On a Tuesday evening, my husband and I went out to Capital Fringe to see my stepson's girlfriend perform in Over Her Dead Body, an 80-minute theater piece composed of bluegrass murder ballads, with full bluegrass band and five top-notch singers (including my stepson's girlfriend, who has a beautiful, deep, North Carolina voice-- and somewhat macabre sensibility-- perfectly suited for the material).  I would have loved this even if a family member were not performing.  I would have seen it again.  (But it is sold out.)  I hope they are able to take this show further than Capital Fringe, because it is wonderful.  Review here.  (Update: Over Her Dead Body won Best Overall show according to the audience awards, and is moving on to the Millenium Stage at the Kennedy Center!  See video here.)

After the show (which, due to tight Fringe scheduling, was at 6:30 pm), husband and I were trudging back up Florida Ave., to the nearest Metro station which is over a mile away, and wishing we would encounter something for dinner.  It was still light, the most amazing huge orange sun setting over the city street.  Only a single restaurant offered itself, but its board outside proclaimed $2.75 tacos, so I convinced my husband it was a good idea.  It was.  The Far East Taco Grille.  Far East?  Tacos?  Maybe just because it was on the east side of the city?

Nope.  In some ways these are conventional tacos: you choose flour or corn tortilla, several types of salsa are available.  But the fillings are things like Korean short rib, spicy pork, tofu.  Topping styles include a kimchi version.  Clearly this is a Korean-fusion joint, just like where I work, only so different.  Better.   Though the menu is more limited and it is just counter service.  I order two tacos: flour tortilla, short rib, "#15 sauce," banh mi-style toppings.  Short ribs cost $0.25 more each for tacos, so this meal cost $6 altogether, and it is perfect.  So, so good.  The short ribs are tender and delicious (better than those at our restaurant, maybe even better than the ones Scarlet made for me), the #15 sauce (whatever the hell that means) is a sweet and spicy Asian-influenced sauce, I suspect involving gochujang, and the banh mi toppings are pickly, spicy, sweet.  Total flavor bomb.  I think it would be overwhelming to eat more than two.  My husband ordered more conservatively, as he always does: spicy pork in a rice bowl with their simplest topping option of lettuce, cheese, and lime crema.  He said it was very good too.  In total we paid $20 (including a tip, which would be optional here) for one of the best meals I've had in a while.  I have no idea how they can make any money at all, charging $3 for tacos containing a substantial amount of expensive short rib, but GO THERE while it lasts.

Next day.  I've finally had time to organize my recipes and do a more extensive shopping trip at the Whole Foods, so (after a long, busy day at work) I have three dishes planned to cook this evening.  One is my second effort from Mridula Baljekar's Best-Ever Curry Cookbook, the Tandoori Chicken.  This time I buy the appropriate amount of chicken, and actually look up the spices involved in tandoori masala.  So I believe myself to have followed the directions fairly well.  I did blend my own tandoori masala out of spices I already possessed, instead of buying a prefab paste, so it's possible I missed out on some ingredients that might have been present in the paste... sugar, perhaps?  Because my chicken tasted nothing like what you get in an Indian restaurant.  (Perhaps it is just more authentically North Indian, as it appears in that section of the book.)

​Anyway, I managed to skin my whole chicken myself (with painful slowness, using kitchen scissors), a feat that used to be quite ordinary for home cooks, but of which I now feel inordinately proud.  It marinated for two hours in yogurt mixed with the tandoori spices, then roasted at a high temperature (475 degrees) for about 30 minutes.  Simple enough, except the chicken was not done after 30 minutes.  It looked  quite done on the outside, but close to the bone it was still soft and pink.  Returned to the oven and eaten after 15 more minutes, the cook on the chicken was still only barely adequate.  Another 10 minutes would have been better.

While the chicken was marinating, I made the Buttery Cayenne Pecans from the October 2015 issue of Bon Appetit.  These were a simple matter of melting butter, stirring in Worcestershire sauce and spices, tossing with the pecans, and roasting.  Kind of like the chicken, actually.  But more successful.  The one problem did not lie with the recipe: the pecans themselves were not very good.  I bought them in a package from Whole Foods, and they had the bitter aftertaste and discomfiting mouthfeel of unripe fruit.  The flavor was worse when raw, but they retained some of their bitterness even after roasting. 

​The third recipe was intended as the final Pie-of-the-Month for my husband, and was from this month's Bon Appetit via The Bitten Word.  The Bitten Word guys had made this Blueberry and Corn Crisp, and concluded that it had potential, even though it seemed not to have enough corn in it, and the topping did not brown well.  They discussed the desirability of trying it again with double the corn, and a blast of higher-temperature baking in hopes of achieving a true "crisp."  So I made the recipe myself, incorporating these tweaks.  Nope.  Before baking, I had a full 1-inch (or deeper!) layer of corn-y crumbs on top of the blueberries.  During baking, almost this entire layer sank into the bubbling berries, leaving only a little topping peeking out.  Even that didn't brown much.  So, to the extent that there was any perceptible crumb topping at all, it was mushy and dissolved in your mouth (and not in a good way).  Definitely not "crisp."  The corn kernels (whose quantity I had doubled) simply dropped out of the topping and mixed with the blueberries, creating a somewhat odd fruit filling instead of a cornbread-y crumb.  Your experience will probably not differ, as other Bitten Word commenters seemed unhappy too.  It was not inedible, but I can confidently fail to recommend this recipe.

​All in all, it was a disappointing dinner.  The pecans were all right.

​June 20
Back to our usual sorts of breakfast.  Lemon water, coffee, smoothie made from coconut water, vanilla yogurt, hemp protein powder, almond butter, frozen peaches, frozen strawberries, and iceberg lettuce.  Not my favorite (too much iciness between the fruit and the lettuce), but my husband especially liked it.  He is reporting feeling a post-smoothie queasiness that could be about blood sugar.  I am responding by cutting back the sweetness in our morning smoothies-- no more lemonade and fruit juice bases for a while.  My kid, on the other hand, will be disappointed.  They were guzzling juice as fast as I could bring it into the house.

Later in the morning, we practiced setting up our new tent and using the new campstove.

Morning shopping (Co-op): organic lactose-free 2% milk, coconut water, peanut butter, 2 fresh mozzarella balls, organic cashew milk, organic flour tortillas, Cascadian Farms Ancient Grains cereal, pepperjack cheese, honeydew melon, organic portabello mushroom spaghetti sauce, 2 boneless pork chops, green salsa, can coconut milk, large can black beans, bananas, cilantro, 3 roma tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries.  $64.

Just before lunchtime, I go to the mall to try on a few more backpacks and shop for clothes.  While there, I take a lunch break at the Panera in the mall.  Coffee is my number one priority, but I also want a sandwich.  Somehow I am seduced by their limited-edition Lobster Roll, with a $17 price tag (at least I pay cash for it).  Is it worth it?  Well, if you are measuring purely in terms of quantity of lobster, it probably is.  There is a TON of lobster, giant chunks, in my roll, and little filler in the form of mayo or lettuce.  Lovers of lobster rolls may be satisfied.  Do I derive twice the pleasure from it as I would from a normal sandwich, for instance the roast turkey and caramelized kale panini I was considering?  Doubtful.  I have an apple on the side.  A $20 lunch, for myself only, at the mall.  What kind of self-indulgence is this?  But I read my hard-boiled Scottish crime novel and drink my coffee and am reasonably happy.

