pounds and pounds of food

So I haven’t felt like writing, but man oh man have I felt like eating.

After work last night, I was just SO UNCOMFORTABLE. Our building is old and roach-infested and poorly insulated and disgusting and dirty and hot. Kids were going nuts, screaming and swingin’ chairs at each other, whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiining. Interpersonal relationships were not at their best, either.

So I went to Trader Joe’s, super warm and uncomfortable, and it manifested itself in my purchases and I bought $6 worth of blueberries (a pound and a half). And a mango.

So here’s what was left this morning, bearing in mind this container was full 12 hours before this picture was taken.

 

My feeling was, I was ingesting a lot of really great nutrients and it was still cheaper than many D.C. metro-area cocktails. So… it constituted the majority of my dinner. Steve and I also polished off some leftover squash pie (which we didn’t bother to reheat) on the deck.

Anyway, surveying the amount of berries that were left this morning, I then just went ahead and polished the box off.

(It was 8:15, after I’d finally given up on trying to get back to sleep. Since I’d been up since 7:30 and all. 6.5 hours is like the maximum I’ve gotten on a given night this week. It makes me sad).

Sooo I ate breakfast in the carefree way that my mother often does: carb, jam, nut butter. Knife.

When taking this approach to meal preparation (the “slather method”, if you will), I highly recommend almond butter and lingonberry jam.

Mango was grand. Kudos to Trader Joe’s for always having ripe, delicious, perfectly textured mango. Costs a little more moolah but man this fed my soul.

Conscious from some caffeinated tea, my day then improved.

Farmer’s market (green beans, beets, lettuce, yogurt, and a sample of GOAT CHEESE CHEESECAKE WITH STRAWBERRY RHUBARB COMPOTE THAT’S RIGHT Y’ALL).

Then- this is whacky.

My mom saw the approach of wedding season this summer and decided my sister and I should both have dresses that enhanced our assets, minimized flaws, kept us decent and wholesome-looking and keep us from shaming the family, etc. etc.

Her solution to this was to make us mandatory appointments with Nordstrom’s (apparently free!) personal shopping service. It is kind of fun to just hang out in a dressing room having people bring you stuff to try on.

(Didn’t go with any of those actually- I’ll show you the winner the next time I post pictures from friend weddings! That black and white one was super flattering, but I always buy stuff like that. Both the blue ones just seemed a little weird cause I have vast, vast shoulders. That bronzey one with the belt was totally ferosh but there are not strong enough Spanx in the world. Also it was super uncomfortable).

Anyway, perhaps you can observe my hair grow more disheveled and my eyes grow more steely as the process went on- man shopping is kind of stressful. And then being a big sister, I felt a personal responsibility to find my sister something beautiful (but not slutty, cause she’s my baby sister and boys have their notions, doncha know) and yeah. It kind of took a long time. I was really tired at the end.

Sooooooooo then I went to BRUNCH with Patricia! Having had similar weeks, we made a point of planning to get together on Saturday to drink alcohol.

Sorry.

We did.

Anyway, we’d planned on it being mimosas (a culturally acceptable early-in-the-day drink) but then our waiter mentioned freshly made Sangria (and he was sort of sexy and Latin looking and I’m assuming he knew what he was talking about) so that happened.

I’m calling it… enhanced fruit salad. There were delicious pieces of melon and berries in it.

Annnnnnnnnd then despite the fact that I’d thought I wouldn’t be hungry, and spent the morning essentially going shopping, I was EXHAUSTED and STARVING and got huevos rancheros. I mean how beauteous.

Yeah, definitely DEMOLISHED those. Okay, I don’t like sour cream. And I didn’t finish all that cheese. I mean, look at all that cheese:

But, after omitting some of that and the sour cream, in addition to eating the crispy tortilla under those two eggs and refried beans and awesomeness, I then bummed toast from my sister. Because I am tired and stressed and loooooooooove caaaaaaaaarbs!

To make up for the highly spastic nature of this post, now please enjoy photographs from a Real Photographer (taken on her iPhone, a medium with which she’s doing seriously extraordinary work), my aunt Dena.

She and my mom took a quick trip to Provincetown, one of my favorite places, to visit their uncle, and being fans of my blog sought to document the lasagna they enjoyed Friday night.

Awesome- beautiful fresh veggies. Super awesome- rather than cheese it was layers of POLENTA! Brilliant.

 

Annnnd I guess this is something else that looks delicious too. Readers, a contest! Identify this dish!

old rag

Old Rag is a mountain in Virginia. Why is it called Old Rag? I don’t know. I could Wikipedia it, but I don’t really care. But you can!

Anyway, it is a really really gorgeous drive down there.

 

Southern Virginia’s a hoot. Driving… small sleepy rural town… driving… cows by the side of the road… driving… antique stores… driving… GUN DEPOT!

