Packers packing

You may have heard I'm moving. In 27 days. I'm having strange moving men pack up my stuff. Because I got a real job. And a moving allowance. Packing is challenging for me. I usually pack a box, get distracted, watch TV, complain, pack another box, go out for an important errand, complain some more, pack another box, get distracted by something going into the box, etc. It takes FOREVER. And I get less good at padding as I go along so then things break. Case in point: a cookie jar onto which I spent an excruciating three hours painting a stick figure Sigmund Freud at a paint your own pottery place broke during my most recent move because it was gently nestled, but not wrapped, at the top of a box. So the strangers are going to pack for me. Except for a few key irreplaceable items: my Christmas ornaments (including a gold crab shell and a shellacked chocolate chip cookie), my fire engine red Kitchen Aid mixer, and two baguette pans that recently came into my possession. And my TV, because apparently you have to spend like a million dollars to insure a flat screen TV if you didn't save the original box. Which of course I didn't because I don't like clutter, obviously. I'm so curious to watch the packers pack. I might time them. But I'll take all of their TV/errand breaks for them so they don't get distracted.

Crabs hon!

I grew up in Baltimore, at least for a big chunk of my childhood. I'm sure I've done more growing up in other places, but I'm not going to split hairs for the purposes of this post. Baltimore equals steamed crabs. Crabs are the incarnation of summer for me, even though I haven't lived in Baltimore for almost 22 years. They take me back in a moment to hot, humid, summer evenings where bushels of crabs covered in Old Bay were dumped on my grandparents' patio tables and we ate and ate and ate. My memory does not go back to a time when I didn't know how to pick a crab. I'm sure that's a bit romanticized in the way our childhood memories tend to be but so it is. Steamed crabs aren't as prevalent outside of Baltimore. And if it's billed as a Maryland crabcake outside of Maryland, be suspicious. Very suspicious. Between moving away and the Chesapeake Bay taking a bit of an environmental hit, the frequency with which I eat steamed crabs has waned over the years. But I still remember the burn of the Old Bay in the tiny little cuts you get on your hands when you really commit yourself to getting all of the meat out of every nook of that shell. Summer for me is not summer without crabs. And certainly a few summers have passed with a bittersweet twinge when I couldn't get my hands on them. This was almost one of them. And it is for sure that they don't do steamed crabs in Ohio. That I know for certain. My mom brought a half dozen gorgeous crabs up (she was in Baltimore). I covered my floor in towels, put newspaper on my kitchen table, used a mallet that I swiped from my grandfather's collection, and set about picking the crabs. Not quite a patio table on a summer night, but it'll do. I sat at my table and picked crabs with my mom and that thread that connects me to summers 100 years ago got tugged a little tighter. We made crabcakes (Maryland style, thank you very much), and a tomato and cucumber salad (fresh from my friend's garden), and totally delicious sweet corn. And it was the perfect summer meal.

REAL Maryland crabcakes
about a pound of crabmeat
about a tbls of mayo
some Old Bay
an egg, beaten
a little bit of bread or a small handful of bread crumbs
some pepper
some Worcestershire

Fold together gently, form into patties, let sit in the fridge for a bit, saute in butter, enjoy.

Roomies!

You may remember in my first post, I talked about how much I hate moving. It is more the transition (finding a place, having things in boxes, etc) than the exploration of a new city part. I do not like uncertainty in my living situation. I went to Cincinnati last weekend with my mom to look at rental properties. I am working with a great relocation agency who is doing all the work for me, since it makes me irritable to troll Craigslist and decipher whether "charming" really means tiny and dirty. I looked at one rental house that looked like the Bates Motel, and another in which the current tenant appeared to have used the floor as a garbage receptacle. I determined a house was way too big for me. And it turns out I'm still kind of scared of going in the basement by myself! I'm 33. I made my mom go down and check out the basement. Sad and embarrassing but true. I (or we more specifically) found a great condo, and would have had everything signed, sealed, and delivered, had my poor organization and intermittent inattention not struck again. DRAT! I woke up in the middle of the night realizing I had made a large and significant mistake on my salary in the wrong direction. Nothing like a nighttime panic attack. I did some deep breathing, and some at home cognitive behavioral therapy (much like the time I almost missed my flight on the way to take my licensing exam, did not work)! I'm hoping it all gets worked out by Monday and the condo owners are willing to rent to me. Otherwise perhaps I will live in my childhood bedroom in Cleveland and commute. My mom did say she felt like my roommate while we were looking at places. I hope they'll let me have my own shelf in the refrigerator and give me the good chores on the chore wheel. I am a doctor now, after all.