At home again after buying an excess of cardigans at H&M, it is time for some decaf and settling down to work with my laptop.

Dinnertime finds me trying to make a decent soft taco, in order to erase the memory of Saturday night's Mexican Fiasco.  I chop up some boneless pork chops and marinate them briefly in hot sauce and spices, then brown the meat with some onions.  Season (similarly) and heat some canned black beans.  The kid does not eat pork.  Other fixings: chopped tomatoes, shredded iceberg lettuce, grated pepperjack cheese, chopped cilantro, green salsa, bottled hot sauce.  Some warm flour tortillas, build-your-own.  This simple dinner, in its infinite variety, is always much appreciated by my family.  On this particular occasion, I didn't go to a lot of effort; there are fancier versions.  Even this basic and relatively boring version was so much better than what we had at that restaurant. 
I will note again that one Google review calls Jalisco Mexican restaurant in New Market "the best darn food, probably, in this part of rural Virginia."
​
Oh, and I had a glass of red wine with dinner.  Now that bottle is finally gone.

​June 21
Same old, same old breakfast.  Lemon water, coffee, smoothie.  The smoothie is good, uncomplicated, like a Slimfast breakfast drink.  Coconut water, cashew milk, vanilla yogurt, hemp protein powder, canned coconut milk, banana, strawberries.  Maybe it doesn't sound uncomplicated.  But it is.  Also, the lack of greens make it an actual pale pink instead of army green or mud-brown.  I don't get a chance to finish my coffee before I have to go out.

Back midmorning, I have some decaf, then some more regular, and then some more regular again around lunchtime.  After which I have lunch.  Lunch is leftover pasta from last Thursday night with a tiny bit of grated parmesan (kid has used most of it, left the rind in the fridge); also, a slice of stale whole wheat bakery toast with butter and lingonberry jam. 

​Midafternoon, I cannot handle any more coffee, so I have a cup of Pero with half and half, try to do some planning for our backpacking trip while listening to hail and thunder outside.

As dinnertime approaches, and especially after a late afternoon yoga class, I am really hungry-- have a few salted cashews, scarf down some honeydew melon while I am slicing it for dinner, drink a glass of white wine.  Dinner itself is spaghetti again: sauce from the jar, but lots of fresh basil and sliced fresh mozzarella dress it up a little bit.  Honeydew melon on the side, which I realize does not match at all.  Just trying to feed my family; but there's been too much pasta lately.  Our carb intake is through the roof.

In the evening, we walk over to the neighbor's to pick up our CSA box.  It is a really good one this time! Giant leeks (see photo), tiny cabbages (see other photo), a few giant leaves of something I cannot identify (farmer says it is "tronchuda" or "Portuguese cabbage."  Most vendors seem to refer to this as a variety of kale, but to me it looked somewhere between Swiss chard and collards), marjoram, broccoli, kohlrabi, beets, radishes, 4 gorgeous red onions, garlic.  I miss the strawberries but they cannot last forever.

​June 22
Work day, typical breakfast.  Lemon water, coffee, smoothie made from cashew milk, plain nonfat yogurt, hemp protein powder, peanut butter, strawberries, and honeydew melon.

I have a cup of decaf coffee at work, but it takes me the entire shift to finish it; too busy.  So, when I get home at 2:45, I have a lot of catching up to do.  Coffee, a Q ginger soda, lunch consisting of leftover spaghetti from last night, 6 saltine crackers, about 3 cashews.  Yep, we need to find something besides carbs to eat.  While having lunch, I look up leek soup recipes online.  Preferably ones that use up a TON of leeks.  I choose this one. 

Still in workplace recovery mode, I have another cup of decaf, black this time, because we are out of half and half and I haven't been to the store yet.

Shopping (Co-op): organic whole milk, golden raisins, decaf coffee, organic frozen mangos, creme fraiche, sponges, half & half, carton of almond coconut milk, 3 rolls toilet paper, organic spinach, bananas, raw peanuts, pull-apart challah rolls, white cage-free eggs, fresh tarragon, 2 lemons.  $64.

For dinner, I have to do something about these outrageous leeks that came into our lives last night. The leek soup recipe I chose off the internet is pretty plain, really-- lots of leeks softened in butter, thickened with rice (instead of potato), a lot of raw spinach blended in at the end, with a garnish of creme fraiche and tarragon (no chives were available at my local store).  I don't bother to strain the soup to eliminate all spinach bits.  Neither do many of the commenters on the original recipe.  We are sane people with lives.

​Along with the soup, I make a slaw out of some of the other CSA vegetables: a tiny cabbage head, shredded, with grated radish and kohlrabi.  The dressing is my standard slaw dressing: olive oil, apple cider vinegar, a little mayonnaise, honey, salt and pepper.
​
Neither of these swell items has much in the way of calories, so we also have some challah rolls with butter.  And I have a glass of sherry.  And another half a challah roll with butter just before bed.

June 17
The first day of our mini-break!  We have an ordinary breakfast: lemon water, coffee, smoothie.  After getting kid squared away and packing ourselves, more decaf coffee for the road.  And off in the direction of Shenandoah National Park.

We arrive at lunchtime, too early to stop into our hotel room.  So we scout out the small town of Luray, VA for someplace to eat, and end up at what is clearly the town's trendy hotspot: a combination coffeehouse/restaurant called "The Gathering Grounds."  All small-town coffee-houses are required to make some kind of pun on the word "grounds."  The clientele is an odd mix of student-types with laptops and elderly couples having a staid sandwich.  Everyone is white, though, which is something that, after some years living just outside of DC, we now notice and remark upon.  A sea of whiteness-- which I got used to after some years living in Montana-- now makes me feel uncomfortable, as though something potentially sinister were going on.  We order coffee and chicken salad sandwiches; I have potato chips.  The food is fine, the coffee terrible, even though it is most likely the best coffee in town. 

We take a pleasant afternoon stroll along Luray's outstanding riverside walkways-- huge investments have been made here in green space and beautification, despite the tiny size of the town.  There are more murals here in a small radius than practically anywhere else I have ever been.  There are lots of ducks and other waterfowl-- a least bittern is there, and a black-crowned night heron, and a duck that I try and try to identify, but which does not seem to exist.  Finally this helps (thanks, Cornell).  Some kind of mallard-y hybrid, I reckon.  And yet it looked like a totally plausible wild duck.

​When 4:00 rolls around, we go check out our cabin, which I can whole-heartedly recommend.  For $95/night, there is a medium-sized bedroom (decorated with artificial flowers and teddy bears by someone's great-grandma, but no matter), a large bathroom with skylight, a small hallway/closet area with full-sized coffee pot, refrigerator, and real mugs... and not one, but two porches!-- a sunny front porch looking out on the parking lot (the only place where the wifi works well), and a lovely shaded back porch facing a burbling stream and, on the other side of the stream, forest.  We buy coffees (decaf for me) in the hotel restaurant, and spend some time resting, hanging out on the back porch, enjoying the set-up.  I mentioned, when I reserved the cabin, that we were celebrating our 5th anniversary, and the staff have left us an assortment of tiny "gift shop"-type gifts, including a Virginia shot glass decorated all over with little hearts.

