MetaSnackFilter July 19, 2018 5:36 AM   Subscribe

Let's lighten the mood. It's the end of the week and I want to hear about something fun and not about politics. Tell me about a really awesome snack/food you just ate. What you eating?
posted by Fizz to MetaFilter-Related at 5:36 AM (183 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite

I made Smitten Kitchen's charred eggplant and walnut pesto pasta salad and it was incredibly delicious.
posted by capricorn at 5:37 AM on July 19, 2018 [6 favorites]


I just ate a peach. I don’t think there’s anything more delicious than an in-season peach.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:40 AM on July 19, 2018 [27 favorites]


I just ate a peach. I don’t think there’s anything more delicious than an in-season peach.

A bowl of chilled in-season cherries? Which is my favourite summer time end of the night, post dinner snack. I'll probably have that later tonight actually.

I did just eat a donut.
posted by Fizz at 5:46 AM on July 19, 2018 [10 favorites]


Picked black raspberries yesterday and made a galette. It was dessert last night but my editor suggested (jokingly?) that she would eat it for every meal. So I had some for breakfast. And now I worry this day will be all downhill. Unless I have some for lunch, I guess.
posted by veggieboy at 5:46 AM on July 19, 2018 [7 favorites]


Out here in the wilds of Hokkaido I just finished a bag of perfect Calbee salt crisps and a weird saison beer with a frog on. Lake Mashu tomorrow!
posted by mdonley at 5:51 AM on July 19, 2018 [12 favorites]


mdonley, I like the art on that can of beer. That frog looks super chill.
posted by Fizz at 5:53 AM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


Heck yeah, fruit season. We just got through a bunch of cherries (Ebony Pearl, Black Pearl, and Ranier), and peaches are starting soon…
posted by zamboni at 5:54 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


These days, all I want to eat are fresh fruit and cottage cheese. Fortunately, the pseudo-cafeteria in my government office building has a buffet of fresh fruit and cottage cheese. It's not great fresh fruit but it still scratches the itch.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:00 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Fresh-picked red raspberries. My former neighbor in our two-family house planted raspberry canes, and I've been picking them by the pint this week and last. I've got some in the freezer, some in a jar of vodka which I'll eventually add sugar to for liqueur, and the rest go straight into my face.
posted by dywypi at 6:02 AM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


A large amount of chilled watermelon. Swoon!
posted by Amy NM at 6:08 AM on July 19, 2018 [6 favorites]


Pie! I let some friends stay at my dad's house during a goregous-for-the-season weekend. On their way out, they gave me a pie. I don't know if it was a thank you pie or a "We bought this and never ate it" pie. I had a slice or two but then got to share it with my sister and boyfriend last night and mmmmm there is nothing like sharing some damned good pie on a damned good summer evening.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 6:15 AM on July 19, 2018 [16 favorites]


And if your peaches (or nectarines, or whatever) are less than you had hoped, you can salvage them by making peach muffins! I now have ten delicious nectarine muffins from three nectarines that were just not up to snuff. I used to have twelve, but...delicious.
posted by Liesl at 6:20 AM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


I firmly believe that any fruit-based dessert is also an appropriate breakfast. Pie is great for breakfast. I am willing to fight for this one.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:37 AM on July 19, 2018 [20 favorites]


I was going to talk a big game about the lovely lychees I'd had but let's be real, the lychees were dessert and the main course was a bag of ruffles cheddar & sour cream flavor, holy shit I love them so much.
posted by Mizu at 6:38 AM on July 19, 2018 [9 favorites]


On Monday gone, one of the early signs of autumn arrived with the first wild blackberries being ready to eat. They weren't that good, being the first fruit and compromised by the ongoing lack of rain. The timing is not a great surprise, as Lammas - the first harvest festival of the year - is less than two weeks away now.

The day afterwards, from the selection in a village some six miles north of here, I had the vanilla cream slice which was rather splendid, and took a fruit tart home with me for supper.

At the cricket this afternoon, one consumed a slice of chilled chocolate gateau and a nice pot of tea. The temperatures complemented each other, as did the sweetness of the cake and the sharpness of the drink. Unfortunately I was too hungry and thirsty to take a picture first so annoyingly there is no record of this. I was in two minds over buying the cake, but the baker was there, a diminutive old lady with anecdotes about seeing famous cricketers unclothed in the changing rooms which I can't repeat for legal reasons, and the entertainment they provided made it worthwhile. I'll never be able to listen to Test Match Special with the same innocent mind again, though.

There is also a small wheel of cheese in my fridge which was won in a village raffle (the same village that, for a time, had the vicar who was into ... photographs of equine-human interactions). And it was won fairly and squarely. Despite what the person with leather patches on his tweed jacket who spent thirty pounds on tickets, to my paltry 50p, muttered to anyone who would listen to him. I have since discovered that he is on twitter, so I might start tweeting pictures of the wheel of cheese directly to him every time I eat a small piece over this late summer. Currently trying to think of an appropriate twitter handle for this; so far @FairlyWonCheese seems best but am open to suggestions.

Currently eating my daily portion of broccoli, partially so when the doctor asks me what my diet is like I can truthfully say that I diligently eat green vegetables every day. I remain cautiously optimistic that the weather will be favourable for a trip out to one of my favourite local villages this weekend. There will be cake (and a hog roast).
posted by Wordshore at 6:45 AM on July 19, 2018 [21 favorites]


We've been making papanași, Romanian cheese doughnuts topped with smetana (very high fat sour cream, almost like creme fraiche) and jam. Here's a recipe and some representative pics. If you live near a grocery where Polish or other Eastern European people shop, they'll have shepherd's cheese (which works better than ricotta or cottage cheese) and the smetana, so you can try these too. They're not hard to make.

They are pretty amazing.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:48 AM on July 19, 2018 [9 favorites]


Pie is great for breakfast. I am willing to fight for this one.

Make breakfast pie, not war.
posted by nubs at 6:48 AM on July 19, 2018 [7 favorites]


Anyways, my last snack indulgence is one I’m not very proud of - last night I re-discovered a bag of chips I bought when doing the groceries about 3 weeks ago, stashed, and forgot about. I had some with salsa while catching up on the Expanse.
posted by nubs at 7:06 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Last night I made a milkshake with cherry vanilla ice cream and half and half.

It was decadent.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:06 AM on July 19, 2018 [10 favorites]


Some colleagues tipped me off this week to an AMAZING salad place just around the corner from the office that I didn't even know existed. Been there twice already and this has improved my life greatly compared to the crap salads in the cafeteria.

Had two nectarines last night that were just so.
posted by arcticseal at 7:11 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


I just had this chocolate shaped like skulls with raspberry & licorice filling. If you eat the whole thing of something it counts as a snack, right?

Especially if it was discounted.
posted by Vesihiisi at 7:13 AM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


I'm eating chocolate covered gummy bears. They sound disgusting, and on one level they are, but they're the perfect blend of chocolate, sugar, and chewy texture for me.
posted by joyceanmachine at 7:14 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Last night I had some caramel praline ice cream and this morning, my favorite breakfast/morning snack, the Costco/Kirkland nut bar.
posted by deezil at 7:20 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


I’m visiting my family in Maryland and have already begun the culinary tour of my local favorites. I had a crabcake sandwich for dinner last night (although I’ve had better, to be honest) and this morning I had a bunch of fruit from an orchard we used to go to when I was a kid. Also on the agenda is crab chips, which I always regret, but get anyway. I’m hoping to hit my favorite restaurants in the area, time permitting, especially Roger Miller and one of any number of local Indian favorites.

Before I left, my girlfriend and I went out to celebrate my new job. We had, among other things, fried squid with chilis and watermelon. Summery!
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 7:39 AM on July 19, 2018 [6 favorites]


My last snack (coffee's not a snack, is it?) was last night: wild wineberries from my woods, with cream. The wineberries are bridging between the season for my domestic black raspberries and the Asian pears, which are the first of my tree fruit to ripen in late summer. Interesting your comment about drought and blackberries, Wordshore. I've got a steep hillside with some Himalayan blackberries and they're starting to ripen. I tasted a few yesterday or the day before and was not impressed, but we hadn't had rain in about 3 weeks so I wonder if they'd be better under less droughty conditions.
posted by drlith at 7:40 AM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


I love spicy hummus. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not "pure" hummus but Sabra's Supremely Spicy hummus or Cava's Spicy hummus are just deliciousness (I like carrots or tortilla chips).

I've also been putting Pico Fruta on all my fruit. I made a delicious fruit salad of peaches, blueberries and sweet cherries with a lime-agave dressing and a good helping of that. It was divine.
posted by darksong at 7:40 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


A Belgian bun so rich in sugar my teeth began to ache even before I put it in my mouth. Washed down with winter spiced red tea. Very good.

Once again we timed our hols to miss the arrival of our raspberries, but there are still some hanging around to go in my breakfast. Tasty but a but small, which we put down to three weeks of unusually warm weather for hereabouts.
posted by biffa at 7:44 AM on July 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


* pulls up chair and sits down *

You've caught me right in the middle of "my CSA is piling the food on and I am baking/cooking/doing stuff to stay on top if it all" season. Hello.

* I found this sherbet when I was searching for sour cherry recipes. The fact that it uses lemon verbena is a bonus both from the "omigod it uses lemon verbena I get to use some of that plant that's going nuts" angle and the "it lends a great flavor to this too" angle.

