Filed under: Shopping Day
Could this be… the first week since the start of the semester that we don’t eat out?? I think it is really the first time I’ve got a week’s menu all planned out. It’s been a crazy semester.
Monday – frozen pizza, sauteed kale (it took me 3 hours to get home from work, so I was not in a good mood!)
Tuesday – goat cheese-stuffed chicken, sweet potatoes & kale
Wednesday – same
Thursday – tofu pot pie
Friday – same
Saturday & Sunday – squash lasagna, roasted brussel sprouts
And surprisingly, all of the stuff for this week came out to about $50 at Whole Foods.
Filed under: Recipe
I’m still here.
This fig & goat cheese tart was made on a whim and looks totally fancy. The figs were on sale because they were getting soft, the pita bread had been in my cabinet for a little too long, and the goat cheese was leftover from making roasted beet salad. It’s a little burnt because I heard my Tweetdeck chiming with @replies and I stepped away from the broiler for a minute. Oops!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Many families and cultures have their own Sunday dinner traditions. For me, it’s either Sunday dim sum or pho, eaten in the early afternoon and leaving you stuffed the rest of the day. Then 8:00 rolls around, I’m sort-of hungry, and I haven’t touched a vegetable all day. On those evenings, I like to whip up something quick, light and green. Dinner salads, fruit & cheese plate, and bruschetta are popular choices.
Last Sunday, we had giant bowls of pho at my mom’s house around 3:00. Later on, I started to get hungry during our long drive home so we stopped at the grocery store because I knew the fridge was empty. I’m usually really lost unless I have a recipe on me, but I managed to pick up some ingredients for a tomato salad. Instead of the usual bruschetta, I got home and decided to try it as panzanella.
I knew what panzanella was, but the thought of soggy bread seemed strange to me. But lo and behold, it was actually really good! I made my own recipe, but it was really similar to this one. Also, I only had fresh bread, not stale, so I “express stale’d” it. Cut the bread into cubes, put it in the microwave for a minute, stir, microwave another minute and let it cool. Instant stale. There are other panzanella recipes where you actually dunk the bread into a bowl of water, squeeze the water out, and crumble the mushy bits over the salad – now that just icks me out.
It was yummy, fresh, and the soggy bread wasn’t as scary as I thought. I even had the leftover for lunch the next day and the bread wasn’t much soggier than it was the night before, which surprised me.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I never had a bloody mary before. I ordered it just to see what this Shark Week-themed drink was all about.
(subtitle: or, How I Might Have Hepatitis)
Hello class. I have three lessons to share with you today:
1) When is it ever appropriate to ask a complete stranger for some of their food?? Unless you are homeless, or someone is holding a sign that says FREE FOOD FOR STRANGERS, the answer is NEVER.
2) Walking across town with a pizza box is like wearing a sign that says PLEASE START A CONVERSATION WITH ME.
3) Based on my lifelong research, I conclude that going out alone only turns out good approximately 20% of the time. The other 80%=having to talk to creepers.
For the first few weeks of living alone, I didn’t go out much but I’m finally started to try and venture out more. But yesterday I was reminded of why I don’t go out alone. Many times this summer, I’ve thought about sitting at a bar to have a drink, but then always chicken out at the last minute. Yesterday I had some time to kill in between errands, so I went to this restaurant/bar where people also hang out with laptops. I sit at the bar and order a mojito. A man 4 seats away from me tells me that it looks good, and I politely smile and say yes it is. Then a few minutes later, three sips into my drink, he sneakily ambles over to me and starts talking to me, then picks up my drink and says “Can I try it? Can I try your drink” and then drinks it through the stirry straws as I fumble incredulously.
Filed under: Life
I finally went to the Tactile Dinner performance that I talked about last week. The Tactile Dinner is a play that is part of the Fringe Festival, a theater festival of experimental, postmodern, anything-goes performances. It was less of a “dinner” and more of a play with audience participation.
I won’t say anything the deep intellectual meaning of this experimental art project, but I can say that as an amateur cook the it raised my curiosity about experiencing food without eating it.
I’m a little torn between giving everything away and sharing the experience with people who can’t go. Eh. I don’t have a lot of readers, so option 2 wins. Read on for the details: (more…)
Filed under: Uncategorized
The new half-season of No Reservations starts tonight, and I don’t have a TV to watch it 
I wonder if they’ll put it on Hulu. Tony kicks it the season by going to Chile.
