So this has been a week of not very much cooking, although of course we ate. I had been in Chicago over the weekend and I thawed out some enchilada casserole with ground turkey and black beans, in case Belana & Mark might eat it while I was gone. Which of course they didn’t, so on Monday when it was just me and Belana for dinner we ate some of it, with a winter-type fruit salad, an apple and a clementine and a navel orange and some grapes.
On Tuesday I was back in Chicago, and Mark and I had a pre-opera dinner at Little Goat. We split their Caesar salad that was made with frisee and had big croutons, and we both had burgers: I had the special burger of the week, with a southern theme for Mardi Gras, pimento cheese and bacon and red beans and crispy onions. Mark had the regular burger. We were watching it pour outside and lightning & thunder so we weren’t in any hurry to leave. We got coffees and split a slice of King Cake. It was a nice light yeasted dough but instead of cream cheese filling like usual, or almond filling like I use, it came in a puddle of thick vanilla pastry cream and whipped cream on top – on top of the gold, green, and purple sugar. Our timing was good – it stopped raining for us to walk to the Lyric and after to walk to the train and then only poured again for the walk from the Roosevelt Rd. station home. Where we had to take off our clothes to go to bed anyways, so hardly mattered that we were wet.
Wednesday morning I got up early and caught the 7:30 train to be back in Madison in time for my 1:30 class. I had a Starbucks latte and a kind bar for breakfast. I bought a Pret a Manger blueberry yogurt pot, but didn’t eat it until I was back in my office. I was a little surprised that they just dump the granola on top instead of packaging it separately to stay crisp – but it’s less packaging so I guess that’s a good thing. Belana and I had toasted pitas with cheese before we all went to see Pink Martini band at Overture. I think this one, sung in Portuguese, was my favorite song, or maybe Hey Eugene.
On Thursday I talked Mark & Belana into meeting me at Martha Glowacki’s art opening. It was pretty fancy with a cash bar and waitered appetizers and a jazz band. After we went to Short Stack Eatery and had breakfast for lunch. I had an egg sangwich and Mark & Belana had scrambled eggs. I always like to use Short Stack’s website as an example of a website that’s so responsive – optimized for mobile – that it almost doesn’t look good on a laptop.
Library Mall at 6:00ish on Thursday evening as I walked to Martha’s art opening.
Saturday I made red beans & rice with a Salade Lyonnaise on arugula – no poached egg, but I did fry the croutons in the bacon fat and then tossed it all in a mustard-y dressing.
Red beans cooking on Saturday afternoon. Don’t look like much now, but they already smelled good.
Patchwork in progress. This is how far I got Monday night, and then finished it Friday morning.
The ironed-off transfer papers look pretty cool. Maybe I’ll have to collage them too. I ordered more on Friday.
The completed patchwork with shopping bag handles and machine quilting and just a little pink fleece in there.