ms. victoria

Thanks, hathor. I love deviled eggs, too. I think they have appeared at every family gathering since long before I was born. And as for the cliche v. classic thread, I am still mulling my response to that one.

Lunch. Sadly, not with Keifel. I walked down to Provence (a bakery/deli/cheese shop) in Hillsboro Village. Keifel has the bank card so I had to find somewhere that would take a check. I got a whole wheat peasant roll (chewy and dense, very good) and fruit salad (comprised of the ubiquitous melon and grapes but also strawberries and fresh pineapple, also good and the melon actually has some flavor). I splurged a bit and ordered an iced mocha. Eh, but still caffeine.

There is that premium of place. I guess with Nashville I don't feel like I am getting as much as we pay for, at least not yet. If we were a little bit younger and didn't have the boychick, I'm sure the local music scene would be a boon. It is pretty diverse despite being the country music capital of the world. Wonderfulness is subjective, too. I would love to live in New England, but only if I could get my family to move nearby as well. Because of that we will most likely stay in the South, though we toy fairly often with the idea of leaving the country all together (another whole can of worms financially, but what fun).

GG, the lives of freelancers. Our goal is of course eventually for neither of us to have to have a fulltime gig. I don't think that will happen while we are in Nashville, the cost of living is just too high here compared to other wonderful places to be. Sorry to hear about your tablecloth, did it come clean?

Jana, Thank you for the heads up on the Global market. I will call and get directions. We went to the farmers' market in Franklin last Saturday. Not a lot of stuff yet but we got some wonderful eggs and lettuces and strawberries that were so good we ate them all that afternoon. It seems that it isn't that Nashville doesn't have the places to go it's just that they are so spread out compared to my being spoiled rotten in Knoxville and having it all in my neighborhood. My husband and I have been to Provence. The desserts are yummy. I've had the tiramisu and the opera cake. We've also had the three salad combos and sandwiches. I was really impressed with their breads and with the coffee. What part of town are you in?

Breakfast was a repeat of yesterday for me. I wish I had had something more exciting to offer the blog. Perhaps tomorrow. I have no idea what Keifel and the boychick ate. They are going on tours of the magnet middle schools here in Nashville with the boychick's gifted program and they got to go home for an hour or so after dropping me at work. I am also not sure if I get lunch with Keifel today, as I have no idea what the schedule with this tour is and if Keifel will be free by lunch to collect me. That may mean I skip lunch all together. Hm.

Hathor, Keifel's grandmother is Jamaican and as the recipe is hers I imagine it is quite similar to what you had. I tried Christmas before last to make a black cake on my own. I collected several recipes, one from Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking, one from Nigella Lawson, several from online and facts gleaned from grilling Keifel on the phone. It was a disappointment. It turned out more like a heavy English fruitcake, good for what it appeared to be but a failure as a black cake. My experience of black cake is dark and highly alcoholic with an almost chewy texture. I am willing to try again with Keifel here as he was at his grandmother's hand for many years of black cake making. We really should get that fruit to macerating ASAP.

Dinner didn't go quite as planned, we didn't have any chick peas to the make up the channa part of the curried potatoes and channa. We instead had salmon cakes with smashed potatoes and sliced red peppers. While we were uploading tonight's dinner picture, I realized we had other pictures that we hadn't posted: Sunday's bread in the WS bread machine Eat your heart out Elvis! The boychick's longed for bacon and jelly sandwich Our new teapot and rosemary plant from the farmers' market The Culinary reference section of the library or where all my money goes

pim, if you can get here, we'll feed you. Having been raised a good Southerner, I would be remiss to ever go somewhere empty handed or let a guest go hungry.

Pan, I am not from the Pittsburgh area, though it was not inappropriate to ask. I was born in Detroit and grew up in Tennessee. Lived in Slovenia for a bit in college and Washington State and British Columbia after grad school. I read a great deal and I think I pick up variant sentence constructions here and there. I'm glad you're enjoying the blog. We are too.

Alas, I called Keifel and the mail had run but there is no check. Bummer. So for Cinco de Mayo will be having curried channa and potatoes. We do have some tequila, but nothing to make margaritas with and my days of straight tequila are long past. The curried channa and potatoes is often used as a filler for roti, so it is another look at Trini food even though we won't be eating them with roti.

