proprietor of The Chimes. She assured me that a room was available for my mom for the next two nights, and added that if she needed to stay after that, on a night they were fully booked, they’d just let her sleep in their daughter’s room (!)
- The shower in the room was beautiful and huge and had little pebbles embedded in the bottom of it, so taking a shower was like getting a foot massage; particularly nice with the amount of walking we did
- Carl Kassel’s voice is on their answering machine. Not because they won on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, but because he stays at The Chimes every time he’s in New Orleans
- It is on Constantinople Street. That is awesome.
- Cab drivers LOVE Jill, because she always refers people at the B+B to a specific cab company, because they are the most reliable. One guy, who was giving my mom and sister a ride somewhere, said he was visiting his native country of Barbados and saw some beautiful seashell chimes. He said, “If those don’t cost a thousand dollars, I am buying them for Jill!” They cost 75, so he bought them, and they now adorn the courtyard with many other sets, and the sound is absolutely lovely when the breeze blows.

For those reasons and many more, we love The Chimes.

This is how my dream house will be decorated:

Once we got my mom settled, lunch was in order. Malindi continued her winning streak of restaurant recommendations by leading us to Baru.

We lucked out with a lovely table outside.

Looking out at gorgeous flowers (which were everywhere in the city).

The restaurant had lots of fun little things to combine into meals, which is absolutely my favorite way to eat. We began with a buncha small plates to share:

Trio de Causas

Chilled Tuna and potato salad / avocado / quail egg / peruvian olive aïoli 

 

I mean really?! Along with being stunning (lovvvvvvvvve the purple potatoes) the flavor was great. It offered the nostalgia of a deviled egg but had an extra dimension of flavor that was wonderful.

 

Mazorca

Roasted corn/ salao cheese/ pink sauce/ potato sticks 

Looked like a pile of french fries at first, but digging revealed the other ingredients!

Ostras

Deep-fried Louisiana oysters/ cilantro aioli/ caramelized onions 

Sauce on the side, for my cilantro-hating sister. LOVE oysters. Wish I could eat them every day. These were spectacular, especially with those amazing onions on top.

For my main dish of sorts (was already feeling pretty darn satisfied by the dishes above) I got one of their tacos, which involved big fat awesome shrimp in a remoulade sauce; avocado; and pickled onions. Fab.

 

Steve got their fish taco, which had a special sumthin’ sumthin’.

I couldn’t really handle day drinking for a second day in a row, but these sure looked good!

I think that’s quite enough for one post, so I’ll conclude with a spectacular display of immaturity.

Two pictures from the general vicinity of Tulane’s campus, presented without comment:

 

More Nola posts to come!

Have you been to New Orleans? Did you luuuuuuuuurve it?

how to eat

This is a think-y, talk-y post. Read as you wish.

So I’ve spent a decent portion of the past, say, eight months, thinking about how I want to be. How I want to treat others, how I want to treat myself, how I want to cope with stress- and how NOT to.

And central to that, at least for me, is thinking about how to eat. How one can eat, how one should eat. How eating a certain way- or a lot of ways- can maximize health, mental well-being, and so on. I only speak for myself, and I recognize in a world of scarcity that it is somewhat absurd, even shameful, to have these kinds of philosophical looks at food. But that’s where I find myself, and I’m trying to get some personal perspective/learning out of it.

SO. An idea that was introduced to me earlier this week was the idea of eating for pleasure. I was on a semi-guilt trip of the (fun!) night of my boyfriend’s birthday where he had a throwback party complete with beer pong and I ate a silly quantity of chips with guacamole and dessert. I had gone into this party having already gone out for a (delicious! satisfying! filling!) Indonesian meal at a restaurant with the birthday boy. I knew I did not “need” to eat. So I made a mental proclamation that it was totally ridiculous and unacceptable to eat anything else that night. So then I did. And then I felt guilty. And then I felt, what the hey, might as well just keep going since you have already disappointed yourself.

Maybe you relate to that feeling a little, or a lot, or not at all. It’s a common thing with me, disappointment with myself over really trivial things, and it’s something on which I’m actively working.

Anyway, so this eating for pleasure idea. What if, when we find ourselves in these situations where no, our bodies do not need to be fueled to have adequate nourishment for the day but nonetheless food is appealing to us, we eat. We make a conscious decision to say, “I love guacamole! I would experience some enjoyment tasting the pleasant flavor and texture of that guacamole.” Sure, if I had gone into that party totally stuffed, I probably wouldn’t have benefited from eating more- my stomach would have felt uncomfortable. But I went in feeling- okay. Sure, could have been satisfied with the dinner I had already eaten, but there was food around that appealed to me, and I probably could have enjoyed its flavors, in moderation, had I not set myself up with rigid expectations of what healthy eating is.

