nothing says Memorial Day Weekend like knishes!

It was such a lovely weekend! I woke up early on Saturday morning, and finished reading the book (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith) for my Queer Book Club on Wednesday (if you're here, you're queer, and you're a book nerd and want in, lemme know). Then I hit the Strip and met up with the E-dawg, and ran into lots of other pals down there. At the Firehouse Farmers Market I got some shittakes, "walking onions", baby greens, basil, eggs, asparagus, turnip greens pie, baba ganoush and pita chips, and these teensy little baby turnips that the woman I bought them for called them something like "hot currans" or "hot callans" or "hot somethingorother". Anyone know the name I'm searching for? I wish I'd photographed them. Whatever they were, they were really delicious and pretty cute. I chopped them up raw into a salad. The texture was sorta like water chestnut, the taste was sweet and mild. Yum. I also hit 21st Street Coffee for the best coffee in the 'Burgh, and a chat with the E-dawg. Then E-dawg went off with Barbara to do a 50-mile bike ride, and I stopped in to Cafe Richard, where sadly someone had already bought up all the veggie quiche (wild mushroom with goat cheese and scallions - sob!), so I just got a coconut custard tart.

Sunday we met up with some peeps, and trekked out to the Rachel Carson Homestead for the Sustainable Feast. That evening Barbara wanted to make knishes, so we used the recipe from Vegan With A Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (we just made the potato and the spinach, not the sweet potato. also, for a non-vegan detour, we added some cheese to the spinach ones). We had Mags over to hang with us, and also used her for a little kneading power. They are serious comfort food. Little pastry rolls of warm potato-y goodness. Yum. We paired that with a salad made from my farmers market bounty: the baby greens and some leftover spinach from the knishes, some roasted asparagus cut into 1" pieces, chopped red bell pepper, the baby turnips I mentioned above, several of the walking onions, carrots, chevre, and a quick lemon vinaigrette with lemon zest and juice, olive oil, shallots and salt and pepper. Again, yum.

I had the leftover knishes for breakfast on Monday morning. (OH MY GOD THERE IS NOTHING BETTER THAN A LONG WEEKEND, HUH?).

Last night we went in completely the opposite direction. Ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery (my favorite combo is Chocolate Cake Batter Ice Cream with strawberries and yellow pound cake folded in) and fries from the O.

One can't be virtuous all the time.

[this post is dedicated to the memory of a sweet little cat I once knew. Sports Kramer, rest in peace].