Funny/odd: for whatever reason I started the hike feeling horribly nervous. Like… I don’t know, I guess it was more of a hardcore hike than I’d done in awhile (8.8 mile round trip, hefty elevation gain) and I just got really paranoid that we hadn’t brought food other than trail mix for a 4-6 mile hike with no lunch, and I just thought… I was going to run out of water and get eaten by a snake and stuff. (Well, actually, we saw a copperhead but it very considerately rattled at us, leaving us absolutely TERRIFIED, and then poisonously slithered into a bush).

But it worked out. And was dang beautiful.

 

And there were these gorgey gorge flowers everywhere…

 

Again, could bother to look them up… but won’t.

Steve was mad at me cause my memory card only holds a limited amount of pictures… and there was one that he had taken of me hiking that frankly I think didn’t do my backside any favors… and it was that or the flowers.

Aren’t the flowers pretty?

We clambered up some pretty dang serious rock (though, full disclosure, we didn’t 100% finish the hike before turning around) but after sweating and grunting and so on we came out and got to see this…

The view at the top was pretty magnificent… so much so that trying to photograph it in any serious way just left me feeling dejected.

The bottom, however, was kind of even more amazing, because we head down and we hear all this… joyful yelling and splashing.

And wouldn’t ya know it, there’s a waterfall. Steve straight up got underneath it, but as I was wearing denim shorts (and anyone knows that wet denim plus thighs equals pain) I just wandered around the side.

And then Steve took this AWESOME picture!

We were sitting on a rock putting our shoes back on, but before Steve got back his lovely sweaty salty socks, this beautiful butterfly started… snacking on them!

I love nature so much.

We strolled back towards the parking lot and then I remembered that the water-seller-meets-amateur-copperhead-taxidermist guy had had a sign about FRESH WATERMELON. And oh man we bought that. It was sposed to be by the slice but the guy was like “Eh, we’ve had hardly any business, finish it.”

DEMOLISHED!

(God, what an incredibly flattering picture of me. Plus Steve’s thumb.)

Actually we gifted some of the remains to some strangers who looked longingly at it, because we pay it forward that way.

And so, back into the car we went.

Round about dinnertime, we pulled into Warrenton. Like the first thing I saw? The Great Harvest! Kath went there! Celebrity sighting practically ish!

But wait!

Then we went into The Iron Bridge Wine Company. And, having just looked it up, KATH ATE THERE!  Ohhh my goodness.

Being total outdoors-a-holics, we sat on the deck for dinner.

Had the most peculiar but intense craving for a Caesar salad. This happens about once every two years, but when it happens, it’s intense.

This one had red baby Romaine, homemade dressing, and a scrumptious crouton. It hit the spot!

The real draw, however, was Mussels Monday. For $13 or something like that you get ALL YOU CAN EAT MUSSELS AND FRIES!

The mussels came in your choice of flavors… so you can mix and match!

I started with the roasted garlic, spinach, and parmesan.

Um, holy garlic breath. But I’m gonna say it- I ate straight up garlic cloves. Then made Steve, too, so we’d cancel each other out. The cheese was all oozing all over everything… it was grand.

Then for my second venture, I went with the Provencal, which I knew contained tomatoes just based on the name :D Which I smugly told Steve.

Steve, of course, kept right on going and also got the other broth option: bacon and jalapeno cream. Had a taste. Sinful!

And speaking of sinful… rosemary fries? Yes? Please? All day every day?

 

inspiration, collaboration

The title of this blog post sounds like the title of a truly gruesome graduation speech, doesn’t it?

(Sidebar: my high school graduation’s speaker was the local weatherman. Not even the main local weatherman. The assistant, weekend-shift local weatherman. The next year it was Ben Affleck. How is this fair?!)

The point was that sometimes the blog inspires ya and sometimes it doesn’t, yknow? This week there was just too much summer (with an emphasis on hotness and misery earlier in the week, and an emphasis on freedom and awesome in the later).

Still, there’s nothing like a gorgeous photograph that I must must must post to tug me back. Never mind that I was not the one to take it.

My hand operated a spatula, rather than a camera, when this rather exquisite photograph was captured.

Maya come over! Occasional writer of The Collegiate Gourmande. First a blog friend, now a friend friend.

Obviously, we food-laborated.

Maya was craving green things… I had green things. Leftovers were inspected. Farmer’s market purchases appeared. And this happened!

Sauteed green onion ‘n garlic

 

Threw in some greens and cooked down. Put in a casserole dish, topped with some leftover steamed asparagus.

Maya took the carb lead. Livened up some leftover cooked rice (my adorable mother always makes 1 dry cup of rice despite the fact that she the only person in the house who actually likes white rice. Plus there is usually- as there was this time- already leftover brown rice in the fridge), adding organic vegetable broth for moisture and flava.

Made creamy and luscious with various cheese (3 laughing cows- 2 sundried tomato, 1 herb). Poured atop the green base.

