In the next exciting installment of the listen-to-me-whine-about-wanting-to-go-on-a-trip series (I’m sorry for all the dashes, but isn’t that a thing we’re supposed to do?), I still feel the itch to get out of the city and I still have done nothing about it. Well, not nothing. I decided on two potential trips that I want to do in the coming weeks. 1) Corpus Christi. Did you know that the beach is only three hours away?! Not the good beach, but a beach! And, and, you can apparently pitch a tent and light a fire on the shore at Port Aransas for free! But if yelpers are to be believed (bunch of mouth breathers, the lot of ’em) sleeping in a tent on the beach sucks- the wind is apparently so bad that it blows sand through the screens all night, if you can get the tent set up at all. So. 2) Love Creek Orchard. Henry really wanted to go apple picking last year, and I researched it around October and found that in this godforsaken climate, if you want to pick apples you’ve gotta do it in the relentless heat of August. So we’re gonna try! This orchard is two hours away in Medina, somewhere between San Antonio and Kerrville, and the fujis are supposed to be ready to pick in the next couple of weeks. Does it seem crazy to spend four hours in the car to pick apples in the heat with two toddlers? Talk me out of it. Also the beach camping is probably stupid and I’m back at square one. Oh, anyway! Here’s what we ate this week.

Smoked Chicken, Corn, Bruschetta. This chicken uses the rub from the linked recipe, which rocks, but not the barbecue sauce steps because I tried that a few weeks ago and didn’t like it. Instead I smoked the chicken for two hours over indirect heat, adding another couple fistfuls of soaked wood chips and pieces of charcoal at the one hour mark. The meat tasted great, and so did the rub on the skin, but smoking the meat makes the skin extra tough and chewy, which is not ideal. Maybe I’ll try again without the smoke and see how it goes. I’ve written about bruschetta before, and everyone who’s been to a johnny carinos in the last decade know what it is anyway, but this is my gospel, so I’ll keep singing it. Grill thickly sliced bread until it looks toasty and charred, then remove from heat and rub with a piece of garlic that’s been cut in half, drizzle liberally with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Top with anything, but a mixture of tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and salt and is a delicious classic.

Chicken Tacos, Beans. These are the chicken fajita-esque tacos from a few weeks back. I have nothing inspiring to say about them. I’m typing this on my laptop on the couch and Andy’s sitting next to me watching a video series called Monster Factory, where a couple of dudes create the most horrific looking mutants possible in the character creation section of video games, and then run them around in their video game worlds to get their misshapen heads blown in. It’s mesmerizing and distracting. I’m putting the blame on them for my lack of witty anecdotes for these chicken tacos.

BLT, Peach Salad. Check it out, y’all. Salad! Plus a BLT is basically a salad on a sandwich (plus bacon). So that’s like two salads in one meal and we’re set for the week. Do click on the link for the peach salad (if you don’t already follow Dash and Bella) to see a gorgeous post about eight salads you’ll want to eat right now. With two kids who will occasionally eat what you put in front of them but will always eat it if what you put in front of them is bacon, we may have reached the tipping point where one package is not enough to meet our needs. This two-slices of bacon BLT is borderline un-American.

Pickled Jalapeno Pimento Grilled Cheese Sandwich. I didn’t know what to call this sandwich. There aren’t pimentos in it. Instead there’s chopped up pickled jalapenos. But if you just say ‘jalapeno grilled cheese sandwich’ you’ve failed to convey that this cheese has been shredded and mixed with gobs of sweet, sweet mayonnaise, and seasoned with celery salt too in the manner of the world’s best pimento cheese makers. We also ate this pseudo-pimento cheese cold with potato chips while watching Hairspray at the Zilker Hillside Theatre- delicious. That show was fantastic by the way- dare I say even better than the Ricki Lake classic? Really go check it out if you have a chance to.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread, Peach Salsa, Fruit. I made this bread again. Aaand once more after that. Eep. It’s too good. And you know why I like it? You don’t have to soften butter or wait for pesky bananas to turn brown to make it. You just melt the butter and toss all the things together and you’re on your way. The peach salsa is diced cherry tomatoes and peaches, mixed with minced jalapeno, red onion, and cilantro, with a squeeze of lime juice and some salt. So good. We ate these things with some thinly sliced ham and cheeses and crackers poolside for a dear friend’s birthday celebration.

