conference room cred

On my way into work yesterday, I grabbed not one, but two, vanilla-frosted donuts (my favorite flavor since childhood). It is possibly the worst thing I can think of (in the realm of diet) to have a donut shop right by the metro. That delicious smell wafting at you before you even walk in the building is practically impossible to resist, especially when you're starving and sleep deprived. 

Anyways, as I was inhaling the donuts, I apparently got icing on my face. Which no one told me. Of course this was right before I went in to a meeting full of people twice my age and triple my importance. I don't think it did much for my conference room cred, although it does explain why everyone watched with intent when I spoke.

The messy breakfast did as little for my expanding girth as it did for my credibility, which is a shame, because SS and I have really been focusing on cooking healthy stuff instead of spending money eating out (which is usually synonymous with eating poorly, at least for me). But in the past week or two, I've been resisting that culinary pursuit not just because I'm a bit lazy (although I am), but also because the LKTC is sweltering in the dead of winter, so you can imagine what it feels like during a 100 degree heat wave (which we are currently in the midst of in DC). 

Luckily, this smoky Spanish-style roasted shrimp dish requires a mere 30 to 45 minutes in the oven, and you only have to dart back in to the boiling-hot kitchen twice to throw things into the pan. If you do all your (easy) prep work before you turn on the oven, you can actually emerge with a tasty, quick meal, and no need to take a pre-dinner shower. And it tastes great with cold beer, which will go a long way in helping you forget frosting-face debacles.  

Another good thing about finally cooking? Getting to use one of my beautiful birthday platters from Sophie!

a different take on throwback thursday

So, I've been on Instagram since December 2011, but have only used it regularly for the past nine months or so. Somehow, though, I didn't realize "Throwback Thursday" was a thing until, oh, I don't know, the past couple months. I don't often post old pictures, mostly because a) my sister threatened to disown me if I broadcast any more baby pics of us, and b) I'm one of the rare people who was pudgier in late high school/college than I am now. And while "chubby cheeks" was a cute nick name when I was pre-school aged, trust me when I tell you it wasn't a good look in my late teens/early twenties. 

Anyways, nostalgia is something I can clearly get behind, so, I'm going to indulge in a little throwback Thursday to something more recent, namely my birthday/trip home to NC.

When I was home, we had a cookout on the Sunday of Memorial Day. To go with the grilled steak, we made a smoky Spanish-style pan roast that I still daydream about. It was super easy to make, took no more than 40ish minutes total, and had this great spicy-sweet-smoky flavor to it. It was kind of like a twist on the classic shrimp boil, and I love me some shrimp boil. 

We followed the directions practically to the letter, except that I threw in a combination of regular olive oil and "smokin' chipotle" flavored (yes, that is a thing). Also, we couldn't find regular chorizo, and ended up using chicken chorizo, which was AMAZING. 

All of this has me sitting here thinking...is it too early for lunch?

(photo from recipe)

an excuse to eat and drink beer simultaneously

I'll be the first to admit that this post's title isn't exactly oozing class. Eat and drink beer all at once? I can see noses turning up at the idea. But, bear with me here, especially if you're a lazy and/or cheap cook, you like beer, it's kind of chilly out, and/or you like eating meals that can be prepared in one pan and consumed in one bowl. I happen to be all of the above, in addition to a PBR aficionado (look, my taste in beer knows basically no bounds, people). 

So, this recipe from a very, very old weight watchers cookbook has been in heavy rotation since the dark days of living at home while job searching, and cooking basically every night for my parents (dark days because I was nearly 23 at the time, not because my parents are lame). Prior to my stint as stay-at-home daughter and errands girl extraordinaire, I basically never cooked, so, I had to start simple. 

It doesn't get much simpler than this: the sausage (unless you go the fancy uncooked andouille route) is pre-cooked, the potatoes come pre-cut in a bag, and all you have to cut is the onion (unless you buy the diced potatoes with onions already included, in which case I just helped you eliminate the only semi-complicated part of this dish). You saute the pre-cooked sausage, you saute the potatoes a bit, then you pour beer and chicken broth in there, let the whole thing simmer, and bam, hearty, smokey, delicious, beer-y dinner in 20 minutes give or take. It's also highly adaptable, and tastes great with things like bell peppers thrown in there. Plus, you get to drink the leftover beer. Win, win, WIN.   

friendsgiving, finally

Has it really only been 2 1/2 weeks since Friendsgiving? Surely not. Surely everything that's happened in my life in the past 2 1/2 weeks actually took place over a longer period of time, right?

