Escape from Baltimore, Part I.

Over Labor Day weekend, Red and I fled town. We did this because of a small traffic jam known as the Baltimore Grand Prix (I’m not linking because get bent, you assholes). This is an event which, starting on the Thursday before Labor Day, turns the city into an Escape From New York-style nightmare in the name of tourism, cars that go really, really fast, and people dumb enough to want to sit outside on metal bleachers while the asphalt reflects the scorching summer heat. Once would be bad enough, but it is supposed to happen annually. I could write a book about all the ways it sucks, but I won’t because last year we decided that we would simply do an end-run around the whole clusterfuck by leaving town every Labor Day.

Every day for a month, I drove to work through a cage. Photo ripped from wn.com. 

This year, it was a no-brainer. We have friends in New Hampshire and Rhode Island, so we hopped a short little flight up to Manchester and prepared for a weekend of food and camaraderie. New England did not disappoint us.

Our first stop was at my heart-sister Jess’ place. I miss her every day and hope that one day we’ll live in the same city again. She and her husband Matt are new parents to the most adorable, magical little stinker. I’m completely in love with him. He didn’t get to have any of this, though:

Hello, lover.

I was overjoyed to learn that Trader Joe’s stores in more civilized states (read: not Maryland) sell alcohol. Not only that, but they’ll also give you a list of all their vegan selections. Finally, cheap vegan wine! Turns out that Three-Buck Chuck is highly drinkable. So is Green Fin, which is about a dollar more. I don’t think I’ve ever bought two bottles of wine for under eight dollars before. It all went marvelously with the massive quantities of Indian food we powerhoused while gossiping and playing Scrabble.

Confession: Until this trip, I had never actually had a dosa. Sure, I’d eaten my fair share of my low-budget dosadillas, but those are crap compared to the real thing. The spongy, injera-like dough! The savory filling! The little cups of chutney and dipping sauce! These dosas were fantastic. That’s a samosa on top there, as a bonus. Basically we ate a lot of fried dough and carbs, then wondered why we couldn’t move.

Surprisingly, we were hungry again the next day, so we all met up at Life Alive Café, a hella hippie place that is also the most gorgeous restaurant I’ve ever visited. For real, look at the bathroom:

It was a tiny tropical paradise.

Tell me you don’t want to just hang out in there for a while.

All the dishes have ridiculous but friendly names. It’s hard not to feel like a spaz when ordering The Romantic:

It's basically tofu, avocado, and broccoli, but it hit the spot.

Jess ordered The Hot & Healthy Bachelor, though, so I think she wins. Everything was delicious. If only my latte had been bottomless. Endless caffeine makes everything better.

The utterly scenic Lowell, Massachusetts (I am not even being sarcastic; Lowell has come a long way since my dad grew up there):

Side of the New England Quilt Museum.

Obviously.

I don't know. I just liked it.

This cool-looking building houses one of the UMass Lowell bookstores, among other things.

After that, there were many many hugs and baby snuggles before we hit the road to Providence. Come back soon and check out the rest of our trip! I promise to post the second half before winter arrives.

Cooking under the influence.

Red was away for work this week, so once again I was left to entertain myself. I didn’t burn the house down, but I did decide to combine two activities that are usually better done solo: cooking and boozing.

On the menu was Appetite for Reduction’s Potato-Spinach Curry. But first, allow me to issue a brief PSA: Finish all your chopping before you start drinking. Safety first, darlings.

What was I drinking, you ask? Oh, I had a few bottles of Sam Adams in the fridge. My girl Liz came over the other night, and we went out for sushi and then came back for some frosty adult beverages. West Coast, do you have the deliciousness that is Sam Adams? You probably do, but I don’t want to fall into the East-Coast trap of thinking we’re the center of the known universe. Anyway, it’s mighty fine beer and I enjoyed it as I cooked.

This is a delicious curry that comes together very easily. As Isa notes, it’s extra-fun because you get to pop the mustard seeds at the beginning. Dodging the little bastards as they tried to escape the pot challenged my coordination, but it does that even without an assist from my friend Sam. Once you manage to corral your mustard seeds (now toasty and even more delicious), the rest is a snap. What am I telling you this for? You’ve probably made hundreds of curries.

I did tweak the recipe a little. It called for a pound of frozen spinach, but we only had a 10-oz. bag in the freezer. So I used that, then added a few handfuls of fresh baby spinach. The hippie grocery only had russet potatoes (no Yukon gold), but I couldn’t tell the difference. And I have an irrational dislike of chopping tomatoes, so I used a 14-oz. can instead of the two fresh tomatoes listed. Also, I had a few scraps of tofu hanging around from another recipe, so I added those too. Still, for all that, I think the finished product was pretty close to the original.