We are not ready for dinner until what turns out to be late for Luray-- on a Friday night, lots of places seem to close at 8:00, or even earlier.  We end up at a place called "Mok-N-She's" (a pun, I guess?) whose crowded parking lot makes it look popular, and general festooning with American flags strikes us as potentially alarming.  However, Mok-N-She's turns out to be friendly, tasty, and cheap.  We both eat BBQ sandwiches, topped with coleslaw, and french fries, and enjoy the heck out of them.  From here on out, every restaurant meal we eat in the Luray area costs precisely $19-and-change (plus tip) for two people.  (Hip "Gathering Grounds" cost us a few dollars more.)  There is an artificial flower on the table in an American-flag pattern, and an artificial Christmas tree behind me covered in American-flag ornaments.  My husband keeps mentioning, hopefully, that Flag Day just passed, but these things look like permanent fixtures to me.

Home to bed, all full of middle-American fried food and charm.
 
June 18
We sleep in a little, drink hotel-coffeemaker coffee on our back porch in the dappled morning sunshine.  It is lovely.  It's around 10:30 before we mosey on over to the hotel restaurant for some breakfast.  We're kind of overwhelmed by yesterday's consumption of heavy food, so we have breakfasts on the lighter side: for me, 2 eggs, toast (homemade!), a fruit cup, decaf coffee.  Then we have the restaurant ladies pack up some bag lunches for the road, and head into Shenandoah NP. 

​Driving, beautiful overlooks and vistas, a brief stroll here and there, a cup of good coffee-- at last!-- from the Park concession at Skyland.  We eat our lunches late, around 3:00, sitting on boulders near the Crescent Rock Overlook.  Mine is a turkey sandwich-- made from real, thick-sliced roast turkey, with lettuce and tomato, but unfortunately NOT on homemade bread this time but some kind of supermarket white bread that gums up and sticks to my teeth.  Little sandwich baggie of ripple chips.  An orange that turns out to be secretly rotten.  An apple-cinnamon Nutrigrain bar (my mom would be so pleased).  When we ordered our lunches, which had been billed as "sandwich, chips, fruit and drink," the waitress said in a worried voice, "I'm not sure if we have any candy bars left."  We quickly assured her that it was ok, we didn't need any candy bars!  But apparently these Nutrigrain bars were offered as a substitute.  I hadn't been planning on eating mine, but when my orange was bad I needed something as solace.

​After lunch, a wander around Big Meadows, then back towards our cabin for a rest before dinner.  We hang out on the porch, read, fall asleep.  Concerned that everything will be closing again, I wake my husband a little after 7 to go forage for dinner.  This time we drive to the next town, New Market, another 14 miles away, scout out all the nearby restaurants, and choose-- my husband chooses, I'll put the responsibility on him-- the Jalisco Mexican restaurant, which also has the advantage of being open until a sophisticated 10:30 on this Saturday night.  As it turns out, my city-boy husband has never in his life been to a small-town Mexican restaurant and doesn't know the risks; but, in his defense, the place does appear to be run by genuine Hispanic people.  There's a big free basket of standard fried tortilla chips, salsa that seems unusually mild, and the odd addition of a little dish of coleslaw to dip your chips into.  Nothing unpleasant, even though the idea of coleslaw with chips is an unusual one.  I add some habanero sauce to the slaw, and that improves the situation.  My husband orders a burrito platter (one chicken and one beef burrito), and I order soft tacos with carne asada.  The tacos are served (strangely, I think) with a choice of either lettuce and cheese or cilantro and onion.  Why not all of the above?  But I choose cilantro and onion, and my waitress nods approval, telling me "they're good that way" in a tone that suggests few people are so in-the-know.  Then she proceeds to deliver tacos with lettuce and cheese instead, with an impassive expression that suggests there is no point in complaining.  The "carne asada" seems entirely unseasoned, except for salt.  There is no flavor whatsoever.  I load them up with some more salsa (from the chips) and some habanero sauce (I don't typically use habanero sauce, but it wasn't very spicy either).  These tacos are one of the blandest things I have ever eaten.

Meanwhile, my husband, who is really not very picky about food quality, seems stunned by his burritos.  One is full of unseasoned shredded chicken and nothing else (except for the lettuce, cheese, sauce, and sour cream on the outside).  The other is filled with some kind of oily ground beef.  Much worse than my meal, but I feel his pain: I have eaten burritos like this before, in other small towns, in other times.  To some extent, it is a matter of local taste rather than restaurant quality; for instance, the most recent Yelp review of this restaurant reads "My friend, Brad, and I stopped at this place on our way through to town. I had probably one of the best burritos in my life."  Unless this review is intended as some kind of sick joke, I have to conclude that some people like this kind of aggressively bland cuisine.  The check comes to $19.

I promise to make it up to my husband by taking him to the outdoor frozen custard place we saw on our way into New Market.  There is a long line.  The people in front of us have a couple of restless kids and are controlling them by grabbing arms and twisting.  The vehicles in the parking lot are all massive.  Everybody is ordering elaborate, often colorful menu items, many of which I cannot identify.  Eventually we get our plain old custards-- a small vanilla cone for me, the plainest there is.  Then we sit on a reeking bench outside a cigarette store that's closed for the night, and eat them.  It is nice.  But we are eager to go back to Luray.  New Market just doesn't have the same friendly vibe.
 
June 19
Sunday morning; we're going home today.  We have last coffees on our sylvan back porch.  Late in the morning, one more stop at the Brookside hotel restaurant.  We both have ham-and-egg scrambles (they also contain potatoes) with biscuits on the side.  I have butter and honey on my biscuits.  More coffee.  Check: $19.

We are sad to leave the Brookside.  While we are checking out, the owner asks us whether we have seen any bears wandering around behind the cabins.  We haven't.

I have planned a long, meandering drive home, because I like that sort of thing.  When we get back, my stepson will be coming for dinner in honor of Father's Day.  So we stop at a farm stand, not far from Point of Rocks, MD, to pick up a few veggies.  I buy sugar snap peas, a tomato, a red pepper, broccoli, and an entire large basil plant.  We also buy a pie for dessert: apple walnut.  Total cost $31.

Dinner is to be simple, given that we're coming home at 4:30, having a guest at 6:00.  I roast a few vegetables for better flavor-- broccoli, red pepper, tomato-- then saute these with garlic, onion, sugar snap peas, and lots of fresh basil.  At the same time cook spaghetti noodles.  Combine all together with tons of shredded parmesan.  Voila, balanced meal.  Also a side salad of mixed lettuces, cilantro, and tomato, with a balsamic vinaigrette.  Glass of white wine.  Plus a Q ginger soda before dinner.  Also, apple walnut pie, which is surprisingly good (you never know with "homemade" pies), and decaf coffee.

Our wedding anniversary.  But I have to work first.  I start off the morning with the usual: lemon water, coffee, smoothie.  I try putting the leftover ricotta cheese in the smoothie.  It is pretty good and I would never guess the secret ingredient.

I'm dreading going to work this morning because the air conditioning has been out and it is forecast to get up to 95 degrees today.  But it turns out that workmen are installing new air conditioning units when I arrive.  They work great!  My whole attitude is altered, and the day becomes much more pleasant, despite various other sorts of mishaps.  I also consume a couple of cups of coffee (1 decaf, 1 regular), as well as odds and ends of leftover drinks (a little banana milkshake, a little pineapple-mango-kale juice), and eat a sandwich as I make my way home on foot after 3:30: grilled cheddar cheese with bulgogi and tomato on sourdough bread.  I should have had something lighter, as I know we are going out for a nice anniversary dinner tonight.  Mistake.

