A Very Long Post to Make Up for My Negligence

I'm back!

I'm sorry for the long silence! I've been positing less and less with each passing month. I do think the past couple of weeks, along with the upcoming couple of weeks have been/will be uncharacteristically busy. (And this with the caveat that I hate claiming to be "busy.") I had work travel for a few days, and then we went to Miami for Marta's wedding. We're off to Italy in a few days, and when we come back, we head to New York for Julia's wedding.

Food

We haven't been doing much interesting cooking since I don't want to buy a lot of fresh ingredients when we are out of town so frequently. Thank goodness for avocados, tortillas, cheese and eggs. These are my staples of eating at home without recipe planning or big grocery trips.

Some new recipes we have made over the past couple of weeks. I just realized they are all pasta-based.

Pasta with Chorizo and Chickpeas. Extremely easy, extremely delicious, highly recommended. Spicy!

Lemon Avocado Pasta with Shrimp. Not quite as delicious as I'd hoped, but I like that it has very few ingredients and is pretty healthy. It probably would have helped the texture of the sauce if I had a food processor to whip the avocados.

This is three recipes in one! Almond apricot chicken with mint pesto + goat cheese and asparagus pasta. The chicken and pesto were great (I used yellow raisins instead of apricots because that's what I already had) but the pasta was just ok.

Peppery Pasta with Arugula and Shrimp. This had surprisingly strong flavors, likely because of the raw garlic, and was more delicious than I expected. I would definitely make it again.

Other Food Highlights

We went to DCity Smokehouse a couple of weekends ago, which Google describes as a "buzzy five seat BBQ counter." It actually has six seats, but it's true that it's buzzy. Even though it is on one of the sketchier intersections of DC, and it seems as though the owner has to regularly escort homeless people out of the place, there was a constant long line during the time we sat and ate on our coveted seats. The food is really delicious.

My fried chicken sandwich was probably the best I've ever had.

Last night we had a supremely excessive meal at Ambar, by taking advantage of their all you can eat and drink option with a group of friends. I think we got our money's worth, considering I alone ordered five cocktails, and we ordered almost every single dish on the menu. I think this was a really fun thing to do, especially with small plates and a big group because you can just order without worrying about who can eat what and if it's fair to split the bill at the end. My head is spinning a bit today from those cocktails, though. This excessive food and drink is becoming a theme- I felt the same way after Marta's lunch reception last weekend. My only wine-restraint factor then was my impending toast, since I didn't want to stand up and tip over.

Travel

I'm excited about our trip, and realizing that I have not been to Italy, or Europe, for almost seven years. People keep asking me if everything is planned, which... it is, in the sense that we have plane tickets and accommodations. Because we are old and fancy now, we even have some restaurant reservations. What else am I supposed to do? I think I have forgotten how to travel internationally. I just bought a plug adaptor and those excessively touristy money-belt thingies since we'll be waiting in a lot of lines to see some of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. See? I am a lady with a plan. The last time I traveled in Europe, it was always on last-minute weekend trips on a student's budget. And it was always great.

When I came back from my year in Spain, I really thought my adult life would involve a lot of travel, both personal and work-related. I kept up the momentum slightly with a slap-dash, extremely fun trip to Peru the next year, but since then, nothing. It's so surprising to me that I haven't been back to Madrid in these seven years. I don't know that I can articulate why, other than that travel is expensive, I had and have other priorities, and the prospect of paying for grad school weighed heavily on me. (And now the prospect of a house weighs even more heavily on me.) Work-wise, even though my previous job was for a State Dept. contract managing international education programs, I was never one of the lucky ones who got to travel. I'm scared that this might be my last international trip for a long time.

Other

I am really enjoying this local-turned national controversy over free range parenting.  Each side is so indignant! Think of the children's safety! Think of the children's development! What has our society become? Personally, as someone who knows nothing about children or parenting, I think kids will turn out how they're going to turn out, regardless of whether they walk home alone or not. (And regardless of of most parenting ideologies that people preoccupy themselves with.) My sympathy is with busy adults. How much more all-consuming can we make raising children? I very much like the idea of letting Hypothetical Future Children walk to a park when I would like some peace and quiet in my home, and I would like to not be arrested for this. I also think Montgomery County acted criminally the second time it picked up the kids and kept their whereabouts a secret for several hours.

Sal

He's enjoying the spring sunshine, when he's not hiding in the closet.