* I stumbled upon the cookbook "French Desserts" in the "sale" bin at my local bookstore, and bought it mainly for the title - also it's a beautiful book, and it was a steal. It's by an American expat, so there is a wee bit of "I'm gonna put my own personal spin on these classics" on one or two occasions, but mostly her angle is, "listen, this isn't the fancy-ass patisserie stuff, this is the homey simple comfort-food kind of desserts that French people make for their families." Right away I found a loaf cake that I've made again and again, with zucchini and lemon. (Shoutout to the Mefi Knitting group - this is what I was trying to make for the World Cup party, but there was a bit of an incident involving my using a slightly-too-small pan and part of it overflowed while rising and it ended up looking like a smacked ass.) There are some nice happy easy pies I've made from here, and a couple of mousses and cookies and such.

* Speaking of French recipes, cakes, and zucchini - I've long loved the blog Chocolate and Zucchini; Clotilde Dusolier is a great writer and has the most charming writer's voice. She picked the name for her blog to refer to her double-sided approach to food (seasonal produce on the one hand, "treat yourself sometimes" on the other), but when she learned that there is such a thing as chocolate zucchini cake, she had to develop a recipe for it. I've made it for my book club tonight (we get a bit competitive with baking sometimes).

* Clotilde has also just released a new cookbook, giving her personal spin on "currently popular Parisian recipes" - there are things like a proper cafe au lait, but then there are things like the potato chip omlette, which apparently is a smash brunch hit at Lazare. The recipe linked there uses plain potato chips and chives, but suggests that you can play around with other potato chip flavors. The inaugural batch I made used some sriracha flavored potato chips my roommate contributed to the cause; this was realllly interesting. There's also a recipe for these pancakey things with chickpea flour and grated carrot that were a nice addition to an Indian-themed party we had at the house recently.

* I have to include something from the cookbook I recommend all the damn time - I make their "Classic Sichuan Noodles" recipe all the damn time because it's really easy and keeps in the fridge forever and therefore is a go-to "I need to stock the fridge wtih things so I can brown-bag my lunch easier" tactic. (Lately I've been making double batches because my roommate tried some once and went apeshit for it and it's a house staple now.) They also have a couple of single-vegetable salads that I was able to use on the backlog of beets and carrots I have, plus a couple of nice bean salads from this book and some of the other Moosewood books, and that has been my lunches for the past week (and for dinners, I use a couple salads to supplement a simple roast chicken leg, and dinner is sorted).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:46 AM on July 19, 2018 [8 favorites]


I made malted peanut butter ice cream.

It was transcendent.
posted by duffell at 7:57 AM on July 19, 2018 [18 favorites]


Between the veggie/fruit CSA and "meat club" from the local butcher (plus a bunch of other stuff I either butchered myself or acquired from local hobby farmers), we've been eating some wonderful local food lately. Last night's meal was a rustic pork pate (pork shoulder, chicken livers, mushroom, shallot, some seasonings, wrapped in homemade bacon), a fennel and zucchini salad (using up those CSA veg!), and some toasted bread.

The garden is finally starting to produce, which is nice. I planted a borage this year not really knowing anything about it, and it overwhelmed a bunch of my herbs and nearly killed all of them. It seems like every time I cut it back it just gets bigger. We tried some of the leaves in a salad, but they're a bit fuzzy and not really to my liking. What else do you do with borage?
posted by backseatpilot at 7:59 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


Frosting sandwiches! I just recently made Ms. nobeagle a lemon birthday cake roll and there was plenty of leftover lemon frosting. But really it doesn't have to be lemon - any frosting makes a really good sandwich; even if Ms. nobeagle thinks it's weird. It reminds my brain of sweet donuts but delightfully different and cleaner on the hands.
posted by nobeagle at 8:02 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


I make all the Smitten Kitchen recipes! OK no I don't, but I bookmark them. Facebook's algorithm must think I'm a stay-at-home-mom with a Whole Foods/Trader Joe's/butcher/greengrocer within walking distance. I am not. But cherries are in season at my Kroger and last night I sprayed on some bug spray and sat out on the back deck and ate cherries for dinner, spitting the pits into the yard. "Is this sexy?" I asked mr. headnsouth as I curled my tongue around one to prepare. "Depends how far you can spit it," he said. I am not a very good pit-spitter, so it was judged more ridiculous than hot. The cherries were good though.
posted by headnsouth at 8:05 AM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


We were in Chicago for our daughter's college orientation (go Ramblers!!) and I had an AMAZING elote taco at Flaco's Taco. It was ridiculously good.
posted by cooker girl at 8:12 AM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


So they're sort of ordinary, but I am really digging the Smash Mallow "premium snackable marshmallow" snacks (I bought them because I mistakenly thought they were vegan and I wanted to make rice krispie treats that the vegetarian spouse would eat) lately. They're flavored squares of marshmallow and I've loved every flavor except the cinnamon churro which was just too sweet. They are the rare confection I don't try to eat too much of while not ending up sorry I bothered at all.
posted by crush at 8:14 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


The other day I caved and bought a bag of Swedish Fish, a box of Mike and Ikes, and a bag of Hersey's Miniatures for my office desk drawer. I don't like the Krackles so if anyone wants them, come get them.

I made fried chicken for dinner last night. I learned how to make it from my Irish mom, though I improved on her technique a lot and have it down to a science (including clean-up) and it's pretty damn good. I'm sure a Southerner would scoff at both my technique and resulting product, but I love my fried chicken so it's all good. I only ever make it when my family is away because my wife doesn't like to eat fried stuff and my son doesn't like fried chicken because he's a stupid dummy head with terrible taste in food.

I'll be going on vacation starting Saturday and hopefully will catch some bass which I will then filet and fry in bacon grease. This is the proper way to eat fish.

Tonight I will most likely be eating ice cream with MeFites. You should come.
posted by bondcliff at 8:16 AM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


Lobsta roll. Toasted bun with brushed melted butter style. 'Nuff said.
posted by AugustWest at 8:19 AM on July 19, 2018 [8 favorites]


For me summertime signals Mexican beers with lime. I don't drink beer all that much anymore (and my tastes have matured just a tad, with my income), but I do still love some lime in warm weather.

Sometime in the spring I discovered a place down the street that serves up an awesome ceviche pescado. I've been there at least once a week for the last six weeks or so, and on the days that I don't go I daydream about it. I don't go every. single. day. because it's a small family-run place and I would be terribly embarrassed to walk in so frequently. They would definitely notice.

Earlier this week I discovered that they have $1.50 Taco Wednesdays. You better believe we had fish tacos and ceviche for dinner last night.
posted by vignettist at 8:22 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Defrosted the last of our home-raised-and-butchered 'wings, slathered them with breading and Frank's hot sauce and butter, deep-fried them hard enough to make my eyes water, and ate the best damn chicken wings ever.
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:22 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


...and a bag of Hersey's Miniatures for my office desk drawer. I don't like the Krackles so if anyone wants them, come get them.

Krackles are the worst. Sugar, some odd mildly fruitlike flavoring, and holes. Why? I don't like the normal-sized Mr. Goodbar but he's the only Miniature worth reaching into the bag for.
posted by headnsouth at 8:23 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Krackles are the worst.

YOU SHUT YOUR DIRTY MOUTH
posted by duffell at 8:36 AM on July 19, 2018 [11 favorites]


Let me take this opportunity to proselytize Whatchamacallit bars. I get the sense not many people buy them. I can't fathom why. They're like the Platonic ideal of what the disappointing new Snickers Peanut Butter Crisper variety is trying to be.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 8:37 AM on July 19, 2018 [8 favorites]


A Mr Big chocolate bar, those things are tasty. I thought it would be similar to a Picnic bar, but it's more like a Chomp bar with nuts.

I had mashed potato and gravy for dinner last night. Brown sauce is not as tasty as Gravox. If anyone can recommend a gravy that tastes like Gravox, it would be greatly appreciated.
posted by Kris10_b at 8:39 AM on July 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


I make all the Smitten Kitchen recipes! OK no I don't, but I bookmark them.

I FORGOT TO ADD TO MY LIST

Three years, and thus three CSA springs, ago, I got rhubarb and strawberries at the same time and was looking for something that used them both, and found this on Smitten Kitchen. It has since become the reason I look forward to strawberry-and-rhubarb season because:

* it uses a decent amount of both strawberries and rhubarb,
* It is super-simple to make (seriously, you don't need a mixing bowl because you mix the ingredients for the crust right in the pan you're going to bake in), and
* the added-sugar content is low enough that you can tell yourself that they work as a breakfast food.

I double the recipe and then eat my way through it. Usually takes me two weeks of having a bar every day for breakfast.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:42 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


If summer disappeared entirely from the Earth, the only thing I'd personally miss would be Ranier cherries. It's the one redeeming thing about July, and even though they all get shipped from a long distance here, I'm finding it hard to eat anything else.
posted by eotvos at 8:48 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Yeah, if I want to eat Rice Krispies I'll eat some Rice Krispies. I don't want them to ruin a perfectly good chocolate bar.

Also, Rice Krispies are the dumbest cereal. That's just science.
posted by bondcliff at 8:57 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


Frozen black cherries!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:14 AM on July 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


We had a bumper crop of fruit last year that I froze, compounded with this year's incoming crop. In addition, more and more of my friends are going alcohol free, and I've been wanting to have more on hand for them to drink than tap water and LaCroix. So I have decided to start turning it all into shrubs. This weekend I put away the following:
Watermelon
Mixed berry and raspberry
Two kinds of tomato
And then I made fruit scrap vinegars for future shrubs with the remaining fruit.
posted by ikahime at 9:18 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


I got some delicious Cosmo’s salami at the farmers market here in Gravenhurst yesterday. It’s my absolute must-stop every time we go there.
I made 2 loaves of banana bread with all the old bananas at 1am last night while I was drinking beer and watching The Shining.
posted by chococat at 9:18 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


I convinced my wife that I'm sexually aroused by Litehouse Chunky Blue Cheese dressing. That's an exaggeration, but the stuff is really good.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:27 AM on July 19, 2018 [7 favorites]


Epilogue to add that I am monitoring this thread while eating a bag lunch made of two of the aforementioned single-vegetable salads (roasted baby red beets in oil and vinegar, sliced raw carrot in oil and vinegar with some turmeric) and a black bean ful with lemon juice and garlic and chopped tomato, with a couple baby pitas. Huzzah summer produce.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:32 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


Scooped out bagels.
posted by Hermione Granger at 9:34 AM on July 19, 2018 [8 favorites]


This week has been a luxury snack week - it was my birthday last weekend and one of the gifts I got was a selection of Betty's products. We finished the assorted chocolates earlier in the week and now have the ends of a box of salted caramel chocolates and a box of florentines to finish off. It's incredibly good chocolate.