Crispy Chorizo and Chickpeas with Spinach and Breadcrumbs. I love this dinner so much. I blogged about it not once, but twice on my old blogspot page. The first time I accompanied the post with a photo of the empty crumb-flecked skillet like a goddamn amateur. So I may have shared a couple of uninspired sandwiches and tacos with you this week, but at least we’re doing better than blogspot-Arielle who couldn’t be bothered to take a picture of the food before eating all of it.

Sausage and Egg Breakfast Tacos. Does the speck of sausage at the top of the plate bother you as much as it bothers me? This was all I could muster for Friday night’s dinner. The kids had been up until midnight the night before (late nap for both, then the Zilker summer musical) and George slept in just late enough to not want to take a nap. We got through the day by watching literal hours of Jake and the Neverland Pirates (the theme song has been stuck in my head ever since), and then we ate tacos and went to bed. And then I snuck out of bed and watched eight episodes of Parks and Rec with Andy. Glorious television. See y’all next week.

I have been itching to get out and go somewhere new and exciting ever since we got back from Vancouver. I tried to scratch that itch by making a google map of an epic road trip we could take to get to next year’s NPL convention in Salt Lake City, if money and time were magically no object. I went down a rabbit hole when I saw an ad for $49 Frontier airlines flights from Austin to Denver. If I booked right now, I could take the kids to Denver for $200 round trip! But we’d have to stay 1 day or 6 days to get that fare. We could camp for six days in Rocky Mountain National Park! But we’d need a car. Hey wait, there’s a free shuttle to the park! But I’d have to carry a tent and a week’s worth of bear-proof provisions on said shuttle.  That’s when I gave up on that idea. But I was sad to do it because, $200! And it’s so hot here. I think we’re going to do a little overnight trip to San Antonio with my sister instead. In the meantime, here’s what we ate this week (slash in the few days before leaving for Vancouver). 

Parmesan Chicken, Green Salad, Yellow Watermelon with Herbs and Serrano. We eat salad, who says we don’t? We don’t. Scrolling through my pictures I’m ashamed of how few green things we’ve been eating lately. This dinner is the lone exception this week (and it’s actually from before we went to Vancouver) unless I get partial credit for the zucchini bread below, which manages to be delicious in spite of (?) the two large squashes grated into the batter. This chicken is an old favorite, something I would make for Andy in college when I was a blindly devoted follower of the Barefoot Contessa and cooked almost exclusively from her cookbooks. Andy always loved it and it turns out little George loves it too. Hey and me too. Henry was less wild about it but he was also in a super shitty mood that night, so who knows.  I use fresh breadcrumbs or panko instead of the dried ones the recipe calls for.  Adding a handful of grated parmesan to the breadcrumbs makes the chicken crisp up extra beautifully and taste like nutty cheese, so yes. This yellow watermelon was the worst one of all time. It was 400 percent seeds, held together by the flimsiest network of remarkably not-sweet yellow flesh. It was marginally better tossed with herbs and the chile and olive oil, salt and pepper.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread. Make this. It is insanely good. My sister liked it better than my standard chocolate cake (which is completely ridiculous, that cake is untouchable, but still, gives you some sense of how great this zucchini bread is). I made half the recipe, one loaf, and didn’t drain the zucchini like instructed because I didn’t want to, I also added a handful of chocolate chips because why not. The recipe calls for a mountain of zucchini, 2 cups per loaf, but it all but disappears in the bread, leaving only a superbly moist crumb behind. I’m making it again tomorrow.

Sausage Wrap. Not a ton of notes needed for this one! You can look at the picture and work out what to do as a fun culinary exercise. Ok, I’ll help. It’s sausage wrapped in a flour tortilla. Voila, sausage wrap. Is this a Texas thing? If you’re from loftier climes where people don’t wrap sausages in tortillas, don’t think you’re better than this. It’s delicious and I encourage you to take the eight seconds to make one for yourself.

