a delicious year

2008 although strange & difficult in many ways, was a great year in the kitchen for us. Aside from simple meals like cheese grits with Uncle Bruthas hot sauce, desserts containing booze, meals with friends that make us say 'we are so good at this!' & a tattered Joy of Cooking bringing the old fashioned American baked goods like biscuits & pie crust back into our house, there's been a number of all-day cooking extravaganzas and adventures in eating this year. Partially, I think this is because of our decreased pocketbooks and increased interest in sustainability, self-sufficiency, and decreasing the amount of food waste we create. Partially, it's because of our gastronaut leanings, wanting to explore all the kinds of things we can eat and prepare and the challenge of stretching a meal or ingredient as far as it will go, deliciously.

Best things I ate this year that I didn't cook (in no order):
Cheese Columbo with Eggplant from Coppola's (Richmond)
Virginia's Japanese Pickles (so spicy! send reinforcements!)
Juliana's French Onion Soup (blissfully vegetarian and so cheesy!)
Mom's biscuits (why are they so much better than mine)
Conner+Ben's PB Fudge
Baked Tagliolini with Mushrooms at Ciprinani's
Bonnie's Veggie Burger is still the best I've found in NYC & their fries w/ chipotle mayo (suggestions on competitors welcome)
hibiscus beer on tap at Beer Table - wish i could remember what it was called!
wild figs from Virginia's yard
lavender donuts from Donut Plant
Dave's lavender butter on apple pancakes (this recipe from a dream)

... probably there's a lot more that time and shoddy memory are forgetting... so to all those that fed me well this year - many thanks! come on over and we'll cook you up something good in return.

What was the best thing you ate this year?

I'm reliving my year in food in prep for your enjoyment, and wanted to know - What was the best thing you ate (drank?) this year? Please respond in comments! xo!

its my last night in DC right now (except for all those other nights). im about 3/4 packed, clothes mostly, not so much the long list i've written of other stuff I need. it's hard to leave town when you're both a) really only gone 10 days before you're back again & b)moving out of state... eventually. but soon! not to mention c: traveling on the bus & staying on your best friends couch.

so, i should be packing but im not. i'm also avoiding: voicemail, telling my landlords we're moving out & doing the dishes. I cannot get Lucero's "Last Night In Town" out of my head. I'm taking bad cellphone pics like this one and trying to get going. i just dyed my hair and it's alright. im wearing a moustache to a party tonight. possibly also a unibrow. and false lashes.

but first, i have to pack.

got my cards read & she said big changes were in my future.

courage is necessary.oh, hey. it's been a while, huh? did you hear i'm moving to New York on Sunday? I'm a little nervous, and hoping that my couch surfing won't be too much a burden on my friends. have you a reasonably priced apartment for us? just me, the fellow and our charming cat. hopefully this orchid and trompe l'oeil print will make it too. it's trying to snow today and i wish it would, while simultaneously sending everyone to leave me big tips at the pizza shop tonight.
so, moving out of state, for good even, is kind of a big deal, and there are a lot of things I need to do and meant to do but will never get to (for now)

To Do:
-Beardstravaganza, find kickass beard or merkin to wear to my first appearance at this annual shindig - perhaps dave's pricklypear beer will make a debut?
-get rid of lots of stuff - do you need some blank periwinkle t-shirts? a biography of Proust? a Schwinn Peapicker lowrider? a '94 Saturn SL2? slightly broken sewing machine? a huge green couch and a pair of star trek-esque endtables? some old magazines?

-find a suitable tenant for our apartment - is it you?
-go dancing - but where?
-leave this fucking town. yay! screw you yuppies and politicos. remaining friends: I still love you.

meant to do in DC, but won't:
-visit all Smithsonians - only got to less than half. bummer. still time to hit the aquatic gardens and portrait gallery?
-eat vegetarian soul food, eat at Cafe Nora,
-see the Beastie Boys at the 930 Club, spot Dave Grohl hanging out at Black Cat,
-ride the secret US Capitol subway,
-write a DC city guide for Bust,
-fight for District equality including having true Congressional representation, and proper budgeting for the seriously suffering public schools. oh well.
-ride bikes to Mount Vernon (did i ever really mean to do this?)
-get on the board for Transformer gallery (James said I could if I had $5K. Maybe next year)

two to three lists on new york city

You have to admit that there is something about living in a city like New York that makes you think that you're some kind of loner/artist/writer/poet/ wanderer/freethinker/sociologist/ coffee/whisky-drinking / smoking/beatnik-hippie-punk that makes for endless diary writing awaiting tempura maki and hijiki salad (alone at a table for two, naturally), on the train to wherever you are going, or drinking vodka at a friends bar, there is something about cities like this that makes it happen.

althou, there isn't much of the privileged artsyness that goes with sushi and a comfortable solitude in Chinatown, where i sat writing yesterday at dusk, or in Bushwick where i type now (essentially alone, thou my roommate is plugged into whatever obsessive game hes been doing since i left the apartment on saturday).

Mostly, these places are filled with poverty, although Chinatown is also filled with seemingly endless stalls of strange dried things, questionable fish, even worse durian in yellow mesh bags, cheap vegetables (not organic & with a carbon footprint of >500mi), knock-off purses, watches, belts, dvds, &anything else that can be ripped off, and the holy home of vegetarian drumsicks (along with something called vegetarian fish ham, which, for the record, im not the slightest bit interested in eating).

in addition to trying not to open the bag of drumsticks and sort of wishing we had a deep fryer, here's a list of things i expect i will not be doing in my last four days here:

- visit the Whitney / Kara Walker solo exhibition
- visit the Met who were bold/moneyed enough to install Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living which includes an updated shark from the original display in Saatchi's BMA "Sensation" show
- visit the Guggenheim, more for the art cred of having gone. the facade is under renovation/scaffold anyway
-see a film at BAMcinematek, Film Forum, or some other ultra indie or notedly cinephelic theater. In fact, the only film i saw that is likely not available in DC was Wristcutters: A Love Story, at Times fucking Square.
-visit all 5 boroughs. Sorry Bronx and Staten.
-burlesque, strip club, peep show, or something equally old-new-york seedy
-find the international spice market or that huge greenmarket you see on TV cooking shows where tv chefs buy their groceries
-close a bar at 4am.
-walk across brooklyn, williamsburg or manhattan bridge
-find a magically beautiful and cheap bicycle to coast around brooklyn
-make it big time as a Broadway dancer (the stagehands are on strike)