Hipsters and Clogs

Day 868, Clogs: About a year ago, Dave & Kat went to Turkey (before I did) and brought me back some urfa biber, or isot, a lovely spice that I haven’t used nearly enough. I put some in this evening in a dish that’s a spin on my usual eggplant, zucchini, and chickpea stew-thing. 

Day 576, Clogs: Yes, it’s another imported spices & condiments photo. It’s high time I start consuming all this stuff, I guess. Who wants to help? I’d done a lot of research by the time this trip rolled around, so I ended up buying things recommended on David Lebovitz’s 10 Things to Bring Back from Your Trip to Paris list, including Christine Ferber jam. I don’t eat that much jam. I have 3-8 jars already in my house that barely get used. But that mango one looked just so good! There are three spice jars from GoumanyaT, a centuries-old spice shop recommended by Clotilde. There are two beers from Gallia, a Parisian brewery that had closed shop for decades, but reopened recently with the old recipes. (The free sample at La Grande Epicerie charmed me.)  And, finally, in the funny shaped bottle is vin jaune, which I’ve tasted only a few times before but I buy a bottle whenever I can — which is, at this rate, once every three years when I’m in France & see it in a shop. Rare stuff.

Day 556, Clogs: This saddlebag has by far the most flair of any that I’ve seen.

Day 554, Clogs: Okay, okay, I’ll start using the spices tag. Upon a return from a week+ of friend-seeing and its necessary decadence, it’s time for some vegetables and spices and healthy foods. One of the spices crowding my cupboard is this unlabeled curry powder. 

Day 370, Clogs: ANOTHER spice picture? Yes. I brought back some things that are effectively impossible to find on this side of the pond, obtained at some of my favorite Rochester establishments: Parkleigh, Wegmans, and the Nathaniel Square Corner Store. 

Day 348, Clogs: Apparently, once a year I take a photo of spices. I ran into my friend Binyam, who just got back from a month visiting his family in Ethiopia. He knows I like to cook and was kind enough to bring me back a bag of berebere that his mother mixed. I went for color, not scale, on this photo. It’s about a two cup bag. 

Day 271, Clogs: The Monday night dinner party crowd gathered as we did last week. This time, I hosted. It was accidentally a very mayonaisse-centric meal: curried chicken salad, deviled eggs, egg salad, asparagus (We’ve got both kinds, green and white!), bread, and a pasta salad I’d tried to make Saturday but fubarred the recipe. Dessert was freshly-made mango and strawberry ice creams from the Australian Ice Cream shop with blueberries and mango. 

Day 164, Clogs: We picked up a label maker from Staples today with the main goal being to label spice jars. Okay, fine, that was our only goal. What else around the house can one label?

Day -3, Clogs: My cupboards had a lot of stale spices in them. I thought the sink was the best way to dispose of them. These two aren’t just stale, but Tyler and I couldn’t even figure out what spices they WERE. They’d been sitting in Tupperware for 2+ years.