No fixed plans. Not intent upon arriving.
Breakfast was a cup and a half of coffee, half of a white grapefruit, and a bowl of steel cut oats with brown sugar and milk. I weighed 156 pounds.
I took the four mile loop around campus over lunch, stopping at Chopstick Express for an egg roll along the way.
After lunch I had a glazed donut.
Dinner was a salad, two slices of Gretchen’s Italian bread, a bowl of pineapple and banana slices, and a hand full of pistachios — Thank you, Gretchen 
.
The other day, the New York Times published a nice glossary of bread terms:
- Boule
- Any round, domed bread.
- Baguette
- Any long thin bread, often sourdough now but, classically, with a soft, light interior surrounded by a crackly, shattering crust.
- Bâtard
- Short, slightly flattened baguette.
- Ciabatta
- Flat, vaguely rectangular Northern Italian bread (the name means slipper) with an airy interior and chewy crust, usually dusted with flour.
- Ficelle
- Any extra-thin baguette. (The name means string.)
- Focaccia
- Flat, dense, tender bread from Liguria flavored with olive oil in the dough and on the crust.
- Fougasse
- Chewy-crusted, flattish sourdough wheat bread of Provence, often shaped into lacy and ladderlike patterns.
- Miche
- Any round sourdough French bread.
- Integrale
- The Italian term for whole wheat.
- Pain Au Levain
- A dense, whole-wheat French sourdough bread with a very chewy crust.
- Pugliese
- Big, round breads with very dark crust and light, airy interior, made from a mixture of white, whole wheat and sometimes rye flours.
- Sourdough
- Bread that has been allowed to ferment naturally, using a sourdough starter or wild yeast, instead of being hurried along with a commercial yeast.
Breakfast was two cups of coffee, a glass of orange juice, half of a white grapefruit, and a bowl of pineapple and banana slices. I weighed 156 pounds.
At work this morning I had a cup of green tea with a cinnamon stick.
Over lunch I walked to Otto’s Cafe — probably around two and one half miles — and had a Penn State Creamery low-fat raspberry yogurt.
I had two more cups of green tea with a cinnamon stick this afternoon at the office. I normally would have just had bottled water, but the water definitely had an off taste and I did not think it was safe to drink. One of the other guys at the office noticed it, too.
Dinner was a salad, the last three refrigerator biscuits — I cannot say I am sorry to see them go — a hand full of peanuts and a few dates.
This nugget comes through a long circuitous route via The Food Section, which is in turn via Coudal Partners, which is in turn via List.
The State Museum of Pennsylvania is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Levittown:
The brainchild of developer William J. Levitt, Levittown, Pennsylvania was the largest planned community constructed by a single builder in the United States. By the time it was completed in 1958, the development occupied over 5500 acres in lower Bucks County and included churches, schools, swimming pools, shopping centers and 17,311 single-family homes.
To its 70,000-plus residents, Levittown represented the American Dream of homeownership. To many others, Levittown epitomized postwar suburbia — a place often criticized but widely copied.
What does it have to do with food? Well, one of the major parts of the exhibit is a reconstruction of a 1958 suburban kitchen. Why is this interesting? Well, if you click on the little dot in the back left corner of the room, you will get to zoom in on the canister set. “So what?” you say. Well, that is the same set that Gretchen and I use to this very day. Gretchen got it from her Mother, whom we presume got it when she moved here to central Pennsylvania in 1957.
Isn’t the Internet great?
Breakfast was two cups of coffee, a glass of orange juice, half of a white grapefruit, and a bowl of pineapple and banana slices. I weighed 156 pounds.
At work this morning I had a cup of green tea with a cinnamon stick.
I bought a Nature Valley Apple Crisp Granola Bar from the vending machine as a snack.
I went for maybe a four mile walk around campus over lunch.
I got a bag of Middleswarth potato chips from the vending machine as an afternoon snack.
Dinner was two bowls of lo mien and a glass and a half of Bolla Sangiovese Di Romagna with a hand full of mixed nuts for dessert.