I suppose "contemplate the time warp that has become my life" is not the point. No, the point is, I'm finally getting around to describing the gloriousness that was Friendsgiving. In case all you care about are pictures, let's start there, ok?

(Oh yeah, one thing before we get going. We decided to name the turkey Walter, so hopefully that clears up any confusion with the subsequent captions/narration)

Getting ready to make four(!) batches of rosemary olive oil bread

wearing plastic gloves and drinking some (fortifying) wine before brining Walter

coating Walter in herb butter prior to roasting

all 20 pounds of Walter, ready to roast

LOOK AT HOW GORGEOUS THIS TURKEY LOOKS!!

weary hostesses, still in cooking attire despite the 25 or so guests in the living room

fairly self explanatory, but: gravy, cranberry sauce, and bread!

from left: turkey and smoked gouda mac n cheese, apple sausage stuffing, sweet potato casserole, and bacon green beans

we finally made it out of our cooking clothes and in to our cocktail dresses

 

And now, if you are at all interested, the abbreviated narrative...

Our Friendsgiving was born from one of the many whims I've had lately in an attempt to stay busy and get in the holiday spirit. It was an idea I'd heard about from various friends over the past few years, and sounded fun, so my coworker/good friend Neha and I (pictured above) decided to give it a shot.  After all, we're always looking for an excuse to throw on a cocktail dress.  

The week of the party, despite my major aversion to the place, we went to Costco with a coworker and loaded up on obscene quantities of things like cranberries, green beans, carrots, cheese and turkey. Later in the week, we hit Harris Teeter for things we didn't need in bulk.

Neha and I devoted Friday night to baking bread and doing (not enough) prep work, and then cooked all day Saturday. Friday night, I burned the sweet potato biscuits I've made flawlessly half a dozen times now, so that was frustrating, but constituted our only major disaster, so I'll take it. 

Saturday we got a leisurely start to the day, taking our time buttering up Walter, and picking up a few last minute things. Around lunch, we suddenly realized "oh CRAP, people are coming over starting at 5, and we have so so so much to do!" So, we kicked things in to overdrive, and started chopping, sauteing, and prepping like mad women. We basically ceased any form of chatter, and only spoke when we had questions about a recipe or needed a tool the other was using. Sounds a bit Top Chef-ish, I know, but it worked out well, and we both agreed that cooking and hostessing together was an enjoyable experience. 

Despite the flurry of cooking, we were still in our aprons when the guests arrived, frantically stirring the gravy and setting up the warming trays. We plied the everyone with plentiful wine, and trays of hummus and carrots (mercifully put to good use after we nixed the planned glazed carrots dish due to lack of time and sanity). No one seemed to mind our apron-clad, frenzied selves with the smell of turkey floating around the apartment and glasses of wine in hand.

Once everything was as good as we were going to get it, we instructed everyone to fill a plate and find a place to sit. Then we snuck off, shed the aprons, tossed our cocktail dresses on, joined the party, and piled plates with delicious food.

Even a few weeks later, it still makes me cheesily happy to talk (err, write?) about Friendsgiving. Despite the stress of cooking an entire Thanksgiving meal for the first time in our lives (and for 25 people!), we had a great time. And having friends from all aspects of our lives come together for the occasion was a really nice way to kick off the holiday season.

Next year, though, we're going to do a few things differently. Yes, this brings us to the "if you decide to throw your own Friendsgiving" portion of the post. If we invite that many people again, we're going to aim for a potluck style meal in which we provide only the protein and the booze. All of our side dishes were edible, and dare I say delicious? But the size of apartments in this city does not allow for adequate prep space, oven capacity, or availability of tools, making cooking multiple dishes for two dozen people a real challenge.  And, literally everyone we invited really wanted to bring something, so I don't think the transition to a group-sourced meal will dissuade people from attending our second annual Friendsgiving next year.

Speaking of booze, provide plenty (even if you don't drink and/or some of your guests don't, the rest will make up for it). Gracefully accept in advance that you are not Martha Stewart or staring in a sitcom, and as such, your meal is not going to be ready promptly, nor will your guests all show up at once. No one will lead a revolt due to those factors, but a full glass of wine will squelch any impatience they might feel until you pull the golden turkey out of the oven triumphantly (and a presentable apron will make you feel a little less self-conscious about greeting your guests in leggins and a t-shirt) 

Oh and for the love of all things turkey, make sure you take the neck out of the bird before you roast him.

