12th
Snow Days = Fun Food
We had two official snow days this week! I LOVE snow days. Especially because the snow really wasn’t bad at all; shops restaurants and cinemas were still open and Tragos and I had an excuse to curl up, cook, and watch everyone go sledding in the valley underneath our building. For no particular reason I started taking pics of food.
One of Tragos’ students brought us these amazing Syrian rose, fig and pistachio treats. I’d never had them before, marvelous things.
We made a few spicy dishes to stave off the cold including two of my favourite indian foods, baingan bharta and dum aloo. I never felt that it was culturally appropriate to love potatoes the way I do. People are supposed to love things like bacon, cupcakes, parfait…Potatoes are to food like ear-nibbling is to sex. Sure, people sometimes like potatoes but that’s rarely the point of a meal…you know?
Tuesday was all about crêpes. Growing up (in the UK), the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday was known as Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday or Pancake Day and you were supposed to use up all the foods you might take pleasure from before things got somber and serious during Lent. If you are not used to the joys of this day the wiki page is worth a read. You will find out where people have been holding a “pancake race” since 1445, what a “festy cock” is (trust the Scottish), where coins or nails are added to the batter and (if you happen to deviantly fetishize potatoes) where you get to eat copious quantities of potato dough…
Anyway, our friends braved a blizzard and we had savoury salmon crêpes, lemon & sugar, cinnamon apple, blueberry, good ol’ nutella etc… For years I’ve been a somewhat closet vegan, in that when cooking or choosing my own foods I’d probably choose vegan but if someone was making me something or it was tricky, I’d eat anything. This may be why I get such a thrill out of cooking for people’s precise preferences. I love having a lot of people over and knowing that this person would rather not have dairy or someone else shouldn’t have sugar, gluten, shellfish or should have iron-rich foods or whatever. It keeps me on my toes and because crêpes are basically individual dishes it doesn’t make people feel picky…I didn’t take many photos (crêpes wait for no man, no camera) but I did snap a chocolate&banana one.
Shrimp & salsa supersnack!
I found the best strawberries this week. I felt strangely triumphant about it and merrily melted some chocolate and sliced up some mint. Tragos wasn’t having icecream, he was just neatly dipping his strawberries in a little pool of melted chocolate. Meanwhile I’d poured my melted chocolate over my icecream and jubilantly taken a photo…
me: I win, I win, look at my dessert!
Tragos [eying my icecream somewhat jealously]: It looks good…
me: Look, and the melted chocolate’s all frozen over it now, did you have “Ice Magic” when you were little?
Tragos: Yup, that was revolutionary…
me: It’s like Ice Magic but better and darker and thicker [I have some trouble trying to cut up the block of chocolate that now rests upon my icecream, it cracks, scoots out of my bowl and ricochets off my body].
Tragos [giggling at me]: I think you have a little chocolate on your breast.
me: Sorry, no I think it’s just all over my thigh and belly.
Tragos: No, quite a bit on your breast too; it’s where I was looking when it happened.
me [realizing he’s very right]: Er, yes.
Tragos [neatly dipping a strawberry]: See, I’m useful like that.
Tonight we get to go to the symphony (about 200m from our building). Brahms violin&cello concerto #102…
