31st.

i ate 3 meals in row that were take-out. god.

but i am back on track. i have a new farmers' market.

and i just bought a copy of food+sex magazine. awesome.

like on top chef.

i don't watch top chef. i don't have television, much less cable. but everyone seems to love it. kim challenged me to continue making food without buying anything. this continued to get crazier as we packed more items in the kitchen.

i made short-grain brown rice in vegetable broth instead of water. i sauteed farm-fresh summer squash, sweet corn and peppers, and onion in butter in the cast-iron skillet. i chilled each separately in the refrigerator. i then chopped yellow and red heirloom tomatoes, as well as carrots and basil. it was stirred together to become a lovely cold rice salad.
dessert. blueberry cobbler, made with the frozen blueberries. i used the recipe from last summer. it was enjoyed with chocolate ice cream, haagen-dazs. the best thing in the freezer growing up.
last night, we ordered pizza. there are no utensils, plates, pots, cutting boards, et cetera in the kitchen. it would have been impossible to cook. i move tomorrow and so i plan to resume cooking soon. please stand by during this commercial break.

yes, i got a keg.

i dream of having a kegerator, to have beer on tap in my home, to stop with the growler, which i love but it's hard to drink the 4 pints before it goes flat. it was better when blake was my roommate.

ray and i had been talking about getting a keg for months, when we began to randomly call blake and ask him questions about how many beers are in a keg. many. 150 or so. and yes, it comes to your house cold, and yes, the beer distributor will bring ice and a bin, and yes, a deposit is required. he is our personal keg information scientist.

since i am moving and losing the backyard, i decided to get a keg to say farewell to the apartment. it was supposed to be full of brooklyn weisse, which was only $10 more than amstel. but then, they couldn't get it so it soon became hoegaarden. and at the same price. yum.

this keg came with a slow, squeaky tap that sounded like people were having sex in an old bed when it was pumped. and you had to pump it while you poured it; it was a beer that came with a work-out. both awesome and ridiculous.

*we also brought out everything in the liquor cabinet for people to drink. it is part of the house-cleaning process. yes. and people did drink it. the backyard will be sad without our shenanigans.

**the photo is from the highline, but it seemed appropriate. dreams.

sundays with kim.

we are down to it. the cooking contests continue (me against the kitchen). tonight will be something. oh, man. the challenge to use what's in the house and buy nothing.

but, sunday morning was easy: flax toast with havarti, an egg over-hard, roasted potatoes with garlic, and tomato-basil salad. not the prettiest photo (or meal), but it sure tasted good.

that was our sunday together as roommates, but certainly not the last meal i make for her. she's the best to cook for, because she loves everything and never complains. she's a catch.

how to move an egg.

yes, it's a tampons box with 2 eggs and a toilet paper roll.

in the school where i teach, the physics classes always do this experiment where one has to create a carrier for an egg to be thrown from a high point and not break. i never took physics but i am sure that this has to do with absorbing shock.

i went to michelle's last week, with the plan of making us breakfast before we geeked out and colored in 19th century-themed coloring books. but i was only going to bring a couple of eggs on the journey, and did not want to transport the entire container.

what to do but look in the paper recycling bin for inspriation? c'mon. it worked. the eggs arrived intact.
and i made migas. again. with garlicky red potatoes, white rice(!) sauteed with onion and pepper, sliced heirloom tomatoes, and chips and salsa. oh, and beer and coffee. it's vacation, folks!

sweet delicious shopsins.

my friend, ryan, was in town last weekend and tracy convinced me to take him to shopsins. i had almost forgotten about it! mercy me.

there was a bit of a wait, and i could see ryan getting a little antsy, but i promised him it would be good. and there's that daunting menu of madness.

of course, he loved it. and wanted me to write about it on the internet. i told him i rarely write about food i ate in restaurants. but, well, this was a spectacular huevos rancheros: fried eggs covered in cheese, fresh corn tortillas, and enoromous, spicy (#7 on a scale of 1-10) vegetables and beans. do you see those jalapeno slices? it was messy and super and i sweated while i ate it.