One last thing. Here are all the recipes we used (they're also on the "LKTC-tested recipes" page): 

• dry brine turkey with classic herb butter (in the herb butter, I didn't use sage, but used fresh chopped rosemary instead)
• roasted garlic mashed potatoes 
• mac n cheese (note: I make fairly significant substitutions, in which [smoked] gouda and provolone replace the cheddar. I use a ratio of 2 to 1 for the gouda/provolone mixture) 
• apple sausage stuffing (we didn't use sage) 
• cranberry sauce 
• green beans and bacon
• rosemary olive oil bread
• gravy (subbed butter for oil, and added a dollop of the herb butter that we set aside when buttering the turkey)

one week down

I've been doing the vegetarian thing for a week now, and so far, I'm actually surprised at how well it's gone. Aside from a meat-heavy diet on the road trip, I don't normally eat a whole lot of the stuff (now sugar...that will be an issue). It's expensive, I always forget to take it out of the freezer in a timely fashion, and I really hate touching raw meat. Pretty much the only time I've had food envy was Sunday, and I blame that entirely on the smell of bacon wafting from the many brunch spots in Dupont as I was wandering around looking for apartments. I have found that it can be tough to find something meat-free during happy hour at bars (my former go-to was chicken fingers). But I'm not giving up yet...


A lot of people ask me "but what do you EAT?" when I explain that I'm trying this whole no meat thing. (Seriously, I get less incredulous reactions when I mention my semi-serious intent to join a convent). I eat basically all the same stuff I did, minus the steak on the plate! See?

then...

and now!

I'm eating a lot more fruits/veggies, which is never a bad thing, and I've tried to add more plant protein (a la edamame and the like). I'm still eating too much sugar (I'm sampling some pumpkin shortbread as we speak), but I'll tackle that later...


For now, it's a night of stress baking, and roasted green beans + baby potatoes!

oh, meat

Last week, before I fled DC for home, Sophie came over for dinner, and I basically forced her to eat steak since it would otherwise go bad during my extended trip. Because I didn't want to face packing, I decided to search for a good marinade recipe.  Many of the options google presented me with involved balsamic (I'm not a fan) or some other steak-type sauce that I don't own.  So I cruised over to Dinner: A Love Story (which is quickly becoming a go-to after Epicurious and food network), and found their seemingly simple recipe.


I didn't have scallions and I skipped the hot sauce (Sophie doesn't like spicy food), but it came out pretty well nonetheless. It didn't have an overwhelming flavor, but wasn't too plain and boring, either. 


The steaks, however, were definitely overcooked, and I blame George (Foreman).  See, George and I are still getting to know each other.  He seems to be pretty old, and is entirely lacking in any sort of options. You plug him in, and that's it.  So I'm not quite sure when it reaches maximum heat (or what that temperature is).  Nor am I sure of the average cooking time for various foods.  So what I'm saying here is that it's a bit of an experiment every time. 


The first time I checked the steaks, they were practically still raw, so we let them cook for what seemed like a reasonable extra amount of time. And then they were far too done for our medium (or medium-rare) preferences. But Sophie was a good sport and pretended it was perfect. They at least looked pretty...

On the side we had roasted baby potatoes with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary (aka the convenient, long-time pinch hitter in my family's dinner arsenal), which were perfectly crisped (I'm allowed to have a moment of selfish gloating over the potatoes, right? I mean, I totally bungled the steak temperature). We skipped the wine thanks to my weird esophagus pain, which was so bad that night that I only ate because Sophie practically forced me to do so. But I made up for it by offering her a dessert sampler of all the ice cream flavors in my freezer at the moment. 

bottom left: chocolate with crushed red pepper, top: salted caramel, 

bottom right: jacked up cookies and cream

I think it was a hit

After dessert, Sophie gamely offered to do the dishes. While she scrubbed everything else, I used the little scraper tool that comes with George--easily the grossest part of the whole process. When I popped the grill plates off for Sophie to scrub, I noticed (and pointed out) a tiny pool of grease on the counter.  


