Guest Blog Salad

I guest-blogged in turn over at a lovely person's cooking blog. I rave about salad!

Also, here's the Armenian cucumber I used:

Yeah, that's right.

The Semi-Vegan Returns to Meagan Another Day

More vegan eats! (From someone who is not actually a vegan, she just plays one at home).


Me and my room had some friends over for dinner and decided to make some vegan sushi. As with our holiday party, we went a wee bit overboard while shopping and prepared about eight million different kinds of ingredients.


The basics of making sushi rolls: not actually that hard: prepare rice with rice vinegar; spread a row of said rice of some nori; spread ingredients lengthwise on the rice; roll with a sushi mat; chop roll; eat with soy sauce and wasabi.


What's challenging about making sushi with fish is, you know, learning how to chop up raw fish so that you don't end up contracting an intestinal parasite that grows to be the size of your lower intestine.


What's challenging about making vegetarian sushi is managing to combine vegetarian ingredients in a way that's flavorful enough to come through and taste interesting (Easier said than done: the rice and nori cover up a powerful amount of flavors. And I love rice and nori, but...you need a little pizzaz to your sushi roll, you know?).


So, in essence, there way a lot of prep work involved. We used Brigid Treloar's Vegetarian Sushi (Essential Kitchen Series) which helped provide some ideas.


There was a lot of chopping:

That's blanched* green onions, chopped cucumber...
*no clue what "blanching" is? I didn't either! It's cooking something very, very, quickly in boiling water, then dunking it in cold water 

Chopped red peppers, blanched asparagus,  seasoned shiitake mushrooms (soak dried shiitake mushrooms till they are not dried anymore, then boil in soy sauce and mirin)...

And also seasoned carrots (boiled in soy sauce and mirin).

If you're wondering why the above veggies looked so pretty, it's because my roommate chopped them with a mandoline. I'm scared of that thing and won't touch it. It makes such pretty, pretty vegetables though. 

Holiday Party So Late Holidays So Over

It's time for another installment of Laura Takes Pictures of Stuff, Does Not Post Them for a Long Time! 

Back in the holidays, me n' the roomie had a Holiday Party. The theme was, bring any weird food or drink that your family always makes around the Holidays. Like, is there a certain jello salad your grandma always makes? Bring it! 

Before the party, I got a few anxious queries about what constituted "weird." Like, what if the offering was not weird enough? To which the answer was, anything is welcome! Weird and non-weird alike. 

We went shopping for decorations at the dollar store and fortunately we did not get too carried away:

There was lots to enjoy at the dollar store, including The Worst Holiday Ornament of All Time:

Dreamy/Inappropriate

My roommate made this recipe for Dream Cake. And it's one of the few recipes I've seen (keep in mind, again, I did not make it) where it came out looking as pretty as the pictures on the recipe promised!

Dreamy...

Meagan-y Meagan Eats!

So tonight I was determined to cook with ingredients we actually had in the house (as opposed to my usual "I can totally make this! I have all the ingredients...oh. I guess I need to go out and get star anise. And shitake mushrooms. And bok choy.  But other than that, I can totally just whip it together. Right after I figure out how to use the food processor. Oh, and coriander seeds. Need those too. Will ground coriander do? Man." (At this point, I go out to the store for the first of several trips I will make that evening).


So because we had some avocados, I made guacamole with this recipe. 
I followed the recipe exactly, 'cept I didn't use the entire half onion. No matter how finely I diced the onions, I didn't want the gauc to get onion-overwhelm and I wasn't going to take on the Herculean task of putting the food processor together. (SHUT UP I HAVE POOR SPATIAL REASONING SKILLS IT'S MEAN TO LAUGH AT DISABLED PEOPLE). So I used about a quarter of the onion. 

The recipe says to leave the gauc out for an hour, which I side-eyed. Wouldn't it go brown? Luckily, my roommate has evolved and accurate opinions about how to cover guacamole with cling-wrap, so it worked out. 


Basically, the technique involves making sure the cling-wrap is down OVER the guacamole. Allow me to demonstrate with the guac leftovers:

Just try to get in, oxygen. I fucking dare you.

Anyway, my roomie put on some brown rice in her rice-maker/vegetable steamer (no, I don't know how to use that, either. I SAID SHUT IT), and I heated the rest of the onion in a pot with some olive oil for five minutes, added some garlic, and heated two cans of black beans (using about half a cup of the bean broth) with lots of cumin, salt, pepper, lemon-pepper, and a little cayenne (also about five minutes).


