Old Northeast Tavern - a hidden gem in Old Northeast.

Last dinner on holiday at the Old Northeast Tavern.

Chicken & Plantain quesadillas with pineapple salsa - an unexpected treat.

Pulled pork sliders and green apple slaw.

And a couple of Florida Ave Ales, a local beer from the Cold Storage Craft Brewery in Tampa.

Holiday Brunch

 Perfectly cooked bacon

Spinach, tomato, and goat cheese omelet

Blueberrylicious pancakes 

Oh and mimosas. Lots of mimosa.

Beans & Rice. No seriously, I REALLY love beans & rice.

As you may, or may not, have surmised - I will eat beans and rice at any opportunity. 

Yesterday on our way to see K.D. Lang at the Hard Rock in Orlando we stopped for a bite to eat at this place:

Spanish and Chinese you say? Well yes, but for me it was the Spanish part that was important.

And as a side note, I think that the reason there are Spanish-Chinese food restaurants is because back in the days of yore when sugar plantations were in full tilt across the Caribbean they brought Chinese workers in to cut the cane. At least that is what I think was the deal, I could just be making that up...

Of course I got rice & beans. I also got the roast pork. The pork was delicious - so tender and tasty, I completely pigged out. Oink oink.

I ate it all up. At this point Jo & Jo must think I have a worm or something, given my capacity to inhale food...

As I have the day to myself tomorrow, I just might go and find MORE rice & beans. Stay tuned.

Saturday Market down south

Every town has one, a weekend open air market. The one in Boston closes (sort of) in the winter because of the cold and the snow. The one here closes in the summer because of the heat.

 Now I am not a fan of crawfish and therefore not so much inclined to try a crawfish pie, but seriously, how awesome is that sign. Very awesome. I am sure I am not the only one who wanted to buy the sign. Vivian probably has a few of those signs for folks just like me. I really should have asked.

C'est chouette, non? I ought to have gotten a better close up of the ginormo jar of Nutella on the roof. If it had been an actual jar filled with real Nutella, I would have fainted.

Jo tells me this stuff is "amazeballs". Well, she would have used that word only I hadn't introduced it to her yet. I have never heard of this stuff so she bought some and I took a photo of the sign in case I love it and need to have it shipped to my mouth.

Honestly, Boston needs to have an Empanada World. I really think it's what holding us back from being a truly first class town. The stall next to it sold African food to raise money for a organization over in Africa. Eating for a cause? Sign me up!

In the end I got black beans & rice (I added onions and hot sauce, natch) and fried plantains. There isn't any time of the day that I won't eat beans & rice. 

Jo and Jo both got fish tacos from The Taco Lady.

And then we all got a coconut.

Oh and you know what, down here if you are from up there, you need to slather on spf 4000 otherwise your fishbelly white Northern skin will toast to a crisp without you realizing it.

The OTHER Mothership

I am away for a few days, down south and in the sun, visiting a very dear friend and her lovely girlfriend.

The thing I love about my pal Jo is that she and I are on the same wave length about lot of things, mostly about what is funny and when to eat, which is pretty awesome when you are a funny & hungry girl like me.

On our way to her house from the airport we made a pit stop at Mazzaros Market, basically the supermarket of my dreams.

I could not really get a decent shot of the place as I was like "ooh, I want that, oh and that, and one of those..." But this gives you a general idea.

Row after row of epicurean delights. A kind of heavenly warehouse with row after row of amazing things to eat. All I needed to see was an Oompa-Loompa and I would have started to actually worry.

We brought home 6 sandwiches, 8 pastries, a box of their specialty cookies, a packet of amaretti, and a package of ladyfingers. For two people, with a third on the way.

Blurp.

But honestly it was SO good (except for the rum cake, which was "eh" at best) and now I am planning my next visit around this magical place.

I hope YOU are having a fabulous weekend as well!

Wednesday night ramps

Since I read Tamar Adler's brilliant book I have been a one-night-a-week cooking machine. Which means I have been eating both well and more or less healthily. 

Wednesday is my FTY delivery day so it makes sense to do most of the cooking as soon as I get home with the groceries. 

In this week's order I got two bunches of ramps. The taste of ramps sends me back in time to when I was a kid and I spent hours outside down in Hull pulling up small spring onions and pretending to be a survivalist in "the woods" which was really just a wooded lot. 

The ramps flavor is far more delicate, but then again, the spring onions I thought I discovered as a kid were probably not really onions at all and I really probably shouldn't have been eating them. But for better or worse, the scent of fresh onion means spring to me. 

Oh I am ready for summer already.

Anyway, I rinsed the leaves of the ramps and chopped them off. I sauteed them in a little oil to wilt them for a quiche filling, but ramp leaves would be lovely chopped into a salad. They have a light onion-y taste that gets the palate ready for summer salads. 

The bulbs I am going to pickle. 

Then I sauteed a big bunch of swiss chard, including the stems, and a bag of spinach. All this then went into a quiche. For some reason I am a big fan of swiss chard in quiche. 

