Open House and a Boxed Lunch

Oh, my days are just so busy lately. But soon... soon I will have all sorts of time on my hands.

I've been spending a lot of time with my friend M over the last few weeks cleaning up her house a few towns away that she's been cleaning up after her former tenants, who treated her home very badly. (You can read my rant here. However no rant can truly describe how awful it was--and I didn't dare post photos on this, a food blog.)

But now it's clean, with freshly painted walls, new carpets, and staged just so for an open house. Here is just a glimpse of the foyer.

Now in this region, open houses are unlike those you might see on HGTV. They like to schedule them for realtors only. But that really does make sense, because they will keep the house in their minds as they meet with clients looking to buy.

When M announced to her realtor that she'd like to provide a boxed lunch to the realtors that come to view the house, she was surprised. Evidently they don't do food around here.

I know.

So I helped her prepare 35 of these fun little lunches.

This lunch contained one slice of tomato pie*, one mini ham sandwich on a luscious wee potato roll, a container of cabbage salad**, a chocolate-covered cherry cookie, and of course a plastic fork rolled up in a little pink napkin, safely ensconsed in a plastic baggie so not to get yucky.

*Tomato pie is a Central New York phenomenon which, at first glance, seems like half a pizza. But first glances are deceiving--this little slice of heaven is a completely different thing altogether, bready and slathered with thick tomato paste and sprinkled liberally with parmesan cheese. It needs nothing else.

**Apparently cabbage salad is a delicacy from Maine. Not cole slaw, no... it is indeed a salad--only made with shredded cabbage in lieu of lettuce. Chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, onion and green pepper are combined with the cabbage shreds and marinated in bottled french dressing (the orange kind) overnight before being mixed with a final dressing of mayonnaise. It's quite delicious, in an out-of-the-bottle kind of way. But if I were serving it, I'd call it cole slaw anyway.


Well I mentioned that soon I'll have plenty of blogging time on my hands. 'Tis true... Mr.W has been selected for an international business trip and will be away for 20 days or so. And I'll be here missing him, but staying busy nonetheless planning for Thanksgiving. And blogging.