Put rice, beans, and guacamole together with some salsa and what do you have? You basically have a bean bowl from Chipotle! Okay, it's also a staple meal from many cultures. But forgive me if my point of reference is a Chipotle bean bowl. 


My roomie was out when the food was all ready, so I ate before her. When I heard her come in, I waited for a few minutes, then snuck into the kitchen to manipulate a compliment out of her:

"This is so good!" she said, upon seeing me.


"I know," I said, humbly, then added: "When I was eating it, I thought it was almost as good a Chipotle bean bowl."


"I think it's better," she said. 


"I DO TOO!" I shrieked. "I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO SAY THAT FIRST!" 


I really was proud, you guys. Okay, so I used a recipe for a guacamole. (Um, it's also possible that back in the day I looked at this as a guide for making rice and beans. SHUT IT). And I didn't exactly think up the idea for a meal of rice, beans, and guacamole by myself. But...but...I didn't have to do extra shopping! And it was really easy! And it was really good! The recipe for guacamole is especially a keeper. 


So it spurred me to share some more of my vegan cooking of late. 

I didn't take pictures of tonight's meal, as I seem to have fallen out of the habit of obsessively photographing everything I cook. Maybe...because...I cook...more regularly...? So it's not as epic of an event? Or maybe because I'm not so great at photographing food and it never looks as good in the pictures as I want it to? 


But, anywhoodle, I've got a backlog of vegan recipes. As I've shared before, I'm currently a meagan, so I can go out and enjoy a burger every once in a while, but I cook vegan when I cook. 

Cooking vegan, I've decided, is awesome. Mexican food, particularly, is a bit of a revelation. 

The Nervous Chef Nervously Returns: She's a Meagan!

I wrote today on Hello Giggles about my waffling about secondhand fur and the issues therein. I mentioned my going-back-and-forth on the issue of eating meat, which I have only recently begun to cook with.

However, after becoming a vegetarian recidivist, I moved in with a vegan. So, at home, I mostly cook vegan and eat vegan. Thus, no sooner did my lifestyle start to shift towards cooking meat then it did a double-back to the consideration of veganism. 

Basically, I now consider myself to be a lucky, lucky cheater. I get the benefits of a vegan lifestlye -- a big chunk of what I consume and pretty much everything I cook is vegan (as well as mostly preservative and chemical-free, which is my vegan roomie's main concern), BUT I never took a vow of NEVER EVER WILL I EVER AGAIN EAT MEAT, FISH, OR DAIRY. And as I've discussed, it's the putting a food item totally "off-limits" that messes with my eating-disorder-inclined brain. So I can still eat meat, fish, or dairy as a treat when out of the house, but I eat mostly vegan most of the time. I get the best of both worlds. 

So now I'm a meagan -- a vegan that eats meat. I spend a great deal of my time considering vegan ways to cook, including making a vegan Rice Krispie Snowman for Christmas: 

Those are vegan jello shots, too. Seriously!

Birthday things!

So this is most definitely an edition of "really old pictures of food" since my birthday was back in early September. How old did I turn? Well, the lady at the grocery story today said, "You an old lady! I thought you were so much younger!" when looking at my I.D. So I hope that answers your question. [Side note: I think people just forget that late twenties looks a lot like mid twenties? Your face doesn't collapse right before your thirtieth birthday. I dunno -- I've just been getting a lot of that "YOU LOOK SO YOUNG" recently and while I'd like to think it's my excellent skin care regime, I don't think so...I've always looked pretty much the age I am. I think people just expect my age to look different, or something? Or maybe I just lack gravitas? I'm also a teacher -- a pseudo-college-professor of sorts -- and I don't think that helps. People expect college professors to look old, I guess? I was clearing out my classroom the other day while another class entered and a student said, 'Are you the teacher?...I mean, did you just get out of undergrad or something? I'm sorry, you just look so young' and then when I told him my actual age HE LOOKED EMBARRASSED. However, the ultimate cluster of age awkwardness occurred when my orthodontist's assistant figured out I taught at the same college her daughter attended -- the struggle to reconcile the fact that the surly often-late-for-appointments girl who didn't wear her retainer was responsible for teaching her offspring played out in beautiful conflict across her face. Yes, adults get orthodontia, too. Suck it.]

