It's 4am. Why is the cat yeowling?

Option 1: Because he is an ass.

Option 2: Because he misses his daddy. The same daddy who never feeds him, kicks him off the bed, doesn't scoop his litter, and once demanded that we "get rid of the cat" because he scratched the leather recliner, but who still manages to get more purry kneady love from said cat.

Option 3: Because a moth the size of a pterodactyl has invaded the house, and the cat believes he will be able to meow him down from the wall and thence munch on him.

Option 4: Because it's fun to wake his canine brothers and sister up early. They are too dumb to realize that it's not actually time to be AWAKE and GET FED and GO OUT IN YARD TO BARK AND PEE.

I'm thinking it is a combination of all four options that inspired today's early morning howling. There really was a moth in the house (flew in after the final dog walk last night) and it really was enormous. But Rocky also ALWAYS starts his early morning wake up calls when CPM is away. It's ridiculous.

I can guarantee you, cat, your father does not miss you ONE BIT.

Day 1 of Spouselessness or I Had the King Sized Bed All to Myself, Woohoo!

I feel like I'm doing homework in preparation for this.

I've read Julie and Julia.

I'm almost done with Julia's autobiography, My Life in France.

I'm ready. Bring it on.

I feel all girly and crap.

Since I cute my hair off, you can now see my earlobes all the time. I've had pierced ears since I was small, but in the last 10 years, have only worn earrings for special occasions. I've just been too lazy to decorate myself. No more! In addition to a set of cheapy H&M earrings that I recently bought, I also "splurged" on an etsy purchase from the shop of Shlomit Ofir. I got these:



I like that they are different than your average hoop. Instead of going through your ear, they sit on the lobe like a little "o."

Tequila will do that to you.

Last night I dreamt that I received a Comcast bill in the amount of $987 dating back to 2005. It had been sent to my mother's house in the suburbs, which she moved out of years ago. When I woke up this morning, my first conscious thought was, "Oh crap, I'm going to be on the phone all day straightening this out." Then I realized it was just a dream. A very scary dream.

***

Jaime asked me to join her for a trip the Headhouse Farmers Market. In theory, I love the idea of farmer's markets. Fresh produce. Independent vendors. Locally sourced cheese. Since they always seem to take place at inconvenient times, like when I want to be cleaning my toilets or riding my bike, I've skipped them until now. I'm glad I went. My wallet is not so glad. I bought expensive chocolates, delicious cheese, and very ripe peaches. If CPM were not leaving for Europe on Wednesday, I would have gone crazy and bought fancy eggplants and stuff. Instead, I will subsist on scrambled eggs and frozen pizzas for 2.5 weeks. Ah, the single life.

See...expensive chocolates!


***

The broomcakes homestead is once again hosting house guests. This time they are French Canadian. House guests are an excuse to eat too much food!

I made the house guests peanut butter cup ice cream. CPM helped stir the peanut butter and sampled the makings. When his eyes rolled back into his head in ecstasy, I knew I had done well. I used the basic chocolate ice cream recipe from the Cuisinart manual, and simply added 1/2 cup of natural creamy peanut butter to the "batter." Once that had churned for 25 minutes, I dumped in 8 chopped peanut butter cups--I used the full sized version, and froze them in advance for easy chopping. Also, I had run out of white sugar, so I used brown sugar. This was easily the best ice cream I have ever made.

CPM's new favorite toy, the peanut butter stirrer, goes to work.


Perhaps eight peanut butter cups was a bit much, since they almost overflowed the machine.


The house guests had to have dinner before the ice cream. We took them to El Camino Real in Northern Liberties, to sample veggie wings and bbq seitan sandwiches, and to see a friendly favorite server who had migrated from another of our favorite eating establishments. We were lucky enough to get to sit outside and listen to people butcher "The Humpty Hump" and Biz Markie's "You Got What I Need" via karaoke. I may or may not have had a mango margarita.

Ok, I had one.


CPM had a Mexican Coke. This is how Coke should taste.


There were definitely veggie wings at the table. I have friends who will need to order these "mild" or they will sweat profusely. I love spicy. These were for me.


There were also bbq seitan sandwiches and delicious fries. Notice my focus is on the fries. I loved those fries.


CPM had the seitan stuffed chile relleno. Is it wrong to admit that I prefer the cheese stuffed version at Las Margaritas?

Scary

I hate getting political or controversial in any way on my fun blog space. But this article scares me. Maybe because my books acted as my best friends when I had very few real friends (you try making friends when you are super shy and move to a new neighborhood every 2 years)...the thought that someone could take them away is just...I can't even find words to express the shiver that crawls over my skin.

Side note: as a child, my mom would "ground" me from reading books as punishment for misbehavior. It was the only punishment I actually feared.

Wow.

