… cardio, carbs, and cheese, oh my!

On September 12, the girls and I made a departure from our standard style of “free-eventing” for something new.



As usual, Kate had the pulse on the hottest happenings around the city and asked Gina and me to join her at the Crossing the Line 2009 opening celebration for Le Bal NYC.



I’m still not even sure what the event was for, but we watched some brave souls taking free French dance lessons while we waited for the promised samples of French cuisine … like this carbohydrate perfection:



French rolls with sea salt and artisanal cheeses:



I made a sandwich and felt proud of myself:



And then I hunted down more cheese:



And more!



However, the rain began, and Gina, Kate, and I couldn’t stick it out to wait for the promised French bento boxes (cultural fusion if I ever saw it), so we headed to the nearby Corner Cafe to satisfy our growing hunger. These pies called to me through the window pane, and we had no choice but to stop in and investigate:



Something about the decor really pulled me in, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it …

… until I took a closer look:

Yes, the light bulb covers are colanders!!! Seriously a genius innovation.

I actually wasn’t that hungry, so I ordered an earl grey tea with milk and honey:



Gina ordered the turkey pinwheels with chickpea soup. I had little tastes of both and was a fan:



Kate got the butternut squash soup. It was ok but tasted on the bland side to me:



All doubts about this Corner Cafe’s food were forgotten, however, when this plate of warm apple crumble arrived in front of us:



Mmmmmmm, totally hit the spot. Apple crumble is just one of those perfect early fall comforting and cozy desserts.



Who loves impromptu bakery excursions? I do, I do!

The next day, more quasi-free excitement was in store at the Komen Race for the Cure in Central Park. Sure I paid a registration fee, but the rows of promotional tents (not to mention the experience of participating in the race itself) represented a worthy investment.



I remembered the Yoplait tent from the year before and was thrilled to find it waiting in exactly the same location. I loaded up on new flavors to have over the week.



And then there was my favorite tent of all time: Key Food!



Last year, I literally packed up a week’s worth of produce at this tent: apples, pears, bananas, and FRESH FIGS! This year, however, the produce was limited to bananas:



I took five 😛

Farmland Dairies also had a spot, so I snagged a chocolate milk and drank half pre-race and half post-race:



I worked out a similar half and half arrangement with this Snickers Marathon bar for the Key Foods tent:



It was yummy for a free snack, but you know I’m not into buying this sort of thing.



After making the rounds to collect the goodies, Erin, Mike, Nicole, and I checked our bags and flew through the 5k as if we were born to do it. Believe it or not, I actually did not feel satisfied with just the 5k and ended up running another six miles later in the day. The weather was too perfect to pass up that opportunity. I’ve been finding myself running quite often again as of late, but I just can’t motivate myself to get to the gym for the strength training that I know my legs need to support the toll running takes on my body. Ughhh, I really don’t want this to happen again, but I get so bored at the gym! Heeeeeeelp!

What are your favorite, non-boring ways/activities for incorporating strength training into your life?

One week ago today was Myrna’s last day at my agency. 😦 To see her off, the early childhood department did what it does best: FOOD!!

We loaded the conference room with all manner of goodies: Angela’s salad, chips, salsa, my yuca and onions, avocados, Mildred’s morro de frijolies, Belkis’ potato salad, roasted chicken, steak, two-bite appetizers, and more!

Mi plato con yuca, morro de frijoles, ensalada, aguacate, carne, y pollo:

Mmmmmmmm …

I loooooooove these limey onions I made for the yuca. I am so glad I have coworkers who can school me in Dominican cooking!

Katty came through with this masterpiece from the bakery on the corner for dessert:

No kidding. I suppose one slice of cake per week won’t hurt me …

I did the slicing honors (of course), so I made sure to connect myself with a slice containing Oreo AND strawberry:

Oh right, there was some melty soupy French Silk ice cream as well:

I definitely had more scoops of ice cream. I cannot resist the melt!

The food from this meal kept on giving and giving. I had leftovers for lunch the next day:

And leftover yuca in a coconut bowl (yet another coconut that I beat into submission with the dull side of my machete):

And leftover yuca with oatmeal and more coconut:

Seriously, yuca, oatmeal, and coconut together in a bowl: what a party! Next time, I will need to invite avocado, peanut butter, and plantains — that will be a REAL fiesta.

Myrna, thanks for yet another excuse to overeat on the job 😛 We will miss you tons and tons!

