I made sure to arrange my trip so that it would leave me with a three-day weekend for recovery and re-adjustment, and I did not waste any time filling those final days of freedom with delicious food … and delicious company!

My friend Pamela was in town for the weekend, so she, Gina, and I met at Dizzy‘s on Friday morning for a rare weekday brunch. Pamela ordered the pistachio-encrusted French toast with caramelized bananas:



I had about five bites while Pamela lectured Gina and me on reproductive rights.



Ahhhh, that picture. Insane.

Gina ordered this omelet:



I don’t remember what was in it, but it was tasty!

I wanted a big bowl of rainy day comfort and ordered the apple cinnamon oats. Big was an understatement. I would estimate at least two cups of oats right here:



The oats held me over for the entire day and right through karate that night. They probably would have continued to hold me over until the next morning if Erik and I had not walked right into a beautiful vegetarian feast at our coworker Ray’s apartment after class:



Ray and his wife Alicia had prepared dinner to fuel the five of us (Jose was also there!) through yet another endless night with the Yanks. All was going fine until Jose bumped into the table, spilling half of the tomato-basil-feta salad on the floor. We had a moment of silence for the loss …



… and then carried on. Here’s my plate with homemade black bean burgers, pasta salad, salvaged tomato-basil-feta salad, and shredded cabbage and garbanzo salad:



I was so relieved to be fed healthy food at someone else’s house … especially after the crazy food week I’d had with all of the wedding festivities.

Saturday morning involved a series of unfortunate events and subway mishaps that deposited me at the CSA too late to collect my veggies! I almost cried. I felt especially bummed because I was in charge of collecting for both Kate and me that weekend, and missing the pickup meant that she was out a week’s worth of veggies, too. I felt like a CSA sharing failure 😦

After feeling sorry for myself for a minute, though, I put my chin up and raced over to the farmers’ market at Grand Army Plaza for all sorts of late fall goodies. I texted Kate that I was on the produce case and then busied myself with collecting apples, green beans, purple kale, broccoli, fennel, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, turnips, kabocha, parsnips, and an apple cider donut:



Did you catch that last part? AN APPLE CIDER DONUT:



Mmmmmmmmmmm. Can I have another one right now, please? Yes, summer is definitely over now. Fall is here to stay.



With the chilly week, I gladly returned to my oatmealy mornings of days past:



Really, apple-cinnamon-cardamom-flax oats with peanut butter made the return to work SO much easier.



Other things that made the return to work easier …

Morning pow wows at the conference room table, complete with snacks and gossip:





Group lunches containing everything from my massaged kale salad and roasted winter squash to Deborah’s octopus to tostadas from the Juice Bar to Belkis’ yuca and olives:



Mmmmm pulpo:



The best part of that lunch happened when Deborah reached across the table to grab one of these almonds from my napkin and wasted no time in expediting it to her mouth …



… so fast that no one could tell her in time that they were not almonds but the pits of my olives!!!!!! Ohhhhhh Deborah. She redeemed herself with a giant bite of tostada and a Hershey’s bar.



What is the last non-edible thing that you accidentally tried to eat?