Irene's Starchfest: Spaghetti and Potato Salad

The trouble with being back in the office after a week away sick is that you end up having to catch up on a bunch of things (like all the meetings you were supposed to have) and the small things -- like taking pictures of your food -- fall by the wayside.

And it's too bad because I had some pretty damned tasty food this week: take-out butter chicken; pasta with meat sauce; and, of course, lots of coffee.

At least there wasn't risotto, too.

Thankfully Irene sent me two pictures of her eaten meals.  Unfortunately, she didn't tell me much more than what was in the plates.  She just sent me two emails: one titled "Spaghetti and meatballs" and the other "Potato salad".  She didn't expand on it.  I can only assume that she had some kind of midwinter nervous breakdown that resulted in a carbfest.

Did you ever see the movie "Big Night"?  I'm guessing you haven't because I'm the only person I know who has seen that movie.  It's this movie about two Italian brothers who open an authentic Italian restaurant in the US (New York?  I don't know) in the 1950s.  The movie opens with this scene where this couple orders risotto and spaghetti and they're disappointed that the risotto is just rice and the spaghetti is meatball-free.  Then they order more spaghetti to go with the risotto, which is, like, not done.  The brother in the kitchen flips out and is like, "Do they want some mashed potatoes with that?!"

This spaghetti wanted the company of meatballs.

Anyways, I thought of that when I saw Irene's pictures. 

At least Irene didn't make risotto.  Or maybe she just didn't take that picture.   I imagine her eating some kind of leftover hash made of potato salad and spaghetti-and-meatballs, with some risotto mixed in for good measure...maybe she's huddled on her sofa, wrapped in a caftan, watching Days of Our Lives as she eats it as snow falls outside.



But that isn't like Irene.  She most likely had some nice wine with it, or some sparkling water and then went out to work on a video project about the joys of cold climates.

In which we eat out with Irene

The beauty of the holidays is that you can go out for lunch to places that aren't the place next to your office.  I mean, that panini place is awesome, but I've had enough chicken-and-goat-cheese sandwiches.  

The other awesome thing about the holidays is that I actually get to see Irene in person instead of over dodgy cellphone connections.  

My parents had the day off and offered to take care of The Toddler while my Spousal Unit and I did some last-minute Xmas shopping and went out for lunch.  The last minute shopping went very badly:  there was a line-up in the bookstore that made us despair and leave; the liquor store was so packed, we couldn't find anything; and we totally forgot what we went into the fancy soap store for.  But we had a nice lunch at Gordon Ramsey's rotisserie!

On the table, there were pickles.  Instead of bread, you get pickles.  I didn't have any, but Spousal Unit said they were really good: crunchy, not too salty, not too vinegary.

Then we had our mains.  Spousal Unit had a 1/4 white meat rotisserie chicken with fries and coleslaw and I had tourtière.  Spousal Unit ate the salad that came with my tourtière and I had his fries.  They were damned good fries and it was a damned good tourtière.  It had cherries in it!

Throughout the meal, we kept seeing these slices of lemon meringue pie passing us, so we ordered lemon meringue pie for dessert.  Damned that was good!  The lemon part was a thick, creamy lemon curd.  I don't think I've ever had such a good lemon meringue pie.  This is like the time I was in Florida and had key lime pie at this upscale restaurant and then I could never have key lime pie ever again.  

The End of The Meal

After our lunch, we went next door to meet Irene for a coffee at Juliette et Chocolat.  We had a cappuccinos and a brownie ("Le Balsamico").  Again:  Damned that was good!  

Irene and I both took pictures of the cups.  Guess whose picture is whose.

Cappucino Study

I took a picture of cups.

Last Week, Nobody Ate

Last week, no one ate. Or at least no one took pictures of anything they weren't ashamed of saying they ate.

Of course, you don't care because you, dear reader, are a figment of my imagination. No one has looked at any of the latest posts. So I'm basically talking to myself. Which is awesome. But also slightly crazy.

Anyways.

Last week was the week where I ate so much take-out crap that I started thinking that I was getting high cholesterol and diabetes. I took pictures of some of it, but I didn't want to publish the pictures because I don't want this blog to turn into "This is Why I'm Fat". So I called Irene hoping she had taken some pictures. Unfortunately, she hadn't.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I've been swamped this week! I've been eating little things here and there. And then when I finally sat down for lunch on Friday, my iPhone memory was full and I couldn't even take pictures of it. Didn't you take any pictures at all?"


"I took some pictures, but they were all of fast food. It's all the fault of those stupid Hostess cupcakes. They're a gateway drug!"

"Hostess cupcakes?"

Bless Irene's innocent stomach! She's been in Canada over 20 years yet she's somehow managed to avoid all disgusting snacky cakes to the point of being totally unaware of their branding. I don't know how she does it. Then again, she also drinks a fantastic amount of guarana soda that she gets from this shady convenience store in some random part of town.

I'll leave you with the picture of an empty Cinnabon box. I brought Cinnabon cinnamon buns to work and within two seconds of placing them in the break room a swarm of engineers descended upon them like a pack of piranhas. They were all gone in 5 minutes.

