polenta fries=big yummy italian fritos

So I've been all over fall foods lately.  Fall Foods in Full Effect.  Last night was spaghetti squash with pesto, and in the past week or so acorn squash, baked sweet potato fries (twice), pasta fagioli, rainbow slaw, lupini beans, and collard greens.  Tonight after a long day at work and a harrowing excursion to Trader Joe's, the temperature dropped and it became very windy.  I came home to a burnt out light bulb in the kitchenette that was twisted too tightly for me to change.  Also I was having flashbacks to the last time I tried to reach something really high in my apartment.  Thankfully Joe the (super!) super was around and he got it out.  Apparently there was something wrong with the socket, but with the aid of some wooden chopsticks I had lying around (yeah I don't know how he did it), the bulb was replaced and I got to cookin'.

I made baked polenta fries with fontina fondue, a mishmash of recipes that in the end turned out to be perfetto.  I've really been into chow.com lately and they had an interesting recipe, however I didn't feel like preparing and then frying up this foodstuff that my dad still insists on telling childhood horror stories about.  So I took this simple Everyday Food recipe for baked fries and whipped some up with that.  They turned out super crunchy and yummy, in retrospect I should have used the whole package instead of half.  

BTW, Agata & Valentina is my new place, I've given up on Eli for the time being.  It's more of a hike but it's so freaking Italian in there (and weirdly affordable) that I am just in love with it.

For the fondue, I used the Terra Australis Chardonnay from Trader Joe's and it worked pretty well; in fact right now I am using it to get drunk and fall asleep.  This is an exceptionally good wine for the cork-retarded, as it has a twist-off cap.  When I requested a sample at the store from the dude he spent a long time examining my Ohio ID.  I told him it said I was 25 but he said he was also looking to see that it was legit.  The whole time I was thinking don't I look pretty haggard right now to be a 20 year old NYU student?  Do you really think I'm here to play games?  Don't you see the liberry all over my face? But anyway... is it my fault that Ohio makes some fancy looking IDs compared to some other (ok, NEW YORK) states I know, that look like laminated pieces of shit?  In Ohio, we have holograms of the state seal!  HOLOGRAMS!  As in, nineteen-eighties futuristic... as in, freaking Jem and the Holograms.  That reminds me I really should get a NY ID, seeing as I've been here for over three years and all.  When is the whole "shelf life" thing supposed to kick in guys, 'cause I think I might be starting to feel it.  But thankfully the new jobby job starts on the 30th, just in time for me to miss out on Hallow'een hiijinks in da Bronx.  I'm looking forward to my new midtown digs.  I just hope the 'wichcraft guys are ready.