fried. rice, this time.

as i continue the quest to eat my way out of this house, i discovered a bag of white rice last week. where did it come from? no idea. but it was there, and momentarily, became the starch of choice. i mean, who wants to move a bag of rice?

kim asked if i could do something exciting with it, like make fried rice, she said. ok.

blake had been the fried ricer in my last place, and i had never done it before. and i messed up on the first attempt. well, a little mess. i sauteed carrots, bok choy, onions, eggplant, and wax beans with garlic and chili oil. nervously, i removed the mixture from the wok onto a plate.

a rice experiment came next. the white rice was cooked, and the internet says (in some recipes) that the cook will fry the egg into the rice. i tried this, cracking the egg over the rice in the oily pot, but it seemed as though the rice sort of absorbed the egg, but in a way that made me think it was still uncooked. so i trashed it.

i added a little more oil to the wok and poured in an an already-scrambled egg. it cooked up immediately and then poured the rice in, and stirred until properly mixed. finally, the vegetables.

it was quite formidable, and better than the greasy god-knows-what they sell in those walk-in chinese food establishments. i ate the leftovers cold for lunch the next day.

colbert + nestle = madness.

the second video in a week. insanity.

this is awesome:
stephen colbert and marion nestle and a sugar crisis.



i am also now questioning my obsession with high-fructose corn syrup and the fact that i came of age in a town called sugar land. coincidence? maybe.

stars aligned.

“All of a sudden I am not the fringe idiot trying to get everyone to serve peas and carrots that don’t come out of a can, like that’s the most radical idea they have ever heard of,” she said.

that's from this article. school lunch change? hopefully.

is like.

michelle showed me this today. no, not the one who just gave birth. she's staring at the baby.

this what it feels like sometimes in the kitchen:

thank you, april. and adam.

april and adam are on vacation in colorado and have let me have their csa share for 2 weeks. i have tried for the last two years to join a csa and have been too late. poo.

it is so awesome. i received: one dozen eggs, 3 potatoes, 4 jalapenos, 3 beets, a green bell pepper, a bag full of wax beans, a cantaloupe, an eggplant, 4 enormous heirloom tomatoes, 3 onions, and a round, green summer squash. and i still had the veggies april gave me last week before she left town. oh my.

i also saw that great caterpillar on my walk through kensington.

this messes with the plan to eat my way out of the apartment. i will not go to the grocery store before i move, though. for lunch, i stir-fried bok choy, spicy red pepper, and onion, spooned it over long-grain white rice, and topped it with yellow salad pepper and carrots.
i also drank the last beer in the house: saranac pomegranate wheat. it did not taste like pomegranate or wheat, which is probably how i was able to drink it.

the cucumber.

april gave me this cucumber, which came from a friend's garden. upon further research, i learned that it is a lemon cucumber. it is supposed to be spicier, but mostly i find it to be seedier, but certainly tasty.

shockingly, i ate it in a sandwich, on flax-wheat bread with avocado and dill havarti, as well as some tomatoes and sliced peach.
today, i ate a simpler breakfast:
wasa multi-grain crackers with sliced cucumber, tomatoes, and avocado. and coffee. always.
have you noticed that i am out of eggs? ha.

she's here.

oh. my. god. she's actually here. michelle's baby, zoe (well, she's alex's too). 10 days late. it must have been so comfortable in there. and during those days of waiting, michelle had the time to read and send me this article.

it's difficult to know which foods are safe enough to eat with a clean conscience and ny magazine helps us figure out the intricacies.

i have learned:
1. it will be hard to only eat tomatoes july-november.
2. i am glad i buy my eggs in the farmers' market.
3. i am still making lots of mistakes, even though i try.

it's going to be VERY difficult to teach zoe about food (which is what michelle claims is my role as godmother).

more. more. more. and a poem.

i am conscious of how many eggs i eat. seriously. i try not to eat more than 3 or 4 in a week. all that cholesterol, you know? but it is hard because i am not working this summer, and it was my go-to weekend breakfast. and now every day feels like weekend. for a few more weeks, at least.