Anywhoodle, what was I talking about? Oh, yes, how mature I am. I decided to have a birthday party and invite a motley, multi-generational crew, most of whom showed up, which was was awesome. I decided that the theme for my birthday would be "Laura's Blue and White Wonder bread Birthday." I was asked what a "blue and white" party was, and I replied that those are my favorite colors. Nothing more complicated than that. I also decided to make recipes from this book. Why? Because it exists, that's why. 

Okay, so lately I've been actually "busy," which is totally annoying. And personally, I hate it when a blogger I like to read is all, "Sorry I've been too busy to post!" because it produces a vast swell of existential angst inside of me, like, "Well, why haven't I been too busy to check the blog? Should I be busier? IS THEIR LIFE MORE BUSY AND IMPORTANT THAN MINE??"

Of course, 1) It doesn't take a great deal to produce a vast swell of existential angst inside of me; 2) This is very conceited and assuming lots of people are going to be sad/annoyed that I haven't been posting as much/am apologizing for not posting. OH MY GOD MAYBE NO ONE CARES EXISTENTIAL ANGST!

So in the spirit of being busy (WHICH I PROMISE IS NOT FOR INTERESTING OR IMPORTANT REASONS), I decided to post Really Old Pictures of Food: Five-Minute Ice Cream.

Meattreal

Montreal, Part Deux!

My basic reaction to Montreal:

These hearts are outside the Fine Arts (sorry "Beaux Arts") Museum (Musee des) where this guy and I saw an exhibition of contemporary surrealist art called "The world is blue like an orange" (which we went to full of skepticism but it turned out to be awesome).

So I'm doing post #2 about Montreal, even though this guy claims not to read anybody's blog, as they are all "masturbatory." I tried to explain that my blog is not masturbatory but rather narcissistic and insecure. Subtle but distinct difference.

Really Old Pictures of Food: How in the Who and the What Now?

Someone sent me this article about "how and why" photos of food are shared online. Probably because I eagerly snap photos of anything I come close to "making."

The upshot seems to be that most photos of food come from:

Keeping a Food Diary: 25% this lends itself to the self-tracking trend we have covered before.
Documenting the Process of Cooking: Driven by the motivation to show their creation, 22% of food photography is people self-documenting their proud foodie creation.

ETA: All this talk of food-documenting reminded me of Food Junta, which is currently under construction but a great source--in contrast to me--of professionally-presented foodie documentation. Although it is not food, I do need to make this when I get back to Arizona, because we have actual rattlesnakes there.

Self-Documenting My Proud Foodie Creation

I try to draw. I put icing inside things.

I told you I'd give you some advice on how to put icing inside of cupcakes! I even made helpful drawings.

I'd like to say upfront this is totally ripped off from, er, inspired by, Hyperbole and a Half, the Old Skewl posts. But she says right here in her FAQs:

If I draw picture with MS Paint on my blog, will you think I'm copying you?

Probably not. Unless you steal my work directly or redraw/rewrite my stuff, you are good to go. I love that more people are getting interested in adding artwork to their blogs!

I even used Paintbrush (JUST LIKE HER CREEPY STARS IN EYES).

Here are some NFAQs (Not Frequently Asked Questions):

How did you get your handwriting to be so ironically and hilariously bad?

I didn't. That's just what my handwriting looks like.

But it looks like a mentally deficient five-year-old chicken wrote that stuff.

I know.

How do you function in the real world with handwriting as profoundly terribly as that?

By avoiding writing by hand whenever possible. Occasionally, I have to fill in a form by hand and people laugh at me.

Will you make me cupcakes?

No. No after you just insulted my handwriting.

First things first: I want to share what inspired my to put icing inside of cupcakes in the first place.

In the magazine section of Barnes and Noble, I saw this:

Leaving aside the sheer awesome of a magazine devoted to breakfast, let's look closely on all the various awesomeness going on in this picture:

French Toast Chocolate Sandwiches! With Bacon! And a random berry! (to keep it healthy)! For dinner!

Just About to Lose My Mind, Honey, Honey

Really? Really? First this and now this? :

Of course, I discovered these on a shopping expedition during which I bought (and only bought):

1) Diet coke with Splenda

2) Diet coke with Lime

3) Red Vines

Ze judgments, I should not be making zem!

ETA: The above is not entirely true. I also bought a bottle of wine.

The Nervous Chef Eats Meat, Now. She Cooks One Thing With Meat. That's it.

