Happy Thanksgiving!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I hope your holiday was merry. Here's the spread we feasted on today:
We had turkey......mashed potatoes......cornbread and sausage stuffing......brussel sprouts with pancetta......cranberry sauce......gravy......cornbread pudding......and champagne!I can't wait to eat leftovers!

Countdown to Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays (as it essentially celebrates overeating, passing out on the sofa, and waking up to forage for leftovers)! In sum, here is some of the prep work I've done in anticipation of Thursday:1) Groceries

Yesterday, we drove half an hour to the nearest Wegmans to pick out a fresh, organic, hormone-free turkey. We also stocked up on snacks for the weekend ahead! I picked up some lovely Rishi organic white tea with sweet plums and one of my favorite cheeses, Brillat-Savarin. I also procured two jars of Trappist Seville Orange Marmalade, which monks make at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, MA.

Today, I spent over an hour at the local grocery store, picking up ingredients for Thanksgiving cooking and baking. I also helped to make a gravy starter base with smoked turkey wings; we'll add to it on Thursday.

2) Pie Crusts

As the resident baker of my family, I'm in charge of making a pumpkin pie and a chocolate pecan pie. I made the pie crusts ahead of time to save time later this week. On Saturday, I made three pie crusts (2 pate brisee for the pumpkin and 1 basic pie crust for the chocolate pecan), wrapped them in plastic and alumnium foil, and stored them in the freezer. Tomorrow night, I'll transfer them to the fridge to thaw overnight. On Wednesday, I'll bake the pies...and on Thursday, we eat them!

3) Purging the Fridge

This afternoon, I spent a few hours cleaning out my parents' fridge (to make space for even more food)! Shelf by shelf, I removed the items, wiped down the icky sticky stains, and tossed/recycled expired food and condiments. Then, I reorganized everything so like foods are now logically grouped together and all labels face outward.

Hopefully, all of this organization and planning ahead will expedite the laborious cooking process on Thursday! It's all worth it in the end...

Halloween Card

Equipped with construction paper, crafting papers, glue, scissors, and a Sharpie, I made a Halloween card for my sister:The inside features Edward Gorey's morbid poem "The Gashlycrumb Tinies":On the back of the card, I sketched a silhouette of my Little Witch!

Little Witches

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays (in large part because it occurs right after my birthday)! When I'm not planning my costume or watching "The Nightmare Before Christmas," I like to make ghoulish crafts.

These "little witches" were inspired by a Martha Stewart craft; I changed most of the materials to add my own special touch. Rather than carving or painting a face, I opted to leave my witches unadorned.
Each witch is more or less made with the following:
- A small pumpkin (each cost $0.75 at my local pumpkin patch) to form the head
- A plastic Solo cup, brushed with several layers of black acrylic paint to form the body
- A small rectangle of black felt, pinned onto the cup to form the cape
- A rectangle of very stiff black felt, cut into a circle and a triangle to form the hat
- A thin wooden dowel, broken and painted to form the broom handle
- Raffia, bundled and attached with twin to form the broom

A witch in detail...spooky!

Homemade Fridge Magnets

I took it upon myself to spruce up my parents' refrigerator. I rotated out old photos and replaced their mishmash of magnets with homemade magnets. At Michaels, I picked up some heavy-duty square magnets and business card magnets, both of which were already treated with adhesive.

With Martha Stewart brand "Pegboard" crafting paper, I cut out and applied decorative paper to each of the magnets.I left some of the magnets plain and also created strawberry magnets. Using 3D Martha Stewart patches (also adhesive-backed) intended for scrapbooking, I put together the following:

Frozen Cookie Dough

My sister lives in New York and rarely cooks, so I like to stock her fridge and pantry when I visit her apartment. This weekend, I'll be dropping off logs of frozen cookie dough. She can defrost, slice, and bake individual cookies whenever she wants!

After making a batch of cookie dough, divide it in half. Roll each half into a log and wrap it with plastic. Then, roll the plastic-wrapped log in a long sheet of parchment paper. Tightly twist the ends of the parchment paper. Using a permanent marker, I labeled the individual logs with the name of the dough and the baking directions. Here is a log of Chocolate Chunk Cookies:...and a log of Icebox Butter Cookies:You can store the cookie dough in your freezer for up to three weeks:

Envirosax

Billions of plastic bags clog up landfills every year. Worldwide, around 200,000 plastic bags are added to landfills every single hour. To combat wastefulness, it's important to tote your own reusable water bottle (I prefer the Sigg brand) and have several lightweight reusable grocery/storage bags at the ready. Reduce, reuse, and recycle, right?

