Where Practical Meets Adorable: The Elements Of A Food Story.

This is what I see when I open my fridge. 
Home brewed beer & an oh so cute little basket of eggs. Broccoli, bagels, & cheese.
Fun fact: I like to take pictures of the inside of my fridge. The collection of foods one has on hand at any given moment tells a little story.
This is totally stupid, but one of the things I disliked about having roommates is other peoples' things in my fridge. That messes up the story.
I know, I'm odd.

3.7.2012: Fridge Contents.

This is one of those realities that is too cute to be believed, but is also practical.
Seriously. I've never had chickens before, & we were just collecting eggs & sitting them loose in the fridge. One night I opened the door too hard & one rolled off the shelf & broke & it was oh so sad because I still appreciate those eggs from our girls oh so much. Plus it made a gross mess in the way back hard to reach part of the fridge behind the veggie drawer & it was terrible.
Being me, I immediately introduced that cute little basket I just happened to have lying around (thanks Mum).
It makes me smile to see that cute little basket with those eggs every time I open the fridge.
 I'm looking forward greatly to more practical adorableness come vegetable harvest season. Nothing makes me happy at the end of a summer day like a basket of gorgeous, dirty, freshly picked produce.
Thanks again to my Mum for keeping me in Peterboro baskets.
It's the little things that make you happy that make everything ok, sometimes.
Here's the elements of a food story:
My groceries purchased at work today: broccoli, an avocado, bunch of green curly kale, two heads of garlic, block of Bridge tofu, bottle of Sriracha chili sauce, growler of Lefty's Brewing Co. Irish Stout, bag of bulk short grain brown rice & one of wild rice blend, & a bulk bag of Pierce Brother's Fogbuster coffee.
Go food produced in Franklin County!
Free slightly out of date food I also took home from work with my groceries: loaf of Bread Euphoria Three Seed Bread, & Blue Ledge Peppered Chevre.
Also present around the kitchen: two old potatoes, bag of yellow onions, half of a cheap Stop & Shop steak, salt pork back fat, two fresh eggs. 
From above will emerge dinner.
I like lists. I like food.
Maybe it's all my years working at the grocery store, but I love grocery lists & receipts. I find lists of food items very pretty. 
While we are in listing mode here at EnD, I'm currently listening to my itunes set on Country & shuffle. Enjoying especially this evening Hank Williams, Brad Paisley, Miranda Lambert, Toby Keith, Loretta Lynn & Taylor Swift. I don't really know where my current country phase has come from but I'm enjoying it. Blame Bear Country 95.3.
Reading Goat song : a seasonal life, a short history of herding, and the art of making cheese by Brad Kessler.
I think we should get goats. I just took Storey's Guide to Raising Dairy Goats out of the library yesterday. What do you think? Goats? Yes? Tell my husband if you agree.
Also, what should I make for dinner? You know the players, tell me the story.  
It was almost 70 degrees today in here Western Massachusetts. My dog & I sat on top of a hill at dusk & took in the warm wind & breathed & waited for spring.  

On NOLA, Abita Beer, & Grocery Stores Celebrating Mardi Gras.

