So this happened...

today's accomplishment: being simultaneously hit on and evangelized by a random creeper decked out in Roll Tide Gear in the elevator.
Creeper: where did you get such a pretty smile you sweet little thing?
Me: um...what?***
Creeper:I bet you know where you got it...*wink*
Me: excuse me?
Creeper: It's from upstairs. Way upstairs. Jesus Christ will make you smile every day for the rest of your life. You just remember that. *another wink*



I cannot wait to move to not-alabama.


***I was proud of myself for restraining my inner feminist from explaining that I was not really even smiling, not that pretty, really not sweet, 9/10s of a doctor, not little, and a woman not a thing.

Today...

...Was freaking gorgeous. This northern ice princess will never get used to sitting outside in February without being bundled up nice and cozy. Really, I will never get used to willingly going outside in February.

In honor of our (temporary) spring, I made a delicious salad...cucumbers, lettuce, pistachios, cherry-balsamic glazed chicken, and blue cheese. I got lots of veggies at the grocery store this week, my goal is to improve this week's diet over last week's by eating fewer meals consisting entirely of things sold by girl scouts.

Unrelated, but on teevee, some fresh faced american kids are ice-dancing a honky-tonk routine to the Dixie Chicks. I like ice skating, I like america, and I like the Dixie Chicks, but seriously, WTF kind of sport is this?

DILEMNA

1. I really like to bake
2. I cook and bake a lot when I am stressed. Chopping, kneading, and mixing are calming
3. I have been a little more tightly wound than normal lately.
4. I want to make this this weekend
5. Most of my coworkers do not like sweets
6. THEREFORE, if I make this carmelized butter cake, I will probably eat it all, for breakfast, over the course of <5 days.
7. This is, theoretically bad.
8. But I am going to do it anyways.

UGH

I left work today at 5:30-typical for a friday. Got home, cleaned some stuff up, got settled in, logged onto the computer around 6:15...FOUR emails from my boss. Two titled "urgent request".

None being addressed until tomorrow.

Life in List Form

1. I have not been good about writing on the blog. I am sure I have left my zero readers terribly disappointed. But here is a brief update, in blurbs

2. In good news, I finally got my mentor to settle on a graduation goal more specific than "one year from today". And the goal is...August! Eight little months away.

3. Holy shit I have a lot to do.

4. Good reads lately: I got SO MANY books for christmas. It was awesome. My latest reads have been Dreaming in Cuban and God of Small Things for sister book club. I loved Dreaming in Cuban, it was excellent. So exquisitely written, such eloquent descriptions of madness and sadness and exile and reunion. One of my favorites ever. God of Small things I read before, but I'm liking it a little more this time. I think when I read it for class in college I (naturally) skipped ahead to the end and was so weirded out by the creepy ending that I couldn't really get anything out of the rest of the book. This time, I'm trying to ignore the ending I know is coming and appreciate the book as it unfolds, and I'm doing a lot better. Roy's language is at times annoying, but mostly it is lovely. I'm working my way through a collection of short stories about Pakistan called In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. It's good, but depressing. None of the stories have happy endings. I can only read one or two at a time

5. I am trying to not bake as much as I used to, mostly because it is not healthy for me to eat the leftovers for breakfast for a week every time i get it into my head to make a cake. I share with neighbors and coworkers and friends, but I can never get rid of all of it, and I end up eating (really delicious) junk. That said, my efforts at resisting have not been terribly successful. It's the stress. Some people stress-eat, I stress bake. I made a delicious ricotta pound cake this weekend and am going to make this for my birthday next month, if I can wait that long.

