Month: May 2009

Going local

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Before I left for the party last night, I engaged my mom and John in a little bit of product reviewing. I had brought my packages of Newman’s Own Organics Champion Chip cookies in orange chocolate chip and double chocolate mint chip to my last class celebration on Thursday. Due to the high quantity of fresh Italian cookies, my little Newman’s Owns got lost in the shuffle. I felt confident, however, that they would not survive two nights in my mom’s house, and I was right!

Here’s a little slide show of mom in action.

Contemplation:

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Meditating on the deliciousness:

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The cookies were totally demolished within 10 minutes — and I’m pretty sure both bags were at least halfway full when I brought them out! John loved the crunch, and both preferred the orange chocolate chip cookies (the chocolate mint were the first to disappear, though). Success! (And thank goodness I’m off the hook from eating them. They were just too too too good to have lying around.)

This morning, Steph and Dan picked me up again on their way out of town so that we could go for a quick breakfast. We went to the hot spot of all hot spots in downtown NA: the Town Restaurant. I used to go there for breakfast with my dad when I was little for their amaaaaaazing grilled muffins. Today, I went wild and ordered the special omelet — spinach, tomato, and mushroom — with egg whites.

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It came with sweet potato fries and toast, but I skipped the toast and got extra fries instead. (Actually, I asked for fruit instead of toast, but the waitress told me that there was no fruit on the premises.) I don’t like regular potatoes, so the chance for sweet potato fries is rare, and I had to take advantage!

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Steph got the cinnamon bun French Toast. It was literally an iced cinnamon bun sliced into thirds and French Toasted. Yummmmmm:

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While there, the town Memorial Day Parade went by outside. All the brownies and cub scouts and high school bands and policemen with antique rifles went marching by. It was verrrry exciting because some family members of parade participants happened to be in the restaurant at the same time. We felt like we got in on some prime behind-the-scenes action. (Sort of.) Too bad I did not get a picture! We did, however, get free baby American flags that someone from the downtown association came around to hand out. I think I lost mine in the excitement? Hmmmm …

Back to breakfast, Steph tried to save her frosted bites for last, but she got too full. I had to finish them. It’s important to take one for the team.

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I’ve done cinnamon bun oatmeal, but now I think I may need to start including cinnamon bun french toast in the rotation!

Is there a breakfast hot spot in your hometown?

Raw! (sort of)

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Before my mom and I headed out for our walk this afternoon, I had the rest of this morning’s fruit salad as an inter-meal snack:

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Along with this carrot “core” dipped in fresh WF almond butter:

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Mom and I set off on a lovely walk for an hour or so, winding our way through the arboretum that leads to a nieghborhood park, chatting with each other, and chatting with neighbors.

Back home, we finally ate “lunch” around 7pm! I’d been working on preparing the various components of Gena’s raw zucchini alfredo over the course of the afternoon, with just a few adjustments.

To make the “noodles,” I used a vegetable peeler on carrots, zucchini, and yellow squash:

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I made a smaller portion of the sauce — 3/4 cup cashews instead of 1.25 cups — than the recipe because this house does not need any more leftovers! We also added some toasted sesame oil (I know that un-raws it, but it tasted good!) and soy sauce:

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My mom was a little bit hesitant about the highly caloric nature of this nut-based sauce, but I reminded her that the nuts were serving as the protein/fat part of the meal. The calories were definitely warranted and necessary!

For the final (and again un-raw) addition, I lightly steamed some broccoli and mixed in a few crushed dried garlic flakes, and that got mixed with the “pasta”:

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Here it is all mixed together with the sauce (and twilight porch-seating — you can see the grass in the background!):

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I honestly wasn’t sure how I would feel about this raw “pasta” — I was thinking it would just be like a refreshing summer salad, but it was delicious! I LOVED the sauce. It tasted like cold sesame noodles. Mom and John cleaned their plates, too. You must try this!

For dessert, I had a couple slices of sweet potato that I found in the fridge (they got treated to some cinnamon post-photo):

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Oh, right, I had more dessert after that, too šŸ˜› My friend Steph (we’ve known each other since we were probably six months old!) and her husband Dan (who also went to high school with us) picked me up, and we headed over to a law school graduation party for Liz, also from high school, at her parents’ house (Congrats, Liz!). I got to chat with a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in years — so fun! I had loads of chips and guac, and then the cake came out:

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I had a small piece of each and then stopped there. I was too busy socializing šŸ™‚

And now it’s time for bed! I’m getting myself psyched for the bird chorus to wake me up at 4:45 am again. I know I complain about morning birds all the time in Brooklyn, but I’ve gotten spoiled. It’s exponentially louder here in MA! I think I will go home next week with a greater appreciation for Brooklyn’s more moderate tweeting. Does leaving town make you appreciate things more at home?

Where the food began

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My mom knows how to stock a kitchen.

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She’s been eating healthy and delicious foods that sound scary to most people since before I can remember. Sure I was horrified as a teenager when friends were over and I’d open the freezer only to have about 80 pounds of frozen herbs come cascading out, but I quite appreciate it now!