In non-fancy snack news, we're watching Battlestar Galactica (a rewatch for me and a first-time watch for my dude - I think I first suggested watching it very early on in our relationship and it was our five-year anniversary on Monday, to give you an idea of how long it takes us to get around to doing anything) and our BSG snack of choice is popcorn. Preferably either salty or made with real sugar - since I quit drinking diet coke I'm much more grossed out by strong sweetener tastes and sadly a lot of the "sweet" popcorn now tastes terrible.
posted by terretu at 9:44 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


you weaklings and your in-season fruits, REAL FRUIT FANS EAT ENTIRE PINEAPPLES EVERY DAY YEAR ROUND
posted by poffin boffin at 9:44 AM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


The other day I caved and bought a bag of Swedish Fish, a box of Mike and Ikes, and a bag of Hersey's Miniatures for my office desk drawer.

Creepy! I just bought two out of three of those, also for my office desk drawer, the other day.

Maybe you're my clone.
posted by dlugoczaj at 9:45 AM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


I had to take my dog to the vet this morning for a dental cleaning , so since I was late to work anyway I stopped at my local coffee place. I got a hazelnut and peach tart and an iced latte with whole milk for breakfast. So indulgent, very delicious, no regrets. (Also my dog is old and I am nervous about his teeth cleaning (he's in good health, it's just standard helicopter parent anxiety) so I was soothing myself with food a little bit. Still no regrets!)
posted by Fig at 9:46 AM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


You mean like "just ate"? Oohhh. We had a bowl of chicken fat left over from our last (organic) roast in the fridge, and so we dipped little toasts in it and put a little salt on top and also we had martinis. That's about ten minutes ago. I still can't really type.
posted by Namlit at 10:11 AM on July 19, 2018 [10 favorites]


I'm sexually aroused by Litehouse Chunky Blue Cheese dressing
It looks like they merged with Kraft (boo) but if you're ever in Canada try the Renée's Chunky Blue Cheese Dressing, you will have a sex affair with it.
posted by chococat at 10:15 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


[It's a special day when you get favorited by Wordshore even before the edit window goes away. Especially if it's favorite no. 8001. Now Bubbly]
posted by Namlit at 10:16 AM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


They were only here for a limited time but I bought a bag of ketchup Doritos at lunch a while back and it was like a scene from Alien - except in my case the bag was attached to my face. I could not stop eating them. I was originally planning to share them with coworkers but nope, all went to me. It was simultaneously disgusting and delicious. Y'all have really high end snack food - I rarely eat bagged snack food but when someone mentions snacks, that is what I associate.
posted by biggreenplant at 10:19 AM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


I ate my first wild blackberry of the season yesterday. The vines all around town are already dripping with new green berries, and we're having all kinds of sun after a long, wet winter and spring so it's looking like it's going to be a very huge berry season.

Someone I know was walking around with a cup with like five different wild berries in it and I don't know where they found them all so early. They had blackberries, thimbleberries, raspberries, salal and some oregon grape and a couple of others I didn't recognize.

At work, someone dropped off a quart of really good vanilla ice cream from our local ice cream shop, and I used it to make a couple of affogatos since I have an espresso machine right there. This has to be one of the best ways to get jacked up on caffeine in the summer and I love the flavor combinations and spooning hot espresso over cold ice cream.

Bonus: I tried this WITH raspberries and blackberries. Do this. It's AMAZINGLY GOOD. The way I like to do this is have a small bowl of ice cream, a bowl of chilled berries and my espresso shot all separate, with a little spoon. Drop a few berries on the ice cream, drizzle a few spoonfuls of espresso over the ice cream and berries, take a bite. Repeat until finished.

Affogatos are one of my favorite summer snacks in general. It's not at all uncommon for me to go to the local ice cream parlor and pick up the smallest 1-scoop cup, then immediately bike down to the best coffee shop in town (not mine, sadly!) and get a double shot then sit in the plaza or on the beach to combine the two.

Friends? I make weird animal noises and sometimes even purr. It's so sensual I probably shouldn't be doing this in public.

Also, I think I have eaten well over 20 pounds of Rainier cherries this year. They're everywhere, and I've been prone to just grabbing a bag whenever I see them and bringing them to work or my local bar and sharing them wherever I go, and a lot of people I know are doing the same thing with a variety of berries and cherries.

Oh, hey, I took a pic a few weeks back because we were chatting about Rainier cherries. Look at those things! They're huuuuge! They're the size of small plums!
posted by loquacious at 10:23 AM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


Got to try a new kind of wild berry recently. I found a great berry picking spot with both red and black raspberries and a few purple raspberries - red/black hybrids. The berries are purple with a taste of their own, quite good.
posted by Redstart at 10:23 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


This morning for breakfast I had Frosted Flakes with fresh, yummy, healthy raw milk from the local farmstand. I’m a bundle of contradictions that way.
posted by Melismata at 10:25 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


If you're a low carb/high protein/meat-eating kind of person, let me share my discovery that jerky actually comes in two varieties: Epic Brand All-Natural Meat Bars and "Other." Holy crap, these are good. The grassfed beef/apple/uncured bacon are my jam. They're less like meat-flavored shoe leather and more like perfectly cured delicious meat served in candy bar-shaped chunks.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:25 AM on July 19, 2018 [6 favorites]


perfectly cured delicious meat served in candy bar-shaped chunks

Yeah, those epic bars are basically meat power bars. I never thought I'd see what amounts to fancy pemmican on store shelves next to the granola bars and/or jerky, but here we are.
posted by loquacious at 10:32 AM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


I have taken to baking pepperoni into little spicy black crunchy chips and using them for dipping. They are delicious and hard to put down and very easy to make.
posted by isauteikisa at 10:40 AM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


Does it have to be snacks?

Last night, in an effort to get back into a better self-care routine, I used my sous-vide machine to make steak for the first time, and it was GLORIOUS. Add to that a weird combination of fingerling potatoes, red onion, roma tomato, and shishito peppers, all coarsely chopped and pan fried in duck fat, and dinner last night was a hell of a tasty meal.
posted by hanov3r at 10:56 AM on July 19, 2018 [7 favorites]


I have been making myself toasted marshmallow milkshakes after work this week and it's been awesome.
posted by darchildre at 11:01 AM on July 19, 2018 [9 favorites]


The very simple, and very punchy lemon curd tart I made last weekend. Absolutely amazing breakfast.

It's basically the lemon curd recipe from the Flour cookbook... with extra lemon zest and three-fourths the sugar. I'm really proud of my lemon curd, because it tastes intensely, ferociously of lemon and nothing else.

I make it and I pour it into a parbaked tart shell, bake it for 10 minutes and Dr Bored for Science and I have breakfast for a week or so.

There's also been a lot of ice cream making lately. Made a batch of basil ice cream last night. Initial tests suggest it'll be a small-dose treat, because the basil flavor is so intense (just from steeping basil in the mix!). Planning on a black raspberry and lemon batch just as soon as I buy another pint of cream.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 11:38 AM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


The Pho restaurant near my house has become my go-to place for pad Thai and nice spring rolls and what not. I discovered that I really like the fried tofu chunks in the pad Thai so, of course, began ordering "extra tofu". Then, one day, I spontaneously asked if they could do a side order of the tofu. They'd never had that request before, so had to do a little figuring out of prices and whatnot, but were happy to offer it up. And now I always order a "side of tofu" and get a little box of it and I am just so happy to eat those slightly crispy, slightly chewy chunks.
posted by VioletU at 11:49 AM on July 19, 2018 [7 favorites]


Krackles are the worst. Sugar, some odd mildly fruitlike flavoring, and holes.

(emphasis mine)

I...what? Fruit flavoring? In Krackle bars? I was SO CONFUSED that I went and looked up the ingredients and the only thing even mildly fruit-like is vanilla (flavor, not real vanilla).

My takeaway: taste buds are like color perception. Everyone is different.
posted by cooker girl at 11:50 AM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


Not a snack as such, more like a cooking recommendation:

Largely at the behest of the French Desserts cookbook above, I invested in some dark cocoa powder, and pretty much permanently have made the switch to using it in lieu of regular cocoa powder in all recipes now. There's a richness and depth of chocolate flavor that I prefer.

But the real secret weapon is that I also invested in a package of black cocoa, which is so rich that you need to cut it with other cocoa powder. By, like, a lot - usually, when I'm measuring out the cocoa powder for a recipe, I will put one spoonful of the black cocoa powder into the cup, and then fill it up the rest of the way with the dark cocoa powder. I admit there may be an element of totemic magic involved, but I'm not complaining.

