Cats win, psycho storm, GT Fish & Oyster

My gal posse and I have covered some miles today, of road and memories. We left Chicago at 10 this morning, heading north to start our day in Evanston with breakfast at Blind Faith Cafe, an old favorite of ours. It's still nestled on the same spot on Dempster that it always has been (at least since 1994). I walked past my old apartment, the one above the dry cleaner on the corner of Dempster and Elmwood. I've written about it before; it always had warm floors because it sat over the humming machines below, it was full of natural light, and it was on a great block of indy stores and neighborhood spots. Anyway, we walked through campus, bought new t-shirts, headed up to the stadium and to the tailgate and felt very nostalgic the whole time.

We had just gotten into the tailgate tent when the skies opened, and I mean cleaved wide open. A security guard grabbed a mic and told us we had to evacuate the tent and shelter in the building next to us. We decided to try to get a cab and bail and in the meantime scurried into an NU paraphernalia shop to escape the downpour. The emergency siren at the stadium started wailing and sounded eerily like a tornado alert. The streets were flooding, our cab finally came, other started hovering around it like vultures so we threw ourselves in and headed off.

Naps, showers, an almost meal-fail (Italian Village, WTF?!) a meal save (GT Fish and Oyster), a great night and the details tomorrow. I'm pooped!

A ludicrous last 10, and I'm off

Friends, I haven't the slightest idea what I packed except I know I have three purses and three pairs of shoes. I think I packed all my make-up. I might have more than one pair of pants. Last night was the pits; it was as if we had a newborn except that we don't. I was up from 2:45 -3:45 with Jack wailing about not yet having Quidditch robes: would amazon run out before Halloween? what would we then do? I spent the entire conversation wondering if he was serious, in some sort of bizarre dream or a combo of those plus sleep-deprived nuts. At one point I fell asleep and he promptly elbowed me in the eye. Like right into the socket. I stumbled back to bed and T started snoring. Steam was starting to burst from my ears. Then there was some issue with Oliver, and then Nutmeg came in and started rustling in the coat hanger mound that is -my fault- still on the floor from the closet clean and then eating Tom. By 6:10am, everyone, including the apparating cat, was back in our bed. Little boy hands were everywhere, and I finally escaped to Ol's bed before huffing downstairs to find we were out of coffee. Needless to say, I actually don't give a rat's arse what's in my bag. Yesterday's sadness about leaving has been 100% replaced by glee about getting out of dodge for 48 hours. Good god people.

More from the relative balm that will be the airport. What??!!

CrawSlaw!

I really wanted Brussels sprouts last night but I knew T would be distraught if along side them I didn't serve a redemptive protein. I peered into our garage-based chest freezer and saw my last pound of Louisiana crawfish. An idea began to take hold. Long story short -blanching and food processing the B. sprouts, shredding in some Hakurei turnips too, boiling the crawfish, getting out the Tony Chachere's and making a fab aioli that included bacon drippings (just a little) and reduced apple cider, monitoring T's skepticism while pretending I didn't notice- I served us this.

And boy did he approve. Wonderful, flavorful, each element its own star. I'm writing up the recipe  next unless I decide it really is time to pack for Chicago since my cab comes at 7:55 tomorrow morning. I have not even mentioned that my college reunion -Go Northwestern, Go!- is this weekend because I have been so busy, and it came up so quickly, and I hate to pack so much, and really I'm in complete denial.

PS- The Apple Cider Muffins are fabulous- a favorite! The farro salad from two days back is one of my favorite Em-i-lis recipes too!