Day 99, reflection, eats

I looked back at some of my old posts today. It's always good to reflect on things, and how easy the internet makes that.

I'm no champion poster (nor do I claim to be) but I feel as if I've certainly traveled some distance since I first began this blog a mere 99 days ago. July, it appears, was my month of gastronomic/olfactory existentialism. I'm not sure what to make of it, besides chuckling to myself about how powerful that nectarine was.

I may have changed in how I interact with technology, but oddly enough, the one thing that's remained stable in my life during this transitory time is my diet. Quite a comforting notion. Reinforcing this observation, this morning I had oatmeal, for lunch a turkey sandwich and another pork chop for dinner with leftover cucumber sauce. And for dessert, what else but apple mash. I wake to eat and take my eating slow.

Mid-summer foodstuffs

So you may or may not have read a bit about what I've been doing — that should explain my absence to a point. Truth is I've been suffering a bit of arthritis lately, and moving an old man into an old home could motivate a mixture of decay I'm not ready to cope with.

The diet has been good, consistent. Summer berries, tart yogurt, chicken on the barbecue (bought a new grill. Frivolous, sure. Worth it, yes); nothing supremely notable. I do read Gourmet Magazine from time to time — I wish someone would make me these blueberry muffins — and last night I riffed on this recipe to make a delicious and indulgent pork chop.
I subbed provolone for fontina because it was all I had on hand, and it was flavorful to an extreme I was not quite comfortable with. Needless to say I was ready for a good bowl of bran this morning.

Day 74, dinner

Feeling more and more like a lame duck around here ... which is just fine by me. It's a good time to be alive, and also to eat fresh fish (editor's note: I've never been known for my segues).

Hailing from the Northeast, I didn't eat much fish growing up, only the occasional lake trout or cod, usually beer battered or bastardized in some other way. I went to Maine one recent summer and indulged in more than a few lobster rolls, but past that, I'm hardly a Mediterranean dieter, as they say.

My friend Martha, however, is a fishophile (pescaphile?) and is always cooking up some strange and delicious sea creature (it was at her house I first had squid, thrown with baby lettuces, red onion, cilantro and a lemon pepper dressing. To die for).

I've always wanted to master fish preparation, and salmon was on sale at the market so I snatched up a fillet for dinner. Per Martha's advice, I should have grilled it, but I am sans grill (the old Weber finally kicked the bucket) so into the broiler it went. Since preparing the fish didn't turn out to be much of an adventure, I placated my excited nerves by making tzatziki. It turned out to be so scrumptious I nearly ate it all with a spoon before my fillet was cooked.
I suppose I learned my lesson for next time: skip the fish, double the sauce.

Day 66, cherries (what else is there?)

The mark of a good summer is when your weeks come to revolve around the cherry harvest. By nature I am not one to even approach gluttony in my daily habits; I enjoy indulging now and again in small ways (i.e., my predilection for pudding) but no food holds any power over me. Except cherries.

But I think there is more to cherries than the taste and the nutrition. Yesterday, while polishing off a 2 lb. bag of Bing cherries after dinner, as I am wont to do during July's dog days, I thought about how soothing the rhythm of cherry-eating is: Select a cherry, the firmer the better, de-stem it, putting the stems on my tea saucer or, if the environment suits, throwing them into nature, pop in mouth, chew the flesh, omit the pit (again, to tea saucer, off the balcony, out the kitchen/car/office window). Select, de-stem, pop, chew, omit, over and over again. Cherries are indeed some kind of poetry.

Do you like red cherries or white (Rainier) cherries? Either suits me, though I'm partial to the classic variety. At the market, I like to select each cherry by hand, weeding out the ones with imperfections. It can take me 20 minutes to assemble a bag, only to consume it in half that time. Such is life.

Day 57, a link (and some eats)

I found this blog while scouring the Net today: http://obamafoodorama.blogspot.com/

Apparently I'm not the only D.C. food blogger!

I can't speak for the Obamas, but I like home cooking more than restaurant fare. Tonight I made a fantastic pan of buttermilk cornbread (recipe here) to go along with some chili I had stashed in the freezer for a rainy day. No rain today but still wanted the chili. It's a free country, after all.

Day 54, a new supermarket

I tried out a new supermarket this weekend — new for me, at least — Trader Joe's on 25th Street. I was impressed by the prices! Lacking in good produce, though.

I got some great products besides my quotidian staples. There were many interesting things I though about trying, but I ended up with a bag of Australian black licorice, which is delightfully chewy, almond butter (which was the star ingredient in a positively delectable afternoon sandwich with apricot preserves on wheat toast, I'll have to try cashew butter next), a tub of European yogurt and a box of organic corn cereal. I usually don't go out of my way to buy organic, but it looked good and the price was fairly right. Needless to say I had some for dinner and I think the extra 50 cents spent were worth it.

Day 50, a white nectarine

Let it be known that I love food and I love to eat — I think that goes without me typing it on this blog. But there exist occasions on which I become lodged in a "food rut" and eat the same things serially. Why does this happen? Well, I know what I like and I often want the same things again and again. For instance, I love apples, so much so that I eat them when they're out of season. Consequently, I eat subpar apples for at least nine months out of the year. But I trick myself into not minding because I enjoy the fruit so much.

But there comes a point in my months of oft-repititious eating when food consumption becomes less of a sensory experience and more of a stop at a decrepit gas station to refuel the body, so to speak. The turkey and spinach sandwich I ate yesterday lacked thought, character and vigor, but did manage to power me through the afternoon. The apple I had alongside it was not the stuff of legend, but provided me with essential vitamins and minerals. But this is not what food is about.

I was feeling a bit down while having another turkey and spinach sandwich for lunch today. Like a schoolboy, I still look forward to lunchtime and whatever mood-lifting concoction it brings; another halfhearted sandwich was not making my day any better. I was also not eating in anticipation of my dessert, a white nectarine. It's still quite early in the season for these nectarines, but I foolishly bought some a few weeks ago because I was so delighted to see them at the fruit stand. Needless to say, the one I tried then was tasteless and mealy and I shamefully disposed of it after two bites, along with the surplus. But this past weekend, like a moth to a flame, I decided to take another chance on the white nectarine. Thinking conservatively this time, I purchased one.

So there I was yesterday, pitifully munching on my anti-sensory sandwich, preparing for disappointment with my first bite of nectarine. I was positive it was going to be a dud.

But I was wrong.

The nectarine was not perfect. It was yet unripe and hard to the touch (you can see why I feared the worst!). But despite this, its taste was absolutely exquisite — sweet, robust, seasonal. Each bite was rife with pleasure. As its nectar dripped on my clothing, my books and my desk, I praised the arrival of the summer fruit, and the return of my active tastebuds.