Wednesday food diary

The humidity finally broke today thanks to a thunderstorm that drenched me on the way home.
Morning: The last of the satay noodles (finally! gag). Started on the last box of leftovers from home – brother’s sous vide ribeye and sauteed snow peas.

At staff meeting: half a cup of Turkey Hill lemonade, half a cup of unsweetened iced tea. Considered cherries but never got to them.

At the office: a few handfuls of Stacy’s pita chips.

Back home: 1 crunchy peanut butter and blueberry jam sandwich. 1 smoked sausage and Munster cheese sandwich. 1 mug of milk with Kahlua. Many glasses of water.

Productive Wednesday evening – did three small loads of laundry and dismantled a futon.

Tuesday Food Diary

The trouble with cooking food ahead of time to save time is accepting repetitive meals. Sometimes this repetition is broken up by creative “re-cooking” of items (in my case, usually additional pan-frying, new seasonings, and/or topping with fried eggs) but sometimes it’s too damn hot and I don’t even reheat the food thoroughly.

Morning: stuffed bitter melons. 1 orange.

Lunch: 1.5 bowls of satay cabbage noodles

Dinner: little bit of white rice topped with pork medallions and sauteed spinach (my second packed meal from last Friday). Addition of a few pieces of pork shoulder.

Dessert after kickboxing class: big bottle of Polar Pina Colada seltzer and a splash of Grenadine syrup. This might be tied with the Polar Orange Vanilla flavor as my favorite new seltzer flavor.

Yeah, boring day although I should mention I had a lovely mixed drink at Matt Murphy’s Pub in Brookline last night called the Whiskey Daisey. From their website:

whiskey daisey
whiskey, fresh lemon, black currant syrup, chartreuse, soda water. tall.

What the website menu does not mention is the garnish of two yummy raspberries. I wish the bar had less melt-happy ice.

Sunday-Monday food diaries

There was so much eating on Sunday even as I did a whole lot of other stuff, like help my bestie do day 2 of her yard sale and sell off junk.

Sunday morning starter- 1 bowl mung bean soup

Morning snacking – 1 bite of egg-avocado sandwich, cooked with coconut oil, more bites of avocado, couple slices of watermelon, 1 grilled hotdog with spicy mustard, handfuls of tortilla chips

Lunch – big plate of Spanish rice with Mexican cheese sprinkled on top, blue corn tortilla chips, 1 small plate of spinach salad

Dinner – oh my gosh, dried vegetable and daikon radish soup, pork leg cooked two ways, steamed fish, ribeye steak, stuffed bitter melon…there was probably more but I have forgotten. So full!

Dessert – Honest Tea Lemon Tulsi

 

Monday – apartment felt like an oven at at 7:30AM. Had a small bowl of last night’s soup.

Lunch – sauteed spinach, white rice, and pork medallions

Dinner – another small bowl of soup, satay cabbage noodles, pork leg chunks cooked with fresh bamboo shoots, wood ear, and spiced pressed tofu

Saturday Food Diary

Recurring theme of this week: 6:30AM wake-up.

Definitely not hungry yet but I can saute that big bag of spinach that’s started to look a little bruised. Just some Earl Grey for now.

There are also two little pork cutlets defrosting in the fridge. Cook the spinach with EVOO and red chili pepper flakes. Cut the pork into medallions and combine with rehydrated shittake mushrooms. It’s now 8:30AM – I like to use the computer and cook at the same time, the days of micro-managing my cooking are over – and my stomach is back online and this pork smells fantastic.

First, portions of everything go into my lunch containers for Monday and Tuesday. Then I eat a bowl of wilted spinach, pork with mushrooms, and a little bit of white rice. My Pandora stations are all missing their marks this morning.

Grab a quick lunch of cold cut banh mi and a teriyaki chicken box lunch for me and dad from my favorite Saigon Sandwich Shop for after our dentist appointment.

Dinner is at a new place for us – Uncle Cheung(‘s) in Framingham. Shanghai-style duck. Stinky tofu with chili sauce. Fantastic rice cakes with pork and cabbage. XO sauce fish fillets. Salt and pepper calamari. Kidney stir-fry. A little bit of white rice.

Late night snacking in the gazebo by the lake – American attempt at Chinese sausage in a hot dog bun. Not bad. Even better is the tasty dark rum in ginger ale with a dash of lime. I could go for a real Dark ‘n Stormy.

Getting the Weekends Right

Friday afternoon, the Phantom Gourmet BBQ Beach Party was free admission:

I went with Virginian BBQ Pork Ribs

A Saturday, discovering affordable and good sashimi in JP!

