Tanoshii

After the pesto debacle (it wasn't really a debacle but it was very, very dramatic...what?) I loafed around a bit before picking up my college chum from O'Hare. Usually I am way too early in picking people up from the airport so I purposely waited an extra half hour to make sure I wouldn't be...and instead I was half an hour late due to stupid awful traffic. I can't win. I had thought about going to the Powell's Poetry Reading but by the time we got back from the airport I was feeling much more interested in sushi. My priorities are askew. So we went to Tanoshii. I ordered one 'Mike's Special' roll, a maki combination, a piece of white tuna and a piece of ikura.
The Mike's Special was good though I had requested something that I had never tried before...and I had tried the Italian dressing before...it's good I just wanted something different. Mmm, Tanoshii.

Pesto-Licious

So I made a bit of pesto the other week from the basil the boyfriend brought home from the community garden. Two days ago the boyfriend brought a hell of a lot more basil home and so yesterday I attempted to make it all into pesto.


I didn't succeed in making all the basil go away but I did make a dent. Problem was that I ran out of pine nuts...and forgot to put garlic in one batch. But now we have pesto for the rest of our lives...it's in the freezer currently.

Viceroy For Us

On Wednesday the boyfriend and I went up to Devon Avenue and had ourselves some Indian food at Viceroy of India. (Factoid I know that has nothing to do with food: Viceroy butterflies are called that because they look exactly like the monarch butterfly but aren't actually as important...like viceroys in ol' time Spain...I don't know why I know that but I really like that I do). We were given all the little sauces that are so nice to put on things...though I always wonder if I'm using them appropriately, pretty sure not.
We ordered the bhindi masala (okra!) and lamb gosht, we also had veggie samosas, lemon pickle and one sublime mango lassi. Without even meaning to, we had a very low spiced meal. Or rather, there were many spices but non of them were the hot-in -my-mouth kind...except for the lemon pickle. Mmmm, lemon pickle.

More Cats

Before the cat adoption run I made the bed....can you guess which bump is the Meow Cat bump?
She can.
Then I thought I would give Meow Cat a different set of ears. She didn't think it was such a good idea.
But then she got into it and winked at me.
Sexy, sexy beast.

Anti Cruelty In Downtown Chicago

As I mentioned, yesterday M. Lady was destined to find herself the cat of her dreams and I went along for the ride...or, rather, I drove. I met this cat and liked it very much and wish that I could have taken it home, but I can't. If you live in Chicago and want a cat, go down to Grand Avenue and check this guy (gal?) out, it's in the first cage to the right, on the bottom. When we came he was meow meow meowing and very unhappy about being in the cage. But he stopped all his squalling when let out of his cage and he was very soft.
M. Lady met her cat around the corner from the above cat. He is below and his name is Bob Ross. A handsome devil of a cat, I hope he's enjoying the budda ball.
This guy has orange eyes. I thought he looked a little jaundiced, hee hee.

One Year! Whoo Hoo!

Today marks this blog's one year anniversary. In terms of when I actually started posting regularly not so much when I actually started it. It's kind of exciting. Well, no, it's not exciting but it is a nice benchmark of how time goes by and that, to me, is kind of exciting. I've completed one whole year of graduate school, I've completed one whole year of living in Chicago, I've made some friends, I've done some writing; it's been quite a year. I googled 'first year anniversary blog' and these are some of the images that appeared. I quite like them.
Before I moved to Chicago I was at a loss. I had spent the two years since graduating from college working at either a failing restaurant or a just making it sheep farm. I had applied to grad school but hadn't been accepted anywhere, just waitlisted, and that was pretty sad. I was trying to figure out where to go next and it was looking like New York City...except that no one would hire me for any of the many publishing type jobs I applied for (big surprise). I had moved all my stuff and a good helping of the boyfriend's stuff into a storage unit near Kingston, New York and I was living with my parents in Tennessee. Living off my extremely limited savings and wondering how I would buy my cigarettes when that money ran out. It was scary. I'm aware that I might get that scary feeling again come this May/graduation from the program. But for now I'm not scared, I'm rather content. Time goes by and all that jazz.
Today I'm going to drive M.Lady to a cat adoption place and she's going to get a cat. I am going to pet other cats and take photographs of them. It's going to be great. I hope.


My dear college chum is coming to visit tomorrow from NYC. This is very exciting for me because I like her and we used to live next door to one another. We would sit on our shared back porch and drink beer or Maker's Mark and talk about one thing or another. Sometimes she would poke her head out her bathroom window whilst brushing her teeth.
I am trying to decide where I will take her to eat. I'm torn between Tanoshi and Hama Matsu in terms of sushi. And I still have a hankering for proper Indian food. Perhaps we'll go to the Hancock building and drink cocktails while looking at the skyline, I hear that's nice, I've never done it to know one way or the other. I guess I could let her express her own interests and preferences. That wouldn't be so bad.

