It’s no secret by now that I heart Trader Joe’s. The idea of Trader Joe’s, at least. The actual reality of it is often a different story, especially when you’re talking about the one closest to my house. It’s tiny, cramped, over crowded, filled with rude cranky hipsters, weird angles, and impossible to navigate aisles. I go in thinking people are generally good, and come out thinking they should generally go to hell. But they have stuff I can’t get anywhere else, so I keep going back. One of my favorite such items is the Lemon Pepper Somethingorother Pasta. I can never remember the name of it, only that it starts with a P and I’ve never bothered to figure out how to pronounce it. Google just told me it’s called pappardelle. It’s got a good lemon peppery kick, and it’s pretty on the plate. A few pantry staples can turn it into a nice little last minute dinner party entree if you ever find yourself in need of one. We generally try to keep some shrimp in the freezer around here -I just buy whatever’s cheaper that week, be it the medium large or jumbo, pre-cooked or raw, shelled or un. Some form of artichoke can usually be found in the cupboard too, whether it’s baby hearts in water, or marinated bottoms in olive oil. Add a little butter, olive oil and a lemon, and you’re good to go! Put a pot of salted water on the boil, then heat a splash of olive oil (couple tablespoons) with a small chunk of butter (’bout the same amount), in a wide deep skillet until it stops foaming. If you’re working with artichoke hearts, quarter them and toss them in the oil & butter with a dash of salt & pepper. Don’t go mashing them up on purpose, but they’ll eventually gently break up on their own, and spread all throughout the dish. If you’re using the bottoms, slice them thinly and do the same thing. They’ll hold together better than the hearts will, and have a little more bite to them if you’re into that sort of thing. If you like a little kick, this would be the time to add a sprinkle of cayenne or red pepper flakes to taste. Squeeze the juice of a good sized lemon over the whole thing, and add the thawed shrimp. Heat it through if it’s already cooked, or cook until pink and opaque in the center if it’s not. Cook the pasta to al dente, drain, and toss gently with your lemony, buttery shrimp and artichokes. Garnish with a little lemon zest, and if you have it on hand, some chopped fresh parsley for color. Serve it up with a glass of white wine, a hunk of crusty bread, and a leafy green salad.

Thanks Marla, for getting that cheesy song stuck in my head.

Last year sometime, I half heartedly started a different blog that I think I already knew deep down I wasn’t going to maintain. I just wasn’t that interested. Before I completely dumped it though, I mined for anything I could potentially re-post here. This is one of those, from the day a train hit a car outside my office. The incessant ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding of the warning bells eventually drove us away, to venture further than usual for a little lunch. Azuki is where we wound up:

I chose to escape the incessant dinging of the trolley bell by going to lunch early, at a nearby sushi place I’ve been meaning to try. My co-worker Pamela is a regular, so when she immediately requested the garlic edamame, I didn’t argue. I’ve had it other places, and been pretty disappointed – it’s sticky, messy, and vaguely burned tasting. Azuki’s version however, has made a total convert out of me. I ate a Rainbow Roll too, but who the hell cares. That edamame was insanely delicious, and it’s all I’ve been able to think about all afternoon. I’m already planning to take my roommate out to dinner this weekend just to get another taste.(totally didn’t do that) It’s definitely still messy, there’s just no way around that when you’re dealing with finger food that’s been sauteed in loads and loads of garlic, soy sauce, and butter. It got everywhere, and I’m sure my breath is terrible, but I don’t care. I’ve been surreptitiously sniffing my fingers ever since we got back, and sighing a soft sigh of contentment with each whiff. I seriously doubt the aroma will fade for a good long while (my hands are smell magnets – they wafted an oniony breeze for two full days the last time I chopped a couple for corn chowder) and I’m SO ok with that.

(this portion is current, not recycled!)
My second foray into Azuki was a couple of months later, a lunch date with my friend and former co-worker Mia. I brought Pamela along again, because I had a sneaking suspicion that these two sharp witted, sharper tongued beauties would get along in a smashing sort of fashion. My suspicions were quickly confirmed, and soon we were griping together like old friends. What’s that they say, about a common enemy bringing people together? Anyway. I quickly ordered up some more of that fabulous garlic edamame, and we decided to share a few rolls for lunch. Well, Mia and I did anyway, Pamela exercised some impressive self control and stuck to her January vegetarian regiment with some tempura. In catching up, I told Mia all about my bloggy tendencies of late, and my plans to make her famous, FAMOUS I say, to all 13 people who follow me. “Ooh, find a way to subtly mention Whisper House!” says she. Mia left my company to take a job at a large local theatre, and their lastest production is Whisper House. Duncan Sheik, of one hit wonder sort of fame (I am barely breathing, and I cannot find the air…) and more notable Spring Awakening (amazing Broadway show) Tony award winning fame, has penned a new musical and it’s making it’s debut right here in sunny San Diego. At the Old Globe, to be exact. She said to mention that it’s a “haunting” and “spirited” tale, all while wiggling her fingers about in a fashion that suggests it involves ghosts and/or ghouls in one form or another. I haven’t seen it yet, but Diana went to the concert where they performed some of the music, and loved it. If you want to go see it, you should click on this. That’s Whisper House, in case you didn’t catch that.