Finding just the right beam of light to bask in.

Notes on a Week

Tuesday: I thought my tutoring program was on spring break, so I agreed to go to a work happy hour. It turned out that my tutoring program was not on spring break. What to do? Then, around 4 pm, I got an email that a pipe had burst in the building and tutoring was canceled. I was thrilled. The happy hour was at Fado, an Irish bar that I thought was lame, but it turns out they have amazing food specials- I paid $5 for a pretty good sized basket of fish and chips, and $5 for a Guinness "Blonde" which was surprisingly delicious. I am a sucker for good happy hour food specials. I came home, ate a brownie, and called it a night.

Pretty Spring Flowers

Wednesday: The weather was a worst-of-both-worlds combination of cold and humid. Now that we are on a house buying break, and the prospect of writing very large checks hangs less ominously over my head, I am spending money lavishly. On Monday, I went shopping on my lunch hour and bought a dress and a top. (Both on clearance, don't worry, I haven't totally lost it.) On Wednesday I bought (delicious delicious) coffee in the morning and Potbelly in the afternoon. The turkey, bacon, and cheddar "flat" is the most delicious lunch that $6 will get you. Then I came home, hung out with Sal, and watched Better Call Saul with some leftovers.

Thursday: I worked from home and went for a short run during my lunch hour, which was good because it motivated me to put in my contacts and brush my teeth. I'm not sure I could work from home every day without falling apart. After I showered from my run, I thought I got dressed, but when I looked down, I was still wearing pajamas. Thank goodness for life obligations that mostly keep me from spending my days lying on the couch eating cheddar bunnies.

I made skillet bruschetta with beans and greens, which was really good, better than I thought it would be. I highly recommend it for an easy, healthy, and cheap vegetarian dinner.

Friday: There was a smorgasbord of free food at work, of which I partook freely/excessively. After work, I had beers with Adam and Julia at Cantina Marina on the Southwest Waterfront and then ate at the new Navy Yard Bon Chon, before seeing Adam's new condo.

Korean Fried Chicken!

Look what I got!

Spices in the mail!

Rita took pity on my housing and grocery store woes and sent me my missing ingredients. Very exciting!

Easter weekend

I've been wanting to make egg-lemon soup for a long time now- that was my favorite meal at Salonica, a Greek diner in Hyde Park. Whenever I went (and I went often) and the egg lemon soup wasn't being served, I was crushed! I've also been wanting to make soup from scratch, meaning not using store bought chicken-broth. So Easter Sunday seemed as good a time as any for this cooking project. I used this recipe although I substituted orzo because that's what I remember Salonica using. This was delicious.

Making stock from scratch was not that hard, and definitely tastes better, but it took several hours (mostly inactive) of my time, so the next time I want this soup, I will likely do something like this.

Tonight Jason made asparagus subs with smoky french dressing. Fast, easy, and vegetarian, but for the last minute addition of some crunchy bacon.

With raisins, scallions, and feta

I like all the different strong flavors on this. The only downside is it doesn't pack up well for lunch tomorrow.
____________________

Overall, this weekend was good. We didn't see any houses. I got my nails painted bright pink at a suburban mall while Marta bought final accessories for her wedding. I threw a temper tantrum in her kitchen about not buying a house, and she made me ginger tea and took me to have delicious Indian food at Bombay Curry Company. I went for another short run in the sun with no rib pain, and also for a long walk around Capitol Hill to see the flowering trees, and small children in brightly colored dresses. I saw a surprising number of adults my age, wearing bow ties and playing hacky sack on front lawns. Is this a thing? They looked pretty ridiculous.

Sal does not approve.

Sal says, get it together, everyone.

Yesterday was a good day. I worked from home and went for a short run during lunch. It was my first run in three months, and it was warm and sunny out. No rib pain! Then we saw a condo in the magical and happy land of north Connecticut Avenue that was affordable and had no offers, which made me happy. We decided not to bid on it because it's much smaller than we'd like to buy, but it's nice to close out the first chapter of the search by seeing a place that I would be happy to live in and could likely submit a competitive offer for.

Then we broke the restaurant moratorium and had dinner at Ambar, a Balkan small plates restaurant on Barracks Row. I know Balkan small plates sounds terrible and ridiculous, but this place is surprisingly delicious every time I go there. (Jason tried to see if we could get a table at Rose's and I waited outside because I was embarrassed to even be asking.)  I had a smoky pear cocktail, and toasted to the fact that I could afford the drink because I have not yet written over my life-savings to a mortgage company. To renting, to not cooking, to overpriced but delicious cocktails in the middle of the week!

