friday and in the office

There is a woman in my office who eats microwavable meals every day. The recycling container is usually filled with discarded Lean Cuisine boxes. She is also sour and looks hostile. I wonder if these are related?

It's a new year, folks!

And the philosophotarian, who seems to have forgotten how to budget, will relearn! Hooray!

January budgetary challenge:

$20/week (or less) on groceries. Not even $20.01.

It is likely that I stay within that most of the time, so this will be a good way to ease my way into a year of budgetary challenges. (snacks and beverages out are far worse for my pocketbook than trips to the grocery store.)

Once the intercampus shuttle is up and running again, I'll hit up Trader Joe's more frequently for frozen fruit, oils and other pantry staples.
Meat will only be organic for now, so there will be less meat.
Eggs will also be only organic/cage free etc. for now, so I'll have to spend my eggs more carefully.
To get the most bang for my vegetable buck, I'll stop being so lazy: instead of buying so much of my produce at the big (expensive, not very good) grocery store two blocks away, I'll head to the smaller (cheaper, better) grocery stores about a half-mile away.

All of this, naturally, is fuel for dissertating and preparation for Exile. Obviously.

Wherein the curse of eve is a mighty curse

And lo, the angel of the lord came upon them and the glory of the lord shone round upon them: and they were sore afraid.

Suffering under Eve's heavy curse, I rolled out the pie pastry for Thursday's pie. It didn't feel right. I couldn't tell what was wrong or different, but it was not the same and it was despised and I esteemed it not. Like sheep, it had gone astray, and turned every one to its own way.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

And so I made a chocolate cake as well, just in case the pie was not edible. Alas, it, too, like a sheep had gone astray and turned to its own way. And so the cake was not quite right, either.

At that point, I contemplated a pumpkin spice cake. It was midnight: For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people. Yet the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. So I went to bed instead.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

The next morning, I arose and shone, and ate a tiny piece of the pie. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: the pie was not terrible! It was indeed safe to eat. I ate a small sliver of cake, too: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. The cake was not terrible, either. A smidge dry, and a smidge dark: not bad at all.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Thanksgiving was going to be just fine.

Cooking while cursed and while practicing for this year's DIY Messiah is so wonderfully dramatic.

Pie!!!

I got to practice my pie-making skills last night. I don't make pie very often. I think my last attempt at pie crust involved a box of Jiffy mix (don't judge me too harshly!). While making this dough, I was convinced it wouldn't come together. Not having made a good dough before, I wasn't sure what to look for, or what my goals were. Still, I followed the instructions reasonably well and the result is both lovely and delicious!

Happy Thanksgiving!

why, yes, I am hungry

baking for dummies

Imagine that this is the recipe you choose to make:

3 c sugar
1 c oil
4 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c water
3 1/3 c flour
spices
salt
soda

makes 2 loaves

Now, imagine that, from the start, you decide that that is too much sugar and too much oil. Also, you will use brown sugar, not white. And you'll make muffins, not loaves. You amend to

1 3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c oil
4 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c water
3 1/3 c flour
salt, soda, spices

makes 24 muffins

However, you had to dash out for the brown sugar while the quinoa was cooking (oops) and the sweet potatoes, apples and dried cherries were roasting. So

Before mixing together the sugar, oil and eggs, scrape out the burnt quinoa and put the pan to soak. Stir the roasting fruit/veg.

Mix together the sugar and oil. Add the eggs. Realize you have only 2 eggs. The recipe, now, is

1 3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c oil
2 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c water
3 1/3 c flour
salt, soda, spices

Decide to use buttermilk instead of water; begin to make purple rice:

1 3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c oil
2 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c buttermilk
3 1/3 c flour
salt, soda, spices

Dump in the can of pumpkin, stir the rice and the fruit/veg. Begin to combine dry ingredients in a rather large bowl. Realize you have less than 2 cups of flour. Add oats. Dump the purple rice into the pot of lentils you'd made earlier in the day.

