Good Eats

As the weather is warming up, we are eating the last of the cold-weather foods that I love so much.

Well, fish tacos are all-season! These are made with rockfish:


These avocados were tiny and sad-looking on the outside, but had this inner beauty. Look at the tiny little pits! That means more avocado goodness!


Pico, guac, and queso fresco for the tacos:


In Very Exciting News, I bought a cast iron pizza pan, and here is my first pizza on it:


And here is my second! Like everyone else, we are having difficulty getting yeast, so I got some refrigerator pizza dough. It was a rectangle, so I cut off the corners and pasted it into a circle. It was... okay. Not as nice as a real crust, but definitely okay!


Salmon chowder!


Singapore noodles:


The leftovers were great for breakfast, with runny eggs added:


So I know you aren't supposed to judge a book by its cover, but when this image showed itself to me in a popup ad:


I decided that I had to read this book. I thought it would be funny and sarcastic, and it was. A lot of the schtick was this Midwestern woman growing up and living in big cities and displaying fish-out-of-water humor. Anyway, she even gave a recipe of the kind of food she grew up with! A casserole of macaroni, hamburger, cheese, tomato paste, and some spices. Of course I had to try it before the weather got too warm. I splattered tomato paste in the book! A sign of true affection:


It was, unsurprisingly, really tasty, and probably not something I'll make again until deep winter:


Of course, being Californian, I had to make a side of steamed veggies, something Samantha Irby's mom would NOT have done:


Also, since my oven was on, I made a blueberry cornmeal cake:


Here is a moose stew. Definitely a winter-only meal.


Mmmm moosey:


My lunch today! A salmon melt:


I discovered the Red Blossom Tea Shop in San Francisco's Chinatown as an online shop after I had moved to Fairbanks. I have been ordering from them faithfully ever since. Every time I place an order for my regular mid-grade tea (Tung Ting and Guan-Yin's Iron Goddess of Mercy), they include samples of the next fancier level tea, hoping, I think, that I will upgrade to more expensive stuff. Well, this time they included a sample of Mao Feng, as well as this extremely fancy chocolate bar made with said Mao Feng:


Apparently it was made in New Hampshire by a friend of the tea shop owner, who in his shop, the Dancing Lion, makes small batches of Very Fancy chocolates, and he had made one while reminiscing about visiting the tea shop:


You guys. This chocolate bar was, for a brief moment in time, possibly the fanciest item in all of Fairbanks. DL and I devoured it:


It was very good, really very good! I had thought that, like wine, chocolate would have a point of diminishing returns, and this Very Fancy Chocolate could not possibly have been that much better than my favorite from Chocolove. But, my friends, it was. And now it is gone. Thus a lesson on the ephemerality of physical pleasures.

In other news, Thistle seems really comfy with us now. Do you think she looks comfy?


Cricket still loves to snuggle with DL:


Hail Queen Thistle!