Food for a month: a documentary

Sunday July 24

2005-07-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

The usual breakfast for Sunday: waffles (2).

Lunch: repeat of yesterday's sandwich (only I had to make it) and an apricot.
I did have two snacks which did not get recorded, as the kids and I were way too busy mowing and cleaning up outside, then the whole inside of the house. The snacks were a fresh fruit smoothie and later a scoop of coffee ice cream.

Doug's guacamole.

Salmon (no fancy marinade), rice pilaf and roasted green beans for dinner.

Saturday, July 23

2005-07-23T22:57:00.000-07:00

Breakfast: Cheese eggs from Doug and leftover muffin.

Lunch: After an exhausting morning in Silverdale, Doug makes me a sandwich. It's really a plan to get me in a good mood, so I'll go on a bike ride with him. It works and I even suggest we ride up Toe Jam hill (after riding the trails at Gazzum Lake and to the end of the dock at Point White. The bread and lettuce are from the farmer's market and the turkey and herbed salami are from T&C.

Dinner: An informal dinner since we will all be going to the Music Man performance. Tuna sandwich, that same orzo salad and mixed olives and Balsamic onions from T&C.
(By comparing the tablecloth in the last two photos, the alert viewer will note that the photographer has gotten lazy about color balance.)

Dessert 1: a so-so pluot. Cinderella is looking quite happy in the background because she heard me use the "W" word (walk) amd knows whats up. I forgot to use one of our code words like stroll or promenade that she hasn't learned yet.

Dessert 2: Doug makes me one of his usual after-performance desserts - ice cream and chocolate sauce, and in addition, I get bananas. We did not actually get to see Doug in the performance, because the orchestra is behind a screen, but because he plays the tuba, we could hear how well he played. One theatre-goer was heard to remark that he "stole the show."

Friday July 22

2005-07-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

Technical problems today with photos - not downloading properly.
Nothing much interesting, anyway. I didn't know how many kids were spending the night, so for breakfast, I made muffins as well as biscuits.
Orzo-vegetable-feta salad was on the menu for dinner and I made it early enough to have some for lunch.
Dinner (see above) plus french bread and cheese.
Later for dessert, ice cream with 3 kinds of fresh fruit.

Thursday July 21

2005-07-21T21:32:00.000-07:00

Cheese-eggs, toast with strawberry jam and a side dish of Grape Nuts with blueberries for breakfast.

Doug and I bike to the bank to sign papers, then I want to stop in at the office (not really work) so we have lunch first.

...and share a cookie for dessert.

Pulling weeds in the garden I find the first ripe tomatoes. Everyone is gone except Doug who is "checking his email" so I eat them all myself.

We celebrate our anniversary dinner (again???) at Four Swallows (our favorite restaurant - so this one really counts). We share the antipasto plate like usual, but also have to try the Gazpacho.

We both have the crabcakes, with a delicious new condiment wasabi aoli (keep that one, Michael) and pea pods. They very kindly give me extra pea pods instead of the shoestring fries.

The frozen latte is the best dessert and usually Doug and I share one, but he wanted chocolate pot de creme, so I managed most of the frozen latte myself.
A perfect dinner.
(Photography was complicated by the mixture of tungsten and daylight color temperatures.)

Wednesday July 20

2005-07-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

We spent the night at the Roosevelt Bed and Breakfast, also highly recommended (Doug is great at selecting accomodations). Our table mates were also bicycling the Centennial Trail.

The headwind was tedious and it was hot, so I found a great riverfront spot for a refreshing swim and energizing lunch - roll (2) mini-bonbel cheese (2) and my last nectarine.

We are back in Spokane well before we need to pick up Bianca and the other volleyball campers, so we get something Doug has been fantasizing about for days - root beer floats.

With all the great options at the new food court at the ferry terminal, it's a pity that they are all closed by 8 pm, except the wine bar which made us turkey sandwiches.

(The photographs that were here, have now been removed at the request of identifiable persons.)

I found these weird pictures on my camera. Does anyone know who these people are?????

Tuesday July 19

2005-07-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

Self-serve continental breakfast came with our room. I had granola (not as healthy as most people think), banana, and a pathetic croissant imitation. I go back for a cinnamon raisin bagel.

It is usually hard to get Doug to stop while we're bicycling (once on a hundred degree afternoon on a long stretch of dry, dusty road, he passed up a kid selling ice cold lemonade) but he could not resist the raspberry invitation.

