Well hello there,
I’m blogging again! Partly to fulfill a promise to my mother, and partly because I never really intended to stop. I think I had to make the transition from blogging about chateaux, excursions, and all the exotic things that happen to you while traveling, back to everyday stuff. The little things, if you’ll permit me a fairly wretched cliche.
I’m in a good mood–a REALLY good mood. The kind of mood that involves giggling while doing the dishes, prancing around to good music, playing one-person foosball and making a spontaneous little dance of it…
I know, right? ME? DISHES?
I’m on spring break. In…Bowling Green! yeah, not too tropical, not too exciting. But it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made lately. I only live in BG during the school year, so I never have a lot of time for myself here. There’s always an impending paper and so forth. Not that I don’t have some of those now anyway. But I don’t have anything major going on until my sociology exam on wednesday, and I don’t have much in the way of papers until the week after. So I’m taking this week and just hanging out. Yesterday, I went to Grounds and did some homework, enjoying the relative calm–usually it’s packed with people studying and professors grading papers. With almost everyone either gone home or somewhere tropical, I had a whole table to myself and plenty of space to think about the necessary traits of an ideal education, une affaire d’équilibre et de reflexion sur ses modalités.
Today I strolled over to Finders, our local cd store, and picked up Begin to Hope by Regina Spektor and two albums by Joshua Radin, my newest muscial obsession: We Were Here and Simple Times. Not without a slight twinge of guilt–I don’t usually buy cds. I usually just pull up a video on youtube and leave it running in the background. But I’m calling it a spring break treat to myself. It’s not as if I have a trip to Cancun to finance. Besides, I’m supporting an (awesome) local business, so I don’t mind paying a few dollars more than I would on itunes.
So, I am puttering around the house to the accompaniment of songs with titles like “Fidelity,” “Sundrenched World,” “Vegetable Car,” and “Baobobs” (the latter is inspired by The Little Prince. If you haven’t read it, you need to. It’s only the most wonderful children’s book of the century.) I just watered Aaron’s solitary houseplant (one of two conditions of my staying here, the other being my recipe for chocolate-chocolate chip-nutella biscotti). I’m “apartment-sitting”, which is a nicer way of saying “mooching,” since my apartment is technically university housing, and closed for the week, unless I have some burning desire to fork over $200 to the powers that be.
My host and his girlfriend are in Montreal for the week, so I have the run of the place. Before he left, he gave me the ceremonial tour of the spice rack, the stereo, and the foosball table, leaving me inspired to cook while singing…and scoring goals against myself? (I like to mix it up by occasionally thwarting myself and deflecting a shot or two, to keep me guessing) Of course, this has led to some interesting adventures in the kitchen, like finding a pan to cook the chicken for the stew I had already started.
Unconventional cookware aside, it turned out very well. I took mom’s recipe and ran with it–a 8 oz tray of sliced mushrooms and an onion, sauteed. I added a can of chicken broth and a half cup of cream, three chicken breasts, roasted and shredded, rosemary sprigs, a couple of carrots, and A LOT of cooked potatoes. Between the potatoes and the addition of the mushrooms it was pretty thick, so I added another can of chicken broth and another half cup of cream. Then, instead of baking it for 12 minutes (because I couldn’t find a suitable pan, and the soup pot had plastic handles) I just simmered it. Then to serve, I grated fresh mozzerella cheese on top and let it get all melty. Served with country loaf from Panera. I’ve been eating it for three days–it tastes just as good, if not better, microwaved a bowl at a time.
All the more impressive because I carried all those ingredients on my back from Kroger in a thunderstorm. Plus strawberries, a bunch of bananas, a box of bow tie pasta, a bundle of leeks, three packages of ramen, some kiwis, and a gallon of milk. And an umbrella. If you ever want to elicit amusing looks from people, buy a cartful of groceries and then stand in the rain-soaked entryway of the store, stuffing produce into a backpack. I felt like a sherpa. A well-fed sherpa.
Five more days of vacation left: just enough for drinking coffee, watching movies, studying for tests, and working my way through the stack of library books on “my” dresser.
