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WND - Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner

November 27, 2008

Going to someone else’s house for Thanksgiving is like voyaging into the unknown. You never know what strange customs may prevail in this foreign land. They may serve olives and pickles with dinner (my roommate’s family). They may serve salad (why?). They may not make gravy (my cousin’s husband’s family – my entire family stared at him in horror when he admitted this).

I’m actually not all that picky about my Thanksgiving Dinner. This is mostly because I know that Christmas dinner will be exactly the same as what I would have served for Thanksgiving if I was making it. So, if I miss my chance at Bacon & Chestnut Stuffing in November, I know that I’ll be eating it in December. However, Thanksgiving is at our house this year, and I keep feeling like I’ve forgotten some vital Thanksgiving dish, I just can’t remember what it is.
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Posted in *Petra, Uncategorized | Tagged pasta, meat | 2 Comments »

WND - Arroz con Pollo or the Benefits of Speaking in Tongues

November 20, 2008

My roommate and I were down in Miami this past weekend, and I love Boston, I really do, but there’s something to be said for standing on the beach at midnight drinking mojitos in mid-November. Frankly there’s something to be said for drinking mojitos at midnight no matter what the setting, but the beach was a nice touch. While I was there it occurred to me, as it does periodically, that high school Spanish might have been more useful to my life than German (although German does have the dubious merit of making Latin seem easier by comparison).
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Posted in *Petra, Uncategorized | Tagged Chicken, rice | No Comments »

WND - If you serve it . . . .

November 13, 2008

There is a general truth that if you feed them, they will come.

In college they always had problems achieving quorum at Plenary* until they closed all the dining halls that day and only served food at Plenary. This doesn’t necessarily say much about the student investment in the democratic process of student government. It does however say a lot about how to get 1200 college students to turn up for something.

So far the most successful program my roommate has ever run for teens in her library is the one where she brought in cupcakes for them to decorate. College students will show up for food in general. Teenagers will show up for sugar.

I don’t have a problem getting people to come to Dinner. I do have a small problem getting them to turn up on time. However, the universal truth of Dinner is that if you serve it, they will arrive. It’s like magic. As soon as you put food on the table, the door will open and the missing guests will appear. This works so often, that on the rare occasion that it doesn’t work, I’m always surprised. Read the rest of this entry ?

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WND - Election Night Dinner

November 5, 2008

Dear Stop-n-Shop:

It is November 2nd. That’s two days after Halloween, twenty-four days before Thanksgiving and fifty-one days to Christmas. In other words, it’s way too early for me to be seeing Christmas ornaments and snowmen peeps on the shelves (anyone else remember when peeps were a seasonal treat?) The leftover Halloween candy has barely made it to the sale racks, and you’re pushing Christmas knick-knacks already? Have you forgotten that there’s an entire other holiday in between Halloween and Christmas for which you could be selling tacky and unnecessary kitsch?

Also, wherefore your sudden and mysterious aversion to beans? What used to be a plentiful variety and stock of beans – red beans, black beans, kidney beans, great northern beans, garbanzo beans – has shrunk to a paltry and elusive collection. I think I bought the last two cans of black beans in the store.

To say nothing of the butter shortage. I kind of (but not really) understand having a run on butter around Thanksgiving or Christmas what with all of the baking, but Halloween? Who runs out of unsalted butter on November 2nd?

Je vous prie, Monsieur/Madame, d’accepter l’expression de mes sentiments les plus exaspérées.*
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Posted in *Petra, Uncategorized | Tagged chili, drinks | 5 Comments »

WND - Becoming My Mother & the Promised Lamb

October 23, 2008

I had a mildly horrifying realization the other day. I’m becoming my mother.

No offense to my mother, who is a charming and lovely lady of whom I’m quite fond, but I feel emphatically that I’m too young to turn into her. Not the least of which because it means I’m that much closer to an unhealthy obsession with the temperature of my freezer.
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Posted in *Petra, Uncategorized | Tagged lamb, Meat and Seafood | 4 Comments »

WND - Consoling myself with starch

October 2, 2008

I’ve been feeling disenchanted with the Food Network lately. It seems like every time I turn it on there’s a food travel documentary or the secret history of something or other airing. Admittedly I find the fact that carbonation is the secret ingredient in slurpees fascinating, but it’s not really what I’m flipping to the Food Network to watch. They have a roster of new shows and they all feel like they’re trying too hard. None of the new hosts really look at ease behind the camera, and none of them are endearing enough that I want to watch them anyway. This is a problem since they’re also not cooking any food that I’m interested in watching them make*. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

WND - Birthday Season 2008 - Part 1

September 18, 2008

Fundamentally I’m a fairly lazy person. I’ll buy the organic, local food that’s grown without pesticides that minimizes my carbon footprint and comes from humanely treated animals, but only if it’s convenient. I’ll walk up to the farmer’s market at Government Center and I’ll lug home a dozen ears of corn, but I won’t drive out of my way to go buy it. The trick to getting me to do the socially responsible thing is to make it really really easy.

It does not get easier than having it delivered to your doorstep before you go to work. Read the rest of this entry ?

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WND - Rambling & Housewifery

August 28, 2008

Unless I’m planning on doing something really interesting on Sunday, Saturday is my day off. I don’t cook (usually). I don’t run errands. I don’t think about menu plans, or go to the grocery store. I might go shopping, but not that kind of shopping.

Sunday, on the other hand, is my day for being a good little housewife. I make a menu plan. I go to the grocery store, and clear out the fridge of old leftovers and milk that’s gone bad. I take the trash out and try to figure out if this is a recycling week or not (usually solved by looking up the street to check whether my neighbors have put theirs out, since they apparently actually kept the schedule that the town sends out every year). I do laundry and change my sheets. I’m so very very boring. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra, Uncategorized | Tagged Chicken | No Comments »

WND - Not missing, just delayed

July 17, 2008

There’s no post today because Dinner hasn’t happened yet this week.

Exceptionally, Dinner has been moved to Friday this week so that a friend from out of town can come and see everyone.

I’ll post on Saturday with all the particulars.

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WND - Grilled Chicken Salad

June 12, 2008

There are advantages to living in the US – libraries, book stores, movies, TV – but I wouldn’t class grocery stores as one of them.

What I like about shopping in France is that by and large it still operates on the principal of buying your food only 2-3 days in advance. There are green grocers and butchers and bakeries in the middle of cities – not just in the residential areas, but in the financial districts as well. Food and food shopping hasn’t been relegated to the outskirts and the suburbs. I am always frustrated by the fact that if I forget something at the grocery store on the weekend there is nowhere easy for me to pick it up during the week. There’s no small grocery store on my way home where I can go to buy a can of tomatoes, or bag of flour. There’s a 7-11 where I can get some milk, but no eggs or cheese. There’s a farmer’s market in town twice a week during the summer, and while I can get amazing tomatoes there I can’t pick up a box of pasta. If I forget something when I go shopping on the weekend it means that at some point during my week I’ll have to get in the car to go back to the grocery store to pick it up.

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