Have your nest and eat it, too.

So.  It turns out, I'm nesting.  But I refuse to blame this entirely on pregnancy.  I've always loved organization, despite what my overstuffed-with-stuff apartment looks like (let's just say these photos of our place are really flattering).  Given a blank check and some more time off of work, I'd fill my shelves with boxes and organizers and happily alphabetize files, books, and spices all day.

I took most of a day off work last week so that Nick and Dan and I could go to the Brooklyn (Red Hook) Ikea.  There, with some early Christmas money from generous relatives, I bought a large shelving unit and many organizational accoutrements.  The shopping endeavor naturally left our party famished, and we stopped for lunch in the Ikea cafeteria before heading home.



Yum!  I had potato, broccoli, and cheese croquettes served with macaroni and cheese.  The guys had Swedish meatballs with potatoes and lingonberry preserves.  Dan threw in a few extra pieces of garlic toast, and we all had lingonberry soda (my favorite part of the meal).  I suspect Ikea is at the top of the cafeteria food game.  Everything was clean, the food was delicious and comforting, and the prices were dirt cheap (Dan and I spent just over $11 for the two of us).  I think I might make eating there -- I mean organizing my apartment -- a more regular habit.

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What's boosting my morale today?

Stick to your ribs.

Stuffing and gravy is not just for Thanksgiving. It makes a fine late-afternoon snack.

The Original Turkey
Reading Terminal Market
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Reunited, and it CHEESE so good (this pun isn't working).

'Tis the season for cheese grits and vitamins (multi-, calcium, and fish oil) and cranberry juice and Martha Stewart Living's holiday issue.

I once made cheese grits myself, with a recipe from Paula Deen, but she calls for so much cheese (24 oz) that I discovered I actually have a limit to how much cheese I can eat in a dish. I wouldn't have guessed it, but her mixture is super-saturated and then some. "Too much cheese," I was surprised to hear myself shout.

The cheese grits pictured above are a better balance 'tween cheese and "grit." I picked them up from Whole Foods in Union Square, where they have returned as a selection on the breakfast bar (they were missing for a time). A little salt and pepper make them quite good.

If that Whole Foods would just reinstall their smoothie counter, this store and I might become close friends again. Still, these creamy, mild cheese grits are a kind gesture.

Poetry Tuesday: Indigestion Nation

I do not deserve these two doughnuts for voting,
These Boston Kreme doughnuts,
These bolsters of sweet.
I do not deserve this large smoothie for waiting,
This Peach Pleasure smoothie,
This vessel of chill.
I am nervously sipping on cream-heavy polls;
I am gingerly resting on peach-flavored pins.

I am wistfully biting my lip into shreds
And consuming desserts that I do not deserve
Because I deserve them,
Food's dim rooms and blankets.
I'm tacos and hot wings and cheddar cheese chips.
I'm butternut squash and dark chocolate with ginger
Till somebody wins.
Until somebody wins.



p.s. I am OUTRAGED that Whole Foods on 14th Street has stopped serving smoothies. Jamba Juice does not cut it.

Reinventing the wheel

I love peanut butter and graham cracker sandwiches dunked in milk. I hadn't ever paid much attention to my ingredients, buying whatever was cheapest in the grocery store, though I do prefer a crunchy peanut butter over creamy in nearly all situations. So I wondered -- if I bought a higher-end peanut butter, like Cream-Nut (which I recently read was considered one of the best peanut butters being sold today) and a really fancy graham cracker, would my experience enjoying a peanut butter and graham cracker snack become something transcendent?




The Players:

C = Cream-Nut Natural Peanut Butter. Rich, superior peanut flavor. Thin, grainy texture. Oil and peanuts separate easily.

S = Extra-Crunchy Skippy. Pleasing sweetness. Spreadable, thick, chunky texture. Never needs stirring.

K = Keebler grahams [sic] crackers. Too sweet, slightly stale or cardboardy texture (I wish I had some Honey Maid. Those are better). Soften too quickly when dipped in milk. Taste cheap.

M = Mi-Del 100% Whole Wheat Honey Grahams. Great crunch. A little thicker and more like a cookie than a cracker. Definite sweetness (From honey and unsulphured molasses). Wheatinesss comes through. Does not soften enough when dipped for a few seconds in milk. A little too much chewing necessarily.

Now I really wish I had Honey Maid Graham Crackers. But we're going forward, not backward!


