Amidst all the chaos, out-of-whack schedules, and missed sleep of August, one thing has remained consistent: work food!! I swear, the world could be coming to a complete stop outside, but my agency would not miss a single beat on the food front. There’s no way I can possibly capture all the goodies of the past two weeks, but I think I’ve got enough material for a decent-sized summary!

Even though I didn’t eat at the “informal staff gathering” a few Fridays back due to other plans, you can rest assured that I packed up plenty of leftovers from the event, including pounds of salad, crudites, and this turkey and cheese sandwich that took shape as a perfect lunch the following Monday:

I also scrounged up a Kudos bar (I don’t think I’ve had one of these since high school!) from Belkis’ candy jar in a particularly munchy moment:

And found Nydia’s leftover chorizo taco and chicken taquito on the conference room table at the end of one day:

East Harlem makes the best tacos in the world … except for maybe Mexico.

I have to admit that I did supplement the tacos with a purchase. I noticed the juice bar was unusually well-stocked with fresh coconut, so I picked some up on the way home that day for subway snacking:



(Ummmm, disclaimer: Those are not my stubby boy fingers holding the coconut. They belong to my coworker Erik, who generously agreed to hand model. I happen to have graceful long and tapered fingers, fyi.)

A granola bar from Jessica also made its way into the work food repertoire somewhere in the abyss of the past two weeks:



Have you ever had this flavor?? It tasted like a waffle!

Lillian revived the all natural macaroons from “Health Food Store.” I guess the store can get away with calling itself that since it’s the only one in east Harlem …

Apparently, I ate a mint-choxie, too, which I’m pretty sure appeared on my desk courtesy of Jessica:

The big windfall of recent weeks happened when I participated in a focus group about health care workers’ views of climate change. As compensation for being a part of the group, I received a $25 AmEx gift card AND free lunch from El Paso. I started with half a veggie burrito, black beans, and yellow rice:



And followed it up with half a chicken burrito:



I definitely think that researchers should visit my agency to conduct their focus groups more often.

The other phenomenal food experience of the past couple weeks arrived courtesy of Mildred, who just came back from a month visiting her family in the Dominican Republic. She smuggled many goodies through customs, including several jars of dulce, a coconut-milk-sugar pudding-esque concoction.

The office went mad for it, as it is a serious Dominican delicacy. Jessica, Belkis, and Mildred worked on dulce distribution in a secret corner of our floor by the fridge, and I documented the adventure, as usual:

Ohhhhhhh dear, this was soooooooooooooooo jaw-achingly amazing! Please, somebody, take me to the DR asap!



Now, I can sort of see how the dulce would have been smuggle-able through customs, but how about these fresh Dominican avocados?????

I have to say, I have never ever tasted such a delicious avocado in my life, and avocados are already my favorite “fruit.” I didn’t even know it was from the DR when Myrna gave me a bite and I exclaimed something about its sweetness. The insane flavor made total sense when I found out how fresh it was.

Rosalie also made a trip to the DR this month and came back with all manner of delicious Dominican confections, most of them coconut-based:

Nothing like a good dessert sampler platter 😀

All of this coconut candy got me craving the real deal, so I graced the juice bar with my presence again:

In addition to the coconut, I picked up a Spritz It Up juice (spinach, celery, ginger, and parsley) because I was so full of authentic Dominican coconut brilliance that I couldn’t contemplate a solid lunch:

Except for maybe this bite of Deborah’s mama’s cooking:

Myrna offered up her tres leches cake, but I stuck to one bite.



The reason for my cake restraint? I also went to pick up my bridesmaid dress for Erin Gunn’s wedding last week, and it fit me like the tightest glove ever. Since I cannot afford to not fit in this dress, I am going to need to practice more moderation than normal for the next couple of months. I put my coworkers on alert about the dress situation, and Myrna graciously disappeared to some hidden corner of the office with the rest of her cake!