At home, I have a cup of decaf coffee and decompress, change, go over to the Co-op for provisions, and then ultimately fall asleep next to my husband. 

Shopping (Co-op): toilet cleaner, limeade, organic whole milk, lactose-free 2% milk, half & half, 2 containers raspberries, organic raw cashews, organic dried mulberries.  $33.

We wake back up a little after seven, and dress for dinner, even though I am still not all that hungry.  Dumbass.  Anyhow.  It is after eight by the time we get seated, so that helps a little.  We are at Republic, which I still think of as a "new" restaurant, even though by now it has probably been there for a couple of years.  It is pricey, and from the outside I thought it would be rather trendy and intimidating, so this is our first visit, even though it is actually across the street from my own restaurant and I vaguely know several of the employees as my customers.  (Can't Republic make breakfast sandwiches for its own staff?  Apparently not.)  Inside, I discover that it is not remotely intimidating.  Young people going out on a Saturday night mix with elderly folks wearing preppy golf clothes and middle-aged Takoma Park hippies in ugly cotton tunics and Tevas.  The dining room already looks somewhat chaotic and worn.  The service... well, our service is excellent.  But it is also bizarrely personalized.  Our server turns out to be a guy who used to work at my restaurant as a dishwasher.  He treats my husband and I like royalty.  Maybe he treats everyone like that, I don't know.  But then the bartender comes over and personally greets us, chit-chats a bit.  At the end, we find our dessert and coffees have been comped, no reason except that we are being welcomed as fellow local restaurant staff, I guess.  I never would have expected to get the VIP treatment here, just because I sell these people a few breakfast sandwiches (double bacon, avocado, egg and cheese, always).  So I come away with the impression that Republic takes its role as a community member much more seriously than I realized.  Points for that.

​Now to the food: I started with a "Localist" cocktail, which was a fancied-up gin drink, with local honey and lemon and a candied grapefruit garnish.  The garnish was fantastic.  Delicious candy!  The drink: fine.  We had a little bit of bread and olive oil, no biggie; I could have skipped this but my husband wanted it.  As an appetizer, we shared a small portion of the seemingly-modest dish most raved about by Yelpers: their Ancient Grains salad.  There was a lot going on in this dish, from feta to mint to dill to pomegranate seeds to fried shallots to god-knows-what-else.  It was a mouth party, though a somewhat confusing one.  Did I like it?  Sure.  Would I order it again?  Probably not, unless somebody else really wanted it.  To the entree.  I ordered rockfish atop a bed of mixed-something-or-other.  According to the menu, the little grains were actually small herb dumplings-- I would have had trouble identifying these-- and there were some minced vegetables in there-- perhaps some squash?  It tasted good, but was short on salt (ironically, since a common theme in reviews is that this restaurant oversalts everything), and salt was not available on the table because surely all food came out seasoned EXACTLY RIGHT.  I think this represents a bit of hubris on the part of a restaurant.  Tastes vary and chefs are not perfectly consistent. Anyway.  I saved half of this to take home, because I was full and because I could salt it there.

For dessert, I ordered an americano and we shared a piece of carrot-parsnip cake with dulce de leche ice cream.  The cake was good-- I couldn't really tell it from plain old carrot cake-- but the ice cream was to-die-for.  Next time I might just order that.  And I don't eat ice cream very often.  The decaf americano was also very, very good.  My husband had plain decaf coffee and he said that he couldn't even tell it was decaf, which is very high praise coming from him.  All in all we had a nice time-- though it was too noisy to talk much-- and spent quite a bit of money, by coincidence almost exactly the amount I earned during the day.

Did I mention that they were so, so nice to us?

​June 3
My husband had to be up and out of the house at 6 am this morning, so I made our smoothies the night before and set them in the fridge.  He drank his before leaving, but I ended up giving mine to my kid, who was looking around for breakfast at 6:15.  So, no smoothie for me this morning.  Breakfast: lemon water, coffee with half and half, decaf coffee with half and half, leftover spinach-and-chickpeas, one extra-large hamantasch.

Around 10 I am feeling very restless and make another cup of decaf with half and half.  I settle (kind of) and write.  More regular coffee at noon.  While making this cup, I notice some irregularities in the placement of coffee supplies that lead me to wonder whether I have in fact had any caffeinated coffee yet this morning.  Maybe my husband made decaf by mistake.  But then why would I be feeling so manic?  I drink the coffee while looking up backpacking tips and supplies on the internet, and freaking out about how I have arranged to take kid on a 3-day, 30-mile backpacking trip in four weeks, without having any equipment or having a fucking clue what I am doing.  At least it is a flat trail and close to civilization.  But: how irresponsible.  I'd better get on this.

Lunch (still thinking about the backpacking trip): Whole Foods tequila-lime tortilla chips, slice of 7-grain toast with butter, dish of sliced almonds mixed with Craisins.  Lame.

3:00: another cup of decaf coffee, black this time.  Thinking about anniversary gifts for my husband.  5th anniversary gifts are supposed to be wood, or silverware.  I enjoy finding something that fits into the framework, even when it is not precisely what is intended.  Last year "fruit" turned into pie-of-the-month (from which I still owe him two months' worth of pies).

6 pm, I get hungry, have a handful of peanuts.  Then the last bits of the bag of tortilla chips.  About 6:45, it is time to "make dinner"-- in quotation marks this time, because I am serving a) Wolfgang Puck's canned chicken and wild rice soup, b) slices of Rudi's multigrain bread with butter, and c) some actual cooked vegetables, consisting of garlic, spring bulb onions from the CSA farm, CSA sugar snap peas, and part of a leftover tomato.  Part c) counts as cooking,  but the rest does not!  Note to self: the soup, which used to be a favorite of my kid's before they stopped eating chicken, is kind of gross.  I have no idea why kid liked it so much.  My husband didn't even finish his, which is downright weird.  He also didn't comment on it, but simply poured the remainder down the sink.  I would have done the same, if I weren't so damned conscientious.  
 
June 4
So bummed out that I have to work an unplanned shift at the restaurant today.  Early morning breakfast (6:30 am): lemon water, coffee with half and half, smoothie made from pomegranate cranberry juice, canned pumpkin, hemp protein powder, peanut butter, banana, a tasteless squishy plum, a squishy but still underripe-tasting kiwi, canned papaya, and CSA farm lettuce.  Not one of my best efforts, as the extremely tart juice in conjunction with the green kiwi and papaya-- the latter of which I always find slightly rotten-tasting-- had a flavor somewhat reminiscent of vomit.  At least to me.  I had the self-restraint not to mention this to my husband, who commented (confusingly) that the smoothie was "very sweet!"

Work was a gigantic clusterfuck, which is neither here nor there as food goes, and during this epic disaster I did manage to ingest a cup of decaf and a cup of regular coffee, with half and half, along with a rather larger amount of water than usual, due to the air conditioning being broken in the restaurant.  I didn't get home to eat lunch until 4:00.

