First, as you read this, I am hopefully gracefully soaring across the country on my way to San Francisco 😀 My brother’s wedding is tomorrow, and then I’m staying out there for the week so I can get in all my sibling- and niece-visiting. I can’t wait! This plan also very likely means that posting is going to be sporadic (and perhaps nonexistent) next week again. I foresee many exciting food experience taking place during my trip, however, so I should have some fun reports when I return!

Second, I am aware that posts containing food I have created myself are few and far between, but I have still been cooking/chopping up my usual storm. There was one morning when I made myself a breakfast of sliced CSA peach with homemade mixed nut butter and cinnamon:

I have also continued to delight in my daily portions of CSA crudites:

I recently baked a CSA spaghetti squash, roasted the seeds, and tossed the whole thing with some homemade CSA three-leaf pesto:

I received a sample of sprouted soybean silken tofu from Wildwood, so I blended that with fresh ginger, ground flax, CSA pear, and nutmeg to make a flax pudding of sorts (which went especially well topped with cinnamon and more homemade mixed nut butter):

I’ve been getting home late at night due to class and other obligations, so dinners have been relatively low-key. Behold: Carr’s rosemary crackers topped with Wildwood probiotic raspberry chipotle hummus with a centerpiece of frozen grapes and 70% dark chocolate from a CVS ExtraCares coupon:

(P.S. CVS is my favorite store in the world … and even more so now that it gave me a coupon for a free giant bar of chocolate.)

I have also been using my Nature’s Pride 100% whole wheat bread (Thanks, Foodbuzz!) for egg sandwiches:

This type of egg sandwich was a staple of my childhood. I have missed it!

And free bread isn’t too shabby, either.

Many snack times have featured my high-end glamorous dehydrated fruit salad, courtesy of my mom and her fancy kitchen appliances. Kiwi, watermelon, mango, pineapple, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, apples, peaches, plums, banana, and more:

The most dramatic food story of all, however, has involved my urban garden. If you recall, I’ve been nurturing a little tomato plant from seed ever since last fall when I saved and planted the seeds of an heirloom tomato I had bought from the Farmers’ Market. I actually had several little tomato seedlings, but all but one got crushed in an unfortunate incident with my window shade back in May. I transplanted the one remaining seedling to a pot on my balcony in the beginning of summer, and I have been devotedly following its growth — and the growth of my very first tomato — ever since. The weekend before last, I noticed that my one tomato was finally starting to turn red. I was SO excited!!! After my wild night in Jersey with Erin Gunn & co., I came back home and rushed to the balcony to check on my steadily ripening treasure. There was a problem:

Where the f did my tomato go??????!!!!!!!!!! I started looking around wildly for a squirrel I could scream at. And then I looked down:

Closer:

In all the rain and wind, my poor little tomato had simply blown off the plant and landed in the backyard of my downstairs neighbors. I debated the best course of action. Would it be weird to ask my neighbors to retrieve my surely destroyed tomato so that I could say a real goodbye in person?? I don’t live in Kansas where people understand that sort of thing. I live in Brooklyn! I tried to restrain myself, but I eventually sprinted down the steps to knock on the door of my neighbors and confess my craziness. They were not home!! I grabbed a post-it and wrote a hopefully-not-creepy note about how my first tomato ever was in their backyard. And then I signed it with my address, my phone number, my email, and probably several other methods for contacting me. I had dinner plans, but when I got off the subway later that night, I had the sweetest message ever from my neighbor, stating that she had found my tomato, tried her best to clean it up, and was holding onto it for me so I could decide for myself how to proceed:

I gave my tomato a slice to check internal integrity:

There were no slugs, and that was good enough for me! I chopped the tomato and tossed it with my pesto spaghetti squash, baked BBQ tofu, and spicy spaghetti squash seeds:

Yummmmmm, my tomato was excellent!! I am so proud of that little seed for growing into a real live plant that gave birth to a real live fruit.

Have you ever felt maternal pride toward something you have grown or made?

