the newest adjective.

bananay. instead of banana-y. or bananaier. or bananaiest.

definition: more banana. full of banana flavor.

thanks, colin.

they weren't kidding.

the farmer told me those serrano peppers would be spicy.

let's just say i am thankful i didn't touch my eyes. they were SPICY. deliciously.

with some government reading about water.

friday's late breakfast included sourdough wheat with quark and a little sea salt, a salad of basil and tomatoes, and sauteed okra with garlic, onion, and spicy red pepper.

quark is little like cream cheese, but more adult. initially, i only liked with other vegetables. it took a little while for it to grow on me, but i ate it by itself again today on rye toast. it is an eastern european variety of cheese, traditionally made without rennet, and lower in fat than many other cheeses. i had never seen it before i purchased it at the farmers' market, and it is apparently not very common in america generally.

les pommes de terre.

what? don't your potatoes look like mine? additionally, my cucumber is yellow and my tomatoes are purple.

it's all very dr. seuss down here.

got eggs.

they are from north carolina. i am back in business. whew!

not because of the recall.

have i mentioned that half a billion (it's actually an increasing number) eggs have been recalled? not the organic ones, or so i've heard. and the company has a history of food controversy. and i am out of eggs. and there were none at the farmers' market.

it's problematic. for me, because i love eggs. and for you, because you probably want to eat some, too, and you can't buy any because the ones at the grocery store are tainted. potentially full of salmonella or some other food-borne illness.

so i eat sourdough with the quark cheese and tomatoes and cucumber and basil. and drink the last bit of my coffee from gorilla. and study math.

sprite.

august 8th, breakfast.

i would've just skipped the post but i wanted you to see the sprite melon. enjoyed with a fried egg sandwich with tomato and basil. and coffee. same old, same old.

you will be jealous.

my farmers' market is so goddamn exciting. today i learned that i will soon be able to pick up growlers of fullsteam beer there, if i choose which kind i want online ahead of time. it's local. it's tasty. it's sustainable. oh holy hell.

SO exciting.

and the bounty: 4 kinds of tomatoes, 3 kinds of cucumbers, basil, eggplant, peppers (sweet and spicy), corn, okra, potatoes (white and purple). sourdough bread and quark cheese not pictured.

as you can see, oliver really wanted to chew on the corn. i promise i did not let him do so.

math camp.

so it seems as though the math camp has eaten all of my time and i wrote nothing all last week, probably because i didn't eat anything of substance.

this week brings goat cheese yogurt with ginger granola every morning. a power breakfast or sorts.

and obviously, there will be snacks. and proper meals, i swear.

a poem.

"apple," by gertrude stein. from her book, tender buttons, which has an entire section on food.

Apple plum, carpet steak, seed clam, colored wine, calm seen, cold cream, best shake, potato, potato and no no gold work with pet, a green seen is called bake and change sweet is bready, a little piece a little piece please.

A little piece please. Cane again to the presupposed and ready eucalyptus tree, count out sherry and ripe plates and little corners of a kind of ham. This is use.

or, you can listen to it here.

the worm.

ok. brace yourself. the carrboro farmers' market is only open from 7am to noon on saturdays and 330-7pm on wednesdays. those are some pretty small windows to find food. when i rode there on wednesday, i missed it completely and rode about a mile too far over small hills but in some pretty awful heat. i have realized, though, that it's much, much cooler in the morning and at night, and that it is really the heat slowing me down, not my lack of athleticism (which is certainly still a component of the equation). i was awake pretty early this morning and even with my dawdling, i was there at 10am, which was late. i almost did not get any eggs.

how would i be able to go on? with no eggs? i eventually found a farmer with exactly one dozen left. thankfully. and pears, tomatoes, garlic, cucumbers, potatoes, cheese.

so i went home and read the new yorker and leisurely ate my fried egg, garlicky purple potatoes, green beans with brown jasmine rice, and a small salad of english cucumber and sungold tomatoes (with a little salad supreme).
but my dinner, while seemingly simple, was great. pasta with sweet peppers, sungold tomatoes, tons of basil, and smoked mozzarella. i seasoned it only with sea salt, and crushed red & black pepper.
the times of this farmers' market are confining. i have to be awake and ready to ride my bike early each saturday?! i am going to be so strong. and this early bird is going to get that worm.

almost time.

i start math camp next week (and am hoping it ends in a song session) and so i am going back to yogurt breakfast. i bought the full-fat cream-top brown cow plain yogurt in the cooperative earlier this week and it is delicious. and not too expensive. it is topped off with some honey-raisin granola.

i am hoping to find some yogurt that comes in a glass container, like milk thistle, as orange county (no, not in california! north carolina.) has similar recycling rules as new york: bottle-shaped plastics only. ugh.

no longer garbage.

have i mentioned we are COMPOSTING here? so, so exciting.

and, a favorite pete seeger song (learned at summer camp and now even more relevant):

food and think.

do you ever read food and think, the food part of smithsonian magazine? i think the author is pretty smart. today, she published a list of summer reading for food lovers. you can find it here.

can you believe i haven't read any of it?

new beginnings.

i live in a place where biking is seemingly the best mode of transportation. and i got a bike and a lock and i live in a central location and, well, it's uphill to anywhere from my place.

seriously.

but i made it to the farmers' market yesterday and came home with sweet corn, basil, sungold tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers (long and small), granny smith apples, and a sprite melon.

what is a sprite melon, you ask? it tastes like a combination between a cantaloupe and a honey dew. it's yellow-white inside and out. cultivated in north carolina. rock.

and farmers cheese. this farmers' market crew was really into letting you taste things. makes a big difference.

so, my first home-cooked dinner was brown jasmine rice with corn, peppers, basil, and tomatoes. yes.

the nerdiest.

a friend and i watched a lot of old episodes of the gilmore girls this summer. and created a drinking game, which includes beer (mostly from brooklyn) and shots of tequila and references to the DAR. and i am fairly certain that it is the nerdiest drinking game ever. this is a photo of her cat, as the intelligent hysteria produced by this game was not documented.

but if you ever want the rules, send me an email.

before the drive.

i really thought i was going to eat like a crazy carnivore before i left new york: hot dogs and sushi and sausage pizza and god knows what else. but i didn't. my friends did surprise me with a dinner at walter foods and i got so emotionally tangled and confused that i ordered (and ate!) fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy. but that was an anomaly. an oddly delicious anomaly. i also thought i would eat doughnuts at the doughnut plant and that ludo would force me to try the bbq at fette sau, but those events never happened.

mostly, i tried to eat everything from the csa. and then some. mostly sandwiches.

courtney and i did do a trip to sri pra phai, where we ate pretty much everything vegetarian on the menu. it was a true feast that i did not photograph because we were so excited and ate it all. but it did begin with the orangiest and tastiest thai iced tea ever.and, just for sentimentality, the last meal i made in the apartment. a sandwich made with the end of the baguette, toasted with cheddar cheese, and probably tomatoes. a sliced kirby cucumber (my fave). leftover brown rice sauteed with onions and green beans. and an iced coffee, from somewhere in da hood.
not pictured: food and cocktails at lucali's, the brooklyn farmacy (which might get its own post), flatbush farm, henry public, cafe pedlar, egg. i really did eat my way out of town.

brooklyn is really going to be hard to top: all that local, organic goodness. sigh.

it's true.

i live in north carolina. posts to follow. no food for now.