(note to CB: I did not color balance this ON PURPOSE) After bicycling 40 miles to Coeur d'Alene, we were hungry and chose the poolside cafe at the resort. I asked for no chips with my sandwich, but I can't blame the waitress for forgetting - she took our order an hour and a half before! In fact, I didn't even order this ceasar-wrap, but ingredients from my first order were apparently being shipped in from Italy, so I ordered something different. If you ever want to make a food picture look unappealing, a cyan hue is very effective. The deck was covered with blue tarp which provided the perfect tint. In their favor, the huckleberry lemondade was good and we got seconds on the house.

After a five mile hike and walk (we wouldn't want to relax!), we go to the Japanese restaurant for dinner and our meal starts with miso soup, salad and cucumbers.

I have a delicious vegetarian Udon. I demonstrate to Doug how to set the color balance on my camera even though he has no real interest. He thought the unbalanced picture looked ok too. In a way, he's right, if you're going to err on color balance, it is better if the color is too "warm" as opposed to too "cool" (for food, anyway). Besides getting the color right, lighting is important in food photography. On-camera flash looks terrible (also makes a distraction in a restaurant). Ideally the lighting should come from behind, so I factor that into my choice of a seat at the table. "Real" food photographers spend hours on each picture, arranging everything and spraying with mist, but mine are "real-life photographs" as opposed to being done by a food photographer.

Monday July 18

2005-07-21T08:50:00.000-07:00

I was able to talk Doug out of taking the very earliest ferry. I have my usual Grape Nuts, fruit and yogurt breakfast.

I brought along three nectarines and ate this one somewhere along I-90 (after Doug was pulled over for speeding and did NOT get a tickett [although it served to keep him closer to the speed limit {note the word LIMIT means maximum - it does not mean add 5 to 10 for the average speeed} for the rest of the trip.])

Doug knows all the hot spots in Spokane, so we ate at Clinkerdaggers were we had a nice view. Their huckleberry lemonade was way too sweet and the sandwich (without warning) came with french fries which I normally avoid. But since they were there, I ate them.

I eat another nectarine after a refreshing swim at this stop on our afternoon bike ride.

Another Spokane hot spot is the Peacock Room at the Davenport, where I adventurously order a martini! And I eat some cashews.

We had dinner at our hotel (the classy Hotel Lusso - highly recommended) but since the restaurant was closed we ate in the bar and called it another anniversary dinner (allowing Doug to justify a fancy dinner). We both had Ceaser salad to start.

We both also had steak, which I only eat a couple of times a year. It was not as good as at the Four Swallow's. The mashed potatoes were my favorite part. We ordered a dessert to share, which turned out to be enough for a group of eight, so it looked like we didn't eat any of it. We should have just skipped it for the cookie that was waiting for us in our room.

Sunday July 17

2005-07-17T21:46:00.000-07:00

Waffle day. The raspberries are so good, the waffles are simply a vehicle for eating them.

Ham and cheese sandwich with "bad" leaves for lunch. Doug made me bike home really fast because he wanted plenty of time for lunch before the Sunday matinee performance. So I needed a smoothie. Its made of banana, yogurt, blueberries and chocolate ice cream. Blueberries are so healthy, but they make an unattractive scattering of blueberry skins in smoothies.

Doug makes his famous guacamole. (see recipe link) I snack on it while packing and cleaning out the van. If the dog smell is not gone, Bianca and her friends will die back there.

I couldn't eat all the guacamole, because it was also needed for dinner as a condiment for the chicken fajitas.

Saturday, July 16

2005-07-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

For the first time in years, Bianca wants us to get an early start - she wants to get home because she's leaving later in the day for volleyball camp. We get to Gere-a-Deli by 8, but it was a circutious route because of "Shipreck Days" where the main street is closed for the town to have a humongous garage sale. Same breakfast as yesterday except a bagel.

Doug hands me a piece of cold pizza for lunch. He bought a gigantic pizza for his dinners while we were gone. I think it was the worst pizza I've ever had. I don't know why I ate two pieces. I had to wash it down with a scoop of coffee ice cream.

Douggie reminds me that it is our anniversary - I'm the one who always forgets the exact date - he's the romantic. He makes grilled swordfish with his special sauce (see the recipe link), pasta, and salad with "bad leaves" as Bianca calls the organic wild greens. She's already left, so we can have them.

I make chocolate desserts for an anniversary treat. (check recipe link for chocolate frosting) The heart shaped cake with pink flowers (Ballerina rose buds) is reminisicent of our wedding cake. And the cupcakes are...well...extra decoration.

