food: so if i'm not at school practicing between the hours of 11 and 7 on any given weekday, i'm most likely perusing the aisles of fairway market or zabar's. it's this new guilty pleasure that i have... playing hooky to look at food.

... and so that is what i did today, with the good excuse that the only things in my fridge until today were two half eaten pizzas, soy sauce packets, a bottle of soy sauce, and my beloved mustards that i dared not leave at old apartment.

i think i'll share some of my fave things to do at fairway and/or zabar's:

pick the cheesemonger's brain about (what else?) cheese. when i moved out of the dorms, mum suggested i try a new cheese every week, so i've been doing just that. this week though, with the arrival of friend aziz (of the famed "mac and cheese with aziz), the departure of friend and future second husband brian, and the homecoming of friend pj, a lot of celebrating is to go down with my very special super duper secret homemade mac and cheese. (in other words, there are about five cheese of the week this week). i scoped out the best emmentaler, gruyere, smokey gouda, pepper jack, and pecorino romano money can buy. sorry, wallet.

check out what mustards i can add to my ever growing mustard shelf. i once dated a guy that asked me if i ever found myself looking for excuses to put ketchup on things. isn't that an awesome question? i'm probably an average ketchup user, but mustard, oy vey, i could live off of that stuff. the best sandwiches that come out of my kitchen usually involve a different kind of mustard on each slice of bread (and then don't be surprised if i get some of the cafeteria honey mustard (that stuff is the crack of mustard) to dip it in). today i bought a green peppercorn mustard that looked creamy and tasty.

buy fresh pasta. unless i'm cooking carbonara or mac and cheese, there's no way i'm ever buying dried pasta again. ever. try it the whole wheat kind, i dare you.

sample the knishes. this applies exclusively to zabar's because fairway's knish counter is sorta weak (no offense). when i ask for a sample, i usually get some sort of answer along the lines of, "well we don't normally give knish samples, but for you, i think i can sneak one in." thanks, knish boys :-) the best by far is the spinach and potato.

today at zabar's i stumbled upon this hilarious object:

the vic firth pepper grinder is no new thing to me, but a zabar's vic firth pepper grinder? oh hellllo! can someone give me a good reason why a percussionist that is an aspiring amateur foodie and also jewish shouldn't have a pepper grinder that was made on the same lathe as 30% of her drum sticks and imprinted with the name of her fave jewish deli?

unfortunately, i spent all of my money on cheese and had none leftover to buy this beauty.

furniture: of course one of the best parts about a new apartment is making the customary trek(s) out to ikea! here is my most recent ikea adventure documented in some low-quality cell phone pictures...

raise your hand if you're guilty of having driven out to ikea just to eat the swedish meatballs. i am.

future second husband, brian, and his tasty princess cake.

i have this thing about stuffed animals- i can never EVER throw them out. but when brian came over and saw that i still had this stuffed hippo that an ex boyfriend gave me sitting in my bed, he hid it and then bought me this goofy looking thing to replace it. according to the tag it's a giraffe. but i thought it was a hippo. and brian thought it was a bunny (seriously.) so the giraffe's name is bunny the hippo.