is two.

my little tank of a pup turned two on tuesday. her brother stole and ate her rawhide sushi (a christmas gift) and so we gave her his rawhide donut (which he also secretly stole and ate).

it's been cold all week. i've spent too much time in a car. now it's raining and i am (again) stuck inside working on dissertation proposal details, which are frustratingly complex. luckily, there's been lots of delicious coffee, consumption of the holiday beer, and a hot chocolate party(!) on the horizon.

on another note, i wrote a little thing about kale and my concern for its safety when consumed raw.

who's ready for spring already? this girl.

measured.

casey's mama gifted me a kitchen scale for my birthday. it's pretty awesome. i'd been wanting one and then this adorable red one showed up on my doorstep. (there's a matching apron but that's to come later.)

we tested out its abilities by making ice coffee in the chemex.

we read loads of recipes for doing this in the chemex and we'd done it before! in the end, we followed this japanese brewed iced coffee recipe. i've got a metal kone filter so it brews a bit differently, but it's awesome because you don't have all that filter waste. 

cold brew tends to be weaker than i want. i am not sure why. even though we ran the water through the grounds twice. we ended up drinking the coffee with milk. 

and, we re-used the grounds to cold brew in a jar because the coffee was so weak. it was not terrible--about as weak/strong as what we made in the chemex.

but the scale was amazing.

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.

birthdayed out.

ok, so it wasn't like this photo. this is a picture of me eating a burger at minetta tavern in 2010.

but the birthday girl consumed: a 1000-seed date and banana muffin, coffee, a raspberry-filled cupcake with passionfruit buttercream, a diet dr pepper (which tastes NOTHING like the real thing), a handful of fries, half a sandwich (that's all i packed; i knew what i was in for), a carrot, a handful of potato chips, a pint of stout, a burrito, and a negra modelo.

OH yes, i did. people just kept feeding me.

one more.

the last week before class included cooking, reading, reading cookbooks, eating greasy beans, carrots, and peanut butter sandwiches, and drinking too much coffee brewed in the chemex.

new years day.

started off the year in an ithaca diner with a fried egg sandwich with american cheese on rye. and coffee, obviously.

and all in a collapsible seat that seemed like a booth from afar. oh, yes.

fridays = saddle shoes.

a gift certificate to the starbucks meant a little coffee date with casey on friday morning. also included were saddle shoes, stripey socks, and sparkly tights.

a trillion bazillion.

a trillion years? a bazillion? i have not uploaded a breakfast in so damn long.

so, here we go with sunday brunch: cantaloupe slices, sauteed mushooms + okra +green beans, buttery yukon gold potato halves, an absolutely perfect fried egg, and half of an everything bagel. and coffee.

back to school means never going to a restaurant. not like i was regularly eating outside the apartment anyhow, but still.

not at all like in shag.

did you ever see shag? i have been thinking about this movie. the girls (with awesome southern names like carson and melaina) throw their mama's jam out of the car and skip fort sumter and go to myrtle beach. and dance and have sex (one with a guy named buzz) and drink beer.  well, they were a little crazy. but it was 1963. and a movie.

and a million years (well, 21 years) after i saw that movie in the theater, i can remember it all. and finally set foot in charleston. after months of rambling about it to casey, whose age at the time of shag's release i will not calculate. 

CHARLESTON, south carolina. i just knew i would like this place. it was like the time i read about portland (in like 1995) in the magazine on the airplane and i was like, OH MY GOD I HAVE TO LIVE THERE. and then spent many years trying to get to portland, which i loved absolutely.

and charleston was perfectly old. older than the civil war. old, old cemeteries messily arranged everywhere, but beautiful gardens draping through them. and a jewish cemetery dating to 1762. seriously. 

and fort sumter is right there. in the water. with confederate declarations and statues and history throughout the city in a way that is completely acceptable, with no "stars and bars" flying around. 

you just feel like you are in another country. just like that. 

and oh yes, the eating was good.

within minutes of arrival to our rented apartment from 1840, we were at hominy grill. yeah, it won a james beard some years ago. it was lovely and homey and full of tipsy arnold palmers and buttermilk pie and boiled peanuts snacks and i swear, i don't know what i ate for most of the weekend, but it was all amazing.

we spent our mornings with the dog (also on vacation, sleeping all day in luxury) caffeinating at hope and union. it was seriously incredible single-brewed coffee. each morning i chose coffee (all fair trade, of course) from a different country, based on the descriptions on the chalkboard. and a pastry. 

you can see the remnants of the nutella-banana turnover. there was an almond croissant the next day. and a very relaxed casey.

