This Blog Is Quickly Devolving Into A Sad Knockoff Version Of “Midtown Lunch”

When I Googled “Rocky Mountain Cobb” to see if anyone else on the great wide Internet has publicly sung the praises of my favorite Chop’t specialty salad, no relevant results turned up. I remedy that today, with the first known post about this tasty lunchtime delight.

Chop’t is a relatively new NYC-based chain, and their key point of differentiation is that they will hack your custom salad to bits with a mezzaluna, and not just once, but as much as you direct them to hack it.  (I haven’t asked for extra hackage yet, though; stay tuned to see if I can make the staff reduce my salad to discrete atoms.)

Several weeks ago, I went for the first time, and finding the wall-sized list of potential salad toppings (er, “choppings”) too daunting, I ordered the Rocky Mountain Cobb off the menu.  I’ve been back many times since then, but I have yet to order a different salad.  I fucking love this damn Cobb salad.  It’s just Romaine lettuce, bleu cheese, cranberries, walnuts, and roasted chicken, with their slightly-sweet “secret recipe” House dressing, but I’m already getting regular cravings for the specific taste combination.

So yeah.  Rocky Mountain Cobb.  Delicious pile of chopped goodness.

All This And It’s Not Even Sunset

Following my long tradition of not observing federal or religious holidays in the least, I spent today tying up various loose ends and being generally productive.

I made whole-grain waffles with red raspberry compote for breakfast, and then got started on the mostaccioli recipe from this month’s issue of Gourmet, in anticipation of tomorrow’s Green & Black’s inter-agency bake-off.  Making those little cookies was more of a task than it needed to be, since I neglected to get the Frangelico yesterday, and had to dart out to buy it.  Appropriately, the end result tastes a lot like the Green & Black’s Maya Gold bar.

I properly installed last.fm on my computer, which is something I wanted to tinker with years ago, but never got around to, especially after I couldn’t get it to work on my Mac.  Now I can share my esoteric music interests with the whole internet.  As well as the fact that yes, repeated playback of “Valerie” by Amy Winehouse accounts for a solid 40% of this week’s iTunes activity.

I also swept, scrubbed, and dusted the entire apartment, filed a drawerful of paperwork, and washed massive amounts of dishes.  Certain pots/pans/containers were used and washed up to three times over the course of the day.  (My desire for a dishwasher only grows.)

Unlike The Union Square Cafe, The Union Square Whole Foods Has A Crappy Selection Of Beer And Nuts

Dear Whole Foods,

I am concerned about my inability to locate organic hazelnuts at your Union Square location today. In fact, you didn’t have ANY hazelnuts, not even a container of conventionally-grown ones. Why do you not stock such a delicious nut product? I look to you as the leader in providing me with high-end and organic grocery products, and hazelnuts certainly qualify as a higher-end food.

Moreover, I was not the only other person yesterday who was upset about your lack of hazelnuts. In fact, my two other aislemates scoured the shelves with me, refusing to believe that you stocked two brands of organic goji berries, but NO hazelnuts, in any form. WE LEFT THE STORE UNHAPPY, AND IN NEED OF HAZELNUTS.

My disappointment is such that I may sulk for the next six days and refuse to visit you until the next time I get a craving for raw-milk havarti.

Lick my unsatisfactory Diamond-brand nuts,

Sara

Store-Bought/Scavenged Lunch Recommendation Of The Week

A bowl of Pacific Natural Foods’ Cashew Carrot Ginger soup + a toasted slice of Pepperidge Farms’ multigrain Cinnamon Apple bread + a cup of hot black tea + free papaya from the fruit plate in the office kitchen.  Yum.