• toasted flax-wheat bread with a fried egg and gouda
• yellow plum
• okra with onion, garlic, and portuguese pepper, sauteed in olive oil
  

i love plums. i will be so sad when summer is over and so are they.

william carlos williams must have loved them, too. he wrote this poem about them.

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

proof.

there it is: the big okra.

fast.

i am unsure as to why i did not blog this breakfast. this was a challenge; i was cooking for myself and kim, and she had an apartment to see. soon. so i had to move fast.

there was leftover brown rice in the refrigerator. i sauteed some green beans and wax beans in olive oil and garlic, and then added the rice to the skillet, resulting in a sort of fried rice. to round off the meal, one egg over-medium, a salad of kirby cucumbers and tomatoes with goddess dressing, and toasted pita (with peach jam added later).

safer meat?

on tuesday, july 28, 2009:

U.S. Senator Tom Udall, D-N.M., today introduced legislation giving the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) authority to initiate mandatory meat product recalls. Under current law, USDA does not have the authority to issue a mandatory recall of meat believed to be dangerous. The decision to recall or comply with requests from the USDA to recall unsafe products is left in the hands of food processors. This forces the USDA to engage in time-consuming negotiations with meatpackers before pulling tainted meat from store shelves, and it gives meatpackers an effective veto on recalls.

it should be obvious that we deserve safe meat. safe food, in general. but, if the USDA had this ability, would they use it? they have yet to prove to use their power to protect the consumer. tainted food should leave the shelves immediately. maybe the store owners should face shut-down for lack of cooperation.

hot, then cold.

i am going to eat us out of this apartment. i do not want to move food when we move at the end of the month. last night's meal for myself and kim included soup. she seemed concerned, as she is incessantly warm, but the hot part of the meal was followed by a cold part. the soup was fresh bell pepper, onion, and tomato cooked into organic tomato soup with basil and buffalo mozzarella. and then there were spring rolls. yum.

the wrong size.

my okra is bigger than my cucumber. what? really? it seems wrong. this okra is almost 6 inches long. i bought it last week in the farmers' market, and it is quite possibly the best okra i have ever had. perfection. not too fuzzy. courtney told me that while she was in austin, she had okra that was fried whole, not sliced, battered, and then fried. it sounds pretty exciting, but i don't like to deep-fry at home. it makes the house smell "fried" for weeks.

so i sauteed the okra with scallions and garlic in olive oil. i ate it with a grilled cheese sandwich (jalapeno havarti on baugette), sliced apricots, and red potato salad.

water, water everywhere?

1. much of the bottled water is just TAP water.
2. there is a plastic "island" of sorts the size of texas in the pacific ocean.
3. we probably should not drink so much bottled water.

and now, there's a film about it.

this is the end.

an assignment: imagine your last meal. you can have anything (and everything) you want. what will it be? it can be as specific or vague as you wish. tell me yours, and i'll tell you mine.

it's already august.

i refuse to start a countdown. because that would be over-thinking it. but the end of summer is imminent, and we have yet to have enough sunny days. or enough time doing nothing.

so, the end of july was supposed to bring the goddaughter, but she's hiding out for a little while. she knows this weather sucks; she doesn't want michelle to have to hail a cab in a downpour. yes. we wait.

and while this blog still reflects the number of fried eggs i eat, it also brings me to mention that i also eat tons of sandwiches. i swear i read somewhere that most meals in america are sandwiches, but i have no clue as to where i read that statistic. well, i love sandwiches. you could put almost anything between two pieces of good bread and the meal would be better.

this particular sandwich is a fried egg with smoked gouda on a baguette. i ate it with corn chips and a salad of spinach, basil, tomatoes, and a balsalmic vinegrette. you know you want to eat more meals at my house.