Friday July 15

2005-07-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

Mom and I let the kids sleep in while we go to breakfast at our usual place, Gere-A-Deli. Perfect breakfast: serve yourself oatmeal (including yogurt and rasins), a bowl of fruit, coffee, and pick out something freshly baked like my gigantic blueberry scone. “I haven’t seen you two in a while,” the clerk says. We always sit at the same table. The only other people there are the self-proclaimed “old-guys” who hang out there all morning enjoying themselves.

The kids are showered and ready to go by noon, so we have lunch at the Calico Cupboard, their favorite breakfast spot. I get the salad which has sunflower seeds strewn over it, giving it a retro-taste.

A few M&Ms are needed to fortify us for our hike and spelunking adventure.

We have a good dinner at the Happy Chopsticks except when Bianca and I embarrass the others with our uncontrollable laughing fit.

Thursday July 14

2005-07-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

I’m trying to eat up these bagels before the kids and I leave town. I munch on it while getting things together and tidying up the kitchen.

We’re so hungry that we start our sandwiches before we get on the ferry.
Once on the ferry we eat the rest of lunch while transcribing a very funny conversation going on behind us.

My mom takes us to dinner at La Jinte in Anacortes. I warn her about my blog before our food arrives. She says, “So what about these chips, shouldn’t you be taking a picture of them?” She’s right, so I do.
Bianca and I share the vegetarian fajitas. We do not share it equally. Giselle and I make a bet on one of the ingredients in the potato salad that Jasmine had brought to our party on the Fourth. The answer will be published in a future blog.

Wednesday July 13

2005-07-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

Oops. Forgot my camera. But for documentation purposes, I'll report that breakfast was exactly like Monday's breakfast (biked to Blackbird Bakery) but I had the toast and cereal at the same time. Half a dozen sleeping girls littered the living room floor when I woke up, so I had to get out of the house.

Giselle and I got lunch while we were at T&C. This is half the grilled vegetarian foccacia panini, organic strawberries and Odwalla juice. I put it in a wine glass, not to be fancy but because between all the kids in the house and being behind on dishwashing, there were no other clean glasses. I contemplated my lawn mowing strategy while I ate.

Doug has rehersal again, so I can make a meal he doesn't care for (too blah) - rice and stir fry vegetables with tofu.

Dessert - the rest of the strawberries with ice cream hidden below.

Erotic Fruit Plate

2005-07-12T20:19:00.000-07:00

Guest Submission

This erotic fruit plate was created and photographed by the talented Kim Gottlieb Walker.

Click here

to visit her website. (It contains an "erotic pear series," but the main subject is the fascinating collection of her photographs from the Music industry and Hollywood work.)

Tuesday July 12

2005-07-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

The usual breakfast. The usual cat. She licks the bowl when I'm done.

I had to wake up Bianca early (10am) to get her out of Shelia's way. Before going to my office where I put her to work on menial tasks (way below her potential), we stopped for something from the bakery.

Bianca and I take a lunch break with Giselle - salad bar stuff from T&C. I get brocolli-cheddar soup and Chinese Chicken salad (which I purposly "infected" with a couple of beets so Bianca wouldn't eat it).

Quick and dirty dinner since Doug had rehersal. Turkey dogs, baked beans, potato salad (from T&C). Notice the extra large jar of Dijon mustard. "You can't have too much mustard," Doug said slathering his dog. I called him on that one.

Bianca made cookie dough - not ever intending to make cookies, but simply for snacking on the raw cookie dough. I was allowed to bake some of it into cookies. But first I had to add extra chocolate chips to each cookie. She doesn't like chocolate! Is that weird, or what?

Monday July 11

2005-07-11T20:55:00.000-07:00

Great toast at Blackbird Bakery. But is that really enough breakfast for anyone? I packed Grape Nuts with blueberries and some yogurt in my bikebag, but when I turned around because of the rain, I forgot to bring it in the car.

When I get home about 11, I can eat the cereal and yogurt.

Cleaning out the garage today and my hair is full of spiders. I don't want to make lunch. I notice this pizza in the garage freezer. I think its extra frozen pizza from Costco that we bought for a kids party. The kids leave while its cooking, so I don't hear the timer and it overcooks slightly. I eat my piece standing right there.

I make brie pasta for dinner and we eat it all. In fact, Doug is hungry later and has a bowl of cereal.

Sunday July 10

2005-07-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

Traditional Sunday morning waffles. I must arrange an equal number of blueberries in each quarter section. I eat two of these.