(I never know how much to say about the restaurant.  On the one hand, people seem to enjoy crazy restaurant stories.  On the other hand, I still have to work there, and have a certain degree of personal loyalty that does not lend itself to exposing all the business's warts in a public forum.  I may have to save the wart-exposing for fiction, or "fiction.")

Okay, so it's 4:00 now, and lunch.  I have one leftover hamantasch (I think I kind of underbaked them, and between that and the humidity they have become seriously soft); a slice of multigrain toast with butter; some peanuts; and a small slice of  blah cantaloupe.  Delish!  But, it is food.  Also, a cup of decaf coffee with half and half.  I am so exhausted.

Two hours later, when a little less exhausted, I shower and change and go down the street to the store.  Shopping (Co-op): decaf coffee, 3 individual Brown Cow yogurts, quart of plain Brown Cow yogurt, quart of plain goat kefir, half and half, lactose-free 2% milk, Equal Exchange coffee, peach lemonade, grape juice, organic raisins, 3 rolls toilet paper, strawberries, blueberries, 2 containers raspberries (on sale for $1 each!), 1 huge grapefruit.  $68.

​Eventually, my husband gets home from work and, when I get out the frozen enchiladas I was thinking of making for dinner, I discover that they have to bake for 50-55 minutes.  Seriously?  So we decide to walk down the street and have dinner at the middle eastern restaurant.  This restaurant is uneven.  Sometimes we  have had food there that is very underwhelming; in fact, for a long time we had a tendency to forget the place even existed.  But, on occasion, we've had items-- or entire meals-- that were great.  This particular experience was on the underwhelming side.  I ordered a glass of cabernet, which I desperately needed.  That was fine.  We had perfectly okay little dinner salads with lettuce, feta cheese, cherry tomatoes, and olives.  We shared some good hummus, with pita bread that seemed thinner and more tasteless than usual.  It reminded me of matzoh.  Then, as an entree, I chose (irresponsibly, perhaps) a vegetarian okra dish with tomato sauce and basmati rice.  Unlike the rest of my family, I really like okra if it is prepared well.  I thought this was my opportunity to enjoy okra without burdening my friends and relations.  However, the okra was cooked to a mushy, sticky consistency and tasted mostly of tomato-- not inedible, but nothing special.  My husband, who ordered a lamb kebob, to my surprise opined that it reminded him of the steak at this restaurant.  I thought surely the lamb kebob would be a safe choice.  So. 

The glass of wine was bigger than I pour at home, and I am a slow drinker, so I was trying (I failed) to finish it before I left the restaurant, and ended up feeling rather stumbly on the walk home.  What a lightweight.  I took half the okra home in a box, even though I didn't really like it.  Did I mention being over-conscientious?
​
For reasons that are not clear even to me, I have a Brown Cow maple yogurt just before bed.

​Breakfast (before work, 6:30 am): lemon water, coffee with half and half, smoothie made from pomegranate juice, carrot juice, canned coconut milk, hemp protein powder, strawberries, and farm lettuce.  That doesn't sound awfully filling, but it held me through most of the day somehow.  Maybe the heat.

At work: cup of decaf coffee with half and half, a couple of swallows of strawberry-pineapple juice, cup of regular coffee with half and half.  A customer ordered something they called a "London Fog"-- then described it as steamed milk with Earl Grey tea in it-- so I had a few leftover sips of that too, since it sounded interesting.

Lunch (3:45 pm, brought home from the restaurant): the cooks made me a mega-serving of the food I ordered-- japchae with bulgogi on top and some extra asian-style green beans thrown in.  I appreciate that they like me (some of my coworkers complain of being given tiny servings), but, as I keep telling them, they are going to make me fat.  I told Mrs. Park that I would eat some and save the rest for breakfast, but of course I ate it all. 

We waited to eat dinner until late, after we went to see a musical (Caroline, or Change) assistant-directed by my stepson.  It was an interesting show that we had to talk about afterwards, and also there were some stellar singers.  The talking took place at the Metro 29 Diner in Arlington, so aggressively air-conditioned that my husband had to give me his shirt to wrap around myself.  I wanted something small, just a sandwich and decaf.  But all sandwiches that were of any interest to me came with fries.  I wanted a tuna melt.  I asked if I could substitute anything for the fries, decided on coleslaw, and received a massive platter with an open-face tuna melt (meaning about double the tuna and cheese you would normally find on the sandwich), a pile of lettuce and tomatoes on the side, a small cup of coleslaw, a much larger dish of additional coleslaw, a pickle, and four onion rings.  My husband did want a sandwich and fries, received a large sandwich, a huge pile of fries, a small cup of coleslaw, a pickle, and four onion rings.  We took home two big styrofoam boxes, one with some of his fries and most of the onion rings, and the other with half a tuna melt, an additional pile of tuna-with-cheese that I had scraped off the other half of the open-face sandwich so that I could put the two pieces of bread together, and a giant pile of coleslaw.  I think we wasted my husband's pickle, as he doesn't like them and we didn't take it home.  My husband speculated about what foreigners would say about ridiculous American serving sizes if they ate at the Metro 29.  Speaking of American wastefulness, even the waitress, who was working hard, complained of being cold in this over-air-conditioned restaurant.  My Korean immigrant employer, who was today complaining to me about how much food Americans waste, and also keeps his restaurant at a tropical 82 degrees, would be appalled.

Other snacks: cup of decaf coffee with half and half in the afternoon after work.

May 19
Breakfast: water with lime, black coffee (sometimes I feel like drinking it black now, it's weird), smoothie containing RiceDream horchata, hemp protein powder, a little maple almond butter, plain Greek yogurt, mango, banana, frozen mango chunks, and romaine lettuce.  I left out the prune juice because I am afraid my husband will get fed up with me.  This smoothie was still very sweet, but at least tasted mostly like fruit in a conventional smoothie fashion.  I kind of miss our old, thick-but-not-very-sweet smoothies.

Lunch: ham and swiss sandwich on rye from Starbucks, plus a small bag of potato chips, at the Joyce Kilmer rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike.  I am on my way home to Massachusetts to see my family and attend my friend's book party (see photo at right).  I eat my sandwich outside at a picnic bench, and read.  The whole thing seems far more wholesome than it would have if I'd gotten Burger King and eaten inside with the crowd of other people.  I approve of myself at this time.

Dinner: Ugh, this journey is taking forever: over 4 hours from the Joyce Kilmer, on one side of NYC, to Bridgeport, CT on the other.  In Windsor, CT, only about an hour from my parents' place, I give up and eat a Subway sandwich: a 6-inch "rotisserie chicken" on whole wheat with veggies and mustard.  This was completely bland and flavorless.  I also had a side bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, not flavorless.

Snacks: 3 cups coffee, 1 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half.  2 small chocolate chip sandie-type cookies and 1 weird Kirkland-brand truffle candy, with black tea, at my parents' house after arrival.  I was just planning to have the tea, but my parents requested that I bring out the sweets, and then they were sitting right in front of me.  The candy was sort of gross and at least I won't be tempted to have any more.

May 20
Breakfast: At my mom and stepfather's house.  A leftover chicken thigh from the dinner my parents prepared last night, but which I didn't make it in time to eat; english muffin with butter and blackberry jam; tangelo.  Coffee with half and half.