When I was twelve years old, I announced to my parents that I wanted to tell them something. I genuinely--and I cannot stress this enough--had no idea what was going to come out of my mouth until I actually spoke the words.

"I want to be a vegetarian," I said.

Of course, lots of stuff had gone into this decision, beforehand, tho' semi-consciously. Seeing dead pigs gutted in butcher's shops. Getting grossed out by the lumps of fat--so vital and alive-looking!--in my salami (note: obviously high-quality salami, in retrospect). Reading things--albeit, twelve-year-old-level things--on environmentalism.

My parents, to their eternal credit, were totally on board. Fine, they said. Keep on eating fish, they said. We want you to have the protein.

My mother, though she is a virtue ethicist and radically opposed to utilitarianism, even gave me Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation. (Could there be greater evidence of maternal love?). *

*My mother would hate the fact that I am linking to wikipedia. Give me better links and I'll put them in, Mom.

Anyway, my non-meat-eating-but-fish-eating self was basically (for many, many years) an acutetarian.

Then, I had an extended spiritual/psychotic experience involving 1) The Phoenix airport; 2) Aunt Annie's pretzel dogs; 3) A Quiznos' roast beef sandwich; 4) A Minneapolis farmer's market; 5) A bratwurst.

I would explain, but I've already done so in person so many times I'm worried it's in danger of becoming one of Those Stories (you know, the ones you tell over and over, oblivious to how much they are boring the folks that have heard them already). So I'll skip that (for now) and say just that I eat meat these days.

I am a newbie to meat, though. After all, I didn't eat meat from age 12-27, pretty much. I find this awesome:

1) There are so many things I haven't tried! For example: a pork chop. I MAY have had a pork chop pre: age 12, but I'm not sure. For all intents and purposes, I'VE NEVER EATEN A PORK CHOP.

2) Awesome conversation starter at parties:

Me: DO YOU KNOW THIS IS THE FIRST PORK CHOP I'VE EVER HAD?

Person At Party: Um, what are you talking about?

Me: LET ME EXPLAIN.

New best friend forever!

3) Whole new range of tastes to explore! At this point, the sex metaphors start becoming obvious. To these comparisons, I say: yes! As someone raised in the "joyfully we lark about" religion, I was never raised to find sex particularly "forbidden." But, having decided at age twelve to becoming a vegetarian, I pretty much, inadvertently, created for myself a category of forbidden thing. Now I get why indulging in the forbidden thing is so freaking awesome. I kind of think eating meat is wrong, but I do it anyway! I never got all those Catholic novels about forbidden love, repentance, etc. BUT NOW I DO! Meat is WRONG. But I LOVE IT ANYWAY.

Anyway, my cooking habits haven't really caught up to my new eating habits. I can only make one thing with meat. Cooking-wise, meat sort of still scares me (OMG BLOOD! IT COULD HAVE GERMS!).

So this is the only thing I can confidently make. It's taken from this book, though changed in a few significant ways.

Yogurt and the Nervous Chef Bake With Leftovers

1. A Really Old Picture of Food.

A long, long time ago -- way back in January -- I visited Yogurt in New York and attended the Opera. Now it happened, as is it wont to, that Yogurt's household had some leftovers: some bananas going squishy and some cracked eggs that needed using up. Because I have Baking Pretensions, Yogurt asked my thoughts (note: this is usually a mistake, as it produces Nervousness, which makes me fuck up).

Well, the usual method of using up old bananas with banana bread was closed to us, because there was no raising agent in the household and the point of the exercise was to use only ingredients in the household. So what can you make with bananas and eggs that is not banana bread? I thought "Banana custard!" Which is nothing I've ever made--or possible eaten--before, but it seemed possible. So I googled (seriously, why does a GOOGLE site not recognize GOOGLED as a verb? Go away, red squiggly lines!) "Banana Custard" and selected the first recipe I found.

Well, we could do that!

There was no lime, so we used lemon. And for bread crumbs we used chocolate rugelach.

Distressingly, I was once again asked for my opinion (which made me nervous) about what the hell a "moderate oven" meant. I guessed 325 and was happy to see that other custard recipes backed me up.

The result wasn't that pretty: the loaf pan and chocolate bread kind of make it look like a lasagna gone wrong:

However, I thought it tasted pretty good! And I'm not even much of a custard girl! And my nervousness didn't make me entirely fuck up! So, if you've got leftover bananas and eggs and lots of chocolate rugelach and no flour or baking powder, this is a decent option.

