Around the World in 80 Plates

As if the CD Project isn't enough for me, I've decided to use this blog to document another project for 2012 (and probably beyond).

The BF and I don't necessarily see each other every day, but we talk several times a day and we always make time for each other on the weekends. Weekends usually revolve around food for us, either cooking or occasionally going out to eat. (We're still on a tight budget because he is still without job.)

Wednesday or Thursday of each week, we have the same conversation: "What are we going to eat this weekend?" Inevitably, because we can both cook pretty well (thankfully) and have such varied tastes, we often cook from a different style of cuisine every week. The BF had the great idea recently to just pick a different country every week to cook from. Our method of choosing countries? See that jar above with the slips of paper in it? That's it. We sat down and thought of every country/region we could come up with that had viable cuisine and wrote them down. We also referenced the Frugal Gourmet's "Our Immigrant Ancestors" cookbook (an EXCELLENT one to have if you can find it) and the international foods section at Kroger. Before cutting them up, I counted, and I think we have well over 70 countries and styles of cuisine in there. For some regions, such as China, we broke it down into the different types of Chinese cuisine. There are some countries in there that I don't know anything about. It will be an adventure learning how to cook recipes native to that area.

This past weekend, we drew our first pick. I was more than a little thankful that it was something relatively easy: San Francisco/Pacific Northwest. The BF didn't think it was as easy at first so he suggested we draw a backup, but when it was Hawaii we realized we were going to be eating seafood either way. I think we put Hawaii back - I hope so, because I do think that one stands on its own (and we discussed having some kind of Spam-related dish because of its prevalence in Hawaii!).

Here's what we came up with:

Clockwise, from top: wild rice, spicy teriyaki-glazed salmon, quinoa crusted scallops, and mixed green salad with dried apples, pecans and a gorgonzola vinaigrette.

We figured haute cuisine with lots of fresh ingredients was pretty representative of the Pacific NW. The quinoa-crusted scallops I copied from a dish I had at a restaurant called Andina in Portland a few years ago. It was so good I've been trying to re-create it ever since. The last time I tried it, I couldn't get the quinoa to stick. This time I coated the scallops in cornstarch, then egg, then cooked quinoa, and pan-fried them. The coating stuck on a little better and was more crunchy, but still not quite like what I had at Andina. I'm not complaining, though, because the scallops were tasty and huge.

The salmon was divine and I could have eaten a lot more of it, but as you can see that's a lot of food on that plate so I was really full. The salad was also delicious - the dressing was a vinaigrette that tasted something like a mix of honey-mustard and that ginger dressing you get at Japanese restaurants. You'd think blue cheese would have no business getting all up in there, but it was super delicious.

The rice? Well, of course we couldn't do San Fran/Pacific NW without the San Francisco treat!
It was actually pretty tasty, although these box mixes always have too much sodium.

I am excited about this adventure! It nearly solves the "what's for dinner" question for at least the next year of weekends, and gives us one more reason to be excited about the weekend. Can't wait to see what comes out of the jar next time!

Big Fat Ass Blog Update

I told you it was coming. That is, if we have talked about my blog lately. Otherwise, SURPRISE SURPRISE!! I'm updating my blog.


I feel terrible for leaving you hanging back in June, but since then I suppose life has just gotten totally out of hand, plus I have had some writing-for-money to do, and that leaves very little time for writing-for-the-hell-of-it.

Since we last met, I have visited Portland, Oregon, ran my first 5K, played guitar and sang at the same time in front of people at Chick Ball, hurt myself, read many books, went to the beach with a 2 year old, experienced some major changes at work, including the loss of a dear friend. Here in order, are some highlights and not-so-great things from the 2nd half of my summer:



1. O Portland, my Portland

I am slowly making my way around the country to all the hip/big cities. So far I have been to Boston, DC, Atlanta, Orlando, Nashville, NOLA, Dallas, Houston, Austin, St. Louis, Las Vegas, Denver, and San Diego. But adding Portland turns my list on its ear. Besides Austin, I’d say Portland is one of the coolest cities I’ve ever visited, and I’d go back in a heartbeat. My friend Leigh, who used to live here in Jacktown, moved to Portland about a year ago and had been begging me to come visit ever since. I combined this trip with my Vegas trip, so once our conference was done, I hopped a plane to Portland and was there in no time. The downside of the trip was that I had a cold that I think I got from the dry Vegas air, but otherwise we had a great time. We did have some rain the first full day I was there, which Leigh swore was uncommon by this time of year, but I was not so sure. I had purposely planned to visit in the summer so as to avoid the rainy season. But we just laughed it off and kept going.


We had been doing some shopping and had lunch at the Grilled Cheese Grill, which is a grilled cheese restaurant where you can eat your lunch on a converted school bus. It was sooo delicious, and so awesome. Portland is full of quirky restaurants and foodie havens, particularly little food carts all over the place and lots of organic, locally grown goodness. I had what might have been the best zucchini bread I’ve ever tasted at a coffee shop. And I bought some Dave’s Killer Bread at the farmer’s market on Saturday, which was really some of the best bread I’ve ever had. Leigh joked that her sister had the same remarks about the food in Portland, but it’s true – food just tastes better there. Sure, we have delicious food here in the South, too, but I didn’t eat anything bad while I was in P-town for sure.