There are all kinds of ways to fight little wars with yourself, and that was one for me. I’m trying to let up.

So, a few days later, after the eating for pleasure chat had digested in my head for a bit, I bought myself an apple tart.

Longtime readers (or people who actually know me, of which there are several who read this :D) will remember I worked at a bakery a few summers ago. I enjoyed it, though being the perfectionist I am got a little neurotic about customer service (my friend Dan, who’s a server at a restaurant, relates PERFECTLY with me about this). Anyway, I didn’t eat NEARLY enough of the wares as I should have, given the opportunity (my boss said I should know the merchandise and could try whatever). I was, I suspect, very caught up in the rules for myself I’d made in my head.

But the most popular item, one customers went gaga for and we often ran out of, was this apple tart.

So, I bought one for myself.

The bakery is walking distance from my house. I walked there and home. When I arrived home I’d call myself medium-hungry. I looked at the tart and it was GORGEOUS. And I think my initial instinct was to go, “Eat half! That is huge!” In womens’ magazines, there a lot of (maybe) well-intentioned articles about portion control. One thing I’m learning more and more is that it’s okay for things to be beneficial to some people without actually being beneficial to me. If you are trying to teach yourself portion control and splitting something in half immediately is what feels right to you, rock on. Me, I’m trying to make less rules and assumptions.

So I started eating and damn it’s good.

 

Really thick, crunchy, satisfyingly buttery pastry. Perfect, not too-thick, not-too-sweet pastry cream. Exquisitely sliced tart apple dusted with cinnamon.

I paid attention to what I was eating. I ate more than half, but not a lot more. It was pleasure eating and it was nourishment at the same time. That’s rad, guys! I’m aiming for more of this.

 

And when you set a tone in one area of your life, it can set positive tones in the other ones. I took another walk (it was a beautiful day, the first in a string that is ENDING based on the horrific forecast for our area).

And in the spirit of slowing down and not making rules and doing things for pleasure, I said this would be a leisurely, picture-taking, don’t-have-to-finish-the-whole-loop-if-you-don’t-want-to walk.

   

I was really just focusing on the light and the leaves on the ground when I took this picture and I didn’t even notice that amazing tree with the flowers on it dead center. Go figure.

 

Spot the deer? There was this whole gang of them. And then one of them, I imagine some sort of alpha matriarch type figure started staring at me and stomping her front foot. It was disconcerting, yet awesome.

Another thing I do for pleasure, and always have, is read. I am super in love with biographies at the moment and I think part of it is just being genuinely curious about inhabiting another person’s head. Their thought patterns and so on. What do other people spend all their time thinking about? Are they as bored as often as I am?

So most recently I have read Keith Richards’ memoir, Life. It is as ridiculous as you would expect, but also… awesome. Really well written, and just puts you in this mindset where you’re reading about things you don’t strictly understand (restringing a guitar to attain a new sound, for example) but still feel that creative itch.

Anyway, Keef’s book includes a not-terribly-clear recipe for bangers and mash, but also a sort of food philosophy that I found interesting from a historical and cultural perspective.

I have quite solitary eating habits at odd hours, born out of mealtimes on the road being the opposite of everyone else’s. I only eat when I feel like it, which is almost unheard-of in our culture. You don’t want to eat before you go on stage, and then when you get off, you’ve got to give it an hour or two before the adrenaline subsides, which is usually around three in the morning.

You’ve got to hit it when you’re hungry. We’ve been trained from babyhood to have three square meals a day, the full factory-industrial revolution idea of how you’re supposed to eat. Before then it was never like that. You’d have a little bit often, every hour. But when they had to regulate us all, “OK, mealtime!” That’s what school’s about. Forget the geography and history and mathematics, they’re teaching you how to work in a factory. When the hooter goes, you eat. For office work or even if you’re being trained to be prime minister, it’s the same thing. It’s very bad for you to stuff all that crap in at once. Better to have a bit here, a mouthful there, every few hours a bite or two. The human body can deal with it better than shoving a whole load of crap down your gob in an hour.

Thoughts?

making things

I keep wondering if it makes sense for me to have some kind of career where I cook food on a regular basis. Or, I guess, alternately, spawn a Brangelina quantity of children.