Near the end of last week, however, Belkis proudly brought in a pan full of homemade yellow cake, and I obviously sampled some:

But, again, I stuck to one piece for the reasons mentioned above! I had to work hard to restrain myself with this one because the cake was sitting on the table next to my desk allllll afternoon. Luckily, we had a lot of balloon animals hanging around since we had been planning to have a picnic for the families on Friday before it got rained out. The little dogs came in handy when I needed to hide the rest of Belkis’ cake from myself:

Jessica was so sad about the picnic getting rained out that she decided to dress up in her clown costume anyway and entertain us:

And then she and Belkis broke out the hula hoops that we had intended to use for the picnic, and we got started with the exercise portion of our Friday afternoon at work:

Jessica and Belkis in da howwwwwwwwwwwwse.

Finally, I took a swig of Jessica’s chocolate milk and called it a day!

How do you let off steam at work? Have hula hoops and balloon animals ever made an appearance?

I have at least three critical CSA deliveries awaiting blog fame, so let’s not waste any time!

Two weeks ago, Kate was out of town and left me responsible for the full share:

I made it to the pickup just in the nick of time and had to tearfully beg for my share until the powers that be acquiesced. I made out with loads of salad greens (romaine, arugula, baby bok choy) and salad veggies (broccoli, kale, eggplant, green peppers), big tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, jalapenos, peaches, and donut peaches:

Every Saturday is like Christmas with this bounty! I fell in love with an eggplant:

So I broiled it after a quick soak in balsamic, evoo, sea salt, and coriander and then layered it in the bottom of a baking dish with balcony basil:

I threw some sliced CSA tomatoes on top along with cheddar and homemade parm for a roast, and the end result was surprisingly gourmet! It tasted like eggplant a la vodka, mmmmmmm. I also roasted the rest of the CSA veggies and steamed the reject greens (broccoli and kale stems, wilted lettuce, etc).

I froze about half of that food so that Kate could experience this delicious share when she got back. I ate the rest pretty close to immediately 😀

I didn’t get to pick up last week’s CSA from Kate until about mid-week due to the Buffalo trip and ensuing chaos, but I was thrilled that Kate saved everything for me:

This share conveniently had a ton of arugula, basil, and romaine, as I needed to replenish my salad supply because I’d had no time to shop since getting back from Buffalo. In addition to the greens, the share also had corn, tomatoes, nectarines, crenshaw melon, and watermelon (!!!).

Finally, this past week’s share was brilliantly exciting … but soooo heavy to carry!

We got a big eggplant, red/green bell pepper, finger eggplants, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, baby turnips, garlic, braising greens, crenshaw melon, and watermelon.

Beautiful! Most of the fruit has been making its way into fruit salad form along these lines:

But plenty has worked perfectly well in whole fruit form, such as this glowing peach:

And I’ve been keeping aside a crop of veggies each week for daytime finger snacks at work:

(baby turnips, green beans, tomatoes, bell pepper, cucumber …)

Por ejemplo, this snack baggie of grape tomatoes and green pepper strips:

I’ve also done some wild things with my produce supply. Remember the steamed reject greens from the beginning of this post? I immersion blended them and then mixed them into some Stonyfield raspberry white chocolate chunk ice cream, along with a square of unsweetened baker’s chocolate and frozen grapes:

It looks (and sounds!) scary, but I love broccoli … so I thought this was scrumptious.

The CSA eggs have been working out well for breakfasts in crepe form (and occasionally topped with guacamole or hummus, depending on whose leftovers have made their way to me each week):

And there have obviously been loads of salads! Some are heavy on the roasted CSA veggies:

(topped with homemade guac again)

Others are heavy on the greens:

I love bringing these salads to work for lunch since they are light enough to allow me the wiggle room of snapping up tastes of all my coworkers’ home-cooking, such as Belkis’ Dominican rice, beans, and spaghetti:

Finally, thanks to the loads and loads of eggplant and tomatoes in the most recent CSA (and the loads and loads of basil growing on my balcony as a result of several scorching days followed by several rainy days), I’ve been able to recreate my “eggplant a la vodka” from a couple weeks ago (aka the beginning of this post) with double the layers! I layered broiled eggplant in the bottom of the dish and topped it with balcony basil and heirloom tomatoes:

(Sorry for the blur — I was feeling lazy!)

