You Are What You Eat: February 6 through March 27
Wow, that's a long gap since last time. 50 days on, the big news is that my streak of not eating inside a restaurant came to an end on Saturday, February 11, when I was in Philadelphia for my triumphant return to the Super Bowl party I've been attending for years.
On Saturday, February 11, Mike and I went to our long-time Saturday brunch spot, the The Springfield Diner. I had a hot chocolate and the lox platter. It was nice. I then doubled down with a breakfast out the very next day with Helene, when we went to Occasionally Yours, which is the kind of hippie breakfast place that all good colleges have near them. In this case the college in question is Swarthmore. Helene and I split a fancy apple pancake in addition to our own omelettes. Or something like that, it's been a while.
My streak ended on the 1052 day, or if you prefer 2 years and 322 days after it began. This followed M and I's streak of not eating at a restaurant (aka, on a patio) for 816 days, or 2 years and 86 days. With that said, M has not yet eaten in a restaurant, so her streak is now at 1096 days. This requires a slight tweak to my stat block.
M's Streak of not eating inside a restaurant - 1096 days and counting (+50)
My new Recipes for the Year: 6 (+3)
M's new Recipes for the Year 1 (+1)
Despite our eating out, I've obviously been doing a lot of cooking. Staggeringly few of it was new recipes; I'm way beyond the 2022 pace.
- I found a 3-bean chili recipe in the 660 Curries. It was, alas, just ok. I'd consider adding more cashews if I tried it again, along with more spices.
- We got our first seafood delivery since December, so I tried out the Oven-poached Salmon with Turkish Spices. Any recipes that involves dipping crusty bread in a heavily spiced olive oil is worth making at least once. Unfortunately, aside from that highlight the recipe was pretty meh. The salmon poached nicely enough, the flavor profile was fine, it just didn't 'pop' enough to make it again.
- M really loves Dolly Parton, and her family got her a limited edition "Dolly Parton's Southern Style Banana Flavored Cake Mix" for her birthday. We broke it out when we had gieves and darlox and their brand new daughter A (who is adorable and solidly in my top 4 favorite babies) over for dinner in February. Now, it's not cheating to add this to my new recipe list, because the cake mix requires a lot of extra ingredients and is significantly more complicated than "mix and dump in pan." I baked two separate round cakes, slathered them with buttermilk frosting, put bananas and vanilla wafers between the layers, poured whipped heavy cream frost over the whole thing. The results were actually quite good, and pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a Dolly Parton branded Southern Style Banana Flavored Cake. I'd have it again, except that it apparently was limited edition. I guess we should have saved the box!
- M loves Wendy's, which was the road trip food of choice. She decided to see if she could make a Frosty at home. Apparently a lot of people have tried to recreate the Frosty flavor; M used this variant from From Gate to Plate. The end result was actually pretty solid. The texture wasn't quite right, but the taste was spot on. As proof of success, when I asked M to text me the recipe while I was writing this, she said "I should really make that again."
On Saturday, February 11, Mike and I went to our long-time Saturday brunch spot, the The Springfield Diner. I had a hot chocolate and the lox platter. It was nice. I then doubled down with a breakfast out the very next day with Helene, when we went to Occasionally Yours, which is the kind of hippie breakfast place that all good colleges have near them. In this case the college in question is Swarthmore. Helene and I split a fancy apple pancake in addition to our own omelettes. Or something like that, it's been a while.
My streak ended on the 1052 day, or if you prefer 2 years and 322 days after it began. This followed M and I's streak of not eating at a restaurant (aka, on a patio) for 816 days, or 2 years and 86 days. With that said, M has not yet eaten in a restaurant, so her streak is now at 1096 days. This requires a slight tweak to my stat block.
M's Streak of not eating inside a restaurant - 1096 days and counting (+50)
My new Recipes for the Year: 6 (+3)
M's new Recipes for the Year 1 (+1)
Despite our eating out, I've obviously been doing a lot of cooking. Staggeringly few of it was new recipes; I'm way beyond the 2022 pace.
- I found a 3-bean chili recipe in the 660 Curries. It was, alas, just ok. I'd consider adding more cashews if I tried it again, along with more spices.
- We got our first seafood delivery since December, so I tried out the Oven-poached Salmon with Turkish Spices. Any recipes that involves dipping crusty bread in a heavily spiced olive oil is worth making at least once. Unfortunately, aside from that highlight the recipe was pretty meh. The salmon poached nicely enough, the flavor profile was fine, it just didn't 'pop' enough to make it again.
- M really loves Dolly Parton, and her family got her a limited edition "Dolly Parton's Southern Style Banana Flavored Cake Mix" for her birthday. We broke it out when we had gieves and darlox and their brand new daughter A (who is adorable and solidly in my top 4 favorite babies) over for dinner in February. Now, it's not cheating to add this to my new recipe list, because the cake mix requires a lot of extra ingredients and is significantly more complicated than "mix and dump in pan." I baked two separate round cakes, slathered them with buttermilk frosting, put bananas and vanilla wafers between the layers, poured whipped heavy cream frost over the whole thing. The results were actually quite good, and pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a Dolly Parton branded Southern Style Banana Flavored Cake. I'd have it again, except that it apparently was limited edition. I guess we should have saved the box!
- M loves Wendy's, which was the road trip food of choice. She decided to see if she could make a Frosty at home. Apparently a lot of people have tried to recreate the Frosty flavor; M used this variant from From Gate to Plate. The end result was actually pretty solid. The texture wasn't quite right, but the taste was spot on. As proof of success, when I asked M to text me the recipe while I was writing this, she said "I should really make that again."