The thing is, I just really like to cook and would often just like to do it all day. It relaxes me, it helps me do my best thinking and work through the stuff in my head, it’s a creative act, it helps show people I love them, it’s a satisfactorily sensory experience between the aromas and the sounds and the colors and the textures.

But only have so many people to feed.

So I make muffins and eat way way too many of them.

 

Apple Greek Yogurt Muffins

1 T ground flax
3 T water
1 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1 T wheat germ
½ tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup maple syrup
3 T brown sugar
1/4 c. canola oil
½ cup Greek yogurt
¼ c. milk
2 small apples, cut into tiny dice

Set aside flax and water in a large bowl; let sit until frothy. Meanwhile, combine dry ingredients (flour through baking powder).To the flax combo, add remaining wet ingredients (maple syrup through soymilk or milk). Whisk together vigorously until smooth and bubbly.

Add a third of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and fold gently to combine. Add half the apples, then another third of the flour, then the rest of the apples, then the rest of the flour.

Bake at 350 for 14 minutes.

This was a good one. Soft and lovely on the inside.

It actually made more than a dozen muffins’ worth of batter (if you fill your muffin tins 3/4 full, as I do. If you pack ‘em and have mega muffin tops, more power to you, and you’re set.)

However, I prefer to have extra to bake into a giant muffin top. Mm. I also sprinkled it with brown sugar, just to make sure it was okay.

 

In other making stuff news, I opened up my latest issue of Cooking Light and saw this recipe for strawberry buttermilk sherbet and thought it looked quite nice.

And I had grocery store strawberries I no longer had any interest in eating straight up becaaaaaaause we had FARMER’S MARKET STRAWBERRIES that look like jewels and taste like sunshine (and we got free “I love local strawberries” pins!).

So I made the recipe (ish, by which I mean my store didn’t have full fat buttermilk so I used low fat and I didn’t have agave nectar so I used stevia and a little bit of honey)

The bright red strawberries looked lovely against the frothy white buttermilk.

And the pureed color was lovely.

  

A trip in the ice cream maker resulted in something that looked a lot more like granita than sherbet, but tasted great.

Finally, making food, or assembling food, or basically just providing people with food, is how I show them I love them and attempt to help them cope with life’s difficulties. Our poor choir director came down with bronchitis the week immediately preceding Easter (where he had to conduct the choir at ridiculous quantities of services). Then his wife got sick too.

So I made them an Easter basket! Of wellness :D

First, soup, cause you gotta have soup when you’re sick. This turned out GREAT and it was all slow cooker.

Headed out to class followed by services on good Friday, I threw in my slow cooker: 1 bay leaf, 1/4 a cup or so of chopped celery, 1/2 a cup or so chopped carrots, 1 cup lentils, and 4 cups water. Put it on auto shift and left for ten hours or so.

I arrived home and chopped up a bunch of Swiss chard and put that in. At that point it was good enough to eat, so we did, some.

But THEN, knowing I wanted to deliver our friends some soup the following morning, I added some oomph, in the form of 1 can of fire roasted tomatoes (the garlic seasoned kind), the remainder of a can of chickpeas, and a chopped up potato.

The next morning (say, 8 hours later?) I turned it off. And the potato was cooked PERFECTLY and the flavors were GREAT!

(Seasoned it with salt and pepper last; as I’ve heard salt can slow down dried bean cooking time.)

Also the ancient Greek remedy of Vick’s vapo rub. True story.

A tea variety (pomegranate white, cinnamon stick caffeinated black, and my all time favorite decaf Good Earth)

And because this is an Easter basket and there must be treats, a choco bunny:

And this fun guy, picked up at the Greek store buying Easter provisions. Like peanut brittle but made with sesame seeds and honey!

 

And now I am home on a day off, writing a whole bunch of pre-scheduled blog posts, and despite the fact that I ate roughly four peoples’ worth of Easter treats yesterday, I still want to cook something!

president’s day beach trip

Dear Presidents Washington and Lincoln- thank you for being born!

Dear Kathy and Tom- THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for letting us use the beach house!

Dear ocean- thank you for soothing my soul.

Dear Steve- thank you for taking that picture. I’m digging the composition!

Beach essentials:

The only intellectual stimulation of the weekend (well unless you count watching Overboard, which is indeed a brilliant film.)

We left Friday. Gruesome traffic, even leaving long after rush hour should’ve ended. Got to beach at 1:30am. Yuck.

Next morning, revitalization!

Dear Jolly Roger- thanks for being open during the winter.