Layer #1 went back in the oven for a roast until the tomatoes got wrinkly, signaling that it was time for layer #2 to come out and play.

I layered the broiled finger eggplants over the tomatoes with more balcony basil:

And topped it with the beefsteak tomatoes for another roast.

Once those tomatoes got tight and wrinky, I shredded some cheeses that I located in the back of the fridge and gave the whole dish a broil until the cheese got bubbly and brown:

Seriously, this dish is criminally delicious and ridiculously easy.

Pleeeeeeease make it immediately while eggplants and tomatoes are still in season. You will thank me, I promise!

I am so sure there were other exciting things I’ve done with my produce over the past few weeks, but they’re escaping me at the moment. I think I’ve covered the most important things anyway. Today’s take-aways: (1) steam your leftover greens and puree them into ice cream (I dare you!) and (2) make this eggplant-basil-tomato-cheese mess immediately!!

Have you ever gone through a vegetable-less period of time and, if so, which vegetable do you choose to mark your return to the world of produce?

Hehehehehe, who loves puns?!

So, we know that Buffalo shuns veggies and loves cake, but I should also mention that Buffalo boasts quite the happening restaurant scene. What else would you expect from a city that has given its name to an entire culture of chicken wings?

To prepare for our first night on the town, Erin Gunn and I tried out some fancy make-up specifically designed for blue eyes that Siobhan provided … all in the name of wedding testing, of course.

As usual, I look scary and Erin looks elegant.

I decided to pose with Lily instead, but her baby blues knocked mine out of the water, too! Hmph, leave it to the babies to show you up.

For dinner, Erin, Mike, Siobhan, Kevin (Siobhan’s husband), Lily, and I headed out to Pearl Street Brewery, clearly the most hopping place in Buffalo since we had to wait 45 minutes for a table!

(Side note: Lily and I were the only sober ones by the time we left the house, so I was elected designated driver. I hadn’t driven in three years!!!! I felt so honored to have the trust of the Gunns! And I got us there in one piece :-D)

We ate popcorn while waiting for a table:

And some very special guests were able to join us. Emily, one of my former partners-in-Park-Slope-crime, recently moved to Buffalo with her husband, so they met up with us for the Brewery feast.

Also while waiting for a table, Lily made her Irish ancestors proud. Watch this sequence of events carefully:

Yes, you saw it here first: baby dips goldfish in mom’s beer and then devours it. It was a proud moment for all involved 😀

I saw two items on the menu that I had to have:

So I obviously combined them and ordered the chicken fajita salad with some of the stout-marinated portabella mushrooms on top.

It was a brilliant move and worth every last cent of the extra mushroom fee.

Almost as exciting as the stout-marinated mushroom was the potato pancake with cherry-wheat stewed apples, ordered by Emily’s husband’s friend who also joined us:

I am definitely not a fan of beer, but I consistently love everything that has been cooked in it!

Other nibbles included some of Lily’s pasta and homemade potato chips:

As we all know, I hate potatoes, but these chips were delicious. I feel like I’ve been saying that about potato-related products quite a bit lately. Hmmmmm.

And a bite of Erin’s pearl street pizza with pepperoni, sausage, banana peppers, mushrooms, onions, and black olives:

It’s not a combo I would ever order myself, but OMG was it delicious!