Lunch: With my dad and his wife, at the Book Mill in Montague.  I had some hot dog or sausage-like item, on a brioche bun with some various homemade condiment-type things, and coleslaw.  The coleslaw looked ordinary, but was not sweet at all.  I didn't realize how much I expect coleslaw to be sweet.  Coffee.  I drank it black because the waitress didn't offer me any cream and, nowadays, I don't seem to mind black coffee.

Dinner: With my (ex-) stepmother, at her house in Conway.  That makes five parents in one day.  We did not eat dinner until 10:30 at night because we were talking so much (as well as snacking: see below).  Dinner was: a sheet pan concoction with chicken thighs, sliced fennel, winter squash and grapes (!), sprinkled with what seemed to be brown sugar mixed with spices, perhaps cumin.  Potatoes boiled with vinegar and then fried with salt.  Salad with lettuce, arugula, and grape tomatoes, and balsamic dressing.  Two glasses of red wine, the second of which was a local red made right here in Hadley, MA.  It was pretty good, but sadly I don't remember the name of it.

Snacks: Decaf coffee with half and half from the Black Sheep in Amherst, on my way from Mom's house to Dad's, when I stopped in town to buy coffee beans, wine, and chocolate for my stepmother.  Several slices of baguette with triple creme cheese, and several bing cherries, at my stepmother's house before dinner.  One square of Ghiradelli mango dark chocolate with the last of my wine before bed.

​May 21
Breakfast: Late in the morning, with my stepmother.  She makes a big fruit salad and cooks scrambled eggs with goat cheese, tomato and basil, toasts some toast.  It's a perfect breakfast.  Coffee with soy creamer-- my favorite Black Sheep blend that I bought.  The coffee is perfect too.

I don't exactly have lunch, but instead nosh at my best friend's book party (see below).

Dinner: After the book party, when most of the guests have gone home, my friend and I drive to Greenfield to pick up lots of gourmet pizzas for her parents, brother, husband, kids and me to eat at the "afterparty."  I have a slice of rosemary potato pizza, a slice with roast meats and pickles, and a slice that just has a big pile of raw arugula on top.  The pickle pizza was the best.  Also a little bit of Greek-ish salad, and a glass of red wine.

Snacks: morning coffee with soy creamer.  A square of mango dark chocolate when getting hungry for a late breakfast.  Party snacks: a couple of crackers with guacamole, a couple of crackers with cheese, a paper cup of lemonade, a piece of amazing strawberry-and-lemon curd cake, plus another mini-slice of the same cake, and one of chocolate cake.   I wish I'd known about these cakes, I would totally have bought my wedding cake from them five years back.  A decaf Americano from the Starbucks in the middle of Amherst, on my way home (to my parents' house) from the afterparty.  For some unknown reason the barista refused to charge me for it, no matter how much I protested.

May 22
Breakfast: I've been told we are having bagels for breakfast, but 8:30 rolls around and no one else is awake yet, let alone ready to drive into town and pick up the fresh bagels.  So I have a nectarine that appears to badly need eating, and an English muffin with butter and fig jam.  The bagels can count as lunch. 

Lunch (though it probably takes place about 10:30): one and a half bagels, with cream cheese and smoked salmon.  Coffee with half and half.  The outing into town, with my stepfather, to pick up the bagels at Bruegger's and smoked salmon at the Big Y, was pleasant.  I made the mistake of asking for a salt bagel for myself, which was so salty I could barely eat it.

Party/Dinner (with my friend's family, same as yesterday): snacks including several crackers with cheese or guacamole, several vegetable sticks with guacamole or hummus, a small glass of lemonade and another small glass of lemonade mixed with sparkling water.  Dinner (at perhaps 4:30 pm?) consisting of hamburger with tomato and onion, potato chips, and fruit salad.  Half a glass of pink-ish sparkling wine after dinner, left over from the book party.  Large piece of chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting after that (to celebrate the birthdays of my friend's husband and son).  I am full.

Snacks: cup of coffee with half and half, and unadorned cup of tea (I'm not sure what kind, as many of my parents' tea bags are unmarked) before finally caving in and eating my English muffin in the morning.  Cup of decaf coffee with half and half at the Black Sheep, picked up on the way from my parents' house to the party.  2 sips of red wine in the evening with my stepfather: the wine is raisin-colored, a little vinegary, and tastes unpleasant.  I ask how long it has been open and my stepfather says not very long, a week or two, and my mom says no, no! It was already open in the cupboard when I got it out!  Nevertheless, they both act impatient, like I am imagining things, when I say the wine has gone off.  It has a price sticker on it: it was $6.99 to begin with.  My stepfather stubbornly drinks his glass of wine and my own.  I switch to an airplane mini-bottle of cognac that has reportedly been in the cupboard 20 years.  The cognac is still good.
 
May 23
Breakfast: coffee with half and half, half a poppyseed bagel with cream cheese and jam, pineapple.  I am feeling overfed and am eating breakfast late, so saving room to eat lunch sooner rather than later.  Everybody here eats very early, it seems.

Lunch: I am assigned to eat a Trader Joe's vegan tikka masala frozen meal that my stepfather wants to get rid of.  It is fine.  It would have better if the chunks of vegetable protein had been chicken, which was apparently also my stepfather's opinion.  I throw a handful of salad greens in the bowl too, so that I will be eating some extra vegetable.

Dinner: at approximately 4:40 pm, my Mom suggests we start getting ready to go out for supper.  "Mom, it's 4:30," I say.  She argues that, by the time we are finished getting ready and drive to the restaurant, it will actually be "more like 5:30" before we eat.  I bargain for 6:00 and she agrees.  We go to the Ginger Garden, my favorite Chinese restaurant in Amherst.  Our server, I must mention, is perfect.  He should train all the servers of the world.  Unfortunately, we order things that I turn out not to like all that much.  A scallion pancake to share-- as soon as it arrives, I realize I've ordered it for takeout before, and found it tough and leathery.  This time, it is at least hot, and therefore a bit better, but I would not get it again.  I also order some thick noodles with pork, which are bland but not bad.  My mom gets a dish with some kind of soft, braised white fish and lots of mushrooms, in a sauce that she likes and declares gingery but I think tastes like nothing at all.  She doesn't care for some of the mushrooms that she thinks are "too tough," so I eat some of those.  My stepfather goes a different direction and orders some very spicy breaded shrimp served on a bed of very spicy minced vegetables.  I find that mixing some of these spicy vegetables into the bland, vaguely sweet pork noodles yields the best results, so I mainly stick with that.  Again: great restaurant, risky ordering.  Uneven results to be expected.  Black tea, fortune cookie.

Snacks: cup of mystery tea with almond milk.  After dinner, we stopped at a new local donut shop called Glazed, an enticing downtown storefront that had been gently calling to me for the entire length of my visit.  When I finally confessed this to my parents, it turned out they felt the same, so we picked up three donuts to eat for dessert at home.  My choice was a chai glazed donut.  It was okay.  It might well have been better first thing in the morning instead of at 8 pm, after having sat around all day.  On the other hand, their case was still quite well stocked at 8 pm-- were they going to throw all those donuts away?  Or just keep on selling them the next day?  How does that work when you are a local joint that charges 2 bucks per donut instead of a cheap mass-producing chain outlet?  I hope they make it, but looking at their prime retail location, expensive-for-what-it-is-but-still-inexpensive product, and minimal clientele (at the time I was there), I am not convinced.
 
May 24
Driving home day.