Breakfast was two cups of coffee, a glass of orange juice, a bowl of pineapple and banana slices, and a piece of toasted Italian bread with home made strawberry jam. I weighed 155 pounds.
At work this morning I had two cups of green tea with a cinnamon stick.
It is spring break here at Penn State and most of the students are gone. As a result, almost nothing is open on campus. I walked over to the HUB — two miles — and the only thing that is open is Panda Express. So I had kung pao chicken with mixed vegetables on fried rice and a fortune cookie for lunch.
Patience is the key
to joy.
Lucky Numbers 3, 6, 12, 34, 36, 42
Dinner was a salad made with some of the spinach, carrot, and bacon we got the other day, a slice of Gretchen’s Italian bread and a glass of Bolla Sangiovese Di Romagna with a hand full of mixed nuts for dessert.
Shiok!
I would just like to take a moment to thank Renee Kho over at shiokadelicious! for adding me to the Food Talk section of her site.
I mentioned a little over a week ago, that there was going to be another “Is My Blog Burning?” event whose theme was to be the Tartine. “A tartine is a popular Parisian dish, in which different ingredients are arranged and served on a slice of bread — a sort of open-faced sandwich if you will — usually on a bed of greens,” according to Clotilde. Well, today is the day.
This particular event has seemed to me to be much like the battles on Iron Chef: talented cooks thrown a curve ball and trying to make a hit. I had no idea what a Tartine was. Even given an explanation with photographs I was still at a total loss. Ultimately I decided to employ the philosophy put forward by George Polya in his work How to Solve It.
If you can’t solve a problem, then there is an easier problem you can solve: find it. — George Polya
On Iron Chef, when confronted with an unfamiliar theme, the chefs look to their own culture for inspiration. So I started by looking at the problem and trying to put it into the context of my culture. Here is the problem:
Originally, “tartine” means a slice of bread, toasted or not, with something spread on it, usually eaten for breakfast : butter (tartine beurrée), jam (tartine de confiture), cheese (tartine de fromage)…
For a few years now, the concept of tartine has been recycled into an easy but delicious main dish : one or two slices of bread on which ingredients are laid, creating a sort of open-faced sandwich. [Clotilde]
So the problem is actually quite simple: Create a main dish that consists of ingredients laid on bread.
I looked at the etymology of tartine as beginning as a breakfast food and thought about what my experience was with breakfasts of ingredients laid on bread. I first thought about Eggs Benedict. I thought about a favorite variation of them called Eggs Maryland which substitutes crab meat for the Canadian bacon. I thought about Welsh Rarebit. Finally I thought about recipe number 210 from the 1910 Manual for Army Cooks, Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast (alias Shit on a Shingle). However, none of those seemed appropriate, but they did get me thinking.
I realized that I did have experience with ingredients laid on bread — regardless of whether they be tartines. I needed to somehow tie my entry in to my culture. My mother always said that the most American dish is Thanksgiving dinner — roast turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, all kinds of good stuff — but the best part is the leftovers. I had found my inspiration.
My entry would be this: tartine à la dinde chaud avec sauce (somebody check my French) — an open faced hot turkey sandwich with gravy on a slice of home made bread — an old family favorite — with roasted winter root vegetables on the side — a fringe benefit of our visit to Tait Farm the other day.
There are only two of us in our household and a good sized turkey will easily feed many more but Gretchen and I do not let that stop us from enjoying roast turkey. Whenever we roast one, we carve the whole bird at once and make up freezer bags containing about two cups of mixed turkey chunks. That way, whenever we want to make a dish like this, we can just thaw out a bag and we have instant roast turkey. To go with our instant roast turkey, we make instant gravy. In a sauce pan, take a little “better than bullion” chicken base, water, stock if you have it, sherry, corn starch, and poof… instant gravy. Take the now-thawed turkey pieces and add them to the saucepan and let them warm up in the gravy. Make up your favorite hearty bread, toasted if you prefer, and lay out a slice or two as a base and then spoon the hot turkey and gravy over it.
The roasted vegetables are based on Delia’s Oven-roasted Winter Vegetables using parsnip, butternut squash, rutabaga, potato, carrot, onion, and celeriac.