I'm a nerd.

The 3 Day Work Week Should Be Mandatory

I had off yesterday because we had house guests for the weekend. I did lots of fun stuff...mostly involving food, beer, and wine.

Ate some cake...Peanut Butter Bomb by Vegan Treats


Knocked over some pins...




Rode some bikes...alas no photo.

Visited a prison...


Did some shopping...thank you H&M.

Almost toured Independence Hall...just couldn't wait in the line due to someone's ADHD


Back to the grind today, but off on Friday!

Change! Is! Good!

Hey, internet, I cut my hair:


Well, I didn't do it personally. Patrick at Gary Charles did it. And he did a great job, I think. I haven't had my hair this short in about 7 years. I'm still doing the double take whenever I pass a reflective surface and catch a glimpse of my profile. I'm also remembering my cow-licks. Hey cow-licks! Nice to see you again. Thanks for sticking up straight in the air like bug antennae!

***This is transition people...perhaps I should write more than one blog post per week!

Last week was CPM's 33rd birthday. I got him lots of little stuff, nothing big. For instance, he asked for a vintage Gibson Trini Lopez guitar. Instead he got a freezer paper stencil t-shirt of our dog's silhouette.

Yeah, I'm just a good gift giver, if by "good" you mean someone who will just give you what I think you should get and not what you ask for. But I took him to Blue Sage for dinner. And we ate like kings! Kings! See below:
Thai Carrot Bisque

Salad Casbah

Macadamia Black Bean Cakes

Hazlenut Toffee Basket (aka my favorite dessert, ever)


There were also nachos, but the photo was awful. I told you we ate like kings.

***More transition...seriously, more than one post would probably be a good idea.

I had off from work last Friday. I was able to food shop! I made dinner. Holy moley, it was good. Thank you, Veganomicon.

Baked Orange Tofu with Quinoa Mango Black Bean Salad


I did some major substituting in the quinoa salad. I used red onions instead of scallions, olive oil instead of grape seed oil, apple cider vinegar instead of red wine vinegar. It was still incredible. I want to try to eat like this more regularly. But then I mess up my vow to be healthy and make something like this...


Nutella Ice Cream

Delicious! Delicious! Delicious! And not healthy at all! But delicious!

Grover Shreds!

Cobbler For Breakfast: A Good Idea, Until Your Teeth Turn Blue

Having spent the week leading up to the holiday weekend dying of some upper respiratory plague, it was with great joy that I woke up on July 3 with the ability to breathe through both nostrils. CPM was also overjoyed, and invited me to join him on a celebratory 30 mile bike ride. (Some people would just eat cake or something. Not me. I enjoy torturous physical activity.) By mile 2, I was convinced that I was going to die. A week of forced inactivity had weakened me. By mile 10, all was well, except I was holding CPM up. He was riding his fancy road bike, and I was on my comfy hybrid. After the ride, and a lunch at Farmicia, we ended up in a bike shop. Somehow, CPM convinced me that it would be a good idea to buy this, so that I would no longer ride at a snail's pace:



It's a women's Trek 1.2, the starter road bike. On Saturday morning, CPM suggested we take it for its inaugural ride, towards a brunch at Dos Segundos. This sounded like a really good idea! It was, sort of. What better way to learn how to ride a bike than to actually ride a bike. I only almost died one time, when I ended up in a trolley track in front of an asshole SUV, somewhere in the hinterlands of North Philly. Lesson learned. Trolley tracks suck. Asshole SUV drivers suck more. North Philly by bike is a little scary. Mimosas make everything better.

I definitely developed a new form of road rage on the new bike. I also developed a keener sense that the streets of Philly aren't so clean. Yuck. At least my neighborhood isn't covered in broken glass and discarded Dunkin Donuts cups...yet. Some of the other areas of the city, well, it's too late for you, I'm sorry to say.

On Sunday, CPM and I decided to try brunch at a new spot that I had read about somewhere online, Cafe Estelle. What follows are boring food photos. (And we took the car this time, by my request.) Trust me, everything was delicious. Our server was incredibly nice and even gave us the secret to CPM's delicious smoothie. Verdict: repeat visits are necessary!

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie...(The secret is the Jif peanut butter)


Eggs Benedict with Spinach and Mushrooms


Shirred Eggs


Walnut Sticky Bun, Drowning in Cream Cheese Frosting


At some point over the weekend, I did do a little cooking. I wanted to make something "fourthy." You know, summery and with a festive holiday feel. I settled on the cobbler #2 featured on The Pioneer Woman's website. Only, I don't have access to a bountiful supply of blackberries. So I used a combination of blue and blackberries, and then made homemade whipped cream. Ooh la la. I'm still eating this for breakfast. And yes, it does turn your teeth blue. But it's so worth it.