yes, we continued on to other meals soon after. but how would we get to them without delicious, delicious coffee?

we spent our saturday afternoon on a fancy drinking tour. starting in the husk bar, i had 2 different peach-bourbon cocktails. and after the chef brought in AN ENTIRE LEG OF PIG, proceeded to trim it, and then offer a bite, we could not refuse. it was frightfully exciting and decadent. and i knew it had to be something special when casey put a piece in his mouth.

soon after romantic stories of george washington, we went to mccrady's for another cocktail and deviled eggs, followed by the gin joint for 2 more drinks with homemade pretzels and fancy cheeses. and blissfully asleep before 11.

what else? fried-green tomatoes benedict. belgian fries. a huge pile of thai food, because you can't eat southern all the time. lots of strolls through the college of charleston and surprising parks. with streets of houses that are more than 250 years old. that is old old old for america.

and the tree.

about 10 miles outside of charleston, this tree: the angel oak. on someone's property. just growing like crazy. this photo barely does it any justice, but it is the best one i've got.

you have got to go there. next time, i swear i am staying for a week. and beaching and all. 

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.

torchy's tacos.

on tuesday, november 23rd, i went to work with blake. it was very "take your hermana to work day," as i stood in the back of terra burger and drank double strength organic coffee (yes, FROM terra burger) and watched blake do things like play with meat. did i learn much? that's debatable. but the coffee was delicious.
ok, so he wasn't really playing with it, just taking it out of packages. he also cut lettuce. (is his hair in a ponytail? YES.)
i was really excited about all the labels they had for sandwiches and things. they were just so specific. lots of vegetarian-related ones. surprising for a burger joint, huh?
but then, courtney retrieved me and took me to torchy's tacos. torchy's started out as a food truck and now has brick-and-mortar shops all over austin. courtney told me that these tacos were big and not to order too much, especially because we were going to have chips and queso, a lovely part of every healthy breakfast.
the queso was incredible. what did they do it? no idea. but i put in on my taco (egg-potato-cheese) and ate mouthfuls of chips and drank more coffee.

and they gave me 4 sauces for my taco. for one taco! i don't know which ones they were but i ate them. seriously, i could eat tacos all the time. for every meal. i am not sure i would get tired.

i would be a very round girl if i lived in austin with all those tasty food trucks and tacos and sometimes tacos in food trucks. holy hell.

oregon.

things i like about oregon:

• i can find my way through powell's--eight years later and i can still find the history section.
• everyone is so liberal that i am a conservative.
• good food isn't revolutionary. it's just part of the lifestyle.
  
• coffee matters. there are drive-thru coffee carts. of good coffee. really good.
  
• beer is incredible. not just the deschutes brewery. the tree-hugger porter in the airport for $4.25 really proves what oregonians think is important.
• more sheep than people? maybe? i am unsure. but there are a lot of sheep. and trees.
  

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.

bzzzz.

i have switched to drinking my coffee with raw honey in it. it's incredible. it's not refined sugar, and is so sugary and ambrosial i could eat it with a spoon.

in love. don't know why i didn't do this before.

coffee constant.

i am drinking A LOT of coffee. my colleague has caught me drinking coffee at work 2 mornings this week, which is after i have had coffee at home. but i love LOVE it. i am busy and tired. and, i mean, coffee is so good.

i was home all day yesterday, and drank coffee all day, which is something i only allow myself to do on the weekends. in graduate school, april and i would drink it all day, every day, probably about a pound per week. obscene, really.

so, for breakfast, fried egg (yes, still), black beans with chard, garlic, and onion. also: tomato and mozzarella, and yellow corn ships and hummus. with more beowulf blend coffee.
study snack: more coffee. carrots. everything i want in the world. (i love that you can see my earplugs in this photo, in addition to au revior to all that and a postcard to hazel.)
caputo's is this awesome italian meat and cheese shop on my block. i have been buying fresh mozzarella there (i like it salted), and yesterday, i stepped it up and bought fresh pasta as well. i might not go back to dried. this was awesome.
i put the broccoli in the pasta water for a little while. this way it was already cooked through when i stir-fried it with the onions, garlic, and bell pepper. (i was also then able to re-use the water, and preserve some of the vitamins.) i added the tomatoes (organic, probably not local) and mozzarella last. yum.

sick day.

i stayed home sick today, the second sick day i have had in 5 years. don't despair--it's not the swine flu or anything. i think i just needed rest.

i had egg salad on organic sourdough wheat with tomato for lunch. and a carrot. and stumptown coffee. and then keith brought me some super juice with a billion percent of the daily recommended vitamin c. ok, not that much. but a lot.