This is Mia, not so subtly (really, the whole concept is just lost on some people) hiding from my camera behind her water glass. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s left of our spicy tuna roll looming in the foreground, I’m not really sure to be honest. All I really cared about on our table that day were those dang garlicky soy beans. I’m hooked!

I’ve decided that the best thing in this exact moment is to keep myself busy and keep posting entries here, if for no other reason than it keeps my hands busy for a while. That said, brace yourself. I’ve got a lot of pictures stacked up waiting to be written about!

One night last week around 9pm, my roommate looks up from her perch on the love seat and says “Oh no, the cupcakes!” To my raised eyebrow, she responds “It’s Chris’s birthday tomorrow (a co-worker of hers), and I was gonna see if you might be able to make her some cupcakes for me to take to dinner.” “Sure thing, do you know what she likes? I’d hate to make her something chocolate, if she doesn’t even like it. Just find out the basics, and I’ll come up with something.” She decided the husband was the best place to start, and sent the following text message:

“Hey Larry this is Yolanda. We want to make cupcakes for Chris’s b-day, what does she like? Chocolate or vanilla, sweet or tart?”

Unfortunately, she got the following response:

“Well Yolanda vanilla cupcakes sound great, but I’m afraid you have the wrong number.”

We still have NO idea who she texted, but it clearly wasn’t the husband. Fortunately, a different co-worker remembered that Chris ordered a red velvet cupcake at Sprinkles during their last business trip to LA. The problem with my forays into red velvet, is that my chronic disorganization has come back to bite me in the butt. A couple years back, I made my first attempt for a co-worker’s in-office birthday. I used a Paula Deen recipe (seemed like a no-fail for such a classic Southern dessert), but vastly underestimated how much red food coloring was actually required. I made cupcakes, and they were sort of pink velvet in the end – dry, crumbly, cloyingly sweet, and frosted with a disgusting canned cream cheese frosting that I used in desperation when time ran too short to make my own. I was so immensely dissatisfied with the result that I tried again for her birthday dinner, this time by way of a three layer cake. I used a recipe I found on some random blog, and my now go-to cream cheese frosting recipe from Joy of Baking. It was AMAZING. Moist, dense and somehow light at the same time, hints of chocolate, a delicate crumb, and a beautiful deep red hue.

Too bad I neither book marked nor noted the name of the blog, and I’ve never been able to find it again. I don’t think I owned a real cake carrier at that point, so my poor roommate had to balance the thing precariously on a plate in her lap on the ride over. I’ve tried at least half a dozen times since then, in both cake and cupcake form. None have held a candle to the mythical unidentified blog cake. My friend Heidi makes a version that’s always fabulous, but she didn’t get my plea for help with the emergency birthday cupcakes until it was too late. I tried yet another new recipe, this time found on another blog, this time carefully noted by yours truly. We needed some of the ingredients from the grocery store, so off we went. When we got home (almost 10pm by this point), I realized I’d forgotten to buy the red food coloring. Balls!!! We were about to pile back in the car, when I decided to check my pantry on the very off chance I had a bottle sitting around unclaimed. I DID! Much celebrating ensued. I threw everything together, realizing along the way that this particular recipe was unlike any other red velvet I’d ever attempted – no baking soda, no white vinegar. Hmm. I only needed a dozen to send to dinner, so I crumbled up a couple to sprinkle on top, and split the last one with Yo for official taste testing purposes.

In the end, they were just dubna. (credit – Tyler Huff. He describes everything in life as “decent but not amazing.” He says it so often that we created a whole rating scale around it, and a phonetic pronunciation. Dubna, dubna plus, or dubna minus. He tried really really hard to debut his new word on our chocolate chip cookie tasting segment on the local news, but they edited him out. Probably because no one at the station could tell what the heck he was saying, as he never bothered to define his acronym on camera.) One good thing did come out of the whole process, and that’s that I have Heidi’s proven recipe firmly in hand for the next time I’m called upon to bake a cake!