Fresh Eggs Make the Best Omelet
My colleague brought me a dozen fresh eggs from her chickens. Thanks S.
I loved how each egg had a date written on the end. I made an omelet this Saturday morning with some Cabot Creamery Extra Sharp White Cheddar. Maybe a tad too much butter. Couldn’t cook and photograph with the cell phone simultaneously. I was told you want “sound” when the eggs hit the pan.
I know the chickens are well cared for and eat organic feed. Fresh eggs make the best omelet. It was delicious. If I were a true photographer I would have made a neater looking one and photographed it again but no one else around to eat the wrinkled one. I went on Google images to see how my omelet fares by comparison and I think it is fine. These eggs are too precious to waste.
Yes, a little too much butter. Eat the toast with jam no butter due to excess amount on the eggs!
Hiding the imperfect folds with the farm grain bread toast. Now to polish the French PepperMill that was a wedding gift in 1974.
Thai Cuisine on Liberty Ave at Pearl Street in Bloomfield
When I got home from school, Steve asked me if I wanted to go eat at the Thai Cuisine Restaurant in Bloomfield. Bloomfield is considered the Italian section of the city and I have blogged the Italian Festival and scenes from the Bloomfield Bridge.
On Liberty Ave at Pearl Street, across from the Bloomfield Laundromat,there’s delicious Thai food in this wonderfully Italian neighborhood.
I was so tired when Steve suggested going out to eat, I thought about lying down and taking a rest instead.
Fortunately, I decided to take him up on his offer and am I ever glad I did. He’d brought home take-out from this restaurant before but had never dined in. He told me how nice they were to him and always remembered his name.
It’s BYOB. They have a vegetarian menu,too. The service -friendly and nice, the food fresh and perfectly prepared. Very tasty. The decor and ambience clean and comfortable. Love the cloth napkins.
We enjoyed our dinner tremendously.
We ordered two dishes to share and the brown rice. There are curries and appetizers, soups and salads and desserts. Spicy Basil Fried Rice seems to be a favorite in the reviews. The YELP reviews = overall four out of five stars. The Urbanspoon seemed quite favorable and highly recommended by the City Paper Critic, too
Ginger Roots Onions, Black Mushrooms, Broccoli, Carrots, Red Pepper, Green Pepper, Snow Peas, with Chicken
Classic Shrimp Pad Thai
The view from my seat in the front window booth.
And the high gloss lacquered table reflecting formerly St. Joseph’s Church
Our server rolled all the silverware in wonderful cloth napkins- stacked and ready to go
And Steve took a shortcut down the alley to get us home. Love being a passenger so I can photograph with the good old iPhone camera. Did not take my regular camera to dinner.
Dinner, Sunday
Late Sunday afternoon, I drove across the river to shop for dinner ingredients and some fruit for lunches this week. The larder was looking a bit sparse. It was either go shop or eat another grilled cheese and/or egg sandwich. M and I had just talked on the phone, earlier in the day about wanting a real meal. She was thinking Thanksgiving like. I opted for meat and potatoes.
At the meat counter I asked the butcher for two petite steaks (on sale). Not too big. It’s funny about meat. Sometimes it actually turns me and I can’t even think about eating it, and other times I am actually craving a serving. It was one of those days of wanting it. Not thinking about it having a face.
Came home and sautéed an organic yellow onion in some Amish butter and then sliced up a box of fresh mushrooms. Baby Romaine salad with Steve’s favorite brown Clamato tomato( I swear they look chocolate) and a drizzle of olive oil and red wine vinegar. Garlic smashed Russets.
After I plated the food, I used the phone to capture the dinner. Feeling ready for the start of a new week, fortified.
Cheesecake Pie Made with Coconut Palm Sugar
Some of the family is eating gluten-free. You might have seen the crumbled cake top from the other day (which was delicious)
And the family is trying to reduce intake of refined sugar. I wanted to bake something they could eat if they wanted to do so.
My mother used to make this with regular sugar when I was growing up. I just switched to the coconut palm for the body of the cheesecake pie and used a bit of maple syrup for the sour cream topping. I used FULL FAT cream cheese and sour cream. Some free-range organic eggs
I made this for Saturday night after Thanksgiving
This is a crustless pie. Not too sweet. It looks like it has a brown crust but it is just the butter browning the edge and the color of the coconut palm sugar. It’s an iPhone photo today.
Here is the recipe.
Butter a glass pie plate. Heat the oven to 325 degrees. I baked this one at 350 and the electric oven where I was staying is hotter and faster than mine at him and I think it was too hot for it. I think that is why it had more cracks than usual.
Mix well 2 -8 oz. packages of cream cheese (room temp) with 3/4 c coconut palm sugar
Add 3 eggs. Beat well. Add 1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract. Mix.
Pour into the buttered pie plate. Bake for 45 minutes.