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With my mom’s kitchen-stocking abilities, I didn’t have to look very far for breakfast fixings this morning. I started by mixing up some yogurt-chia pudding with 3 tbsp 0% Fage (too pricy for me to buy, but mom knows how to splurge for quality), 2 tbsp regular plain nonfat yogurt, 2 tbsp part-skim ricotta, 1/2 tbsp chia seeds, 1/4 cup water, cinnamon, and vanilla. While the chia seeds worked their absorbant magic, I set to work on component #2: fruit!

I chopped a banana, an apple, grapes, kiwi, and pomegranate:

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For mom, I topped about 1.5 cups of the fruit salad with half of the chia-yogurt pudding, Artisana cacao bliss that I brought for her to try, and a bit more cinnamon:

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I only gave myself about 3/4 cup of fruit (I wasn’t overly hungry after last night) with the other half of the chia-yogurt pudding, freshly ground Whole Foods almond butter (again, mom knows how to splurge where it’s worth it!), more cinnamon, and a bit of ground flax:

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I feel healthy and revived šŸ™‚

Mom’s in with clients now (she’s a psychotherapist and sees them in her home office), but we’re planning on a walk once she’s done. It’s already 85 degrees out!

In whose kitchen, other than your own, do you feel most comfortable helping yourself?

Mara has been crafting up a storm! Go check this post to see the cutest thing ever and how you can win it!

Batter up

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If only I were talking about cake batter!

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The bus ride took forEVER yesterday! 95 was littered with crashes and accidents the whole way (Mariposa, did you notice this?!). I had exhausted my entire supply of emergency snacks — hard-boiled egg, apple, cashews, and a banana nut odwalla bar — by the time the bus finally pulled into Providence, so that was dinner. John and I swung back to the house to pick up my mom (and grab a couple handfuls of baby carrots!), and then it was off to the PawSox who, incidentally, happened to be playing the Yankees (I’m talking minor leagues here, if anyone is confused) last night. Poor PawSox got totally clobbered, though. We left in the 9th inning, and it was 10-1!

Also, coincidence of all coincidences, about halfway through the game, this really familiar-looking man came and sat in front of us and was talking to the guys sitting beside me. It took me a minute, but then I realized: it was Wife‘s dad!! Wife and I met at NYU of course, but we actually grew up only 30 minutes away from each other. Apparently, last night was the night of her dad’s annual trip to the baseball game with some of the guys from the high school where he works. What are the chances??

So back to the food. I had already eaten my dinner, but somehow, food kept arriving in front of me. Hand modeling credit in the following photos goes to my mom.

I had a small bite of this hot dog, even though I don’t like hot dogs. I was at a baseball game — it was the thing to do.

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A couple handfuls of this popcorn:

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The popcorn was so salty that it made us really need ice cream. So I had three bites of this bar:

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But I guess that was only an appetizer, because this ice cream in a helmet appeared a few moments later:

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Mom (and she’s supposed to be a good influence!) and I shared that one as well as this baggie of grapes from home (to cancel out the ice cream):

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Now that I have all that out of my system, I am fully ready to go produce-crazy on my mama’s fridge, starting this morning!

Cake batter or baseball batter? And who has the best fridge in your family?

P.S. Diana is giving away LOTS of VitaTops. If you live under a rock and don’t know about VitaTops, they are only the best non-homemade snack/dessert ever created. Go enter the giveaway!

Freeee (for 10 days)

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We all know I love free things! Now that my last class is over and I’m flying up 95 NĀ  on the Peter Pan, I feel freer than ever šŸ™‚

In class, we did in fact have a little celebration. My professor is retiring, as of today, so she brought in coffee and lots of bagel-y goodness. Here’s napkin #1 with a “mini” everything bagel spread with whipped butter and two Italian cookies, including a slice of rainbow cookie perfection, in the background:

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If you look very very closely in the background, you can see the bottom of the cup that holds my contribution to the event: Golden Star Sparkling White Jasmine Tea. I’ve zoomed in a bit in the picture on the right. I first sampled this tea at Whole Foods and got super excited about it. I don’t like champagne or wine, and I always feel like I should be at the kids’ table when I ask for sparkling cider at events. Sparkling tea has a much classier ring to it (not to mention that I love jasmine tea anyway). This tea is mostly non-alcholic (something like 0.5%), but it definitely has a more grown-up taste to it because it still goes through a fermentation process. And my class worked through the bottle I brought to share quite rapidly!

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Napkin #2 had another half of an everything bagel with “1/3 less fat” cream cheese, plus some more Italian cookie crumbs.

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And finally, napkin #3 had just a couple more cookies!

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A few more cookies may or may not have found their way into my mouth after that, too. Whenever I see a platter of pretty colorful cookies (or pretty colorful anything, for that matter), I absolutely have to one of each. And fast — before they disappear! It’s a problem.

Anyway, like I said, I’m blogging from the bus and expect to make it to Providence just in time to join my mom and stepdad for a PawSox game! Can’t think of a better way to kick off the summer šŸ™‚

Does the “prettiness” of foods, especially of desserts, affect your interest in eating them?