Barthelona

I just came back from a wine tasting class at the Tria Fermentation School. I learned a lot about Spanish white wines (and two ciders and a red wine), was good at tasting instead of drinking (a honed skill), and ate some delicious snacks. Above and beyond that though, I had a heartbreaking feeling of sadness and/or regret when I wasn't distracted by the dreamy wine guy instructor. Tria is one of the places I will miss most (and intimately intertwined the friends with whom I have spent time there). I was sad because Tria is unique and does not exist outside of Philadelphia (although I'm sure approximations are floating around) and regretful because I should have attended classes earlier. They are GREAT! Such fun and knowledgeable winos. So, my public service announcement: Tempus fugit! Carpe diem! Seize the day! (I got my Latin confused and it only seems fair I should not fool you and pretend I said carpe diem first, and tempus fugit isn't totally off base). Do the things you keep putting off until later, because you never know when you might have to move to Cincinnati and change all your plans.

I recommend:
Txakoli Bizkaiko, Gurrutxaga '10
Txakoli Getariako, Ameztoi, '10
Rebisaca, Do Ferreiro, '09
Albarino, Do Ferreiro, '09
Godello, A Coroa, '10
Txakoli Tinto Bizkaiko, Gorrondona, '09

P.S. I am still homeless in Cincinnati! Someone find me a damn house/condo/apartment!

Göksel that was a good time!

The Turkish bagels were gross- they went in the garbage. So so disappointed. I spent an hour on Facebook at work trying to find the concierge at our hotel so he could tell me the recipe. It turns out that Göksel is a super popular Turkish name. Who knew. So I made myself feel better by making chocolate chip cookies stuffed with Rolos. It is only because of intense will power that I did not eat all of them at one time. They are deliciousness in a cookie.

I'm going to Cincinnati tomorrow to look at rental houses and/or apartments. I'm both excited and feeling sad as my time in Philly grows shorter and shorter. There is a big upside to Ohio though. You can buy both buy wine at the grocery store and have it shipped to your home. It's the small things.

Turkish bagels

One of the best parts of vacation, other than the immeasurable delight of time with my family and seeing ancient cultural wonders, were the hotel breakfasts. I'm always curious about what other people eat for breakfast, and also what hotels think foreigners eat for breakfast. All of our hotels had an interesting mix of local treats such as cheese and strange looking sliced meat and more predictable Continental fare like chocolate croissants. Those are another post. My life is dark and dreary without them. Our hotel in Istanbul served these sesame covered bagely looking type things. My life will never be the same. Simit, as I now know they are called, are like a cross between a bagel and a croissant. They can go sweet with a little jam or Nutella, or savory with a little cheese. They're sold on the street piled high on carts like pretzels in NYC (I neglected to snap a photo) and are apparently the ubiquitous Turkish treat. I threw carb caution to the wind at breakfast and ate them by the plateful. Oh I'll just have one, and then maybe another, and another. I bemoaned the lack of my beloved Turkish bagels the whole time we were in Greece. So of course, I get home and I start googling to find the recipe because I must hold on to this tiny vestige of vacation. The dough is rising as we speak. I'll post the recipe if it works. Otherwise I will be searching for recipes that include sesame seeds because I am currently in possession of a one pound bag of them.

A funny fitting sweater

I just spent two weeks on vacation, which was completely delicious. The vacation post will arrive when the jet lag has settled and I can put my thoughts and photos together. For now, it feels so strange to be back for two reasons. The first, obviously, is that I am no longer on vacation. The second, is that in less than two months, I am moving. I am at that weird point in a transition where I feel unsettled and that I don't really belong in Philly anymore. I'm going to ponder over that for a while. However, it is also possible that I feel this way because this was not my view when I awoke this morning:

Who wants to make me a Continental breakfast buffet and provide me with a towel and a beach chair?