Travel Blog

I posted to my travel blog! I did; I really did! I actually had a vacation to post about - yeah! :)

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Cook Forest - not so long ago

Our trip day 1

Our trip day 2

Our trip day 3

I ♥ berry season

We don't grow our own (yet), but with what's apparently a bumper crop of strawberries this year we don't have to grow our own. With that being said, we are trying to purchase local. This isn't easy when the Farmer's Market strawberries are so much more costly. To avoid the sticker shock, we went with a CSA (community supported agriculture) that offers fruit. We've already gotten our first delivery, which included a wooden pint box brimming with those red berries. They appeared to be the smaller, lop-sided cousins of the mammoths you see in the grocery store. I like that each is unique and getting a big berry is a big deal. While these berries weren't super sweet they were still really flavorful and delicious. I can barely wait until tomorrow's delivery.

This CSA is going to take a little getting used to, because I'm not sure how much I'll get each week or even what I'll get each week. I ended up already buying some produce for the weekend and beginning of the week knowing the local stuff will get me through the end of the week. I do try to buy local at the grocery but it's rather difficult outside of summer. I try to stop at Anderson's Market which is conveniently located near our Whole Foods. Both carry local produce and in-season WF's prices aren't quite as breath-taking. Anderson's is normally very reasonable though when you're dealing with the shipped in stuff from CA and FL they can't hold their own with the big box grocers.

I'm not sure how my love of berries has turned into a monologue on which grocery/market has the "best" produce. I currently have three different types of berries in my fridge right now. I have tasted them all and they are all delicious. I even got to discuss the seemingly unknown elderberry at a party this weekend. Berries, berries everywhere!

Everyone here loves berries - even D who's by far the pickiest eater here. J's been carrying around a toy tea kettle as his blueberry pail. And ever since our strawberry shortcake a couple weeks ago he's obsessed with "cake." Sweets fall into only three categories right now with J . . . cake (anything cake-like including pancakes), pie (he rarely gets pie but apparently remembers what it is) and cookies which is any small version of the previous two plus of course actual cookies. On National Donut Day he even had a donut which he licked all the glaze off of while repeating "num; mmmmmm; yummy," but he never took more than one bite of either donut. Yeah, he was double-fisting the donut holes. C'mon it WAS a national holiday!!!! Needless to say he seems to agree with D that donuts aren't all that great. Personally I very much enjoyed the donuts which I so rarely get.

Since I started with a doozy of a tangent let me go offsides a bit here too. My mom used to take me to a little bakery in downtown Sharon when we lived on the west hill. This was pre-siblings and pre-move to our later rural setting. I remember the cases full of shelves and shelves of sweets. What I cannot remember is the name of the bakery and neither can my mother. It's been closed for years; I think it was Tastee Bakery. Anyone know? It was downtown by the Post Office. Anyway, I'm not sure what all we bought there, but my memories are all about the donuts. No Dunkin' Donuts for us, thank you. I really want to find a small bakery around here like Tastee (I'm convinced it was Tastee Bakery). I know I can be weird and this supports that, but I'd prefer J have a less national-chain, shared memory of things and something more personalized. That is a benefit to a smaller town, and while I'm not moving back anytime soon (or ever - as my perks here are more plentiful), I definitely want to be weird and work to give J some small-town. I mean it's not like we live in an mega-metropolis.

Okay, back to berries or at least food. I have not baked anything lately. I feel like that's insulting to the fresh berries. Weirdness again, I know. I'll bake with them at the end of the season when they start getting a little iffy. I have been cooking though! I've tried out a few new recipes and tweaked versions of old. I didn't take any photos - I was too hungry. I think I need to start dinner sooner most days. Perhaps descriptions will interest you enough, and if you want a more detailed recipe just leave a comment and I'll get it to you.

First off I also love sandwiches. I was inspired by a brie and basil sandwich on chocolate bread that I saw on FoodGawker (I'm still addicted). I thought that was a little too close to dessert to even remotely pass for dinner so I used raisin bread. Clearly that screams dinner. It was essentially a grilled cheese. It was delicious. J gobbled it up. I didn't even hear any "eh, green" as he pulled out the basil . . . because he didn't pull it out; he gobbled it up along with the rest.

Next I re-created my favorite dinner on St. John. With all the restaurants to choose from, we normally visit Morgan's Mango twice to get this meal. It's so simple but sooooo good. It's the Vegetarian Plate which has veggies (duh), island rice, beans and plantains. The plantains make the meal (in my opinion). I mean the broccoli was good too but I have that all the time. It's hard to find ripe plantains here and I don't usually plan ahead well enough to allow time for ripening. This dish inspired me to pan-fry all my over-ripe bananas this year. J loves them that way, as do I and we get to hoard them all since again the picky D is not a fan.

My island rice lacked any sense of any island but it was still yummy. My beans however were wonderful and full of Caribbean flavor. The plantains were perfect and with J's sensitivity to broccoli we opt for grilled sweet potatoes (with a spicy little kick). Yum. We just needed some Ting to round it out . . . oh and a tan, snorkel exhaustion, and Love City atmosphere would've been nice too.

A final look into our culinary week would be our baked sweet potato lunch. J is not a fan of regular potatoes and since I didn't have the required sour cream for those anyway I went with sweet as well. I topped them with some chipotle seasoned, heavily buttered, corn and then cheddar cheese. Very yummy. I never liked sweet potatoes growing up and I think it was because I only ever saw them assaulted with marshmallow and syrup. I like their natural sweetness when their grilled, but they are equally good balanced with a little spice.

We'll see how I do this week. I have two packages of veggie dogs, fixings to mimic a local hot dog shop, and D's father's day gift (an enormous grill) is assembled and ready. I think I'll also be working hard to get J to eat zucchini which so far he hates. I'm hoping AJ's simple sauce & cheese recipe will win him over as it did me oh so many years ago when I was on the fence about this little summer squash. I'll try to be better with photos as well . . . okay I will be better with photos. I know, there is no "try" there is only "do" and "do not."

In the meantime, enjoy the end of spring everyone.