Probably the most fun night was when we went to an open house for a new dance troupe that had just acquired a cool warehouse for their practice space. The troupe did some dancing for us and it reminded me of Cirque du Soleil – there was free booze at this event, and after several drinks we were allowed to try out some of the props that the dancers use. Probably not the best idea, but it was a great time! After that, we went to see Viva Voce at a place called the Wonder Ballroom, and they were fantastic. One of my new favorite bands for 2009. THEN, to top the whole night off, and because we were all pretty drunk, we stopped at Voo Doo Donuts for some of the yummiest treats I’ve ever had. I am still thinking about that chocolate-covered, raspberry-filled voodoo man.


Portland is beautiful and artsy, liberal and green – I could totally live there in another phase of my life. It was hard to come back to the Bible Belt, back to the 120-degree heat (we slept with the windows open every night during my visit), but while I was in Vegas and PDX, Jubilee JAM happened here, among other things, and I really missed home as I read everyone’s updates on Facebook. So ultimately, Mississippi is home, and while it’s easy to be yourself in Portland because it’s so accepting and embracing of different types of people, it’s also really hard to stand out. I expressed this thought to Leigh after being there for a couple of days – I realized that a “preppy” in an oxford shirt and khakis would probably stand out more than anyone else in Portland. Here in Jackson, we have breathing room for all of our weirdos, and I kind of like that.

2. Can't I just get a sticker that says, "3.2"?

So before I became a runner (which I still don't feel like I'm qualified to say), I kept seeing these "13.1" and "26.2" stickers on the back of people's vehicles and wondered WTF was up? Between the BF and I we finally figured out it was the length of half- and full marathons, and these were people who have completed one or many. Good for them! Seriously, now that I have started running I totally admire anyone who can run that long and not because a large animal is chasing them.

That being said, I don't know whether or not I will ever join their ranks. I ran my first 5K on June 27 of this year, at the Tomato Festival in my hometown of Crystal Springs. After kind of half-ass training with the Couch-to-5K program (I started out with C25K, then just sorta took off on my own until I was running 30 minutes or so straight.), I ran 3 miles a couple of times before the 5K, and I thought I was ready. But that first 5K totally kicked my ass. Not to make excuses, and yes I did finish and NO I was not the very last runner, but there were a few factors weighing against me. First, it was hot as hell, and that is no lie. We were experiencing a major heatwave, so that even at 8am it was already 90+ degrees with a heat index of a billion. Second, whoever designed the Tomato Fest route must be a glutton for punishment, or at least they like to watch other people suffer. The longest stretch of the route was uphill both ways (no lie) on black pavement in the broad sunlight. I thought I was going to stroke out. Third, I was recovering from my desert cold, and still had chest congestion, which did not help my breathing. And Fourth, because I had been sick and out of town and whatnot, I had not been able to train as much in the days leading up to the race.

So, wahh wahh poor me. At least I did it, and rather than give up on running all together, I decided to continue my training and not do any more races until the weather cooled off. I knew that WellsFest would be at the end of September, so I made that my goal.

Then, a couple weeks later, this happened:

See that nice, normal-looking foot on the right? See how the one on the left looks as if it has been stung by an entire hive of bees?

Thankfully I was not stung, but I did nearly break my foot. This was somewhere around the first or second week of July, and even now the top of my foot is still a little sensitive. I was rushing out to meet some friends on a wet evening and slipped on my wooden steps, dragging my poor foot underneath me the whole way down. It really is a wonder I could walk at all. So, as you can imagine, there was no running or any sort of physical activity for a few weeks. Even swimming hurt. Talk about a total letdown. The reason I decided to pick up running in the first place was to try to lose weight and keep it off, and here I was injured and unable to do anything, much less run.

Once the swelling and pain went down enough that I felt brave enough to try on my tennis shoes, I decided to start training again. This time I found some podcasts to help me with the C25K, and it has made a real difference. I had already been back into running for a couple of weeks, so I started with week 5 (C25K is a 9-week program). The guy who did these podcasts does a great job, letting you know when to run and when to walk, and the music is upbeat techno-esque music that is a good tempo for running. Admittedly, I miss my music, but I can return to it once my training is over. I'm now about to start week 7 (I repeated weeks 5 and 6), and I ran 25 minutes straight for the first time since before my injury yesterday. Yippee!

As for WellsFest, I did participate, but I did not run. I decided I would walk, and walk as fast as I could. I was so incredibly sore afterward, but my time was not bad! I walked at a pace of 13:31 per mile which I think is pretty good considering I probably run slower than that right now. One of my friends said, "Why don't you just focus on speedwalking?" But that kind of hurt my feelings because I really do want to run, and I enjoy running. It just doesn't sound the same to say, "I'm going to go for a speedwalk." No. Unless I become impaired to a point where I can't run, I want to try. I am painfully slow now, I know that. But I am also still overweight and still training. So I hope over the next year I can really work on my speed. I am going to run my next 5K in a couple of weeks, and I already know I may do more walking than I want to, but that is ok. At the very least, I'm getting off my ass, and that is a huge accomplishment!

I am going to end this post here and start a new one because this is getting incredibly long! Stay tuned for #3.