Don't Make Me Release The Flying Monkeys

My snipe hunt for insanely sharp and delicious cheddar cheese ended nearly in my own back yard. The yupscale White Hen in Ball Square has Cabot's Private Stock, which someone suggested in reply to my post a few weeks ago. I finally bought some last night. beowabbit was with me and I bought a block for him too because he is awesome and because he shares my appreciation of things like insanely delicious cheese.

I broke right into it as soon as I got home. This is, hands down, the best cheddar cheese I have ever put in my mouth. It is very sharp, yes, and the first bite was even a bit stingy on my tongue. But, four slices later, it tasted intensely smooth and rich. Just let it melt a bit in your mouth, don't wolf it.

The wine pairing simply suggested "Merlot," which I can definitely see, and will try. I have pears at home too -- I know what I'm having when I get home. I want to cook with it, too. Wabbit mentioned a fancy macaroni & cheese recipe involving heavy whipping cream and butter. I think we have a menu to plan. :-)

Interesting though -- 1st place in the Extra Sharp Cheddar division of the 2006 United States Championship Cheese Contest went to McCadam Extra Sharp, McCadam being a subsidiary of Cabot. I'll have to try that. There may be even more goodness out there... and I will find it.

I'm strongly in favor of paying for fast food by its weight, like you can do at some salad bars (but hardly anywhere else). Being able to order only the amount you actually want should be a more widely available option, as well as the option to order half-portions or share a plate. If more food places operated on this template, we could each pay only for the amount of food we can reasonably eat, and significantly less food would be wasted in a hungry world.

This morning I was out on a work errand in Downtown Crossing, and I stopped into the food court to get some Indian food for lunch. The takeout box contained more food than I could have eaten in two sittings. By the time I was a quarter-way through I was full, and by half-way through I had chicken tikka masala jetting out my ears. But because I had more errands and the rest of the workday at the office, it wasn't practical to schlep the gloppy box through all of that and then home.

I just sat there poking in the leftover food -- a full meal, really -- and thinking about the waste of this perfectly good food that would fill the belly of a hungry person. And of all the other people all over America who can't finish the oversized meal they had to buy because it's one-ginormous-size-fits-all in this country.

I dine-out more often than I dine-in, and bringing home doggie bags is very seldom practical, especially since I don't have a car and am usually not heading directly home after a meal. When I think, over the course of my life, how much food was left on my thousands of plates because the portion was insanely too large for me, and when I imagine it all together and fresh and edible, it could keep a village feasting for weeks. If I think of all the money I would have saved if I'd been allowed to order half-portions, I could afford to travel to that village and deliver the food myself.

Worse are memories of when I was a young person working in restaurants, and the mortifying food waste that regularly happens there. Like at Friendly's (which is anything but) which does *not* donate day-old or surplus food to homeless shelters, for "liability" reasons. I was heartsick when I was forced to dump two gallons of perfectly good chowder down the sink, particularly when I was critically impoverished and nearly homeless myself. At Wendy's, I was glad when it was my turn to take whole bags of burgers that had been sitting more than 30 minutes to the dumpster. That way I'd know where in the dumpster they were when I got off my shift.

So, I left my still half-full container of Indian food on top of the food court trash bin, for homeless or freegans or whoever to take if they wanted. If I'd been able to order half as much, I'd have more money and less food would end up in the garbage, which this box probably did.

Yesterday Andy and I spent the afternoon hiking all around Mt. Auburn Cemetery. It was the best choice of things to do together. We walked and walked and had plenty of time to talk in a low-pressure environment. We really got to know so much more about each other -- our histories, aspects of our personalities... and that we're both comfortable making jokes in grave yards. We walked 3 or 4 miles, all told.

We were hungry after that, so we went to dinner at Stella's in Watertown. It's a somewhat pricy but very good Italian place. I had a glass of malbec and he had a merlot. We shared a roasted beet salad that was out of this world. It was something I never would have thought to order myself because it contained horseradish which I hate, but I couldn't taste the horseradish at all, just the luscious beets, walnuts, and endive. Then I had an amazing wild mushroom fettuccine that featured sauteed portabello, crimini, shiitake, and porcini mushrooms (I'm trying to be like lillibet in remembering what I ate). It was dressed in a truffle oil and light cream sauce with freshly ground black pepper. Oh. My. God. It was mushroom lover's paradise. It clearly reminded me that I could be a vegetarian if I had dishes like this all the time. Mushrooms are meat.

It was a great day together. But now he has a business trip (teaching at a seminar) and I won't see him for a whole week. :-( I like how this all is actually starting to take on a shape, but I don't want it to lose momentum. Guess e-mail will have to do for the week...

I'm going to go to bed so early tonight. It'll probably still be light out. I can't wait; this week has wiped me out. One of the things I always forget to be thankful for about singlehood is the absolute freedom to hit the pillow any time I want, and no one can stop me.

Except I'm not sure if I'm entirely single or not. I seem to be somewhere halfway between single and boyfriended. Every time I say that this current situation just isn't going to work out, we have a lovely date, like last night. We have another date tomorrow to go hiking in the afternoon and probably to dinner afterwards. Well, I put my foot down that he had to make time for me on weekends, and he did indeed toe the line. This will be the first date that we're not at a show or noisy event, and will really be able to just walk and talk.

Unrelated: Would anyone be interested in Sunday dinner out? stephkarto and I think it would be swell, and maybe you do too, especially since Monday is a state holiday for many of us. I was thinking it might be nice to try out the new restaurant 400 Highland in Davis, but if that's too pricy I'm wide open to other suggestions.