Although the official start of summer is still a month away, there are two signs that it has arrived early at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket. One, the crowds are arriving earlier than ever. And two, zucchini and summer squash have appeared. For this Memorial Day weekend, slice it thin and throw it on the grill.

What the hell is mush you ask? Believe my friend Phaedra came up with it and gave it its name. Few years ago I had my first mush and it was DELICIOUS! It’s quite simple actually combine chili with mac n’cheese and you get mush!

Recently I found myself at Trader Joe’s again, trying to make something quick, simple and cheap, I used a recipe from my sister, Connie, for a cheap quick Trader Joe’s chili. Get a pack of ground beef around $2.25, a can of black beans and a can of tomato soup. Well I left the list of ingredients at work so I had to go with my memory. I thought she told me a can of diced tomato SO I got a can of diced tomato instead of a can of soup. Anyways, I also grabbed a bag of pasta. I went home and cooked the pasta just couple minutes short of al dente time, dumped the cans of black beans and diced tomatoes and mixed. In another pan while the pasta was cooking I cooked the ground meat. When the pasta mixture is nearly done I added the meat and a whole lotta parmesan cheese. Served it with bread!

Last week I biked to Coney Island with my friends Phaedra and Scott; yes, it was the longest bike ride I’ve done in years, and yes, I almost passed out on the way back. While we were there we stopped for what turned out to be a pretty dreadful lunch at Ruby’s, on the boardwalk. I don’t want to harp on Ruby’s, I’m sure all of the boardwalk dives are pretty much the same. I had a lousy Coney Island-style knish with a squirt of mustard, but the real winner was Phaedra’s deep-fried shish kabob — according to her fatty and chewy, and covered in bright red “barbecue sauce.” There may be good restaurants in the neighborhood, but skip the ones on the boardwalk.

Oh Mile End, I like how you bring a TON of people onto Hoyt Street every weekend during brunch hours. No I don’t actually. I hate waiting with big crowds, I’m hungry and I want to eat right away but for some odd reason I don’t mind waiting for dim sum. Weird. Anyways the only time I’ve been to Mile End was just to go and pick up my Montreal bagels.

Yes I’ve been wanting to go try Mile End for a while now but they close too damn early everyday and with the crowds over the weekend I’ll never get to go! Oh wait they just did announce their brand spankin new dinner hours! w00t! Maybe now I can get my smoked meat finally?

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For my birthday last week, my parents wanted to take me out to lunch. I started doing research for nice lunch places in Brooklyn, and came across The Grocery in Carroll Gardens. The very next day I read a post on SE: NY about it, and that article made up my mind.

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Here’s our current setup, pretty nice eh?

Above is our planters of herbs, bottom left is my chives that I harvested hehhehee, and bottom right is Howard’s lone artichoke sprout. It grew 2 more leaves.