To whom have you said goodbye recently, and which foods did you invite to the party?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been collecting a random pile of food photos that haven’t fit into any specific event but still seem too important to let disappear entirely. I get so attached to what I have eaten, a hazard of food blogging I suppose 😛

Let’s start with a mini Tale of Expansion from my sister Allie. Here’s what Allie says:

I bought an eggplant the other day. I like how they taste, and I like the color of the skin, but I have never cooked one. So, I looked up directions for baking, and put it in the oven, whole. I forgot to poke holes in it, so eventually, there was a loud “boom” from the oven, as the side of the eggplant burst open. Note to self – poke holes in eggplant…poke holes in eggplant. But, it was fine, and yummy. I scooped out all the cooked guts, and intending to make eggplant hummus, opened a can of what I thought were garbanzo beans, but were actually white kidney beans. I went with it. I tossed the beans and the eggplant in the food processor, threw in some salt and pepper, and blended. Needed something more. Black beans. Fresh mint. More pepper. A dash of black pepper sauce. A hint of red pepper flakes. YUM! I quick sliced up a whole wheat tortilla, for dipping, and toasted the pieces while I cooked an organic beef burger, which I then topped with some stone ground mustard, goat cheese, and fresh basil. Quite a yummy dinner, all from stuff I had in my cupboard and fridge. Cool, huh? (PS – Those are walnuts sprinkled on top of the dip…)

Isn’t my sister brilliant?!

Next on the agenda, I was speaking recently with the ladies at work about my love of ginger, and Belkis informed me that she had an excellent ginger supplier in Washington Heights. When I arrived at work the next day, this complete ginger root was waiting for me:

Yay Belkis!!

The ginger has been going into everything. I keep it in the freezer and then use a grater to shave it into my food as needed. I included it in a scrambled CSA egg with nutmeg, CSA crenshaw melon, and Olga’s Russian apricot jam:

New day, new format, same concept:

There was another evening when I was soooo set on getting some coconut in me after an intense hot yoga class. I texted two of my favorite resources (Diana and Emily — love the blogging network!) for exact address info on Bonobo’s. Emily came through first and just in the nick of time.

I picked up my first ever coconut chai and promptly died and went to heaven.

Since I’m such a pro at hacking into real coconuts now, I think I may need to take a page from Diana’s book and work on recreating this drink on my own.

Somewhere in recent time history, I also snagged some sort of organic cookie samples of deliciousness from Union Market:

And was gifted this licuado de mame by a mom at work:

When she asked me if I wanted licuado, I had no idea what she was talking about. It’s not a Spanish word I’ve encountered before, and it’s not what I would have used to refer to “liquid” or “shake,” so I was reallllllly confused. The mom laughed at me and put this beautifully frothy and icy cup in my hand, and I had no choice but to accept 😛 Mmmmmmmmm. The jury’s still out on “mame,” but I’m thinking it’s a type of fruit that does not exist around these parts and therefore has no English translation.

Speaking of foods that are not from around these parts …

Nydia recently came back from a trip to visit her family in Puerto Rico, and she gave me this avocado that came straight from her father’s avocado tree!

I never had an immediately fresh avocado in my life, and now I’ve had two in the past month! (The other came from Mildred’s trip to the DR.) And the different in taste is drastic. Can things get any better?

I added some avocado to my CSA heirloom tomato + balcony basil salad:

And I brought the rest to MA with me so I could share with my mom and John. We spooned it straight out of the peel:

Mom also hooked me up with some berries straight from the garden:

Including these itty bitty strawberry pebbles:

Sigh, to have land! Someday, when I live on my villa and raise cows and make cheese (on my time off from saving babies, of course), I will also have an avocado tree and never-ending bushes of berries. What will you grow on your villa?

Over Labor Day weekend, I made an in-and-out trip home to Massachusetts for the sole purpose of tending to my favorite bride-to-be: Erin Gunn! Erin’s bridal shower and bachelorette party were both being held on that Saturday at her parents’ house; as a bridesmaid, it was my duty to be there and do things like put a serious dent in this six-foot-long cured meat sub from the locally renowned North End Deli:



Normally, I would not select an option like this from a menu, but somehow it seemed like the most appealing thing upon which I had ever laid eyes.



I grabbed myself a beverage from the porch …



… and settled down in a comfy chair with my slice of sub and a pickle:



(I don’t normally like pickles, either! What is up with me and the salt lately??)

When I finished lunch, I rustled around in the the candy dish and came up with this:



I also decided a gin and tonic was in order since it is tradition to consume alcoholic beverages when a guest in the Gunn household:



After the food, Erin started in on the gift portion of the afternoon. After she gracefully let her new Waterford crystal goblet roll from her lap onto the floor (everyone’s heart stopped for a moment until the goblet was confirmed to have survived the fall), she opened the most exciting present a lady can receive:



I am so jealous of all the kitchen gadgets she got! It almost makes me want to get married so I can register for these goodies, too. Almost. If I ever finish grad school, maybe I will have a married-to-myself party and register for a KitchenAid.