Then- sheer brilliance- eggs baked on top! Beautiful fresh farmer’s market eggs floated beautifully atop the other ingredients when Maya expertly cracked them

(Informal poll of other people who eat farmer’s market eggs: how they treatin’ ya? The adorable Mennonites who sell us these have never ever done us wrong. Steve, on the other hand, though he paid $3.50 instead of $5 for a dozen at his farmer’s market, ended up with one rotten egg and one horribly disturbing chicken fetus)

Anyway, then the whole thing went under the broiler.

 

Those things underneath? Leftover fries- of the traditional and sweet potato forms- leftover from brunch at a country club (!) with my sister’s godparents. Seeking moderation in all things, I went for the “Healthful selections omelet” (egg whites and veggies) with a side order of sweet potato fries.

Maya is a good sport, in eating my family’s leftovers in not one but two contexts.

(3 actually, since I also bulked up a leftovers salad. It was camera shy).

Once our collaboration was done, it was photography time. In which I was considerably outdid by Maya.

 

On Facebook, where she posted the pic, Maya referred to it as “savory rice pudding meets asian greens meets cheese meets eggs? It works.“ It totally worked.

The fries were a nice touch.

And the evening ended with totally fun boy HYSTERIA. It has been seven months (!) since I was last single and… suffice it to say that gossip, intrigue, and speculation are still fun. And giggling. Lots of giggling.

themed

Frequent themes of my life lately.

Confusion.

A fruit.

A mango from Guatemala?

Or a papaya from Mexico?

Confusion: the job hunt. An afternoon trip with the boyfriend to Busboys and Poets (lovely!), laptops in tow. Applyapplyapplyapply. Chatting with a time zone 12 hours away via Skype on Tuesday (!) Wish me luck.

Blurry but evocative photo of the cool vibes at B+P…

Admiring cute signs…

Cappuccino made with almond milk purely for novelty value.

The waitress warned me it would foam insufficiently, but then it arrived with a thoroughly impressive coating!

 

Steve got a pomegranate lemonade.

Another common theme of my life, tested and over and over found to be true: juice is too sweet.

Also: I fear liquid calories.

Gandhi menu!

What is not too sweet? Fair trade chocolate! Randomly given out for free!

Guys, what is it about evolution or something that makes us UNABLE TO DECLINE FREE FOOD? Things I would never pay money for, would beg people not to include in the family shopping cart, I eat with gusto if it’s free.

I mean I am not talking about this though. This is chocolate. Obviously it was great.

Theme bringing great fun to my life: Baker’s Guild!

With our little chilluns, we do “guilds”: clubs in which they can explore something they like in a little more detail and hopefully rack up some skills along the way. Past options have included soccer, art, songwriting. I am leading BAKING!

And, little third through fifth graders made HOMEMADE BREAD! Yeast, kneading, the whole shebang. I was horribly nervous when I went in, but as the reassuring writer of this exceedingly helpful post pointed out, bread is forgiving.

They made beautiful rolls!

  

Another theme: I am totally loving on the jam lately.

 

Artichokes: I just cannot quit artichokes. They are in season, they are kind of sort of affordable ish, they are beautiful, they are delicious, and I love them. I want to eat them every single day.

Same meal: halal, organic chicken from Lebanese Butcher. Special deal on legs/thighs: 99 cents a pound, which is pretty dang good for organic. And they marinated it for you in various intriguing things like garlic and tomato paste and olive oil and I asked if there was harissa and they said “No but something like it”.

Broiled instead of grilled cause it was too stinkin’ hot.

Another unfortunate theme in my life: I don’t cook things that much. Other people take fresh corn and boil it for 15 minutes. I steam it for 3 and call it a day. Cooking things less often does good things for nutrition and chew, both things I support.

However, it becomes a problem with chicken. Fortunately, my mother intervened.

Purple potato salad! Been eating tons of these lately, too. Does anyone know: if the general rule is the more colorful a vegetable is, the healthier it is, does that mean purple potatoes are better than regular? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

I kind of just assumed that this salad contained mayo and sour cream and then my mom said “No! Greek yogurt and chives from the deck!” and then I ate TONS of it! Which is silly of me, as I should just eat everything in moderation until my body feels full but whatever. That’s how I am.

Speaking of deck herbs (another theme in my life lately- it is just absurdly satisfying to go out and pick part of one’s dinner. Wish I didn’t suck at keeping things alive), tossed some oregano (since the basil’s not around yet) with some beautiful farmer’s market tomatoes, oil and balsamic, and salt and pepper. My FAVORITE SUMMER SALAD IS HERE IN 2011!

  

And then my mama made rice salad and oh how I adore my mama’s rice salad. It’s a delightful use of leftovers and the general guidelines are just take cooked rice, throw on a vinaigrette, and throw in as colorful an assortment of vegetables as possible, something accomplished exceedingly well this particular evening with peas, red onion, and olives.

Smashing dinner. Ate more than this. But then, that’s a common theme too.