poisoned in california

seth wants it to be called the great lengua incident of 2010. i'm thinking i should market it as the new lengua diet. in any event, i got food poisoning on day two of my seven day trip to my home state of california.
i was dreaming of tacos for weeks. i had done all this research and found blogs dedicated to tacos in sacramento: yum tacos and perfecto taco de sacto. my family graciously allowed me to haul them across town to eat these authentic jewels of taconess. my mistake was the lengua. yes people, tongue! i love it as many others do, but i think i have likely eaten my last bite of tongue, for at least a while (no pun intended). i will say they were delicious going down. and seth and my whole family ate other types of tacos - carnitas, pollo, carne asada -- but i was the only one who ate the lengua. and the only one to get sick. i have many more photos of this taco truck moment but i can only bring myself to post this one glorious photo of how beautiful and innocent they looked before going down.
i planned on photographing and blogging about every meal in california, but i was sick as a dog for almost the entire trip. i had absolutely no appetite for like four days and the mere thought of food made me ill. in fact, i'm still having some residual nausea as i write about these tacos now. at the worst points of yucky tummy, i thought i would never blog again because i couldn't imagine having the stomach to write about food.
i am happy to report that i got some in-n-out into my belly before the tacos. and on my last day we hit up comforts for their signature chinese chicken salad. i worked at this up-scale deli in high school and i would definitely say it helped to create my obsession for food. the chinese chicken salad is simple but absolutely their best seller for years. romaine and iceberg lettuce, crispy fried rice noodles, scallions, grilled chicken, and this perfect tangy light dressing.

boston eats at susan's fish and chips

my friend and movie maker extraordinaire, sarah, came for a visit to portland and we created another boston eats at susan's fish and chips.
she is also getting some much deserved attention for these creations and was interviewed on wbur's public radio kitchen blog about boston eats. enjoy both!

transitions

friday was the last day of my first nurse practitioner job. and while i am happy to be leaving behind my two hours a day of commuting and multiple daily annoyances that left me feeling like my patients weren't getting the best possible care, i was sad to say good-bye to many amazing people i called my patients. truthfully, i'm on to bigger and better things, including a less than 20 minutes round trip commute, amazing benefits (the painful irony is that i have been an uninsured nurse practitioner for the past 16 months), lots of chances to grow, and many more amazing and also difficult patients.
in this two weeks between the end of one job and the beginning of the next, seth and i are going to california to visit some family and friends. it will be my first trip home in 2 1/2 years. my parents just moved from petaluma, a town they had been living in for the past 12 year to sacramento, the capital of my home state. as a kid, sacramento was a cow town with very little going on. my cousin went to college there so we spent a few weekends there each year, rafting on the american river and looking for something to do. but its a city that has grown up quite a bit. and naturally, i am looking forward to some eating! i plan on reporting back on what i am putting in my mouth. i can tell you right now that mexican and in-n-out burger will be on the list.
as for this beautiful easter sunday that signifies many transitions within itself, i was gonna make lamb with artichokes. unfortunately, i didn't realize that while easter is not a big deal to me, it happens to be a big deal to most other people. the super markets were very much closed so i couldn't buy my lamb. so we will instead be heading out for some indian at hi bombay!