My college had apartments instead of dorms. We had a cooktop but no oven, a full size fridge and a microwave. We still lived on Kraft Mac & Cheese, tuna sandwiches, yogurt and my favorite breakfast of toasted wheat bread with peanutbutter, honey and raisins. We also tried to make cookies for my roommate's boyfriend in a toaster oven we borrowed. It took us almost all night to bake a batch of snickerdoodles that way. All that seems tame compared to a guy who lived down the block from us who liked to improvise his contribution to our department parties: blue cheese Jell-o, chicken ice cream (I think it was cream of chicken soup mixed into softened Mayfield's vanilla ice cream) and peanutbutter tomato sauce. Unwary freshman were often the victims of his experiments. After the first run in you knew to avoid him at all costs when he asked you to taste something.

Ah, phaelon56, I remember your oil spill. It does make me feel better that I am not alone in my kitchen klutzyness for the blog week. Squeat, my dad would have loved the corn(y) joke. Thanks. I'll have to share that one with the boychick. He seems to have inherited my dad's sense of humor.

Jim, that makes sense. I love that (more innocent) pun-y humor. I had never heard it from anyone except my dad, it's nice to know it had wider usage than that. andiesenji, I just assumed goat would have a similar strong flavor. I'll have to try it when we go to Trinidad for Christmas and report back.

Just back from lunch. We didn't make it to the grocery, as we are waiting on a freelance check and the mail hadn't run. Keifel and the boychick will (I am hoping) go this afternoon. We did however scrape together some pennies and go to the rolled sandwiches place across the street from my office. I always get the a turkey with jalapeno jack, bacon, spinach and sundried tomatoes. Keifel gets a BBQ pork with two cheeses and bacon (I think it's called the Porky's nightmare, hence my earlier breakfast post about Porky's revenge). I fax our order over early as there is always a long line. Inevitably they lose our fax. We have to wait anyway and they give us a discount on our lunch. Today, not only did they lose the fax but they lost our ticket after we got there. We waited patiently. But after 20 minutes and several people who came in after us got their sandwiches, Keifel asked when we might have ours. They made them quickly and gave us a coupon for two free sandwiches. It's mostly college guys who work there and they know us, so it wasn't a big deal that we had to wait, but it was still a nice gesture on their part.

Wednesday breakfast at the home of the oversleepers... yes, again, though done with some impunity this morning as we were discussing that we should get up and get going. The boychick opted for, guess what, PB&J toast. It was the last of the bread except for the heel which he won't eat and I will probably have for a snack. He also had a glass of chocolate Silk. He loves it, though no other soy milk will even be considered by him. I had a decidedly on the go breakfast of a dulce de leche Luna bar and a Starbucks bottled frappucino (there I have admitted my secret shame). I am hoping to be a little more healthful at lunch. We have to run to the grocery on my lunch hour to gather the goods for our Cinco de Mayo dinner (though I think our guests have abandoned us... it's difficult to get our friends motivated during the week). I think we are having lime chicken soup and I had planned on making tamales but I think we would not eat until midnight. The plan had been to go to the store yesterday, but we opted for Tai Chi class instead.

phaleon56, the washed grey is similar to the raw sugar or Florida crystals available here, but it isn't quite as coarse and it's a little damp but not as much so as light brown sugar. I had it in my coffee at the hotel we stayed at in Barbados for our wedding and I am addicted to it. As for honeymoon salad, it was something my dad always said. He was kind of famous for his "Bill-isms" but I can't vouch for him having coined that particular phrase. He was very found of homegrown head lettuce wedges with a simple dressing and that was what was served as honeymoon salad: lettuce alone. I'm glad Keifel finally got the picture to load (now that I have drawn him into the eGullet fray). This seems to be my week for kitchen accidents. When I was pouring the sugars back into their respective containers, I managed to knock one of those pyrex bowls off the counter, thankfully emptied of it's contents. It proceeded to shatter beautifully all over the vinyl. The floor did need mopped. I wonder if it's some sort of performance anxiety?

