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When I got home with my heavy bag of loot from the farmer’s market, I realized I’d also brought a little friend with me! Hello ladybug! In anticipation of having a functional stove again today (finally), I bought some tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant with the idea to roast them into some kind of sauce. Years ago, when we were growing copious amounts of tomatoes in our front yard in Oregon, we’d find ourselves at this late summer date with far, far too many to eat. So we’d roast them and freeze them for sauces. It’s a great idea, and am planning on reviving the practice for myself! No idea what the final outcome will be, but once it’s come to pass, I will post a recipe or method.
The other prize I came home with was a bag of grapes. It sounds ridiculous to describe a bag of grapes as a prize, but you must trust me. These grapes are like candy. They’re buttery in texture, tangy, and taste of honey. They’re incredible. If you’ve only ever eaten bland grocery store grapes, get thee to a farmer’s market and have some real grapes, stat. It will change your life. I have a pickled grape recipe I’ve been meaning to try, but I wouldn’t dare make it with these, they’re too delicate and tasty. In fact, they probably won’t last another hour!
OK, OK, I know the last like, 3 months (oh god, has it been 3 months? almost.) have proven to me that blogging is hard. When you also have to, like, do stuff and work. But frankly it’s made me a bit sad to see it fall by the wayside. I have completed a dreaded move (though my new oven is…touchy) and am ready to jump back in. Or so I hope. Perhaps this weekend I can make it to the farmer’s market and create something tasty that does not involve baking. In any case. I’m baaaaack!
Tonight! Tonight I promise to update with photos of the beautiful smoked turkey we ate at Thanksgiving, some delicious monkey bread I made Sunday (you’ll see…and want to have a brunch party stat) and hopefully some sort of cold-weather delight that is as yet undetermined for dinner tonight. Now that I’ve put it in writing, I’ll be forced to do it. Maybe I’ll even post pictures of the knitting projects that have kept me occupied in the evenings lately!
My family is not big on what you might consider typical traditions. Maybe it’s because we don’t belong to any church, or maybe it’s just that standing on ceremony isn’t our style. We were mostly vegetarian when I was a kid, so I don’t have memories of big, brown turkeys coming out of the oven at Thanksgiving, or Christmas hams. We didn’t have a stack of worn-out recipes passed on through generations, although we did have my Aunt Dotty’s cranberry butter (technically she was my cousin twice removed, but who knows what that means?). Our main dish for Thanksgiving was usually vegetarian lasagna, since we never cooked much meat, and even my dad, the closest to a carnivore in the family, thinks turkey is overrated. I had no clue what a green bean casserole was for a long time, and still can’t figure out why people put marshmallows on sweet potatoes. We kind of made our traditions up as we went instead.
I always have to have pumpkin pie (although ironically, this year, I am making sweet potato pie instead). And stuffing. Stuffing is my favorite. I have a soft spot for the store bought stuff, the Pepperidge Farms herbed stuffing, that you can add pretty much whatever you want to. When you first dump that bag of dry bread into the pot with the melted butter and stock it doesn’t seem like there will be nearly enough moisture, but sure enough, with persistent stirring (and losing a few bread cubes over the side of the pot) you’ll get there. I’m pretty sure my dad was putting apples, cranberries and pecans into our stuffing before it was trendy.
I’ve only spent one Thanksgiving with my family in the last 9 years. New York to Portland, Oregon, on a 4 day weekend is nearly impossible. So, I’ve sort of carried on the tradition of not having traditions — or at least making them up as I go. Quite a few of my New York Thanksgivings have been with my college friend Gemma, and we can’t seem to have a big feast without a wheel of brie, baked into Pillsbury crescent dough. That’s a good tradition. I also can’t make it through Thanksgiving without watching (at least once) Home for the Holidays. I’ve not lost my middle school crush on Dylan McDermott and his blue eyes, despite the fact that his hair cut in that movie is frighteningly similar to Jerry Seinfeld’s puffy pseudo-mullet of the early 90′s. You know the haircut I mean.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Food, friends, wine, and as an added bonus, it’s non-denominational. Enjoy, stuff yourselves, and I’ll post all about my dishes after I’m able to wear pants that button.
OK, I’m exaggerating. I fail at…consistently blogging. But I have reasons!
1. Grad school applications
2. Studying for the GRE (see #1)
3. Cook-offs
4. Laziness
The thing is, I’ve been cooking plenty, just not really documenting it so well. And frankly, I don’t think saying I made a recipe and then linking to said recipe on another blog is really that worthy of a post. PLUS much of my cooking has been recipe testing for cook-offs….and I can’t very well post my recipe before the actual cook-off happens, now can I?
