the president mentioned,

and i have a solution: the little red wagon.

i am a part of an interdisciplinary team working to reduce rates of childhood obesity in north carolina. we conceived a mobile market/ food truck that would bring low-cost fruits and vegetables into food deserts (where there is little or no access to grocery stores). it's really very awesome and doable. and we've already in touch with all sorts of community members, some of whom are in the video.

the team is a finalist in the emerging issues competition. we need your vote to win. no need to create a user name or anything of the sort.

you don't even have to watch the videos if you don't want. just check "little red wagon."
http://www.ncsu.edu/iei/?page_id=842

please. the greatest birthday present if we win next week.

baked chocolate yum.

baked sunday (#4 for me, #6 for everyone else).

double chocolate loaf with creamy peanut butter spread.
so easy. so delicious. you will want to make this all the time; it's just so awesome.

you can get the recipe via the link above.
i hand-chopped what seemed like tons of chocolate. opening all those bars made me feel as though i worked in veruca salt's father's company, searching for her golden ticket. (she's, easily, my favorite character. i LOVE that movie.)
and there you go! the cake. on my marimekko plate that matches my childhood sheets. weird, huh? i found those plates in the thrift store yesterday and almost died.
i also thrifted these fancy glass plates with matching glasses that fit onto them. PERFECT for double chocolate loaf with peanut butter cream cheese spread. and coffee.

but the cake! the cake! the loaf. the oversized brownie. whatever you want to call it. fantastic.

a bit more than one hour 15 minutes in the oven, but the house smelled so sweet the entire way.

my week is going to taste delicious.

the social contract.

as i read jean-jacques rousseau's the social contract for my ethics class, i eat sunflower wheat toast with nutella. i am pretty sure he'd approve.

additionally, i treated myself to an episode of the barefoot contessa this morning. her friends were on vacation and she made food for them to have when they got back! macaroni and cheese. lemon mousse. oh, to be her friend...

the rockest rock stars.

pavement on ace of cakes. so cool.
(i had to go with a link because i was struggling with embedding the videos.)

come back.

i want warm weather and the csa. we've already paid for spring and summer and i am ready.

and then, blake said

that if i ever had my own restaurant, i would offer a fried egg on top of anything for $1.50. anything the customer wanted.

he's so smart, that trivia-winning whippersnapper. i would do just that. everything is better with a fried egg on top. at least everything savory.

not sure it's better.

food executives are starting to take initiative, making changes to product labeling, moving the information to the front of the package. but, is it any easier to read? better information? do the consumers know what to do with it?

michelle obama apparently challenged food manufacturers to make this change. originally a conversation that included the FDA, the federal government moved too slowly (again!) and so industry took matters into their hands.

what do we think? it's not the labeling i had hoped. read the whole story here.

alec baldwin shops for ina garten.

too much goodness in one place.

go here.

almost last.

store-bought tomato soup doctored with onions and garlic and crushed red pepper. slices of baguette with some sort of cheese. colored pencils and the last handful of drawings in the sketchbook. the end of the townhouse on umstead before i packed up the kitchen.

so there's that.

i make a sandwich to take for lunch everyday. this week, it was much like this: multi-grain bread with tomato, cheddar, sprouts, cucumber, and dijon mustard. and a carrot.

it's too hard to be creative before school. and i like the portability of a sandwich. gimme a break.

roommate #20.

you might have been my roommate. i've had 20, i think. i might have forgotten some in my count. this is my newest roommate, shira. SO expected. we should have done this in august.
we are close to having a complete apartment. the kitchen is predominately finished but the living room is lacking furniture. we welcoming couch donations. and coffee tables, if you have one to give away.

so, first meal on pleasant drive. there was no kitchen table last week, so we sat on the floor and ate on a box; it was very japanese-seeming.
fried eggs with buttery potatoes, sauteed red chard + onions, toast with farmhouse cheddar.
casey looks hungry. like he moved a lot of things. which he did. so i fed him.

also, it's pretty cold in my new apartment, so all the new photos include hats.

again, but only up the street.

i moved. AGAIN.

needed: kitchen table + chairs, colander, dish rack, metal spatula, other things i can't remember right now.

posts to come. breakfast was had on the floor.

sesame street community gardening.