Squash, There I Said It

Squash is not my favorite vegetable. Is it a vegetable? Anyways. It's not. I have a rather negative reaction to the idea of eating it, though on occasion I do. The boyfriend had been planning to make a squash curry from a New York Times Magazine recipe and I was very unenthused. I tried to trick him into going out to Indian, I tried to trick him into going out to sushi but I did not succeed. And it's for the best because I liked the boyfriend's squash curry. I was wrong. He was right. Again. From what I witnessed the curry included onion, squash, ginger, cilantro, yuba (yes yuba!) and coconut milk. It was a non-spicy curry but very creamy.

Funny Random

I first watched this clip whilst perusing this blog. Thought it was funny then moved on. But then I thought about it today and realized that I thought it was pretty funny...and only fourteen seconds long!

Lunch Yesterday

Meals of yesterday included a soup: two miso packets plus one portion of udon noodles all thanks to Golden Pacific Market. Surprisingly good for a bunch of prepackaged things thrown together. Mmm, udon noodles feel like worms in my throat...but in a really satisfying way...I never ate worms as a child, for the record.
Later on I toasted an Raisin English Muffin and put cream cheese on it. Sweet, but not overly sweet. Back in the day I liked me my Dunkin Donuts cinnamon raisin bagel with strawberry cream cheese-now that was overly sweet.
School approaches and I'm attempting to solidify my syllabus for the class I'll be teaching. The problem is that I was a little overeager about all the books I wanted the kids to read...but I don't have enough time for them to read all of them if I'm to only give them fifty pages a week. This is problematic because I've never excerpted books before and I'm not sure how to do it without making the reading process a bit schizophrenic. I'm making up writing assignments that seem very "English classy", compare contrast type stuff...but hopefully not mind numbingly boring or repetitive. Yipes!

Last night the boyfriend and I almost went to Marigold Restaurant for a little Indian dinner. Unfortunately/fortunately we didn't get the opportunity as it is closed on Mondays. The menu made it clear that it's not straight-up Indian but gourmet Indian and that's not necessarily bad but it's not what I was looking for last night. Instead I had scrambled eggs with cheese and salsa.

I'm Back

I'm back to writing for Chicagoist and you can see my latest post here.

Cabbage Soup Dinner

The sauerkraut the boyfriend made a while back was finally depleted some time in the last few weeks. And then last week's farmshare (fickle, flaky farmshare) delivered us another cabbage. I was excited about the new sauerkraut that was the obvious thing to make out of the cabbage. Unfortunately the boyfriend learned that one can't make sauerkraut when it's 75 degrees or higher, so instead he made cabbage soup. And I liked it very much. Bacon, ham, onions, potato and cabbage. The broth was flavor lovely.

Dim Sum c/o Furama Part 25

Dim sum was just the boyfriend and me. We had a little of everything and there was a new, solely vegetarian, cart going around. Now how 'vegetarian' it really was is undecided but their veggie potstickers seemed rather veggie...though I didn't like them very much.

Lightly

A little later in the afternoon I had this salad. Greens and tomatoes picked from the boyfriend's community garden hook up along with avocado slices and olives.
Then we watched a bunch of movies. It was like a forced march only completely, or nearly completely, entertaining and foot non-hurting.
Silly movie, you are based on an Oscar Wilde play.
In The Libertine Johnny Depp's character gets syphillis and his nose falls off.

On Friday I took a bunch of music from M.Lady's computer and put it on my ipod. So far I know two things:

1)I like Justin Timberlake's new song, Sexyback and I'm not ashamed.
2)I also like this The Robot Ate Me music currently playing, the boyfriend agrees. Thanks M.Lady.

Viva La Hot Dog Social!

After we drove back to the neighborhood-with a very disappointing stop at a Rogers Park Dunkin Donuts...and yet another thing I miss about the Hudson Valley Region is Dunkin Donuts done right...ie when I say salmon cream cheese I get salmon cream cheese, if I say toasted they don't say the toaster's broken, and if I request my coffee to be flavored and light and sweet it should be all three of those things not just half of one-we prepared ourselves for a hot dog social.
We were made aware of this hotdog social thanks to a flyer that made its way into non-blogger's life. I guess the point was to make friends with the neighbors, know that our police force cares and to donate to a good cause. I, mainly if not exclusively, ate my hotdog and watched children fall over on the playground equipment. Hot dog social!

