Asian sesame chicken salad
Asian sesame chicken salad

For all my office worker bees, or anyone who packs a lunch during the week: this is for you! I understand the effort required to A. make lunch ahead of time, B. pack it up for work, C. make and pack up a lunch for work that still sounds appetizing come lunchtime when there are paninis/pizza/pho just around the river bend AKA block. I rely on make-ahead lunches for work and I promise I’ll only ever tell you about them if they’re worth it. Chicken salad is one of my favorite things to make because there are so many directions you can go with it (traditional, with celery and tarragon / summery a la Pioneer Woman with sweet corn, blueberries, and feta / Asian, loaded with veggies, Sriracha sauce, and sesame notes—the list goes on), and all feel indulgent and satisfying.

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FoodThe PasticheAsian, sesame, salad, lunch, make-ahead, sandwiches, chicken, fall, summer, winter, spring Comments
The best and the worst of drugstore lipstick
The best and the worst of drugstore lipstick

The number of times I have wandered around Sephora, filled my arms with 13 different lip stains/pencils/sticks/creams that I so clearly needed, decided that I was poor and insane and then immediately set them all down and left the store empty handed, is, well, TOO many to count. Am I alone in that? I feel like I'm not alone in that...

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BeautyThe Pastichelipstick, beauty, budget-friendly, drugstore makeup, makeup, round-up Comments
Pulled pork sandwiches, and why I love tailgating
Pulled pork sandwiches, and why I love tailgating

I’m such a sucker for sports culture—the comradery, the excitement, the sportsmanship, the win-big together / lose-big together attitude, the drinking, the tailgating, everything. I’ve never been a diehard sports fan, although I loved playing sports myself, but I love the community surrounding sports. There’s a book by political scientist Robert Putnam from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government called Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. It is about the decline in all forms of social and communal engagement among Americans—and he famously uses the example of how the number of people who bowl has increased in the US, but membership in bowling leagues has steadily declined over the last couple of decades. Putnam is concerned about the education, enrichment, and general sense of civic duty being lost if people choose to do these kinds of activities alone, rather than with other people. (I promise this will eventually be about pulled pork)

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FoodThe Pastichethoughts, tailgating, football, party foods, make-ahead, pulled pork, BBQ, cole slaw, sandwiches, fall, summer, lunch, dinner Comments
Grilled Greek-style lamb lollipops with perfect hummus
Grilled Greek-style lamb lollipops with perfect hummus

Greek food and Thai food—the two cuisine types I crave most often. Luckily, we have some really great Greek restaurants in Rochester that consistently deliver great flavor. But every now and then, I really love making a Greek feast at home. This usually comes in the form of pitas with chicken or steak, tzatziki, grilled onions, tomatoes and cucumbers, the works. But this time, we used some of the same great ingredients to go in a totally different direction. These petite lamb chops are my favorite way to eat lamb, because they're so easy to cook, they're tender and full of flavor, and they're much less gamey than other cuts of the lamb. Lamb chops were actually what converted me into a lamb lover (after a couple of years spent traumatized—because bad lamb is bad bad bad), so consider them a gateway of sorts. Topped with herbaceous, lemony gremolata, and served alongside endless pita bread and hummus, this Greek feast is top notch.

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FoodThe Pastichelamb, dinner, Greek, hummus, lamb lollipops, appetizers, make-ahead, grilled, fall, spring, summer Comments
Card collecting
Card collecting

I’ve had an obsession with office and paper supplies my entire life. Getting my list of required school supplies was a little piece of Christmas in August (July sometimes, if the gods were listening) throughout all of elementary school. Milky pens, stickers, Sharpies, post-it notes, paper clips, to-do list pads, you’ve all held a weirdly special place in my heart at some point or another. This may remain, today, one of the best parts of having a desk job. But in my adulthood, my favorite piece of the office supply world has been stationery—note cards, thank you cards, personalized letterhead, etc., and I cannot get enough of this stuff.

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HomeThe Pastichecards, collecting, note writing, stationery, Seattle, Boston Comment
My Grandma’s custardy French toast with raspberry butter
My Grandma’s custardy French toast with raspberry butter

French toast is the ultimate breakfast comfort food. It starts with smelling it while it’s cooking. I have this thing about the smell of eggs on a skillet and it might be one of my favorite smells in the world. With French toast, though, the scent isn’t just eggs. It’s buttery, custardy, and just absolutely dreamy. Another thing about French toast is that I’m not sure what’s more satisfying—having someone cook it for you, or cooking it for someone else. Also, how gorgeous is a plate of French toast topped with a pat of butter and glossy hot maple syrup? Clearly I could go on forever—I’m telling you, it’s the stuff comfort is made of.