...The difference in cocoa powders is even visible. I've decanted all cocoa powders into glass jars on my countertop; the black cocoa powder is hella black, dark cocoa is like exactly the color you want a good chocolate bar to look like, and the scant amount of Hershey's cocoa powder I have left is visibly pale; think, like, coffee with a little less milk than your average NYC coffee stand puts in when you ask for milk. The last time I used the Hershey's was to mix it with a little of the flour when I was greasing and flouring the pan for a chocolate cake, and to mix it with a little of the powdered sugar when I was dusting the top of the same cake.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:59 AM on July 19, 2018 [7 favorites]


There were fresh figs in the grocery store yesterday so I bought a case of them. Once they're finished I'll buy another and repeat until the grocery store stops stocking them.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:15 PM on July 19, 2018 [6 favorites]


My corner of Western NY is about twenty miles from anything resembling a Jewish deli, so the two days I have been in CA so far have involved eating blintzes, matzoh ball soup, and lox-and-bagel.

Er, not at once.
posted by thomas j wise at 12:26 PM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


thomas j wise, where are you finding good deli food in CA? #askingforafriend
posted by hanov3r at 12:32 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


I just came from a funeral in Virginia (which, sad, but also, extremely old person). The vast spread of homemade fried chicken, potato salad, mac and cheese, green beans, fresh tomatoes, six kinds of bread and biscuits, salads, cakes, pies, fruit and various dishes I consumed might indirectly contribute to my own eventual demise, but lord, it will have been worth it.
posted by thivaia at 12:44 PM on July 19, 2018 [7 favorites]


I'm hanging out near the Katella Deli.
posted by thomas j wise at 12:47 PM on July 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


Watermelon blanketed in Tajin.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 1:10 PM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


I currently have two snack obsessions: chicken salad spooned onto buffalo-bleu cheese potato chips, and fistfuls of Japanese rice cracker mix. Can't stop won't stop.
posted by emelenjr at 1:29 PM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


The tastiest snacks will be the ones we consume in the house our really good friends - both freelance artists, with a newborn - are closing on tomorrow. Party at their pad!
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:39 PM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


We just had our staff picnic at work and I made salted caramel goat cheese ice cream. A colleague made (yes, made, like at home from scratch made) baklava. Today was a good day.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:44 PM on July 19, 2018 [8 favorites]


The peanut butter cartwheel cookies from Trader Joe's are too good. So soft, so peanut buttery, and not too sweet. It is far, far too easy to eat an entire box.
posted by yasaman at 1:58 PM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


I just ate some zoute haring. It's delicious!! Especially on roggebrood.
posted by Pendragon at 1:59 PM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


Rounded the day off with some excellent red wine and cheeses in the darker-getting garden--no bugs to speak of, shorts 'n t-shirt temperatures. In Northern Germany for Pete's sake. This summer is surreal.

(Now before people think that I'm all drinks and snacks from 6 PM to 10 PM, I should also mention that I cut down a whole patch of wild-growing medium-sized trees earlier today in the blazing sun, so I needed some extra oomph-back here...)
posted by Namlit at 2:01 PM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


Cinnamon graham cracker ice cream! I adapted the recipe from the ice cream part of smitten kitchen's hot fudge sundae cake which means it came out really really good. Like that recipe I split the ice cream custard in two, but instead of one half vanilla and one half chocolate I did one half Ceylon cinnamon and the other half Saigon cinnamon, just for funsies.

I was gonna make some graham crackers but I ran out of time so I just bought some. Good smashin', those.
posted by aubilenon at 2:06 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


I had chips and fresh salsa for breakfast. I just planted a few things hoping for a 2nd harvest, watered well, and ate a handful of fresh green beans. I think the squirrels are eating my cherry tomatoes, and if they are, Something Must Be Done. They took all the sour cherries and I'm sure they just buried them and they will go to waste. The birds got a few the little furry-tailed rats couldn't get to. There is leftover stirfry for dinner. Summer is so great, not least for delicious fresh foods.
posted by theora55 at 2:15 PM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


I’m gluten-free and dairy-free due to chronic illness and usually I’m at an okay place with that. But when summer ice cream happens in my family, it’s time for a quiet little pity party... BUT WAIT!

Enter “So Delicious Dairy Free Cashewmilk non-dairy frozen dessert in Dark Chocolate Truffle.” (Strange capitalization theirs.) I know, it sounds awful, but it’s not! It is velvety and delicious and I am a happy girl. At 18 g sugar, I can’t have it too often. However... I MIGHT have had this for breakfast, with a handful of cherries.

In other news, we should be harvesting the first of our avocados this weekend! The tree didn’t bear last year, our first at this property, so we have no idea how they’ll taste. Wish me luck; there are a LOT of avocados on that tree!
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 2:26 PM on July 19, 2018 [9 favorites]


My dog made it through his teeth cleaning just fine, with two extractions. Phew.

Notable snacks I didn't mention previously, all work-related:
My new workplace is going through a lot of change, so to make that easier or something they established a Fun Police. Last week, they decorated a little cart, got a little Bluetooth speaker and turned it into an adorable ice cream truck, rolling it around the cubes and giving out ice cream bars/sandwiches.

New company makes motors, and has a huge presence in the food/beverage industry. (Every time you press on a lever and ice comes out, our motor is in there somewhere). Because of this, we have ice freezers with ice of all different sorts -- standard cube, shaved, and BEST OF ALL THE GOOD NUGGET ICE! unlimited quantities of nugget ice! I was SO excited to find out about that my first day. That ice machine is the closest one to me too.

New company also makes motors that drive the rotating parts of commercial popcorn machines, so we have one of those in the breakroom. About once / month, a designated employee makes several batches of popcorn for all of us. Popcorn day is awesome. (snarky side story: my first few weeks, I ran into him as he was making popcorn. I said thank you, he talked about how he's an expert at it, and started telling me all of the steps. I interrupted him with "Yeah, I worked concessions at a movie theater for like 7-8 years, so I know allll about these machines". He said "oh wow. yeah. maybe you can be my backup!" . haaa… yeeeah no. I was just saying thank you, which is more than he gets from the other popcorn eaters. He does make good popcorn.
posted by Fig at 2:28 PM on July 19, 2018 [10 favorites]


If you have a spare couple of hours, homemade Cheez-Its are easy (if a little tedious) and delicious! I made them as an impulse a few weeks ago, and they were so good and doable, that a few days later I made them with company over. They're like "what are you doing?" and I go, "making Cheez-Its," and then a bottle of wine later they were ready.
posted by rhizome at 2:42 PM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


poffin boffin: you weaklings and your in-season fruits, REAL FRUIT FANS EAT ENTIRE PINEAPPLES EVERY DAY YEAR ROUND

Okay, I'm game.

I've had in-season pineapple at a farmer's market... that had been harvested the same morning... and was dissected before my very eyes by the awesome lady who sold it... with a large machete and a remarkably low number of utterly deft movements.
... In Burkina Faso.
And it tasted every bit as good as you're now thinking it did.

Your move....
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:54 PM on July 19, 2018 [9 favorites]


Mr Boa was at the cricket this evening, so I made myself some sautéed new potatoes, a fried egg and sliced up an avocado, then sprinkled sea salt and chilli flakes over the lot. The egg was maybe a little bit overdone, but overall it was delicious. I had a glass of Pimms and lemonade with it, because I could, and the fruit in the Pimms was pudding (dessert if you prefer).
posted by featherboa at 3:12 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


I made this the other night for dinner and it was delicious and also much healthier than the bacon-and-mayo broccoli horror salad I can and will eat a truly irresponsible amount of.

Broccoli salad with poppyseed dressing
posted by nakedmolerats at 4:15 PM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


We will have the last of the first crop of raspberries on ice cream tonight. We’ve been harvesting for nearly a month, and some of them were thumb-sized. So so good. The blueberries are nearly ready to eat as well, and it’s ti,e to harvest the Early Transparent apples for applesauce/butter. Oh, our tiny crop of wheat is nearly ready too.
posted by dbmcd at 4:34 PM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


A plum tart from my favorite bakery (near which my workplace has kindly relocated). You know when people say "melts in your mouth"? It's more like "causes your entire body to melt around it" delicious. (Which sounds kind of disgusting, but you know what I mean.)
Also some evil tortilla chips with too much salt, the classic "I know I shouldn't but I can't stop" kind of thing.
Also there's a gelato shop and bar (???) near my house which sells unbelievably richly flavored pistachio gelato. I don't even like pistachios but I never order any other flavor there. (It's down the street from the old-fashioned public baths where my husband and I sometimes go after work in winter. Someday there will be a day which is a) cold enough to enjoy a hot bath and b) warm enough to enjoy a gelato thereafter.)
posted by huimangm at 4:55 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


I did some things to a large roasting chicken I got on sale, and ended up with a large supply of chicken fat and skin, so I made schmaltz and gribenes and let it set up in the fridge for a couple of days.

Publix has started making baguettes out of their soft pretzels dough, which you can slice into quarter inch rounds and toast in the toaster oven until they are crispy and golden. They had some beautiful summer Spanish onions, and the chicken livers were right there, so what else could I do? They got a quick fry in butter with a touch of garlic and a nice drizzle of Sherry, and into the fridge they went to settle overnight.

This morning I gave them a rough chop and added a little raw onion before marrying them to a generous dollop of the ice cold schmaltz, and let them chill together while I went to work.

And in the evening of a 98 degree day, on a pretzel toast, they are a very delicious, ice cold heart attack on a plate.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 5:00 PM on July 19, 2018 [8 favorites]


I just ate some delicious ice cream with mefites! Peanut butter chocolate chip with hot fudge ... yum! Now I'm making dinner in the eventuality that I'll want to eat again at some point in time tonight - I like cold pasta when it's warm, so tonight it's pasta salad with tuna, spinach, garlic, lemon, and some shaved parmesan. Very satisfying.
posted by ChuraChura at 5:03 PM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


I made spicy salsa using nectarines, plums, apricots and pluots yesterday. Lots of lime juice, lots of cilantro, onions, jalapeños, bell pepper and spicy garlic freshly dug up from my garden. It is the most delicious thing. It was eaten with salty tortilla chips but is also spectacular with seared tuna.
posted by centrifugal at 5:17 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


It is county fair time, which means deep fried cheese curds! I took a break halfway through the 6 hour 4H chicken judging show to have some for lunch. (My daughter's chicken - like most of the others - got a blue ribbon. I guess they're all good chickens this year.)