While I sipped my water and ate off everyone else’s plates, the rest of the table ordered this crazy beer contraption:

This 100 oz. tower was affectionately called the Widow Maker Tube, but it vanished pretty quickly amidst the likes of this bunch:

Hours of enjoyment:

Needless to say, I drove us all back home at the end of the night 😛

Our other geographically appropriate restaurant venture led us to Anchorbar, the debated “home of the original” Buffalo chicken wings:

The decor inside was wild and sporty as one would expect from the chicken wing capital of the world:

The crew ordered cheesy bread with marinara for the table, and I enjoyed it immensely:

Since we were in a wings joint and all, beer and wings were on the agenda. Not being a big fan of either, I chose the road less traveled and ordered a mug of tea:

(See the nearly empty beer jug #1 in the background?)

And a slice of key lime pie 😛

Granted, I ate some wings just to say I did. We were in Buffalo, after all …

But I mostly hung out in my corner in heaven with my afternoon teatime:

The key lime pie was increeeeeeeedible.

Our last restaurant hurrah in Buffalo took place in this joint when we stopped by to pick up subs for a pre-odyssey meal before we left on Sunday afternoon:

While we waited for our food, I dropped a quarter in the candy machine for this handful of peanut m&ms to share with the table:

We got back to the house and dove into our lunch. I put together a montage of eating action shots, much to the great pleasure of my companions.

Siobhan:

Mike:

Kevin:

Erin:

Let’s hear it for great sports!

I ordered the chicken fajita wrap, which was significantly smaller than everyone else’s subs, but I was sooooooooo stuffed from eating half of that darn pumpkin cake for breakfast!

It hit the spot. Here’s the inside:

I also had a few bites of Erin’s chicken finger sub which came with buffalo sauce and blue cheese:

Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

And before we left, I convinced Erin that we needed to have some local death by chocolate ice cream (with chocolate-covered almonds, chocolate truffle pieces, and fudge chips!) that I had been eyeing the the freezer all weekend:

Left me speechless.

Around 3pm, we finally left for the 6-hour drive back to NYC. I drove the first leg — two whole hours, whaaaaaaaaat! — through three torrential downpours that limited visibility 100%. I did not even come close to getting us in an accident!!! Maybe I should start a chauffeur service?

The beauteous scenery kept us company for the journey:

As did our leftover wings, which somehow seemed much more appetizing in the car than they had in the restaurant:

And that concludes the Buffalo story. Erin and Mike dropped me back at the subway. The subway was under construction as usual, and I had to take 5 vehicles over the course of two hours to get back to Brooklyn just after midnight, but it was worth it. I had an excellent and relaxing weekend, Erin Gunn was productive with wedding tasks, Siobhan and Kevin were stellar hosts, and Mike was the voice of reason through it all. Thanks for a brilliant weekend, crew!

Is your town known for any specific cuisine?

Sometimes, when you’re a bridesmaid, you have to take one for the team and push yourself to your limits, all for the sake of the future bride’s needs. In my case, these responsibilities have included eating deliciously unhealthy meals and taste-testing wedding cake. However, I cannot imagine anyone more worthy of these sacrifices than Erin Gunn, and I would gladly be her bridesmaid any day … despite her unreasonable demands 😛 Wedding cake-tasting, pshhh!

Erin’s sister Siobhan has been charged with making the wedding cakes for the marriages of all four siblings in the Gunn family, including her own! For Erin’s Halloween wedding, Siobhan is appropriately planning on a pumpkin cake.

She had several different recipes to try and needed our input.

I did not find any problems with cake number one, as I proceeded to eat at least half of the pan:

Since we were eating cake in the afternoon anyway, we decided to make it a full-blown tea time with these authentic Mikado cookies that Erin brought for Siobhan all the way from the Irish section of her Yonkers grocery store.

The cookies consisted of a biscuit topped with marshmallow, strawberry jam, and coconut. Can’t quite go wrong there.