Ohhhh, Erin Gunn! Her wedding is the reason I am trying to eat reasonably this month, and her wedding is also the reason I absolutely cannot eat reasonably this month. You may remember the food involved in our wedding-planning-motivated-trip to visit her sister in Buffalo (recounted here, here, and here) as well as the food involved in her bridal shower/ballfest bachelorette party. Well, a couple weeks ago, Erin Gunn’s soon-to-be in-laws threw her another shower so that the New York contingent who had not been able to journey to MA for the first one could have a chance to participate in the showering as well.

Erin’s cousin-in-law-to-be hosted the very classy function at her Long Island home. You know I was in heaven when I saw this platter:



I don’t quite remember how it happened, but my hand seemed consistently occupied with a steady mimosa supply throughout the afternoon:



I also did bridesmaidy things:

The lunch selection (as if I had not already eaten my weight in dill havarti) was genius:



I had a plate with grilled chicken and onions on sundried tomato olive bread, barley salad, and mediterranean pasta salad:



And then there were desserts!



I obviously had to try it all: white cake with strawberries and whipped cream, half a pink-frosted cupcake, apple pie, and chocolate layer cake:



I definitely went back for more slivers of everything, too.

Erin’s future brother-in-law’s girlfriend put together these sweet favors in honor of Erin’s mom’s ongoing battle with breast cancer:

Jordan almonds were inside, and I ate them all 😀



And Erin’s future mother-in-law brought along the goody bags left from Erin’s first shower in MA:



The next weekend, while Mike and the guys had their bachelor party on a party bus that hit all the Manhattan hot spots, I joined their significant others in New Jersey for a good, old-fashioned girls night in. We had brownies and Moe’s:



I ordered a black bean burrito and ate it ALL.



(And you know I also did some serious damage to that tray of brownies!)

Things started to get a little out of hand when Kari decided to go brunette (a theme lately!), and Laura took on the mixology duties:







Post-dye-application, I took over mixology duties for the alcoholic segment of the evening. Who was the genius who assigned this job to me?? I made some shots. I don’t remember what was in them:



And the photos stopped there. We might have gone out on the town and done all sorts of crazy things that cannot be blogged. Or we might have also collapsed on the couch to watch Never Been Kissed on TBS and fallen asleep in the middle of it …. You’ll never know for sure 😉

Do you prefer bridges or tunnels? Islands or mainlands? Bars or girly movies?

… from the tree! Belkis went apple picking recently. As a result, this situation has been taunting me every single working hour for the past two weeks:

All day, every day, I sit right next to a steady supply of apples and peanut butter and a bunch of ladies who love this combo as much as I do:

My little seating area has gone through approximately 7 jars of peanut butter in the past two weeks.

And perhaps hundreds of apples.

In an effort to put a dent in her undentable apple supply, Belkis asked me if I knew how to make apple pie. I told her she had come to the right place, and she promptly handed over seven of her hard-earned jewels:

I warned her that my apple pie would not be traditional, and she gave me permission to put any spin on the dessert that I chose. I decided to go with my Apple Pie with Millet Crust, which I felt would be wholesome and hearty enough to bring as my offering for that Thursday’s department breakfast in honor of Mildred’s last day (tear :-().

The pie vanished. I was so excited to have supplied a healthy offering that my fried-food-and-cake-loving coworkers gobbled up 🙂

Here’s the rest of the table:

Highlights included fresh avocado:

Homemade whole wheat-oatmeal waffles with nutella, banana, and whipped cream (go Angela!!):

Just because I want to make your mouth water even more:

Jessica’s famous omelettes (said with a French accent, of course):

Here’s my first plate with Angela’s waffles, Belkis’ yuca and onions, my apple pie, strawberries and grapes from Rosey and Pansy, pancakes from McDonald’s via Deborah, Jessica’s omelet, avocado, and turkey sausage:

Aaaaaaaaaaand plate number two:

There were more plates, but who’s counting?

I did, however, have the foresight to save some of Belkis’ yuca masterpiece and bits of avocado for the next day’s lunch!

