Food, Friends, and Famine

My friend Jessica bought me enough tea to last a year. So happy.


We also had the most delicious Farmer's market dinner tonight at Auntie Em's in Eagle Rock where Jess used to work. Everything was so fresh and beautiful. Paired all dishes with a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and it was the perfect meal with lovely company. Speaking of which, I feel absolutely guilty about my friendship with Jess...in the sense that it's so unbalanced. She puts in so much more than I do. Take tonight's meal for example. I know she's been planning it for weeks because she asked me a long while ago if I would be free tonight. And then I went on Auntie Em's website to read more about the Farmer's market dinner and I saw that it was 45 dollars a person. Oh my goodness. Not that I put a price tag on friendship, but I just feel bad when people spend so much money on me. The fact that it's to celebrate a birthday doesn't alleviate that. And then I made the stupidest mistake today by saying her birthday was in October...when it's really in SEPTEMBER. I wanted to crawl under the table and hide when I did that.
I need to be a better friend.

Peach+heirloom tomato+burrata cheese salad. I love tomatoes, so this was a no-brainer for me. Love!

Yummy, yummy, yummy cheeses. I LOVE CHEESE. Especially goat cheese. Those square blocks on the far left were my favorite. It was a classic blue log goat cheese from Wisconsin. I ate it and went to goat cheese heaven.

Peach and pluot shortcakes with creme anglaise and fresh vanilla bean whipped cream.

Miscellaneous stuff that's been on my mind:
I didn't know there was such a thing as a pluot until tonight. They're not very sweet by themselves, if you're into that. I prefer a nice juicy peach or apricot.

Google Labs is being slowly shut down so Google can focus more on a few projects (ahem, Google+) and make them better as opposed to staying in an experimental stage where they are throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Famine in Somalia. There's a severe, severe food shortage crisis that's been ongoing in Somalia. It was really bad in 1992 and 1993. The US began sending aid then, but cut it off after the Black Hawk incident. I wonder if it's because of natural conditions like drought, and hence less food production, that are contributing to the food crisis, or if the distribution is characterized by gross injustice. I post all these pictures of the food I ate tonight, so full in my belly I was going to burst, and then I think about this. There's a lot of self-contempt involved in my thinking process, but I'll have to save that for another post. Sigh.

Is Michele Bachmann's husband gay?

I should go to sleep. Every night this past week I've been telling myself to sleep by 1 AM but of course, I fail. Then I don't wake up until 10 the next morning and the vicious cycle continues...