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.

cookout paparazzi

I had a guest artist documenting my most recent cookout.

Lydia sent me a text all, “Whatcha doin?” And I said “Grillin! Come over!”

And then she asked if she could help and I said take pictures.

Preheating and Pandora:

 

Sheila stalking something… (She’s on a real vole-eating kick. And got a ROBIN the other day oh God it was so traumatizing)

On a happier note, pesto! Photographed in the pot next to last year’s dead plants. (For the record, that box now contains gernaiums and is much less sad looking).

Fixin’s for a quinoa salad.

 

Fresh deck-grown oregano joined the party.

First off the grill: asparagus (the last of the bunch. Everyone got two spears, heh.)

Then I put sweet potatoes on the grill while Steve frantically tried to rescue a fallen asparagus spear.

Teamwork. Love.

  

Grilled sweet potatoes: Slice. Steam til just tender. Spray. Grill. Try to keep them from falling through the grate, but, yknow, no one’s perfect.

One of my favorite recipes for wilted spinach salad. Mm. Involves soy sauce, lemon, mustard powder, and olive oil.

The finished quinoa salad, most of the work of which was done by Lydia. Quinoa, apple, cuc, vinaigrette, oregano, lemon. Think she also threw in some of the oil from the top of the pesto.

BISON BURGERS! We had half a pound left and I split it three ways for burgers for my mom, the boyf, and I. (Lydia’s a vegetarian; I made her a bean burger and half of it fell through the grate. FOIL, LELE.) Anyway, these were GREAT and I’d been totally jonesing for a burger as I made my way through meatless Lent.

 

Secretly, I could’ve eaten all three. They were amazing. I do my burgers with just salt and pepper, Worcestershire, and fresh oregano.

Fun fact: you know how icky compounds form when you grill foods at high heat and get (delicious) char on them? Well the antioxidants in herbs LIKE OREGANO help prevent that :D I read that in Today’s Dietitian.

Feast! Under the beautiful sky! Next to the beautiful trees! Feeling the wonderful breeze!

Lydia always tells me there aren’t enough pictures of me in my blog, and exhorted me to interact with the food.

So here I am petting the hamburger buns. We both *love* this picture.

And I *loved* this dinner (and ate lots more than this!)

tea with the queen

Oh P.S. My mom went to the UK last month to visit my studying-abroad sister and have tea with the queen so I was kind of foraging for myself for awhile there.

Which leads to things like this happening:

I sit at the computer being all “God I’m so tiiiiiiiiiiiiired. I’m so huuuuuuuuuuungry. I can’t even stand uuuuuuuuuuuuuup”.

And then going “OH MY GOD I WENT OUT TO LUNCH AT WORK AND HAVE LEFTOVERS! I AM SAVED!”

 

In a (compostable!) leftovers container was a deeeeelicious half a veggie burger from Busboys and Poets. Went on a rare and thus very exciting work lunch out in DC to welcome a new staff member at our DC office.

I kind of ordinarily think people who only eat half a sandwich for lunch are ridiculous and probably hungry all the time, but we had gotten their ridiculously good nachos as an appetizer and their veggie patty is also the size of my face. So.

That half a sandwich didn’t fill me up for dinner (not having preceded it with nachos) so then I randomly chewed on:

Tomatoes and bean sprouts, of course.

And SHOCKINGLY, SHOCKINGLY, eating those things with my bare hands did not leave me satisfied. I know. And then I ate a bunch of other crap. Can’t remember. It’s been awhile. April was not my healthiest month. Trying to get it together now.

Steve came over for meals a lot, because he is good company and my house makes scary noises from time to time.

It was good cause I still had all this food at my house, cause we tend to overbuy.

So I did a his and hers leftovers-utilizing thing.

His:

  

Leftover pasta made into salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, hummus, and vinaigrette.  

Hers:

  

Leftover rice cooked up with hummus, tomatoes, kale. Both pretty good.

 

Then my mother returned!

A welcome to America meal, beautifully arranged, if I do say so myself. Nice colors. Nice textures. Nice flavors.

 

I had leftover black bass from a delightful day of grilling, so I made it into a nice pasta dish with caramelized onions, Swiss chard, and vegetable broth. YUM!

 

And my mom did not return from England empty-handed!

First, this chestnut spread:

Um, literally squeezed it out of the tube and onto my finger. Went, “I know this was probably really expensive and I want you to know that I’m really enjoying it despite eating it like a cavewoman.” Didn’t stand a chance. Ridiculously amazing. Not as thick as peanut butter: more the consistency of frosting. And the flavor of sweet chestnutty buttery… awesomeness.

Zoomed right through these, too:

My mom studied abroad at St. Andrew’s in Scotland (where Wills and Kate later met!) and became passionately fond of oatcakes. They are uh-mazing. Super dense, not that sweet, just… so hearty and satisfying and great. And you can put honey on them :D

Finally, proper English breakfast tea!

 

Proper leaves, so I got out my little buddy that Steve gave me.

 

I call him Mao.