The snacks I have planned for the other days we have to be at the fair: fresh-roasted corn on the cob and milkshakes from the 4H dairy booth
posted by belladonna at 5:18 PM on July 19, 2018 [9 favorites]


Today is the first day of a serious diet. I'm not crazy hungry. That will come later. I was just on vacation, so I am prepared to say goodbye to heavy food for a while.

The most arresting thing I ate on vacation -- and this is hard to believe -- was vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate fudge. That's it. There's no secret, except maybe that it was very good ice cream with fudge possibly made in the restaurant. It just seemed as if I hadn't really tasted this since I was a child. I began thinking of my grandparents and great-grandparents, who had ice cream so rarely and truly felt it when they ate it because they had no AC and no permissible way to wear shorts.

It also helped that I was thinking of this set of jingles.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:37 PM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


I just ate half a cantaloupe, using a spoon rather than cutting it up. Height of laziness. Super good.

Also been snacking a lot lately on cucumber with salt & pepper and maybe a little olive oil.

Also also: tonic with fresh lime or lemon juice. No booze, just summer citrus. I had a bartender make me a nonalcoholic cocktail a month or so ago with tonic, white tea, bitters, and lime, and I've been experimenting with this stuff since. Really enjoying it.
posted by curious nu at 5:39 PM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


also a thing I have to relearn every single summer: there is actually a whole lot of water in a watermelon
it's not like the well-behaved chunks in the fruit salad from the cooler at the coffee shop
it is a mess
posted by Countess Elena at 5:44 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


i just made a sun basket thing which was noodles with tofu and cucumbers and radishes and carrots and don't yell at me for getting sun basket okay, i don't have a car and i hate going to the store anyway and if i didn't have it i would order like delivery pizza or cheese steaks every night so this way i am actually cooking and feeling like i am creating something and actually eating vegetables

i don't have a chip on my shoulder

my dinner was really tasty.
posted by capnsue at 5:58 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Honestly I'm just eating pizza rolls, y'all feel me
posted by Freeze Peach at 6:14 PM on July 19, 2018 [8 favorites]


Me and my sister have been cleaning out my mom's house (a little, not For Good) and so we've been going to places around here, near where we grew up. Tonight we went to Wings and Wheels where we walked (1 mile) to the local airport and there was a drive-in where people brought their fancy cars. We got overpriced (but tasty) burgers and chips and hung out with a friend of ours from high school and talked smack about old town selectmen. The guy who owns the airport--the same place where I had my first job--came over and told us how a woman landing her Cessna-size plane hit a DEER when she was landing last week. "My wife kept the antlers"

Then our friend's kid was like I WANT ICE CREAM so we went out to the local... I don't even know what these places are called, like places that are JUST ice cream and they are attached somehow to a local dairy and everyone drives there and you order from a window and you pay too much and the ice xcream melts too fast as you eat it in the parking lot and all the guys from the airport are also there so it's like a second drive-in place, and everyone has brought their dogs. I had almond joy ice cream with rainbow sprinkles and my sister got smores and we marveled that we both HATE the cones the other one gets (sugar4lyfe) and then our friend drove us home in his new-ish truck and we made plans to get together next time I am in town. My mom, who wrote the recent history of the town (i.e. the last 100 or so years), had five of the OLD history of the town books (written 100+ years ago) and so we're going to give him one for his birthday which is Saturday.

Every time I go to one of those ice cream places I order the smallest size and then ask them to leave a little ice cream off because I love it but I am a small person with a small tolerance for delicious sugary desserts. This time I said "I know it looks like I am on a diet... but it's just that I have pie at home." Shoutout to the MeFite Ice Cream Crawl, I hope it was great.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 6:15 PM on July 19, 2018 [9 favorites]


Tonight, I made orzo with roasted squash, japanese eggplant, onion, and garlic, all mixed with pesto and parmesan. Making roasted garlic hummus tomorrow for weekend snacking.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:12 PM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


It's winter hereabouts so it's been brassicas, brassicas, brassicas. The choy sum is plentiful and gorgeous with bok choy, both washed and blanched, then chopped and finished in sesame oil and soy sauce with spring onions and mustard seeds (throw them in last, put on a lid, wait maybe ten seconds for the popping to get over with. Stir. Stuff in face). Brussel sprouts have been variously sliced, roasted, sauteed, broiled, grilled, and fried. All delicious. Same goes for broccoli, broccolini, cauliflower, various types of cabbages (a cross-section of red cabbage is actual fucking art, fight me). The cucumbers are juicy and snackable (every cucumber is snack-sized whatever the actual size, I don't make the rules). It's been a weirdly green winter. Also fennel, which lends itself to roasting and soups so very well. Roasted fennel soup with cream, parmesan, whatever filler veg are getting lost in the drawer, and the chopped fennel fronds stirred through before serving - the actual best.

For meats I've been eating sausages and bacon and more sausages and also making meat patties out of some seriously good mince from the butcher. A couple weeks ago I roasted a shoulder, kept the fat, roasted cabbage in it. This might seem to be a waste of pork fat, granted, but have you had cabbage slices roasted with pork fat and caraway seeds? I argue probably not, and you should. Also there was a lot of fat and I had to use the cabbage somehow and my default is roasting everything because I am a lazy fuck who just wants to eat without thinking too hard.

For snacks I've just eaten one of the aforementioned eternally snack-sized cucumbers the length of my forearm and some celery for more green crunch. I fucking love celery. Just fresh, washed and raw -- delicious shit. Sometimes I feel like I should take pictures of my meals because I love the varieties of colour I manage to fit into everything, but then I remember that food blogging on IG makes one an actual wanker and I'd rather keep the wanking to myself. Also my phone camera is tragically broken.

Food. Food is fucking great.
posted by E. Whitehall at 7:33 PM on July 19, 2018 [8 favorites]


Last Saturday, I went to Berkeley to see Angels in America with some college friends. For lunch I had lemon gingerbread pancakes with poached pears at La Note, and for dinner I had hush puppies, gumbo, and beignets at Angeline's Louisiana Kitchen. Louisiana has truly perfected the art of frying dough.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 7:37 PM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


Tonight it was finally cool enough to COOK. So I roasted a chicken and some root veggies from Imperfect Produce, and cooked some broccoli & cauliflower, and it was just a lovely, simple, warm dinner.
posted by linettasky at 8:29 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


MY TREES ARE FULL OF RIPE APRICOTS!
posted by Grandysaur at 8:56 PM on July 19, 2018 [13 favorites]


Maryland day 2:

Most meals were unremarkable. Had California Tortilla for lunch, nostalgia-heavy, but not as good as being in California as I usually am.

But if cheap beer counts as a snack: my nephews are a handful, such a handful, and it was a hot day, so evening beer seemed nice. After leaving their house, went for a nice walk and bought Yuengling at the co-op (they were out of crab chips, but I got Utz rippled). It was a cool evening so I sat by an open window and chatted with my mom while drinking a beer and eating what turned out to be a 450 calorie bag of chips. As the sun set we could hear the crickets and katydids I rarely get to hear anymore since I moved away. All in all a pretty good snack. Maryland.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 9:11 PM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


We had our first sweet corn of our season! Delicious buttery corn on the cob!
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:27 PM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


(cw diets)

We are re-ketoing in a very serious way like we haven't done in many years, and it has also been balls hot here (including the AC being out all day yesterday), plus we've both been working extra hours and so as a side effect we haven't eaten dinner all week.

But! I've been making this keto bread, spread out on quarter sheet pans (parchment, WELL oiled, is necessary), as a sort of all-purpose flatbread for making breakfast sandwiches, and this morning I toasted a square of it, then topped the square with some precooked crumbled breakfast sausage and a slice of smoked gouda, and then I baked two eggs until sunny-side-up, and I put all that together with a shake of hot sauce and salt and pepper and holy shit.

(Also, the psyllium husk used to provide body and stability to the bread has become somewhat critical to my daily well-being.)

I have given up my beloved wine for moderate portions of a sort of paloma punch made from vodka, Refreshe diet grapefruit soda, seltzer, and a pinch of salt. It's fine.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:02 PM on July 19, 2018 [8 favorites]


First real berry grazing today! I found a sunny patch on a slopeside trail that already had clusters of ripe berries that were ripe and sweet, so I stopped right there and feasted a few handfuls.

Also tuned up my bike a bit to get ready for more riding and berry-gorging. This is definitely my favorite part of summer. It sure isn't the heat and huge crowds of tourists. No, it's riding around, getting baked outta my skull, gorging on berries and taking random field/beach naps.
posted by loquacious at 10:04 PM on July 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


I‘ve got one word: mulberries!
posted by The Toad at 10:16 PM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


I’ve had my (adult) braces on for just about two months now, and hence haven’t eaten anything resembling a quality snack in weeks. My first adjustment was today. And because it feels like i got punched in the mouth I ate half a tub of Champman’s black cherry ice cream. It was glorious, with only minor feelings of guilt.
posted by cgg at 10:37 PM on July 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


Reporting back in to confirm that the chocolate zucchini cake I linked above worked, and was well received by the book club (and I have some left over, yay).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:42 PM on July 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Ugh, you guys and your summering and here we are still two weeks away from ripe berries here in the northlands. Our raspberries are going to be epic, though.