Spaghetti and Meatballs. Ok, so meatballs. I love the meatball recipe I’ve settled into. The meatballs are simple, and tender and flavorful. They are also so soft that they collapse into themselves and could not be called balls by even the most generous measurement. Here’s what I do. Take a slice of bread, literally any kind (I used a goddamned hot dog bun here because I had nothing else and it worked like a charm). Tear it into pieces in a medium bowl and splash enough milk over the top to get the bread nice and soggy (about 1/4 cup). Mash it up with your hands (this is called a panade, and it will help keep your meatballs tender, add structural stability, and add volume to the mixture so you get even more sweet sweet meatballs). Then add a pound of ground pork (I have come to really prefer this over beef or a mixture of meats), finely chopped onion and/or garlic, chopped basil or parsley, grated parmesan, salt and pepper. Form into balls, brown on all sides in a skillet set over medium heat with a bit of olive oil, then pour your tomato sauce on top and allow the meatballs to simmer for another 10 minutes or so. Try them if you believe that the form follows function rule should also apply to meatballs.

Hummus. Why am I sharing this sad looking bowl of hummus with you? I don’t know. I guess because I took a picture of it, and that is essentially my only criteria for what makes it into my blog. I cooked a big batch of chickpeas (soaked overnight, drained and covered with fresh water, salt, a bay leaf, and three garlic cloves, cooked for about an hour and a half, until they were completely tender) and used some for this hummus, some for the curried chickpeas below, and some were reserved for my favorite crispy chickpeas with chorizo and spinach that we’ll eat tomorrow. Hummus tastes a lot better when you make it when the chickpeas are hot. I spooned the chickpeas into the food processor, added a garlic clove, the juice of a lemon, a pour of tahini, and salt and pepper.  While this was processing I added enough of the chickpea cooking liquid to make the hummus smooth, then I scooped it unceremoniously into this bowl and put olive oil on it and it was hummus and it was good. We ate it with carrots and celery (hey! another green thing!) and pita chips leftover from when the kids and I went camping weeks ago.

Andalusian Gazpacho, Focaccia, Olives. Now, it is an undisputed fact that my mom makes the best gazpacho on the planet.  Check out her recipe here.  The only trouble is that that recipe calls for a big can of tomato juice, and that’s not available at my regular grocery store. So when I don’t make mom’s I make this different but also delicious version, which is completely smooth and thickened with bread like the traditional soup. I’ve followed the recipe to the letter and also skipped the steps where you have to freeze and then thaw the vegetables and both versions are great, so save yourself the hassle if you don’t have the time or energy for it. I also don’t bother peeling the tomatoes, or seeding them, because this soup gets pushed through a fine mesh strainer and all the pulpy bits are left behind. I served it with store-bought focaccia and olives.

Gluten Free Strawberry-Blueberry Crisp. More crisps, y’all.  This is oats, sugar, butter, and a lot of chopped pecans on top of strawberries, blueberries, lemon juice, and still more sugar. It was still looking too wet and oozy after 45 minutes in the oven, so I broiled the hell out of it to crisp up the top. I took it a bit too far, because the fruit lost all its juices and adhered itself to the crisp layer, but it still tasted good to me.

Mini Peach Jam Hand Pies, Regular and Gluten Free. When I made patriotic pies for the Fourth of July, I had extra pie dough leftover from both my regular and GF  crusts, so I froze it to make little tarts or something with later. I’ve also been making peach jam, which was meant to be saved for winter, but Henry loves it so much that I had to crack open a jar for him. I dropped teaspoons of the stuff onto little circles of the rolled out pie dough, crimped them closed with a fork (mostly unsuccessfully as you can see in the picture), brushed them with egg wash, sprinkled them with turbinado sugar, and baked them at 425 for about 12 minutes. They were a big hit- Henry ate fully half of them, and would have eaten more if left to his own devices.

