Aspen. "Evoking the feelings of a 1970s ski lodge"? This I've got to see. I want to go to the Generation Harvest Winter Happy Hour Benefit, but alas I have class. The thought of an "apres ski atmosphere" on 22nd St. is just too funny.

Brazen Head Cask Festival

Brazen Head in Brooklyn is having one of their cask festivals this weekend. I had a good pumpkin ale at the last one, and tried a sip of something that tasted like liquified wool socks - strong stuff. This weekend's cask brews are:

Ramstein Pale Ale
Six Point Diesel
Six Point Black Soul Porter
Greenpoint Honey Porter
Greenpoint Scottish Ale
Blue Point Colonial Ale ( Ben Franklin's Original Recipe)
Blue Point 5 Old Bastards
Brooklyn Irish Stout
Southampton Abbey Single
Captain Lawrence Porter
Conniston XB
Doc's Pear Cider
Victory Storm King Stout
Chelsea Winter Wheat
Chelsea Hop Angel
Hebrew Messiah Gold
Southampton Yorkshire Pub Ale ( Maybe)

$5.00 per Pint
$3.00 10oz 1/2 Pint

Ben Franklin's original recipe?! A half-pint of this is definitely in order!

A very sad looking and flat herbed tuna sandwhich on whole wheat with spinach and soycheese, Garden of Eatin nacho chips, water, and two Danish "Support Freedom of Speech by consuming trans fats" butter cookies.

I recently threw out an entire jar of mayonnaise after discovering mayonnaise is way fatty. I guess I should have known this, but I don't buy it or eat it that often. One tablespoon of Hellman's "Real Mayonnaise" has 90 calories, and all the calories are from fat. Yikes! So I've switched to Naysoya "nayonaise" which is only 35 calories per tablespoon, 30 calories from fat. The wobbly texture and greyish color are somewhat off-putting, but it tastes fine and does the trick, for tuna anyway, which is to just get it sandwhich-y. I love that Hellman's has registered "mayo.com." Ha!

BUY DANISH!

G and I cleaned out the local Korean deli of these Danish butter cookies, made by Jacobsens of Denmark. G is friendly with the owner, Mrs. Lee, and said he was supporting Denmark because of the Mohammed cartoon uproar, and she nodded her head emphatically and said "Oh yes, oh yes" and said she'd be ordering more cookies. Not sure how much of an impact buying decorative tins of butter cookies will have, but hey, we're trying!

My new favorite candy: Fran's Dark Chocolate Salted Caramels.

Blizzard Food

I got snowed in in Brooklyn on Sunday, so I took to my homework and G took to the kitchen, with delicious results. Here we have risotto with red wine, onions and garlic. As a pre-dinner snack, the classic cheese, crackers and red wine, probably my three favorite foods in the whole world, plus chocolate. We found a delicous red table wine at Smith and Vine in Brooklyn, which is now hands down our favorite. It's Kermit Lynch, Vin de Table Vaucluse (scroll down a bit). Highly recommended. Good sitting-around-watching-the-Olympics wine. And it didn't give G a headache, which is the real test.



Finally, for dessert, almond cupcakes with amaretto truffle frosting. I made truffle mix, but then got lazy and didn't want to form them into balls, so G spread it on cupcakes. A-maz-ing.

Turkey sandwhich, Pom Cherry, and Cheddar Cheese soy crisps.

The one, the only...Annie's with broccoli!! A college staple lives on, only now with some dijon mustard thrown in.

Veggie Chili

Today's cubicle cuisine was Fantastic Foods Vegetarian Chili Mix with pinto beans, black beans, tofu, and corn. This stuff is not so good. I've had a yucky synthetic taste in my mouth all day. I'm not really sure what from, as there is nothing "bad" in the mix, but I'm thinking it's from the exorbitant sodium content. I won't be making this again, I'm pretty sure. It probably would have been worth the extra half-hour of prep time to make chili from scratch, rather than using this sodium-based mix. Oh well.

Chocolate Xbox controller with M&M-like buttons!

Iced heart cookies from Ernest Klein, Manhattan. They have a strange, subtle strawberry flavor, which sounds yucky but they are so good! Thank GOD I am not PMSing because these are the quintessential pre-period pig-out food.

If it's Friday...

...it must be pizza.