Remember DnD?

I know y’all do. Home of so much past brilliance.
So... last Friday night Jed of Drinking & Drawing fame made a special appearance back in Noho at the EnD kitchen. & Owen, in Jed's honor, made an insane meat concoction. How insane? Well, he started with sausages & bacon in a cast iron skillet, poured the grease into the deep fryer, ground the meat in our trusty meat grinder (a free pile find), battered them in cornmeal, & deep fried them in our trusty deep fryer (a $2 Hospice Shop find).

5.13.2011: Friday the 13th with Jed & Pabst. 

All accompanied by ample PBR, aka the official beer of DnD. (although we do enjoy others). There was dancing, there was the Deuce, there was an after-party, there were the bizarre snacks Jed brought us back from his recent trip to Korea, consumed at 4am. Sounds like DnD.
Since Owen & I have become tame, early rising, stay at home, dog owning people, this night was much needed & appreciated but required some recovery the next day.

5.14.2011: Rainy Saturday Night Dinner.

 Otherwise known as "Recovery Dinner." When you, well ok, I, am rather hungover from a 4am+ kind of night, & then get caught in the rain on a walk with my hound dog, I like to turn to my comfort foods. This time, mashed potatoes were on my mind. Post-rain storm & soaking wet, I mostly wanted to cuddle on the couch with Walty & read trashy novels all night, so I felt like throwing something delicious into my beloved red Le Creuset baking dish & leaving it in the oven for a while. Third source of inspiration? Being in dire need of a vegetable after last night's fried meat fest, also in need of a touch of flavor complexity.
Hence, Miso Chili Ginger Baked Tofu, Cheesy Garlic Mashed Potatoes, & Kale Sauted with Garlic & Cumin Seed.
It was pretty good. EnD, your source for hangover tips. Three cheers to the whole weekend. Jed, come visit again soon.
& Hey everyone, in case you were wondering, it is still raining here...

Winter 2010, In Random Dinners.

I'm still in a similar mental place to my last post, still feeling archivey, still hiding out in our room, still digging around in the old sketchbooks & rediscovering memories through drawings. Winter is still totally kicking my ass, so my motivation for complicated projects & exciting new recipes is low.

What has been keeping me going throughout these last (hopefully) weeks of horrible snowy icy slushy winter (spring! gardens! soon!) has been just the appreciation of our everyday life here, that we make time to cook & eat dinner together even when it's complicated, even when we hate each other, that we collect objects we like & live in a space that however cluttered & messy looks like us, that we have sweet sweet animals, good kitchen stuff & a cozy home.

Last winter was our first few months of really living together, so these pages of my sketchbook are especially sweet to me.

It is really feeling right now that Winter 2011 is never ever going to end, so to give us hope, some moments from Winter 2010, which did end eventually, becoming this.

1.11.10: Black Bean Chicken Chili.

1.13.2010: Scallops & Noodles.

1.19.10: Sausages & Peppers & Spinach & Whiskey Shots.

1.12.2010: Thyme & Shallot Salmon Fillet, With Broccoli & Cheese.

3.7.10: Weird Curry Stir-Fry.

Sometimes I just want to leave the pictures here by themselves, because to me, the specific details alone mean so much.

We ate this on this date, & it looked like this. That comforts me, when life seems bizarre & overwhelming, I guess just like actually cooking food does.

Would anyone care about that? Does anyone care anyway? When I was in art school I kept a very specific food I ate journal in my sketchbook, maybe I should just start posting those.

But I love those pages, when I look back, even as I laugh at how pretentious I was. Sometimes I can feel the specific moment, smell it, taste it, just from reading those lists.

Damn this blog is getting verbal!

I'll try to dig myself out of this hole soon, the potential of this sort of meal will help, but I have a few more of these style posts planned for the next month or so, then it's garden time.

Meals That Aren't Dinner.

Because there are other meals besides my regular solitary elaborate 3am dinners.
& there are the good friends you share them with. & all the places to eat late lunches & early breakfasts & post-dancing snacks in the Pioneer Valley. Such as:
Crepes with strawberries & honey & whipped creme & the MOST perfect mochas with Melissa at Mosaic.

Wednesday morning after a Tuesday night of dancing at the Basement.

There are always the meals eaten in the parking lot at the grocery store.
Some shit I ate on recent breaks.

My classic hot sauce & cheese sandwiches & instant miso soup.

yup, that's what I eat at work.

(plus a note from Cait)

Lunch with Ali at The Black Sheep.

A good sandwich really takes you far in this life.

& then, there's the TALKING over sandwiches.

With your AWESOME SISTER.

In which Local Burger saves all our lives, by way of snacks after dancing.

All fried. & dipped in something else delicious.

Where do all these drawing come from?

My typical room at right around 3am.

post-dancing, post-facebook, post texting, just me, alone, eating & drawing.

& Rin's tofu sandwich, while we were drawing/painting.

At Woodstar last week.

I can't say it enough. Food shapes all our lives.

Tofu, Hoisin Sauce, A Story.

My Vegan Comfort Dinner, With A Complicated History Behind It.

I first ate this meal in 2000, cooked for me on my first visit to my eventual apartment on Cabrillo Street in San Francisco, before I lived there.

Tofu,

(for this I used the awesome Bridge tofu, all I use these days, really),

sliced & baked with Hoisin sauce, scallions & garlic.

Really really simple, really delicious, really soul southing.

I usually serve this with rice (brown basmati here 'cause that's how I've been rolling (with rice) lately), a mixed green salad (or rather, there should have been one but I didn't have any salad greens, so I skipped that part) & slices of avocado (more important than the salad)

because that's how I first ate this meal,

& the first time I ate this was an important dinner.

(this food led to me getting married, & living in New Orleans)

(& those are just a few of the consequences of this meal)

See, I'm not lying when I say food shapes our lives.

& this meal makes great leftovers, & brought me this delightful sandwich, which was crucial to my surviving last Saturday at the grocery store. I was obviously in a weird mood when I created this Saturday morning, but it worked (for me).

My Saturday Sandwich=

East Baking Co. Oatmeal Bread, Hellman's Mayonnaise (the only mayonnaise as far as I'm concerned & the condiment I would need on a desert island), Sriracha Hot Sauce (The other condiment I need on that island, now I'm all set), Neighbourly Farms of Vermont Chipotle Cheddar Cheese

(this cheese made a classic appearance during DnDnD2k09,

at Foamhenge, driving through Virginia),

& of course the leftover tofu slices.

I haven't eaten this meal in years.

I think in fact, not since I was still married.

& that goes way back.

It's nice to have these tastes back in my life.