The Jolly Roger is a landmark sort of restaurant in the Outer Banks (which is where we went. Obviously). It is decorated with pirates. The waitresses wear pirate costumes. There are Christmas ornaments on the ceiling. It is a DELIGHT.

  

The off season is great. Minimal waits for table.

Opportunities for important photographs.

 

Coffee is simply an assumption (Steve ordered it! That’s the fifth time he’s had coffee this year, and he’s now thoroughly convinced he’s a caffeine addict).

Dear International Delight- I admit defeat. I am powerless to resist you.

Dear Jolly Roger- that homemade bread is the greatest thing everrrrrrr.

 

Studded with sunflower seeds, it’s the best (of many delicious others) component of the Jolly Roger Special.

I opted for grits, scrambled eggs, and that toast! That toast!

 

Then Steve and I got plate envy of people around us receiving plate-sized pancakes, so we split one. Excellent choice.

 

Dear Steve- God bless the nerve endings in your feet.

The beach was sooooooooooooo lovely. Uncrowded. Just us and the always serene whooshing of the waves, flying of the gulls, churning of the sea foam.

Lonnnnnnnnnnnnng walk.

Followed by need for bathroom.

Dear  Biscuits n’ Porn…

… seriously, that is the name.

… Dear Biscuits n’ porn, thank you for having a bathroom.

Biscuits n’ porn is in a Citgo gas station. It is exactly what it sounds like.

Kathy (my aunt, the wonderful human being who let Steve and I use her beach house free of charge) said we had to get a biscuit, that they were the best.

Steve totally didn’t even see the smutty stuff while I was in the bathroom (yeah, sure), as he was buying a cheddar cheese biscuit.

  

I had a bite or two. It was exquisite.

Dear Ocean- thank you for providing me with a beautiful seashell. Thank you for letting me discover it by it washing up ahead of me… rather than it whacking me in the shin the way a large conch shell did one time, leaving me with a scar.

I turned it into a lovely hairdo, which Steve photographed.

Then another beautiful shell! I attempted to double them up.

 

Tricky.

Victory!

We strolled along and saw cute dogs and cute children and other cute things. Awww:

Dear walking on the beach- thanks for being exercise in disguise!

Dear Steve- God bless the nerve endings all over you.

Yep, Steve did a polar bear swim. In FEBRUARY. Later we learned the ocean was 53 degrees.

Invigorating.

Dear mini golf course- Thanks for not locking your gates during the off season. Fun photoshoot!

A place tragically closed. I wish I could go and see what they were all about…

 

Lunch didn’t really happen, and I decided I needed frozen yogurt.

Dear Steve- thanks for putting up with my need to get frozen yogurt. And also emotionally coping with the styrofoam.

I got this creation!

Whipped cream (this is vacation), berries (the first fruit of the day!)…

  

… cake batter, peanut butter (!) and pistachio (the green one).

Steve got all the cake flavored ones with a buncha candy on top.

Place I’ve been to previously and wish I could go to again:

Instead, went to one of my faaaaaaaaaaaaaaves. Mama Kwan’s!

I knew Steve would love this place because it starts with ti and ends in ki. Steve turned his bedroom into a Tiki hut with paper bags and hours of labor (have I ever posted about this? Remind me.)

Dear Mama Kwan’s adorable bartender- thanks for the tasty margarita!

 

Salt. Always.

Dear Kathy- thanks for introducing us to the seared tuna when we went here before. It is now non-negotiable.

(though perhaps even better than the immaculately fresh, rare-in-the-center fish is the subtly sweet, sesame oil enriched cucumber salad on the side. Nom!)

Ostensibly we were sharing both of these items but we basically dominated our respective categories.

For him, the Special Occasion Pasta.

I knew Steve would love this because it combined carbs, soy sauce, and copious amounts of butter.

I don’t know how they make this- it’s penne with roasted red peppers, mushrooms, and snow peas in the most wonderfully flavorful and rich creamy sauce that’s tangy with soy- but it’s great.

A single entree managed to fill up Steve. Insane. (Though most normal people eat about a third of this pasta and admit defeat).

For me, what I’ve stated in prior blog posts would be my last meal:

MAMA KWAN’S FISH TACOS!

 

Perfectly sauteed mahi mahi, rice, cabbage, green onion, cheese (you wouldn’t think it goes with fish but oh it does), and wonderfully rich and unhealthy lime sour cream.

So. GOOD!

 

Feast!

  

Dear change of scenery- I love you.

It’s amazing, sometimes, the things you end up talking about just by virtue of talking somewhere you haven’t talked before.

