Food Snapshot: DeKalb Thriftway

DeKalb Thriftway. Rainy Thursday night. Had the day off and spent it cleaning and continuing to settle in. A lot has changed in this blog's lifetime. Kitchen appliances now consist of a coffee maker and a rice steamer. Employment is marginal. Food comes from DeKalb Thriftway, CVS, 88 No. 1 Chinese Kitchen, a gas station, a fancy-schmancy grocery/deli in Bridgeport, and on trips back to the old neighborhood, I suppose there will be things from the Clark Park Farmers' Market and Mariposa Co-op. I'll be shopping as a nonmember. I don't live there anymore.

Tonight in the rain at DeKalb Thriftway:

- Green onion bulbs, eight of them in a package, slightly wilted, for 79 cents.
- Broccoli
- Asparagus
- 3 bananas
- 3 oranges
- 1/2 gallon 8th Continent original soymilk

Total: $9.39

Running clean water through the rice steamer now to clean it up after the move. Then steaming vegetables. Borrowed Salad & Greens Seasoning, Basil, Black Pepper, and Coffee from my downstairs neighbor, the cute one.

Going to steam vegetables and couscous. Was going to buy my own coffee, but this mean man who works at the DeKalb Thriftway rudely told me to leave because the store was closing. I could have taken an extra moment to grab coffee and tea, but I didn't appreciate his tone. I'll go elsewhere, but I'll go back to the DeKalb Thriftway again. Most because it's there.

My rented room has two closets. One of my closets functions as a pantry. In my pantry are: CousCous, Thai Kitchen Garlic & Vegetable Noodles (1 pack), a box of Fantastic Foods falafel mix, what's left of a 1 lb. bag of trail mix from Nuts to You (across from my office), what's left of a bag of roasted green peas from Nuts to You, what's left of a bag of oat bran pretzels from Nuts to You, nutritional yeast, sesame seeds, cornmeal, what's left of a box of Oh's cereal ($1 for a 6 oz. box at CVS), instant cream of wheat, one packet of instant oatmeal, and a jar of peanuts.

On my countertop are two leftover Fortune Cookies from 88 Kitchen, the seasonings and coffee I mentioned, what's left of a bottle of Canada Dry seltzer water, a bottle of extra virgin olive oil, and the three bananas and three oranges I bought tonight.

In my fridge are the soymilk, the asparagus, the broccoli, the green onion bulbs, what's left of a bag of spinach, what's left of a carton of white mushrooms, a small bottle of Italian dressing, and leftover soy sauce from 88 Kitchen.

What I would get from the co-op:

- rolled oats (bulk)
- tea
- more Thai Kitchen Garlic & Vegetable noodles

My favorite food discovery lately: Nuts to You. Right across the street from work, easy to visit, cheap, great selection, cheap, cheap! A pound of the most magical trail mix I've ever had for $2.29. It's soynuts (crunchy), carob chips, fat raisins, peanuts, pepitas (those little flat tear-shaped green things that remind me of pumpkin seeds only green and smaller), and sunflower seeds. I feel like a bird. A healthy, happy bird, living in winter.

I've been swallowing a tablespoon full of olive oil every day, because I remembered that I learned last winter that it keeps my skin from being dry. It does. It's amazing. Do it.

Here's what's been happening in food.

Been living on snacks: figs, tomatoes, bean sprouts, carrots, sunflower seeds, dried red sea vegetable, nuts, grapes. What I can grab from my kitchen when I am not, by any reasonable definition, awake. I've actually taken for lunch what was left of a box of cherry tomatoes and what was left of a bag of mixed nuts from yesterday. I have a working lunch from 11:50 - 12:34.

And here's what else: Oversized baked sweets. Big, thick, pillowy chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cookies with fork-criss-crosses on top, brownies, cinnamon rolls with icing, brownies with peanut-butter-fudge and chocolate coating on top. I have to stop. You get these things at coffee shops. They add up. I have to stop. But I'm not gonna. Cause I have a working lunch from 11:50 - 12:34. And I like to have sweets during that time period.

Bagels from the coffee shop on weekends.

