summer eating
Feeling incompetent in most of my activities. Difficulties with studying, aggravated by the sudden appearance of proselytizing schizoid dudes - as if sent out by a central dispatching station - at any sidewalk cafe where I sit down with First Aid, who tell everyone about their amazing million-dollar business plan or the meaning of life; hopeless bike shopping in which I torment nice bike shop guys with my indecisiveness and hesitant identification of non-existent differences between bikes ("this one's chain feels more...crunchy than the last one?"); doomed attempts to sell old clothes ending in self-berating harangues (WHY DID I BUY THIS?).
In the realm of snackin', though, everything is copacetic.
Received a free pallet of strawberries at the farmers' market. My favorite farmer lady and I had a chat about how hard it is to find a good pediatrician and then she begged me to take a flat of berries off her hands, as the market was winding down, and they needed to go to a good home. "They need to be processed TODAY!" What to do but comply & go in search of backup fruit? Wedged the pallet into my backseat and put in an emergency call to Moody informing her that I was driving straight to her house to yank rhubarb out of her garden - rights to which I have obtained through yard labor. Her neighbor, weeding, hallooed me, recognizing me from my last stint hammering together a raised bed frame (and hammering my finger into a blood-blistered Tom & Jerry-cartoon-lookin' throbbathon) and we discussed the raspberry bushes, as well as her recent breast cancer diagnosis. Caveat applicator: the status of medical student entitles you to such ad hoc confessions. I kinda like them - I figure if strangers unload on me, they probably were in major need of an unloading station.
Process I did. Mama and I hulled and bagged and simmered for a couple hours and now we have bags and bags of frozen strawberries, strawberry syrup, a vat of strawberry-rhubarb...compote? the name for this confection at my house was always just "strawberry-rhubarb."
In any case: lightly stewed strawberries & rhubarb with greek yogurt, crunchy granola & homemade vanilla-bean syrup.
Kindee Thai - roast duck curry with lush dark purple grapes, baby tomatoes, basil, and springy coils of deep-fried calamari. Sweet, acidic, crunchy, rich, help help. So good. So good.
Wednesday night: grilled garlic pork chops with honey gremolata; fried new potatoes with citrus thyme; caprese salad with bufala mozz, grilled fennel, and herbed Brittany sea salt. Everything except the salt grown in a 60-mile radius. Herbs grown on my Plantation, that is, my parents' patio, where I have had to blast them with (natural! non-toxic! non-awful!) insecticidal soap to de-fest them of these atrociously hungry little yellow bugs. Die, motherfuckers, die...naturally.
Inspiration from this cookbook: holy shit. It makes me want to pull up stakes and move to Patagonia IMMEDIATELY.
In the realm of snackin', though, everything is copacetic.
Received a free pallet of strawberries at the farmers' market. My favorite farmer lady and I had a chat about how hard it is to find a good pediatrician and then she begged me to take a flat of berries off her hands, as the market was winding down, and they needed to go to a good home. "They need to be processed TODAY!" What to do but comply & go in search of backup fruit? Wedged the pallet into my backseat and put in an emergency call to Moody informing her that I was driving straight to her house to yank rhubarb out of her garden - rights to which I have obtained through yard labor. Her neighbor, weeding, hallooed me, recognizing me from my last stint hammering together a raised bed frame (and hammering my finger into a blood-blistered Tom & Jerry-cartoon-lookin' throbbathon) and we discussed the raspberry bushes, as well as her recent breast cancer diagnosis. Caveat applicator: the status of medical student entitles you to such ad hoc confessions. I kinda like them - I figure if strangers unload on me, they probably were in major need of an unloading station.
Process I did. Mama and I hulled and bagged and simmered for a couple hours and now we have bags and bags of frozen strawberries, strawberry syrup, a vat of strawberry-rhubarb...compote? the name for this confection at my house was always just "strawberry-rhubarb."
In any case: lightly stewed strawberries & rhubarb with greek yogurt, crunchy granola & homemade vanilla-bean syrup.
Kindee Thai - roast duck curry with lush dark purple grapes, baby tomatoes, basil, and springy coils of deep-fried calamari. Sweet, acidic, crunchy, rich, help help. So good. So good.
Wednesday night: grilled garlic pork chops with honey gremolata; fried new potatoes with citrus thyme; caprese salad with bufala mozz, grilled fennel, and herbed Brittany sea salt. Everything except the salt grown in a 60-mile radius. Herbs grown on my Plantation, that is, my parents' patio, where I have had to blast them with (natural! non-toxic! non-awful!) insecticidal soap to de-fest them of these atrociously hungry little yellow bugs. Die, motherfuckers, die...naturally.
Inspiration from this cookbook: holy shit. It makes me want to pull up stakes and move to Patagonia IMMEDIATELY.