Foodies For Sure

The website address we picked for this site was to ensure our parents that we are not wasting away down here, and in part to share what is going on in our life with you (or y’all or yous, depending on the state you are currently in) but especially to share what we truly love…other than each other…

Food.
(and being thrifty home-bodies)

We eat sumptuously compared to a lot of people our age and are completely aware of it. It is worth it: take what other graduate students pay for food and entertainment combined and we come in way under budget and over on fulfillment. As Linda can attest to, I’m most happy preparing her a meal with no recipes and a challenge to use up what’s about to go bad in the fridge.

(because if you know Linda, you know that wasting things is NOT an option- and you better reuse or recycle…or else…I’m still not sure what the “or else” entails, but I’m not inclined to push that line)

We do not go to the movies, we don’t have cable…instead- tonight we are spending 2 hours making dinner- beer can chicken with a side of roasted root vegetables and greens- chocolate cake with strawberries for dessert ( which we TOTALLY ate BEFORE dinner- it was just too good sitting on the counter all prepared) and a blended strawberry daquri concotion (also consumed way before dinner). Lunch was smoked turkey sandwiches on toasted foccacia with roasted red pepper and thinly sliced radishes (first item to come out of our garden this season !)

While the chicken remains simmer down into beautiful stock (see previous entry about love of soup), let me resume…

We’ve become enamored of produce. It’s full- blown spring here and the farmer’s market is amazing. Every Saturday we bike over and make at least two rounds, the first to scout (Who has the best price on collard greens?) and the second to purchase. This week we bought a bag of braising greens, two heads of lettuce, two very large green garlics, a quart of fresh strawberries (hence the daquri), two small heads of cauliflower (to be featured in an Indian dish with lentils later this week), a bunch of spring onions and some delightful multi-colored swiss chard. After the farmer’s market we often stop by the local co-op market, Weaver Street. While it offers local produce and organic foods, it does so on a budget that is way above ours….but if you are a member theirs, the food bar, baked goods and sale items are do-able- so we stop by for breakfast and map out our day sitting on the green, watching the dogs and kids play. About 98.5% of these children are wearing crocs…not that it matters, but I feel as though if I did not mention it, you would miss a big part of the whole of Saturday morning routine.

This Saturday the post market putting away turned from taking pictures of beautiful produce into a dialogue about how this time of the year is amazing, and slowly things we love and appreciate made their way onto the table and an hour later what you see above came together. Late spring and early summer bring the most beautiful colors, in flowers and food… The colors of the food and the greenery is still new after the stark rainy (or snowy) winter, and is almost intoxicating. We’ve recently changed over to drinking a good deal of iced tea and coffee (which are on there somewhere), we love wine all the time, but winter heavy reds are retreating- making room for light whites. You can see the pre-dinner chicken and our very first sad crop of radishes in there. It was delightful.

Back to meals. Also included in the pictures above are a few other meals I made recently- left over grilled chicken fajitas with braised green with broccoli raab, so I lied earlier, the broccoli was the first produce out of the garden…my apologies. As well as lemon pepper papadelle pasta mixed with greens, roasted red pepper, spring onions, green garlic and onions in a white wine and butter sauce. With fresh ground pecorino romano for me (thanks Mom and Dad!) While we had a lot of leftovers from this meal, we left the house without putting the pan in the fridge or stove and Lucy had a great big feast.

We should know better by now.

We worked in the garden a lot these past two weeks, sometimes by flashlight at night- but I will save garden details for another week.

So don’t worry. We eat well.
(and so does the damn dog)

end to Limbo

It seems that the world has agreed that I've been in this stage of limbo for too long: Elon accepted me into their graduate program.

Yes, its thrilling, exciting, exhilarating. But it won't be without its complications, including paying the rent on time every month.

What will be nice is having a feeling of forward momentum within my being again. Not so nice: a 50 minute commute each way, every day. At least Steph can stay at work late and not feel guilty now...

Amazing Leftovers and Wine.

This weekend was busy. In a good way.

But prior to the weekend we enjoyed a week of good food- courtesy of my parents visit the weekend before. My favorite leftover was ham and bean soup with pea greens. I love soup. And the only thing I like better than eating soup is making it, this is no lie- it's my favorite food to cook. Besides the soup we enjoyed several ham sandwiches (which were amazing with the extra hot horseradish), and spent the whole week rationing out kelly's amazing lemon brownie cheesecake.

Lucky for us, when we finished it, we got another- kelly brought a new variation to the party we had after the Weaver Street wine tasting/sale on saturday. This time- Oreo, and just as rich and smooth as her previous one. As you can see, we've restocked our wine for the next few months and it was about time. We were down to 2 bottles,embarassing.