Tonight, we ordered Chinese food from China Inn at 44th & Locust. It wasn't that good. Ordered through Eat24Hours.com which is good because they also have service for Desi Village and Tandoor India, and I will order from those places in the future.

Farmers' Market tomorrow? We'll see. Sleep first.

Boxing Day Comfort Food

After a decadent two-day winter feast, today is a noodle soup, fried potato, onion sandwich kind of day.

I need groceries.

No farmers' market Saturday for the holiday weekend. No farmers' market last Saturday because of the blizzard. Six days, and then I can buy brussels sprouts and celery root and kale and apples and potatoes and mushrooms and leeks and lentils and other good things.

But the winter hibernation has been good.
We went out for a Christmas Day feast at Su Xing House, and yesterday, feasted on leftovers.

We got two big platters to share. The first features a sweet, smoky sauce that you have to try to believe.

Crispy Soybean Steak with Chef's Special Sauce

See that sexy green vegetable there? I'm not sure what that is. I kind of think it's baby bok choy, but it doesn't say that on the menu. (Update: No. I Googled it and looked more closely - that's not baby bok choy, but I don't know what it is.) The menu calls it "sanhai green." I Googled that. No such mention. Is it a typo? Did they mean Shanghai? Is that bok choy? If you know, let me know. Whatever it was, it was full of flavor.

Chef's Specialty #10, "As You Wish" (bean curd wraps stuffed with braised mushrooms, with asparagus on the side)

The flavor of these wraps was delicious, but I wasn't wild about the chewy texture. Too much mushroom in one bite? That's hard for me to imagine, as one of my favorite dishes at Su Xing is the Mushroom Delight, but maybe the mushrooms combined with that bean curd wrap was too much for me. If you're not that influenced by texture, or if you don't mind foods with a springy, spongy, chewy texture, then I would recommend this. In fact, I can imagine myself having this again someday; that's just how good the flavor is. My other complaint, though, is that I need a sauce with it. No problem in this case, because we combined all the foods together and ate it with the unbelievably sweet, smoky, delicious sauce from the soybean steaks. The Soybean Steak Platter was a clear favorite at our table.


All of this was served with miso soup (shown above), plenty of brown rice, a plate of honeydew melon and pineapple, and of course hot tea.

Our bill came to $37.15 ($45 with tip), and we had enough leftovers for a whole meal the next day. Nothing like Chinese leftovers on Boxing Day.

Ready to go into the oven

Ready to eat

Happy hibernation, happy solstice, happy holidays. At a time of year when people tend to think of giving, sharing, refocusing, and changing, all more pointedly than usual, I encourage you to ask yourself if you can do something for the animals (including humans) and enjoy your future feasts with harm to none.

Chinese food and winter vegetables

Mark and I went out for lunch yesterday at Su Xing House, one of our favorite restaurants.

My fortune said: Good news will come to you in the mail.

Mark's fortune said: The night life is for you.

Once, at Kingdom of Vegetarians, a less upscale but still yummy place in Chinatown, where we had our first date, Mark got a fortune that said: A nice cake is waiting for you. Actually, I believe that happened on our first date. Come to think of it, I'll take that as a compliment.

Not long before that, I was at a coffee shop on South Street that gives fortune cookies with your check, and I got the fortune: It tastes sweet. I still have this in my wallet.

Yesterday at Su Xing House, we ordered two lunch specials and split the main courses: Sesame Seitan and Mushroom Delight. We always have the Sesame Seitan; this was our first time ordering the Mushroom Delight. Three different kinds of mushrooms, snow peas, and a delicious brown sauce that has a "comfort-food" taste. On the side were brown rice, miso soup, and spring rolls. This place is amazing. It's fairly cheap, delicious, and it doesn't look cheap. The decor makes you feel like you probably shouldn't be there, but the food assures you that you should.

And from Huffington Post, here is a good, quick guide to winter vegetables available year-round at farmers' markets. Complete with beautiful photos and links to recipes.

I love winter vegetables: roots and cabbage and cauliflower, red beets, yellow and orange and dark green squash, many colors of potato, and of course deep dark sweet soft mushrooms for rich, protein-heavy, comforting goodness. Add to that chestnuts, beans, and lentils, and I am learning that there's no need to change my shopping habits in wintertime. Nature provides.