As Time Goes By...

And not without remorse.

It's the holiday season, after all.

Is this it, getting older? Twenties only shortly underway and still I find myself with too little time to do the things I love - cook, blog, more than anything eat.

Pie, to carry the season with you

 Well, I find myself in quite a new place. Both my milieu newly discovered and sense of self lost but found and life is born anew like a rising sun across the snowy plains of a lazy January.

I, slave to its Honey-Whole wheat

Maybe more like the crusty bread of this tiny oven, spending my time to bake its wares.
Enough of the niceties: ever since Thanksgiving all I've wanted is to cook, serve, prepare, concoct. My battle with food rages on, appreciated but still unhealthy but at the end of this snowy day, I still stand.
College has been rough and I've begun to question just exactly what I'm waiting for - a college diploma in biochemistry or something more? I dream in the sensory and live too cerebrally but perhaps I'm just yet to stitch the two together.

Rural?

Damn Straight?

But this ain't Christmastime in the city

I sit here on my couch, enjoying the scent of a rather experimental batch of sweet and salty, toasted-nut chocolate chip cookies. Sprinkled with Rye, sweetened with Maple, spiked with Bitters. What will become of them beside a dessert assuming I don't burn the second batch for writing?

Ah, Safe and Sound

And Still...I love it, This Homemade Cioppino

I cannot say but I trust they will be more than their parts. Maybe like my time in college, however uncertain it comes to be spent. Life at Umass is a step in the diaganol. Ahead is a similar path, behind old friends dearly missed but beside me still. The food is good at least! Never before have I read the word salmon unenthusiastically - a man can eat fish however delicious and novel so many days per week!
Holy Mackerel, talk about First World Problems.


I digress. I've come to bake up a storm in this snowy abode I find myself in. It and the woods I've explored isolating and insulating it have been my greatest medication - more euphoric than the runs I take or the little pills I curse still.

Well to get on with things - I really have been neglecting this blog now for some months, but I hope to change that in 2013!
To bluntly display my past few months pictorally - that will just have to do!

Cheesecake - no, not for me - thanks to Southern Living

Chard-Stuffed Haddock - yes Love it

But ok, ok, some of my favorite newly-discovered restaurants, a la carte...

The very best tea and flavors left to brew... Chaiwalla in Salisbury CT
Sandwiches, Soups, hot drinks too... Juice n' Java, Dalton MA
Hometown feel for a steal (alliterations, oh me, alas...) Martin's of Great Barrington
Bistro fare a la American - the pseudo-upscale affair? Firefly, Lenox Ma
Baked, not half, and bread to share? Pleased to meet you: Our Daily Bread, Chatham NY
Pub styling, tavern fare, rustic feel, unexpected dinner fare? At Old Forge, Lanesboro Ma
Last, never least... and Mind you, there is evermore yet to discover I'm sure
Hitchinpost Cafe, an unexpected in the unassuming - greatness in the middle of nowhere: New Lebanon NY

Now I'll be on my way, explore new flavors, and yourself.

May you find glut-enous peace

Cliches...
& Nature... ...
Just Enjoi!