Evanston Farmers' Market

Yesterday morning the boyfriend, the non-blogger and myself went up to Evanston's Farmers' Market.
There weren't any animals past that sign but there was a weird lady with an accordion and crazy middle aged frizzy hair. We tried samples of many fruits, vegetables and cheese before setting down to the nitty gritty of buying produce.
I got a good number of heirloom tomatoes for a properly fancy version of gazpacho to be made at a later date. The boyfriend got golden raspberries and the non-blogger didn't get anything as she is about to embark on an epic journey thus will not be available to eat the food in her refrigerator.
Farmers' Markets are tough. If you don't get there early then you know you're not getting the best of the best and if you can live with that (which I can) then there's the trying to compare one stand to another. This becomes especially hard when there are three aisles seven-ish stands deep on both sides.
This season makes me miss the Hudson Valley Region all over again, especially the glory of the Montgomery Place Farm Stand with its to die for selection of apples to its always amazing heirloom tomatoes. Sigh.
We really should have gotten some of the cheese and or butter offered at this market. Oh my goodness the free samples were very convincing.

Sandwich Loaf

Yesterday I spent most of my time making a Manchego cheese, broccoli and chicken sandwich loaf. I followed Margaux Sky's directions and for the first time in my life made bread, from beginning to end, successfully. Pastry type bread people, it was amazing. Her new book has a trillion ways to make bread/sandwiches in addition to the sandwich loaf. I'm already thinking what I can put into my own special sandwich loaf, but still following her directions in terms of the dough. Other meals have been eaten this weekend. But I'll get them to later. Right now feast upon the sandwich loaf...and tune into Chicagoist around Monday for a step by step view of the monster sandwich loaf beast.

Posty Post

Ah the farmshare/community garden life. Among the last haul of the farmshare veggies was a medium sized eggplant. When I was younger I didn't like the idea of eggplant, then a friend (let's call him Patsy) made eggplant parmagiana at my house during college and I realized the stuff wasn't so bad if breaded and topped with sauce and cheese. I've grown up a little since then and am becoming more and more amazed by the versatility of the eggplant. Eggplant is in ratatouille and serves the dish well. Last night I made an eggplant, cherry tomato and green onion salad garnished/flavored with basil, garlic, balsamic vinegar and chopped up capers. Technically I should have 'grilled' the eggplant but I wasn't up to that. Instead I simply sauteed them in our wonderful cast iron frying pan (thanks mom!).

So I'm trying to understand whether this is a permanent ban on carry on luggage/liquid of any kind on planes and whether it only applies to flights from Heathrow or if it's going international. I guess it doesn't apply to me all that much, I have no plans to fly.

It is awfully gloomy outside. Very dark and ominous and all that shizz. I need to go grocery shopping so I can finally get back into the Chicagoist food game. I'm thinking about making bread and then a sandwich out of it using Margaux Sky's new cookbook...I got a complimentary copy because I write for Chicagoist, I'm glad that it all looks interesting or I would be confused as to whether I was obligated to to write about it or not.

So You're Writing A Novel?

So I'm writing a novel. It's true. No lie. And for a while now when people ask me about it, which thankfully isn't all that often, I say I have about 65 pages and I always feel like that's not enough, no no, not enough pages/progress to share with my questioner. But today I put back together the three 20+ paged segments that I had revised (and by revised I really mean more fully elaborated upon/added dialogue etc etc) a few months back, along with the the few new pages I've written this summer, and I am happy to report that I am writing a novel and it now has 90 pages. Yee haw! Woo hoo! Oh my god, I'm totally screwed.

Don't Watch Bride And Prejudice, It's As Good As Its Title

Last night the girl with no blog invited the boyfriend and I (along with mousehead and exploded viewer and another guy who I don't think has a blog either) to her place for dinner with her father. We ordered a large amount of food from Thai Pastry and it was really good. We ordered Phad Thai, Pad See Ew, Catfish with Hot Pepper, Green Curry, Red Curry, Fried Tofu and a few other things.
For whatever reason I found it very hard to take a photograph of my plate of food without it being blurry. I think it was the low light.
We got home and I thought it would be a good idea to watch Bride And Prejudice since it had arrived c/o Netflix. I was wrong. I got one hour and thirty six minutes into the movie (I began to fast forward through the very long, not lyrically good, musical/dance scenes) before calling quits. A take on Pride and Prejudice but in India, London and California, this movie's actors and actresses were not all that great. The first dance/singing number was good and I sort of got into the Austen musical concept. But as it went on I got tired of it. The man who played Darcy was very, very bad. Ugh. Don't watch it. Don't be like me!

Diet Vernors With Sandwich Sampler

I wasn't sure what kind of lunch I wanted yesterday so I just had a little of both. An English Muffin, cut in half with one side topped with smoked salmon, capers and mozzarella cheese and the other side likewise topped but with smoked turkey and cheddar cheese. Accompanying the meal was a Diet Vernors, mmm, Vernors.