Oh, my goodness, it’s been so long. There have been many things, some of them terrible, some of them annoying, some of them great, and all of them quite time-consuming. But there’s finally been some baking going on, so let’s get to it.
Let’s do, over here.
Let me tell you a story: After I graduated from college, I moved to France for a little while, to teach English and find my bearings in the big, scary world outside of the college bubble. When I was getting ready to make my triumphant return to the states, I decided that I would try living in New York (I’m originally from Northern California). So I packed my bags and came straight here, after two panicked and bewildering days wandering around in Charles de Gaulle. I had lined up a place to stay in Manhattan while I looked for a job and an apartment, but for various reasons, that situation didn’t work out, and I very quickly found myself homeless, jobless, and broke in a gigantic, expensive, and unfamiliar city.
Things get familiar and quite delicious, over here
Once upon a time, by which I mean about two months ago, Kenan had an idea.
Actually, I should maybe give you some background first, before I get to the idea part: You see, Kenan and I are fortunate enough to have a plethora of friends (and friends of friends) who share our proclivity for blogging and photographing and drawing and such. As it also happens, all of them like to eat good food, even if they don’t themselves make a project of creating it (for more information, see my ‘blog roll, ladies and gents; they’re all worth a read). Kenan and I often talk about how living in a city like this is so great for community; not only are there great multitudes of talented people around doing amazing, beautiful things, but a good number of them live in our neighborhood, and having their stuff around to keep up on and learn from is both inspiring and happy-making. So, Kenan had the idea to get a group of said bloggers and photographers and generally epicurean folks together for one big, extravagant, entirely blogger-created meal.
mealing and dealing when the dinner bell rings.
My lovely and wonderful little sister, Meg, arrived for a short but much-needed visit a couple weeks ago. As it happened, her visit also coincided briefly with the visit of Leah, one of my dearest and closest friends from Oberlin. The seemingly ever-looming rain had returned, so the prospect of going on big adventures didn’t seem so appealing, but we decided to get dinner in the neighborhood, rain be damned (okay, so by the time we went out the rain had pretty much slowed to a drizzle, but we’re still a pretty intrepid bunch). We went to the always cozy and delicious Habitat. I’ve gotta tell you, I’ve loved french fries since I was no bigger than an easy bake oven and thus consider myself somewhat of a french fry connoisseur. And as a self-proclaimed fry expert (fryspert?), I feel confident saying that the waffle fries at Habitat are magnifique – some of my favorites at the moment.
What not to not eat, after the sauté.
It’s always good to get out of the city. Kenan and I took the opportunity presented by the long weekend to hop a bus down to the outskirts of Baltimore to visit Kenan’s uncle Ephraim, for the Fourth of July weekend (once again, this post is a couple weeks late coming out, but bear with me – it’s gonna be fun). Ephraim and his wife, Sarah, live in a big old plantation house so beautiful and full of awesome things that it makes me want to rethink my existence as a city dweller. When the weather’s nice, they eat all their meals on their patio, surrounded by Sarah’s gorgeous garden. And not only are the house and grounds stunning, but there’s a trampoline, a ping pong table, a swimming pool next door, and a goofy, friendly German Shepherd who always seemed to be wandering around looking for someone to throw a ball for her. Needless to say, all of this made our stay both full of fun and relaxing, certainly worth making our asses numb from sitting so long on the bus to get down there. In order to repay our gracious hosts for the use of their house and grounds, we proposed that we prepare dinner and dessert on Saturday.
preparations proceed around the bend.