HALVA SPREAD

happy spring!!!! yayayayay!!!!!

things i'm excited for this spring:

-moving to the farmhouse

-turning a quarter of a century old

-being able to drive a rental car

-experiencing my first planting season

-getting my chickies

-naming my chickies

-petting my chickies

-watching game of thrones with my chickies

-waddling around with my chickies

-ramps

i thought winter was the greatest season ever, but now i think spring is going to be the greatest season ever. (i don't know, i also sometimes think fall and summer are the greatest seasons ever, too.) either way, let's kick it off in a sweet way with sweet tahini spread, aka halva spread! this comes as the result of being 1,500 miles away from brooklyn sesame, a trillion miles away from israel (where apparently this is super common), and after having had some major halva failures. major halva failures. while this spread comes in a different form than your typical fudge-like halva, it's just as yummy and making it won't cause you to feel like a big fat failure.

you can make this spread in the time it takes your coffee to brew, and you can eat it on toast, mixed into yogurt, with a spoon, or however else you please. you can also flavor it with a pinch of cinnamon, a splash of vanilla or almond extract, some cocoa powder or chocolate, or toasted nuts for a crunchy variety.

it's basically peanut butter's fancy schmancy cousin. 

halva spread

makes 1 1/4 cups, but can easily be halved, doubled, etc.

ingredients

1 cup tahini (i prefer ziyad brand, but other brands will work too)

1/4 cup honey

a  good pinch of kosher salt

optional: additional flavorings like cinnamon, vanilla, almond, cocoa powder, melted chocolate, toasted nuts

-yeh!

clues

mix all of the ingredients well. if your tahini is pretty thick and pasty, add flavorless oil (like vegetable oil) bit by bit until it gets creamy. 

taste, and adjust as desired. 

store in the fridge. 

CHICAGO

when i lived in new york, a trip home to chicago meant a quiet getaway filled with days of relaxation and nights of movies or going out makeupless for shakes at the steak n shake, and then falling asleep to the silence of the suburbs. it was all about family time and scones and laziness.

now that i live in the opposite of new york, a chicago trip means eating all the tacos, getting in all the bagels, seeing this, seeing that, going to trader joe's and the asian market and stocking up on every single thing that's not available in north dakota, walk walk walking, trying new cheese, and putting an ounce of effort into personal presentation because, my heavens, there are so many people!

it's an odd and unexpected change, but so far it has been:

1. a perfect dose of city life for this newly converted farm human.

2. good for reminding me how lucky i am to have found a boy that is from a land where traffic means a slight 60 second delay on main street. (you should have seen the look on all the egg faces when they saw chicago's st. patrick's day traffic.)

3. fattening, but worth it because deep dish.

4. an appropriate amount of time for getting mildly shitfaced with my homegirls.

5. good inspiration for new foods, new design, and new fashions.

6. filled with slushy and realizing that that's probably why winter gets such a bad rap. see, up in these parts, it's so cold that the snow and ice don't have the chance to melt down to slushy until the spring. it's a much cleaner winter than the one i grew up with.

7. a practice in non-awkward human interaction because, again, there are so many people.

last week in chicago we went to some of our old standbys and also met a few new wonderful places:

blue door farm stand: home of my dad's new favorite food (their massive carrot cake), cute rustic floors that would be perfect in the farmhouse, and jam stand jams!

bob chinn's crab house: after so many years, this place is still the bee's knees. and i had forgotten how kryptonite-y their garlic rolls are.

das radler: i was sincerely overdue for a schnitzel and some spätzle and the company of hipsters.

big star!: eggboy's favorite. we've learned to always go during lunch to avoid the wait.

the bourgeois pig: i've never been to paris, but i imagine that all of the coffee shops there are just like this one.

mizrahi grill: i could take a bath in their hummus and then sleep a perfect night's sleep in a bed made out of their pita.

-yeh!

MARSHMALLOW INSTAGRAM CAKE TOPPERS

in the thick of my ice skating days, when i was about 9, i was in a routine to "it's a small world," where each of the skaters wore little costumes from different countries. some skaters wore flamenco dresses, others wore berets, i think stoop wore a kimono... for some reason no one wanted the costume with the massive sombrero and i just couldn't understand that. the sombrero costume was far superior to the other costumes, and i begged and begged for it. i was apparently the only one that begged and begged for it, so in that moment of receiving our costume assignments, all of my sartorial dreams came true.

i turned 10 during the run of our ice show and to celebrate mum got the biggest sheet cake imaginable to share with all of the other skaters. the entire cake was covered in an edible photograph of my face topped with my beloved sombrero. 

it was so exciting and embarrassing and delicious and amazing and horrific all at the same time. so many emotions. so many please don't eat my faces. so many tasties. what are we doing spending our hours making naked cakes and princess cakes and ombre cakes when we could be printing out edible photos and slapping them on a sheet cake? 

memories of this cake/my sombrero/my ice skating days came flooding back to me when i returned from chicago to find a little parcel in my mailbox, all the way from england. in it was a pack of marshmallows with my instagrams printed on them, in much the same way that my face was printed on that cake. 

holy shit you guys, these things are so cool!

i obviously stuck skewers in some to make cake toppers. and then for lunch, eggboy and i argued over whose face he should bite off first:

it was a little bit more trauma than i wanted for a monday afternoon...

sister mia is on a few of them because she turns eight (!!) on thursday. i also got a few with pictures of cakes because i thought it'd be silly to have a picture of a cake on a marshmallow on a cake. 

i am clearly having way too much fun with these. way too much. and you know me, i am really not one to say buy buy buy since most of the time you could make make make, but really these things are so awesome and no i'm not getting paid to say this and yes you should get all of your cat photos on marshmallows. you can order your own here. 

-yeh!

you can't pinch me, i'm green on the inside

i'm going to have a tame st. patrick's day because i'm still recovering from saturday night's purim beer pong church basement fest. when did two jello shots, a pbr or three, and a hippie cucumber kale vodka smoothie thing equal a two day hangover? is this why we hang out with eggboy's grandma more than we do other twenty somethings? is this what we get for spending most friday nights with frank underwood, thereby lowering our tolerances to that of a 12-year-old?

it was all worth it though because i got to sing nsync with stefani and dance all 90s like and catch up with an old camp friend. 

we got back from chicago yesterday, but not before mum could pack up a dozen bagels for me. bless her. i was starting to forget the chewy delight of a real life bagel... so now i'm expressing my green spirit by eating a green one with a side of my face in a local newspaper. (if you're in the 847, you can read all about my saul berenson obsession and accidental waffle overdose in the north shore weekend!) in any other situation, i'd be eating this bagel with my new favorite thing, a spread of avocado and crispy turkey bacon, but i have yet to do one of the best parts of getting back from a trip: post-vacation grocery shopping. you know, the kind where you almost need two carts because you have to buy all the things.

in real news, if anyone tries to pinch me for not wearing green today, i'll pinch them right back to cancel it out because i have a green bagel in my belly and that counts. that totally counts.

how are you all celebrating??

-yeh!