As an ardent fan of teatime, I was especially taken with Siobhan’s adorable tea nooks above the sink:

And with the high quality of her loose leaf English breakfast tea that served as the perfect Mikado companion:

Or Mikado + wedding cake companion:

Yes, that’s right, wedding cake #2 made its appearance, and I polished off at least half of that one as well:

Yeah, no problems here, Siobhan. Keep up the good work!

Cake number two, still warm from the oven, paired particularly well with a scoop of vanilla ice cream:

And with another slice:

Ummm, and the next morning for breakfast with a Mikado, ice cream, blueberries, and more pumpkin puree:

Yes, this breakfast earned me some concerned glances:

… but I’m pretty sure I was the only one rolling my eyes back in taste ecstasy while the others looked on with their judgments:-P

OK, I know I’ve asked this question before, but it’s one that deserves repeating. Best wedding cake ever?

Well, I certainly did not intend to be gone for over a week, but my life has been hijacked by nonstop activity. I haven’t had time to sleep lately, let alone to blog! Out of control. Anyway, in the interest of time, I’m going to bypass chronology and go thematic. Try to stay with me!

After last week’s greenfest-followed-by-ice-cream-sundaes, things continued deteriorating from a nutritional standpoint while skyrocketing from a fun standpoint.

Mike, Erin Gunn’s fiancé, picked me up from the last subway stop in the Bronx last week Thursday after work, and we drove over to their condo to meet Erin, who was just arriving back from a business trip. Erin immediately whipped up some of her famous turkey reubens to fuel us for the journey ahead:



The reubens involved deli-sliced cracked pepper turkey, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese sandwiched between whole wheat tortillas and broiled:



These reuben wedges were soooooo good and melty, especially dipped in some Russian dressing, and they gave me all the energy I needed to sleep through the six-hour drive to Buffalo while Mike and Erin took turns at the wheel 😛 Also providing proper fuel was the big bag of animal crackers Mike had picked up for the drive. Sleeping in the back seat can take a lot out of you, and it is critical to nourish your body to ensure survival in these trying times.

We arrived at Erin’s sister’s house in Buffalo somewhere in the vicinity of 4am and went right to bed. I was installed in the baby’s room (baby had been relocated to parents’ room for the weekend) where I slept until about 10:30. That is a record for this month, as I’ve been averaging about two hours of sleep a night for various reasons. When I got out of bed on Friday, this sight greeted me:



Erin’s sister Siobhan was making us perfect perfect pancakes!



Baby Lily looked on with some blueberries:

The finished breakfast also included brilliantly crispy bacon, CSA fruit salad that I had carted with me from the city, and nutella!!!

I could tell you how amazing the nutella and the fruit tasted on top of the pancakes, but I’d rather just show you:

After breakfast, we had playtime with Lily. Her first birthday was last month, so Auntie Erin and Uncle Mr. Mike brought her some goodies like this new horsey and Ming-Ming, the bath-time ducky in the horsey’s front basket:

Later in the afternoon, we made a critical stop at the liquor store, the highlight of which took place at the check-out counter:

Mmmmmhmmm, free dumdums woooooooooot.

We got back to the house famished and raided the fridge for leftovers of any sort. We turned up part of a quesadilla and chips with sour cream, green salsa, and chipotle salsa:

Garlic herb breadsticks with marinara sauce from the pizza place:

And deliciously seasoned and tender ribs, source unknown:

Another deliciously non-green meal from the weekend, courtesy of master chef Siobhan, involved Saturday morning’s breakfast of turkey sausages …

… and poached eggs:

OK, shhhh, don’t tell, but I also snuck in some produce: a spoonful of pumpkin puree (you’ll soon learn why this was lying around all weekend) with a slice of banana (stolen from baby) and a sprinkle of cinnamon:

My breakfast of two perfectly poached eggs (aka, not runny!) over whole wheat toast with two turkey sausages on the side:

And that concludes the veggie-free-meals-eaten-in-the-home portion of the Buffalo report. There’s wayyyyyyyyyy more to come!

What is your favorite veggie-free meal?