And yknow, that margarita and a strawberry daiquiri that also somehow appeared in front of me didn’t hurt.

The next morning- HOT BATH!

Dear bathtub at the beach house- thanks for being deep enough that I had water up to my EARS!

Next- surprise, surprise, return to Jolly Roger.

Sunday brunch= marginally longer wait for table= photoshoot!

Steve is a scary pirate. I am a happy pirate who didn’t comb my hair after that nice hot bath.

Steve is on the case for me to put Christmas ornaments on my ceiling. (He can’t put them on his because of the aforementioned Tiki hut).

Dear Jolly Roger- you are awesomely affordable. If I lived near you, it’d be trouble.

Steve decided that since the Jolly Roger Special was only $3 (!!!!), he’d go ahead and order two.

 

Thus enjoying toast (four pieces- he just snatched one off the plate before I took a picture), hashbrowns, grits, and both scrambled and fried eggs.

I had a breakfast sandwich the size of my head.

 

Dear Jolly Roger- thanks for being so cool and including the omelet veggies so I’d get at least one serving of produce on this vacation.

This was SOOOOO delicious.

We looked dreamily out the window at the rain for a bit- fortunately we knew and expected this rainy day and relished the sunshine the day before. We had rainy day plans, oh yes.

 

Called… AQUARIUM!

Guys.

I LOVE AQUARIUMS SO MUCH DID YOU KNOW THIS ABOUT ME?

(I assure you that now my boyfriend and anyone within earshot of us at the aforementioned aquarium for sure, no doubt, knows this).

I, the girl with no knowledge of photography whatsoever, love how when you take pictures of fish one of them always pops out into focus.

I like turtles.

(I said that to be HILARIOUS and reference Youtube but the truth, of course is that I LOVE turtles. There was a sea turtle rescue simulation involving plastic terrapins that was designed for children but that I did… with gusto).

My favorite fish at the whole place was this awesomely peculiar looking dude, who evaded my camera’s focus at every turn.

 

Dear Steve- thanks for spending so long at the aquarium.

 

Dear North Carolina aquarium- thanks for being AWESOME and letting us pet rays!

 

After the aquarium, nothing seemed better than having a hot beverage somewhere cute.

We went to the Frontporch cafe, which indeed had an adorable, if waterlogged, front porch.

 

Steve fueled his growing caffeine addiction (sarcasm) with a ridiculously sugared-up heat bar coffee creation that featured chocolate whipped cream (!). I had soy au lait. And forced Steve to eat some of my biscotti.

Once again having skipped lunch, we headed to the FISH MARKET to buy dinner!

Loved the whole vibe:

Loved the local:

Could not resist the smell of hush puppies.

Dear Steve- kind of thank you and kind of not for buying hush puppies.

 

Steve is a master mixologist… of dipping sauces. That ketchup- mayo- Texas Pete’s- malt vinegar combo was grand.

More would-be-cool-to-sit-outside places. If you squint, it’s a dock.

Then we had to go home and watch Overboard.

Dear readers- if you have seen Overboard (actually, if you haven’t seen Overboard, go see Overboard, then come back to answer this), what is your favorite line?

Mine is: You shot a chicken?

Soon enough it was time to eat again. These things happen.

Dear Kathy- the beach house is awesomely well stocked. And now I want a grill pan!

Swordfish marinated in lime juice (lots), honey and oil (a bit; only had olive oil and I feared burning).

Per. FECT!

Three minutes a side.

(Dear Steve- thanks for documenting!)

Also: oven yuca fries.

Dear Cooking Light- thanks for giving that tip about soaking starchy vegetables in water before turning them into oven fries. They did cook up better.

On vacation I GARNISH! Ooh la la.

 

Steve brought veggies, what a guy.

Zukes and chayote sauteed with oregano:

 

Spinach sauteed in olive oil with lotsa garlic, red pepper flakes, and lemon.

 

Dinner by candlelight with Carmeniere.

 

Final night. Dramatic storm. Crazy wind.

Cozy beach house. (Mostly. Except when Steve got up and went to see if there was a burglar. There wasn’t).

Packing up to leave the beach, felt crazy sick. Nauseous. Dizzy.

Simply my body not wanting to return to the everyday? Perhaps.

Dear oatmeal (and yes, Jolly Roger will make that for you too, and blissfully)- thanks for always being there.

Dear epic traffic driving back north- way to remind me that I refuse to live in the DC metro area for the rest of my life.

Dear carefree, unwhiny, blissfully-in-love President’s day weekend me- I miss you already. Let’s repeat this feeling soon.