No Creativity Today: (A Link to) Pickled Okra

-Pickles and Instagram. Quality blogging here at Vanilla Garlic.-

This week I looked in my fridge and realized I just didn't care about being creative this week with my food. I was tired and exhausted. I had hosted a potluck days earlier that had been smashing and where I had cleverly whipped up a rather smashing sweet potato and blue cheese galette using only detritus strewn about the pantry that had been long since forgotten. I am currently in the middle of my last week at my job, and as a celebration I busted out - sweet Jesus - cupcakes all because none of them had had them before and I had worked in a cupcake shop once. They had never had them so why not now?

(Also, I am lying. I freaking bought the cupcakes from the bakery I used to work at. Happy?)

Add that to trying to cook a decent meal every night and I realized - have you ever experienced this? - I just didn't care about whatever food I made. Or, I did. But I my brain was frazzled. An entire year developing recipes for book, blog, and any other number of venues and sometimes you just hit a wall. The left side of your brain just gives you the finger and retreats to the corner with a glass of scotch.

"Eff this noise." Or so says my brain.

The Good Life: Gruyere, Blue, and Turkey Panini

-What defines a good life?-

The good life is having a jar full of rendered duck fat in your fridge.

The good life is celebrating a friend's birthday with a bunch of wonderful people while eating too much and drinking too much on a Tuesday night.

The good life is a Corgi who comes when you whistle the whistle from The Hunger Games.

The good life is coming home after pulling an eleven hour day to find that your partner has made pan seared Brussels sprouts with Parmesan, walnuts, Maldon salt, and said duck fat. These are then served with a glass of Riesling and nothing more.

The good life is having a reliable Internet connection.

The good life is finally painting that wall you always meant to get around to.

-The good life is having a cheese knife and board at the ready.-

The Wedding

No recipe as I'm away at a three day intensive cheese education class learning more about the chemistry and biology of cheese. Instead I offer you the last wedding post. Seriously. Swear to god.

It's just a few of the thousand-plus photos, but it'll give you a good idea of what went down.

I encourage you to share these with a friend who doesn't believe in gay marriage. These pictures demonstrate that, obviously, Husband and I are a threat to their personal morals and the degradation of society as a whole. We must be stopped before we have brunch or something, which will inevitably - somehow - demean straight marriage and bring about some stylishly planned apocalypse. (I'm fuzzy on the argument. Send them here next for my rebuttal.)

At the end of the post is a copy of the reading from the ceremony, "The Day the Saucers Came," by Neil Gaiman. Wonky, odd, delightful, and involving zombies.

Our recessional music was Trip the Light, by Alicia Lemke. Upbeat and it felt very right. The perfect song to spend the first few minutes married together to.



Our first dance was, "Marry Me," by Train. The mother-son dance song was classically, "I Want to Hold Your Hand," by The Beatles. The group dance being some classic Aerosmith ballads ("I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," obviously). The last dance was, "Fly Me to the Moon," preformed by the dapper Olivia Ong.



I doubt I need to point it out but this post will be image heavy. Enjoy.

Garrett out.

Melt Website Goes Live

Hey all, just a quick little cookbook update to share with you all in a special post. The website for, Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese, went up today. On it you'll see information about the book, recipes, cheese information, and details about events related to the book that will become more robust with dates and times as next October approaches. Before then, though, expect a lot of interesting and engaging content that will baptize you in whey and lead you into the gooey, striny, meltable world of macaroni and cheese.

We have to thank our web guru, Ben De Jesus, for lending us his epic talent and HTML skills in developing this site. If you like what you see then be sure to check out his website (that is still under construction as he has been hard at work on our site).

There are a few other ways that you can stay in touch with what's happening in the Melt kitchen. First, you can follow us on Facebook, and you can chat with us on Twitter. You can also add our blog feed to your RSS reader or subscribe to blog posts by email, which you should receive every two weeks. We would also like to invite you to join our monthly macaroni and cheese newsletter, where we will share special list-only details such as giveaways, photos, and a few special recipes that will only be sent out via the mailing list. We promise to not share your information with anyone else, and we also guarantee that you will be delighted by all the luscious macaroni and cheese details we will be sharing to our list members.

Thanks a ton!

Hearts,

Garrett

So This Happened: Chocolate Banana Waffles

-Enjoy this post where I just sort of let my brain purge out this story about awesome people and dumb people. Ranting ensues.-

So this takes place a few weeks Before Wedding, which seems to recently be the way I chronicle my life at the moment, B.W. (Before Wedding) and B.C. (Ball and Chained). The latter being a joke between Husband and I because we're sort of hand flitting away that concept that everything is supposed to be different now that we're married because it just is apparently. The thing is that it's not - everything is the same as before we were wed except now we have a lot of thank you cards to write and matching silverware that is just bomb to look at.

So yes, B.C. because we aren't actually ball and chained. Though I sometimes say I am ball and chained and Husband sort of sighs and walks away because this is how I am and I yell at him that he knew this before the vows.

Our life is surprisingly easy. For me at least. I don't have to put up with me and that makes it easier.

But we are good hubbies. We share chores, we talk things through, we discuss important topics like finances, voting, careers and where to bury that squirrel that committed harakiri in the tomatillo plant. There are no surprises. (We suspected the squirrel was bipolar for months and turned away help from his fellow squirrels.) At least, not the bad kind.

We're financially well-prepared for most anything that might come. Well, we're comfortable, at least. If my car suddenly implodes on itself as I suspect it will the moment I let my guard down I don't have to stress too hard about getting a new one assuming said implosion doesn't kill me in a fiery, wrought-steel hell cage on the Business 80.