Days 22 & 23... Oh, the Food.

The food in this city is, without question, phenomenal. You can pretty much whatever kind of food whenever you want it and probably delivered to your door within 20 minutes. For this reason and the fact that Manhattan kitchens tend to be the size of a coat closet, many people spend their entire NY lives sans cooking. I thought I could hang with this mentality, and admittedly the novelty of ordering all kinds of delicious food off seamlessweb and having it arrive within minutes to my 3rd floor walkup was delightful. But after four weeks? I'm sick of it. I WANT HOME COOKED FOOD.

I want simple food, not-so-greasy food, not so overpriced food... I just want normal home cooked food. For the first time since my very first day here (remember the shower incident?), I miss my Austin apartment and its kitchen. And my ginormous fridge and pantry all to myself. And my granite island - OH the island! I miss being able to whip up all kinds of fun goodness. And? I miss my garbage disposal (yup no garbage disposals here in NYC...).

Alas, although my kitchen here isn't the size of my old one, it's still fairly big by NY standards. The problem is that I share it with 3 other girls (2 of whom do not cook and survive on lean cuisine... *shudders*). The fridge is always full of booze, takeout containers, and ridiculous, half-filled bottles of water (these girls? SO NOT GREEN, but that's a WHOLE 'nother post) so it's not like I can stock it with all my organic yumminess. So, I have to cook and eat simply. No elaborate recipes for me, no not anytime soon. Right now I have to stick with the basics and be happy with that.

So tonight I cooked for the first time since I've been here (like truly cooked, not just heated up a frozen Amy's burrito). I made a simple but delicious tomato sauce (think tomato basil meets arrabbiatta meets a whole lotta garlic) with whole spaghetti. It was delicious. I didn't even make any sides to go along with it, just had a big bowl of perfectly al dente pasta, and it was heavenly.

Also? I'm returning the Vitamix and just ordered a waring pro blender off Amazon for about 10% of the price. I know that a Vitamix will be in my future, but for right now, it's just too big and too much. (Also? I'm afraid someone here will break it.) I thought I could live off green smoothies from Terri, but they are SO not as good as mine and SO not cheap either. So I'll meet in the middle and make smoothies in my $50 blender that probably aren't as velvety smooth as my Vitamix smoothies, but they'll just have to do. :)