The Equations:

S + K = peanuts and graham crackers play nicely against each other, with peanut butter thickness really coming through. Slightly dissatisfying cardboardy graham flavor lurks. Not quite enough crunch. Add milk: good softening. Peanut butter helps the graham hold up. Milk saturates correctly. Very comforting, smooth snack with crunching of peanut pieces.

S + M = too crumbly. Begins to fall apart at first bite. Cracker overpowers the peanut butter. Add milk: no better. Now, somehow, there is no sweetness. It's just thick, thick, thick. This cracker is much better with nothing on it. I needed a lot of milk to wash this down.

C + K - I like the natural peanut butter flavor and the thinner, wet peanut butter. The Cream-Nut almost melts into the graham cracker, which is lovely. Add milk: the milk shines in this combo. Great milk flavor coming through. The peanut butter is nice, but it allows the stale aftertaste of the cracker to penetrate. Good mouth-feel, though.

C + M - dry, dry dry! Add milk: slightly wet on the outside. No flavor on the inside. I threw the rest away. This is not right.


Conclusions:

1. The Cream-Nut peanut butter is delicious, probably great with jellies and jams on sandwiches, and would be nice to cook with. It's not bad on a graham cracker, but I need to try it on the Honey Maid Graham to see if that's the real answer. I suspect it is.

2. I'm not buying Keebler graham crackers anymore.

3. The Mi-Del cracker does taste fancy, but it's too fancy for the humble snack I enjoy. I think I'd be more inclined to eat this cracker plain, or with some kind of soft cheese or homemade jam.

4. Extra-Crunchy Skippy is still my go-to peanut butter, especially if M+R buy me the big jars at Costco (I'll pay you back!). It's lower priced and has nice, big chunks of peanut. I like the thick, spreadable texture and non-separating oil. What can I say? Sometimes I'm a traditionalist, and natural peanut butter is not the peanut butter of my childhood. Still, I don't feel loyal to Skippy as a brand, so I remain open to other peanut butter suggestions.

Corn blog

One or two vegetarian corn dogs from MorningStar Farms with a tangy mustard (more on mustard later) make a very fine snack.

I don't know what it is about these. I'm not a vegetarian, and I think most brands of vegetarian hot dogs are disgusting. But wrap the vegetarian hot dog up in some corn bread, and I'm in heaven.

These are best cooked in the oven (if you like a firmer crust), but it takes longer and makes the house too hot on a muggy day. In a pinch, the microwave is fine (and takes only 2 minutes). A toaster oven works, too.

It's so hard to hide the scientist inside.

I am a dunker. If I have milk in a glass near a plate of cookies (this applies to the hard and store-bought more than the soft or homemade), it's hard for me to keep my cookie out of there. Which means people don't share beverages with me while I eat Oreos. Which, actually, is okay by me.

After my foray to the dentist this morning (no root canal necessary! huzzah!), I have an aching jaw and instructions to chew neither the hard nor the sticky (nor the gum) on my new temporary crown. The aching jaw part is a little worse than I was expecting. I left work in need of a comforting, soft snack to lift my spirits. A soft snack and a new lip gloss, but the latter isn't edible so I won't comment on it further here. When Dan asked me to bring home some cookies, I decided the comforting, soft snack might as well be Oreos dunked in milk.

What you're about to read might at first suggest my brain was somehow addled by the Procaine Hydrochloride I was given this morning (I turned that movie off after 15 minutes, btw!), but it's related, so stay with me. Today I read about Stefania Follini, who lived alone (communicating with the outside world by computer) in a specially constructed habitat within a New Mexico cave for over 4 months in 1989. She took 400 books, her guitar, some art supplies, a journal, and a deck of cards for entertainment. The book I read did not mention snacking supplies, though she did make tea with yeast. But even if she was, probably, rather more Oreo deprived than you or I, her participation in the experiment helped scientists discover more about what can happen to our bodies and minds when not subject to the light-and-dark cycles contained in Earth's 24-hour days (potentially applicable, in part, to the experiences of astronauts). Pretty fascinating stuff.

Thus and therefore, my dentist's treachery (I jest! He was nice and efficient and it was painless until the numbness wore off) and an Italian woman's bravery (she was a volunteer and interior decorator, not a scientist or spelunker by profession), made today's after-school snack possible. Upon arriving home bearing comforting, dunkable chocolate cookies and fresh milk, I was inspired to conduct a science experiment of my own -- in Stefania's honor, of course. Its full title:

How many Double Stuf Oreos can I eat (each one being dipped in milk) before I start to feel slightly ill?

My findings:
The answer is 10. But I ate 12. For science!