Lunch turned out better than I thought it would. We really need to go to the grocery and I assumed that lunch was going to be either an odd pastiche of leftovers or a repeat of breakfast. Keifel, instead bought a roasted chicken (they are usually the special on Tuesday at the Harris Teeter near us). We had improptu roasted chicken sandwiches with whole grain mustard and cranberry chutney on poppyseed rolls cleverly disguised as bagels. I hesitate to call them bagels as there is nothing remotely chewy about them. They taste good and they make good sandwiches, except I have to slice them in threes to get them in our teeny toaster. I probably should have mentioned that I live close enough to work that I get to go home for lunch. I'm spoiled rotten, enough so that I am only seriously looking at jobs that would keep me in this part of town after my temp gig ends.

balmagowry, I have a cookbook that Keifel bought me in Port of Spain published by Angostura. It has everything from cocktails to desserts. Apparently, it's very good over vanilla ice cream but I haven't sampled that for myself.

Hathor, I do think that is what he means. The barra are the chickpea pancakes that make the doubles, well, doubles as the chickpea dhall (Trini spelling) is served on two of the barra.

As for dinner yesterday, we did have the stew pork. For stew pork, Keifel seasoned four pork cutlets in his kitchen cabinet marinade yesterday morning and let them sit in the fridge. Kitchen cabinet marinade usually consists of various herbs (oregano, rosemary, parsley, thyme, etc), Angostura bitters, hot peppers and maybe mustard. He heats up oil and washed gray sugar (that he brought with him from Trinidad) until the sugar starts to burn and adds the seasoned, cubed pork. After the pork browns (the sugar continues to darken as well) he adds a little water and covers. We usually have this with rice but we're out. We had leftover roasted potatoes and a honeymoon salad (lettuce alone) of the last of the greens we bought at the farmers' market on Saturday. (I will edit to add pictures when I get home, we are having some technical difficulties getting them to load to the mac homepage where they are stored.) The boychick had a school program last night. After watching him and his classmates ham it up for an hour, we came home and had Mayfield's chocolate brownie fudge ice cream. Not my favorite, but we let the boychick pick it out as a treat. Breakfast was again the breakfast of those who oversleep (do you see a theme here?). I had granola, a Benedryl and water. Keifel doesn't usually eat breakfast or if he does he has leftover chicken as a sandwich or other savories. The boychick had peanut butter and jelly toast and milk (also a theme). We did have time to pack his lunch this morning, saving him from the scary cafeteria food. He usually takes a PB&J, juice, string cheese and applesauce. Anything too far outside that and he won't eat it, though he is much better about trying different things at dinner now. I have no idea what we're going to have for lunch. Keifel usually handles that and I didn't ask him when I called to check on the status of the pictures.

Doubles are street food, usually breakfast. It's two barra, chickpea flour pancakes, piled on a square of wax paper then dosed with a chickpea slurry and one or more of several condiments including pepper sauce (which is seriously hot), cilantro sauce or cucumber. I got addicted when I went down there and I honestly have dreamt about them on more than one occasion. We are trying to come up with a good recipe. Keifel swears if I learn to make them by Labor Day he's dragging me to New York for carnival as he's heard stories of people buying cold ones off street vendors for $1.50 (the equivalent in Trinidad would get you 5 or 6, way more than I could eat).

Keifel and I have been trying to figure the roti thing out. We don't have a tawa or a big enough griddle to make the thin flaky roti. So probably not this week but when we do get it figured out, I'll post. I'm also perking on doubles, how to get the barra right. I'm not sure if there are local purveyors of goat; I'm not sure if I want there to be. I'm still readjusting to this meat thing and goat scares me more than a little. I know it's irrational but I'm not overly fond of lamb, even from my earlier meat eating days. That might be the connection.

Just returned from lunch. Keifel was going to make Trini stew pork for lunch, but he wound up on a very long business phone call. We opted for cheap eats at China Dragon on West End. Kun po chicken and chicken in sesame sauce with steamed rice and eggs rolls, $10.70. Everything is made to order and so far has been good, standard Americanized Chinese food. Unfortunately, this was on the fly so no pictures. the place is a store front wedged in between a pizza parlor and a retail business of some sort. There are fourth booths that look like they were purchased at a McDonald's fire sale and a counter at the back behind which is a long galley kitchen of many burners with pots and flames and several people moving between stations with a runner picking up food for delivery. We were served on an orange cafeteria tray in the styrofoam to go cartons, plastic forks and prepaged soy. Sounds like a dive, looks like a dive, delivers good food. We'll have the stew pork for dinner (and I'll take pictures).

I use mine for many of the things mentioned above, defrosting and softening butter mostly. I also make granola in the microwave. It isn't as toasted as in the oven, obviously. But it is very good and I have yet to burn a batch which seemed to happen frequently with a convential oven.