HALLOUMI FRIES

I'd like to dedicate this post to cheese.

Both the food and the sentiment. In case you haven't noticed, both Rina and I are very much of the share-your-feelings camp. I for one, love to tell my friends how much I love spending time with them. If anything, I'm an overly exuberant bubble of pure joy. But my sentiments are always genuine, and I can't express how much a good friend means to someone in their twenties, still fumbling their way through adulthood. 

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OMBRE CITRUS PROSECCO POPSICLES

As I write this post, I am in the midst of some serious Monday blues. Most of the time I enjoy working at my full time job, but there are definitely times, especially on Mondays, when things feel slow and hard to wade through. It almost feels like a heavy blanket - everything feels that much harder to do because of the extra weight and pressure.

This isn't a foreign feeling to me, and I'm sure it isn't to many of you either.

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ESPRESSO WHOOPIE PIES WITH WHITE CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM

Oh, whoopie pies. What an unfortunate name for something so delicious.

If you don't know what this absurd treat is, I highly recommend reading this article - super interesting, especially if you are a food history nerd like me.

In the cake v. frosting debate, I fall heavily on the frosting side. I firmly believe that most cakes are vehicles for frosting, and I tend to make way too much frosting when I'm baking. There are worse problems to have.

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SHREDDED BRUSSELS SPROUTS SALAD WITH GRAPEFRUIT AND AVOCADO

When I was younger, my family went on a few cruises with my mom's side. I don't remember that much about them, but the majority of what I do remember is food-related (duh). Eating room service fries with my sisters and cousin, the insane art carved into watermelons and cantaloupes and, most notably, the nightly dinners in the dining room. These cruises were like, v. fancy, and so we would dress up in our finest Jessica McClintock (RIP) dresses and be served by very nice, very snazzy waiters. While breakfast and lunch were free-for-alls with buffets that could easily feed five times the amount of passengers aboard, dinner was a set menu with classy dishes.

One dish I remember was an appetizer of grapefruit and avocado salad. I had never had this combination before, and to be honest the idea kind of freaked me out. This was also way before the avocado craze, the millenial pink craze, and the pink and green color scheme craze existed.

My parents were really good about encouraging us to try new foods while respecting our likes and dislikes. When the avocado and grapefruit salad appeared on the dinner menu one night, my dad suggested I order it - I could always get something else if I hated it, since cruises are filled with literal tons of food. Well, thank you dad, because that salad was fantastic and now avocado and grapefruit are two of my favorite foods.

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RAINBOW KIDDISH COOKIES

When I was a kid, I loved anything and everything rainbow. I lived for Superman ice cream, rainbow Popsicles in the summer, friendship bracelets and Lisa Frank school supplies. Though I've grown out of my love for Superman ice cream (my brothers have not), a little bit of color goes a long way to brighten up even the grayest of adult days. In continuing with the Shabbat cookie trifecta we started a few weeks ago, Rina and I decided to whip up the the most popular cookie at the post bar-mitzvah kiddish luncheon - the rainbow chocolate drop cookie. 

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MUSHY PEAS

A lot of my stories start out with, "When I lived in Israel..." (the cleaner - most of the time - version of Alyson Hannigan's infamous "When I was in band camp...").  Usually they take place in Tel Aviv, but every once in a while a good one comes out of Jerusalem - Tel Aviv is just a much better city, in my opinion-that-is-also-a-fact.  Feel free to fight me on this one. I'll win, but I welcome a challenge.

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ORANGE CAULIFLOWER

When I was growing up, my family kept pretty strict kosher. This meant separate dishes for milk and meat, bringing PB&J sandwiches to birthday parties where non-kosher pizza was served, and eating in exclusively kosher restaurants. The first time I ate at a non-kosher place was when I was sixteen-years-old. It was Panera. I got a bagel. It was very exciting.

Why am I telling you this? Well, besides the fact that it completely shaped how I eat, and is largely the reason why I became a vegetarian, it means that I have no idea what the majority of chain restaurants are. Like, what is PF Changs? Why are people so obsessed with Taco Bell? What the hell is a Whopper? I seriously have no idea.

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CARROT CAKE CHEESECAKE

*sigh* adulting is hard. 

That's what my good friend Rebecca texted me the other day. She's about to start 5-year PhD program, and I was complaining about sitting at a desk all day. And you know what, adulting IS hard. I know, I know hindsight is 20/20, but being a kid was so nice. Even though school was, well, school, you were around your friends every day, you got to spend after school doing fun activities like sports or singing, and, if all else failed, you had your imagination and your ignorance. 

But while being a kid was lovely, sometimes you need to remind yourself that being an adult rocks. You can watch TV for as long as you want, stay out way past your bedtime, and eat cake for breakfast. Sometimes, you just need to make bad choices. 

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CUCUMBER WATERMELON FETA SALAD

So, apparently the watermelon - that round bastion of summer, picnics and ingenious bongs - has a long, murky history. No one actually knows how the watermelon we know and love came to be, and while there are quite a few candidates for its predecessor, horticulturists are pretty damn confused. One such horticulturist, Harry Paris, blames taxonomists from the 18th century (those tricky bastards), who messed up their melon classifications. Also, fun fact, the name for our modern watermelon - Citrullus lanatus - is wrong. Lanatus means "hairy" (um, ew) and is supposed to be the name for a different, fuzzier melon.

National Geographic wrote all about this here, and it's a super interesting read. I recommend tucking into it when you have a party to go to and want to bring along some cool science facts, or if you're feeling down on yourself. At least you aren't the person who misclassified a watermelon.

Watermelon might have a confusing backstory, but that makes it all the more interesting! Not only is it refreshing and the most beautiful color, but it's mysterious and maybe it rides a motorcycle that your parents would HATE.

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KICHEL (AKA BUBBE BOW TIE COOKIES)

Going to Jewish day school for most of our lives means Rina and I spent a fair share of our preteen years attending bar mitzvah synagogue services. If there was one thing I looked forward to on these Saturday mornings, it was the post-service Kiddush, or Jewish mini-brunch. They served an array of fishes of both the pickled and canned varieties, greasy potato chips and an assortment of dry, brittle, depressing cookies.

One such cookie, the abhorrent kichel, was truly a hot mess. This is the cookie that couldn't even pull itself together to look nice, let alone taste good. It tasted like sandpaper and looked like a wonton. It was all kinds of confused. 

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CHERRY FRANGIPANE TART

I am obsessed with Alice in Wonderland.

I'm not exaggerating - I am a woman possessed. I've read both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass multiple times over; I read The Annotated Alice cover to cover, including every last annotation - I really am that nerdy; and one of my favorite art books is a giant pop-up book of Alice from the MoMA. I don't know exactly what it is about the story that causes me to lose myself, but I keep coming back to it.

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