For the past year, I've relied on Envirosax Reusable Grocery Bags, which I purchased from one of my favorite websites, www.delight.com. These Australian bags are available from many purveyors and catalogs, and you can purchase them individually or as a set of five (a set usually costs around $33-$40, depending on your source). In Cambridge, my favorite local bookstore even sold them at the cash register. I have the Flora set pictured below:Each Envirosax arrives all snapped up into a lightweight little package, but, with the flick of your hand, it unfurls into a very large bag that you can easily sling over your shoulder. The material expands to hold whatever odds and ends you need to tote, and the bag is 5x as strong as a regular plastic bag. And...it's definitely more fashionable than any old brown paper bag!

As you can see, Envirosax come in many colors and sets, so if you prefer a more gender-neutral design or something a little less bold, there's a bag to suit your whim:
Evidently, Cameron Diaz is also a fan of Envirosax:Finally, many stores will offer you a small discount if you bring your own bags. For example, Whole Foods will deduct $0.05 for every reusable bag you fill up at the checkout counter. I always toss two or three Envirosax in my luggage and two in my everyday leather shoulder bag. They're also great for storing in your glove compartment. Envirosax are easy on the environment and easy on your eyes!

Boston Organics

I'll soon be moving out of the area, but there are many things I'll miss about Boston. Case in point: the amazing Boston Organics independent organic produce delivery service that I used. For two years, I had 100% USDA certifed organic local and fair trade fruits and veggies dropped off at my doorstep every week.

The friendly Boston Organic staff assemble the weekly boxes for you and select the freshest produce available. Although you can't control everything that goes into your box, you can log in online and check off which items you prefer to receive. Each week, you can opt to add on seasonal items, like soy nut butters, pickles, eggs, chocolate, onions, jams, and breads. I usually added a preservative-free Nashoba Brook Whole Wheat Half Deli loaf to my order:Boston Organics provides both a weekly e-mail newsletter and a paper copy to its customers. It is full of reader-submitted recipes and information about the origins of the produce. The writers also provide helpful tips on how to best store and prepare your goods:I had a $29 box--half vegetable, half fruit--delivered every other week. In the summer, I increased delivery to a weekly basis. The boxes are $29, $39, and $57, respectively. You can decide whether you'd prefer to receive all fruit, all veggies, or a fixed ratio of both. Recently, they created a $45 "office box" and a $57 "family box" for individuals with specific needs. This is a delivery I received a few weeks ago:To give you an idea, this is the approximate content of this week's $29 1/2 fruit 1/2 vegetable box:

1.5 lbs Bananas
1 Grapefruit
0.5 lbs Kiwis
2 Nectarines
3 Paula Red Apples (locally grown)
2 Valencia Oranges
2 Yellow Peaches
1 Avocado
1 Cucumbers (locally grown)
1 Green Bell Pepper (from PA)
1 bunch Red Kale (locally grown)
1 head Romaine/Leaf Lettuce (locally grown)
0.75 lbs yellow/green Summer Squash (locally grown)
2 ears of Supersweet Corn (locally grown)

Having a constant supply of fresh produce helped me to stay healthy and nutritionally-balanced during college. Boston Organics does not charge a delivery, start-up, or cancellation fee, so it truly is a risk-free venture. It has prompt and excellent customer service, and I would highly recommend it to anyone living in the greater Boston area!

Dave's Fresh Pasta

Today, I had lunch with Chloe, one of my friends from college. We met up at Dave's Fresh Pasta in Davis Square, a beloved off-campus wine bar/specialty food store/lunch counter. In addition to churning out multiple types of fresh pasta and sauce every day, Dave's offers a wide variety of interntationally-sourced cheeses, wines, olives, dips, appetizers, breads, sauces, and chocolates for the discerning gourmand. The store provides catering services and occasional wine and culinary classes. We love their sandwiches and salads!