This means quiche for lunch tomorrow. Because if I don't bring my lunch to work I will eat potato chips and cookies and call that a meal. Bleh. 

I also made a pot of polenta. Which I had for dinner with some black beans. 

And the delicious discovery of the night for me is fried parsley and garlic. Possibly I am the last person on earth to have made this, but I will be making this again. And again. And probably again after that. 

All it is a bunch of stemmed and chopped parsley sauteed in plenty of olive oil with a few tablespoons of chopped garlic and a big pinch of salt. The garlic will brown and the parsley will get crispy and the whole thing will be unbelievably delicious. I spooned a bit of it onto the polenta before topping it with the beans and it really pulled the whole dish together. 

Ahhhh, happy girl. That's me.

My name is CalamityShazaam and I am addicted to books.

I love my Nook. Yeah, yeah, everyone has a Kindle, but I am in love with my Nook (thank you Evil Twinster) and I use it everyday.

Which is why I will never be able to save up for the moped I want. I love to read and instant access to an online bookstore is exactly like an unlimited supply of crack to a crackhead. Sometimes on Mondays I will look at my bank account and be like "oh snap! I bought WHAT?"

Eh, I suppose it could be worse, I suppose I could be addicted to actual crack.

Well so here is what happened on Friday - I downloaded Tamar Adler's amazing book " An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace" and then stayed up all night and read it.

Seriously.

Remember how last post I was all like "a-wah-wah-wahhhh I waste so much foooood wah"? Well this is the book that fixes that problem for me. I woke up on Saturday and started cooking everything in my fridge.

I made braised short ribs for Sunday lunch, two batches of beans, roasted onions, beets, and a bunch of other little bits and ends. Now everything in my fridge has a purpose, including that stupid can of Bud Lite Lime (yep KGLocal12, I am talking to you, right to yo' face!).

My personal opinion on this is that if you aren't comfortable cooking without a strict set of instructions, this is NOT the book for you. However if you want to learn how to use more, waste less, and eat more fully, well then, this IS the book for you. Also, if you love Laurie Colwin as much as I do, then this REALLY is the book for you.

I will post some photos at some point of some of the luscious bean dishes I have been making, but for right now, go get this book.

Another Sunday, another Sunday lunch

The ugly secret in my kitchen is that I buy ingredients with more ambition than actual execution. This is something I am trying to change because frankly it is a really sh*tty habit to have. My resolution has been to try to eat everything I buy, a hideously first world resolution, and because it makes me uncomfortable, I am breaking the habit.

I will buy dried beans and think "oh I will make a big pot of baked beans!" Or pick up a giant squash and think "ahhh squash and curry soup!". But the fact of the matter is I live on my own and I can only eat the same thing for three days, tops. On the occasion that I make soup, for some reason I make enough for seven people to eat for three days straight, which if you do the math means I am eating that soup for 21 days (I think, I am not great at math and I was drinking wine earlier).

This kind of gluttony and waste is getting on my nerves. So no more bullsh*t as La Mamman would say. 

Basically this means that now I get what I order from Farmers to You and allow myself to supplement with a box of pasta, some tomatoes, and fresh herbs when I need to, and everything else is stuff I have in the pantry already. Or in the freezer. 

For Sunday lunch this week I really used my imagination to pull diverse ingredients together to make a meal that  was edible. Truth be told I was a little concerned and was thinking that if all else failed I would get a roasted chicken and make a spinach salad. 

After some rummaging and a couple of cups of coffee, this is what I came up with:

Stewed lentils with cumin & onion

Spinach & Queso Fresco Quiche

Meme's Cake with raspberry filling

 Not surprisingly, there were no leftovers.

Bestest, Easiest, Deliciousest Dinnah Evah

Today drained the energy totally out of me. I know what I am doing at work, just that some days I have to do everything all at once, oh and it all should have been done five minutes ago. 

Five on the clock could not come soon enough. I trudged my sorry self home, until the end when I accidentally bashed my foot off the curb and hopped the last few feet, fueled by pain and f-bombs. 

I was just too tired to make dinner and contemplated going right to bed with a cup of tea. Which is a terrible idea in reality, unless you have a sad-faced stomach and then a cup of tea is the best idea. As a compromise I made a dinner that required the same level of effort as making a cup of tea. 

As you can see from the photo above, it was just potatoes and an egg. Big whoop.

A couple of chopped up potatoes, roasted them with a bit of olive oil in a 375 oven until soft on the inside and crispy brown on the out. Then I poached an egg, which is about the easiest way to cook a quick egg. Just bring a small pan of water to a boil and ease the egg in. Cook until the white is set and remove with a slotted spoon.  I like a runny yolk so if you don't you might want to cook the egg until everything is set. I do not recommend this though, as it seems to be a waste of an egg. Sprinkle the whole thing with a little bit of salt if you like, and a few healthy grinds of pepper. 

Truly this was the simplest and most delicious dinner. 

PS: It was done in time for me to eat it AND catch an episode of New Girl which was a pretty awesome end to a kinda grody day.