Day 22 - Meltdown Continues; Braising Begins

My general fed-up-with-all-this-crap meltdown continued today. My poor husband gets the brunt of it. He's doing everything possible to be supportive. He hung the Buddhist prayer flags for me this afternoon. He's putting my last Ikea cabinet together in my studio this evening. We had to go to the title company to have some house-selling paperwork notarized late this morning. Then went to Fig for lunch, did a little carnivorous grocery shopping, and got yet another load of boxes from the storage locker. This box batch was a heavy bottom layer, mostly books. Ooooph.

Fig merits some special attention. (And I've got to fig-ure out how to make links sometime very soon....) There has been no particularly good place for a foodie to eat here in Atascadero. No place with the right blend of locavorism, tasty food, decent prices, and a nice atmosphere. We've heard about this new little place, Fig, properly located downtown, that opened about 5 weeks ago. Limited hours. Small place doing mostly take-out, but with a couple tables. Our lunch was quite delicious and met all of the above criteria. The place was jam-packed with both taker-outers and eater-inners, proving that Atascaderans are desperate for this sort of place.

Then it was back home where our builders arrived to do yet more finishing work and repairs on this house. Will it never end????? And I melted down some more. And started tomorrow night's dinner. As a rather random choice, I've decided to next tackle the Slow Cooking chapter. I bought "leg quarters" (chicken) and chuck (beef). We'll start with Braised Chicken Legs, for which I have 5 of the "leg quarters". Alice wants these puppies salted and peppered the day before cooking, so I salted and peppered and stuck 'em back in the frig. The beef chuck for beef stew went into the freezer in case I don't get to it as quickly as I might like. That was my cooking for the day: seasoning chicken.

Mid-afternoon my friend Laurel joined me for a trek to the 3rd Annual Central Coast Handweavers Show and Sale. Since it's hard to tell when I'll have my own looms set up again, I went in search of dishtowels, of which I purchased 3. There is nothing like a handwoven dishtowel. Sturdy as hell, they last forever and perform like champs. I love, love, love them. You might think them a bit pricey at $20-25, but seriously-- they last forever. You'll use them every day, wash them a jillion times, and they'll still last well enough to perform equally for your children and their children and, probably, their children.

After the show and sale it was back to Fig for dinner! I had the polenta stack with a salad. Fabulous. Much tastier, actually, than the pulled pork sandwich I'd had for lunch. Laurel and I both had carrot cake cupcakes for dessert which were heaven. I had also had one after lunch. Shhhhh!!! Don't tell anyone!! We had a grand time talking with other diners and the owners. We were there 'til closing and after. I think it was the kind of atmosphere Alice Waters must have had in mind originally for Chez Panisse. A few of us Fig Fans considered starting the ADA, the Atascadero Dining Association. If it ever really happens, you first read about it here.

That's about it for today. Tomorrow I'll go on to actually braise those "leg quarters." And check out the farmers market. And I'll try to NOT be a basket case. Wish me luck. I hereby do the same for you.