"Oh, meat," Sophie said. Oh, meat, indeed. I couldn't help but think of her matter-of-fact statement the entire time I was reading The China Study. I first heard about the book on the CNN Health site (probably one day when I was a little on the bored side at work). Dr. Gupta briefly described the study, explaining that there's a whole slew of physicians and researchers who believe we can eradicate heart disease and drastically reduce instances of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and other less-severe health issues by eliminating animal protein from our diets. I realize it sounds drastic, and probably hard to buy in to (especially if you're an enthusiastic meat-eater like me), but the wealth of evidence the authors presented is staggering to say the least. 


I'm not saying I'll be an overnight vegan, or even vegetarian (in fact, I made risotto with chicken last night).  But the information they presented was eye-opening and hard to ignore. I'll definitely be thinking about making some changes in the LKTC...

riding out the debt crisis down south

(I promise, there is something cooking-related in this post.  You'll be rewarded with details and pictures if you read [or scroll] to the end)

I like to think of myself as a savvy traveler.  I've traveled alone frequently since I was about sixteen, and I've crisscrossed Europe solo and with friends during my two semesters and one summer abroad. I can get through airport security in a heartbeat, and have found no train station or bus terminal too tricky to master. My skill for packing a weekend's worth of things in to a tote bag is, dare I boast, impressive. 

But it's been nearly three years since I last lived and traveled in Italy.  (Pause for a moment of mourning and nostalgia).  And the more time that passes, the more traveling seems to throw me off.  I still fly through security and navigate modes of transportation with relative ease.  Even my packing remains fairly well streamlined.  But anymore, the week before and the week after a trip find me floundering. 

I don't cook, because I put off grocery trips ("Oh, I'm leaving soon" or "oh, I just got back...so much to do").  Clothes pile up on the empty side of my bed.  The refrigerator turns in to the home of more than one science experiment involving dairy and/or leftovers.  I eat really irrational meals (you would be amazed at how excited I was to find an uneaten Cow Tail [candy, nothing creepier] in my bag this morning...hello breakfast!).  I just feel...off.

It doesn't help, I suppose, that between yoga and happy hours with friends, I rarely get home before 9 at night.  Doesn't exactly leave a lot of time for unpacking, laundry, grocery trips, and cooking. [I'm sure somewhere in NC, my parents are maniacally laughing at my realization that it is, perhaps, just a bit difficult to be an adult.]

So I have no new LKTC culinary adventures to share, because I'm a big lazy slacker who has been happy hour-ing it up since my return from a glorious weekend at home.  My grandparents came up from Georgia and we mostly ate, caught up, and monitored the debt crisis. It was lovely.

So, I offer evidence that I actually cooked instead of asking my family to take me out to eat this weekend (well, minus that steak lunch on Saturday...). Hey, we had a new fancy grill/patio to christen, and maybe, just maybe, I'm really starting to enjoy this whole cooking thing.  Let's keep that between us, ok? 

  

For someone who doesn't love getting messy, I spend a lot of time with my hands covered in food.  But when Mom wants carrot cake, you don't tell the lady no.

Being meat-eating Southerners and all, we don't always think to include a vegetable. After the rousing success of the manchego lime corn at the most recent Sunday dinner, we decided to add it to Saturday's patio party menu.

My Nanny is a great cook (and even brought me a cookbook as a present!), and thankfully she volunteered her assistance for the patio party meal. This whole sour cream mixing step nearly didn't happen (I got a little ahead of myself).  Luckily Nanny caught the near-disaster and single-handedly saved the strip house potatoes first tested on my May trip home (noticing a "repeat successful recipes" trend here?).  After a second go-round with the recipe, we suggest adding crumbled smoked bacon, cutting the salt, and reducing the shallot quantity.   

Note to self: stop blogging about food in the vicinity of lunch time.

Somehow we all still stomached dessert.  Even though I'm not a big carrot cake fan, this recipe was pretty good.  It's light (after all, it hails from Cooking Light) so don't expect the original here.

The trip home was far too short, as they always seem to be.  You really can never get too much of boating on the lake, cooking in a normal sized kitchen, using free laundry facilities, inhaling "welcome home" french toast, or hearing your family at least pretend (convincingly) like they think you're totally awesome and accomplished. Miss you guys already.

eye spy

I was really excited for roasted potatoes, until I realized the one on the right looked like a mini person (see, it has some "hair" on top and two nubby "arms"...what, you don't see it?)

somehow I got over it, and diced them up

this is about as balanced as a meal is going to get in the LKTC

I think we can all recall (with some slight horror and disgust) the rotten potato incident.  This black goo-filled adventure was the direct result of my poor meal planning efforts and inability to use all the food I buy before it goes bad.  

