there might not have been much.

but we bought all the things that there were possible to have (that we did not already have at home) at the farmers' market.

after-market lunch = sandwich on homemade whole-wheat-flax bread with goat cheese (garbo from celebrity dairy), spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, and mayonnaise (the mayo is not from the market). plus a pile of potato chips.

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.

those fromagiers.

SOOOOO creative, you guys.

wisCONsin.

 

is there a song about wisconsin? i don't mean about things within in it, like beer or cheese or badgers, but i mean like "oklahoma" or "texas, our texas." 

after a night of deep-dish pizza in chicago, shira and i left for milwaukee, where i was catching a plane to DC (i know, it was a crazy month). wisconsin was another new state for me, not that i have caught up to casey yet. we arrived at the mars cheese castle, which was indeed a castle but not regal. 

yes, at 1130am, we consumed a couple of bottles of new glarus and a pile of cheese curds in a parking lot. a perfect conclusion.

snacks.

stepping up the snacks with casey on saturday afternoon: strawberries, french breakfast radishes with sea salt, kalamata olives (which apparently neither of us really love), grainy crackers, raw milk hickory cheese, and muenster cheese. and a limonata.

the dream, kids.

it's like i forgot i eat breakfast.

seriously, i am still eating fried eggs like a mad woman. and last saturday, post farmers' market, i made the most delicious breakfast i have had in a while: sourdough with tomato, fried egg, and smoky mozzarella (which i am obsessed with these days). and some broccoli and cauliflower.

it is likely that the photos do not do it justice. this sandwich was AH-mazing.

fuck yeah, christmas.

so we threw a little christmas party with the above title. it might be a little vulgar for the birth of jesus, but my holiday spirit is high. it is. i even made an ornament this week. and holiday decorations. and cookies with candy canes in them. and i am traveling all the way to buffalo for what casey keeps referring to as "catholic christmas," which apparently does not include midnight mass but instead a buffalo bills game (against whatever team tim tebow is on). 

so, yes, a little party. with the fanciest cheeses. alex and i made a special trip to southern season to pick the most perfect ones: sheep, cow, and goat. and rosemary bread. and peach bitters. that place is really something.

 

casey actually hosted/bartended this fête: three kinds of bourbon, as well as gin and sparkling wine. and punch, of course.

 

i am working my way through damon boelte's catalog of punches--this is his ruben's cooler no. 2, a concoction of gin, elderflower liquor, fresh-squeezed lemon juice, cucumber, and soda water.  

always a smash.

ask and you shall receive.

a mention for gf cheez-its means that's what we are cooking at casa smash this morning.

remember, i've done this before.

snackety snack.

i have consumed a lot of cheese + crackers lately.  a lot a lot. 

you cannot go wrong with this choice.

when we sing, we begin with do-re-mi.

perfection: an egg and cheese biscuit from sunrise biscuit kitchen, with hashbrown. 

the sunrise biscuit kitchen is a local institution. it's a drive-thru biscuit shop in chapel hill, with lengthy lines of cars every weekend morning. it's greasy and lovely and cheap and is, quite possibly, the best cure for a hangover. most people, after they buy their biscuits (with chicken or bacon or whatever you might want), scoot their cars and trucks into the small parking lot next door and eat the goodies in the car! for the most part, there's no waiting 'til you get home.

a sneak.

casey's cheez-its. photos of so many things are on the way, including thanksgiving!

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.

weeks ago.

i made the nytimes mac n'cheese recipe weeks ago. a fraction of the whole recipe. in my toaster oven. with a little too much cayenne.

years ago, michelle (zoe's mom) emailed me this recipe. she said it would make my heart stop a little. and it's become my favorite. it's delicious. and easy. and probably pretty fattening. i don't mind. it's not like i eat it every day, kids!

secretly.

once a year, usually in the darkness of winter, i eat a box of velveeta shells and cheese. i love it. it's got a weird packet of cheese that i know would survive nuclear fallout and pasta that cooks way too fast. is it because it is enriched? i have no idea. and truthfully, i don't really want to know.

but i always preferred velveeta to kraft mac n'cheese (which the canadians just call "kraft dinner"). i thought the powdery cheese, as a child, was even more bizarre than the processed velveeta. you can't use the whole packet; it's just too damn cheesey, but that means you can eat it again the next day. and then i am satiated for another year. i go back to over-thinking everything i put in my mouth.

oh! upon further research, i learned that velveeta is a kraft product. they just dominate the mac market. don't talk to me about annie's or any of the versions they probably sell at the cooperative. potentially tasty, also with a powdered cheese, but not the taste of my childhood. the taste of zoe's, maybe.

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.

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.

in a jiffy.

in which i convinced yelena to come to my neighborhood for dinner with me and keith. we cannot eat all the vegetables fast enough.

• roasted kohlrabi with parmesan
• green beans with italian bread crumbs
• sauteed baby kale with mushrooms, scapes, and baby squash
• salad of boston and red lettuces, blueberries, radish, cucumber, and roasted beets
• grilled cheese: scarmozza on ciabatta

i am in love with this cheese, by the way. it's lightly smoky and, apparently, only slightly aged. it is really incredible. i could eat blocks of it.

how to be portuguese

rule number one: eat pastries.

the portuguese love pastries. every few steps in portugal lies a pastelaria or a confeitaria. they are huge fans of sugary, bready delights with powdered sugar or custard or powdered sugar and custard. you can get a pastry and an espresso for less than $2.
pastry 1: lisbon, cake partially covered in chocolate with apricot jam filling

pastry 2: sintra, queijada. this is what they are known for in sintra. it's almost like a tart, with a thin crust and sugary cheese filling.
pastry 3: lisbon, puffy brioche-like pastry covered in powdered sugar.
pastry 4: porto, similar to pastry 3 but with custard inside. EVERYONE sells these. they are in all of the shop windows. it came from a place called pastelaria basptista. i like to think it was a religious act to eat it.

thankfully.

it looks so good, right? natural light really does the trick.

today's breakfast: sliced tomatoes and peppers, yellow corn chips. toasted sandwich with an egg over-easy and pawlet cheese from consider bardwell farm. so tasty, that cheese. and iced coffee.

also of note:

• this week's issue of the nation is all about food; it is themed "food for all."
  
• hi-fructose magazine is really cool, and there's quite a bit of stuff about food.
• the fda is adjusting its guidelines on beer and other malt beverages because of the increased instances of gluten-free beer.
• i am agitated about "no impact man," a film about a man who swears off plastic, electricity, non-organic foods, and more for one year. and forces his family to do so, too. this is not the solution.
• i had the BEST lunches when i was in elementary school, when tina was still making them. i am positive that if she had known about bento boxes, i would have had one.
• i have been watching man v food on netflix: watch instantly. so excited for juan in a million when i get to austin in a few weeks. i will not be attempting the don juan taco eating challenge, though. (i did once try to convince a date that i could out-eat him. he did not believe me, but did not let me try, either. i won that pie-eating contest last year, you know. it's on youtube. and is so gross.)