The best thing I have eaten this week was two double stuff oreos turned into one quadruple stuff oreo on a hike today. It was beautiful at the lake and I was happy having done all the hard stuff and that was exactly what I wanted.

For less shameful local food snacks, though: we are as I type grilling *last year's* pumpkin, which has now sat on top of the cabinets since mid-September (squash are hardy, yo). I'm not sure what we will do with with it- not a pumpkin fan myself, as evidenced by my ability to stare at one in my kitchen and ignore it for nigh unto 10 months- but worst-case scenario the dog loves it. We did have my mom's greenhouse cucumbers in a sesame/soy salad marinade for part of our deck dinner and enjoyed mojitos made with yesterday's rhubarb simple syrup as well. Our next door neighbor brought over some fresh homemade gravlax, and we gave him our oregano and parsley for a green sauce when he did; that happens a lot on our street and is one of my favorite things about living in our house.
posted by charmedimsure at 10:51 PM on July 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


Just came back from an artist's talk at our local gallery and DAMN their post-talk snacks were good. White cherries, truffle popcorn (I'm not even a big popcorn fan, but I couldn't stop eating it), coffee lemonade, all kinds of cheese and cold cuts, tiny champagne grapes...the gallery staff are going to have a GOOD lunch of the leftovers tomorrow.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:18 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


I was out this afternoon and missed the weekly Petri Dish afternoon tea (the main reason for being in Dunedin on a Friday!). The table was bare, not even an empty dish . . But! a small styrofoam tray with a 'samples' label with four fudge balls - two nut-coated, two coconut-covered - the coconut one was amazing and went well with a milo on a cooling day.

Caught up with a few friends too and had a deep discussion about Event Horizon and other imagined and real ghost ships. A perfect end to the week.
posted by unearthed at 1:33 AM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


We had board games last night (we played Mysterium) and our friend Rose brought over a strawberry-and-blueberry lazy sonker. A sonker is sort of a cobbler? In a rectangular pan? And if it's "lazy," that means it's extra syrupy, or something?

I've never heard of sonkers before, so that was nice. It was warm and good.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 2:24 AM on July 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


@Gotanda, damnit! now I want a pear flavored popsicle!
posted by Fizz at 4:28 AM on July 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


I'm counting down the hours before I join some people to go to Honest Burgers and eat their current special Kimchi Burger. I've had it before and I was apprehensive because you never really know how the kimchi is going to go. But it was great, the kimchi was nicely fermented with the right amount of spice to counteract the fats and beefiness of the burger. So now that I know what I'm getting into, I'm just really looking forward to it.
posted by like_neon at 5:53 AM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


I don't even know what these places are called, like places that are JUST ice cream and they are attached somehow to a local dairy

My local friend calls them scoop shops, which seems apt.

Said local friend is also the owner of the kitties that got into the dog medicine that I had to nurse, and she made me a gluten-free blueberry bundt cake as a thank-you, and it was delicious. I am also under orders to finish the last three of thirty(!) mangos that my wife bought to dehydrate because she's sick of peeling and slicing, so that's breakfast for me.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 6:44 AM on July 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm really enjoying this thread! (sips kombucha) I'm trying to think (sips kombucha) if there's anything else that's big in my world right now for snacking/treats (sips kombucha). I feel like there must be something else (gulps kombucha) that I'm really enjoying (drains bottle of kombucha) that bears mention (shakes empty bottle of kombucha into mouth) but nothing comes to mind. (breaks bottle on counter and desperately licks upstray drops of kombucha)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:07 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


I am currently eating mapo dofu flavored potato chips. Japanese potato chip flavor technology is so far advanced, I can't even imagine life without it.

I do miss sour cream and cheddar chips though
posted by Ghidorah at 7:20 AM on July 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


I made corn fritters for dinner last night, and they were amazing, even with middling corn.

With the no-doubt excellent corn from the farmer's market that I picked up on Monday? I bet they'd be transcendent.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 7:36 AM on July 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


Work has taken me to NYC for day trips basically every other week since the spring. Early on I brought back a loaf of chocolate babka from Zaro's in Penn Station, with the result that my toddlers expect "chocolate bread" for breakfast whenever I return from traveling and I generally come prepared.

Yesterday after a meeting I asked a friend for a better recommendation than the bakery at the train station and she directed me to Russ & Daughters and the babka was incredibly good this morning.

But the thing that haunts me was all of the cold-smoked fish in the case. I did not have an appetite at the time but it is high on my list to return for a nosh next time I am in the city.
posted by gauche at 7:37 AM on July 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


Oh, and a friend who works in the office across the hall just gave me a bag of wild black raspberries and they were amazing and now my thumb and fingers are stained purple.
posted by gauche at 7:52 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Fresh cantaloupe.
Fresh watermelon.

(and best of all)

Peach ice cream, made with real cream and pureed in-season peaches.
posted by pianoblack at 8:20 AM on July 20, 2018 [8 favorites]


> loquacious:
"First real berry grazing today! I found a sunny patch on a slopeside trail that already had clusters of ripe berries that were ripe and sweet, so I stopped right there and feasted a few handfuls.
Have you read Blueberries for Sal?
posted by theora55 at 9:16 AM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


> gauche:
"Yesterday after a meeting I asked a friend for a better recommendation than the bakery at the train station and she directed me to Russ & Daughters and the babka was incredibly good this morning."
They are a favorite of proto-foodie Calvin Trillin; if you have not read Alice, Let's Eat and his other foodie books, you should. Excellent writer, funny and sharp.
posted by theora55 at 9:17 AM on July 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


Have you read Blueberries for Sal?

Well, more like had it read to me. *winks*

Y'know, I got all excited that that was a foraging ID book, but that's nice, too.
posted by loquacious at 9:33 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Some all dressed potato chips from the snack machine here at work and a babybel cheese I’d brought from home. Usually it’s just the babybel but it’s Friday and I’m treating myself.
posted by rodlymight at 10:09 AM on July 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


Trader Joe's mango and cream bars, and homemade cashew brie. Not simultaneously.
posted by BeHereNow at 10:32 AM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


Reese's white chocolate PB cups, probably my favorite mass market candy. I've bought a bag that I'm going to pretend is going to last a week in my office. :p
posted by joycehealy at 10:37 AM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


The leftover cheese enchiladas were decent enough, but mixing the leftover beef queso into the tomato rice to pep it up? Delicious ridiculous Tex Mex.

I'll eat a salad tonight to balance things, promise. With delicious fresh peaches mixed in. Because.
posted by PearlRose at 10:46 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


So jealous of everyone with berries to pick (especially the black raspberries ... sigh). I did get some very tasty black raspberry ice cream with friends at Brusters recently.

Mr. gudrun motored through a bag of Rainier cherries so fast I barely got any. (Even the cat was dipping into the bag, though he could not quite figure out how to eat them.) We've also been getting a ton of tasty pattypan squash at the farmer's market and grocery.

My favorite recent snack though is an Askinosie Chocolate dark chocolate raspberry bar, which I have been savoring and eating very slowly, one piece at a time (vegan, gluten free, and kosher fyi).
posted by gudrun at 11:10 AM on July 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


I beheaded my porch basil and made a giant batch of pesto, and then made a pesto & pepper pizza (with porch peppers, naturally). I am trying to let enough cherry tomatoes ripen at once that I can actually make a meal with them instead of just eating them all right off the plant when I go out to water it, but I'm not being tremendously successful in that effort.

I also need to make more spicy snacks, since I have a bumper crop of cayennes and jalapenos. So far I made some jalapeno-cheddar scones, but I'm not sure what to do with what seems like a lifetime supply of cayenne.
posted by pemberkins at 11:16 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Kimchi fried rice with tofu right this very minute (bless the Houston trend to put kimchi in everything).

But I'm more excited about my snack. It's a bagful of cherry/plum crosses (or hybrids or what have you) that I got from Trader Joe's last week. Cherries and plums! In the same fruit! They taste great together btw.
posted by librarylis at 11:39 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


I’m at a lunch & learn on social media use and the group presenting brought ice cream, gummi bears, and other candy toppings for our own ice cream sundaes.
posted by nubs at 11:40 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Just had an awesome chicken empanada from a Dominican lunch counter. The crust was amazing, might have been lard.
posted by Miko at 11:40 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


My mom and I have been watching Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown after coming back from our tour of Europe and talking about how we much we really appreciate him and that he really understood food and people, and man, can he really eat Chinese food. My mom also realized that Bourdain freaking loves noodles and we had a good laugh at that since I don't even love noodles that much - in every Asian episode we've seen so far, he eats noodles at least twice, if not three times, and only someone who loves noodles that much would eat it that many times. The Hong Kong episode is so perfect, by the way. His first dish that he eats, beef brisket with shrimp wontons and egg noodles, is my father's and my favorite and it is just utterly delicious.

But, because I can't go to Hong Kong right right now and eat that, I'll "settle" for this really delicious Nanjing salted duck that my mom got from a Chinese takeout deli nearby. It is superb and duck at its essence.
posted by yueliang at 12:05 PM on July 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


I am at my mom's and she has not yet made scones, what is even happening, we have been here for 2 weeks.

But her husband made butter tarts and I think I managed to eat 5 of them in one day (raisins 4 lyfe, no lard I will fight u on this). I have been getting cinnamon rolls from the local bakery and we ate roti and I had a really good salad at a newish local restaurant. And the home cooking just keeps rolling on, my mom's husband can't help feeding everyone all the time.

I am planning to make rhubarb pie this weekend for a bunch of friends I don't see often enough.

