What I brought to swap:
pulled jackfruit, you’re a dahl mix, lime macaroons & malörtaroons.
My swap haul
This week: Dinner with Stacy/Amber @ Lula. Joong Boo with Jen S. Applied for DIY Trunk Show. Library. Vegan Vortex. Canada Day Party. Made food for food swap. Chicago Food Swap with Linsey @ Sur La Table downtown. Movie with Z, Heidi & Ed.
This was my third time taking part in the Chicago Food Swap. I came back with even more sweet than the first two somehow. If you’re reading this looking for a food swap tip, bring savory, bring savory, bring savory! I wish I’d made more ‘you’re my dal mix’ (tweaked this Mark Bittman recipe to be a mix). Also to note, a lot of swappers were scared of my pulled jackfruit. I used this recipe from Clean Green Simple as a starting point, but deviated somewhat. Many people had no idea what it was so they were reluctant to try it. If I make another jackfruit recipe in the future, I’ll write a descriptor like “vegan pulled pork” would have given people an idea of what it meant. It was my first time making macaroons and I veganized this recipe from Dessert Now, Dinner Later. I made a double batch and subbed coconut flour for flour and canned coconut milk for sweetened condensed milk. I also made a malört version I’m calling a malörtaroon because, thanks to my friend Rachel’s malört cake, I’ve been making malörty versions of sweets just because – also, I met Rachel’s friend Allie (working at SLT) at the swap. Chicago is endlessly small.
I’m vegetarian, but eat vegan often, so I do look for vegan items, but there were far fewer vegan items than usual even with a fairly large group. My fave swap items were: kraut & cranberry kombucha. linsey’s lemon curd! sea salt brownies. dulche de leche macarons. I picked up bacon jam made by The Cooking Cop who I enjoyed chatting with at the end. I love that food swaps are bringing together such a great mix of people in Chicago. Again, must make more savory items next time. Not sure I’ll be able to make the July food swap since it’s Pitchfork weekend and Rhymes with Twee will be selling at Coterie, but I might be a loon and still try to swing it.
Films watched 26th week of the year:
Go Fish
Purple Rain
The Fault in Our Stars
I’d seen Go Fish before, but before I lived in Chicago. Had never seen Purple Rain even though I’d always meant to. Wow, it is incredibly misogynistic and was pretty bad to boot. TFiOS was really good and met my expectations and I didn’t cry as much as while reading the book. 🙂