Early May Random Bites

It's salad time:

Bathing suit season is right around the corner.

I'm trying to eat less bread, sugar and pasta and eat more fish and salads.
I feel less bloated and more energetic.

Here is my favorite Cobb Salad recipe.

Avocado, grilled chicken, egg, red onion, tomato, bacon, lettuce & blue cheese.
What's not to love?

Salad #2:

Leftover orange glazed salmon over arugula w/ oranges and sliced hard boiled egg.

(click here for the easy Orange Glazed Salmon recipe)

Nice and skinny.



Militant Community Garden Update: (I'm going to call it MCG from now on).

I know you've all been waiting patiently for a Militant Community Garden Update.......well here it is.

We've finally had our first real asparagus harvest last week. Every 3 days I get about 10 new spears for my dinner.
I love snapping them off and just eating them raw.

Such a treat.

This is what one of the four plots looks like the first week in May.
Broccoli, beets, garlic and all sorts of goodies coming up.

The tomato plant sale took place Saturday and I bought 11 plants. I am excited to put them in the ground for some summer tomato recipes.

And more new friendly signs posted on the garden gate.

NO DOGS PERMITTED.

Yeah, because your canine friends might eat your plants.

How 'bout "NO BUNNIES ALLOWED".

Oy.

and for all you people with foot fetishes, here are my silver toes in the garden.

Overheard:

My mother used to say I should mind my own business.
I am always listening to other people's conversations and getting involved.

Yesterday, while in line at Trader Joe's in Millburn, NJ, an eccentric woman in front of me (I say eccentric by the way she was dressed) returned 25 rotten kiwis without a receipt.

The manager nicely came over and opened the register and refunded her money. Their store policy is to not ask the customer any questions why they return an item. They want to be friendly and encourage you to try new things.

But I had to ask.
"Why are you returning all those kiwis?".

She turned around with a dirty look and said "because I don't want them anymore".

What a shame, they wound up out back in the dumpster.
I hate wasting food and I also think they should enforce a better return policy.


Spontaneity:

Stuck in a miserable traffic jam Saturday night (1 hour, no movement) and forced to detour.
Wound up in the city of Newark. Yes, I said it.

We went "down neck", as they say in NJ.
"Down Neck" refers to how the Passaic River is shaped (like a neck), and historically, this area was called "Dutch Neck".

Also known as the "Ironbound" section, because at the turn of the century, it was filled with industry, bound by the railroad.
Ballantine Beer, a few other breweries long gone, and Benjamin Moore Paints employed the residents of this neighborhood.

It was mostly Lithuanian, German, Italian and Polish immigrants who inhabited this neighborhood in the 19th century.
It is still a working class, international community which now has mainly Portuguese and Hispanic roots.

I haven't been there since college, when a bunch of us would go for huge portions of paella and cheap sangria.
We'd always come home reeking of garlic!

Well, the food Gods were watching over us.

Not only did we get a parking spot, but we wound up in a fabulous authentic Spanish tapas bar, all by chance (and the iphone "around me" app!).

Delicious pata negra from Iberico w/ croquetas de Nona. Patatas w/ alioli (OH MY!) and manchego w/ green apples (which I am making at home!).
Paella Valenciana w/ gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp) and lots of good bread to mop up the oil.

Great hospitality and delicious food. I can't wait to go back to this neighborhood restaurant.

Thank goodness for traffic jams or we would have never found this place.

Vivo Tapas
(973) 465-4800
167 Ferry St Newark, NJ 07105


Good Things: (I sound like Martha Stewart).

If you haven't checked it out already, my friend Marie, over at Proud Italian Cook has a new e-book out on sauces.
It's called Italian Sauces My Way. (click on the link for more info).

It's fabulous and can be downloaded to your kindle or desktop in no time.

She knows what she's talking about.
Everything I have made from Marie's recipes always turn out delicious!



I Love Instagram:

For those of you who follow me on instagram, you know I have been acting odd lately and posting photos of things that I am throwing away in my garbage disposal in the sink.

I have titled it "insink=erator art".

Sometimes I think garbage is just pretty (as long as I can't smell it).

I know I'm weird.

Thanks for reading.