So when I noticed that my bag of baby potatoes had starting growing eyes, I knew I didn't have long before they morphed from relatively harmless starch to vile kitchen counter contaminant. I decided they'd be the perfect excuse to use my cute new mini baking dishes (featured in the first pictures). 

Side note: I realize I totally overuse the adjective "cute" on this blog, but I'm a sucker for a well-designed little dish.  I mean, what's not to love?  Portion control in an attractive little package.  Done. 

To keep the potatoes company, I went for steak.  I don't eat red meat often, but I had just picked up steaks at the grocery, and I think I really needed the protein/iron after a series of days full of junk food and too little sleep. I definitely buy in to that whole "your body craves what it needs" mantra.   

I don't own a grill or a grill pan, so I timidly busted out the George Forman that my mom gave to me when my parents' kitchen was bursting at the seams with gadgets.  It looks to be one of the first models made, and the instruction book has long since been lost, so I was on my own.  

I've never been particularly free-wheeling in the kitchen (which is probably why I don't like cooking much in the first place), so when I got George out of the cabinet, I had a lot of questions.  Do I grease it? How do I know when it's pre-heated?  How long does it take to "grill" a steak? 

I really like things grilled, so I'm thrilled to report that George and I got along beautifully.  My only complaint is that I didn't take the steak off the grill plate soon enough.  In case you and George haven't met, he's a speedy dude.  I think we're going to be great friends.  If he stops making weird popping noises after I unplug him, that is. 

Even though I clearly ate a ton, I had bought pudding mix at the grocery, and realized I had a handful of mini Nilla wafers left over from my July 4 fireworks snacks.  I cut a few slices of banana, and made a little dish of chocolate banana pudding.  Need I even mention that the dish was super cute? 

the crappy phone photo doesn't really do the dessert justice 

a few weeks ago, alicia had us all over for fried chicken, mac n cheese, collards, and banana pudding (on a much larger scale, obviously), which was what inspired tonight's last-minute dessert

cooking outside the LKTC

As I mentioned, I'm spending a little less than a week at home in between jobs.  For a while, when I would come back to the Lake, there were a few neighborhood places I insisted we visit. Then two of my three favorites closed.  So we've done more in-house cooking/eating.  A beyond-familiar concept to many, maybe, but not always for us.  


But what better day to turn out a southern meal and have friends over than Memorial Day?  Mom and I woke up and decided we just had to have pulled pork, which, because pork takes 8 to 10 hours in a slow cooker, demanded an early morning covert trip to the grocery in baseball caps (hey, when the entire small town knows your dad as being one of the only male teachers at his school, you are often accosted at the grocery, whether you look like you just woke up or not). Standing in line for Starbucks while Mom paid for the pork, I ran in to our good family friend.  More accurately, our good family friend had to shake my shoulder to snap me out of my Blackberry coma to say hello.  Details.


Luckily their family had also been thinking of throwing a pork in the crock pot and having people over, so we joined forces.  Before we went off on yet another (non-grocery) shopping adventure, Mom and I tossed the giant pork in a spice rub, put the crock pot on low, and hoped it'd cook in time.  When we got back, the true adventure began.  (Note: more accurately, Mom did the pork handling and I observed, for I have an irrational fear of raw meat)


I decided to try and recreate a barbeque sauce originally published by the Pioneer Woman, but introduced to me by Allie at one of our weekly dinners.  When Allie made it, I merely looked on as she fought with the chile peppers in adobo sauce, and silently patted myself on the back for volunteering to make the (easy by comparison) mac and cheese and peach cobbler.  This time, I'd be the one doing everything from onion dicing to pepper fighting. And I had also promised to help mom try a new potato dish in lieu of the now-tired mac and cheese dish.  


We didn't exactly get off to a promising start.  See, Mom received this recipe one day in a Williams-Sonoma store.  Much like other W-S recipes, it looks simple enough.  Then you read it.  And even then it doesn't sound so challenging.  Until you get to the part where you bake potatoes, then refrigerate them overnight, then grate them, skin and all.  


