“Holly Golightly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul Varjak: The mean reds. You mean like the blues?
Holly Golightly: No. The blues are because you’re getting fat, and maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid, and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?”- Breakfast at Tiffany’s (I left the book at my old apartment, so I had to get this quote off wikipedia.)
It has been raining too long in New York, but that had nothing to do with the mean red mood I found myself in on Friday. A trip to Tiffany’s wasn’t likely to cure me and being crushed in midtown would only make things worse. For me, the only solution was to go home, pull out the flour, grab a stick of butter and get to work.
I had been planning on making these blueberry scones from Martha Stewart Living all week, but had somehow never gotten around to it (it could be that this was holding me hostage, but that’s a post for another day). I had the …]
You know what happens when you have an imaginary food processor and a dysfunctional blender and set out to make a recipe that calls for processing four cups of herbs into a near-paste? Well, you dutifully pluck all those little leaves, then shove them into the aforementioned blender, add some scallions, and an hour later you have a bowlful of hand-chopped herbs and scallions. At least, that’s what happened to me. You get a nice arm workout in the process (part one of the honey eater’s guide to fitness: chop ridiculous amounts of things by hand). That’s why I have guns like these. That there’s my custard-stirring, herb-chopping, cream-whipping arm, eat your heart out Michelle Obama.
Amir’s been away and I’ve been rattling about the apartment, doing as I please. (I’m not sure it’s large enough to rattle in, perhaps I’ve been jangling in it, like loose change in a pocket?) What I please is: a) making salads with raw apples, b) leaving closet doors open, c) eating peas.
I eat peas when he’s abandoned me for another continent. I’m not sure why, he doesn’t have anything against peas, he’s not even allergic to them. It could be …]
From Elmo
Even Elmo can’t get a bailout.
From Elmo
I was walking through the park after a thunderstorm and I found him, drowned in a puddle.
From Elmo
It’s a sad day when a muppet is allowed to fail.p.s. I did see the same Elmo at a stoop sale a week later, resurrected and looking happy about it. A sign of better times ahead?
From food
A while ago, I made a flock of 2.5″ two-layer chocolate cakes (from this recipe, the best I’ve ever tried), stacked with raspberry jam, coated in chocolate ganache, and topped with pools of jam. They were delicious, they were adorable, they were eaten before I took a picture. I was left with lots of scraps, too good to throw away, which I froze while I plotted my next move.
From food
I had recently bought David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop after acing a grammar test (yes, I reward myself with cookbooks, I can also explain the difference between “who” and “whom”) so it seemed only sensible to make his mint ice cream and throw in the scraps of chocolate cake (or what was left after I’d sneaked pieces from the freezer).
I did share a little with a friend for his birthday.
From food
From food
What do you do with one banana as ripe as this one? I couldn’t make banana bread because that requires at least two bananas, and I didn’t want to eat him because he was nearly liquid but I also didn’t want him to die an inglorious death.
From food
So I started making the blueberry cake from Edna Lewis’ A Taste Of Country Cooking and stewed some blueberries.
From food
Then I added the mashed banana to the biscuit-like dough.
From food
I tossed the blueberries (without their juice) on top on the batter.
From food
Then covered it all with cinnamon and sugar.
From food
It turned out okay, but there are some changes I’d like to make to the recipe, so stay tuned.
My darling boyfriend is away for the month, and while I miss him terribly, I am enjoying cooking just for myself. Amir is allergic to a number of raw fruits (anything that crossbreeds with birch, which is everything), meaning he cannot eat apples, cherries, pears, peaches, plums, etc, etc, unless they’re lightly cooked. He also doesn’t like goat cheese, I don’t know what’s wrong with him there. So, once he was off to another continent I broke out the raw apples and partied down! (I’m crazy like that.)
Years ago (maybe last year? I have no sense of time), my mom gave me Mollie Katzen’s The Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without, and I’d never cracked it open until last week, and how glad I am that I did. I love me some broccoli, my mom always told us that they were like little brushes cleaning out your insides (I think she cribbed that from my godmother), and as I said before, I’m enjoying my new-found raw apple freedom (wahoo!), so the first dish I zeroed in on was this broccoli and apple salad.
From food
It’s pretty simple stuff: broccoli, apples, red onion and a honey-mustard marinade, but it’s pretty addictive. It …]
I woke up this morning to a torrential thunderstorm and I lay in bed, trying to return to sleep, counting the seconds between the flashes of lightening and the answering thunder.
From food
I’m now eating homemade graham crackers dipped in tea, a perfect rainy day breakfast, or any day breakfast if you ask me. They’re very crisp and stand up much better to the heat of the tea than do wimpy store bought ones, which pretty much turn to mush the moment they touch hot liquid.
From food
Despite being a member of a generation (generation y? I think that’s what they call us) that’s supposed to be all about the internet and all over myspace and facebook and youtube and who knows what else, I didn’t start reading blogs until about a year ago (as a testament to how backwards I am, my mom has had a blog for a few years already). Stuck in a boring office job, catering to two egotistical architects, I needed a way to get through the day, and reading food blogs became the answer. I have since left that job and started grad school to become an ESL/EFL teacher. Now that I’m on summer vacation and …]
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