Dinner: The Fate of the Pita Chips … and More

To resolve the second-lunch cliffhanger of: “Whatever happened to the pita chips,” they became a part of my triumvirate-scroungy dinner:

Part One: Said pita chips from Pita Pan Cafe. No way those freshly deep-fried bits of old pita would last even until morning. Paired with a newly-bought Sabra hummus and a fine Catalonian E.V.O.O.

Part Two: Personal-sized repeat salad from simple steak salad night just last week. Minus the Parmesan, plus the radish slices. Not exactly even trade, but not crap, either. (I like radishes.)

Part Three: Vaguely more complicated. I start getting anxiety when I look in my fridge and there is no block of cheese — not even an end of block of cheese — in sight.

Separately, I also got mildly excited about The Food Emporium’s “Taste of Nature: Austria” circular that I discovered recently (clearly an Austria tourism-sponsored tourism plug; specials are on through July 2). So when I realized tonight that Austrian cheese happened to be on special, when I happened to stop in the Food Emporium nearest to my apartment tonight … well …

Let’s leave this with another to be continued. Surely, the cheeses will surface again soon.

Dinner: Wednesday, April 29, 2009

This wasn’t what I intended to eat for dinner tonight, but isn’t that just what happens sometimes when you find yourself with good company at some post-work social event at Arctica Bar that involves $4 pints? 

I might take just a quick moment to ruminate on the craft of nachos. At the time of this photo, we’d eaten a good half of them, only to reveal a pile of chips. I hate that. Because chips alone are not nachos. Don’t get me wrong. I love chips. Just don’t try to trick me into thinking they’re all nachos when they’re not. 

Anyhow, good nachos don’t necessarily  need to be huge. What’s key is that the toppings are proportional to the volume of chips, so you can have a different sort of savory bite every time, and not wind up with a pile of chips and nowhere to go (not quite the same as being all dressed up with nowhere to go, but not so different). 

There’s more to nachos, but I’ll save that for another post … it’s inevitable there will be another nachos post. 

COST: $8 nachos, $4 pints
PREP TIME: A lovely few hours

Lunch: Friday, April 10, 2009

Oh no you didn’t. Oh yes I did.

You know that thing where you’re out of your element and you didn’t really plan well, food-wise, so, like, you’re hungry at 10:30a, and eventually, at about 11:40a, you give in to a bag of Wise New York Deli Kettle Cooked potato chips (jalapeno flavor) and a short stick of Borden pepper jack cheese from the local 7-Eleven mini mart – justifying it’s kind of like cheese and crakers — and on your way back to the office you can’t help but stop by the irrestibly-charming, small-town bakery to pick up a couple of cookies for the office because you know you’re totally going to kill your appetite for the actual lunch you had planned anyway, which was sort of unimpressive to begin with, so why not go out in style?

Yeah. Well. I did that.

COST: $1.98 at 7-Eleven
PREP TIME: N/A

Dinner: Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Reconstituted pepper turkey sandwich.

Not sure why, but this is about all I am hungry for tonight. Gave new life to the deli meat from half of a pepper turkey/pepper jack sandwich combo — one of my favorites — leftover from the other day, and built it up with a slice of toasted 7-grain with flax bread from Rudi’s Organic Bakery, Jarlsberg Swiss cheese, B&G hot jalapeno peppers (sliced) and Earthbound Farm’s organic heirloom lettuce leaves (7 oz, $4.99), which is my new favorite store-bought salad mix.

The chips are a little broken from being shuffled from work to purse to home, but at $.50 a bag, Wise’s light and crispy potato chips are still the best deal in the deli.

COST: >$5
PREP TIME: 5 minutes