Breakfast (at parents' house, before leaving): slice of rye toast with butter; a plum; caramel-flavored Liberte yogurt.  Coffee, with half and half.  Apparently, after reading this post about how much I love caramel Liberte yogurt, my mom assigned my stepfather to buy 4 of them for my visit.  I only managed to eat this one.  I do like caramel Liberte, but I don't actually eat that much yogurt.  However, this is one of the weird ways in which parents show their love.  My mom stopped offering me any "bars" because I made fun of her here and she read it.  It's kind of disappointing.  I don't want the bars, but I also don't want her to change. 

Lunch: at a Starbucks in Fort Lee, New Jersey, a heavily Korean enclave just outside of New York City.  In fact, I stopped at this particular strip mall partly because it had one of my beloved H-Marts.  Many of the signs were in Korean, and many of the customers were speaking Korean.  A group of Korean teenagers were playing guitars outside on the sidewalk and singing songs about Jesus to raise money for their "mission."  At the Starbucks, I ate some kind of panini (turkey and avocado, perhaps? I can't remember) and chips, and drank another cup of coffee with half and half, and finished the book I was reading.  Incidentally, I don't think I was meant to be in Fort Lee, NJ at all.  My dad gave me directions for an alternate route to Maryland that he said was more pleasant and bypassed New York City.  I believe the bypassing New York part would have worked better if the directions he'd written down had been accurate, but he mixed up (I think) the Palisades Parkway with the Sawmill Parkway, and the route I took ("I'll just trust Dad," I said to myself, like that has ever been a good idea) ended up being rather unusual.  It was still more pleasant (and, bizarrely, not any more time-consuming) than taking I-95 the whole way, though.  So, in a sense, Dad was right.  And next time I can adjust the route so that all the roads he wrote down (except the Palisades Parkway) actually intersect, and it will be a good route.  Dad has always been more of a fiction guy than a fact guy.

Dinner: leftover vegetarian chili that my husband cooked the night before for himself and kid, warmed up after I arrive home from my trip and he arrives home from work shortly thereafter.  Shredded cheddar cheese on top.  I am very grateful that he made it.  He does not cook much and doesn't have a lot of confidence in his skills, but honestly a) the chili is pretty good, and b) I wouldn't mind whether it were good or not.  There is a value to somebody serving you dinner regardless of quality. 

Snacks: decaf coffee with half and half, and a chocolate croissant, from the Black Sheep on my way out of town in the morning.  I didn't intend to get the chocolate croissant but, at the last minute, I caved.  It was so flaky and messy that I had to sit down and eat it and read for a few minutes, because there was no way I could eat it in the car.  It was delicious, but I didn't really want it.  Random fail.  Or tradition (I pretty much have one croissant at the Black Sheep every time I come home).  Second random fail: when I stopped in the afternoon for a decaf americano at another Starbucks (in a Camden, NJ rest stop), I bought a package of their madeleines, which for some reason I find irresistible.  Tomorrow I will get back to normal, I swear.  Enough with the donuts for dessert.  After I have sworn this, the minute I arrive home my kid gives me a big cookie.  They baked it themselves while I was gone and saved it for me, so how I could I say no?

Oh and this evening after dinner we picked up our first CSA farm box of the year, from this guy's farm.  This is a new farm to us, and it is exciting.  Our box contained lettuce, spinach, oregano, strawberries, various kinds of young onions with scapes, and asparagus.  It is not a ton, but usually these things get a slow start for the first couple of weeks, and I am happy to start earlier and get some real spring vegetables (and fruit!) like these.

An hour or two ago, I was looking at Yelp reviews for the restaurant Traders, which we visited this weekend in Chesapeake Beach.  Traders has 3 stars on Yelp (which is not very good) and was panned by me.  Imagine my delight when I came across the following review, from last month: 

A drink cup lid!  I love it!  I noted in my post that the lights were kept strangely low in this restaurant, so low that even the waitress was complaining about it.  Perhaps, if the lighting were better, the server (or the cook!) might have noticed the drink cup lid before serving it to the customer.  It's these little details that matter.

​So, I now feel inspired to find and post some of the best-worst Yelp reviews of places we have visited on this blog and been unimpressed by.  (Out of fundamental loyalty, I will leave out my own restaurant, which has some doozies of its own, believe me.) 

​May 7-- clean slate (no dairy)
Breakfast: green tea, shake made from coconut milk (from the carton), coconut water, quinoa milk, hemp protein powder, canned coconut milk, frozen blueberries, strawberries, a few gooseberries, and spinach.  It didn't come out all gloppy like the last time I used gooseberries; in fact, it is one of the best shakes we've had. 

After breakfast, my husband and I decide to take a drive to the beach.  I pack snacks, in case there is nothing we are allowed to eat on our travels.  Largely, it turns out that there isn't.  Of course, I forget to pack my camera.

Shopping: In the small town of North Beach, MD where we end up, there is a market that sells only locally-produced food.  It has a small selection but is pretty neat.  We buy some strawberries, a package of frozen ground goat meat, and two jars of jam (for later).  $31.

Lunch: none of the restaurants in cute North Beach (at least the area we found) serve things we can eat today, so we go over to Trader's in Chesapeake Beach, which advertises steaks and seafood.  I am anticipating having to spring for a pricey surf-and-turf-type meal, but at least we can probably order steak and vegetables, or chicken, or something.  Inside, though, the restaurant seems quite different than advertised, almost a slightly upscale diner foodwise, but with the lights turned down absurdly low, and the Kentucky Derby playing on the giant TV.  My husband and I both order the large garden salad with a 6 oz. filet mignon on top, which for $13.95 sounds a little too good to be true.  It is.  The salad is diner iceberg-style, the oil-and-vinegar just vegetable oil and cheap red wine vinegar, and the steak... I'm not sure how to describe the steak.  First of all, they had seasoned the hell out of it (or perhaps it came that way) with a powerful and artificial-tasting steak seasoning.  Intense.  Secondly, the texture was so soft and tender as to be unnatural.  Yes, filet is supposed to be tender.  But this was not normal.  We weren't sure what to make of it, but we ate it.

Dinner (at home again): I cooked Madhur Jaffrey's Stir-Fried Fresh Shiitake Mushrooms, along with some stirfried NY strip steak and broccoli.  Yes, that is two steaks in one day, and we didn't even want any more, but that was what I had ready to prepare for dinner.  The shiitake mushrooms were okay, but nothing I would go out of my way for.  Jaffrey calls them "exquisite."  To each their own.

Snacks: 2 cups rooibos tea, 1 cup green tea, a handful of almonds in the car, a handful of my husband's salted mixed nuts that he bought at a gas station, a boiled egg in the car.  One of the local strawberries we bought at the market, except it turned out to be covered in gritty sand and I didn't eat any more until we went home and washed them.  They remained a bit sandy even after that.  I also packed some raspberries and gooseberries in the car, but we did not eat them, so we had them for "dessert" after dinner.
 
May 8-- clean slate and Mother's Day!
Breakfast: green tea, shake made from quinoa milk, hemp protein powder, avocado, lots of strawberries, and spinach.  The shake was a little sandy because of the strawberries.

