July 14, 2014
This was a solid salad. You really can’t go wrong with chicken salad–I make it with rotisserie chicken, mayo, yogurt, mustard, lots of salt and pepper, and a splash of pickle juice. Oh, and tons of chopped celery. I somehow catapulted chicken salad all over my dress while eating this, but I don’t blame the chicken salad; it had only benign intentions.
S and I have made lot of pizza over the last four years. We still have a lot to learn, but here are three big takeaways:
1) Don’t use fresh mozzarella in water–it makes the pizza soggy. Use aged mozzarella (the kind in the plastic wrap).
2) The best dough recipe is Kenji’s New York style pizza dough. It’s both crispy and tender, and it tastes amazing even without toppings: no more sad piles of crusts. Warning: takes at least one day of lead time (it’s a slow-rise dough).
3) The best sauce is the Cook’s Illustrated no-cook sauce. Aside from being incredibly easy (throw everything together and blend it), it has an acidity and brightness that’s missing from cooked pizza sauces.
In the summer of 2010, I was a mess: heartbroken and barely functional. Various advice-givers recommended fitness as a great way to recover from being really sad. I tried to take up running, but it turned out that running made me both really sad and really tired. I’d heard that Crossfit involved jumping on boxes, and I liked jumping and was desperate for distraction, so I Googled “crossfit philadelphia” and signed up for an intro class at Crossfit South Philly, just a few blocks from my apartment.
I was weak. Weaker than everyone else in my on-ramp class. I couldn’t lift a 35-pound bar over my head. I couldn’t do a pushup. I certainly couldn’t do a pull-up. The first week was miserable–not because they pushed me particularly hard (we did mostly bodyweight exercises), but because I hadn’t been using my muscles for years. My “fitness regimen” until that point had been the typical...
July 8, 2014
An excellent salad.
We eat a lot of fish. Not fancy fish from Whole Foods, but the giant bags of individually-wrapped frozen fish fillets (swai/flounder/etc). I feel about these fish fillets the way I imagine people who read Parade magazine feel about chicken breasts.
They thaw in just a few minutes under running water and are infinitely flexible. Sauteed with capers and lemon! With a panko crust! On some farro! For breakfast, with an egg on it! (really, this is amazing and you need to try it). We mostly buy from Target because they’ve committed to selling 100% sustainable seafood, but they have them at Giant, too.
Anyway. Fish + vegetable has become our default dinner. Highly recommended.
As part of my current research project, I’m interviewing Americans (recruited via Craigslist and paid with a Target gift card–yes, this is IRB-approved) about their political attitudes and beliefs, especially regarding the economy. The larger goal of the study is to discover and measure what I’m calling “public myths”: misperceptions about policies and politics that (unlike Obama’s birthplace or death panels) don’t stem from explicit misinformation. The interviews give me clues about where to look for these misperceptions, then I measure their reach via surveys.
A couple of widespread myths that I’ve unearthed so far:
The interviews themselves have been fascinating. I’ve talked...
June 23, 2014
This salad was fine but not spectacular. Mostly a way to use up leftover CSA vegetables. Goat cheese was too strong; I should have skipped it.
Ben and Kay gifted us some buttermilk, so we made these cornmeal buttermilk pancakes from Bon Appetit. Made a couple of substitutions–used a full cup of cornmeal, ¼ white flour, and ¼ whole wheat flour. Because if you’re making hearty/grainy pancakes, you should go ALL IN.
We also threw in an assortment of leftover fruit, including some close-to-death strawberries, is-it-mold-or-is-it-dirt CSA nectarines, and not-really-cherry-season-yet cherries. Result: five stars, seriously. I am not normally a pancake fan (they are often soggy and overly sweet), but this was one of the best breakfasts I’ve had in awhile.
Oh, and we saved the leftover batter and used it the next day for a savory breakfast as the base of an open-faced egg, bacon, and avocado sandwich. Still fantastic.
June 20, 2014
Thoughts:
A good salad but not a GREAT salad. I think it needed more textural contrast. Maybe shrimp instead of chicken? Someday when I am a millionaire that will be possible. Shrimp for everyone.
In Salad Annals, I track salads that make for lunch.
June 19, 2014
Thoughts:
Kale should have been dressed with something other than olive oil…lemon juice or rice vinegar, perhaps.
A bit of sweetness was needed…dried cherries would have been spectacular.