The only problem with that is no lunch leftovers. What will I do if I ever work somewhere that is not next to a Potbelly?? Luckily, this has not been an issue in my three DC office locations. 

Tonight was back to cooking, although not a new recipe, because Jason wanted to have these sesame meatballs with chickpeas again. We jazzed it up with lemon yogurt and flatbread.

We make these a lot, but I've never found sumac or aleppo pepper in the store- I substitute lemon zest and paprika. I bet it would be delicious with the original spices, though.

March Month in Review + Past 10 Days

March Recipes in Review

New Recipes:
Gourmet's Chicken Curry with Cashews
Pasta all'Amatriciana
Beef Noodle Soup
Gourmet's bean burritos
Deb's cornmeal fried porkchops and goat cheese smashed potatoes
Spicy shredded pork from Slow Cooker Revolution
7th Hill inspired pizza with mushroom, red onion, goat cheese, capicola, sausage, and oregano
Roasted chicken with shallots and vinegar
Slow cooker pork with egg noodles and apple relish
No-knead bread
Avocado and white bean salad wraps

I think I am getting better at selecting the new recipes to try- we liked everything on this list enough to make again, except the porkchops. Those were good, but they were too much work and created too many dishes.

This is not as paltry a list as I expected it to be, although I feel like we are cooking a lot less. House-hunting takes up all of our free evenings during the week, and combined with tutoring and the occasional happy hour, I feel like I am never home during the week. The restaurant moratorium has not been lifted, however! I am getting very adept with leftovers, and we still eat at home basically every night, just...much later than we used to. Leftover pulled pork became tacos and sandwiches on multiple occasions, and leftover chicken and vegetables became pasta.

Basically, I am a pioneer woman- right?

Lemon cream pasta with chicken and asparagus

Pork with apples, brie, and caramelized onions

Highlights and Lowlights of the Past 10 Days

Highlights:

• Julia's bachelorette party. We rented a cute cabin on a working farm in Madison, VA and got up close and personal with the cows and chickens. Rita fulfilled her dream of cuddling a chicken and we learned that roosters actually do make a cock-a-doodle-doo sound. Very fascinating. We ate a lot of farm-fresh eggs and went on a beautiful hike. I made pies, among other things.

Black bottom oatmeal pies

Ummm, I think that was the only highlight.

Lowlights:

• Tuesday was a bad day. Tuesdays are always bad, because of their general Tuesday-ness, plus tutoring, but last Tuesday I was going to find out if I got my preferred project assignment at work, as well as the outcome of the house we bid on in Brookland. Neither of these things went my way.

• I think we are going to take a break from house-hunting after this week. Mostly because we are going to be out of town for something like four of the next six weekends. But I also need some time to get my head straight. I still struggle with the things I wrote about before, but it's more than that. All of a sudden, the city I loved has become much less attractive to me. I feel resentful all the time, and then I get mad at myself for feeling that way. I used to admire the cityscape, walkable lifestyle, and quaint streets for their lovelyness and charm and now all I can see are twee neighborhoods that I can't afford. Just two months ago, I thought my life was pretty perfect! I used to be able to tune out the type-A crazies and opt out of all the competitive nonsense, because I just do not care. But now I care, and have entered into the fray and I can't compete. It's like Black Friday shopping, where every time you reach for something you like, a mob throws themselves in front of you and steals it away, leaving piles of cash in their wake. (I'm guessing, having never participated in Black Friday, in the tradition of opting out of competitive nonsense.) So all I see is what I can't have, and that is not the frame of mind I want to have. Then I think, DC is not even that great! (Defense mechanism?) How can they get away with these prices? Half the city is a bombed out construction pit, and even the nice part has some pretty lame stuff. If I am going to pay this much to live here, I want some pretty nice amenities, not an [expletive] SuperWalmart. Why am I fighting to give all of my money away?

To conclude on a high note, Sal:

Hot Yoga Fail

How Sal spent his weekend.

