laniloa

Chicken smothered with carmelized onion and garlic and a little white wine pan sauce. Roasted long beans. Glass of lambrusco. The onion, garlic and long beans from the farmers market at work. Whole wheat roll from the Zoe Francis book. The wine, chicken and roll part of using up my pantry before moving.

The mini-farmer's market was back at work this afternoon. I made grilled chicken that I'd marinated in shoyu, lemongrass, garlic and ginger. This was served with ginger glazed carrots and a salad with a mix of lettuces. The lettuce guy told me his season is winding down and this would probably be his last market day. Sadly, I don't like clams because a really nice guy with an aquaculture lease in one of my preserves was there today. He sold out pretty quickly.

You clearly have not enjoyed enough egg creams.

A Pacific Rose apple...unbelievably crisp and sweet.

Gorgeous day today and the legislature is finally out of session. Besides being a lot less chaotic, it meant I could get out of the office a little after 5 and be in the pool by 5:25. I had about twenty-five minutes before the kids descended. No problem, just headed inside and did some stretching to round out the day. The local co-op opened their expanded store last weekend and they have a much better produce selection. It has made it much easier to eat well and I've probably had an extra serving or two of fruit and veggies each day as a result and it shows. I dropped another 2.5 pounds this past week. I suspect that is the last of the easy weight. I don't travel again until end of next week and I plan on making the most of the time.

Thanks. Travel has been a huge part of this. I've been traveling at least 2 nights a week for 3 weeks a month with many longer trips. It disrupts my eating and exercising patterns both while on the road and when I'm home. It gets hard to shop and cook healthily for a day or two at a time without wasting a lot or getting very expensive. Exercising patterns are also hard to keep up. I try to pack in a lot or travel at night to limit time on the road which doesn't leave time to exercise. Plus, some of the places I go to aren't quite safe to be out alone early in the morning or after dusk. And once you get out of the habit and are home several days in a row, it just doesn't seem to happen. That has been the big first change I'm making -- do it anyway. The second is to spend more care while shopping and keep it simple while I get back into a routine. With only three weeks left of work, two trips during that time, and some travel after to move my stuff and find a new apartment, I'm not sure "routine" is the best way to put it.

Or much worse! We need to live vicariously through you. At least for the next few weeks until I can swing through town and taste for myself.

Figures. The week I give notice at my job, they start a weekly organic, local growers farmers market in our office parking lot each Thursday. I picked up some lovely garlic scapes and arugula, tossed them with whole wheat pasta, chicken, and roasted tomato for a lovely dinner. They certainly made it easy to make a fresh, healthy dinner after a hectic day.

Doing well so far. Got home a little early today and hit the gym -- there were too many little kids in the pool. The time flew by thanks to an absolutely comical display of a son teaching his ~70 year old mom how to use the treadmill for the first time. I think she was wearing slippers and my feet ached in sympathy. When I left, a family was just finishing cooking on the grill by the pool so I jumped in and claimed it. A short while later and I was enjoying my chipotle-lime grilled chicken, grilled zucchini, and grilled corn out on the patio with the frogs croaking up a storm. They are scary loud. So my first week wraps up with steady exercise, better eating, and 1.6 pounds less of me. Tomorrow I try to quit my job once again. Boss didn't quite let me when I tried yesterday.

Whole wheat orzo risotto-style with chicken, adouille sausage and asparagus. Only the asparagus were bought specifically for this meal. Chicken stock, chicken, and sauasage from the freezer. Orzo on the shelf. Carmelized onions in the fridge. Putting a dent in cooking down my pantry made the meal that much more delicious.

Since moving to FL 2.5 years ago, I have gained 25 pounds. It has been a combination of a lot of travel disrupting eating and exercising patterns, lack of good food making it too easy to eat crap, and just not settling in to my new town. All that is now going to end. I'll be leaving here by the end of May/early June and start migrating north ending up in Boston at the end of July. I'll be going to school full time and living on a very tight budget. I'm taking this as a challenge to work on my cooking skills which have gotten a little dull lately. I'm also not big on planning my meals ahead of time which just won't work well on a much tighter food budget then I'm used to. I've been in an exercise vacuum lately because my orthotics are shot and there isn't a single freaking doctor in this town who makes the kind I use - I'd have to drive 4 hours to Orlando. I'll be at my folks' place in NY in early June and my first order of business is getting my orthotics rebuilt. Until then, I'll either need to work around this or suffer through it. We've hit steady warm weather so I may be spending some time in the pool over the next few weeks and the recumbent stationary bike is another option. I clocked half an hour on it this morning and feel pretty good. My goal is to have dropped 15 of these extra pounds by the time school starts -- 5 pounds a month. I'll be posting periodically for a little public motivation to stay on track.

