Veg & Cocktails

Week 3 in the CSA, and the veggies are starting to repeat themselves.


Kohlrabi made another comeback. This time, we ate it raw with a slaw made of kohlrabi and apple. Neither of us really cared for it. Then again, we're not slaw kind of people. I was intrigued by the apple, but it turned out to be not so interesting.


I finally picked up my friend Heidi's new cookbook, Super Natural Every Day. It is such a beautiful book (the photographs are stunning!), and this Summer Linguine made with zucchini was divine. My favorite recipe of the week--and super easy. That's some garlic bread, too.


Roasted chicken with swiss chard gratin. I didn't have enough swiss chard so I added kale, too. Not a bad meal but a little too fussy for me. The gratin had a hundred steps, and I felt like I dirtied half the dishes in the kitchen preparing it.


Pistachio-crusted salmon and salad with fava beans.

Are you sick of vegetables yet?

I am not the only one making things these days. One of our "100 Things" is to learn how to mix a few cocktails, and so Dan went to the library to get a bunch of drink recipe books.

This cocktail he made for us is the perfect summer drink. The next day, I demanded he make it for me again. I don't usually go around demanding drinks. It was that good.


You'll have to come over our house if you want the recipe.


I am sure our bartender will be happy to serve you (and maybe spill his secrets).

In case you were in the mood for an organ solo

Click here and turn the music UP.

One for the Birds

Today, we did a new activity from our list of "100 Things", something that I'd like to make a new hobby: we went birding.

Despite the fact that this takes place in Central Park, Yvonne had to be convinced to come along. The friends that we mentioned this to also seemed less than thrilled on our behalf -- but how can anyone not be excited about an up-close appreciation of nature's bounty, through the endless diversity of birds? They're right there all the time, and yet largely invisible to us; to spot a white-breasted nuthatch (a bird, I've learned, that we get here only when it's just passing through) feels like a gift to be savored, something over which we have very little control and can't say when we'll experience again. To really see the birds is like getting let in on a secret.

That no one gets this reminds me -- in a superficial way -- of an anecdote that Jonathan Franzen, the truly seasoned birder, described in the New Yorker, with his friend David Foster Wallace: "I couldn't keep my eyes off the hummingbirds around his house and was saddened that he could...and I understood the difference between his unimaginable misery and my manageable discontents to be that I could escape myself in the joy of birds and he could not."


Yvonne didn't bring her camera because she didn't think she had the proper lens for any nature photography -- little did she realize this nuthatch would come up close enough to be caught on the Flip cam.

Also, this awesomeness happened (those other voices you hear belong to the other folks who joined Birding Bob):

CSA -- Week 2

I am obsessed with the CSA. Obsessed. All I want to do is think about what I am having for dinner. And lunch. (Buying lunch is so two weeks ago. It's all about brown-bagging salads and leftovers now).

My routine is this: We get our vegetable delivery in on Thursday, so I get a look at what we got on Thursday night. Friday is usually a slow day at work, so I spend about an hour searching the internet for recipe ideas for the week and sometimes to research the ingredients I have.


Like, what in the world is a kohlrabi? In case you are wondering, it is in the cabbage family and it kinda tastes like chicken. (Just kidding, more like broccoli stem.)

I try to make sure that all the vegetables will be used over the week, and I write out my menu on a Google doc. Over the weekend, I go grocery shopping. (Yes, sometimes I have to buy a random extra vegetable or two, it's not the end of the world). And then I cook! I am the type of person who gets immense satisfaction from being done with things (getting the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube, reading the last page of a book, etc) so clearing out my fridge of vegetables each week in a thoughtful and yummy way makes me extremely happy.

Here's some things I made this week:


Seared whitefish with sweet corn kohlrabi and tomato compote


Sausage, mozzarella and broccoli rabe with shells


BBQ chicken breasts and grilled fava beans


Fish with mango and cucumber relish over lettuce


I am a creature of habit, so when I work in an office, I like to drink a cup of tea around 11 am. Every day. Same time. It helps break up the day and gives me something to look forward to. I like to have my tea with a little baked good, but I can't be eating cake everyday, so every week or so, I bake a batch of muffins for my morning tea snack, usually of the boring bran and whole-grain variety. This zucchini bread fits the mold of whole-grain variety, but there is nothing boring about it. It had such an interesting and unusual (for me, anyway) flavor combination of crystalized ginger, poppy seeds, walnuts, curry powder and lemon zest which completely made up for any lost sugar. I enjoyed my tea time very much. It's my favorite recipe of the week.

Fill 'er Up

One of the great streaks in dental hygiene was broken today. After 31 years, I got my first fillings. I don't think Dr. Lev grasped the enormity of this. See, when I was a kid my then-dentist, Dr. Audino, used to finish a typical checkup by saying, "Danny [he's the only person who calls me that], you're perfect again. No cavities. You and your brother both. It's amazing. I tell everybody that you guys are my best patients." That's right, the best.