LOVE.
thanks, streetgardening.org. for better viewing, go to their site.

all the veggie ladies.

Super Sprowtz on Vimeo.

wishes come true.

there was a hell of a lot of indulging during my visit. i pretty much got to choose where we went every time we went out. which was every day. and i told yelena and kat i wanted to brunch at what i could only call "the new freemans." it's called peels.

southern food is super "in" in new york, and i had been avoiding it because, well, i live in the south, and that's what we've got down here. but i really wanted to try this place.

i ate the "greens and eggs:" poached eggs with creamed collards and hen-of-the-wood mushrooms and onions. and a biscuit. seriously, one of the best meals i had in new york.
and a michelada, which is kind of a summery drink, but you can't really go wrong with beer in a huge glass dipped in spices. and a cute waiter who continuously refills your coffee.

aim high.

2 days, 2 bagels.
if i could have consumed more, i probably would have. i love that this ess-a-bagel has the sesame seeds on the bottom. what happened? who knows? it was fucking delicious.
bagel day #2 included a jaunt to my favorite coffee truck for a big mud mocha. i lucked out on that one, staying in my borrowed pied-à-terre on 13th street.

all i ever wanted.

veselka. new years day. with my favorite russian and her boyfriend, a potential descendant of the moors (moops, perhaps).

the deluxe vegetarian: 3 pierogis (potato, cheese, mushroom & sauerkraut), kasha with mushroom gravy, meatless stuffed cabbage. christmas borscht. a salad with some sort of dill dressing. sour cream.

all of my favorite foods. and people.
we laugh as the glass of orange juice is so small, even for a child.

attractive, not orange.

i eat TONS of carrots. and now we know why i am so damn pretty.

but,

that brie might not make it to next week's lunches. i keep eating it.

first breakfast home.

yesterday.
i couldn't be bothered to get my camera, so i used photobooth. but, this breakfast was awesome: roasted yukon gold potatoes, sauteed green beans and mushrooms, a fried egg (store-bought), carrots, and a slice of rye toast with brie.

on that note, i thought a lot about whether i should buy the brie. i usually buy tamer cheeses for my lunches--partially because i tend to buy less expensive cheeses for sandwiches and partially because i don't like to have stinky lunches. i don't want to offend.

but is brie offensive? brie de meaux is MUCH stinker, tastier. and all those varieties i ate in france that smelled like the roller rink. the absolute best.

but probably not lunch-appropriate. maybe only in france.

roommate practice.

in which i drove THE CAR to the carrboro beverage company, tasted some beers with too much hops, and then drove shira and myself back home for dinner. while i chopped vegetables and made jasmine rice, shira researched our spring CSA (so. very. exciting.) and uploaded the new superchunk into my itunes.

we consumed: a brother david's triple abbey style ale and a thai curry of sorts. i sauteed collard greens, carrots, onions, green beens, and garlic in a little olive oil and curry powder, and then covered it in cocount milk, letting it simmer for a bit. we dry-roasted (is that the right word?) the chickpeas in a pan with the teensiest amount of sesame oil. then we put it all in a bowl and gobbled it up.

this is all going to work out. 2011 is going to be a good one.

in the fattest city in america.

there is a BEEF FAT SPILL in the houston ship channel. 15,000 gallons of animal fat that congealed immediately. oh holy hell.

from the huffington post:

Unlike oil, beef fat doesn't create a colorful sheen on the surface of the water that can be skimmed off, [Richard] Brahms said. ... Workers are using fishnets to corral the fat, then pitchforks to lift 1-foot-by-1 foot chunks of the cream-colored debris, officials said.

you love your hometown no matter what, right?

the return.

i went to new york for a week. and didn't cook anything. reports of foods to come. stand by.

never baked.

dear baked explorations team,

i was vacationing (in brooklyn!) during our last exploration. i apologize for my inability to participate in the adventure. unfortunately, i am moving during the next one so it's unsure if my baking gear will be accessible at the time. i swear i will be back.

thank you for understanding,
smashedgoods