The grocery store where I work does this crazy thing where Mardi Gras is celebrated very intensely.  Odd, right? For a kind of hippy grocery store in Western Massachusetts?
This year, Mardi Gras is being celebrated with all the fanfare of years past, plus is being extended until this Saturday, four whole days after the official start of Lent.
(Fun EnD Fact: Did you know this year that Ash Wednesday was also National Margarita Day? Yep.)
I lived in New Orleans from July 2001-July 2003. In the past I have found that my work's Mardi Gras fixation caused me to have a big old "I know more about New Orleans than you" chip on my shoulder, but this year, maybe it's the baby chicks being so darn cute, I seem to have lost the urgency of my protest.
This year I started to think of it as a very New Orleanian approach, just simply deciding that OUR Mardi Gras would last until Saturday & that was that.
I don't think any of the drunk people on Bourbon Street last week really cared about Ash Wednesday one way or the other. Probably celebrated National Margarita Day though.
The laws & traditions of Mardi Gras are sacred to New Orleans, but they are fluid too, & borrow shamelessly from whatever other culture or tradition they feel like. Look at the Mardi Gras Indians. 
I'm really conflicted about New Orleans.
It is so easy to love everything that is crazy & beautiful & absurd about the place, but it's such a frustrating place too.
Is it awesome or stupid that without question one stays up all night on Lundi Gras, puts on an elaborate costume at dawn, & marches in a 6am parade while still drinking? Part of loving NOLA is loving a city where you can't run errands for weeks at a time because you might run into a parade route.
Part of me does.
But then there's the "New Orleanians don't evacuate during hurricanes, we go to bars & party through it" attitude & I was always too practical to do that. Or not awesome enough?
General lack of amusement with potentially devastating hurricanes was one of the factors in my leaving, as was the horrible crime. Again, am I just a scardy-cat?
Since my first apartment at 17 in Providence, RI, I have loved walking at night. When I moved to New Orleans I was coming from San Francisco via Brooklyn via Providence. I thought what people said about the crime in new Orleans was basic fear of urban spaces. I was wrong.
New Orleans is a beautiful city, but it's also an ugly one. Floods, storms, crime, disease, garbage, filth are all jut as much a part of life as the gorgeous buildings in the French Quarter.
While I lived in new Orleans, I was employed as the database manager for the State of Louisiana Office of Public Health's HIV/AIDS Program, so I saw everyday the results of the other side of the picture.
Sometimes riding my bike during Mardi Gras season from one end of the Quarter to the other to get from my home in the Bywater to my work in the Central Business District was surreal.
Living in New Orleans was just completely insane. Everything that happened was a story.
I still find it one of the most beautiful places in the United States & I still miss it terribly.
A view of abandoned warehouses & train tracks from New Orleans is one of my most painted backgrounds. 
The first time I visited after moving away, in 2004, I was heartbroken to return home to Massachusetts & thought moving here was a huge mistake. But that was pre-Katrina, & Katrina reminded me pretty clearly of what my original objections where.
Last time I visited, during DnDnD2K09 , just the smell of the air as we drove along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi & got closer & closer was pure joy.
A memory from that trip that sums up the good: A Friday night crayfish boil at a neighborhood bar in the Marigny (the R Bar). I don't think I would have appreciated this so much when I  lived there, but after six years in Northampton, I sure did. The whole neighborhood formed a line with paper plates & received some of the best food you could hope to eat for free, & then sat on curbs everywhere to eat. The drink special was a PBR & a double shot of Jameson, $5.
My driving companions where looking glum & a man passing by told them not to worry, at least they were white. Then some near strangers bought us shots of Jaeger, tall boys of Budweiser in paper bags, & proceeded to take us down Bourbon Street on an adventure that included meeting miniature horses named Rascal & Dixie at a gay club. That's New Orleans.
This overly long post was inspired by my day at work, wearing Mardi Gras beads.
Here's your drawing, some Abita beers. I drew one on that road trip. They've changed the label since then. I don't love it.

 Abitas, Mardi Gras 2012, Greenfield, Massachusetts.

This really fine beer is now available at the River Valley Market for a very reasonable price (You can get Abita Amber at the totally fabulous Ryan & Casey's in Greenfield, too).
An Abita Amber tastes like everything good about NOLA, to me.
I don't think I'll ever move back. But it's still an excellent beer.

A Snapshot In Leftovers (The Bento Post, Sort Of).

A couple of thoughts-lately I have been on a campaign to improve my life in small ways. One way of actualizing this has been my work lunches. One of my core beliefs has to do with avoiding convenience food, well really unnecessary convenience itself-why not do things yourself & do them well rather than buy a cheap, quicker, lesser version (blah blah blah yes I hate fast food & most restaurants really, I am a do-it-yourself-kind of gal). & of course I am generally pretty broke. I work in a grocery store, where it is easy to spend money on food everyday, but I have been successfully strict for a while now about bringing my lunch always, the problem is frequently I am lazy before bed & my lunch is therefore lame, lots of random crap from the fridge thrown into tupperware with no style or taste logic. 

I spend a lot of time in life doing things that take work because I value the outcome, i.e. cooking a decent dinner every night & growing as much food as I can & canning & preserving as much of that as possible. So why not bring this level of value of life to my work lunches? Exactly. 

I have been reading the Adventures in Bentomaking blog for years, & have always been inspired by it, but never acted on it. I've owned this adorable lunch box with cute compartments for years too (free sample from a previous job) but never use it. 

So this week! Adorable Bento-Style lunches! 

The thing is, I draw these imagines & sit down to paint them, & while I am watercoloring, sometimes my mind wanders. So this post to me now is more about leftovers & grocery shopping creatively on a budget, less about my own adventures in Bentos. Still a great blog, though. 

First, Four Recent Bento-esque Lunches. 