Grilled Cheeses and Omelets Are Universal Foods

Irene calls me up today and says, "I had a Snad Food Day today!"  So I'm like, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I had a grilled cheese for breakfast and an omelet for lunch!  You always have grilled cheeses for breakfast and omelets for lunch!" 

"Well, not quite.  I do have grilled cheeses for breakfast quite often," I said, "but I typically have omelets for supper.  And that's only on evenings when I don't want to cook."  

"I didn't want to cook for lunch," she said, "so it's the same thing.  Did you notice that the leftover piece of grilled cheese is in the shape of Brazil?"  

Then she told me about the omelet.

Have you seen Tampopo?  Of course you haven't, and not only because you, dear reader, are a figment of my imagination.  I think only 12 people in North America have seen it and I know each and every one of them.  There's something to be said for having a repertoire theatre within walking distance of your university.

Anyways,  Tampopo is a Japanese movie about food.  There's one scene where they make omurice, a Japanese rice omelet.  Irene and I both learned to make omurice after watching that movie.  My omurices, though, usually don't involve tomato sauce or ketchup, but do include tobasco.   Irene's omurice from today included bonito flakes and black sesame seeds, because, like I said, she's a better cook than me.  Also, I don't like the idea of bonito flakes. 

Irene and I Have Tea

Irene and I don't live anywhere close to each other, so we didn't have tea together.  But we're both sick today and we both had tea today.

Irene always has a vast selection of tea, both herbal and otherwise.  When I think about her place, I always smell tea brewing.  I, on the other hand, only brew tea when I'm sick.  So if you show up at my place and smell tea brewing, it's cuz I'm sick and maybe you should leave and come back another day.

I had my usual Peppermint Amour tea from David's Tea.  I have other herbal teas, but after two decades of trying to convince myself that rosehip, linden and star anise are flavours I like in my warm water, I've given up.  I don't really like herbal tea.  I bought these two fancy teas from David's -- Vata Ayurvedic and Immunizer -- that smelled beautiful in their tins, but when I brewed them I felt like I was drinking pot pourri.  Like, seriously, I felt like I was sipping the essence of a La Cache store.  (Are there still La Cache stores?) 

The only herbal tea I like is mint tea.  That's it.

I brew my tea in a Bodum.  Yeah.  Leave me alone.  At least my mug is cute, though some would say that it's culturally insensitive.

Meanwhile, back at Irene's, she was having a lovely breakfast of Ovaltine sprinkled on bananas.  I thought that sounded kinda revolting, but she assured me that it's the tastiest thing evah and that she's been having this for breakfast since she was a little girl.   I know she's a good cook and all, but I still wouldn't try it.   

I think she also drank some Ovaltine with it.  But that looks like a cold drink and Ovaltine's usually hot.  Maybe you can make Ovaltine cold?  I don't know.  I don't like Ovaltine. 

Apparently I don't like a lot of things.






Then she had her tea.  It's apparently called "Éveil des fleurs" and it's a Chinese Green Tea.  Not only are her dishes, tablecloths and teapots cuter than mine, but her tea even has a cuter name!  Anyways, this tea is apparently a mix of green, white, rose and flower tea.  So there.

The one thing we had in common is that we both used our tea to wash down some Tylenol.

And there you have it:  A tale of two teas. 

Irene Has a Cold, But She Still Ate

Today is a special day.  My friend Irene (pronounced EE-ray-Nee, like in that song by Caetano Veloso -- not because she's pretentious, but because she's Brazilian) heard about the blog and wanted to contribute. 

I was like, Irene, honey, you're an awesome cook and I loves ya to bits, but we neither work in the same office nor live anywhere close to each other.  But she was all, "I'll email you my pictures and tell you what the food was!" So I said OK.

Now a note about Irene:  she's an awesome cook and she was the only person I knew in grad school who knew how to make a proper quiche, so she's going to elevate the level of this blog quite a bit.  She's also an awesome photographer and will make me look bad.  But since no one's reading this, it doesn't matter.

Anyways, on with Irene's lunch.

As the title of the post indicates, Irene has a cold.  Hence, she didn't have a very complicated lunch.  The first picture she sent me was of this lovely clean bowl. 

I called her up and asked her what was up with the cute picture of the clean bowl. 

"Oh.  I washed my dish and fork before I remembered that I was supposed to take pictures of the finished food.  It was risi e bisi, because I'm sick and didn't want to make something too complicated."

There you have it:  When I'm sick, I make frozen fish sticks; when Irene is sick, she makes risi e bisi.  (Risi e bisi, btw, is the fancy Italian name for rice and green peas.  Knowing Irene, they were probably from frozen rather than from the can.)

Next she sent me the picture of her afternoon snack: a banana.  She said it was very sweet.  She couldn't really taste it since her nose is blocked.  She also lamented the slow decline of the banana and the sad news that they were going extinct because of some virus.

The last picture she sent me was of three Ricola wrappers.  "They're for my cough," she said. 

"Do they work for you," I asked.  "They don't work for me at all."

"I don't know.  They taste good, though, and make me feel better."


And there you have it:  The food Irene ate. 

She's very much into this, so I'm guessing her food will feature prominently here.  In fact, I'm guessing her food will appear more often than my food.  If anyone's reading this, you'll probably be happy about that because there are only so many pictures of coffee mugs and tupperware a person can handle.