Mejadra with Crispy Onions, Quick Curried Chickpeas. This mejadra is from Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook and it’s as delicious as it is ugly (of course his is gorgeous- mine is a drab shade of brown because I cooked the rice in the lentil cooking water). It’s lentils, rice, crispy fried onions, and spices all tossed together to the benefit of all parties, and topped with dollops of rich greek yogurt for serving. If you try it, do heed the advice in the headnote and fry the onion in a bigger pan in more oil, I don’t know why Ottolenghi is so skimpy there. I made the chickpeas just because I had some, and the ingredient list was stuff I had on hand, and because Henry has declared chickpeas his second favorite food, after risotto. I added a little greek yogurt at the end, though the recipe doesn’t call for it, and thought it improved the dish.

Please to enjoy this photo of Henry’s magnificent rear. 90% of the photos I took of our vacation were of food, which made finding a photo suitable for a cover shot tricky! I picked this one.

We went to Vancouver! Andy and I are members of the National Puzzlers’ League, which is the greatest organization in the world. It’s not jigsaw puzzles, it’s mostly word puzzles and trivia. We have a monthly publication called the Enigma, which has its charms but at first glance tends to turn people off joining our group (it’s packed with a complicated and somewhat archaic puzzle type). But the convention, oh the convention! It is a weekend where brilliant people invent brilliant games for you to play, and you get to be dazzled by a room full of the most talented people on the planet to boot. As an added bonus, the convention is in a different location every year, so it provides a fabulous opportunity to travel to places you otherwise might not. This year we traveled to beautiful Vancouver, BC and I am completely smitten with the city. Here’s what we ate this week.

High on my list of places to eat was the Granville Island Public Market, which is more food hall than farmers’ market, but still packed with delicious stuff. On my list of vendors to check out was Chocolata (for beautiful chocolates with unusual flavors), Terra Breads (for anise and fig bread), Benton Bros (for cheese), and Longliner Seafood (for a small container of maple-glazed smoked salmon bites).

We managed to hit all those places except Chocolata, with some teeny tiny grapes thrown in for good measure. That’s the fig and anise bread, which was just as lovely as I’d heard, plus a ham and cheese croissant and a tiny little focaccia, the smoked salmon bites, which were not quite as good as I’d hoped- a bit too dense and tough I think, and some goat gouda from the cheese shop which was just glorious with the fig bread. I brought back a little box of chocolates for my sister, and so far she’s tasted a rosemary sea salt caramel one and a grapefruit vodka one. They’re fun! The little grapes were a big hit with Henry. Here’s how he ate them:

I have 10 separate photos in this series and they’re all fantastic. Maybe I’ll have them all printed and display them somewhere in a long line.

Henry picked out this samosa chaat with chickpeas after tasting his Grandma’s- it was so good! Vegetable samosas were smashed in a bowl and topped with curried chickpeas, chutneys, and yogurt. I wish I had a bowl right now.

That night Andy and I got to go out to a fabulous (kid-free!) dinner with a dear friend to The Farmer’s Apprentice, a highly regarded farm-to-table spot. It was the best tasting menu I’ve had in a long time. The Taste of Summer menu included the following courses:

This morning’s scallop, cucumber gazpacho, sour apples, tapioca. Our first bite of the evening, and damn near perfect. The scallop was sliced thinly into a sort of carpaccio, and was heartbreakingly lovely with the tapioca, cucumber, and apples. They garnished this course and others with what I’m assuming is foraged clover. If you haven’t ever eaten it, it has a great lemony taste, and would work well if you wanted to garnish something with micro greens but also wanted to save five bucks.

Citrus panna cotta, summer harvest. I think it’s sweet and fun that the “summer harvest” in Vancouver is mostly springtime fare in Texas- crisp fresh English peas, sugar snaps, and radishes. They had just started to get tomatoes, so one of those was included too. Underneath the vegetables was a quivery little square of a decidedly savory panna cotta, bright with lemon juice. The combination was sunshine-y and happy.

Ling cod, gai lan, shaoxing wine. This was the first hot course and it was so light and fresh tasting that it was the perfect bridge to the hot ones. The cod was buttery as shit. In the good way, not the bad way. The gai lan (chinese broccoli) was crisp and bright and bitter, also in a good way. I loved it.

Organic beef, beet, carrot, colatura. This tasted like a light and fancy bahn mi. I had to look up colatura- it looks to be a sort of fish sauce made in Italy. The more you know! (shooting rainbow star + four note melody).