What these lunches make me think about is how telling they are of our recent life in food. The great thing about the boxes is that they are tiny, & perfect for small amounts of weird former meals in the fridge that you don't want to throw away but aren't enough for a meal. Seriously, I am really cheap & I hate to throw out food. Why haven't I always been doing this?
So these lunches are a product of the last week of dinners in our lives (& dinners are the emotional heart of this home of course). They create a picture, & this is what it looks like: a cheap giant bag of broccoli from Price Rite, New England Chinese Night based on a super sale at Stop & Shop last week on crab meat & pork, the Stop & Shop sale last month on lamb stew meat that led to lots of lamb in the freezer, a recent trip to the Asian Market for affordable peppers, ginger, lemongrass, & cilantro,  last Saturday's family journey to New Bedford where we picked up good Fall River Linguica on the cheap at Friendly Fruit, & those jars of green tomato pickles in the fridge. 
The Grocery Store really tells you everything you need to know about a person. Equally their leftovers. So here are mine. Judge me as you will.

The OKCupid Dating Chronicles, Jan. to Sept. 2009.

Grocery Comics Part Five.
What Happens When You Mix One Girl, One Seriously Broken Heart, A Laptop, A Lack of Money, Shit Ton Of Free Time & A Desire For Company & Adventure & Good Food & Drink.
(by request)(for another lovely elizabeth)(happy very almost birthday)

a truly beautiful awe-inspiring moment out of nowhere & one that wasn't so much of anything (vermont vs. greenfield)...

...a really stupid thing to do that turned out ok although not great, & a really sweet meeting of souls...

...incredibly delicious food but at what cost & the beginning of a series of carefully chosen adventures that were & weren't right...

...promises of tv & drinks & snacks get me to leave town for somerville on a whim & I am similarly enticed by offers of cornish game hens & bacony brussel sprouts the day after valentines day...

...a shared home town turns out to not mean that much but it was a nice evening & one of my worse decisions, but at least I got osaka sushi out of it & oh also survived...

...the best one & the most unmemorable...

...sometimes even poetry is boring & coincidence is just that...

& now, I think I'm done with this game.
But who won?

Ask A Southerner What They Think Of "Organic" Collard Greens, Why Don't You?

Sunday, yup, you know where, yes, grocery hell.

You know how sometimes tiny awesome things make your whole day bearable & even ok?
well cait's drawing below did that for me today.

& I overheard a completely & utterly absurd conversation about collard greens & I drew that.
(oh did I mention IT WAS A CELL PHONE CONVERSATION?!)

I guess, more of this shit tomorrow. sigh.
SIGH.

A Northampton Fairytale.

Just a typical night on the town, I guess.
I kind of wish it wasn't like this, but it seems like it is.
Noho, September, 2009, of course Tuesday night.
& (drawn in my random stolen moments at the grocery store the next day.)
Grocery Comics, Part Four.
WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT.

Peace. I wish it didn't always turn out like this.
But at least we always have real good dancing in this town.

More Grocery Portraits

A bit late as usual, but still I completed this challenge.

Amy & Cait, from today, 9.29.2009, yes at the grocery store.

These two people make me laugh more than you could possibly imagine,
& also save my life every single day.
I wish these were better drawings, because these are such awesome people, but the goddamn customers kept wanting me to wait on them, for some reason.
I have this funny feeling that I'll get a chance to try this again though...like maybe tomorrow, back at work.

Grocery Portraits, Part One.

After drawing Hillary yesterday, I realized that secretly drawing my co-workers at work is pretty similar to secretly drawing the person sitting next to you at the bar.

Such was my challenge for today then:

Carol, Cassie, Chris, & Thomas, drawn while I rang up 214 transactions on the express register on a September Saturday.

Don't worry, this challenge will totally be continued tomorrow...

"Of Course There's Tequila In The Cupcakes!"

Yes, as rumored, I recently celebrated my 31st birthday,
& I did it DnD style, aka with sloppy art, good food, & my incredible friends
(both absent & present)(yup, I stole that).
Some scenes from my first day of being 31:

A very late breakfast/lunch with Melissa at Woodstar = two different versions of smoked salmon on an everything bagel with coffee...

mine, (bagel sandwiches 2009 series)

& hers. (plus another birthday truth)

& a gorgeous thunderstormy dramatic sky above one of the views that makes me want to keep living here.

Then Rin, Melissa & I went on an adventure north, many very important objects were acquired from both food & thrift stores, & we unexpectedly found Ali in Greenfield.

The night concluded with a dinner party
& Rin winning the cupcake competition.
Yes, Rin officially wins at cupcakes.

These margarita cupcakes really did included tequila, & were rolled in salt, in homage to our favorite book. Wait until you try the bourbon cheese straws. An unexpectedly awesome birthday, all around. Thanks once more for all the birthday love. XOXO.

We Always Said We Wanted DnD To Become "A Thing."

