First and foremost, I saw these beautiful flowers on Prytania Street while walking to The Creole Creamery for ice cream tonight with my roommates.
I am sitting here on my air mattress with my feet up and in Ped Egg toe "relaxers" because they have been washed and massaged with peppermint lotion and deserve to be pampered. My feet did a job today, biking me almost six miles around the city and walking me at least 40 minutes' round trip to get ice cream this evening. (I had the Mango Unchained! and Cafe au Lait, by the way - both amazing.) Anyone able to tell me what these flowers are?
I spent some time this afternoon sitting on my front lawn and knitting (so now I'm combining my two blogs: I was working on the shawl mentioned in my knitting blog here) when I noticed a group of kids across the street. They slipped between the fence on a vacant lot and started shouting "I found berries! I've got this many" and "I've got THIS many!" I couldn't figure out what they were talking about. They left with their hands full of something and came back one row's worth of stitching time later with a plastic bin.
At this point I realized they'd found blackberries, growing on the largest blackberry bush - a tree, really - that I'd ever seen. After they left I walked across the street and picked a couple. I asked the gentleman in the house nearby if they were edible, and he said, "Yeah, once you wash 'em! Problem is, you'll never get enough!" I picked seven mostly black ones and took them into the kitchen. I ran water over them halfheartedly because I'm far less worried about wild blackberries growing in my neighborhood than I am about conventional blackberries sprayed with God knows what. They were so, so good; like sunshine trapped in a shadow. My neighbor's right; I probably will never get enough for them to be worthwhile, but boy is it nice to say: "I fancy a blackberry - lemme go next door and pick a few."
For the past few days I've been eating out a lot and bringing home leftovers because that's what I always do. I love leftovers and microwave them quite often. But, my current residence does not have a microwave, never has, and probably never will. My two roommates get along just fine cooking single meals and eating mostly cold food, like cereal and cooked sausages and salads. This is all well and good and part of my culinary adventures will be adjusting to not having a microwave. But I have a real hard time waiting for food to heat in the oven; I was never a patient person and the only thing that's helped is my knitting. I'm still not a patient person but I'm trying.
Anyways, I had a lovely salad for lunch today and for dinner decided I'd rather cook some of what I'd bought instead of wait to heat up my half of a pancake and fried potatoes from a few days ago. So I cooked couscous and burned it, salvaging enough for two helpings. Then I sauteed onions in olive oil and Vegemite (for the salt and for the deliciousness; if you've never tried it you should, no matter what you've heard about it), and added chopped carrots and yellow pepper. I spooned some of the couscous into a bowl with some of the veggies and added turmeric and oregano. It tasted good but needed something so I ate it with a block of the mildest sharp cheddar cheese that I've ever tasted. The two together were really yummy.
May I just say I've found a new favorite website? I'm tempted to try one of these each morning:
Breakfast Vegemite recipes Some of the more interesting ones are Toad in the Hole (like Eggy in a Basket), Vegemite and Avocado on Toast, and the mind-boggling Vegemite Breakfast Tarts. Ohhhhkay then!
Thank goodness it's 10:22 p.m. (Central time!) and I'm going to bed soon, otherwise I'd be hungry!
We all need food to survive so we might as well enjoy it. Happy munching!
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