A Wicked Bostonian Weekend

This roughly translates to "The whole world is a Mercier world," aka my new life motto.

This post is basically an excuse to link to a bunch of things that I love. Hopefully you'll find something to love in here too!

Saturday was our first CSA pick-up from Stillman's Farm. We got rainbow chard, beets, greens, arugula, and the best strawberries I have ever tasted. They were the platonic ideal of juicy berry goodness. Baby Razor ate a dozen.When we did our first CSA 4 years ago, I could barely cook mac & cheese. That first year, the only thing I knew how to do was to sauté every veggie in butter with either garlic or brown sugar. It wasn't until last year, when I was also on a gluten-free cooking crash course, that I finally really started incorporating our CSA box into planned meals. It took more than a decade of adulthood, but I finally learned to cook.

And let me tell you, if I can do it? Anyone can. I know fuck all about vegetables. But between very patient friends and the amazing powers of the internet, I've gone from, "Roast beets. Eat beets." to "Make beet risotto." Believe me, no one is more surprised than I am.

After the farmer's market, we headed to Mr. Razor's Father's Day present: a Formaggio Kitchen shopping spree. Except my husband isn't really a "spree" sort of guy, so it was more of a "moderate concession to indulgence." So I'm going to order him this to supplement the two little hunks of cheese and tiny bit of salami he allowed himself.

I, meanwhile, could have bought the whole store. The place might as well be called Everything Daisy Loves! It's full of cheese, meat, chocolate, fancy honey, wine, spices, local veggies, beer, fresh bread, and all sorts of other yummy things that you don't need to live, but which certainly make life much more enjoyable.

I settled on garlic scapes for garlic scape pesto (I like that recipe because it uses pistachios, which I usually have around the house anyway, but you can find one with basically any nut available. Seriously, it's idiot-proof and DELICIOUS.) and beer. I'd been wanting to try the Porter Square Porter since I heard about it because I used to live in Porter Square and adding Taza Chocolate cocoa nibs to the brew sounded brilliant. It is, in fact, really freaking tasty. Here, read what the beer snobs have to say about it.

See? Idiot-proof.

On Sunday Mr. Razor and I were like, "Happy Father's Day, Razor Family! Have a toddler." Yup, we dropped the kid off with her grandparents and uncle and went to the Sowa Open Market and Vintage Market. Our first stop was Zooguu and its adorable stuffed animals. I bought a Wonder Woman print, because she is my spirit animal (duh).

At the vintage market, I bought a 1950s ad for Mercier Champagne because, again: duh. The nice British lady who sold it to me said, "Oh, it's quite a posh champagne," which made me smile. I also got to meet Keyse of Crocodile Tears, who was lovely. I always feel like a gigantic weirdo being like, "Hello! I'm from the internet!" but I really enjoy her blog, so I had to say hi.

Then we went home and our whirling dervish of a toddler kept me so busy that it took me until Thursday to finish a post about the weekend. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make a garlic scape pesto & grilled cheese sandwich.

Accidental Theme Weekend

My weekend was unusually busy, as I was entertaining my dear friend Leigh. She flew in Friday night and we watched Say Yes to The Dress and The Soup and polished off a bottle of red wine. Okay, that part is actually my typical Friday. It was the rest of the weekend that was more exciting than usual.

While Leigh went to meet up with another local friend on Saturday morning, I decided to dye my hair. I've been coloring my hair since I was fifteen, and I have never seen a process as complicated as the one I went through to get my hair Ruby Rush. Instead of two liquids to mix, there were four, including a tube that contained, as far as I can tell, all the red in the world. Then, after applying goop the color of arterial blood to my hair, I was instructed to wash it out, shampoo twice with the special included shampoo, and then condition. I was also advised to use a dark towel and pillowcases I didn't care about for a couple of days after coloring. I feel like this product might be more useful for getting revenge against people you don't like than coloring your hair.

Anyway, I ended up with dark, purpley-red hair. It doesn't look remotely natural, but I like it.

In the evening, Leigh and I ate stuffed shells with red sauce, drank two bottles of red wine, and watched RED, thus cementing the weekend's theme. The movie didn't require much thought (which was awesome after two bottles of wine) and provided enough of a Karl Urban fix that Leigh and I didn't have to have our usual get-together viewing of Star Trek XI: Only Bones' Scenes.

Sunday morning, we joined our friend Athena for brunch at Gaslight, where I remained committed to our theme and ordered poached eggs in red wine sauce with ham & mushrooms. I also showed my non-foodie underbelly by announcing that my sweet & citrusy martini tasted like fancy gin & juice.

Our plan was to do some vintage shopping, but it was a bust, so we returned home, where Leigh prepared an excellent dinner that probably should have been eaten by someone who appreciates excellently-prepared food more than I do: Herb-roasted chicken, garlic-roasted butternut squash, & mixed greens in vinaigrette w/homemade duck prosciutto. (Athena made the duck prosciutto as part of her goal of becoming a world-class charcuteress. She handed two cured duck breasts to Leigh and I when we met up. "Good luck explaining that to the TSA," I told Leigh.) And, of course, a bottle of red wine.

It was all absolutely delicious, and now I really, truly have no reason to be afraid to roast a chicken.

Baby Razor missed out on Leigh's cooking, but don't feel bad for her: she's a bit underweight so she's on what we're calling the Everything Awesome Diet, where we add peanut butter, cheese or butter to every meal. Her dinner last night was scrambled eggs, half an avocado, and a huge hunk of gruyere. Yes, the entire world is jealous of her.

Leigh left this morning and I miss her already. Although if she was around all the time, I'd probably weigh 600 pounds, so perhaps it's for the best.