Yay!!!!

It worked! Thank you Molly for your comments. It is soooooo fun to check my blog and find someone has been reading it :).

Kyle, though I appreciate your encouragement, don't we have something more pressing to discuss? LIKE THE FACT THAT YOU GOT MARRIED AND NEVER TOLD ME????? Kilano has his own blog now...see his beautiful wedding photo here. (Scroll down)

Molly, it is hard to stay inspired to cook without the farmers market. But I am thinking of just posting my meals every day in case I ever want to write a cookbook...that way, it'll be already done.

SO, tonight, I had Spinach salad. FYI about spinach: baby spinach should be banned from this earth. Hairy, felt-like spinach should never again be eaten. REAL spinach is shiny and bumpy and has an excellent chewy texture without any mush to it whether raw or cooked. Unfortunately, I only know one farmer who grows it. He says it's just heirloom spinach.

I cooked a wee bit of diced pancetta until it was crisp and then removed it from the pan. Then I cooked finely diced red onion in the fat (would have used shallots, but didn't have any). I added apple cider vinegar (from The Apple Farm), reduced it, and added some olive oil. I got the oil really hot and poured it over the spinach. Then I topped it off with pancetta bits and slices of blood orange. I had some TJ's goat cheese "brie" on the side. Mmmm.

Thanks to Ali, who discovered my camera was not broken at all, but that my memory card was damaged...and gave me a new one, you now have real photos again instead of the cell phone photos you've been seeing lately. Double click for a close-up.




For dessert I boiled fresh ginger, cardamom seeds, and black pepper in water. I steeped black tea in that water and added honey and hot milk. Then I strained it and drank it. Homemade chai tea!