A Macabi review

This is mostly for some posters on the subreddit r/HerOneBag who were also interested in the Macabi skirt.

First, let me level set size etc. for me. I’m 5’4 and ½” tall, I’m slightly short-waisted and also very slightly pear shaped these days. I tend to wear size 2 in most pants, sometimes a 0. I got the XS in both skirts and that was the correct size for me.

I bought the short skirt in purple haze (no length options), and the slim long skirt, in the regular length in charcoal. Slim is possibly misleading as it still has a lot of fabric. But I’m fairly small and suspected the regular long skirt would overwhelm me. I apologize for not great pictures, but if you click the images you should be able to see better.

Let me start by saying this is not a fashion skirt. You will not win any style points wearing this unless you are with like-minded people. I got cold the day I wore the short skirt, so I ended up putting on a cardigan over my shirt. At that point, I figured I’d nailed much like the stereotypical librarian.  But it’s super comfortable.

It’s chilly again today, and I’m wearing the slim long skirt today with a new pair of boots so I can break them in. As with the short skirt, this one is very comfortable; I haven’t clipped it to make the pants or clipped up to make shorts but it’s easy enough to do.  

I can see why the photographs on the website aren’t great, this isn’t a skirt that lends itself to a form-fitted tucked-in top since the skirt itself is so voluminous. But I like it a lot with the sweater I’m wearing today and think I’ll use both of them, especially in the summer. And if I ever get to walk the El Camino de Santiago, I would take the long one for sure. That way, I would meet all the clothing/modesty requirements for seeing the churches and cathedrals along the way.

Blue Apron—a review

Warning—lots of photos ahead

Have you heard of Blue Apron? You can read about it here, but basically it’s a subscription food service that delivers the ingredients for three meals ready to be cooked. My friend Magpie was given a week’s worth of service from Blue Apron but she forgot to cancel so ended up having it for a second (maybe third) week. So Blue Apron gave her a week of free meals to give to a friend; when she asked around, I raised my hand.

The recipes this week

Kent and I have talked about the rut we tend to get in when planning meals. Neither of us have much energy during the week to cook involved dishes, even though we both like to cook a lot. So we will cook several meals on Sunday and then fill in with quick hits like omelets (which I learned to make like a champ from my grandmother) or something similarly quick. They're tasty meals and fill us up just fine but after a while, we’re bored. When we’re bored is when we order carry out sushi or just flat go out and that’s not necessarily good for either our budget or our bulges.

So the idea of Blue Apron interested us both. Our delivery came Friday and Kent’s cooked up two of the meals today—we just finished one and the other one is in the fridge for later this week. We still have a third meal to fix, spiced meatballs with garlic toast and summer squash salad.

All the food

First thing: You get everything you need to make the three dishes, and the food is fresh. The produce looked amazing as did the salmon and chicken. The Thai basil was wonderful, and the paper bags have tiny plastic bottles with screw top lids that hold the red wine vinegar and ponzu sauce.  Our three meals are:

• Spiced meatballs
• Stir-fried ginger basil chicken
• Seared salmon and panzanella

The food comes slightly prepped. For example, the salmon had been skinned and the chicken for the second dish was diced, and everything was already measured. You still need to chop, cut, etc. but that's only to be expected. Kent—who is quite handy in the kitchen—thought that some of the prep time given might be a little optimistic. The chicken dish prep time was listed as 15 minutes but took more like 20. We'll see how the meatball dish goes.

Plated!

Tonight we had the salmon and I would change only one part of it. The salad portion has croutons in with the tomatoes and corn but to my mind it wasn't needed. In fact, Kent only made half the croutons which still seemed like a lot, and we ate the rest of the bread (which had been baked with olive oil and then rubbed with a clove of garlic) as a side dish.

We got to try some things we haven't been able to get here before, like the Thai basil. The peppers in the salmon dish were shishito peppers, which neither of us have heard of and they were perfect for the dish. Also heirloom cucumbers, which we've wanted to try but can't get here.

More photos:

Chicken stir fry

Salmon dish ingredients

Salmon dish salad

Net/net, we like this well enough to try a few more weeks. Thanks, Magpie!