I can’t promise that over the next few weeks I will be much better, but I will at least try to take a couple pictures of the end product if I do cook something successfully.
AND! Fierce & Sweet is just 2 weeks away, and tickets are now on sale. All the cool people are going.
I think I’m biased against food trucks in New York because they all seem to serve the same unidentifiable meat chopped up and covered in hot sauce over rice. Which, don’t get me wrong, is kind of delicious in a risking-your-own-life kind of way, but it’s not exactly groundbreaking cuisine. Lately a few new trucks have rolled into town, though. One of the newest is the Bistro Truck on 5th Ave and 17th. And it’s awesome.
Now, I’ve only tried their Belgium Fries with Harissa Mayo (shouldn’t it be Belgian fries?) and their vegetable cigar appetizer (basically a delicious veggie spring roll with homemade phyllo dough instead of wonton), but both were excellent and very inexpensive. But I will definitely go back, because they have a veggie tagine on their menu and a bunch of delicious-sounding sandwiches on the menu too. And the guys were really nice. Check it out, and join their Facebook fan club!
Things have been a little slow around here the past week or so, and that’s because I have vacation on the brain. Tomorrow night I’ll be headed to Portland, Oregon, where I promise to visit farmer’s markets, take pictures, and eat some good food. I’ll try to post while I’m there. And it couldn’t come soon enough — I don’t think I can tolerate another day of this New York August weather!
Saturday morning at the Union Square Farmer’s Market. Perfection. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
Sometimes I’m sad that I only have 2 to cook for when I go to the farmer’s market. I could seriously walk away with one of everything.
After my successful first week of feeding 2 people 3 meals a day for $50, I’m off to a rocky start.
Sunday was fine — I made more brown bread, and the lentil recipe I listed before. It made even more leftovers than I expected, so that is great.
Monday I made Jamaican Jerk Chicken (I used the other half of the bone-in, skin-on chicken I’d used for the Arroz con Pollo last week) and Fried Plantains (yum – and only 3 for a dollar). There was a enough left over for Brian’s lunch.
Then Tuesday was a little weird. I got a free lunch from work, and after work we went out to The Young and Hungry launch party, which featured some yummy food and drink. Also free. (Thanks guys, it was a blast!) Then at 10 pm, a group of us went to Broome Street Bar and ate Nachos. Aah, a healthy dinner. At least it only averaged to something like $6 for the two of us, so I guess it came out OK.
Tonight I plan on making a cold noodle salad with spicy peanut sauce — it’s way too humid out to be using the oven. Then because of the holiday weekend, there are going to be parties and outings, and I just don’t know if I’m going to have a solid meal plan that will work. I have other dishes I planned on making, but now the days are all screwed up and my three day weekend is beckoning to me.
Sigh. It really does feel like extenuating circumstances are more the norm than the “norm” is the norm….whatever that means. Noodle salad recipe plus prices for the jerk chicken & plantains to come later…
Perhaps it’s a little premature to be doing any sort of reflecting, given I’m 3 1/2 days into my 4 week budgeting exercise. I guess realization number one is that it might be a little obnoxious to call it an “exercise” given I am privileged enough to call it that and not just “life”. It has always made me feel pretty icky, this question of privilege, and while on the one hand I can be judgey mc judgerpants (THOSE shoes with THAT dress? puh-lease) I also fear judging that which I do not understand. Like the choices faced by millions, nay, billions of people across the planet, not about “what should I eat for dinner tonight” but “can I eat dinner tonight?” I’m trying to find the sweet spot between being empathetic but not patronizing, and also living and enjoying my own life. I’m not really there yet, and this endeavor has highlighted that for me.
On the flip side, I feel a bit like the next four weeks are going to be somewhat…editorially boring. Even though the point of this blog is not to impress people (ok, who am I kidding, I want to IMPRESS YOU), “cheap” dishes feel a little inadequate in these interwebs full of amazing food blogs. Is this a personal hang-up about feeling like my food is “rustic” and therefore not “gourmet” enough? Maybe. But then again, I would prefer to leave the molecular gastronomy to the experts and cook eggs the good old-fashioned way.
I think as much as anything, these next few weeks will reveal my personal relationship with food and cooking, and how it may be a window to other things. And I hope along the way it will offer some advice and observations that are useful to anyone who likes to eat or cook mindfully.
