Happy post-Valentines, friends! Did you wake up today with a sugar + oxytocin hangover? Have you hit up your local Walgreen’s to score some deals on discount candy? Are you glad you won’t see Sweethearts for another 11 months? Other thots about yesterday’s holiday?
Ours was a lovely, lovely V-day. Rather than battling the Marinafied crowds, we opted to prepare a picnicky dinner (eaten on the bed, natch). Bi-Rite was so crowded that we had to wait in line, as one would wait outside a club. (“I’m wearing jeans,” Alex quipped. “Do you think they’ll let us in?”) Made conversation with the woman in front of us, who lives in the same building as Robert Patterson.* “He’s just opened that new restaurant, and I can’t wait to try it out,” she said — a bit wistfully, I thought, or maybe with the tone of someone obligated to attend a niece’s piano recital. She promised she’d go soon.
We waged an epic battle at Bi-Rite, dodging rampaging hippies just there to get farro, goddamnit, and canoodly couples practically making out in front of the olive display. (GET A ROOM! Next time, that is.) Forty-five minutes later, we were prepping dinner. On the menu: assorted cheeses and charcuterie; dates, which Alex pitted and sliced into wedges; olives; radishes, cleaned, halved, and served in a teacup; arugula, tossed with toasted breadcrumbs and the tangiest vinaigrette, sharpened with shallots and capers and grainy mustard; bread: a sweet baguette and a soft, flat loaf crusted in sesame seeds; German sparkling wine; and Boston Creme Pie, with the lightest filling and the most decadent chocolate shell. Membrillo, too, which I cut into thin slices and smashed into the bread before laying down sheets of Manchego.
We ate near the heater, our plates and bowls balanced on small tables, our legs tucked beneath us. Watched the Maine episode of “No Reservations,” which I kept interrupting to ask, “Is that how it really is? Is this an accurate representation?” We let our stomachs settle before cutting one slice of the pie — a sharing slice — and finishing off the champagne and then, very late, rolling into bed.
I wished I could stay up late enough to extend the night through the morning, through the next day, into an ever-expanding experience that would not dilute, even with prolongation. That’s not how time works. Instead, I’ll keep the night’s memory as a talisman: a filament, a worn stone, a bottle filmed with the remnants of what it contained.
***
*I think. She just said “The owner of the ramen place on 18th,” that ramen place being Ken Ken and Patterson being Ken Ken’s owner.
Abandonment metaphors aside, take a look at the rad dinner Alex and I prepared last night: Moroccan chicken and olives, served over couscous (top) and an arugula salad with vinaigrette (bottom).
I’m prone to getting myself in food ruts — periods of time during which I’ll eat the same thing over and over and over again until one day, I can’t fathom eating one more bite of the previously revered food. I’ve been in a Tuscan white bean hummus rut for months, which is to say there has been no span of time during which I haven’t had some of this in my fridge. Serious shit, this.
Do you like everything bagels? How about snacks that are as crunchy as potato chips but not as greasy as potato chips? Do you like things ostensibly made from other things? Well, you’re in luck: these corn tortilla flat breads are crispy, salty, and perfect for making snackwiches: ramshackle little sandwiches of hummus, arugula, cheese, olives — whatever you might have in your fridge or cupboard.
Here’s the scoop: TJ’s tempeh looks gnarly (like something you might buy at a community college pottery sale), and it tastes a little gnarly, but give it a chance — it’s packed with protein, slow to perish, and inexpensive. I buy a few bricks to keep on hand for quick dinners: stir-fries and pasta dishes, mostly, but I’d like to try tempeh tacos some night.
Hardly gourmet, but it’s a change of pace, at least. (I am rationalizing: I admit.)
As Alex prepared the mac, I took over salad prep. Above, you’ll see the salad (undressed): a simple assemblage of butter lettuce, English cucumber, halved tiny tomatoes, and paper-thin radish slices for pepperiness. In an old jar, I mixed a simple vinaigrette: oil and vinegar and Maldon salt and fresh pepper and lemon juice and a wee bit of fresh maple syrup, for the tiniest hint of sweetness. Fresh vinaigrette — so easy and so satisfying — is one of my current favorite things. In fact, I think I’ll make some this evening, just because.
Bloody Marys, because they are the spiciest — cough & sputter spicy — and because they have the saltiest olives. Burgers with homefries because I recently discovered that I like mayonnaise (WHAT?), and because a burger sounded good. I’ll tell ya, Zeitgeist does homefries right. I don’t know their secret (though I suspect it’s rooted in oil), but their fries are golden-orange-and-crunchy on the outside, pillowy within — a rare find.
After our weekend o’ revelry, I felt it necessary to scale back my indulgences just a wee bit: not as much bacon, not as much champagne, more veggies, more tea. Vitamins to the max. My plan followed thusly: I wouldn’t stop eating the foods I loved, I’d just add a bunch of healthy stuff to them to get some nutrition alongside my grease. Dig?
For this event, MP opened their kitchen space to guests — a rare treat. Many is the time that I’ve walked by and wondered what it would be like to chill near the stand mixer, and now, my question has been answered. (Answer: such chilling is just as cool as expected.)
Moving through the kitchen, we ran into 
Before leaving, Alex decorated a section of the prayer flag to be hung outside the shop. Looking through the flags already decorated, I couldn’t help but feel buoyed by the optimism of the messages — responses to the question, “What do you wish for?” A few people expressed wishes for personal gain (“to be prosperous!” was one person’s response), but most expressed desire for a larger good — for everyone to have enough to eat, for peace in the community and worldwide. Even I, normally a bit of a snarkmeister, felt warm and cozy.
