black tea
puffed corn cereal in milk
granola bar
white cheddar popcorn
falafel sandwich from maoz. the falafel itself was pretty good, but the pita bread was hard/stale. It only comes with lettuce, but then there's a large salad bar thing to add on. As it's full to bursting in an unsteady little cardboard cup, this is sort of awkward. but the tahini sauce and hot sauce were good, but i should have added more.
cranberry juice
mashed potatoes with onions, garlic and last of the italian sausage. finally.
nori
berry pie

chai tea
banana bread
cranberry juice
italian sausage and roll
banana pudding
ham and cheese sandwich
chocolate
nori
crackers
xxx vitaminwater, after seeing two of my classmates drinking it. it's like watered down kool-aid, much as the orange flavor is watered down tang. so, it's great.
my roommate's semi-famous onion hamburgers. our freezer is frosting over, so we're working our way through all our frozen food (like ground beef! and hamburger buns! and, uh, bagels!)

black tea
banana bread
cranberry juice
rest of chorizo dish
goldfish
sad salmon salad sandwich (salad=salmon and mayonaise, no pickles or lettuce or anything. i need to go grocery shopping.)
banana pudding
miso soup
salmon
hagelslag

black tea
banana bread
iced tea (only half finished, as it was cruelly stolen from me while I was lab teching)
salad with lettuce, feta cheese, bell peppers and croutons with oil and vinegar
strawberry and banana fruit smoothie, as i really thought i was buying a berry smoothie and was hence miffed.
cranberry juice
pasta with tomato sauce (strained from that mistake two days ago!) and sausage.
saranac pale ale (new, and mmm) at freddy's and a white russian at soda. it's been a long two days of school.
argh, kasha and bacon fried pirogies at soda

This post is brought to you by the letter "B"

Well, now there's all this pressure to be entertaining. Hmph. Speaking of entertaining, I had my father visiting this weekend. My mother tells me he likes super-ripe bananas, so I went out and bought some. He ate one, leaving me with five. ("Yes, we have no bananas" was a favorite song of my mother's. I still have no idea what it means.) Which means...banana bread! (And maybe banana pudding somewhere down the line, but I don't know how that's going to work out.)
My favorite banana bread recipe is Big Bird's. Yes, that Big Bird. The recipe is from a Sesame Street book, part of a series of...I dunno, 26? I'm pretty sure it's out of print, so I'll post my version of the recipe. I've tried a few other recipes, and none of them are good. Or maybe I was just brought up to prefer a really moist and dark banana bread.

The first step is mashing three ripe bananas to kingdom come. As shown in the lovely image below. It gets better, really. Or at least briefly. Just looking at the pictures alone will show a distinct narrative arc of not pretty, pretty, and not very pretty. Add 1/4 cup melted butter. Mmm. Then add 3/4 cup of honey, 1/2 tsp of baking soda and 1.5 cups of flour. (Big Bird suggests whole wheat flour, but I generally just use white flour and am all the unhealthier for it. I am not a role model like Big Bird.) Having stirred that altogether, pour into an oiled loaf pan and placed in a preheated (you did preheat, right?) oven at 350 degrees. Bake for one hour, although after one hour my loaf feel apart when I took it out of the pan. So use a loooooong toothpick to poke through the whole loaf to check for doneness. Cool briefly in pan, then let finish cooling on wire rack. Let's linger for a while on the pretty picture. Well, apparently the banana bread doesn't want to linger, but wants to get a move on. Or I need steadier hands.
Shoulda baked it longer. I tried cooking it a little longer in a turned-off oven after I got the top half off and then pushed it back in. It didn't really work very well, but was definitely moist and tasty as ever.
In conclusion, children should be allowed to watch television as it leads to things like the best banana bread.

banana bread
puffed corn cereal with milk, which reminds me of that scene in little house on the prairie where he eats popcorn in milk.
cranberry juice
leftover black bean soup
leftover chorizo dish
rice
roommate's ice cream dibs. ate less than the suggested serving size of 26.

finally caught up

hagelslag!
coffee
leftover quesadilla
goldfish crackers
cranberry juice
chorizo dish, which i managed to mess up pretty badly. it should have had garlic and an onion (i didn't) and drained chopped tomatoes (i had crushed tomatoes in puree, which were very soupy) and chorizo (hot italian sausage...) and black beans, which were fine. although in the past i've mistakenly used black bean soup. and i forgot i didn't have rice to make to go with it.
banana bread

back in new york, 24th and 25th.

take out from chavella's, grilled corn with cheese and a potato quesadilla.
breakfast at the usual, corned beef hash with easy over eggs, home fries, toast and orange juice.
dinner in koreatown, many little dishes, plus barbequed kalbi, some sort of...tendon? and raw steak with egg and pears, which was surprisingly good.

in vermont, aug 22nd to 24th:

sweetwater's, had a bison burger. the whole place seemed mediocre at best, but did the job of feeding us.

magnolia, which was tres charmant. somewhat slow service, but tasty lemon ricotta pancakes and apparently super-green.

pho dang, potentially the only pho restaurant in vermont.

mirabelle's, which was also very cute and with also somewhat slow service. i had a popover with scrambled eggs, but wished i had picked up a cupcake or tart or scone or muffin.

aug 18th to 21st

had brunch at crepe cafe with a friend. We both had coffee and "The Fitzgerald" which was a crepe with scrambled eggs, mushrooms, bacon and cheddar cheese, topped with bechamel sauce. It was incredibly tasty, and probably only took 3.25 years off of my life.

had lunch with a friend i haven't seen in maybe 8 years. caught up, had a bleu cheese and bacon chicken burger with a salad at elliott bay brewing company.

