film food.

the food of this year's oscar-nominated best films. 

yolked.

leftover egg yolks from macaroon baking meant a sandwich was in order (i really am turning into liz lemon here). of course, one yolk broke in the pan and the other stayed intact.

on bread with some kind of stinky cheese and tomatoes? both yolks could have broken and it would not have mattered a single bit.

after peregrine.

i am completely smitten with peregrine espresso. sometimes i forget what it is called and i just tell casey i want to go to the place named for the bird. and then i tried to call it "serious" to april and adam (who visited us in DC last saturday!) but that did not go over well at all. it's just that they only do coffee. no syrups or frozen concoctions or any of those coffees that are practically ice creams. just amazeballs coffee. i think i've gotten a beautiful cappuccino every time i've been there and scones that just blow my mind. this time, i had fig and vanilla bean. WHAT?

so, of course, casey suggests that we walk the dogs to peregrine and i go inside and tell him we can't eat the scone until we go home because it is freezing cold. and we have the glorious coffees. so we go home and eat the scone and then the kid wants lunch.

and i'll eat lunch because i am going to get in a car with the dog for almost 5 hours and i should eat first.  it was almost a birthday lunch because i made casey open his gifts before i left and his birthday was in two days and we ate grilled cheese on wheat with chard inside and some greasy garbanzos with chard stems.

oh yes. that coffee. that boyfriend. i could have stayed there.

still around.

don't worry. the carrots are still around. i am totally this guy:

the grapefruits.

i mean, i just love them to pieces. i want to eat them all the time. thank goodness that trader joes sells  affordably-priced bags of normally-sized grapefruits. sometimes they are just SO BIG, right?

so, grapefruit. with greasy chickpeas (olive oil, salt, crushed red pepper), fried egg sandwich on sourdough with some kind of cheese. and coffee. always, always coffee.

the extraordinary science of junk food.

you should read this. now.

all the leftovers.

sunday's breakfast: half slice of pizza from pepper's (white pizza with tomato, basil, garlic, and onion), half of a hard-boiled egg, salad of lettuce, radish, carrot, celery with a vinaigrette, and two pieces of rye wasa crackers with cream cheese. with coffee. and a look-through of a copy of what katie ate garnered from inter-library loan after two months (that book is beautiful, just like the website).

oh, sandwich.

seriously. coffee, fried egg sandwich on sourdough, greasy beans (garbanzos with olive oil, sea salt, and crushed red pepper), slices of grapefruit.

this was an incredible breakfast. yes, it was.

last week.

grilled cheese on sourdough with broccoli roasted just like that awesome cauliflower, but with crushed red pepper. (because it makes everything better. everything.)

and from our favorite liz lemon, 

"I believe that all anyone really wants in this life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich."

thank you, LL.

divided.

totally into great divide over here. that's orabelle in the photo. and we picked up hades at the new, awkward bottle shop that might really want to be a bar. both belgian style ales.

small bread lunch.

on the shorter bread, i've been eating 3 open-faced sandwiches. call me a pig, i swear it's the same. tuesday's lunch: one slice with lettuce and melted cheddar, two slices (i am probably eating one as i snapped the photograph) of parsley, radish, tomato, mayonnaise, and fancy salt. with a couple of stalks of PICKLED celery (a project from two-ish weeks back that never got recorded/blogged).

baking bread.

i feel like i've given up on a lot of things in the market. i've quit buying salsa (it's been months and months) and i might be done buying bread. i was baking rye bread semi-regularly through the fall but then stopped when i went to new york.

upon return, i made a loaf of "fast white bread" from the joy of cooking. {do you own this book? you should. it's definitely my most-used cookbook.} it's really very easy, with not too many steps. about 2 hours from start to finish and that is F-A-S-T for bread.

i even photographed the steps! if you want me to type it up, i will, but seriously you need this book.

mine came out a little shorter than i wanted but it was still big enough for sandwiches. and! it lasted almost a week on the counter without molding. i ate it all so i don't know when the mold might have arrived, but i was going to put it in the fridge today if i hadn't consumed it all.

birdie.

an early arrival to durham for a meeting meant i got to visit hummingbird bakery. seriously, kids, it was the sweetest little place. i asked the barista to tell me about all of the things, and she was so wonderful about it. in addition to coffee (dark), i chose a lemon-raspberry cupcake. it's a rarity for me to actually want a cupcake, but it was so beautiful and sounded so lovely (i am in a bit of a citrus phase-- eating loads of grapefruits).

i didn't eat it for almost 3 hours! the meeting was delayed (but there was wine) and then, when i got home, i walked the pup and made my own dinner. and then! finally. i ate it.

divinity. i bet this awesomeness was made at like 7am. and! the cake was not dry at all. and it had raspberry filling! and the icing, while a little over the top, was lemon buttercream. OMFG. i ate it with a fork so that i could get icing and cake on every bite. yes. it was everything.

the photographs do not do it justice; i was impatient.

chop chop chop it up.

so, i imagine that everyone has a few things in his or her kitchen that ALWAYS get used: a particular spatula or pan, that fork you just love, a kitchen aid stand mixer that everyone always told you couldn't live without and you were living without it and then you got one and you don't know how you lived without it, particular bowls just because they are pretty but not really the right size. you get the idea.

my best appliance (besides the mixer) probably cost $15 when it was purchased. and that was probably 10 years ago. maybe more. maybe i had it in college. (i am getting old, kids.) it's a black and decker mini-chopper.

i use it because i don't want to use the food processor. mine is not the best, but more importantly, it has a million pieces that require cleaning. i am sure the food processor can handle bigger, tougher jobs better than this, but it's perfect for small batches. i used it to make hummus (a la smitten) this week. maybe it was not ethereally smooth, but it got close.

it's not important to have this exact one. lots of brands make similar products, and i happen to have this one. and i like it.

**the photo above is not mine. i was searching for a good image of it and apparently the newer ones look a bit different. it came from here.