Thursday, 6 April 2017
Today was cold and windy. The cold is relative…but the wind is unarguable.
Prescription: mmmmmm pasta mini-raviolis and tomato sauce. Topped with fresh basil (splurge) and fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (another splurge). Mmmmmm.
Tomorrow is to be more cold and windy. It’ll be short-lived; next week: in the 80s.
Monday, 27 March 2017
These vegetal gems were labeled “junior bok choy.” Turns out that this is a vegetal vendor category; the store I was in didn’t make it up. I would have called them mini bok choy, or perhaps age-challenged bok choy. Nah.
Anyway, quite tasty in the corruption of stir-fry we had on Saturday night, and tonight, too. (Skipped a night, there.) If WikiPee is correct, bok choy (a phrase that makes my spell-check blotto even though it’s in my standard digital dictionary) is a subspecies of Brassica rapa L., along with bomdong (put on your Korean hat?), napa cabbage (from a Japanese term, not the valley in Cali), and turnip.
Saturday, 25 March 2017
Like many groc stores, the Buford Highway Farmers Market (without a single farmer in sight) puts flowers right by the front door. I think these MUST be dyed.
These, no. This is “their” color.
Sardines. No can.
Marinated apples. I wondered what the marinade was. Sugary and sweet? Sharp and vinegary? Wine?
Maybe next time I’ll buy one and see. They are in what I call the Eastern European section, but I may have my geography wrong. The Cyrillic script kinda gives it away.
Thursday, 23 March 2017
Is this special for Lent? Rather strange to find it here in the ATL. Also unexpected that this Old World baked good is…New World flavored—pecan.
Tuesday, 14 March 2017
Here’s a scene for a short story, or to fit into a longer narrative: streetcar brought to a halt by an abandoned police car left in a well-marked don’t-park-here spot. No police action anywhere around; I couldn’t even guess where the driver went. Result: incessant honking by the streetcar driver, first beep-beep-beep, then beeeeeeeeeeeeee (without letup). No one had shown up by four minutes later when we departed from our very legal parking spot down the block. It’s not like the streetcar can drive around!
We have honored and celebrated π day by dining this evening on pies. Three dinner pies and two teeny sweet pies. The flavors: chicken-bacon, steak-stout, and chicken-mushroom. Dessert: apple and peach. I didn’t make them, but I did reheat them.
Thursday, 9 March 2017
(Probably) jealous of family just returning after a week in Paris (rainy, but still: Paris!), I ogled these lovely French-style pastries, displayed here in the ATL. Dreaming….
Now macarons (not macaroons)…the fanciest display of them I have ever noticed was in Florence (multicolored, tall tower with ribbons and gold leaf—or perhaps my memory embroiders). Italy, not South Carolina. [Is Florence, SC, still “the place” to go for false teeth? Apologies for the mental jump….]
Saturday, 25 February 2017
Those temps well into the seventies? They faded through the late afternoon, and I planned ahead: chili. Chili is not one thing—it’s just a stew that includes chili peppers. Tonight’s stew has garbanzo beans, grated carrots, and rice along with what many chilis include.
Thursday, 16 February 2017
A ride-through car wash is a rather unsettling experience. However, I don’t yearn for the economy of Oaxaca when we lived there years ago, and (incredibly cheap—to me—and off-street) downtown parking included a car wash as enticement for your business—totally done by hand by men/boys with buckets of scarce water and rags.
I know garbanzos are beans and beans have pods, but garbanzos in pods still catch my eye as a curiosity.
Monday, 13 February 2017
We had alternate coffee this morning, not the regular drip but instead moka-pot-style espresso. The process results in a coffee-puck after the water passes through the grounds. And the top of the puck has little dots or holes from the passage of the steam-hot water.
Extra caffeine, I think….
Tuesday, 7 February 2017
The morning mundane…creating compost. Really, the important output was crumble/betty/strudel/a gift.
Then, we attended a simple downtown protest…and learned via megaphone announcement that BDeVos got confirmed (took the Veep to make that happen). Bets on how long Bets lasts? [I don’t wanna preach! Hey, is that a LadyGaga line?]
Loved this.
The Powers-that-Be sent a seriously uniformed cop to stand watch over the sidewalk (first time it’s been more than building security) and make sure protestors didn’t encroach on the space that passers-by needed. The guy wasn’t terribly worried, I thought, as I watched him munch through his take-out lunch with his focus on the food and not on the crowd. [Left to right: building security guy (it’s okay to use the bathroom inside, but you have to leave your sign outside)—left; weight-lifter cop in full uniform (yes, I’ll have a piece of your free pizza, thanks!); and Pizza Guy (from across the street with a platter of hot BBQ chicken pizza freebies).] First customer was the cop…. Many of the protestors declined politely.
VNice of the pizza restaurant manager to trek over with the food donation…meanwhile many drivers honked (this is P-Tree street! Traffic reigns!) and it was a grand old time chanting (hey-hey…ho-ho…swamp_cabinet_has_got_to_go) and so on.