White beans and cabbage

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Doesn't all this look good. I just love this conical cabbage and am sad only that the beans' speckle fades as they boil. Ah well, this will be a lovely dish. One of my spice purchases today was a tin of black mustard seeds which are called for in the avocado salad I'm making. Mmm... and the chicken paillards... I think tonight's meal will surely trump that from yesterday. Blarg.

On a completely different and inconsequential note, I ordered a cape/poncho thing and it arrived today. Thus far, I am intimidated to even try it on. It's very handsome, mostly saddle colored and edged in black, and when I see others wearing similar pieces, I always think they look so great. But I couldn't do vests and I can't do hats, and I'm thinking the cape might fall into one of those "it's just really not me" categories. We'll see.

2 local deals, cooking plans for today

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Two quick notes about local deals: 1) This Friday at area Whole Foods, boutique cupcakes will be 50% off, just $1 each. 2) If you need any random, interesting artisanal goods, Williams-Sonoma has their "pantry" goods on sale for 15% off. I just got three relatively obscure spices, some heirloom dried beans and some fabulous looking pasta.

I'm about to head to Jack's school to help out at Service Day- the kindergarteners are focusing on composting, and I'm excited to learn along with them. O and I just got back from a fun morning at Wms-S and the market to get those ingredients we didn't have for two new side dishes I'm making tonight: an avocado/mustard seed/serrano/cilantro salad, and a cabbage/white bean (I'm going to use those gorgeous bird's egg beans I shelled yesterday) "stew". Both are in the Heidi Swanson cookbook that I really like but haven't used often enough. So here goes. And I'm going to pound chicken breasts into paillards, coat them with panko and mustard and fry them. YUM!