1 3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c oil
2 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c buttermilk
2 c flour
1 1/3 c oats
salt, soda spices.

Add the remaining ingredients. Decide to add a shredded apple. Add the roasted veg and fruit to the lentils and purple rice. Eat a bowl. Decide it's bland, but will be better later on with kale and chicken sausage.

1 3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c oil
2 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c buttermilk
2 c flour
1 1/3 c oats
salt, soda spices
1 shredded apple - cortland is nice.

Bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes.

Try one.

Realize you forgot to add the salt. Feel even more disappointed because, had you added the salt, they actually would have been pretty darn good. As it is, they are a little bland. Eat 2 anyway.

a dinner party with Disciplina and Necessitas

I still haven't written. Haven't done much with my notes. Haven't reread the two articles I plan to use to introduce my chapter. Haven't pasted notes into a magnificent new outline.

What I will do is this:

Head to the grocery store
Buy a chicken, a lemon or two, some dried figs and nettle tea
Roast the chicken with butter and herbs and potatoes and an onion
Bake a cake and fill it with the figs and lemon
Brew the tea and drink it and breathe

When I have cooked for myself and fed myself and taken care of myself, I will permit myself one hour for dissertation work. No more than one hour. After one hour I will stop. And then I will tell myself, "I have begun."

the combined power of incompetence and persistence

is a workable chart listing my reading list. After frustrating myself with columns in a Word doc, it finally occurred to me that an Excel sheet already has adjustable columns. Still, the thing took forever and I'm not sure if the 2 hours I spent on it were justifiable or not. Glorified procrastinating? Whatever. I just need to use the darn thing now.

In happier news, I am inspired to go home and make dinner. I have everything I need to make a satisfying pasta alla carbonara. Great big bowl of cheesy, eggy, bacony, peppery pasta goodness, here I come!

humdrum

Am in the process of trying to pin down a date for my dissertation proposal defense. It was almost there. And then almost there. And now it is just up in the air.

There is still much to do. I have a rather intense list of books, chapters and articles with which I'd like to be familiar before I defend this proposal. This list, luckily, happens to also be my reading list for chapter 2. The more familiar I am with this before the defense, the better I can discuss the project as a whole and the faster I can write a draft of chapter 2.

Though I submitted my proposal draft on Thursday, I have not yet begun work on that reading list. Dragging my feet a little. Reading will begin ... tonight. Yes. Tonight.

Yesterday I felt inexplicably tired. I find that days like that are rather good for completing necessary but dull chores. I put away laundry, changed my bed linens, scrubbed the toilet and bathroom sink, organized clutter. I baked 2 different kinds of muffins and froze them. I made four 1-serving portions of chicken with tomatoes and thyme and froze those for lazy evenings. I cleaned the kitchen. Organized the freezer (that may have been the most satisfying part of the day) and cleaned out the refrigerator. Exercycled. Went grocery shopping. It ended up being a wonderfully productive day, even if I didn't do any academic work.

To Do:
- Cull readings from bibliography for Ch. 2/defense preparation.
- Break them down into chapters.
- Include a nice, neat column for checking them off.
- Post that to this blog so its format can be admired. Or not...

food blog for the lean of larder or meager in motivation

When one has popcorn for dinner and Maria cookies with Nutella for dessert, there are several things that may be the case:

1. One may not have done the required shopping to make either the nutty anchovy pasta or the olive-caper pasta she was going to make

2. One may be too lazy to make the braised lentils with kale she has the ingredients to make

3. One may have prepared to do serious dissertation work only to find that she did not actually save her most recent draft of her proposal to her flash drive and so has lost the will to cook

4. One may have an 800 page biography of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek to finish (…) and review by Sunday and so has determined she hasn’t the time to cook a full meal.