Also that Thursday, I finally made it to karate with the help of my coworker Erik, who is already a member. I started out brilliantly confident because the instructor made us run 15 laps around the gym. It was nothing for me, but all the boys were panting. (Side note: The class is ALL guys who are significantly bigger than I am, except for one kid who is approximately 11 years old whose dad put him in the class to toughen him up.) Then, I got selected to spar in the middle of the circle and got punched in the eye by accident. Next, I got sent into this space designed to simulate an elevator with Erik. Erik was supplied with a red marker intended to simulate a knife. He had to try to mark me up, and I had to try to defend myself. I may have left that drill covered in red marks. I would be so dead if I had really been stuck in an elevator with knife-toting guy. So, officially covered in bruises, I officially joined karate. As the instructor said, “Better you get hurt in here than out there!”

On the long subway ride back to Brooklyn from East Harlem, Erik helped dull the pain with these homemade alcohol-infused grapes that another grateful mom had gifted to him:

After one grape, the pain became a thing of the past. These could be dangerous!

Erik and I almost went back to karate on Friday night. But instead we walked through the prettiest part of Central Park:

And ate cheese and crackers:

Here’s the difference between boys and girls. Erik was responsible for the arrangement and photography of the above photo (of mind-numbingly delicious aged gouda with Carr’s rosemary crackers). I arranged the photo below:

Which would you rather eat???

I also stir-fried the rest of my CSA veggies (cabbage, green beans, and bell peppers) with the rest of Mildred’s arroz con gandules. Erik convinced me to put in the two whole jalapenos — seeds and stems included — that Dorothy had given me from her CSA, and I seasoned the whole thing with Emeril’s Essence seasoning. I topped it with baked firm sprouted tofu from Wildwood in a Country Bob’s glaze.

As delicious as this was, I could not take the insane heat from the jalapenos and their insides. I told Erik it was on him to eat it all since no food that I had cooked was going to end up in the trash. He accepted the challenge and valiantly powered through a full body sweat session to house the whole meal for lunch at work the following Monday.

Do your apples fall far from the tree? What’s your experience with physical combat? And how much heat can you take?

Sooooo, I’m aware that I’m like 10 years behind on the blogging. Please forgive me. Between the school and the work and the boys and the need for mental health, spare blogging time is pretty elusive. Despite all of these other obligations, however, I am still eating more than enough, so please don’t worry about me or about my caloric intake 😛 (Unless you are Erin Gunn, in which case you can worry about my caloric intake and the diminishing likelihood that I will fit into the bridesmaid dress for your wedding. JOKE. sort of.)

While I am contemplating the most appropriate theme for this post, my computer is in the process of uploading 200+ photos. I think the best way to go is to do a rundown of work food first. Ummmmm, I’m not sure I can fit all of this in one post. Let’s see how we do, since iPhoto keeps quitting on me due to photo upload overload. Onto the food …

This seems like ancient history now, but many many many work lunches ago, Mildred presented me with some beautiful beet-and-potato salad and her famous arroz con gandules:

You know I’m not into potatoes, but I love beets, and they managed to camouflage the potatoes quite effectively. I had a little of each and saved the rest for future creations.

Deborah gave me a bite of her toasty english muffin with melted swiss cheese. Mmmmm, this tasted like being five years old.

Jessica had a birthday, and she brought in some of the best leftover cake ever. Can you recognize it???

Ta daaaaaaaaa!

Junior’s cheesecake, OMG. If you’re not from New York, you might not understand what the big deal is. So let me educate you. Junior’s has been the official home of the world’s. best. cheesecake. since it was founded in Brooklyn (love my borough!) in 1950. If you’re ever in the market to try authentic New York cheesecake, Junior’s is the place to go — there’s really no other option. Dear Jessica: Thank you for sharing!

There was another day when I walked into work and found this conference room table sight patiently waiting to taunt me:

There was a board meeting in the conference room right next to my desk, and I literally watched for approximately three hours as none of the board members touched these beautiful platters of cheese, crackers, and fruit. How could they just sit there and ignore the bounty in front of them?? At the end of the meeting, the untouched platters were offered up to the rest of us but, sadly, I had to skedaddle for class. Luckily, Jessica and Deborah saved me a little package for the next day:

And somewhere along the way, Lillian whipped out her all natural macaroons from the health food store:

Mmmm, these are just INSANELY delicious.