I ordered one of the paninis of the day, The Bresaola. According to Wikipedia (that pantheon of accurate information!), "Bresaola is air-dried salted beef that has been aged about 2-3 months until it becomes hard and a dark red, almost purple colour. It is made from eye of round and is lean and tender with a sweet, musty smell. It originated in Valtellina, a valley in the Alps of northern Italy's Lombardy region."To combat the saltiness of the beef, the panini was outfitted with green apple slices, Fontina cheese, extra virgin olive oil, greens, and a balsamic vinegar reduction. I washed it down with a Sparkling Blackberry Izze. Perfection!

Climate Change Chocolate

I helped my housemate Ty prepare for his Human Nutrition final. In return, he gifted me with this adorably packaged, eco-friendly candy bar: Climate Change Chocolate.Now, I'm never one to feel guilty when I eat chocolate. After all, I'm from Hershey, PA! Yet Climate Change Chocolate is more than just a sugary snack: it reduces your carbon footprint, thereby compensating for your daily carbon consumption. According to Bloomsberry, the distributor, "America's current average per-capita share of global warming emissions is 133 lbs of CO2 per day. For every chocolate bar purchased TerraPass will purchase 133 lbs of verified carbon offsets."The chocolate bar itself is wrapped in a whimsical, recyclable paper. As you can see, the wrapping features friendly tips on how to live an eco-friendly lifestyle and reduce energy consumption. What a clever idea!This superhero of a milk chocolate bar combats environmental degradation, encourages conscious consumers, and, most importantly, tastes great!

U-GRO Cookbook

I attended U-GRO preschool for three years, and one of my prized relics from that era is a Mother's Day cookbook that my classmates and I compiled. We dictated our favorite recipes and our teachers transcribed the hilarious results. Granted, we were all about 4 years old at the time, so you might not want to use these measurements in your home kitchen.

This is the outside of the heart-shaped cookbook (adorned with my artistic scribbles):I now present "Hamburgers" by Katie Winter:1 circle-shaped hamburger roll from Fox's Market
1 tomato
1 lettuce--the whole thing
1 cheddar cheese--you need it in a square. It comes already sliced.

Put the whole tomato on the roll, then the whole lettuce, then the cheese. You bake it for a few minutes in a hot oven--one million degrees. You put the circle kind of meat in the oven on the rack. Cook it two minutes. Take it out of the oven. Put the hamburger on the roll. Put it on a plate and let it wait for a few minutes. I eat it with french fries.

The following are some of my favorite entries. "Peas" by a classmate:"Meatballs" as envisioned by another peer:And "Oatmeal" described in exacting detail:

La Bergamote

In New York, my sister lives down the street from an adorable and authentic French patisserie, La Bergamote. I spent two summers in France, so I know a good French bakery when I see one. This is the real deal.Its offerings are basic--ceci n'est pas Starbucks, mon ami--with perhaps 5 or 6 hot and cold drink options and freshly baked baguettes, croissants, brioches every morning. La Bergamote also serves up traditional baguette sandwiches and mini quiches. Its main draw, however, are its pastries.

Over the years, I've sampled many of the patisserie's tarts, tartlets, chocolate mice, pate de fruits, and mousses. This week, I ordered a mini tiramisu:This photo is a little fuzzy, but "La Bergamote" has been repeatedly transferred on the thin squares of white chocolate that constitute the border:C'est magnifique!

Alpine Picnic

When I studied abroad in France two summers ago, my peers and I hiked to the summit of a mountain in Chamonix. After 4 hours of hiking, we lunched atop the snow-covered ground.The picture above doesn't fully convey the scope of the scenery, so I zoomed out to snap a shot of the rest of the group. I think this is the greatest height at which I have ever eaten, aside from an airplane!

M&M Personification

For some time now, M&M's has had an online marketing campaign in which you are encouraged to render yourself as an M&M character. In my junior year of college, to amuse ourselves, my housemates and I created candy-coated chocolate versions of ourselves. Here I am in a Pennsylvania-esque landscape:Then we made an apartment portrait of sorts by combining our characters against the backdrop of a mean city street. Here, the residents of 355 Boston Ave (myself, Christina, Emily, and Katherine) in M&M form: We posted this in our bathroom and on our refrigerator, and the eerie likeness of the M&M's frightened more than a few of our guests!