dog days of summer

I've been in a culinary rut lately. Anyone else? I'm sick of being too hot to turn on the oven. I'm longing for the fall and winter when I can eat soup and hot bread all day every day.
I've decided that summer here in VA is worse than winter. At least when you're cold you can just bundle up before sprinting to the car. In the heat of summer, you are dripping with sweat by the time you make it to the sidewalk. Bria and I are a little stir crazy. I think I need to just embrace the humidity (which means my FRIZZY, CRAZY hair) and go do some fun things. (It's even cooled down considerably, and I am still complaining.)

October sounds so wonderful right now . . .

(p.s. I'm having some weird blogger issues, so, if something ended up weird, forgive me. I hate when that happens. )

Bria is excited to share the news:

(Don't ask me how she got that knife in her hand.)

Sam got a new job! We went out to celebrate a couple weeks ago when we got the news. And Bria was hammin' it up all night. She even attacked me a couple times because she was just too happy to contain herself:
Sam's started working yesterday at a production company based in Bethesda working as a junior editor on the show American Loggers, which airs on the Discovery Channel.
Three cheers for Sam! We're so excited about this new step.

Fojol at Farragut

Spontaneity always saves the day, so last week, when I was on my way to Costco and Sam texted me asking us to meet him for lunch, I jumped at the opportunity for a fun outing. We parked at Costco and ran to catch the around-the-corner metro (a perk of frequenting the Pentagon City Costco). The Fojol brothers were at Farragut Square that day, just a couple blocks from Sam's work, so we had ourselves a little Indian lunch.

I love this food truck craze. I love that the Fojol brothers lay out fancy blankets for their eaters. And the food was oh so tasty. I'm a sucker for butter chicken, and it was good. I kind of want to go there every day.

That's their fancy truck which was blasting some fancy tunes. Perfect for getting Bria to dance.
The butter chicken proved to be "too sicy" for Bria, so it was with a heavy heart we trudged across the street to buy her a sandwich from Subway (of which she ate, like, four bites). It always kills me to shell out so much cash for kids meals which Bria rarely eats. I think I need to be better prepared with homemade sandwiches and snacks when we go out to eat. Another thing I should be better prepared for? Diaper situations. The funny part was that I was going to Costco to buy diapers in the first place. Let's just say small packs of diapers at CVS are expensive, they don't always have the right size, and there isn't really a bathroom with a diaper changing station around Farragut Square. Luckily nice shady trees provide ample diaper changing space. Wow. That is an awesome way to end a post about lunch. Cheers!

In A Pickle

The other day, I made some pickles.

I'm actually not that much of a pickle person. I'm fond of sweet gherkins, and I hate dill pickles. The ones I made are bread and butter chip, which are sweet, but have a tangy bite, thanks to the turmeric, mustard seed, and celery seed. I used this recipe that came through my google reader last month.
I kind of wish I had cut them into little circles, rather than spears, because that would have helped my one qualm: the skin was a little too thick and substantial for the small amount of inner-pickle. Had I cut them into circles, as suggested by the recipe, it would have left much more inner crunch to stand up to the tough outer skin. Oh well. Next time.

They are so beautiful in my fridge. But since I'm more of a gherkin gal and Sam is much more of a dill fanatic, I wonder if we will eat them all. If you live near me and want a jar, just holler. Or comment. Whatever.