I had more than one 😛

Deborah shared her raspberries, and Jennifer shared her Brazil nuts:

These cream-filled sandwich cookies somehow made their way into my line of sight as well:

As did this piece of yuca, homemade by Deborah’s mom, and this caramel bulls-eye candy I found sitting on the conference room table (where else??):

And a banana that came my way from the food pantry via Jessica with office peanut butter, a Nature’s Path cranberry ginger granola bar from Belkis, and avena from Nydia:

As the weather has gotten colder the past few weeks, the ladies have all been enjoying freshly brewed coffee each morning. One day, they decided to enhance their coffee with these:

I managed to ignore them for an entire day … but day #2 came and I had no choice but to heat up a plain donut with my CSA pear and sugar cookie sleigh ride tea for a second breakfast 😀

Seriously, this was the perfect fall snack: warm pear and warm old-fashioned donut. I took my time with this platter.

(Or maybe I inhaled it.)

Lillian made a donation to Belkis’ candy jar:

Those little lollipops have been keeping me quite entertained! Especially the cotton candy and blue raspberry flavors. I love eating things that are blue!

I also do a lot of healthy snacking at work. (I had to throw that in there because my dad has been reading the blog and getting worried about my blood sugar levels). I had a lunchtime meeting with these goodies:

(In the background are Dunkin Donuts muffins left from a morning meeting of which I was a part and during which I ate little bits of each flavor — blueberry (DD makes the best blueberry muffins in the world!), coffee cake, pumpkin, and chocolate chip — to equal at least one full muffin.)

After all of the muffins, I decided to save my packed lunch for another day and loaded up on the produce from this meeting in an effort to give my body something useful to digest:

I also had some (ummmm, like three bowls) of this gorgeous chickpea salad that Inginia made:

And a couple pieces of fresh coconut straight from the juice bar, courtesy of Belkis:

And, on another day, I ate some edamame left from Lillian and Nydia’s lunch:

And there was one brilliant lunch when Deborah showed up at the tail end and whipped out this package with a very mischievous look on her face:

CRAB LEGS!!!!! She let me eat two 😀

OMG, and then there was another phenomenal cake adventure! I love looking through these pictures — it’s such an excellent way to skip down memory lane and relive the greatest food moments of September 2009. I was walking by Erik’s desk on my way to fill up the Brita pitcher when he reached for a neatly wrapped foil package and raised an eyebrow at me. I stopped in my tracks immediately as he revealed to me one of the most breathtaking visions of the year:

Homemade, just baked, just frosted red velvet cake! He had helped a mom asthma-proof her apartment, and she showed her gratitude by gifting him this little chunk of heaven.

I pretty much let the Brita pitcher tumble to the floor while Erik, Ray, and I enjoyed several silent moments of total cake ecstasy:

I needed to take another moment after that cake to quell my palpitating heart, so I took a field trip to one of our little conference rooms that had been freshly re-painted and admired Ibrahim’s skillful application of these sweet animal wall decals:

I actually can’t wait to have a meeting in there this week so that I can hang out with these new friends some more.

What were your greatest food hits for September?

Sometimes, Friday just turns into Saturday and you have an epic blog post on your hands.

I had very well-intentioned plans to check out a karate class in East Harlem after work last Friday. But when the buzz started to spread around that former Yankees centerfielder Bernie Williams would be a guest guitarist at Camaradas, some people (I’m not naming names or anything) decided Bernie would be a better use of my Friday evening. Ummm, neither Erik nor Jose (nor the mofongo de camarones) had anything to do with this decision:



Did someone say mofongo de camarones? Karate dreams all but forgotten, I definitely was not complaining when this steaming mound of mashed fried green plantain and shrimp landed in front of me:



Nor was I complaining when the empanadas de pollo arrived:



I didn’t even complain when the music started:



And Bernie Williams did, in fact, make his appearance:



I also did not complain when Jose and Erik got into a heated discussion about obscure old music that went completely over my head; instead I ordered a pint of sangria with extra fruit:



I continued to not complain when the bartender noticed I had eaten all my fruit and offered to refill the fruit and, in the process, refilled my pint of sangria for free. Just like last time, Best Service Ever.