So the deal with the whole sale is that you pay $5, get a glass to take with you and can taste 40 different wines...as many times as you want. Plus they have really good bread and cheese. The big draw is that each wine is on sale (20-50% off) and if you buy a case you get an additional 10%. With savings like that and tasting what you are buying- it's hard to say no to a case...or two. We have a set routine at this point, get to weaver street around 12:30- eat lunch( where we inevitably run into my boss because he lives there on saturdays)and then get right on to wine tasting- with a cheese/bread break in between tables- and extensive note taking (scale 1-5 with increments of .25). After we get through them all we have a long discussion about which wines are going to make the cut. After last weekend's significant tasting of broadbent with Mom ( the count was by linda's account "at least 5 bottles") we decided to definitly get some more (its a 5.0). After the sale we head back to our place and have a friends over for more wine and food. It's a bi-annual thing and this is our 3rd party. This year we did grilled chicken sandwiches (marinated in a combo of garlic, olive oil, some salad dressing and other spices- courtesy of HT's fantastic sale and Dad's mission to get propane- thanks!), oreo cheesecake, tortolini spinach salad, fruit salad, oven roasted potatoes with rosemary and some other snacks. All in all it went well despite 3 other events going on, so the attendance was much lower than the last two times...and we didnt burn the house down with the bonfire- which in retrospect was pretty amazing.

(dried christmas tree branches plus lots of wine = mildly hazardous, and about as big of a blaze as when we set the beer-can chicken on fire last october)

That's about it, I've got a busy week of work ahead of me- but am glad that the trees now officially have all of their leaves and it feels completely like spring.

I am also glad that it's soon monday since we FAILED at getting the garbage out in time last week and let me tell you those crabs do not smell nice- I'm pretty sure our neighbors hate us and we're going to have to lysol out the can like WHOA.

Easter Weekend Loveliness

The weather was fab, the company delightful, and the cheesecake...well, the cheesecake was by far the highlight.

Interjection by Steph: I beg to differ, while linda enjoyed the cheesecake, I LOVED the crabs. It was a great surprise especially since I had been craving them for about 3 months.

And while the food was fantastic, and possibly a weapon of mass destruction ( Mom and Dad got stopped at the airport security because of frozen meat), the company was even better.

At least I had both of my shoes...

Franklin Street: The Celebration from The Daily Tar Heel on Vimeo.

The Heels won and we went to Franklin Street. I had seen pictures of 2005's championship win and knew it would be like drunken sardines with fire- but the scene that awaited our arrival was even more than I expected. There were people in trees, on telephone poles, shimmying guide wires... I saw a crying soroity girl on the phone with one shoe.

We decided to wade into the mass of bodies a little bit of the way; our friends HAD to cross the intersection to get to their car- we, on the other hand, biked in -and were not obligated to do this, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, scratch that- seemed like an obvious thing to do. About halfway through the Franklin, South Columbia intersection we found ourselves wedged between 2 bonfires and a mass of people pushing from in front, behind and from both sides. With Linda and Mira behind me, (Kelly, Matt and Jacob had diverged from us at some point and were making their own way across) all I could think was, "Ok so if I fall, they go down with me and we get trampled and die..." Which in all reality could have very well happened as me against very large drunken men falling all over the place, leaves me with not so great odds. At the moment I realized that we could go no further forward , or to the side- I turned and realized back was not really an option either. It was a bit of a panic moment. The second there was a mild break behind us we turned around, still against the flow of people heading into- or at least trying to head into the intersection. Mira was behind us when we turned to leave, but got separated at some point- which was concerning becuase one second she was there, the next- gone. We texted a bit later to see if she had met up with the others and indeed she had, which was good because we both felt really bad about it.

In retrospect, I am not surprised that no one was trampled in the course of the evening because really at the most packed, there was no room to fall, except into the bonfires, which did end up happening to some poor guy ( I can only hope that he was very very drunk). Also in looking at the aerial footage, we were at the worst spot in the middle of the intersection between the two largest bonfires...

Three beers was not enough for me to completely enjoy the experience. But we were there.

and so was the crying girl with one shoe.

and about 50,000 other people.

Spring!

Last Weekend's Craziness

So Steph told you all a little bit about the fabric craziness, but I thought I'd just post a few photos to show you how overwhelming it all was. I went through several stages of emotion, from being overwhelmed at the sheer amount of fabric at the warehouse sale, to the elation of filling one bag and then Steph okaying a second, to the pleasure of eliminating all of the stray threads and folding all of the individual pieces, back to be overwhelmed by the amount of fabric I now have stashed in various places around the craft room...