The miso soup was lackluster and the rice was alright but 12 pieces of fresh fish for $11!

Sunday after having to forgo seeing Avenue Q, Cirque du Soleil for the first time by the ocean:

The show was “Totem.” I thought this was going to be a giant turtle.

Not quite a giant turtle but an amazing show. I want to see every Cirque du Soleil program now and bring my family.

After Cirque du Soleil, Tall Ships:

The weekend after the awkwardly placed Fourth of July (during which I had a fantastic mixed grilled seafood salad in the North End), another cookout and a private fireworks show:

Last VISTA Friday

Today was our last time officially gathering as an AmeriCorps VISTA group to reflect on our work and year of service. I think it could have been more touchy-feely if we were that kind of crowd but I’m thankful that we’re mostly lighthearted and thoughtful. Our VISTA leader brought back one of my favorite professional development day activities: “Open Space Technology.” Simply put, people can propose topics for small group discussions and everyone is free to rotate between groups. Speed-conversation without the timer. We also got to read the letters we had written to ourselves at the beginning of our VISTA term and I was surprised by how I had only disappointed myself in one major way and by circumstances not so much in my control. I’m thinking about whether or not I could write more letters to my future self. I did write a (rather long) letter to a future VISTA. I hope they like it!

Our last VISTA Friday was pretty low-key and short for our very last official gathering so I went to see Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D with some friends! This was my first 3D film! Glasses on top of glasses is kind of annoying and tickled the bridge of my nose. I agree with the NY Times that the movie didn’t really need/exploit the 3D effect very much and I wish we could have saved $5 and went to a conventional screening. However, our 3D glasses were Katy Perry collectibles (we recycled them anyways). The movie was great! Katy Perry in hi-def, her half-humorous, half-alarming Pentecostal upbringing complete with preacher parents explained, front row concert tour seats to her most recent big hits, really cute moments with all her fans, young to old, and pretty solid editing and storytelling of the rise and collapse of her marriage. I did have a 3D hangover. And I did buy, Teenage Dream – The Complete Confection once I got home.

Thanks to The Braiser linking me to Ottavia Bourdain’s (horrifying) diet, I’m going to take a shot at a food diary.

Today:

Breakfast – warmed white rice, Mom’s pickled kelp, sunny-side down egg, sprinkling of soy sauce. 1 slice of whole wheat toast. At VISTA Friday, 3 Dunkin Donuts munchkins. Small coffee, two creams, no sugar.

Lunch – VISTA potluck. Big dollop of Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Chicken dip. Tortilla chips. Pasta salad. Tabbouleh. Beet salad. Polar Pomegranate Seltzer.

Afternoon snack – 1 mini Heath bar.

Dinner – Big slice of sausage pizza from Express in the North End.

I may have a Whole Foods coconut Popsicle bar before bed. Maybe. Depends on how late I stay up.

Victory Lunch

I’ve been feeling very pessimistic on the state of progressive politics and policy in this country and still do – but SCOTUS’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act was a surprise whose unintended consequences have yet to be seen. Most fascinating to me is Chief Justice Roberts’s decision to join the “liberal” wing of the court and I really do need to sit down and read his majority opinion. In the mean time, after a furious morning of reading the SCOTUSblog live blog, I was really hungry and managed to convince my deskmate to go to Fajitas & ‘Ritas for more mediocre Boston Mexican food and an okay margarita (should have gone for the sour version):

I love salt and tequila. And limes!

Boston really has no cheap and delicious Mexican options as far as I can tell but at least the atmosphere was convivial

Zaftigs in Brookline – Almost Kosher

It’s a good thing I’m not an observant Jew, or else I wouldn’t be able to enjoy all that Zaftigs has to offer in a cool, dark, yet boisterous dining room on Harvard Street in Brookline staffed by what seemed to be an all-female cast of young women with similar characteristics (suffice it to say, I think Zaftigs is hiring waitstaff with a theme in mind. Or maybe it’s self-selection. I digress.)

Let’s start with toasted bagel slices instead of bread and herb schmear that my dining mates were all too happy to demolish. This might be one of the few times in the last few years that I’ve felt like I’ve had to compete for the free carbs.

Just to give you a sense of the fun decor:

Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of sandwiches to choose from at this deli, but a lot of tempting breakfast-y plates as well. I almost went for a latke plate but then fortunately didn’t. You’ll see why shortly:

The trick with sandwich places and sandwich ingredients is finding the one with all the things you love and I love beef tongue and pastrami.

