I See Your True Colors Shining Thru

Shrimp Tacos with Pink Pineapple Guacamole

Spring arrived in all her glory by way of colorful flowers and fresh fruit vegetables at the market.  A pink pineapple  appeared without warning as I peeled away the outer layer and discovered it's pale pink flesh.  Turns out this is a genetically modified product courtesy of Del Monte.  Allegedly made more nutritious and longer lasting by a guy in a lab.

However, I would be fine if it were better than the original. Spoiler Alert! For me, it's not.  It's sweeter and doesn't have that slight sour tang of the yellow pineapple, and in turn lost its burst of freshness somehow, falls a bit flat on the taste-buds.  Do we really believe we can do better than nature?  However, the appearance is lovely and it served well, I just had to add more heat and lime juice to balance all the sweet.

Instead of separate salsa and guac, I combined the two to make a creamy, fruity, limey guacamole to top my spicy, crunchy shrimp tacos.  Carrying on the America's Test Kitchen tradition, I baked the shells with Oaxaca cheese before topping and folding quickly.  A genius way to make way more tacos than you should rightly eat at one sitting. 

You Are the Sunlight in my Growing

Spring Chicken

Feta takes on an alternate flavor when baked.  Cherry tomatoes are all the rage when they pop their sweetness inside your mouth, and are made even sweeter by roasting. With the chicken, olive oil and garlic together, it was a nice spring meal, zesty and fresh, yet soul-warming.  Serve with side salad.

Is this a feature of Cherry Blossoms or a hybrid that they can flower both white and pink on the same tree? 

I like to get right up next to the flowering trees and surround myself with all their enchanting blooms. It's always incredible to see pink when for months you see only black and grey.  The flowers come before the green on the trees.  I liken it to the smell of newborn baby heads.

One day the Gowanus canal will be lined with high rises filled with upper crusties and no one will remember the black sludge and bodies, or the foul smell and the fact that if you happened to fall in, you may lose your life from the bacteria.  That's the Gowanus I love. 

Brunch at Verde on Smith.  Ultra cool grown man-waiters that still take pride in the position of serving food and crafting a special experience for the diner.  A lost art. 

Mr Mango market

Yellow bursts onto the scene as far as the eye can see

Hey Whatever Happened To...

All the flowers!

Brown-Mauve colored Iris - kinda pretty, kinda not right

Peach colored roses

Cat Art at Pratt Institute

Interesting windowed house in Clinton Hill

Shirley Chisholm graffiti- 1st black woman elected to Congress

Interesting little tidbit that may feed your paranoias.  I took this picture and an hour later typed in the first three letters of her last name, Chi... and she came up as my first search choice.  I just find that super strange.  I've googled Chi...michurri probably 20 times in the last year but Shirley, never once.   I guess I am to assume Google Photos identified her in my picture library, so when I went to search it recognized that I may be looking for her name.  I still say that's a little scary. A similar recent example was my sister and I were speaking on text about an obscure musician, that night my YouTube feed featured him as a recommendation.  That's our privacy.  Then again, it was helpful.  I can't decide how to feel about it.  Each little freedom we release though is a loss, no matter how convenient. 

homemade Shake n Bake Chicken

Maybe it's being in a Pandemic but cooking retro meals right now feels appropriate.  Stepping away from our modern, hectic lives and going back to basics, what used to be normal, might be great learning experiment for the country.  Forced to stay in our homes, prepare all own food, intentionally support local businesses during a time when money is tight, check on neighbors, talk to more family, more often, really consider people, are all things that used to be part of our lives all the time growing up, if you are of a particular age.  I want to stay in this idea of purpose. I hope it's possible once the old wheel gets to spinning fast again.

Mexican rice stuffed roasted bell pepper with a chunk of roasted cauliflower.

I Can See Clearly Now, The Rain is Gone

There is nothing I can create that is half as beautiful and awesome as the spring flowers. So we had a quick breakfast with leftover cauliflower and went to a movie.