observations & ramblings

The only thing I cooked this weekend was a gingered acorn squash puree, and since it's essentially baby food, I didn't think it was substantial enough for its own post.  (You may see it later this week served up with something else.)  Instead of a recipe, I thought I'd give you some thoughts from five days in.

1.  Breakfast is quickly becoming a chore.  Coffee without sweetener is akin to what I imagine mud tastes like, oatmeal without brown sugar requires a lot of cinnamon and a very overripe banana, and greek yogurt with slivered almonds and blueberries is not quite as good as with honey and granola. 
2.  Apparently Communion wafers are not gluten-free.  That Catholic guilt always finds you, even while you're in church.
3.  Casual day-drinking while watching sporting events is a lot harder when beer is not an option, and a vodka-soda at 3pm is far too excessive.
4.  When your friends order pizza in between aforementioned spectating and a rowdy 90s dance party, you end up with cheese and toppings for dinner.  Unfortunately, that doesn't give you a lot of staying power for the dance floor, and you will wind up with hunger pangs somewhere in between "Tearin' up my heart" and "Can't touch this".  
5.  You have to remember to check the ingredients when you are trying to avoid gluten and sugar.  Because guess what - they are in everything.  A few days ago, I was in a bind and needed a quick lunch, so I reached for a frozen Morningside Farms black bean burger.  I even made some chipotle mayonnaise to slather on top (y'all know how I love my mayonnaise.)  I didn't check the ingredients first.  I took one bite and realized the burger probably had a gluten binder in it.  And the adobo sauce from the canned chipotles contains sugar.  Two strikes.
6.  Sushi makes a nice Lent-friendly Sunday dinner when you were supposed to make a home-cooked meal for your cousin, a freshman at Georgetown, but accidentally took a three-hour nap instead.
7.  Wine bars with crispy flatbread and enticing cheese plates are probably not the best places to go when you can't have bread.  But they probably have a really tasty quinoa risotto with spicy crab and squid ink.

One of these days I'll actually cook something and post it on the blog....promise.