Young eggplant, miso, shiso, wheatberries. Miso-glazed eggplant is one of my favorite things on the planet and this was the best version of it I’ve ever had. I’m going to have a hard time not putting cherry tomatoes and herbs on top every time I make it from now on.

Lemon curd, summer berries, mint. Notice how judiciously the mint was used- three tiny little bits, but it was really the perfect amount. Just a hint that left you wanting more. The blueberry sorbet on top was sublime with the lemon curd.

The next day we took a long walk through Stanley Park (like Central Park- it’s huge! and full of gigantic trees and ferns and mosses and lagoons and all sorts of glorious Neverland-like things) and ended up ravenous in the middle of the park and in search of options. Luckily, the aquarium (which is supposed to be great but we didn’t have time for) had a sweet little outdoor cafe, and the fish and chips there were rad.

This is a thing in Canada. Did you know? I didn’t. I mostly ate them because I wanted to see for myself what level of disgusting they were (I don’t super-love ketchup), but was surprised to find I rather liked them! They taste like salt and vinegar chips mostly, heavy on the vinegar, plus they’re a shocking shade of purple, so that’s cool.

We stole a few minutes between officially Con activities on Saturday to head up the street to the farmers’ market. I was really hoping that I would be able to try tay berries or marion berries, but alas, none of the stands had them. We did get some of the most delicious thin-skinned cherries I’ve ever had, plus tight fresh blueberries, a couple apricots, and a couple peaches.

Little Georgie hands! Side note: we have apparently called George “George-o” so much that he thinks that’s his name and will now correct you if you try to call him George.

Ok, y’all! The Richmond Night Market is next up. It’s 180 tents that sell all things Asian, from meats on sticks (see below) to wacky drinks (see below) to 4000 different iPhone cases (we didn’t buy any of these). It was crowded as hell, but the food was fun and we got to experience it with some of my favorite NPLers, so I loved the whole thing.

Andy’s pick- you could get 3 skewered things for $7, so he got some kind of spicy pork that wasn’t spicy, rib eye, and pineapple. You know this guy couldn’t walk by steak on a stick, right?

I walked around every food stand twice before committing to this thing- something called a “fusion wrap” stuffed with beef and kimchi. The outside is like a scallion pancake, sort of, but thicker and breadier, and all the elements together were delicious.

Our pal went full-Canada and ordered this green curry poutine there, and my other pal graciously snapped a pic and shared it with me. I got to taste this and thought it was tasty, but spicy enough that I wouldn’t want to eat the whole thing. It turns out the fellow who ordered it cooks with ghost peppers a lot though and didn’t have a problem with it.

This is aforementioned pic-snapping-pal’s “Mango Yummy.” I hate the word yummy but will forgive them that because this thing was so great. It was shaved ice topped with chopped mango, mango puree, mochi, and ice cream. I wish I had ordered one of my own.

Henry went all in on the wacky drinks. This was his big get- a mocktail sort of thing in a peach-something else that started with a ‘c’- flavor. But the kicker is that they put a flashing LED ice cube in the drink that lights the whole thing up like an edible(??) glow stick. There were also tons of bubble tea stands, some of which served the tea with dry ice so it smoked all over when you drank it.

And how did you feel about the Night Market, Andy? 😐

We ate breakfast at a little 80’s-style diner called Joe’s Grill and I ate everything on this plate. Then we went to Tim Horton’s for a bang bang.

We had to see how Tim Horton’s stacked up against the hometown favorite, Dunkin Donuts. So right after first breakfast we went to TH to buy donuts and then eat them for second breakfast in the park by the beach. I think DD wins the regular donut prize, but my TH chocolate cake donut (my favorite kind) was better than the competition- really more like eating a good piece of chocolate cake- more light and moist than the denser Dunkin ones.

I’ll leave you with this shot of the clouds parting to shine a divine light on George’s sprinkle donut. Vancouver is so beautiful, and there were so so many places left on my list that I was hoping to try- I hope we get to go back some day. In the meantime, I’ll be back on Monday to share our regularly-scheduled meals with you!

P.S. Huge thanks to cookinginvictoria for all the amazing suggestions!