But I never imagined it quite like this.
Sure I bet Cirque du Coq is all awesome & crazy & creative right now, but this is what us working girls got up to at the grocery store tonight instead.

It's an ART REVOLUTION at the registers, I'm not even kidding you.

Two drawings by Caitlin (top) & Hillary (bottom).

The labels are mine.
Notice they maintain the classic the DnD position on spelling.

A tree that Hillary drew for me, & me drawing her drawing it.

& Cait's amazing contribution on the end of a roll of receipt tape
(it's actually even longer than this in reality).

Art occurring in unlikely places & made by everyone has always been one of the core values of DnD , but I'm personally really impressed that we've managed to take it this far.
ART IN THE GROCERY STORE, PEOPLE. This doesn't happen just every day.
Or maybe it does.
We put the food in the bags, & we also do this. Right, Rin?

Every Once In A While, You Are Watching Someone & Then They Fall Over.

& then you laugh until you cry, & it makes the next five minutes of your horrible job go by rather pleasantly.
(at least until the next person treats you like crap, anyway.)

Today. the grocery store.

If we didn't crack each other up so much, I'm really positive they'd have had to lock us all up by now.
& seriously, sometimes you're hanging out looking at a person, & then they fall over. good times.

It's Important To Have Allies.

Yep, more hi-jinks at the grocery store.
When do I actually get around to the putting the groceries in the bags part?

Friends make all the difference.
(More on the why we haven't killed ourselves yet topic.)

Look Out. This Could Happen To You.

See, I told you DnD was contagious.

Now Hillary's doing it too.

It's Getting Very Interesting At The Grocery Store, If This Is What We Do There. First Beth, now Hillary.

ARE YOU NEXT ?
LOOK OUT.

This Is A Bad Place To Be With Something To Think About.

(Yes I Borrowed That Title)
Still More Comics From The Grocery Aisles.
Yup.
Work just hasn't gotten anymore interesting.
So certain old memories are being relived,
in the classic "comics on old sales flyer scrap paper drawn in between transactions" format.
Today's version:

"What Happened A Year Ago:
A Story Not Unrelated To The Grocery Store"
a shared favourite song plays miraculously while ordering sierra nevadas at the iron horse & sharing origin stories.

A conversation goes on too long & is way too meaningful, two nights in a row & a trust is built on a shared love of particular condiments.

the first time, & then again. & a birthday party that really wasn't but at least there were sparkling lights, a corsage of sorts, & rock music back when I enjoyed that sort of thing.
& late night diner visits almost never go wrong for me.

a day together & a beginning, or at least the promise of one. & where I met one of the best breakfast sandwiches I have ever known. & had a pretty perfect birthday.
Even if you still suck, South Deerfield.

a leap of faith, & a month or so of perfect sundays.

there was definitely more. is definitely more to come.
this is where "this is different this is special" came from.
this is what I think about at work.

(In Parenthesis)

(a grammatical structure that reminds me of tim)
((& letters))
(())

(What Happened In Between The Mundane At Work Today)

(or)

(where my head was at while I bagged groceries like a champion)
(in a dream)
(a memory)
(an encounter)

(trains across the sea)
See, we get all poetic & metatextual sometimes over here, we really do.

What Exactly Is It That Makes You Think We Aren't Angry?

Your Priorities Are Fucked & I Cannot Read Your Mind.
(this one for Amy)

Peaches & Bagels. 9.10.2009.

& still more stupid shit encountered in grocery hell.
They still don't pay us enough to take this total bullshit.

Comics At The Grocery Store Week Continues.

& now presenting, what I did at work TODAY.

Yup, pretty similar to YESTERDAY.

"A Narrative of Objects, But Certainly Not An Objective One:
The 'True' Story Of What Happened To Us at DnD Last Week."

Someone moved.

Laundry was retrieved & texts sent us to all the wrong places.

New chairs were sat in & conversations of all sorts were held.

Disaster ensues.

Did we always know it would come to this?
(actually, answer=no).

Written & drawn in between the 164 transactions I rang up today, 9.10.2009.

A Brief Comic. Drawn At The Grocery Aisle.

A Day In My Life, circa Fall 2009 (i.e. NOW).
or,
(What I Did At The Grocery Store Today Was Draw This Comic).
or,
9.09.09.
(I typed that at 9:09pm, by coincidence, not kidding).

scraps regarding scraps.

awoken by identical grey tiger cats, & walking in my boots & legwarmers.

selling food, & eating yet more soup.

wine, the internets, vegetables.

art, then dancing.

late night walks, reading this, the cats once more. The End.
(This is what I do at work.)

What do you do at work?