I hate when bloggers start a post with, “sorry I’ve been M.I.A.!,” but…
Sorry I’ve been M.I.A.
I’ve been really depressed lately due to a whole bunch of crap, and when your life is blah, blogging about it just doesn’t make sense, ya know? I’d rather wait until I have something blog-worthy to say instead of churning out mundane crap every day (which, some may argue, I do anyway – ha!).
The first blog-worthy thing I’ve got is a fabulous recipe that I made Tuesday night from the latest Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine – Jalapeño, Avocado, and Bacon Burgers.
The burgers had crumbled bacon and chopped roasted jalapeño inside…
The sauce had feta cheese, mayo, “buttermilk” (I mixed milk with lime juice instead of lemon juice since this was a sort of Tex-Mex meal), some EVOO, and the rest of the roasted jalapeño…
The relish? topping? garnish? had onions, avocado, cilantro, and a splash of lime juice for good measure…
The finished product was amazing!
Last night, Mom invited me to come along to a retirement dinner for one of her co-workers at Blue Marlin in Columbia. The restaurant specializes in low-country cooking (read: collards, grits, and seafood), and I can’t believe I’ve never been there before – I think I’m the last South Carolinian to go there!
For my meal, I chose the crab cakes with sweet onion remoulade and roasted corn salsa, green beans, and it came with garlic smashed potatoes, but I requested the “grit cakes” with tasso gravy instead.
I was expecting pan-fried patties, but the grit cake (singular) was more of a cornbread instead. I kept comparing the consistency to angel food cake – it was so light and not very grit-like at all! I only ate half my meal, so I’m really looking forward to lunch today! Oh, see the collard greens on my plate? At Blue Marlin, they pass around collard greens family-style with your meal like they do with bread – isn’t that funny? I think you have to ask for them, but apparently it’s no additional charge. They were pretty awesome, too!
In other news, I finally opened up my Etsy shop (check out the widget on the left!). I’ve just got a few jewelry pieces in it now and need to add more, but I hope to get lots more stuff in it soon, including knitted coffee sleeves, appliquéd baby onesies, hair accessories, and more!
In other other news, I’m waiting on my first to-be-reviewed product to arrive in the mail so I can review it, blog about it, and give it away! Get ready, ladies – this one’s for you!
When I participated in youth group at my church, we’d do Pow Wows – tell me a bad thing that happened to you this week (“pow”) and a good thing that happened to you (“wow”). My pow – last night when I was curling my lashes with this small plastic curler, I pressed down so hard that the plastic shattered. I had a true Ralphie Parker moment: “Oh my god, I shot my eye out!!” I was glad to see I had not put my eye out, so I went on curling with my bigger metal curler. I pressed down, my fingers slipped, and I ripped out like 10 lashes. Le sigh. My wow? I lost 1/2 a pound over the past 2 weeks despite depression and bingeing. Not a huge amount at all, but at least it’s forward progress. 
Gimme your Pow Wows!!!