When one has popcorn for dinner, several things must be the case:

1. One must make a sufficiently large portion of popcorn for it to count as dinner. Otherwise the popcorn is still a snack and dinner must still be decided upon and procured

2. One must drink a correspondingly large quantity of juice, water or herbal tea in order to mitigate the effects of salty, fiber-filled popcorn.

3. One must actually have either a lean pantry or accomplished a great deal of work in order to justify the popcorn dinner after the fact.

When one has popcorn for dinner and Maria cookies with Nutella for dessert, several things should be the case:

1. One should season the popcorn with some delectable herb, perhaps rosemary. This increases the ingredient list and strengthens the fiction that one has prepared a meal and not a snack.

2. One should crush the rosemary in one’s hands before pouring it into the pot. It may be the case that crushing the rosemary releases some oil and flavor from the dried herb. It is the case that it makes one’s hands smell of rosemary, further strengthening the fiction that one has indeed prepared dinner.

3. One should attractively swirl the Nutella on the Maria cookie, avoiding the lazy, tapering-off smear at the end for maximal chocolate-hazelnut-crispy cookie satisfaction

4. One should select the number of cookies one will eat and immediately swirl the Nutella attractively atop the selected number of cookies, even going so far as to place them upon a plate so as to avoid eating the whole sleeve, or finishing the jar of Nutella (whichever comes first).

patterns

It's only just occurred to me that I've been both getting more dissertation work done and completing more chores/tasks that are (seemingly) unrelated to dissertation work.

Item: creamy polenta with gorgonzola and mushrooms

Item: wine-braised lentils with winter greens and a poached egg

Item: scoured, sanitized countertops

Item: a scrubbed bathroom

Item: a refridgerator emptied of molding contents (ok, ok, i know!)

Item: on-time bill payment (ok, i look really bad/lazy at this point!)

Item: laundry put away within 1 day of washing

I'm cooking again, my apartment is cleaner, I'm even thinking of *gasp* exercising - and none of these things seriously diminishes my work output. In my head I know this. But when I'm not getting work done, I can hardly bring myself to take care of myself in other arenas of life - it feels as though I'm "cheating" on dissertation. Silly silly silly. It has just been suggested that, when I'm not getting work done, that I make myself cook and so push myself (from another direction, as it were) to do dissertation work too.

stilton is for dreaming

apparently many folks report vivid and bizarre dreams after eating stilton (a fun fact which i did not know). i treated myself to a bit of cheese today while at Trader Joe's, after having thoroughly enjoyed a champagne tasting at Pops for Champagne.
i enjoy strange and often vivid dreams as it is; i am curious to see how my dreams change - if at all - with the cheese: will my dreams be even more memorable? will they grow still stranger? will they simply be 'brighter'? i will report back if anything fun occurs. for now, the cheese is lovely with tea and a cracker.

i've been otherwise dreaming however. there is the chance that i might not move at the end of the month after all. i find i am coming quite close to hoping that i will be able to remain where i am. if i do, then i will make of this place a homier home:
- i will finally put curtains up in the living room
- i will paint my bookshelves
- i will get a comfortable desk chair
- i will find a better way to organize my closets
- i will finally make a cushion for the toychest
- i will finally get a coffee table
etc etc.
i like this space a lot. but it could be made more efficient and more beautiful. i will finally coordinate my colors and maximize utility. but i am trying not to think very much about this possibility - it is still just as likely that i will move and then this dreaming will have been misdirected...there are still all those French verbs to conjugate and memorize.

and i have been otherwise dreaming. dreaming of learning to sew. of learning to cook well and often. of learning to be terribly efficient. of learning to preserve and can. of learning to love well. of learning to forget. of learning to allow myself to be hurt. of trusting others even without reason. of being brave, marvelously brave. of taking risks and courting danger. of having adventures. of allowing myself to be wrong.
i have been dreaming so much i've hardly had time for sleeping and have been rising early and staying up late. i've been drinking less coffee but feel a deep delicious energy just beneath my surface. i feel a sort of effervescent bubbling over of possibility for growth and change just now and i am terribly excited to see what i make of it.