Well, all that's over now.

I wish I could at least wear as a badge of honor the fact that I got these two fillings with no Novocaine, but Dr. Lev said it wasn't a big deal.

--"When I was a boy, nobody got the injections."
--"Where was that?"
--"In Russia. It didn't matter how much you screamed."

Maybe Dr. Lev just has a different bedside manner. While Audino relied on effusive praise and a sense of near-awe, Dr. Lev builds a guy up by dismissing heroism as just everyday strength. No Novocaine? No problem. (Example #2: you don't usually hear a dentist tell you, "Don't mind my brute force.")

And when it was over:

--"That wasn't so bad."
--"I'm glad you enjoyed it."

4th of July Recap

At the last minute, Dan and I decided to go to Ocean Grove, NJ, our favorite local beach destination.

As you know, the one day we go to the beach is usually my favorite day of the whole year. Kind of crazy that I would use up my one and only beach day so early in the summer season. Maybe this might mean there could be room for seconds?



The best part about going to the Jersey shore via my mom's house is that she bought us a delicious assortment of food to eat including cold cut sandwiches, grapes, watermelon, and a can of Pringles. Is there anything better than eating on the beach?


Except, perhaps, having an ice cream sundae after the beach? Or in Dan's case, going to Red Bank, NJ to check out a record store after the beach? (By the way, Red Bank is a pretty cute place. Who knew?) When we came home at 9 pm, my mom had the barbecue ready and we ate more food and more ice cream outside on the deck and it was warm and dark and lovely. I think I just love eating outside.


Thanks, Ocean Grove!

On the actual 4th of July, we were invited to Adam and Nell's rooftop for an Independence Day celebration which also served as a last hurrah since they are moving to Brooklyn in a week. Their friends, Amie and Rob, co-hosted the get-together. They also live in the building, and they are moving to Brooklyn in a few weeks. It's a mass exodus. The Squeens are practically the only people left in all of Manhattan. We have spent a lot of great days and nights at Adam and Nell's place, including the roof top. (Remember our crazy makeshift mini-golf course with Courtney's bra as an obstacle?) Yeah, good times. An end of an era. But good stuff ahead of us, I am sure.


Dan and Adam.


Me and Nell


Um, we didn't eat vegetarian at this party.


I made a peach slab pie for the first time. In case you don't know, a slab pie is a pie made on a baking sheet. Some say its akin to a pop tart. While making it, it was so hot in my apartment and the dough was not cold enough so it completely fell apart when I rolled it. Chris Nowak would not approve. I was convinced it was ruined as I tried to bind it all together again but I made it at the last minute so I had no choice but to just go with it. And you know what, it tasted really, really good and didn't look half bad either.

The sunset that night was crazy amazing. We were all taking a hundred pictures.


Amie and Nell getting shutter-happy.










Any good barbecue includes some guitar playing.


Lots of people were setting off fireworks around the neighborhood. (And yes, that is the Empire State Building being all red, white and blue.)


But we also got a nice view of how the professionals do it with the Macy's Firework Display.

Happy 4th of July!

Vegging Out

Man, the past few weeks have totally kicked me in the butt. My new magazine job is really crazy busy, plus I have been plugging away on my copywriting assignments on the weekends. Coming home from work each night to cook a meal using the CSA produce might sound stressful to some, but for me, it was such a great way to unwind and de-stress and feel like I was doing something cool. (FYI: Work is not cool).

Here are some snapshots of the first week:


Remember these scary guys?


They turned into this. Everyone on the internet told me that this garlic scape pesto is supposed to be amazingly good, yet everyone failed to mention how it would make you have stinky garlic breath for an entire 24-hour period after wards. It was worth it.


My first time cooking with radishes. Dan and I aren't big fans of the vegetable. I thought these fish tacos with salsa verde and radish salad were all right, but Dan said the radishes were a little hard to swallow.


One of my classic summertime salads: Lettuce, tomato, avocado, peaches, red onion and chicken. YUM!


Pan-fried gnocchi with kale. Probably our favorite meal of the week because I never cooked anything like it before. As Dan said, "I was surprised kale didn't taste so bad."


Sauteed fish with stir-fried bok choy. Better than it looks.


Roasted beets with feta, toasted walnuts, feta and chicken. (My least favorite of the bunch, through pretty).

You also might have noticed that yes, we have returned to meat. But I am still trying to make the meals veg-heavy, meat-lite.

Oh! I ordered some AWESOME ice pop molds from Amazon, so I have been making icy treats for us every week. The flavor this week was vanilla pudding.


Here's me after a long day at the office looking a bit ragged. No vegetables were harmed in the making or eating of this ice pop.