Also hoping I get to eat good Chinese food before I go back to central Ohio where everything is terrible and I don't understand the big deal about Amish bread, it's just white bread come on.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 12:38 PM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


At the cricket this afternoon, one consumed a slice of chilled chocolate gateau and a nice pot of tea. The temperatures complemented each other, as did the sweetness of the cake and the sharpness of the drink. Unfortunately I was too hungry and thirsty to take a picture first so annoyingly there is no record of this. I was in two minds over buying the cake, but the baker was there, a diminutive old lady with anecdotes about seeing famous cricketers unclothed in the changing rooms which I can't repeat for legal reasons, and the entertainment they provided made it worthwhile. I'll never be able to listen to Test Match Special with the same innocent mind again, though.

What I want to know is why Wordshore gets to live in the Good Timeline and how they're posting in this one.

I had a mamey sapote-flavored paleta helada/delicious popsicle made with milk. The mamey sapote is a Cuban and South American fruit in an amazing pinky-orange color that itself makes your mouth water. The popsicle is difficult to describe - perhaps if you crossed taro ice cream with strawberries? - but it has a flavor which is, to me, simultaneously intensely nostalgic and extremely new. It is the food equivalent of the landscapes in this one Tolkien short story which retain their distant magic even as you walk into them.

The corner store also has mango, vanilla cream, strawberry, pina colada and coconut cream, which are very good too and have actual chunks of fruit in them.
posted by Frowner at 2:21 PM on July 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm dog-sitting for my friends, and they left me a box of Peanut Butter Puffins (like a healthy-ish version of Captain Crunch cereal) and some Scandinavian Swimmers (Trader Joe's version of Swedish Fish). Seems like a random combination, but I'm headed to Iceland* in a few weeks, so I imagine that inspired their snack selection. I <3 them!


*Yes, I know that Iceland is technically not considered a part of Scandinavia, but I think it's the thought that counts :-)
posted by chara at 2:22 PM on July 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


I just ate some blueberries that my just-turned-three grandson picked in his other grandmother's garden. For some unknown reason he calls her Dat. I'm Nana. His mom's stepmother is Grandma. Kid is very lucky.
posted by mareli at 3:42 PM on July 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


I have recently discovered the glory that is cacio e pepe pasta. And for once I prefer the Serious Eats recipe, though I prefer a mix of parmesan and romano rather than all romano. But if you're just using one then all-romano is better than all-parmesan in this dish. And yes, I've made it all three ways by this point!
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:58 PM on July 20, 2018 [6 favorites]


Everyone. The Target Market Pantry (generic) version of Nutter Butters are good. I think I like them more than actual Nutter Butters. The cookie is crispier and the filling isn't as sweet. YMMV.

I'm not having those right now. I just remembered they were a thing that exists in the world.

I'm getting ready to finish off the most boring radishes, ever. I bought them to add crunch and bitey taste to a boring salad and they do add crunch but they don't really have much flavor. (Am also going to have some chicken, refried beans, and rice.)

Oh yeah, I recently discovered how stupid easy it is to make refried beans. I guess I'd just never really looked up how to make them myself until six or so weeks ago. It's basically just beans, fat, seasoning, liquid, and smashy smashy.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 4:32 PM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Just had jerky and strawberries, and both were delish.
posted by infinitewindow at 5:04 PM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


Hello, friends. So to me, La Croix has always been this uncool weird-tasting fizzy water my mother likes, but now of course there's a gigantic section of multicolored La Croix boxes in every grocery store because millennials, and it's one of the main drinks we stock at these journalism meetups I host now, so I've had a few cans here and there. Well, when my father died last weekend and we had an Irish wake game night that night, because it was already planned and my brother and I wanted to be with friends, a friend brought by key lime La Croix. I just cracked open a can, and reader, it's good. This might be the best La Croix flavor.

So that's what I'm currently having. I ate a lot earlier before and after the funeral, with accompanying family angst, so a can of La Croix is about all I can take right now. We made it through it, though not without a phone being thrown, a couple family members relocating to another house entirely due to drama, and other miscellaneous mishegas.

Anyway, I feel like a phrase I've heard of for those East Coast ice-cream joints is dairy barn, much like candy barns, even if they're not actually shaped like barns. Maybe this is just a New Jersey thing, though.

Oh well. By the by, I'm walking again, as of yesterday—slowly, and with a walker and a boot, but I can indeed briefly stand on two feet. So that's something! Though I have to admit, my grandmother is much faster with a walker than I am. I've gotta keep workin' on it...
posted by limeonaire at 6:37 PM on July 20, 2018 [13 favorites]


I just ate a giant slice of key lime pie. If you are ever in Florida, just go to Publix grocery store and buy their key lime pie. Better than most restaurants and it's a whole goddamn pie for the price of a restaurant's slice.
posted by gatorae at 6:58 PM on July 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


Steamed yam. Carrot-coloured, starchy-but-creamy texture, and light, a little bit rooty, sweet flavour. Also nutritionally rich and easy to prepare. No additional flavouring needed.
posted by runcifex at 8:17 PM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


Last weekend I went kayaking and fishing, and it was a wonderful day on the water. But I had to stand up for a little while after sitting all afternoon, so I found a little beach-like area by the shore and got out to stretch my legs. And right there a few yards from the water was a huge patch of escaped ornamental wineberries, all perfectly ripe.

I usually don't eat the berries I find along hiking trails here in the DC area, because you never know... But this was at least two hours away from the parking lot, and they all looked pristine. So I ate some from the bush. Then a few more. And then I picked a bunch of them and sat down in the grass in the sun. I ate my fill of super sweet, super tasty wineberries, drank the last of my cold water, and watched the osprey and a bald eagle fishing. It was the nicest picnic I've had in years...
posted by gemmy at 9:00 PM on July 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


Tonight I definitively proved that Utz crab chips are way better than Herr’s Old Bay chips. Totally not personal preference. It’s fact.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 9:00 PM on July 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


Anyway, I feel like a phrase I've heard of for those East Coast ice-cream joints is dairy barn, much like candy barns, even if they're not actually shaped like barns. Maybe this is just a New Jersey thing, though.

Here in Upstate New York, where it's serious dairy farm country, they're called dairy bars. in addition to ice cream and milk drinks, they tend two also have things like sandwiches and burgers, and sometimes feature other dairy products like cheese curds, baked custard, etc. My grandmother worked at one for years.

(Last time I checked, milk and dairy products were the top agricultural commodity in New York, and we were the number two producer of all fifty states.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:16 PM on July 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


limeonaire, so sorry to hear about your dad. sending you good thoughts...
posted by mochapickle at 9:32 PM on July 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


I also just ate a peach. Peaches are awesome this year.
posted by Toddles at 10:07 PM on July 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


I may have eaten cookie dough by the handfulls today.

I blame the 7 week old and lack of sleep for my decision making skills.

It was delicious. 10/10 would do again.
posted by AlexiaSky at 11:11 PM on July 20, 2018 [4 favorites]




popcorn, yes, it is really that simple
posted by HuronBob at 11:36 PM on July 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


Licorice tea with fennel, cinnamon, and cloves. Smells so heavenly and tastes great too.
posted by daybeforetheday at 2:55 AM on July 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


After 8 pm both the hot and salad bar at the co-op are half price so I loaded up on pimento cheese, avocado and mock egg salad and found bags of formerly overpriced organic ghost pepper pork rinds on the sale shelves and maybe that's not for everyone but here, on movie night, there are expectations.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 3:40 AM on July 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


It's been too hot to cook; so popsickles.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:59 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


Sliced up strawberries and sprinkled with sugar and put them in the fridge overnight. Next day I added some milk and lightly mashed mashed the strawberries and added a splash of vanilla. Portioned it into bowls and shared with my son. He calls it Strawberry Soup.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 6:50 AM on July 21, 2018 [5 favorites]


I made some fresh Chapti this morning and smeared some room temp blue cheese on it while it was still warm and it was surprisingly good.
posted by Stanczyk at 7:49 AM on July 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


My absolute favourite version of caesar salad is from Stockmann's Deli, using their inhouse salad dressing, and contains greens, cheese, and crayfish. I picked some up yesterday along with the world's most perfect avocado. I just had the other half of the avocado. It is still the world's most perfect. I also splurged on truffle flavoured handmade potato crisps. You can tell it was my "I'm not buying groceries here, I'm going gourmet" kind of outing :) My soul has been feeling very satisfied.
posted by infini at 8:05 AM on July 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


I've recently started making chicken adobo, which is absolutely incredible and very very easy. It sounds like it should end up quite sharp, but it really doesn't at all. Heavily recommended!
posted by Dysk at 11:07 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


Thank you Empress C. I just made the chocolate zucchini cake and it is absolutely delicious! And used up half a large giant zucchini, as i doubled the recipe.
posted by 15L06 at 11:58 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


Today I went to a village about six or seven miles northwest of here as it was their annual Open Garden weekend. This is where houses can, well, open up their gardens for the public to wander around, look at whatever is growing, and indulge in pleasant conversation.

Because it is rural England, the bus service is crap beyond belief and I had the choice of getting there two hours early, or well after the start. I chose the former, which gave me a little time to wander around the village, inspect the adverts in a shop window, note more blackberries in season, and generally chill.

Fifteen minutes before the event started seemed an appropriate time to collect my "passport", a map indicating where the gardens are, from a pleasant lady in the church (cost: three pounds to community funds) and I was off. There were about ten gardens in this quite compact village, which was good as it was a beastly hot day and one was already perspiring by the time garden number one was located.

The ornaments and the like in various gardens didn't interest that much, though I did the English thing of making polite conversation. I strongly suspect in one garden, where various items from an old inn formed part of the display, I was not the first, nor the last, person to say "that is a splendid pair of jugs" to the owner while indicating said pottery that had been suggestively positioned. But for the most part, I breezed (politely) past the various constructions and sheds and outhouses and vegetables, good though some of them were.