I was able to exercise again for the first time since the rib incident. I was feeling better a few weeks ago but then thought I was having a relapse so I held back. I hope whatever is going on is over- I'm tired of feeling like a geriatric couch potato. On Friday, I did a workout class at my office gym during lunch- it was a "buddy workout" with a co-worker, where we used each other as resistance and for balance. I think that was a bonding experience? And today I used my Groupon for the first of my five hot yoga classes.

I'm going to give the studio at least one more shot, but I think I may hate hot yoga. I spent at least 60 percent of the 90 minute class with my head down on the mat trying not to pass out. I also kept having flashbacks to my internship in New York in the summer of 2006- the smell of sweat and waves of intense heat always brings me back. Other things that remind me of that summer: Starbucks iced coffee and croissants and corporate indoctrination.

Anyway, I came home, took a shower, and then had to lay down for about two hours. I'm not sure my body responds well to extreme heat- and I don't even feel like I got a workout!

Cooking:

This was a great few days for cooking. On Friday, I made Gourmet's Chicken Curry with Cashews and it was the best curry I've made at home. You grind up the cashews and that's what thickens the sauce- genius! I used boneless chicken and greek yogurt, but otherwise pretty much followed the recipe.

Yesterday, Jason made the best homemade pasta sauce we've had- Pasta all'Amatriciana. This only needed to simmer for about 40 minutes and was more flavorful than the slow-cooker tomato sauce we made last month. Probably all the different pork products help!

And tonight we had this slow cooker Beef Noodle Soup. I'm not sure I used blade meat- the meat stall at Eastern Market had already cut-up "stew beef" so I went with that. I'm not sure it was the best soup I've made at home (in keeping with the theme) but if not, it was close.

Week Ahead:

Rita is coming to visit for Julia's bachelorette party!

Grand (Non) Unified Theory on Home-Buying

I've lived in rented apartments for most of my life, so I've never really had occasion to have thoughts about home-buying. And now all of sudden, I have all of these thoughts, some of them contradictory.

I am trying to sort them out:

• Primarily, it is making me confront my sense of entitlement, which is I guess is a good thing. I knew going into this that prices were crazy and finding something affordable that we liked would be difficult. I am not owed a house. But a small part of me still (irrationally) thinks that I deserve to own a cute small house in a cute neighborhood near a grocery story and a metro. Why? I don't know. I never go shopping and I didn't take out student loans! Other people my age buy houses they like, so why not me? All good logic, I know. 

• This is the first time that not having enough money has been a problem for me. With a lot of luck, and some scheming, I have been able to have the travel experiences, education, and lifestyle of someone who comes from a lot more resources than I do. Even in high school, when my journalism class went to New York, Desiree and I were able to sell enough Costco candy bars in the school hallways to mostly fund our trip. So I've never had a reason to think that money was a limiting factor in getting what I want. (Luckily, I don't want fancy bags or jewelry.) This is pretty much the opposite situation- people with a lot more money than me can get something that I want but can't afford. I guess it's surprising that it took this long for me to have that experience! 

• On the other hand, it's not like we're poor. In 95% of the country, we'd be attractive buyers and would be able to afford something relatively nice. Why do we live in DC again?

• Similarly, I think it's a Bad Thing (from a policy perspective? a human perspective?) that a walking and transit-centered lifestyle is this elite luxury amenity that we are trying (and failing) to buy for ourselves. Like, bad for America, for public health, for expanding and supporting public transit, for community. But maybe this is just my sense of entitlement justifying itself. 

• I know that DC is sharply stratified by income, sadly, but it becomes so stark when you try to buy a house. There are just giant swaths of the city that we are completely priced out of- and we are not poor! That intense socio-economic clustering is frustrating. (And it would frustrate me even if I were wealthy enough to afford to live wherever I wanted.) I don't have coherent thoughts on mixed-income housing, but it is insane to me that the same house on different sides of the river can have a price differential of (literally) a million dollars. I supposed this is related to my outrage over public school disparities which I just won't get into.

• I don't understand the psychology of people (not developers) who would use half a million dollars in cash to buy a tiny, undesirable house. I suppose to rent it out? I know there are a lot of people in DC that make a lot of money (and save all of it??), but so many that they can flood a pricey market with all-cash offers? 

I don't feel stressed out or upset by this, at least not yet. We don't have any sort of time pressure or deadline, we have a lovely apartment, and we could just rent for the rest of our lives and it would be fine. I also feel hopeful that this is a bit like a job search- you apply and apply and it seems hopeless, but then something works. It just takes the one.