Cosmos

Kristi Day has come and gone and today is what we called "half and half" day - part mine, part Craig's. After a few colorful cocktails yesterday and Craig's delicious version of my turkey chili, we both settled into the living room to watch a movie and I drifted off halfway through, near 10.30. We went to bed by midnight-thirty but still managed to sleep in this morning until after 9. Craig went for bagels again and I jotted down what groceries I'd need for the week. It went so well: I ate my bagel, drank my coffee and headed to Key Food before noon. I love grocery shopping considering it's part of the natural high of cooking (selecting produce, picking out milk, choosing which Jasmine rice brand, etc.!) but today did find me somewhat irritated considering Sunday morning is the Universal Grocery Shopping Day (with Monday night being a close runner-up) and shoppers on Sundays shop like Sunday drivers drive: leisurely, as if they sense no purpose in hurrying home, ever. I love to shop but I love to do it efficiently without shoppers dawdling in front of the rows of tomato sauce, for instance, contemplating which brand. It's only sauce, people! (I use that as an example because I struggle in front of the tomato-related cans, also, so I'm more forgiving of that, I guess...diced?? plum? whole? stewed? The varieties are endless and each contributes its own qualities to a recipe). Anyway, in the frozen food aisle (bear in mind, aisles of groceries in New York City just barely fit one individual with a purse and oversized overflowing plastic shopping basket), there was this guy with a hundred loose components to his push cart, including but not limited to this wire extension at the back that extended across like 4 freezer doors. I just needed chopped frozen spinach. Enter irritation. He was busy scrutinizing which 6-pack of bottled water he wanted 2 feet away. So I fumbled with the wire extension (I don't even know what it was there for) to move it out of my reach of chopped frozen spinach and the guy turned to me in ever-slow motion and said, "Oh. I see that I am in your way. So sorry." By this point I had pushed past him with a solid block of spinach in hand and my plastic basket lifted overhead to avoid any additional collision with him and I sped off to the Asian food aisle. I know, it's unlike me, because I'm typically sweet, patient and kind, right? This quality evaporates at Key Food on a Sunday morning, trust me. I also encountered one of those situations no one likes at a store of any kind, the one where the person in front of you with only 8 items swears such-and-such (in this case, Cracker Barrel Cheddar Cheese) was Buy-One-Get-One, and the manager of the place affirms the poor cashier's no, so the patron insists on pushing backwards through the line (past me), heading back to the cheese aisle mid-checkout, finding out which exact cheese was Buy-One-Get-One, and returns with the right cheese, the whole ordeal consuming a full five more minutes of my Sunday. Time is precious, let me just point it out. Without more of it, when dawdlers or absent-mindedness or dumb delays consume any of that precious time, irritation is inevitable.*I made it home in one piece, cleaned out our refrigerator of its excess, made room for the new, then trimmed a boneless porkloin which is now in its third hour of low slow-cooking with hot pepper strips, julienned red pepper, some onion, teriyaki sauce, rice wine vinegar, garlic and crushed red pepper (peanut butter to be added later) to yield a spicy Thai pork which I will serve over Jasmine rice with steamed broccoli on the side. Later this week we are eating mushroom lasagna, and Thai Chicken with Sriracha another night, and Thai Style Ground Beef another night. That totals to three nights of Thai again this week. Thank goodness Craig and I agree on my Thai dishes. Today, just for the sheer pleasure of it, I sniffed my open jar of red curry paste that's in the fridge. I love the scent of Thai.*I've decided that there are a handful of things that I can identify as favorites in the kitchen. That is, things I either love to sniff or love to chop or love to saute. I love leek, first of all. Slicing into a leek is so organic, somehow. And mushrooms - slicing one in half is also quite earthy. I am a huge fan of jarred minced garlic toasting in a pool of extravirgin olive oil in a pan, but another thing I noted recently while celebrating Super Bowl Sunday with our friends Alison and Scott is that I love whole cloves of garlic sliced thinly (provided I do not have to peel the paper shell). They keep whole garlic cloves marinating in olive oil and seasonings in their fridge, and I sliced up a few cloves for various recipes while we were preparing for their party. The fragrance of fresh garlic cloves beats jarred minced garlic any day. Red bell peppers are fun to slice, especially when they are full deep red in color. Asparagus is my favorite vegetable to steam, because it smells fantastic and becomes this gorgeous heady green color that I can't wait to douse in olive oil. I adore seasonings of most varieties, although I steer clear of rosemary and only use thyme sparingly. And in addition to all of that, I really love a brilliant white head of cauliflower. I guess vegetables inspire me in a lot of ways, and that's a great thing. Once not long ago, I don't remember if I mentioned it, but Craig and I ate vegetarian about four nights in a row and we both lost several pounds that week. I of course believed our weight loss to be direct results. But, alas, tonight we eat pork and through the week we eat chicken and ground sirloin.*Thursday is Valentine's Day (our 8th Valentine's Day!!) We've got reservations across the street at the intimate Brazilian place that we've grown to love. It's a pre-fixed three-course dinner, but after some debate, we determined that eating across the street (this place is ranked very high for Brazilian in the City and it's literally across the street!) will save us cab fare and that cab fare will afford us a second round of Sangria, instead. And we might even make it home in time to see Lost!*I can't believe it's mid-February. We've got so much time and yet it goes by so quickly. Here's to a very calm, very warm weekend in.