Take out of oven and let it sit for about 5 minutes, it will deflate and a crater will form for the topping, forming a “crust” without crumbs.
Spread on a topping mixture of 1 c sour cream, 3/4 teaspoon vanilla and 2 Tablespoons pure maple syrup
Bake for 5 more minutes.
Cool. Serve with sour cherries or fresh blueberries or strawberries or eat plain. Put it in the fridge when cool.
Potato Patch Satisfies Urge for Salt and Fat
Photographed at Kennywood Park in West Mifflin PA when the family was here this summer.
A nice couple let me photograph their fries. (with cheese)
The condiments still-life was from a different concession- The colors are what caught my eye.
And my son pointed out the pile of Idaho potatoes, catching the late day light.
The family was waiting to ride the Turtle.
the close-up crop of above photo Here is the salt and fat.
Spin around and upside down.
Sea Bass on a Bed of Grilled Zucchini and Yellow Squash
And butter! Erika, Anna, Maura and I ate out one Friday night at The Lakes. Good etiquette training, too. The “boys” were at a Cleveland Indians game.
3 Year Blogoversary- Food Truck and Cart Fest, Columbus Ohio
Thanks for following, looking, commenting and sharing. I appreciate your writing emails and sending photos to me.
Three years ago today I started the blog.
This is the 1027th post as I didn’t postaday when I started, it was just random.
Thanks to the nice mom and dad who said I could blog their baby eyeing the pizza from Late Night Slice and great idea SIL James.
* The Boa Constrictor’s name is Sally May*
Ceramics by Katie Kikta and Eric Rausch
Pittsburgh Steelers T shirt by 8 Bit Apparel
Vintage and Handmade Jewelry by Katie Guagenti
Camera Onesie by KLZART
And you can see This Guys Art on Cardboardmetravels.com today
Celebrating 39 Years of Teaching!
It’s hard to keep this friend anonymous since her name is on the cake. In chocolate letters!
Ellen is a blog follower and I hope she doesn’t mind….
Colleagues, family and friends gathered together to honor Ellen today. Effusive praise and accolades aren’t what Ellen would wish for but let me just say – there are thousands of students who have benefitted from having been taught by her in her classroom.
I didn’t see the smiley face on the cake until I looked at the photos.
Jean-Marc Chatellier baked this and decorated it so beautifully. It tasted delicious, too.
(You remember the colorful macarons?)
Enjoy your retirement Ellen. You deserve every happiness! A job well done.
Butter- Salted or Un
A variety of butter in the Dairy Case of the Clintonville Community Market in Clintonville Ohio. (walking distance from Laura and James’ home)
Minerva Dairy Amish Butter is on the right and Hartzler Family Dairy butter ( from Wooster, OH) on the left.
Just last Thursday I ate dinner at a friend’s and she told me that someone told her, “Butter is love.”
A year ago this month the butter sculptor and “butter cow lady” from Iowa, Norma Lyon, passed away and her obituary is in the New York Times.
The butter in this photo was captured in early April. When we lived in Germany the commissary sold Danish butter and I see my family buying Irish butter these days.
What’s your favorite butter?
Weekly Photo Challenge: Today
Two friends from work (JS) and (MK) alerted me it is National Donut Day. Or is it Doughnut?
It is the 75th one so where have I been all these years?
I usually get that kind of info from Foodimentary blog and he is saying it is National Doughnut WEEKEND!
The Weekly Challenge came in this afternoon that you must take the photo TODAY so I shot a few photos of the Highland Park fountain in the rain on the way home from school and the lawn ball in the garden with water drops for today’s post of TODAY
and then my friend Steve came home with a chocolate donut he had gotten for FREE at the Giant Eagle. Can you believe it ?
And he offered it to me.
So of course I took that donut and unwrapped the wrinkled bakery tissue from the sticky frosting (humidity is high high high today) and put it out on the front porch ledge and started to shoot away. I did take a bite out of it for photographic purposes. Honestly, they don’t make donuts like they used to back when I was a kid………… The peeling paint on the stone ledge adds a lot to the photo in my opinion.
(If I were to eat a doughnut it would be without chocolate frosting)
Free from Giant Eagle today on National Donut Day.
Bruno’s Gastro Truck Near Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia
We had just seen the Ice Cream Float Boat on the lake.
Food trucks are hot, hot, hot these days.
Spotted Bruno’s Gastro Truck in the parking lot as we were stopping to buy a few rolls of duct tape at Capps Home Building Center . Anna was going to make a duct tape wallet for her Dad’s birthday present.
We’d just been boating with the family with a rented pontoon boat on Smith Mountain Lake and we were headed back to Hardy, VA. Next time we’ll have to try something to eat from this shiny truck.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Summer
You’ve seen Ice Cream Trucks. How about an Ice Cream Boat?
Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia. 500 miles of shoreline.
We were 35 miles from Roanoke. Celebrating Mark’s 36th birthday today.
Memorial Day Weekend with the family. Rented a pontoon boat and enjoyed a hot summery day on the lake.
Ice Cream Boat
Korean BBQ at Kim’s Restaurant in North Philly- Guest Post
You know how happy I am to hear from my grown up kids.
They’re busy with their lives (and families of their own) but when the little ding sounds on the phone, I am like Pavlov’s dog and I salivate with expectation to see what tasty morsel they have sent over the net. I love the updates, the communication, the pics.
When Mark was on business in Philadelphia last week, he met up with his high school friend, Prem, and the two of them enjoyed an authentic Korean BBQ at Kim’s. Mark said it was delicious.
Here is what he sent over the phone.
I enjoyed seeing what they are eating and I like the one he took of himself and his friend at the table.
Elegant and Delicious: Spoon
A classy restaurant we’ve driven by on a daily basis but never stopped to dine.
Celebrating 19 years- our unanniversary- a solid friendship and steadfast companionship, not sure where all that time has gone but there we were in East Liberty and we headed to SPOON.
What we ate- the service was excellent and even though we weren’t ordering up the Foie Gras or the Tasting Menu or a Magnum of Champagne, they treated us hospitably and did not make us feel out of place as we were “walk-ins” and didn’t have reservations which would be a good idea for future visits.
Breadbasket: warm cream cheese chive biscuits/baguette and warm muffins
garden vegetable baby mix green salad: Golden Harvest Farm baby mix greens, fresh garden vegetables, champagne vinaigrette
Spoon burger: 8 oz. Kobe beef, aged white cheddar cheese, parmesan + herb fries, challah bun
Too full for the desserts but they sounded wonderful.
How Do You Feel About Eels?
My mother never cooked one. (she was from Durand, Illinois.)
I can’t remember ever tasting one. An unsophisticated palate or a cultural deficiency?
But I’ve been pondering eels for three days now-and all the people in my life have been talking about food and diets a lot. No one mentioned eels.
I was driving along in the car, listening to the radio and the voice of author, James Prosek, was talking eels and the fascinating book he’s written about them. I mean, this guy knows EVERYTHING about eels.
And I got to thinking how I feel about eels. The eating of them. When you’re driving a couple of hours, you think about all kinds of things. You’ve got time. And as I said it’s three days later and I am still pondering eels?
Now eels, their habits and lives aren’t something I’ve thought much about until I heard him interviewed. I found a link for Vintage Recipes for eel and the title Collared Eel isn’t something I’ve heard come up on anyone’s food blog recently. Maybe eel is part of your Christmas Eve dinner? Lots of Pittsburghers are talking about eating more fish cause it’s Lent. I’m thinking they’re referring to Fish Sandwiches, not eels.
Here is a photo I shot at the Zagreb Fish Market when I was visiting a few years ago. Some eels.
How do you feel about eels?
Here’s the book title
Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World’s Most Mysterious Fish
By James Prosek check out his website for more information on his art and writing.
See an EEL restaurant at a fellow blogger’s post here
Zagreb Fish Market
Carrot Cake, Paleo/Primal Style
You may remember I mentioned my being surrounded by friends and family eating different ways. Here is one, highlighted. My son and daughter-in-law have gone Paleo since January 1st. Meat and plants, no grain is the basic plan. A radical change. They are taking it pretty seriously and I don’t believe it’s a diet I could adhere to totally. But when I arrived Friday night the dinner was diced and sautéed rutabaga, shrimps on a skewer that were delicious,salad, and a cauliflower, broccoli, carrot medley (my name for it, not what it is really called) This cake was the dessert pictured below.
Mark never really baked anything I can ever remember. But he was proud of this carrot cake. After dinner he went out to the garage (where it is cool) and brought in in on a cakestand with a dome! I asked him how he made it since the diet doesn’t have any wheat flour or refined sugar. I mean, it looked like a carrot cake. He said he’d soaked 5 grated carrots in maple syrup and then drained the liquid off. He used coconut flour, an item I don’t have in my pantry. There were some dates in it. And if I heard him correctly, TEN eggs. The icing was whole fat cream cheese and grated ginger.
Whoa, no worries… I just searched found a link with the recipe for the Paleo/Primal Carrot Cake which sounds just like the ingredients he listed. I’m at Laura and James’ tonight so can’t check Mark and Erika’s cookbook and it is too late to call or text to ask.
Proud of the Paleo carrot cake he baked.