Jack & Marion’s

It’s hard to tell visually which meat is which because everything was sliced to an impressively uniform thickness but the taste and tenderness of the tongue immediately distinguished itself from the decent but not as delicious pastrami and corned beef. Disappointingly, the bread was a bit on the dry side and I wouldn’t have minded a more generous spread of mustard. The pickle left much to be desired as well, which is really dissatisfying to me at a Jewish deli – the edges were discolored and mushy and it was one of those one-dimensional salty pickles – lacking in sour and any other flavoring.

And then there was the latke, which was more like a frozen flat croquette with no filling than a latke lovingly made by shredding fresh potato and binding it with matzoh and egg.

Still tasty, but not what I was looking for when I made my side dish substitution. All in all, a strangely poor meal in spite of a very nice atmosphere, great staff, and lots of positive word-of-mouth.

 

Surveying Boston’s Food Trucks

I’ve already started thinking in terms of one month to go and Boston seems happy to send me off with heat waves, thunderstorms, and interludes of perfect summer weather. In these short stretches of blue skies and breezes, I’ve been eating from a handful of Boston’s beautiful food trucks in Dewey Square and SoWa Open Market.

BBQ Smith:

June VISTA lunch hour – my friends went to the Clover truck but I had already had Clover at their Cambridge site and I wasn’t going to pay double the price of an excellent Chinatown banh mi for fusion banh mi from the Bon Me truck. I’m sure Bon Me is very good – I saw someone else enjoy a Jamaican Jerk Chicken banh mi from them – but I like my banh mi cheap and Viet-Chinese.

I got roast pork tacos and veggie tacos. The roast pork tacos were outstanding for the generous garnish of crispy pork skin on top of succulent meat and the fresh sprig of cilantro was a super-nice touch. It’s hard to find good Mexican in Boston and I had been missing the flavors of onion and cilantro. The veggie taco was very good too – garlicky collard greens filling.

This past Sunday at SoWa, I finally hit up Roxy’s, Boston Speed Dog, and Staff Meal.

Roxy’s Gourmet Grilled Cheese:

Roxy’s is Boston’s most famous food truck, right? Competed in Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race and always boasting a long line. My friend is a fan of the Green Muenster with guac and bacon but I had admired the Mighty Rib on more than one occasion. I’m a sucker for short rib.

From the outside in: The bread is really really good, more or less the ideal of well-buttered grill-toasted white. Melted Fontina is good while it’s hot and melty but kind of off-putting when it’s cooled into cheese putty. And I actually thought it dulled the taste of the meat, which was yummy but somewhat one-dimensional in flavor. The sweet caramelized onions must have melted into the ribs because they weren’t really detected as a separate element.

While we were at SoWa, we were treated to an impressive display of aerial advertising:

I thought the hashtag was going to be “GoSun” but it was apparently “Go Sox.” Of course, this is Boston after all.

Staff Meal:

I usually find Staff Meal’s menu items to be the classiest of the food truck offerings.

I like Staff Meal’s business card:

And their fillings, if not their delivery system:

So I have a problem with this taco just like I have a problem with Boloco – do these ingredients work in a taco and/or burrito? I think I would have preferred just to have a little box of these very yummy rice with Chinese sausage and fried garlic chips and not have had to deal with trying to eat it in taco form. Also, while tacos have layers of ingredients, each individual layer should be uniform to deliver consistency of delicious and texture. This was not so well laid out so bites were uneven. Still very yummy, but the taco delivery system was unnecessary.

Boston Super Dog:

What I’ve really been craving is a snappy Chicago Dog, but a Boston Super Dog will do for now. These things were obscene:

I had mine cut in half for sharing, but I’m pretty sure just one of these bad boys measures 8-10 inches in length, and oh, almost 2-inches in diameter:

Since when does mustard on a hot dog mean honey mustard? This was very good for a jumbo sausage but it was no Chicago dog.

I should try to get some fried seafood off a Boston food truck.

New Grill and other Summer Delights

It is not easy to grill oysters when the juices insist on escaping the shell:

Char-grilled jalapenos are wonderful.

I ate almost half a ball of mozzarella by myself.

My brother made his first attempt at sous-vide and then finished this rib-eye on the grill:

We did have a conventionally grilled rib-eye for comparison and the sous-vide method did lend to a more tender, juicy, and sweeter steak.

Finish with my brother’s Very Berry Pie:

I could have used some whipped cream on top #glutton