There's just no excuse not to eat well.

As most of my friends know, I'm a lawyer but I'm currently refreshing my nursing license as well (in my spare time, ha!). To do this, I am required to work three 12-hour shifts in Macon every week until I reach a total of 160 hours. I'm almost done, but not quite.

What this also means for me, given that Macon is about an hour's drive from where I live, is that I am depending on the kindness of friends and family who allow me to crash with them between shifts. Now, I can do without being at home (though I'd rather not), and I can do without sleep (again, I'd rather not), but what I cannot, simply WILL not, do without is decent food.

The first week, I made a big container of pimento cheese, took a supply of cooked bacon, homegrown jalapenos, homemade chocolate chip pecan cookies, yogurt, and various other goodies, to which I looked very forward every day at lunch and again at dinner. The second week, I stocked my locker with fresh tomatoes from my garden, cans of octopus in olive oil (if you haven't tried this, you're really missing out), avocados, and more homemade cookies - peanut butter this time.

Earlier this week, I made almond chocolate chip flax cookies - not my best cookie work, but not bad. I have a few of those left, but I'm really a little burned out on pimento cheese and octopus. And, despite the fact that my husband smoked a fabulous hunk of pork this weekend, I can't really stomach the idea of eating meat every day for three days running. So here I am, the night before my stretch, with nothing in my lunch bag (which is the size of a generous grocery sack - needless to say, all my friends are quite amused when I walk in with my "lunch," which is almost bigger than I am!)

On the way home from errands this afternoon, however, I had a breakthrough: what about salad nicoise? Great idea for the first day, no doubt, but I've got three bleak days of trying to avoid eating hospital food ahead of me. In the end, I decided to construct a salad nicoise of giant proportions - one that could easily be made to span three days (maybe more).

I ran home from my errands, dug, peeled & rinsed some potatoes and threw them on with a little olive oil to boil under a steamer of fresh asparagus - talk about two birds and a single stone! I have some albacore tuna on hand, and I just happened to have a fresh bundle of romaine lettuce, which I shredded by hand and to which I added a handful of fresh basil from the garden. Meanwhile, I put 4 eggs on to boil and threw together a lovely vinaigrette of avocado oil, white wine vinegar, fresh ground pepper, salt, and brown mustard seeds, a little dijon and a touch of garlic (heavy on the vinegar). A sleeve of crackers, a jar of capers, some fresh homegrown tomatoes, and a little tin of anchovies for good measure, and voila! A beautiful lunch that anyone would look forward to - in fact, the thought of it almost lightens my burden of working three days without pay...well, almost.

Fleas & Bloody Marys

I love flea markets. Anywhere, anytime. We recently went on yet another flea market blitz in New York - not the first & certainly not our last. I'm pretty sure heaven must feel something like working over a good flea. Oh, and by "flea," I do not mean "antique mall." In fact, any use of the word "antique" almost invariably means overpriced goods and no bargains. No, I mean an honest-to-god flea market where you can sift through piles of stuff in search of a true bargain. You just never know what you'll turn up at a good flea, and therein lies the fun.

For example, this morning at our local flea (which we almost never miss unless we're out of town visiting other fleas) I found (or I should say Mark found, since he spotted it first) the coolest grinder ever. As it happens, I was just complaining recently about how much work one has to do to get an appreciable amount of pepper out of a pepper mill. Our pepper mill collection is nothing to sneeze at, by the way. We have quite an array, from William Bounds to the lesser-named mills - I think we may have tried them all. I have my favorites, of course, but all fall short of the ideal grinder for one reason or another...until today.

The grinder we bought today is, in a word, phenomenal. It clamps to the counter in a death grip and grinds pepper as though it were butter - virtually effortlessly. The coarseness settings are extremely sensitive - at its finest setting it will literally put out product the consistency of sawdust. Of course, we won't be limiting ourselves to grinding peppercorns with this baby. After we used it to grind a few trial peppercorns this morning, we threw in some dried bird peppers (which I added to the egg salad I made for lunch - gave it a terrific smoky heat!) and then promptly compiled a list of other things we could pulverize with the new toy: cumin and coriander seeds, nutmeg, whole allspice, anise seeds - you name it, we'll be ready.

After lunch, we were ranging around for a good reason to grind more pepper when our eyes fell on the half-gallon of Svedka we bought this weekend. If you follow me on Facebook, I noted earlier today that it received a 93 from Wine Spectator, putting it into competition with top shelf brands like Grey Goose despite its middle-shelf price. I find it absolutely delightful - definitely worth trying, and a bloody mary is the best reason I can think of to grind yet more pepper!