I had a friend visit! She is a little old for me, but that's OK. She's a Chihuahua Cooger. Chi-oo-ger? Chi-ger? I don't know. Shut the fuck up. Roll highlights!
It snowed. I made carrot cupcakes. I got drunk and played Wii with my biffle, while hanging with two Chihuahuas. I drew fake tattoos all over my roommate in Sharpie to accommodate his Hipster Halloween getup. I cleaned my kitchen. Life is good.
In true masochistic fashion, I always tend to go grocery shopping on Sundays.
Grocery shopping, at Stop & Shop in the South Bay Center.
The South Bay Center, also known as the epicenter of the Dorchester economy.
On Sundays.
The day every other person and literally their mother decide to crowd the narrow aisles, loose track of their children, yell loudly into cell phones, and debate for moments on end if saving seven cents is worth purchasing a different brand Fake Cheez Product than the one their child demands every vegetable is smothered in.
Ah, yes.
Sundays at Stop and Shop.
But anyway.
When I grabbed some stew meat on Sunday, I had plans for it to be a slow-cooker meal; to get tossed in with several other things I knew I'd have on hand. But of course, it's been a boozey week, and doing any sort of slow-cooker prep in the morning, especially wielding a blade, was a bad idea. So last night, I took whatever was left from the week (within reason), and threw it all in a pot to make some deeeee-licious beef stew. It's not much of a recipe, but here you go:
Every once in a great while, the gods of love and weekends and beer all get together and say, "let's give Allie's Boyfriend a Saturday off!" Entirely. Also, "let's not make him go back to manage the bar until 5PM on Sunday!"
And when that happens, we don't want to let down the love-weekend-beer gods (who would?), so we do our best to appease them. This Saturday, it included a food truck festival that happened to be at a horse track, so we were able to check off both the "unnecessary gambling" and "eat till you hate yourself" boxes in one trip!
For a brief rant, I would just like to say that I hate waiting in line. Furthermore, I hate waiting in line for over 45 minutes to order food at a food truck festival and then waiting an additional 30 minutes for the food to actually make its way to my pie hole. But I digress. All the trucks were busy, so we opted to wait it out for Lobsta Love.
Matt has to work today. Also, I have made a do-or-die promise to myself that I will dig my fall/winter clothes out of the basement and organize my shit today. So Funday, notsomuch. Though there is hard cider in the fridge for later...
In the meantime, I figured I'd nurse our mutual hangovers with a brunch basic that took two seconds to make:
What it's made of:
English Muffin
Crispy bacon
Heirloom tomato, sliced, fried in bacon fat, sprinkled with Romano cheese
Every Tuesday/Thursday, there is a pretty robust farmer's market in Dewey Square by my office. And even though it is finally starting to feel like fall, and there are
hundredsdozens of Occupy Boston people scoffing at me and my Coach umbrella (Hi, I have seven dollars in life right now, I am also the 99%, I just happen to be employed and can't hang out in a tent with you guys all day) while I walk by, I will brave the elements until that dismal day in November when they take down the tents of delicious food (I'm assuming the hippies will have long taken down their tents by then.)
So basically, twice a week I walk on up and spend whatever cash I have on a pretzel sandwich and fresh veggies. Lately it has been a lot of kale and some root vegetables, but today I absolutely had to take advantage of the Indian Summer day in October, and buy some heirloom tomatoes, for possibly the last time.
I grabbed some fresh basil along with the heirloom tomatoes, from Kimball Fruit Farm, and also picked up some fresh mozzarella, a loaf of pajazzo bread from the aforementioned Swiss Bakers, and some sliced prosciutto (and a bottle of wine!) from the Sagarino's, my liquor/convenience store obsession.
And from there, I made my favorite summer time dish of all time; simple, delicious bruschetta.
The last month of summer was arguably the best - we're all settled into our new place, we stumbled into free Sox tickets (twice!), my future sister-in-law made a lovely and drunken bachelorette, the garden was finally full of delicious treasures (like a mini watermelon), and... I ate... and drank... and opened my mouth in photos a lot... (something new and different?)
...the people came home all loud with a bunch of friends, and then everyone took turns petting me and picking me up. I guess not a horrible use of my time. But god damn are these people booze bags.
My brother's wedding day is here! After what I suspect was a long and drunken night (that I do not remember most of), I found the groom in our hotel room this morning, so I made him a sign
Welp. I'm off to cry, dance, and drink for the next 10 or so hours!
