The Girl Who Ate Everything

People have asked me how often I eat out with other people (more than I should), or how often I cook (less than I should). This week has been low on eating out...and that's probably a good thing, for the sake of decreasing the layers of fat that have been developing under my skin lately. When I say "eating out", I mean eating out just for the sake of eating and preparing myself by making sure my stomach is semi-empty beforehand, not when I go out during my lunch break, like I just did an hour ago.

egg sammich

So what do I eat when I don't go out for a "good" meal? Um. SAMMICHES! I can cook more than eggs, but my ultimate lazy mean is frying a pseudo-scramed egg and pocketing it in bread. In this case, I mixed in chopped snow peas because they were in my fridge and I had to do something with them. (I bought what I thought was a huge bag for around 80 cents in Chinatown; yeah, this stuff is cheap. Snow peas are one of my favorite vegetables. God knows if I should be eating them raw considering the environment they're sold in, but...they're so tasty, and my digestive system hasn't reacted negatively.) I bought a sourdough baguette from the Union Square Greenmarket on Wednesday, sliced a chunk in half, shoved in the egg patty, and chowed down more quickly than any of you will see since the presence of other humans tends to remind me that I have to chew and come up for air every once in a while.

Claytonia: The Musical

So that was Wednesday's lunch. Yesterday I made not one, but two egg-inside-baguette sandwiches. I don't love these sandwiches to death, nor would I ever feed them to anyone else if I want them to like me, but they're not that bad. For whatever reason, the claytonia sprouts at the Greenmarket enticed me (maybe because their green, fresh, healthfullness didn't resemble anything else in my diet, which is mainly brown, baked, and lacking in heathfullness) so I bought a small bag for $1 and shoved some sprouts in my sandwich. I hope they added some nutrients, as I could probably use those.

After the semi-healthy Greenmarket purchases of a baguette ($2), Jonagold apples (4 for $1.60), sprouts ($1), and a dozen eggs ($2), I went to...

peanut butter cookie lump

City Bakery. Dammit. I was on a mission to buy some cookies for a friend studying abroad in China, but I figured I'd get a little something for myself as well. Their peanut butter cookies are only 50 cents each, so I figured I'd make the small investment to try one. The cookie's texture is like halvah, but slightly lighter, which isn't saying much since halvah is a sesame paste brick. Eating this cookie is like eating kind of fluffy peanut butter; make sure you have water on hand. I don't like peanut butter enough to exclaim, "OMG PEANUT BUTTER MADNESS SO DELICIOUS" (when I really like stuff, I ignore the rules of correct grammer), but this was worth eating.

So that was all I was going to get. Seriously. A little peanut butter bite is all Robyn should eat.

ginger cookie innards

But then my eyes spotted a different cookie that wasn't the chocolate chip, oatmeal, or white chocolate chocolate cookie that I had seen at CB before.

"What kind of cookie is that?"

"It's ginger."

"Ooh, I'll take one. ...Uh, I mean two! Yeah."

...One for my friend and one for me, of course. I wouldn't get TWO for myself. Sheesh.

So this cookie? Oh my god, it's awesome. This is a cookie I would dream about. There isn't actually any solid ginger, but rather ginger flavor (not too subtle or strong) is incorporated all throughout the flat, golden disc. As you can see, underneath the cracked, crispy surface is a lighter, chewy center. [shoves your face into the cookie] SEE THE CHEWINESS? THE DELICIOUSNESS? BUTTER? FAT? SUGAR? YEAH. Okay. I didn't mean to hurt you there, but I just felt the urge to do that. [backs off]

On Wednesday evening I got a call from Carol saying she was in the area (as in below 14th street and not way uptown by Barnard like she usually is) and that we should meet up. Carol is one of my oldest and best friends who I sadly don't see as often as I should, especially considering that we live in the same city. ...Yeah, I'm really lazy. The last time I saw her was when I arranged a get together at City Bakery (yes, we like it a lot...for cookies). I was too full to eat real food, but I wanted to hang out anywhere besides my room because my roommate was home and...well, that ain't fun.

Fresh Salt

Fresh Salt is on the quiet, uber-clean Beekman Street, a stone's throw away from my dorm...if you can throw a stone really freakin' far. So it's either a superhuman stone's throw or a very short stroll along the cobbly South Street Seaport promenade from my dorm. After having it recommended to me by multiple Watermans, I figured it'd be a good place to hang out and eat something that isn't necessarily a meal. It's a bar, but they have a small and varied menu for those of us who favor...um...mastication.

the sky wasn't actually blindingly cyan / granola, yogurt, and fruit

For $5 I got a ginormous bowl of plain yogurt and granola topped with raisins and sliced strawberries. As I said before, I wasn't really hungry, so don't ask me why this popped out at me from the menu. Maybe my body craved fermented dairy products. I carried my hefty granola-icious bowl back to our corner both

yogurt and granola

Mmm...tastes like healthy. Or not like butter-filled chewy cookie death. I liked the combination of thick creamy yogurt (not the thin, liquidy stuff) and the crispy granola, but this bowl was missing one crucial ingredient: SUGAR. At the time I thought it tasted cool and light, unlike most things that I eat (mmm...cookiesss), but after I had polished off most of it (I wasn't thinking about what I was eating as much as what I was talking to Carol about; eating + talking = danger) I thought, "Wait, I want...a bucket of honey." I love plain yogurt, as long as I can dump on spoonfuls of honey, or perhaps just open the jar and let it loose. Maybe they had honey somewhere, but I didn't think of asking. Good yogurt, good granola, but it needs more glucose.

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Thanks again for all your comments to the last entry. I suppose it's a reflection of the varied reader population, but you guys really know how to give mixed messages. ;) I think I've gotten just about every good, thoughtful piece of advice ranging from "Go," to "Don't go," to "Go with someone else," to "You should go now," to "You should wait a while, to "You should listen to your mum," to "Um, maybe you shouldn't listen to your mum." My new plan is to go to London for a week or less and then go to Oslo, and then...er, I dunno. I suck at planning. The first time I went to London my friend and I literally stepped out of Paddington station, looked both ways down the street and thought, "...Crap, now what do we do?" We walk around until we found a store that sold maps, and then used my map book to guide us...and by "guide" I mean "help us roam around aimlessly". Fun, but not the best idea in the world.