As I was more interested, coming from an orchard background, in the fruiting trees which nearly every garden possessed. A wide variety of apples were pleasingly visible, as well as pears and plums and cherries. But best of all, and possibly the highlight of my summer, was one garden which unexpectedly had an old orchard out the back, containing very old trees which looked strangely, weirdly, familiar. One of which was a proper, genuine, russet tree, with apples growing in the way they used to. And the owner, puzzled but pleased in my interest and knowledge, informed they were of old Worcestershire stock. I wondered if these were extremely closely related, in a tree way, to the trees in our and our neighbours orchards back in the Vale of Evesham in decades past.

{suddenly feels the polite *cough* of a moderator reminding me this thread is about things eaten}

I wandered into the Legion Hall. It had the standard things that rural English village halls have. Namely, a picture of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, a toilet from which you could clearly hear every conversation in the hall so they can also hear you, a carpet with what looks like a faded blood stain in one corner, evidence of damp/bad electrics/vermin/bats/a wasp nest, and a fuckton of home made food, all covered in cling film or aluminium foil and spread across several trestle tables.

I started to examine the cakes, and heard the slow rumble of a herd of cattle approaching from behind. Actually it turned out to be a man of some advanced years called George. Another local who knew him well spoke to him:
Local: "Would you like a cheese sandwich, George?"
George: "Oh I couldn't possibly, because of {medical condition A}." {pause} "I'll just have one"

I took some photographs of food, and observed in particular the raspberry cake. From an isometric view, it was eye-catching. From overhead, it reminded one of the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I requested a slice, which George eyed up in a somewhat uncomfortably excited manner.

Local: "Would you like a slice of raspberry cake too, George?"
George: "Oh I couldn't possibly, because of {medical condition B}." {pause} "Just a small slice."
Local: {starts to cut a small slice}
George: "Bigger than that."

I took photographs of a coconut cake, a Victoria sponge cake, a lemon cake and some pavlova things and a really good looking chocolate cake.

Meanwhile, George continued to work his way through the contents of multiple trestle tables, each time stating a different medical condition for why he "couldn't possibly" indulge.

I had a nice cup of tea with my sole slice of cake and sent some emails and messages, while George munched through his calorific rural English smorgasbord. Paying up time came, and mine came to one pound twenty five, which seemed a bit low for a fundraiser, so I doubled it and departed.

Outside the hall, I adjusted my hat. The door remained open in the heat so I listened to the local read out the astonishingly long list of foods which George "couldn't possibly" eat. But did. You know on those sketchy shock lifestyle TV shows, where the family are shown all the "bad" food they have eaten in the last week and are subtly humiliated? It sounded like that.

The total bill was fifteen pounds and seventy five pence.
{long silence}
George: "Can I pay in installments?"

Another elderly local sitting just outside, who I incorrectly had thought was asleep the entire time (or, worse, but I didn't want to say anything and cause an incident) had, it turned out, been listening in. And her hearing was as good as mine. Without opening her eyes, she muttered "Greedy fucker is at it again", to no-one in particular. And continued her sleeping-or-not-who-knows pose.

I departed. Oh, rural England, there are some aspects about you I will miss when I move.

(Note: for nutritional balance and because my life isn't all cake and cheese, I also ate a plum in one garden. So, all round, a healthy day.)
posted by Wordshore at 2:02 PM on July 21, 2018 [29 favorites]


So the CSA was today again and I have four new zucchini on top of the five yellow summer squash I already had from last week plus I also have a pound of very young carrots and three more Kirby cucumbers and two more regular cucumbers and another pint of raspberries to go with the 2 pints I already have but also I have a half pint of blueberries and a half pound of yellow plums and there's already some rhubarb in the fridge and some sweet and some sour cherries and I may end up inventing something called "fruit salad pie" by just throwing in all of the odds and ends of fruit together just to get it eaten help

I also went looking for something that would use both zucchini and carrots, and discovered the Italian dish "scapece", where you saute sliced zucchini but then don't eat it right away - instead, you throw it into a bowl, glug some vinegar over it, and let it marinate for a day. It's supposed to be served cold and keeps in the fridge, which means it is perfect for my summer cooking style (I like to make batches of things and stash them in the fridge, and then just dip into them all week). This is the particular recipe I'll be using, swapping in a yellow summer squash for one of the zucchini for the added color variation.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:28 PM on July 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


wordshore TELL ME if the apple trees were related!!!!!
posted by infini at 2:33 PM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


OK, I lost it at "Can I pay in installments?" but I really lost it at "Greedy fucker is at it again."
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:02 PM on July 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


Biked a solid 8-10 miles today, almost entirely off road and up and down all kinds of forested twisty trails. I just cleaned up and rebuilt most of my cockpit and tightened everything up, so it was a joy to go bopping through some pretty tech trail segments. And, well, it might not be that steep or fast but it's VERY THRILLING because one wrong turn or misjudged duck of a branch or vine means you may tangle with any number of VERY THORNY plants, including thick, mature blackberry canes just poking out everywhere.

More importantly I found my first huge wild thimbleberry patch. I also found an entire thicket of blueberries and another of raspberries, and we're just hours and days away from everything starting to ripen.
posted by loquacious at 8:38 PM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


Perhaps nothing too out of the ordinary, but yesterday I gorged myself on blueberries that I had picked myself. Straight from the branch! Those were amazing. I still need to rinse and freeze the 280g I brought home.

On preview I see I'm not the only one who had fresh berries. Berry salute to you!
posted by lesser weasel at 12:57 AM on July 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


For breakfast this morning, I made bacon in the oven, even though it’s going to be in the 90s today. I also fried some Costco naan in butter, spread mashed avocado with salt & pepper on each piece, then topped it with an egg fried in butter. Two apiece for my husband and me. And coffee. It was delicious. One can live long or live well.
posted by malthusan at 11:03 AM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


because my life isn't all cake and cheese

We recently discovered a cheese called Bollywood, which is red leicester with mango chutney in it. Had some this afternoon with some nice sourdough bread.

Also, wonderfully fresh cherries - not picked by us, but from not-too-far-away.

*berry salute*
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:34 PM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


And I'm fully aware that cherries aren't technically berries, but they are berry-like enough to qualify.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:48 PM on July 22, 2018


I got a wild hair to Do Something about the backlog of fruit from CSA weeks past - for a while now I've had little plastic containers and bins and bags littering my fridge of, like, cut-up chunks of three stalks of rhubarb, a small container of strawberries in which some weren't good any more but some probably were, a big-ass tub of raspberries from last week which I still hadn't gotten through before getting an equally big-ass tub this week...

Then I found this recipe, which gives a decent set of rules of thumb for How To Combine Different Fruits In Pie, so I picked up some pie crust and got to work - pulling out each and every tub and bag and tin of fruit that I had lurking in the fridge, washing it all, cutting away the bruised bits on things and throwing out anything that was outright bad and then surveyed the field.

I had enough sour cherries to make 75% of a sour cherry sherbet (that also uses lemon verbena, from the plant that is taking over my windowsill) and stlil have some sour cherries left over for the pie, so I started the sherbet first. That's chilling in my fridge now and waiting for the churn. Then to the rest of the fruit - about a third of the pie filling is plums, and I got some yellow ones in the CSA this week. About two-thirds of what I got this week went into the pie. Trimmed away the brown ends of the rhubarb, chopped the rest. Most of the strawberries weren't salvageable, but a big handful was - out went the bad, I chopped the good. Pitted some sweet cherries that were stlll decent (trimmed away a couple bruises here and there) and threw them in along with the handful of sour cherries left over from the sherbet. I added a hefty bunch of raspberries (I have SO many raspberries) and sacrificed some of the blueberries I only just got this week; there's still a decent cup or so. I also broke into the two bags of frozen cranberries that I have from when I visited my parents on Thanksgiving (they always give me a couple bags from our bog, and they usually go straight into the freezer until I can figure out what to do with them).

So now, in addition to having a more cleaned-out fridge, I'm also going to have cherry/lemon verbena sherbet, and (takes breath) a plum/cherry/raspberry/blueberry/cranberry/strawberry/rhubarb pie. Or, as I started calling it halfway through mixing the fruit, a "Usufruct Pie." (At least I will have that pie after an hours' worth of baking and 3 hours of cooling; it's just about to go in the oven now.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:08 PM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


I ate 2 boxes of cherries all by myself this weekend.

#winning
posted by arcticseal at 2:00 AM on July 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


Fresh rhubarb stalks dipped in sugar, with a glass of homemade lemon iced tea.
posted by Fish Sauce at 11:38 AM on July 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


I usually eat bread for lunch (as one does here) but just now I decided to go with an improvised meal consisting of 1 beet (boiled, diced), 1 pickled herring (cut into small bits) and a generous dollop of cottage cheese. I added some of the vinegar from the herring jar as a dressing, and black pepper because pretty much everything is better with black pepper.
It was nice! Simple too, and a good hot weather food.
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:06 AM on July 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


Usufruct Pie came out a little on the tart side (I had sour cherries, cranberries, AND rhubarb up in there) but worked. Both residents of Chez Callipygos have tried it and found it acceptable.

As I told the roommate - "we have space in the fridge again, and we also have pie!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:47 AM on July 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


A little too tart? Nothing some cream on top couldn't fix. Whipped, heavy, vanilla ice ... Hi, I'm hungry.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:34 AM on July 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


We just had a "Christmas in July" themed work party... because why not? I made dainty little chocolate cakes with my brand new mini-bundt pan. There are only two left, so I am Quite Pleased.
posted by PearlRose at 11:06 AM on July 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


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