poor food

Alrighty, haven't blogged in a while because I was very busy at my real job and life but now I don't have a job so I'm a full-time jobseeker/blogger/tweeter/facebooker. Excellent. Sometimes, I manage my life better the poorer I am, and I'm ready to get back to having fun. In my six years at this last job I've been pretty miserable in my personal life, to be honest. Maybe not miserable, but in a rut. Excitement was getting to stay home and clear off the TiVO.

Most recent food and drink activities have included doing the Les Dames Escoffier...Afternoon in the Country at Serenbe again (thanks to a friend's generous ticket), Decatur Beer Festival, Thanksgiving, and making chocolate souffle. Afternoon in the Country is a giant meat-wine-chocolate fest. That really is what it boils down to. I had some pretty amazingly simple but delicious brisket with sunchoke slaw and my friend had a date wrapped in prosciutto stuffed with blue cheese that she loved. Otherwise, I wasn't all that excited. I did purchase some honey from one of those little shops in the main village-y part of Serenbe. I just ran out from my unbelievably delectable bottle from last year so it was perfect timing.

Decatur Beer Festival was cold and rainy-ish this year for the beginning part. We had fun because my friend made pretzel/breath mint necklaces for us that others were mucho jealous of. Memorable beers? It's all a blur weeks on but it is always a good time.

Chocolate souffle - the simplest recipe in the world: 3 egg yolks and melted chocolate (pick a good chocolate), 6 egg whites, 1/3 cup sugar. It is to-die-for and super-easy. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 F. Don't leave any leftovers or they will concrete themselves into your souffle dish.

Egg salad and nostalgia

Nostalgia has been the name of the game this year. I blame this mainly on finding elementary and high school friends on Facebook but also on the New York Times.

Today was a beautiful day so I grabbed all the newspapers in the house and dragged them to the backyard to sit out and enjoy the unusually warm-for-January-even-in-Georgia weather. I came across an article about malls failing in the horrible economy and they mentioned a website called deadmalls.com.

I got online to check it out and was transported back to all kinds of bizarre retail memories. I also got wind of the fact that many people are obsessed with old retail. Lots of blogs devoted to old malls, old discount chains, Howard Johnsons, strip malls, grocery stores. My favorite blogs that I've found so far have been
mallhistory.com, labelscar.com and mallsofamerica.blogspot.com.

I learned some interesting info about the history of malls in Atlanta, where I live now, but I also checked out info on malls in Maryland, where I'm from. I desperately tried to register at groceteria.com so I could answer somebody's question on the message board about where a Memco in Rockville used to be located. I loved Memco as a kid. My parents felt safe enough to leave me and my brothers in the toy or record sections by ourselves while they went grocery shopping. It was a wonderland of furniture, clothes, groceries, toys, etc - really similar to Wal-Mart but not as tacky (in my hazy, rose-colored memories, it was a wonderland but it probably was just as tacky as Wal-Mart).

Anyway, dead mall internet surfing led me to some websites on old tea rooms which led me to desire tea sandwiches and tea - thus, egg salad on toast for dinner. I suggest raspberry tea with Serenbe honey (in the unmarked jar, available at Serenbe, pay whatever they ask - it is that good).

This site: victualling.wordpress.com has some interesting links to tearoom sites.