One of the homes on our bike ride of the garden tour is where we have our picnic lunch. I think these Cape Cod chairs were actually a display from a local store, but nobody kicked us off. The menu is baguette, cheeses (Camembert, mini-Bonbel, and cheddar), carrots, olives and cherries. We bught the Limonatas there.
"Why do you like to go on the garden tour when you have zero interest in gardening?" I ask Doug. "I can still appreciate nice gardens. You can appreciate good food without necessarily cooking, right?"

Extra girls are at the house, working diligently on creative projects, so I invite them to dinner. I add deviled eggs and salad to the menu even though Doug is displeased about how it spoils the thematic quality (Japanese) of the menu (teriyaki-ginger salmon, rice and cucumber-tomato salad). Bianca and the lovely Maxine talk about the various times they saved each other's lives.

Ice cream and bananas - the perfect dessert.

Saturday July 9

2005-07-09T21:32:00.000-07:00

Biked to breakfast at the diner. I had the healthy (for the high-carb diet crowd) 10-grain cereal and toast. Jason said they don't have bananas anymore because he was always having to throw them out, but he served me a year's supply of brown sugar.

Turkey sandwiches on baguette for lunch. I added a bit of Camembert cheese and basil and some sorrel leaves from the garden. The sorrel leaves all had little red spots on them which I've never seen before. If I die later, that may have something to do with it. It would either be that or some disease I contracted from feline germs transferred to the sandwich when Missy tried to snatch it as I took a picture.

The hardware store has an ice cream case right next to the key counter where we waited patiently for keys - Bianca needs her own set now. "Do we have to stop in the middle of the parking lot to take a picture? There's a car coming?" It would be wrong to allow a student driver to eat an ice cream drumstick while driving, so I offered to hold it and work on it while she drove.

Dinner by Doug: bow tie pasta with chicken and a sauce of artichoke hearts and olives, along with roasted green beans. "The problem with these recipes from Cooking Light Magazine is that they're so bland," Doug said. We ate it all.

Friday July 8

2005-07-08T23:04:00.000-07:00

"Maybe you should wait until after this meeting to start your 'documentary'," Doug said.
No. If you delay for every inconvenience, you'll never get anything done.
I get up early with Doug to board the 6:20 ferry. Naturally, even after buying coffee, we are the first ones in line. I brought along plain yogurt to which I'd added blueberries.

Breakfast was ok for convention food, although I wasn't that hungry after blueberries and yogurt. I sat next to a couple of convention VIPs (one of them has published 4 must-read [if you’re in the field] books). I took advantage of a momentary distraction to take the picture.

I warned the convention-goer on my left that I needed to take a picture of my lunch for a "project", so he was fine with it, but the man on my right thought it was hilarious. Maybe he thought I was making fun of the food. Or maybe, being from Alaska, he was easily amused. The sandwich was actually very good and the apple was fine. I didn't eat the chips or cole-slaw and after one bite of the brownie, I remembered that Doug was meeting a friend for lunch at Dilettante, the famous choclatier, which was right downstairs.

Doug and Ronaldo were not in Dilettante. While I was there, I asked the clerk if it was possible to get one dark ephemere chocolate, or if that was too small of an order. She completely understood, not only chocolate fixes (she let an extra truffle slip into the bag), but of the need to take a picture. She arranged the truffle on a plate and artistically sprinkled it with cocoa. The second one looked exactly like this one and I ate it during the break of the next lecture. I needed a little something because I was feeling a bit drowsy, despite my total engrossment and thrill to be learning about the software for analyzing cash flow patterns, which was, in fact, my main reason for attending.

Doug and I are on the same ferry again. He shares his daily apple-for-the-ride-home with me and we sit next to Peter who just flew back from Scotland, which he says would have been a great trip if only there could be a way to get there instantaneously.

7:30 No one home. Doug has rehearsal. Giselle is babysitting. Bianca is out with friends. I open the fridge and find Bianca's leftovers (90% of it) from lunch yesterday at Veggie House and eat that while I work to get a few more clues on the crossword. For a Friday crossword, I did well.

Still hungry, so I have some salad left from yesterday. Unfortunately it was in the part of the fridge that freezes everything. Frozen lettuce and tomatoes are not that good, but I eat them anyway.

And I'm still hungry. I make toast topped with some strawberry jam that I made last week and a dessert of raspberries (the ones that aren't moldy) and whipped cream. I resort to google to help find a few more answers on the crossword.

Thursday July 7

2005-07-08T21:20:00.000-07:00

Last day of work and Doug makes dinner - one of his best - spaghetti with Kalmata olives and capers.

Recipe

Usually we question the quantity of red pepper flakes. "Wow, super-spicey today," Giselle said. He also made me an ice cream sundae with bananas and chocolate sauce, but I forgot to take a picture of that.