Lunch: Husband and I went downtown, seeking something we could eat for lunch/brunch where the place wouldn't be packed with Mother's Day celebrators (kid was not home yet from Dad's house).  We discovered that our local Middle Eastern restaurant has just started offering a "Tapas brunch" on Sundays, and ordered two mini vegetable kabobs, a plate of two mini lamb chops, a plate of two hard-boiled eggs with za'atar, and a tiny plate of roasted cauliflower with some kind of tahini dip.  We shared everything and I had some spice tea.  A great new option for Sunday morning!  We were excited.  Affordable, too.  My husband raved about his single grilled mushroom and two grilled cherry tomatoes on the vegetable kabob.  Maybe I should cook those things at home for him.

Shopping (farmer's market): eggs, cherry tomatoes, head of butter lettuce, loaf of rye bread, bag of small collard greens, bag of large pea shoots, bag of purple carrots.  $32.

Dinner: Because of our current dietary restrictions, I chose Sweetgreen again for Mother's Day dinner.  I had a salad of spinach, kale, and arugula, with asparagus, roasted broccoli, marinated mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, pecans, avocado, and chicken, and a balsamic dressing.  Also a glass of jasmine green iced tea.  My kid had just been to Sweetgreen the night before with their girlfriend, who is a vegan, on their one-year anniversary.  They're ninth-graders!  Congratulations, guys.

Snacks: 1 cup green tea, 1 cup rooibos tea.  Cherry tomatoes, a carrot, and a strawberry while playing Betrayal at House on the Hill with my family in the late afternoon.
​
It was a very nice day, foodwise and otherwise, and not once did I say to myself, "oh, I wish I were going out for proper tea and pastries on Mother's Day, or a big honking brunch with bacon and pancakes."

​April 29
Breakfast: lemon water, green tea, shake made from vanilla almond milk, chocolate almond milk, hemp protein powder, canned coconut milk, frozen blueberries, fresh strawberries.

Lunch: small glass of coconut water, 2 fried eggs, multicolored baby carrots with guacamole.

Dinner: I made the Spicy Thai Chicken Zoodle Salad from Nom Nom Paleo.  I don't have a spiralizer (what is that, even?), so I just used a vegetable peeler to shave long pieces off my zucchini and carrots, then julienned whatever I couldn't accomplish with the peeler.  The chicken was some boneless thighs that I baked, then shredded.  To my somewhat surprise, this salad was both delicious and filling.  And it had a flavor profile that was totally different from the salads with vinaigrettes that I've been making the past couple of weeks: sunflower seed butter, sriracha (which technically has a little sugar in it, but I cheated the tiniest bit), cilantro, sesame seeds, scallions, lime.  And, no lettuce, or spinach, or arugula, or any of the other salad greens I depend on-- the bulk of the salad is made of zucchini.  A nice change of pace!  It was pretty and colorful too.

​Snacks: 2 cups rooibos tea with chocolate almond milk, 1 cup green tea, package of sesame seaweed, small glass of chocolate almond milk (unsweetened! But the chocolate still tastes good), 3 strawberries.
 
April 30
Breakfast: lemon water, green tea, shake made from coconut water, hemp protein powder, avocado, frozen blueberries, fresh strawberries, kale and arugula.

Lunch (brought home from work, 3:30): grilled flounder with a sauce made from peppers, onions, and I am not sure what else.  Steamed carrots on the side.  There were also some grilled mixed vegetables but they tasted like they were going rancid so I didn't eat them. 

Shopping (Co-op): cashew milk, carton of coconut milk, cashew butter, balsamic vinegar, blackberries, dried organic mulberries, green pepper, 2 avocados, 3 small orange tomatoes, organic dried dates (for kid).  $38.

Dinner: We did have a big salad, but also a couple of side dishes.  One of the side dishes was Madhur Jaffrey's Spinach Bhaji.  It ended up with a lovely depth of flavor from all the cooked onions, garlic, and chilis, but I still have trouble with just how slow-cooked and mushy most of her Indian spinach recipes are.  You have to really like that gelatinous texture.  The other side dish consisted of some yellow split peas which I cooked, adding a tarka at the end of olive oil, cumin, ginger, and red chili.  This was so extremely simple, and yet the flavor was wonderful.  The tarka is a technique I learned from Jaffrey-- the taste is so much better than simply adding the spices to the peas while cooking, or even my usual method of panfrying the spices and peas in the oil before adding water. 

​,​Snacks: 2 cups green tea, 1 cup vanilla almond herbal tea, 1 cup rooibos tea with chocolate almond milk, 2 scrambled eggs with chili paste at work.
 
May 1
Breakfast: lemon water, 2 cups green tea, shake made from chocolate almond milk, coconut water, cashew milk, frozen strawberries, fresh blueberries, hemp protein powder, cashew butter, and a lot of romaine lettuce.  Think the lettuce sounds weird?  So did I.  But actually this was one of my favorite shakes.  The romaine gave it a lightness and freshness that we really enjoyed.  I'd do it again.

Lunch: we decided to invert our salad and non-salad meals today, and go to Sweetgreen for lunch.  Sweetgreen is a delightful local chain that serves top-quality, perfect choose-your-own salads, along with interesting, low-sugar beverages.  My salad contained spinach, kale, romaine, swiss chard, tomato, carrot and mushrooms, with avocado, pecans, and chicken, and a spicy cashew dressing.  I think, by the taste, that the spicy cashew dressing had some sugar in it, but it tasted really good and I did ask the restaurant worker to point me away from the sweetest dressings, so it was surely not the worst choice among them.  We also each had a flavored seltzer water, made with real juice.  Mine was raspberry-lime.  I love this place, but we spent $34 on two big salads and two cans of seltzer.  It might have been worth it, though, it was that good.

Dinner: Madhur Jaffrey's Greek Mixed Greens, quinoa mixed with french lentils, hamburger patties.  Generally unremarkable, except that Jaffrey had us oversalt the cooking water for the greens.  That woman does love salt.  Either that or she uses very coarse salt and neglects to tell us.

Snacks: 2 cups green tea, 1 cup rooibos tea with cashew milk.
 
May 2
Breakfast: lemon water, green tea, shake made from cashew milk, hemp protein powder, avocado, frozen blueberries, and romaine lettuce.  This was not my best work, being much gloppier and less sweet than the previous day's.  It was almost too thick to blend.  While avocado is a great thickener, I'm finding that the cashew milk also tends to thicken more than other nut milks.

Lunch (after work, 2:30): leftover Greek greens, leftover quinoa and lentils, leftover hamburger patty.  It's like the old days, when I used to eat proper leftovers for lunch! 

Shopping (Co-op): 2 boneless top sirloin steaks, organic baby kale, 3 rolls Seventh Generation toilet paper, very large container Fage 2% plain Greek yogurt, smoked trout, coconut water, six-pack of berry-flavored sparkling water, quart of Brown Cow vanilla yogurt, organic olive oil, sweet pea shoots, strawberries, frozen strawberries, roasted unsalted cashews, Tillamook 3-year extra sharp cheddar, 2 avocados, 2 cans tuna, 3 lemons, $93.

Dinner: salad consisting of romaine lettuce, broccoli sprouts, pea shoots, cilantro, green pepper and orange tomatoes, with 2 hard-boiled eggs apiece, avocado, green peas, and canned tuna, and a lemon-olive oil dressing.  For some reason, it had barely any flavor.  Needed salt badly, I think. 

Snacks: 1 cup peppermint tea, 1 cup green tea, 1 cup rooibos tea, cooked carrots (at work).