It was sweet but not too sweet. Incredibly moist. Satisfying. It reminded me of eating a baked good in Europe that was unfamiliar yet delicious. The ginger flavor was more pronounced on the second day which was okay by me but if you don’t like the pungent zing of fresh ginger you might want the vanilla in the frosting. I have no plans to go Paleo but enjoyed perusing their new cookbooks and finding Italian Pot Roast that sounded great for winter . I see they’re enjoying cooking and planning meals together, shopping for new ingredients. Real converts! Tonight for dinner there was spaghetti sauce on zucchini that had been cut on the mandolin and was used instead of pasta. They are feeling good and looking good and pleased with their change of eating habits.
In 1977 and my parents lived in Philadelphia and I lived there for a year with Mark when he was one, I remember there was a restaurant that specialized in a rich carrot cake if you want to compare recipes. What I remember about that carrot cake was how you didn’t want to eat a whole piece. It was too much.
My mom used to bake an occasional sourdough carrot cake in a Danish green enameled lasagna type pan and I found a recipe for that online.
I would feel comfortable serving the Paleo/Primal carrot cake to dinner guests. Thinking about carrot cakes. Diets. Nutrition. Ingredients. Eating together with family is the best, no matter what is on the plate!
Dan’s Classic All American DINER
Touts a jukebox and seats covered in red vinyl. 1881 South High Street Columbus OH
Urbanspoon gave it a 93 % positive rating. Check it out here. Next time I visit I will photograph the interior. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes or breakfast all day.
Molasses Cookies Mystery
Sunday, a beautiful box of homemade molasses cookies was left on my doorstep. My friend Steve brought them into the house. The sugar on the cracked tops is the fancy kind. I drove back from Ohio Monday night. Ate a couple with some hot tea. Mmmmmmmmm! Reminded me of the cookies my mother used to bake.
I have called three friends to ask if they are the one who dropped off these delicious cookies. My friend V said that another friend came to her mind when I told her I didn’t know who made them. I called.
Wasn’t her either!
Thank you for the delicious molasses cookies. Whoever you are.
(and then I got worried and had to look up grammar rules- whoever/whomever?? )
Most people knew I was away with the family. But maybe they thought I was driving back Sunday night?
3 Year Old Salts Her Popcorn
You have to be vigilant. Pay attention, non-stop. We were all in the same room, together.
No one saw her with the salt shaker. Gone wild.
But I had to photograph it when I noticed it in the morning as we cleaned up after movie night. Hers was the pink bowl. The morning light through the back door caught the colors.
This just in- I had dinner in Arkansas and looks like good luck will be with me in 2012 as I am chowing down on some Black Eyed Peas. ”Cardboard me” showed up in Greg and Katherine’s kitchen. Check it out on their blog here
Air France Meal on a Tray
Airline food. It’s scarce these days. I took this photo on my way to visit Matthew in Zagreb a few summers ago. I flew via Paris. The man across the aisle was laughing as I was photographing. Available light from the airliner’s window. Bon Appetit? Could be categorized Places to get Food
Wish I remembered the names of the dishes served.
So a friend called up and asked, “Where Are You?………..”
……..meaning she thought I might be in Ohio visiting the family but I said ” I am running errands (returning containers that held delicious cookies for the cookie table) in Swissvale and then across the Monongahela to West Mifflin, dropping something off at Aunt Linda’s…” and she invited me to drop by since I was close to her home in Edgewood. And when I got there, this is what was awaiting my arrival. Two colorful plates of a variety of fruit and some smoked gouda cheese triangles. Mmmmmmm. Lucky me. We got a chance to catch up and exchange a few school stories and relive Laura and James’ wedding weekend. The fruit was refreshing and delicious. It was a relaxing and unexpected treat. Good to have good friends!
Night Neon & the Double-Wide Grill
Friday night music was great at the Club Cafe on the South Side. I loved the contrast of the neon’s warm colors of Jack’s and cool blue neon of Club Cafe. I know the “e” is missing but I liked the image of Jack’s going around the corner so I chose this one. I took this shot from across the street as we left to go home.
But wait, we didn’t go right home-
Even though we were exhausted, R invited us to go to the Double-Wide Grill where the onion rings satisfy that deep urge to eat something not really good for you but doesn’t it taste great. (seem to be doing a lot of that type of eating lately) You know I have a thing for old service stations and auto mechanics, right? The old fashioned kind. I did not photograph the food. Hmmmm. But you get a feel for the place.
And when we left I took a shot from the outside and the old gas tank had the amount 37 cents on it. Remember that price per gallon?
Jack's Bar at the corner of Carson and South 12th Street, Southside
Order a basket of onion rings and enjoy!
Vintage gas pump with the 37 cent price- remember when???
A close-up in case your eyes (like mine) couldn't see the 37!
Places to Get Food-#4 in a Series-Alexandria, PA
Route 22- Alexandria PA- the info I found on yelp says it is like a time travel experience, going back about 25-30 years when you enter! I pulled over to the side of the road and photographed it but then wondered if I should be procuring food in this series and write a review?
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