While the curry was simmering, it occurred to me that what I really wanted was chocolate. I wanted chocolate bad. I started scouring cookbooks and cupboards to see if I had enough of anything to make brownies, or half-assed cookies, or anything. Surprise: I didn’t. No chocolate chips, and only a measly quarter-cup of cocoa powder. Oh, the humanity. I had a fresh chocolate bar in the fridge, but I wasn’t feeling creative enough to smash it into chips or grind it into powder—besides, we all know that would have been a really bad idea. And I was psyched to get baking.

I did, however, have plenty of peanut butter. Jars full of it. Therefore, I would have peanut butter cookies. Red called me at that point, and I (drunkenly) hollered that there would be peanut butter cookies when he came home. I imagine that his dining companions were amused.

I ate a little bit of the curry (trying to save room for the cookies-to-be), then switched to wine. It seemed classier. I gathered the ingredients for Vegan with a Vengeance’s Crispy Peanut Butter Cookies and got to work. With only eight ingredients, how hard could it be? Clearly, this recipe was made with drunk bakers in mind.

I’m gonna cut to the chase: Sweet God Almighty, what a horrible failure these cookies were. I know you’re thinking, “Of course they sucked, you stupid lush. You probably added vinegar instead of oil.” No, I swear to you, it wasn’t me. I did everything right. I hopped on the PPK to check it out, and I am far from the only person to have had piss-poor results with these cookies.


After 12 minutes in the oven, I checked them. Too soft. Three more minutes. Still too soft. Three more. Not working. Grumpily, I set the timer for a final five minutes, determining that those cookies would be done or there would be hell to pay. After a grand total of twice the recommended baking time, they were still mushy and crumbly—the mere touch of a spatula made them fall apart. Their bottoms were also mildly scorched. I didn’t bother transferring them to the rack to cool, but after a few minutes, I took a nibble of one anyway.

It wasn’t good. Still, my anticipation had been building for a few hours, and I really wanted dessert. I placed three of the misbegotten cookies into a bowl, then poured chocolate syrup over them in an attempt to salvage a sugar high.


It will not surprise you to learn that the chocolate syrup resented being dragged into this atrocity, and refused to help the cookies taste better. I sadly sipped my wine and texted Red to say that both Leonard Nimoy and Stephen Root had cameos on TNG that evening. (Aside: I adore them both, and I think Nimoy looks like he’d give an excellent hug, but I find myself channeling Root’s Office Space character Milton more often than I do Mr. Spock. I’m working on it.)

In a last gasp at optimism, I put the cookies in the fridge, hoping that they’d firm up overnight and that my taste buds would recover from any booze-related trauma. When I woke up, the cookies would be magically delicious.

They weren’t. They found their end in the compost bin. I was crestfallen.

However, this weekend I plan to indulge in a fit of brownie baking like no other. I will not be denied again! I think I’ll bake sober this time, though.

Dosadillas: This is not a recipe.

Well, I guess maybe it is. There’s not much to it. It’s more like the lazy vegan’s version of a very good recipe published in VegNews. The Internet tells me that Robin Robertson’s Quick-Fix Vegetarian also has an excellent recipe.

Dosas, you have my heart.

What’s a dosa, you ask? A dosa is basically the Indian version of a taco or crêpe. It’s samosa filling folded inside flatbread, and if you don’t know what a samosa is, then God help you. It is heavenly. What I make are more accurately called “dosadillas” (not my word) since I just use tortillas instead of making my own fancy flatbread. What can I say? When I’m hungry, all pretense goes down the drain.

Here’s what I did last night. You’re supposed to use baked potatoes, but we didn’t have any. I parboiled 4 red potatoes instead. This was a decent substitute, but red potatoes don’t mash nearly as well, so the filling was lumpy. No matter. I sautéed some garlic (Red used the last onion, but that’s okay because he used it to make fried potatoes), then added a 10-oz. bag of frozen peas and carrots. I stirred in the potatoes, which still refused to be mashed, and added a teaspoon each of turmeric and curry. And a few shakes of salt, too. (Here I feel the need to clarify that I am normally much more elaborate with my spices, but as I said, we were hungry and short on time.) When everything is hot, move it to the other side of the stove and preheat a little (just a little) oil in a skillet.

This is the fun part. Once your filling has cooled a little, scoop some (1/4 cup? 1/3? I don’t know, people) into a tortilla and fold it over. Try not to use so much that your filling squeezes out of your dosadilla. Plus, you want to have extra room for chutney.

Place 2 dosadillas in the skillet over medium heat. Watch them so they don’t burn! After a few minutes, check the bottoms. If they’re brown to your liking, flip them over carefully. When they’re done, remove them from the heat (duh).

Red likes to spread chutney along one flat side of the dosadilla, then eat it with a knife and fork. I prefer to eat mine with my hands, dipping it into a small bowl of chutney as I go. I love mango-ginger chutney, but we recently picked up apple-cranberry as well. Red suggested that our next batch of dosas be more savory, with less Indian spice and more sage, which would go well with the apple-cranberry chutney. I’ll keep you posted!

Tonight I’m feeling like crêpes. This will be my second crêpe attempt, so I’m less nervous than I was before. Breakfast for dinner!