2. The Whites of Your Eggs; Also, The Nervous Chef Fucks Up Again

This is where I draw the line

Okay, so I obviously waxed fulsome below about my love for Twizzlers and Red Vines. Also, I love chocolate (to further underscore the cliche, I especially love chocolate during my bouts with PMS. Suck it, stereotypes).

But this is where I draw the line:


I mean, maybe I'll try them and they'll be delicious. But the thought makes me gag. Two great tastes that I can't imagine tasting great together. On the other hand, Hershey's chocolate already tastes like wax, which is the texture that Twizzlers aim for, so maybe it was inevitable...

Have rediscovered Aimee Mann recently, who brings my two obsessions together in a haunting, lovely way:

The Nervous Chef: Really, really, really old pictures of food

Okay, am posting some cooking stuff, which is quite hilarious, considering that last semester my diet consisted mostly of:

-Red Vines and Twizzlers*
-Starbucks. Yes, all of it.
-The occasional salad
-Sushi from my University-where-I-teach's quick "to go" food store
-Yogurt

I made these pancakes I THINK over winter break? They are from, to continue my trend of making things from sources I'm slightly embarrassed about, this site. Even though she says annoying things like "I prefer mini sizes...it feels like more when it is less," I still like this recipe. I was pretty faithful to the recipe, except that I didn't have quite enough ricotta (and I think it is all needed -- in this case, it tastes like less when it is less), I didn't use the poppyseeds (not wanting to fail any Opium drug tests - HA HA HA HA HA SEINFELD LOL), and I didn't use the lemon zest, which I regret.

I have a tendency to skip adding zest, because I am lazy, and it seems like a pain. But I guess often you need it -- me and my mom used to make this chocolate orange pudding every Christmas; it was pretty much the only dessert ever made or consumed in my household and thus a big deal. I'll put the recipe up sometime. You were supposed to add orange zest, along with orange liqueur. I never really liked having the texture of the orange zest in the pudding -- puddings are supposed to be smooth, no? So, one year, we were having a guest for Christmas dinner that was kind of an insanely good cook and, wanting to be impressive, I suggested leaving out the zest. The pudding was duly served, and our foodie friend delicately ate some and looked unimpressed.

"It's...there's something missing," he ventured.

"Well, you're supposed to put in orange zest," my mother eagerly bursts in, "but LAURA--"

"Yes! That's exactly it! Some orange zest would add just the perfect flavor!" Foodie friends face lights up in a smile.

So, put in the zest, people. In this case, I think it needs it, too. The egg whites give the the pancakes this extremely nice lightness -- you can eat a bunch without feeling like you've eaten the entire world, a la normal pancakes. But without zest, I could almost taste the egg whites TOO much -- I think the zest (and more ricotta) would make the insides a little more substantial and less cloud-like. Plus, more lemon flavor is always a good thing. I don't know why, but lemon + pancakes = yum. One of my favorite pancakes toppings is a squirt of lemon juice with powdered sugar.

Here's the batter:

Here's my SUPER-AWESOME pancake flipper. I found it at a church jumble sale with Emily F., who didn't understand my excitement. Neither has anyone else I've shown it to. I don't care -- it's awesome. It helps me flip pancakes. I love it:

And here's the final result! With some honey. I ate up all my berries before they were done, but I bet fresh berries would be awesome:



* Red vines: watching TV while doing something else, I heard the song for a commercial: something about "you're my one true love...blah blah blah" and I had a quick thought, along the lines of "God, why does our culture sell this relentless ideal of the ONE true love, when in reality it's much more complicated and prosaic than--" I looked up, and saw the commercial was for Red Vines, and thought, "Oh, but that is how I feel about Red Vines."



But, here's the terrible thing: I don't think I do love Red Vines more than anyone else, not anymore. I've been having an affair with Twizzlers for quite some time. It started out of convenience -- the CVS near my apartment stocked Twizzlers and not Red Vines. And then I got TMJ, and Red Vines are a little hard on the ol' jaw. And Twizzlers Pull N Peel is much easier on the jaw, and also fun to eat, and better tasting than regular Twizzlers...





So I can't even commit to Red Vines. See: problems, serious.

