Hungry Times Two

I don't really love sandwiches. It's always mystified me that some people crave Subway or Quiznos , 'cause all Subways smell like burned rubber to me and most commercially made sandwiches use crappy pressed lunch meat that taste like poo and the bread is usually overly large and dry. My one exception is a tomato sandwich in the summer, homemade, with soft white bread, or when in South Carolina, the almighty Captain Derst Bread , with some Duke's Mayo. (Speaking of which, new post coming soon re. a Duke's development. I know, get over it already .) Wraps, however, are entirely a different story. I can get into those. Stuff them with good things like sprouts, cucumber slices, salad greens and more, and we have ourselves a deal. I recently hit up Phillips Cafe , right across the street from my office & offers my workplace a 5 percent discount. I discovered they will turn a BLT into a wrap - and you can do add ons for free. SO I got up on that today, with a spina...

I'm a little obsessed with a fruit I have never eaten. Well, unless you count Fig Newtons, and what the hell is in those things, anyway? Yeah, I want a fig. A couple, actually. I hear they're amazing poached, broiled, sauteed, etc. -- a lovely fruit. I hear they pair well with goat cheese, mascarpone , and other dairy delights. Besides their natural beauty, I think it's the allure of the forbidden fruit, their limited access - - they're uncommon, rarely seen in a grocery store except in the dried form and Newton- ized . They seem like one of those simple yet decadent foods - like honey and pomegranates and wine and fresh-baked, warm bread. I think this sounds like heaven. How do I track down some figs?

Haaaaaaaaaay, it's Fridaaaaaaaaaaay. I know I can't be the only one pleased by this. Do your happy dance, whether you're in an office cube or at home, still in your jammies. (If you ARE home, still in your jammies, I envy you. Greatly.) Today I extol the virtues of the cookbook, and books about food, period. Yesterday I visited my local farmer's market in little ol' Riverdale, Md., after I locked myself out of the house and needed some way to pass the time 'til my husband came home. (Long story short - my house key was broken, the bottom half completely GONE. I don't know how this happened, and it really pissed me off when I made the discovery trying to get in the back door. I was even more pissed when a phone call to my husband to find out when he would arrive revealed that he knew the key was broken - the missing half was in the front door when he came home late the night before. He said he thought I knew about it when I left the house. Uh, no. Curses to l...

Previous discussions on what you eat when no one else is around resulted in some pretty amazing confessions by myself and fellow readers: bowlfuls of popcorn, toasted roast beef sandwiches, cracker meals of Triscuits, cottage cheese and pepperoni. It just goes to show that a "meal" isn't always a tidy entree with two sides. My solo meal last night was no exception. Lately I have been eeking by with weekend grocery shops of $75 or less - a paltry sum compared to our ( hush hush retailer ) Trader Joe's shops circa Fall 2008/Winter 2009. While Scott and I aren't going hungry, we're not exactly brimming with meal possibilities up in our wee kitchen. Scott was in Baltimore on a bike ride - an evening ride through some pretty special "transitional neighborhoods" that had me a little edgy with concern, but never mind that. SO. After rejecting the leftover pasta I thawed from the freezer and canceling out the notion of a veggie burger sandwich (it was the b...

One of my favorite people, Hazelene Cox, known to me as my Grandmother Coxey, April 15, 1915 to August 25, 2005. Miss you so much - hope there's Starlight Mints, Pear Salad, and many flowered aprons wherever you are.

So what? A girl's got to have her lunch accessories. And when it's red and cute and it's one of the few things within reach at a certain controversial-at-the-moment big box store when back to school madness rears its ugly head, and you don't want to fight the parents who are looking for that one special three ring binder and graph paper, and you just want a cute lunch bag since the last one you had disintegrated , and you're now resorting to carting your lunch to work in a measly plastic bag... you wind up totally buying an insulated ladybug lunch thingy. I know. Impossibly awesome, right? It even comes with a ladybug cold pack. So there.

I love the vegetable zucchini - its green color, the firm flesh, the way it can easily be cut into strips, discs, shredded, etc. But, I get tired of eating it in stir fry, and my recent zucchini patties turned out mushy and gross, and deep fried zucchini just isn't the proper treatment for such a lovely vegetable - leave that mess to mozzarella or *this is So Southern of me* pickles. Thus, what does one do with zucchini when you have a crisper drawer full and wishes to fulfill? This. For Breakfast or Brunch. Or This . For dessert, or Lunch. (Alright, no Dr. Seuss am I.) If sweets aren't your thing, do this: use a veg peeler to carve the zucchini into strips. Make a sauce of a teaspoon of sesame oil, rice vinegar, a couple shakes of crushed red pepper, a little sprinkle of brown sugar, and a dash of lime juice. Crush some roasted peanuts and chop a little cilantro (or mint, or Thai basil), and sprinkle over the zucchini "noodles" and sauce it up. This is a crude appro...