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FoodThe PasticheFrench toast, bread, family, Grandma, raspberries, fall, summer, winter, spring, vegetarian, brunch2015 Comments
Growing in(to) your twenties
Growing in(to) your twenties

I've talked with several of my friends about how we believe our twenties are a very tumultuous time, and not purely because of the stresses or the responsibilities or the pressures that are so commonly associated with other life stages. It's more that our twenties are proving to be a strange dichotomy of sorts. We constantly jockey between trying to figure out what we want to do and telling ourselves we have plenty of time to figure it out. We can be convinced we're still so young, and the next moment be convinced we are in full blown real-human-being adulthood. We feel pressure to find love and get engaged and have a picture-perfect wedding, but find temporary comfort in reading that statistically, people are getting married and having children older in life than ever before, in many cases due to career aspirations. We've experienced the freedom and independence that college provided, but we're learning that college was another kind of bubble all on its own. We're seeking stability just as often as we're running the other way from it. And we run the gamut of married with kids to going back to grad school and relocating after working for three years to suddenly single after a six year relationship to living for the weekends and struggling to find purpose at work.

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ThoughtsThe Pasticheself improvement, thoughts, twenties, hobbies, entertaining, budget, anxiety Comments
Spicy butternut squash soup with coconut milk and peppered croutons
Spicy butternut squash soup with coconut milk and peppered croutons

I'm constantly searching for cures for the Sunday Scaries. Sundays begin with such promise—slowly, in bed, with coffee, drenched in morning light. But I find they always very quickly morph into day-before-Monday mode and suddenly feel daunting and depressing (dramatic but true). I like Sundays to be filled with just enough productivity to trick me into feeling like it's any other day, and just enough relaxation to slow the clock a little. My favorite solution so far, especially in the cooler weather of fall: cooking laid back low-and-slow meals or low maintenance soups. It's a leisurely way to be productive without the whirlwind feeling of cooking/eating/cleaning/digesting (and repeat) that so often comes along with cooking meals. 

Butternut squash is one of those seasonal foods that is so exciting to see again after so many months of not even thinking about it. It even looks like fall, with its beautiful orangey gold color. And even though it's not a Thai ingredient, it lends itself really well to Thai flavors such as curry, coconut, and chiles.

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FoodThe Pastichebutternut squash, fall, soup, coconut milk, bisque, comfort food, Thai, vegetarian, soup2015, lunch2015, dinner2015 Comments
Kale salad with barley, cranberries, and goat cheese
Kale salad with barley, cranberries, and goat cheese

I’m afraid I may have just corralled all the kale fanatics and scared away all the kale opponents. But please stay. I fancy myself somewhere in the middle—I sort of hate food trends that take over the scene, but I also really do like kale. So I promise this post will be a quiet, under-the-radar cheer for kale. I won’t declare that it’s changed my life or pretend that if you eat this, you'll get all the vitamins and minerals you need in one day in a single salad and that it helps fight off seasonal depression and increases your metabolism.  This salad purely tastes good and travels well, which is why I’m featuring it. It doesn’t hurt that it’s got some supposed nutritional value too—but that’s honestly not the point. 

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FoodThe Pastichemake-ahead, barley, goat cheese, kale, all-purpose dressing, healthy, fall, summer, spring, vegetarian, salad, salad2015, lunch2015Comment
One-pot farro with tomatoes
One-pot farro with tomatoes

I think everyone has a go-to food blog, and mine is unabashedly Smitten Kitchen. I have never made one of Deb's recipes and not loved it. In pursuing my own blog, it was and is one of my goals to always be authentic in every way, and part of that is to only post those recipes I really and truly feel 100% about. I like to follow recipes that are delicious and that are worth it—worth the money, the effort, the time. And being able to serve those dishes to other people is the best part. That's why I love Smitten Kitchen. 

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FoodThe Pastichetomatoes, one-pot, basil, farro, healthy, summer, fall, winter, spring, vegetarian, dinner2015, lunch2015 Comments
Making a charcuterie board
Making a charcuterie board

There are a few man-made sights in this world that are hard to beat. One of those is a crafted charcuterie board. It doesn’t matter whether it’s neat and simple, rustic and hodgepodge, or messy and thrown together, it’s a beautiful sight. It’s probably because a charcuterie board signifies my favorite way to eat food—slowly, in a group, sharing bites (and usually with wine).  I know I’m not the first to profess what is important in a charcuterie plate, but these are a few simple things I like to consider when I’m making one.

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Food, HomeThe Pastichecheese, entertaining, appetizers, charcuterie, party foods Comment
Moroccan shakshuka with yolky eggs
Moroccan shakshuka with yolky eggs

There’s something about Brunch @ Bobby’s that is so stinking mouth-watering and a true feast for the eyes. Bobby Flay, to me, is a chef who demonstrates poise, comfort, and talent. He is so fun to watch because he is smooth, effortless, and creative in the kitchen, and he produces such elevated dishes. I always get inspired to cook when I watch him, and I always feel like I’m learning something new from a trustworthy source, and those two things are what I love most about a cooking show. 

One Sunday morning, I was watching Bobby’s “Marrakech Express Brunch” episode, and he made Moroccan eggs. It looked so good that I had to make it. And that’s incredibly rare—it takes a lot to actually inspire me to go to my least favorite place (the grocery store) on a whim and whip up a dish from a recipe I’ve never made before when I’m already starving—that’s what bagels are for in my life—but this time was different. I was so inspired to recreate the dish, and I am so, so glad I did. 

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FoodThe Pasticheeggs, one-pot, moroccan, tomatoes, fall, winter, spring, shakshuka, brunch2015, moroccan stewed tomatoes Comment