Stuffed tomato and tapas memories

I've been following the South Beach Diet, Phase 1 this week, so my posts may take a turn for the non-baked goods. (Unless I bake something for someone - you never know.).

This tomato is stuffed with tuna salad and was supposed to be a delicious throwback to The Joy of Cooking - it seemed very 50s America to make.

It looks adorable, but it was a pain to eat and not that good. I don't think I can handle that much tomato. I had even taken the tomato and tuna salad seperately to work, so as to not allow the tomato to become mealy in the fridge, even bringing a paring knife to carve it here. Oh well. The paring knife stayed in my desk drawer to complement the sea salt grinder I keep here. A kitchen away from home!

I did get my ceviche when we were in Florida last week, and it was delicious. In fact, the entire brunch we had on our anniversary was delicious. I had found this tapas place on the internet and it was amazing. I would go back if I'm ever in St. Petersburg again. We had ceviche, fresh bread, a white bean-chorizo-tomato sauce dish (to die for), fried potatoes with a garlic aioli mayonaise, bruchetta. Maybe something else. I also had a champagne sangria - fabulous.

Ceviche craving - and nothing to show

I've been bit by the travel bug bad and am trying to plan a trip to Peru, hopefully in the fall. I've also been catching up on old Anthony Bourdain episodes lately, including Peru and Equador. He's been eating so much ceviche, and I want some!

Tom and I are going to Florida this weekend - if I can't get some there, I am making some asap. Maybe not the best time to order sea food from the gulf. We'll see.

Blast from the past

This isn't even close to cooking from scratch - this is über processed, in the worst way. Box cake, frosting out of a can with a tip on it. No cleanup whatsoever. So modern and convenient and wasteful.

But it sounded so tasty - I haven't had a cupcake in an ice cream cone in a good twenty years - and I haven't cooked anything in a while because of my work schedule, and I had told a colleague I owed him some cupcakes for his birthday (Happy birthday, Alan!), and I wanted to also cut the grass tonight. So I took a short cut :-/