I also snacked on Sunchips because they were there:



Since I was in attendance, you know what came next:

Clearly, the Gunns did not get my memo about needing to fit into that bridesmaid dress!

Side note: I am such a cake connoisseur that, when Erin asked what the difference was between the two cakes, I was able to confidently tell her that the cake on the left was yellow and the cake on the right was chocolate! I have cake x-ray vision. Cake and I are so tight that I don’t need to see through the frosting to sense what is underneath it.



The cake was good. (Surprise!) I might have had five pieces. (Surprise!)



Happy couple:



(Fun fact: If you look closely, you can see Mike’s dad in the background on the left and Erin’s dad in the background on the right. Shortly after this picture was taken, the boys took off to Erin’s brother’s house to drink beer and watch football and just assert their manliness in general.)

Our friend Jes, one of the other bridesmaids, put together goodie bags for the occasion:



I love that sparkly witch!

The bags were were full of Halloween candy (reminder: this is appropriate because Erin’s wedding falls on Halloween) … including this way-too-exciting peanut butter cup:



When the shower started to wind down, the men returned for refueling:



That is Mike, the groom-to-be, eating some of the Captain’s famous pizza. Erin’s dad (aka the Captain), makes the best pizza in the world, and he’s been making it every Friday night since the beginning of time. The shower was on a Saturday, so we hit the Gunn household at prime leftover time. Fun fact #2: I despised pizza until I was 18 and tried a slice of the Captain’s pizza.

I was stuffed from all the cured meat subbing, but I had to have a couple slivers for old time’s sake. A slice of margherita and a slice of pepper and mushroom:



After the pizza, the men disappeared again, signaling that it was time for the real party to begin. Erin’s sisters had planned ahead and made sure we lined our stomachs with plenty of absorbent frozen appetizers, such as taquitos and jalapeno poppers:

Pizza bites and mozzarella sticks:

And spinach and buffalo chicken puff pastries:

And what’s a bachelorette party without a three-foot-tall red-headed blow-up man, right?



The party included balls of all shapes and sizes, including these Oreo balls that Jes made: Oreos pureed with cream cheese, rolled into balls, and dipped into chocolate.



Mmmm, they were delicious and elegant. Not all of the balls were so subtle, though.

Rice crispies treats:

Peek-a-boo!



And I think that is the extent of the pictures I have that are (barely) suitable for the general public 😛

If you were going to have a bridal shower (whether in honor of your marriage to yourself or to someone else), what would you put on your registry first?

Once upon a time, I had a super stressful day at work. I let myself be talked into “30 minutes” at Camaradas, a unique and artsy bar (and “nuevo Puerto Rican” restaurant) around the corner from my office.

Even though it was a work night, sangria was first on the agenda:



Now, as we’ve discussed, I do not like wine. But how could I resist this?



Our server, Alejandro, distributed the sangria, and a glass landed in front of me. Whoops.





Thirty minutes quickly turned into over an hour, as the others systematically continued to refill my glass with more and more sangria. Every time we emptied a pitcher, I went digging for the apples and oranges amongst the ice:



Even tipsy, I will fight to save the crumbs!



Alejandro noticed my determination to rescue the fruit, so he delivered to me my very own plate of cut apples, on the house:



Best. Service. Ever.

Between the apples and the buddha on the wall, the stress of the day just melted away 🙂



As the stress melted away, so did the night. Before:



After:



Nydia ordered the Camaradas platter “so you can take a picture for the blog.” I’m very good at following instructions:



This platter included alcapurrias, pastellilos, chicken skewers, yuca tostones, and platano tostones. I took some of each:



Soooooooooooooo good!

And then I went back to my pitchers of wine-soaked fruit.



And somehow four hours went by. And there were a million pictures on my camera.









I think there may have been dancing with Alejandro:

More sangria:

And apparently, more food.



Jose shared a wedge of quesadilla with me, and Lillian shared her salad. Because I did not already have a bushel full of winey apples in my belly or anything.



And the next thing I new, three desserts arrived right in front of me. I swear I did not order them. But mannnnnnnn, did I eat them!

Empanadas de chocolate:



Flan:



And maduros del barrio (the best one! fried sweet plantains with caramel and ice cream):



My coworkers are a bad influence. Bad. Bad. Bad. But in such a good way.



The end 😀

What is your favorite part of sangria: the wine or the fruit?