I did not complain when a fellow Sarita dragged me onto the dance floor and valiantly but unsuccessfully tried to teach me salsa, nor did I complain when Erik dragged me onto the dance floor and led me and my wine-soaked-apple-filled belly on a spinning spree. And I definitely did not complain when the bartenders gave us access to their staff meal of peppery buttered fettuccine:



(I totally forgot about that part until this picture!! I just got so excited about that fettuccine all over again!)

Friday became Saturday, and I was given a morning off from preparing my own breakfast. Instead, I was presented with one of the most delicious bowls of oatmeal I have ever experienced:



Instant oats with honey, cinnamon, and whole milk. How is something so simple so delicious??

Back at my apartment, I found a package to beat all packages:



My good buddy Coco, who just came back from an awe-inspiring trip to Argentina, knew about my love for the South American sandwich cookies called alfajores … and sent me a care package full of several varieties along with a bunch of other Argentinian goodies:



I also swung by Kate’s on Saturday morning to collect my share of the CSA: spaghetti squash, cabbage, eggplant, mammoth peaches, peppers, giant radishes, green beans, frying peppers, salad greens, edamame, and pears:



After a perfect (and unpictured) picnic lunch of cream of broccoli soup and a beet wrap (with goat cheese and walnuts!) from Naidre’s, I threw together a light dinner of roasted eggplant (balsamic, evoo, sea salt, coriander) with Wildwood raspberry chipotle hummus:



I thought the hummus was good, but the raspberry flavor made it taste a little too much like frosting for the eggplant, so I swapped it out for some salsa.



I also roasted the radishes the same way because I thought they were parsnips. I realized my mistake when I tasted them, but the roasting plan still worked well. I was so surprised by the radish flavor when I bit in that I could not steady the camera with my shaking hands:



Later in the day on Saturday, I found myself in 200 Fifth (yet another very atypical spot for me) watching the Minnesota Twins win a surprisingly exciting baseball game. Olivia, I thought of you the whole time!



200 Fifth is right here in the Slope, but I’ve never been because I generally have no need to watch sports on TV. If I did watch sports, however, I would be at this place all the time. The setup is brilliant! The restaurant-bar is equipped with some sort of fancy satellite arrangement so that it can retrieve pretty much any game in the universe as long as it is being televised somewhere, even if you need to see a baseball came from an obscure midwestern town that is only on that town’s local access channel 😛 There are two or three TVs hanging at every booth so that each group can watch whatever game is necessary. In the end, we found out the Twins game was actually being televised on regular Fox and we could have watched from my apartment, but that was fine. I’m glad I got to experience the genius of 200 Fifth. And celery sticks dipped in blue cheese:



Plus one of my new goodies for dessert:



Mmmm, crunchy cookie layered with dulce de leche and covered in chocolate:



Definitely still not complaining.

Later in the night, I met Kate and Gina at the theater to see The Informant. The movie was ok, I think — I slept through the first hour of it and spent a good part of the second hour very confused as a result. We hit up The Chocolate Room after the show, and that woke me up much more effectively than the movie had!



While we perused the menu, we enjoyed our complementary spoonfuls of intense chocolate sorbet:



And the decor (of course):



The three of us split the hot fudge sundae with fresh mint chocolate chunk ice cream:



The Chocolate Room makes their mint chip ice cream with actual fresh mint leaves. It tasted like my mom’s garden — I loved it!

We also split the ice cream sandwich special: chocolate cookies with burnt orange ice cream in the middle:



Yummmmmmmmmmmm!

It was a brilliantly busy 24 hours … and then I remembered that the fall semester had begun and I had work to do. So hard to switch back into serious student mode! I need to put my hibernation hat back on stat, ugh. I love fall weather, but this season definitely represents the end of my two and a half carefree paper-free weeks. Homework anyone?

How do you feel about the start of fall?