REALLY old pictures of food

Okay, so I'm sick today -- down and out, out for the count, counted out, etc. I NEVER get sick, so I find the whole thing puzzling. I think, deep down, I have a healthy person's secret conviction that sick people are just faking. Actually getting sick is quite humbling.

I thought I'd take the chance to catch up on my blogging. I have lots of old ideas, pictures, etc. that during busier times simply sink to the bottom of my list. BAD BLOGGER. So today, I'd like to present a REALLY old installment of...

The Nervous Chef

Tagline: "Not Nervous? Well, you should be."

What's the Nervous Chef, you ask? The Nervous Chef is a cooking show that I have in my head. It's basically me cooking. It makes me nervous. Especially when other people are around. I tend to do dumb things, like putting in five cups of milk when making frosting, instead of the required .5 (that decimal point is easy to miss!). Most of my cooking involves me fucking up and figuring out a way to cover up said fuck up.

Today, the Nervous Chef Makes Deconstructed Lasagna!

I was asked to bring Italian Food to a dinner party and wanting to be different, took the suggestion to make "deconstructed lasagna." I'd also watched the "Top Chef" episode where they have to make a deconstructed meal and so the thought made me feel fancy.

I used this recipe. I'd never used Rachel Ray before and have this received idea that I'm supposed to dislike her. But I found the recipe actually lived up to its promise of being easy and easily done in thirty minutes. This worked well for me, as I'm someone who leaves shopping and cooking till way too late in the day. As it was, I was only half an hour late for the dinner party; with a more complicated recipe, I may never have arrived.

My changes to recipe: despite having recently begun eating meat again, I made this vegetarian, using vegetable stock and no beef crumbles. This was a mistake, I feel -- the result was a little bland. I did also add some cumin, which I thought worked well and would recommend.

My big problem, at the end of the day, was the fusilli pasta. I know it made the recipe quicker, and is a different "take" on lasagna, but I thought it ended up looking like spagetti-o casserole:

So, I added some reggiano cheese on top, which helped:

Because I made it one big pan rather that individual servings, I put all the ricotta at the bottom in one layer, which I thought looked quite cool:

So, what was the result, Nervous Chef?

I arrived at the dinner party and plunked down my deconstructed lasagna right next to a baked ziti, which looked almost exactly the same, just with penne.

"What did you make?" I was asked.
"Deconstructed lasagna," the Nervous Chef answers, proudly and nervously.
"What's that?"
"You know...it's deconstructed."
"How?"
"Well, just...different kinds of noodles...the sauce and noodles are cooked separately...and I've got extra cheese for you to add yourself, you know, on the side..."
"Isn't this basically baked ziti?"
"Well, you know, it's deconstructed..."
Nervousness very high now.
"But what does that mean? Isn't that a just pretentious thing chefs say?"
"It's deconstructed."

So, quelle surprise, I was not heralded as a culinary genius for my Rachel Ray lasagna. And I actually preferred the other baked ziti, because I realized that what I really like about lasagna or baked ziti is the chewy, chewy noodles. Yum. My fusilli pasta tasted limp and overcooked to me. I loved the ricotta and the cumin and basil, but it was basically limp and bland, I thought.

What I'd do in the future (it is a simple and fast recipe):
-Use penne or some other thick pasta
-Use beef stock and beef crumbles
-jam-pack the thing with extras: spinach, more vegetables.
-More cheese. More cheese than you would ever think necessary.

So, my ultimately nervous thoughts on my lasagna:

Old Pictures of Food

I mean, the pictures are old. The food was not old IN the pictures, if that makes sense.

These are pictures from a little over a year ago, when I was up in Muskoka with my uncle and aunt.

We made homemade sushi! Wasn't it pretty?















I actually don't remember what this was:
[ETA: This is obviously the seven-layer dip, photo taken from above. DUH!]




We also made seven layer dip:




Sigh. Looking at these pictures makes me nostalgic, though I'm not precisely sure for what.

Is always weird to see pictures from a year ago, I s'ppose (Dude! Didn't put up pictures of me, but - I look different. Shorter hair, not a red-head, thinner, and hey -- good news! Invisalign works! Bye, bye snaggle tooth. I was all, "Oh, look at little me! I look so young!" and then I was like, that was a year ago. Huh.)

I dunno. Is silly, obviously. Life is not hanging out in your summer cottage, writing, swimming, and making homemade sushi. Although that was very nice.

If you want to check out a real food blog, check out "Instead of the novel..." at right. Pretty pictures of food!