Wait, you refrigerate them overnight?? I stopped Mom as she was ticking off the steps.  We both shared an "oh crap" look, and Mom made the executive decision that we were not the kind of women who hand grate refrigerated potatoes.  We were the kind of women who laughed at the kind of women who grate refrigerated potatoes....as we sliced open a bag of pre-grated "Simply Potatoes." 


And that's just what we did.  So after I got the barbeque sauce going, I poured 2 bags of simply potatoes in a dish along with an obscene quantity of white cheddar, shallots, sour cream, and the bacon we decided to add (really, what doesn't taste better with bacon?).  I'll spare you the description of what it feels like to mix that with your hands.  Instead, I'll just tell you that it turns out deliciously, although we recommend going lighter on the shallots and heavier on the cheese and bacon (we call this the southern-ized version).  I will also spare you the detailed description of the two of us trying to drain the boiling liquid from the crock pot with the pork still in it. I will just tell you it wasn't super graceful. 


And despite my issues peeling an onion (see proof below) and straining adobo sauce away from peppers, the Pioneer Woman's sauce turned out as smoky and rich as I hoped it would be the second time around. Even the cobbler turned out well even though I was making it basically from memory and letting an intrepid 7 year old do all the work.  


I'd call it a successful Memorial Day impromptu dinner party all around.  I'm no Pioneer Woman, but I do a pretty good job of following directions, and I'm getting better at improvising when life just needs a little more bacon.  

(peeling an onion pretty much always goes this poorly)

(getting all the sauce ingredients lined up and opened)

(this doesn't really do the sauce justice, but really you must try it)

(improvising in action)

(gratin pan purchased just for this occasion)

(the spread, minus cobbler)

come on over, valerie

Something really kind of unusual but fantastic is happening right now.  I am cooking as a form of stress relief.  Or maybe it's a diversion from an even less savory task at hand (writing cover letters).  Let's not question it, ok?


I'm bouncing around the LKTC singing along to the Glee cast (knocking off Amy Winehouse, among others) and dicing potatoes and garlic for what will hopefully become a tasty/healthy/filling roasted potato and green bean concoction.  I'm sure those above and below me are really happy about the sing along part, because in case you haven't heard it, my voice is something special.  I should probably worry about how much you're judging me right now, but I figure if you're still with me at this point, you're either not the judgey type, or we're the same kind of quirky.  


Anyways, this is a particularly welcome development for me (the cooking as stress relief, not the off-key singing).  I've long been known to stress bake, but never to stress cook.  Stress baking is great (assuming you can find enough non-weight obsessed people to consume the end result), but you can only call cookie dough "dinner" so many times before you start to worry that someone is going to knock on your door and tell you that you've failed at adult life.  And considering I ate wine and leftover spring rolls (from Fat Tuesday, relax people) for dinner last night, I decided I needed to move in a slightly more nutritious direction (or at least stop my whining when I find myself face down on my keyboard throughout the day due to "inexplicable" exhaustion).  This might be followed by some stress baking if my potatoes end up undercooked and my beans end up mushy...


On an only slightly related note, I had my first brush with serious food envy today.  I went to Pentagon City with my work friend Sarah to keep her company while she was indulging her fried chicken craving.  (Yeah, I hear you...going to a food court at prime lunch time while hungry but incapable of purchasing food was TOTALLY NOT MY BRIGHTEST IDEA.  Stay with me here, I have a larger point).  Sarah got a biscuit with her meal.  I love biscuits.  Seriously.  For my 18th birthday, my best high school friends kidnapped me at the crack of dawn and took me to Biscuitville for birthday biscuits, complete with candles and a serenade (and people look down on the South...)


Anyways, this biscuit of Sarah's made me want to go to extreme lengths to consume it.  And it made me think of this article I read a while back (either in Cosmo or NYT...I'm guessing the former, but the latter makes me sound less vapid).  The male author was perplexed by his girlfriend's near-constant fad dieting, and in an attempt to see what she was going through, he decided to undertake her diet of the moment (a liquid-based fast).  About a day in, he went to lunch with his long-time best friend, who ordered something predictably tempting (a cheeseburger I think?) and the author's hunger and self-deprivation made him literally want to attack his friend.  


I did not actually jump across the table and swipe Sarah's biscuit, but it's only day two and I can already sympathize with the author's thoughts.  So, friends beware. I probably should not be trusted at restaurants for the next 38 days.  Now back to those potatoes (and, sigh, cover letters).