Latin food is my new obsession, and I’ve already used past episodes to guide my food journey. My first intro to the world of rice and beans was Puerto Rican food, which I ate a lot I was working in non-profit in a PR community. Then I moved to Providence and craved it all year long. I finally started branching out and trying other types of latin food that Rhode Island had to offer and wasn’t disappointed. I ate Peruvian for the first time two weeks ago (wasn’t too excited by it), and the other day I had Salvadoran tamales, another thing I missed from my non-profit days. Anyway, my motto “WWABE – What Would Anthony Bourdain Eat” hasn’t failed me in picking adventurous things to eat.
Unfortunately, the new San Francisco episode airs the day after I get back from San Fran.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I like to do weird things. Check out this absolutely insane-sounding dinner/performance that I’m going to this weekend:
You are cordially invited to celebrate the passé-ist glory of Futurist degustation: a tactile seven-course meal of gastronomic revolution. Those without suitable tactilist garb will be loaned one upon entry.
That didn’t quite give me enough information, so I looked into what the heck tactile dinner parties were like. They’re based on The Futuristic Cookbook, written in 1931, by F.T. Marinetti. Here’s an exerpt from the book’s instructions for a tactile dinner party:
Polyrhythmic salad: the waiters approach the tables carrying for each guest a box with a crank on the left side and a china bowl. In the bowl, undressed lettuce leaves, dates, and grapes. Without the help of cutler, each diner uses his right hand to feed himself from the bowl while he turns the crank with his left. The box thus emits musical rhythms: and the waiters dance slowly with grand geometrical gestures in front of the table until the food has been eaten.
I’ve only been able to read articles written about the book, but it’s amazing how similar the food sounds to what I would consider today’s futuristic and modernist foods (French Laundry and Alinea most obvs). And it was written in 1932! Futuristic then, still futuristic 70+ years later.
If it sparks your interest, read some more passages from the original book.
Anyway, I’m excited to be witness to this crazyness and I even convinced two of my classmates to go with me. I’m not sure how much they’ll be into it, but they’re generally adventurous and it’ll make a good story to tell our friends back at Brown.
Filed under: Uncategorized
This was breakfast on Sunday. Much better than my bean & cheese burrito breakfast today.
Filed under: Life
I’m settling into my digs in Washington DC, but the food situation is bad. Bad even before getting to the cooking part. It’s difficult to get to a grocery store, and I had a really bad experience trying to get grocery delivery. Farmer’s markets are excellent, but a little bit far away so I can only get to them on weekends when they are of course, mobbed. I bought some peaches the other day and… OMG. Unlike any peach I have ever eaten up north. It reminded me of reading James & the Giant Peach and the part where he takes a bite from inside the peach, and I always *knew* that I had never experienced a peach like that. And now, I know. It was a million times sweeter and like, buttery in the mouth.
Eating out was also hard. Brian came with me to help me move in, and he stayed for about a week. We’re tight on cash, so we wanted to keep things affordable and it was difficult finding good places to eat for under $20 per person. We did find places, but it took a lot of research. I also get the feeling that DC isn’t much of a food town (I’m opening myself wide open for some flaming). Maybe it’s just not a food town for my tastes. I felt like with Providence, Seattle, and Chicago, I did my food research and quickly found lots of places within my budgets that I just had to go. That didn’t happen with DC. Maybe it’s just a suit-and-tie, country club kinda town with food to match.
What’s great about DC though? HAPPY HOUR. We don’t have happy hour specials in New England, so this is my first experience and it totally makes up for lack of good food.
It’s a crappy cell phone picture, but check out this bento lunch that I got today from a cafe/lunch spot Teaism:
So cute! It’s definitely American-sized though; too much food. Fried chicken with a ginger dipping sauce, brown rice with furakake, cold sweet potato salad with miso dressing, and cucumber salad. It was $10, which is a decent price for getting good quality, sort-of nutritious food. There are tons of places around here with cheaper lunch specials, but they all just seem really unhealthy or gross. I can’t wait to try the one with seared rare tuna, which costs the same.
I had an AH-HA moment tonight. I bought a bunch of fresh peppermint from the farmer’s market because it looked and smelled so good, even though I had no idea what to do with it. So I just put a few leaves in a cup, poured in boiling water, and it was sooo good. I happen to love mint tea and now I can drink it all day every day for like $1 a bunch.
Hopefully with more time for exploring, and more money, I’ll find better things to eat.
