Yes, one should make the hour long trip to Trader Joe's. If for nothing else but hummus.

Hello. I live in Minnesota now. It is pleasant. I currently work my tail off organizing and nesting, and simultaneously try to grapple with the idea that I will soon be responsible for 60 students understanding of basic, yet abstract, concepts related to communication. Can you tell them why they need to learn about the definition of self? Can you make them care about the power of rhetoric and its responsibility to truth? I hope to all that is Holy I can. Or at the very least I hope they don't repeatedly fall asleep/make a habit of skipping their weekly visits with Ms. Maki.

All that to be said, I go many weeks without a pay check (as our required training is unpaid, precious, I know) and have probably spent more money in the last week than I have in the last three years combined (excluding of course my exorbitant student loans). But all that aside I have eaten more than satisfactory meals, including the social left-over night I participated in yesterday where I had homemade Northern Chili; lots of beans, little meat, but an ok zing. I didn't have any leftovers, so I made cookies. I am pretty sure the cookies made me friends.

My favorite meal this week:

Cheapy Greeky Chicken
Ingredients:
Splash of Olive Oil
Italian Seasoning
Salt
Pepper
Two slices of yellow onion diced
Two thawed chicken breast tenderloins
Handful of Spinach
Hummus

Over medium heat, saute your onion in the olive oil with a few good cranks of your seasoning (doesn't have to be Italian, anything herby will work fine). Just as the onion is starting to soften toss in your chicken breast cook until the edges begin to be white. Turn tenderloins and add spinach. Cook until spinach is softened and chicken is cooked through. Turn up your heat quickly to sear off the sides of your chicken. Salt and pepper the dish to your liking. Remove everything from pan, place on plate. Smear a spoonful of hummus over each tenderloin. Serve with a whole grain toast, pita chips or pasta tossed in olive oil, cracked pepper and feta.

THAT FOLKS IS A FINE MEAL. And t'aint so spendy neither. And it is an easy meal to prepare for one.

Finishing with a few spoonfuls of Cherry Garcia is a pretty nice touch also.

Other favorites of the week: Frozen Pillsbury biscuits. 12 for 3 dollars. Delicious. DON'T BUY THE CANNED ONES, I promise you they are not nearly as delicious (or cost effective). 100% Grapefruit juice on sale for $2.50, yes this really is a steal, and roast beef for $5 a pound. Ok maybe I am the only one who is excited.

And I got 50 cents off a bottle of red wine vinegar due to a coupon. Score.

In a few weeks, voi la, cooking for two!

Cheap, No. Preiswert, Yes.

I found the Chelsea Market. SO. I now understand why the Food Network HQ is there. Able to give a little, ultimately fleeting ‘bish plz’ to the entry shops (Eleni’s cookies, Fat Witch brownies, Amy’s bakery), I quickly found Buon Italia, an awesome Italian supermarket with imports and housemade foodstuffs. I also got some wine and fish and the result was one of those meals that started out simple in theory, quickly spiraled out of control in shopping (in part because some dude was kind of tendentiously following me around in the store and I initially thought he was pretty cute and picked up everything I wanted to kind of impress him and then to kind of get out of his line of desire because what was kind of nice became super creepy when he never said anything to me), and came together sooo nicely in execution, please enjoy the haphazard italics use; you'll need:

Pappardelle (I used some sort of sprouted-grain Trader Joe’s shenanigan, but as with most meals, I’d hazard a guess that the finer the flour, the yolkier the dough, the fresher the pasta, the better)

Broccolini (1 bunch)
Plum tomatoes (or something smallish and intense but not too sweet - 2)
Parsley (I used flat leaf and I’d say it doesn’t matter but curly leaf seems grassier, herbier, better)
Garlic (2-3 cloves)
Olive mix (or an already chopped-up olive tapenade if you have no control issues)
Cipollini onions
Capers (packed in salt y’all)
Lemons (2-3 small)
Salt, pepper (pickiness to your taste)
Olive oil (again, pickiness to your taste, but get something fairly tasty)

1 whole branzini (a smallish branzino, mediterranean sea bass – use another firm-fleshed, mild, not-too-rich fish, like, not chilean sea bass, if you wish, but I’m sort of having a love affair with branzino and I think you should too…. um, ethically, anyway)

Alright. SO. Make the sauce you’ll be coating the pasta with and whatever else(drinking). It’s that good. Here’s the recipe, from a Sicilian cookbook Mom has:

½ cup olive oil
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
1 [large] clove garlic, minced
1/8 cup chopped parsley
½ tsp. salt, 1/8 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
Get out the food processor/blender/friend with a whisk and a fast hand. Combine all ingredients except oil and blend well. Slowly blend in (read: drizzle) olive oil until emulsified. Store in refrigerator.

Make. Your. Relish!

Dice (fairly finely) the tomatoes, and match the resulting amount with your olives and cipollini onions. Pick out a few nice-looking capers – the salt will be of use here, so don’t wash it off – and chop those pretty finely. If you have some salt-packed anchovies, and I wish I had, rinse a couple off, mince those, and add them to the mix. Stir and for god’s sake don’t salt. Pepper if you wish. Also, some toasted pine nuts are a nice addition to this, but for real, I put them in everything, so maybe don’t take my word for that.

Prepare the broccolini how you like it – bite-sized for me, thanks – and quickly, lightly move it around in a sautée pan with some thinly sliced, but not minced, garlic until it is acceptably cooked. I prefer it more or less crunchy yet warm. Remove it from the pan.

Prepare your branzino/i – grilling would have been my first choice, but as I lack the essential equipment, I am stuck with broiling – by fileting things if you want them that way, or not, whatever, but don’t get all picky and debone and definitely leave the skin on. You know how to do it, it’s a fresh fish. If you don’t know, you bought something frozen, correct? Fine. Lightly olive oil, salt, and pepper both sides, and do that thing.

Toss the broccolini with the pappardelle and a little of the lemon sauce. Slide the filet on top, smear it with a little more sauce, and top with about two tablespoons of the relish. I drank half a bottle of Domaine Lafond Roc-Epine Lirac Blanc 2006, which is mineral-crisp, a little flowery, a little citrusy, and about $11.99. Then had a little apricot rugelach and - ! – a chocolate macaroon from Eleni’s to congratulate myself on the healthfulness of the previous dish. Yes please!

Indulgence

Abroad in Finland I allowed myself one food splurge a day. Most often it was a delicate pastry filled with plum or an ice cream bought from the case at a convienence store. And even though it killed me to spend 3 euro on these little delights, allowed it. These simple pleasures made a huge difference in my daily movement - those little pastries could lift me out of the doldrums, or give me the energy for a new adventure.

On the rare occasion that my splurge was a cup of lohikeitto (salmon soup) or a slice of dark rye bread and Scandinavian grave lox, I relaxed into my lunch, feeling as if the whole country was encapsulated in that delightfully fishy meal.

When I look back on my time in Finland, it was those moments at sandwhich counters and coffee shops that really define my experience. Gazing out at the Soumen lapsi getting of the trams in the gray of November over a cup of tea, or partaking in an anise flavored ice cream in the snow - these moments are Finland to me.

I am excited to see what moments await me in my next life. Likely they will be just as simple. but markedly less expensive. Either way, I look forward to them.