I'll be lucky if I can swing even that much once I head back to school in July!

I am reminded of one of the great Gilmore Girls moment -- they had leftover deviled eggs so they devil egged some guys car. Seems appropriate for this board.

Haagen Dazs Fleur de Sel Caramel ice cream. Very good stuff.

Very. I remember one great solo dinner at the bar after a crappy day. Each bite revived me a little. I was enjoying eavesdropping on the conversation of a trio next to me each about 20 years older then me. As I was getting ready to leave, one of the women tapped me on the shoulder and told me how great it was that my generation didn't shy away from dining alone at the bar like that. I told her she couldn't ask for a better place to give it a try then Palena.

I would not have made it out of grade school without english muffin pizzas and pizza bagels.

A year since my last post about this town. So sad. Mon Pere et Moi has been re-made into Sage. They still have the chocolate business inside and I highly recommend picking up an assortment. This place aspires to be more then its appearance would lead you to believe. Who cares, the food is good so look past the the oddity of eating a $22-32 entree (tres expensive in this town) in what is basically a coffee shop. They also have a decent by-the-glass wine list with about 30 choices including actual rose and not white zinfandel listed as pink wine. After a brutal day dealing with absolute nonsense from the legislature (these people are trying to kill me), I headed here for some TLC. I had an absolutely wonderful duck breast that was melt in your mouth tender. It was served with an anise-pinot noir reduction, haricot verts, and wasabi mashed potatos. I had a glass of pinot noir my server recommended and left somewhat restored.

At a dinner with two pregnant diners, we enjoyed this stuff. It definitely filled the void better then Welch's could have. Think much better then your typical juice, but not quite good enough to reach for instead of a bottle of the actually fermented stuff.

In these parts, Texas Toast (caps) is a specific product name from Pepperidge Farm and Texas toast (not caps) refers to a large slice of bread that is served toasted, often but not always, with garlic. Texas toast (not caps) is what I see on menus here. Quality varies widely depending on whether it is freshly toasted or has sat around and gotten soggy. Size of bread also varies widely.

To RM...who died today at the end of a dive while restoring the coral reef...can't think of a more fitting end for someone who contributed many years to the cause...this Barbancourt 5 Star is for you.

Chicken soup Anything baked with vanilla and/or cinnamon

Reporting back --- had a wonderful dinner at Dino tonight. Boss' flight was delayed due to bad weather so had a much more relaxed evening with just staff and was able to treat them without issue. Staff loved the place. I didn't know that one of them had taken a long dreamed of trip to Italy last fall and is fixated on all things Italian. Staff was gracious, food was wonderful and the whole night was a welcome break from this crazy week of meetings.

What finally made it work for me are bags like these or these that after unpacking my groceries I can immediately stuff back into their sack and put in my bag, jacket pocket, leave in the car.

I highly recommend skipping Oahu. You can always go to Miami. But, if you must, Leonard's for malasadas, 3660 on the Rise or Indigo for a nice dinner, Kanak Attack for ono plate lunch, and any 7-11 for spam musubi.

Hmm...the lounge might fit the bill as you have the option of bar food without having to sit at an actual bar. Will call to confirm that they are offering the full menu in the lounge these days as the last two times I tried that, they said no. Florida. And it was increased a little over a year ago when our new ethics rules went into place since we can no longer accept anything from people with business before us and the legislators were going to have to make due with per diem. I travel several times each month and each trip costs me. We don't have a lodging rate but need to do some paperwork for prior approval if the room is more then $200. We have another working dinner at Old Ebbitt on Sunday so that is covered and we had one at Clyde's when I was in town last month. I think they'd like Colorado Kitchen - Tallahassee is a very southern town and they'd probably get a kick out this city twist on it. I'm not sure I can get my boss on a bus after four hours on planes and the obligatory pass through the Atlanta airport. But I will add this to the list of places for staff to try for the nights we aren't eating together. If only I hadn't just taken my annual discrimination and harassment seminar! I think this exact example was on our quiz. Dino has been suggested by several folks and is sitting with Circle Bistro lounge at the top of my list. We're heading there Monday night. Three of my staff go for beer choices and have been wanting to go since our last trip to DC. Staff would love it and I've suggested it to them for one of the nights they are on their own but I can't even imagine my boss' response. Thanks everyone for so many great ideas.