'helped' make jin dui with red bean paste, something like this.

black sticky rice pudding with coconut milk from a thai restaurant.

momos, made by my mama.

rice krispie treats
piroshki (potato and mushroom, too salty)
mini donuts!
gai bao
dinner at the ocean city noodle shop since ocean city proper was closed. mmm, peking duck.

well, i haven't been eating the marshmallows i made, because eating marshmallows straight is not really my thing, but other people seem to be.

at home on the morning of the 11th:
jook
cranberry juice
black tea
lemon bundt cake
brie en broiche

i've decided that keeping track of what i eat while at home is a losing battle. i will talk about the more unusual things thus far. (also, i just ran a mile! for the first time in...uh, maybe a year and a half.)

lomi lomi
chicken long rice
sushi
char sui
we made oatmeal cookies, pumpkin bread, and marshmallows.

iced tea
brie and crackers
last of the chicken taquitos with salsa
pesto pasta
bread and jam
-----
at the air port/plane (so it doesn't really count)
maui onion potato chips
chocolate covered pretzels
pocky
bloody mary mix
crackers with strange 'parmesan peppercorn cheese'
chocolate chip shortbread
granola bar
cranberry juice

orange cake
iced tea
watermelon
bread with jam and brie
granola bar
burger and fries from 5 guys
lemonade
bread with butter
chicken taquitos with salsa. I am severely concerned about the state of our freezer and all we keep in it, so I'm trying to eat up all my frozen food as I don't trust it to last two more weeks.
clementine

orange cake
black tea
watermelon
yogurt with granola and honey
ice cream
nori
sorbet
brie with crackers
tomatoes
trader joe's chicken vindaloo (severly eh) and a beer

orange cake
salmon salad sandwich
black tea
granola bar
mango ice shower and cream puff
chicken noodle soup with bread
raspberry sorbet
nori
brie and crackers

orange cake
granola with yogurt and honey
black tea
ginger ale
pasta salad with pesto, tomatoes and mozzarella
ice cream
chicken noodle soup with bread
yellow watermelon
brie and crackers
salmon salad sandwich
brownies

August oranges

My roommate is somewhat...particular, so I made him a tried and tested cake for his birthday, even if wasn't as ambitious as previous birthday cakes. The first time I made it, he and I ate it so much that it gone within the day, leading my other roommate to wish she had taken more sooner. It's a light, airy cake and has an quasi-caramelized base and very orangey, and comes from Chocolate and Zucchini.
This shot is of the surface of the moon. Fine, it's the cake pan buttered and sugared. It was hard to refrain licking the pan already.
The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of orange juice, or about the juice of one orange, plus the zest of one orange. I always assume my produce will not be the same size as anyone elses, so I bought two oranges; the worst possible scenario then means I have fresh fruit. Panic! Anyway, it look me one and a half oranges to get the half cup, although I don't have a real citrus juicer either which may have contributed to a low yield. Here are the ravaged and destroyed oranges. One of the reasons I think I like baking so much is that I get to eat the raw batter or dough. This recipe is exceptional in the fact that the batter doesn't taste very good raw. (Believe me, I always lick the bowl when I'm done, and most raw doughs taste excellent. I also assume in this day and age that raw eggs are pretty safe. Or, at least, I've fended off salmonella up until now.) Out of the oven, the cake is supposed to cool for ten minutes in the pan, then you flip it over onto a serving plate to finish cooling, and the caramelized part is on top. It's a really lovely cake, although I think I would flip it over to a rack to finish cooling instead of a plate next time. The plate doesn't allow for much cooling, and means the cake ends up sticking to the plate a lot. Still, my roommate's birthday was successfully celebrated, and thusly ends the summer birthdays. Whew.

clementine
orange cake
banana pancakes with fruit and coffee at moutarde
(not-very) mango (not-at-all-alcoholic) daquiri at coney island boardwalk
brooklyn lager, fried chicken sandwich and fries at brooklyn cyclones game
cotton candy

clementine
scrambled eggs, toast, home fries and corned beef hash with coffee at the usual
mojito
yellow watermelon
ice cream
fresh squeezed orange juice, leftover from making a cake
pasta salad with pesto, fresh mozzerella and tomatoes with brooklyn pennant ale
the orange cake, in honor of my roommate's birthday

yogurt with granola and honey
clementine
caprese salad (sans basil, don't want to kill off the remaining plant)
saltwater taffy
ginger ale
trader joe's chicken enchiladas, sort of eh
beard papa vanilla cream puff
chicken pad-se-euw with singha at bennie's thai restaurant
ice cream (ben and jerry's ameri-cone dream!)

gnocchi with bread to cut through the richness
yogurt with granola and honey
caprese salad
bahn mi and vietnamese iced tea at Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches
orange (sorry, essential) vitaminwater
nori
one brownie
artichoke with mayonaise
rest of the gnocchi, again with a slice of bread
raspberry sorbet

peanut butter cookie (last one, finally)
bread with butter
chicken taquitos with salsa
cheddar, ham and pear sandwich at 'wichcraft with an iced tea
red currants
pickles
caprese salad, english muffin, ginger ale
nori
raspberry sorbet
brie and crackers
bites of leftover truffle gnocchi