Hangover Eggs

There is nothing in the world that I want more when I am hungover than eggs, over-easy, dripping over a pile of fried potatoes. Salty, with cheese and, today, with ham. To be sure, I love this meal when I am not hungover. But when I am, there is little else that is more comforting. Perhaps only the enduring, persistent love my friends bear toward me...

When I am drunk, I am chatty. Confessional. I have learned that, if I want to keep my own secrets, then I had better stay sober - or learn to have no secrets. I annoy and disappoint myself. And still my friends call me the next day, they go shopping with me, they smile and look at me and there is kindness and generosity and love.

I do not deserve this. I deserve a stern talking-to. I deserve to receive fewer invitations. I deserve a shake of the head and a reproach. And what I get is, consistently, love. Not a "love" that says -I don't care that you get stupid when you're drunk- but a love that says -I care, and, yes, you do make a bit of an ass of yourself, and I love you-

If I let myself think too much about the very drunken conversations I had last night, I will reproach myself - How could I have said that? and that? and did I say that or did I dream it later? I will sigh heavily and feel the disappointment rise and feel like a failure again. And it occurs to me that those conversations I only half-remember were listened-to by my soberer friends - and if they can look at me with kindness today and the next and the next, then I suppose I ought to be similarly kind with myself.

I am eating watermelon now. Full and sleepy and humble. When I nap I will dream that I can learn to love my friends as well as they love me.

how to make chocolate cake

step 1: find recipe

this is more or less easily accomplished. serious eats always has fantastic ideas, as does epicurious. having found the perfect chocolate cake recipe, it is very important to note the ingredients.

step 2: procure ingredients

i plan to use scharffenberger chocolate for this cake since i know i like it, i know i can get it at dominicks (assuming i can reach it - it is on the top shelf), and this cake is destined to be a dream cake, one that will have my friend climbing over themselves to be in my good graces. the bittersweet chocolate for the ganache - well, i'll be at the mercy of the dominicks gods, since i'm too lazy to head over to newleaf for guaranteed good chocolate. the last questionable item is the beer. i am supposed to use stout and i do have a can of guinness in my fridge (leftover from the last time i made gingerbread), but i thought i'd try to find something a bit more interesting.

i wanted to get some chocolate stout, but the good people at hahn's liquor store did not seem to have any. so i got a breckenridge vanilla porter instead. which leads to -

step 3: taste-test ingredients

i had not tried the vanilla porter (actually, i've never had any of breckenridge's brews until today), and i am enjoying it. it's very nice and dark, a bit toasty, a bit chocolatey (perfect) and just a hint of vanilla on the finish. it smells of vanilla more than it tastes of it, but that doesn't really bother me. for the cake, i think it will be rather nice, since it is a bit smoother than the guinness. on the other hand, it is just a bit lighter than guinness and i worry just a bit that it might not provide the lush richness a deeper stout might. so,

step 4: worry that the ingredients won't be quite good enough

if i don't use the right beer, will it matter if i use good cocoa? if i don't use great chocolate for the ganache, will it matter if i chose the right beer? if the whole thing turns out ok, but not great, will it even have mattered that i went to the trouble? would they all be just as happy if i brought duncan hines smeared with boxed frosting? of course, this collapse of certainty leads to only one thing:

step 5: nihilism

nothing really matters, does it?

step 6: despair

if i can't make the world's most luscious chocolate cake, what good can i possibly be? how can i justify my existence?

step 7: epiphany

existence, eh? right. ok. existence is produced through the taking-up and completion of projects. so the cake doesn't have to be perfect to justify my existence, it just has to be completed.

step 8: faith

and really, how bad will it be after all? i mean, it's chocolate cake. two of the most beautiful words in the english language.

step 9: action

commence baking