A river so dirty it caught on fire twice

Cleveland, Ohio, is not a town with a reputation for being an exciting or enlightened place. There's this for starters, and also this. BUT one thing that Cleveland does have, that my current home does not, is an excellent art museum. My family trekked up to the big city to see an exhibit on Paul Gauguin and the Volpini exhibition while I was home over the holidays. I don't think anyone else in the family found it terribly interesting, but I thought it was cool. The exhibit focused on Gauguin's repeated use of figures and motifs throughout his life's work. One of my favorites was this one, a enigmatic red-headed woman playing, bathing, or drowning in green waves. The colors in this one, as in much of Gauguin's work, are gorgeous (Of course I like them, I am the queen of jeweltones): Ondine

The exhibit also featured some of Gauguin's contemporaries. I particularly liked this piece by Louis Anquetin. Similar to Van Gogh's Night Cafe, but a little more raw. I love how everything is dark and muted except the glare of the one window. I like that the colors are unbalanced, and it pulls you in to looking closer.
Avenue de Clichy




We didn't get to see much beyond the Gauguin exhibit due to time constraints. I could have stayed for hours though. In another life I would have loved studying art history. When I settle down for real in this one, it will definitely be in a place with an art museum worthy of visiting more than once.

Loss

How to resist nothingness? What power
Preserves what once was, if memory does not last?
For I remember little. I remember so very little
Do I believe in the Resurrection of the Flesh?
Not of this ash.
I call, I beseech: elements, dissolve yourselves!
Rise into the other, let it come, kingdom!
Beyond the earthly fire compose yourselves anew!
Czeslaw Milosz

I am reeling a bit the past few days. Last thursday, I found out through the facebook grapevine that a young girl that I babysat as a teenager died in a car accident. V was 16, almost 17. I hadn't seen her in years, since she was 4 or 5. Looking through the articles about her, there was an overwhelming rush of information. The funny, charming, bouncy little girl I had chased around her backyard had grown into a lovely, lively, caring and talented young woman, and then just as suddenly had died in a moment of carelessness. I don't understand why, but this has left me unbearably sad. I didn't know V well anymore, I adore her family but hadn't been in touch with them in a while. But still, I can't focus, I spend my lunch flipping through facebook pictures of a ghost girl, I spend nights tossing and turning and trying to reason out some sort of comfort and end up crying.

I am trying to find some way to understand this, and other losses. Christmas always has an unspoken sadness, as my dad's small family gathers and silently notes my grandmother and uncle, who died well before their time. I try to think of the possibility of resurrection, to reach back into my christian roots, but that is not much comfort. Maybe its an immature inability to delay reward, but the thought of an ambiguous eternal heaven does not make up for the fact that the grandmother who I so resemble in temperment and looks was gone before I could speak. I'm told often that my uncle the engineer would love talking about my research, would be a good person to ask about electronic questions, but in this life I will never know. I can't compare eternity with the present. I only know that in the here and now, what I want is more time with them, what I want is all the time in the world, in this wonderful life.
I hope that V's parents are finding some comfort, however small, in the thought of their daughter in heavenly peace, at the possibility of reunion someday. I hope and pray against all reason that some sort of grace is real, that we will not be parted forever from those we love. But I ache because for me-and I fear for them-at this time, it is not enough. It seems that throughout life you accumulate loss after loss. They add up, year after year. It seems so unfair that a 16 year old is one of them. That her parents have to bury their child. That her friends have to navigate sixteen, an awful and exhilarting time, with one more burden and one less shoulder to cry on. I think about everything I've experienced and learned and done since I was sixteen, about how even though there are awful and terrible times, on the balance life is rich and sweet. What breaks my heart is that V had such a short time to take it all in.

Happy New Year!

Christmas and the holidays have come and gone. I made an uneventful and wonderful trip to Ohio for Christmas. Got to see family and snow, ate way too much. It was a literary and culinary christmas for me, as my presents were almost all books or cooking gear. Wouldn't have it any other way. I got to see some old friends I hadn't seen in a while, which was wonderful.
Now I'm back in my southern home, which is way colder than I would prefer. A nasty sinus infection kept me from doing much celebrating for the new year, but I enjoyed taking nyqil and falling asleep by 10

2010 is an interesting year, or I hope it will be. Barring disaster, I should graduate this year, and I will probably be leaving birmingham if not by the end of the year, then early in 2011. And so instead of feeling the eager newness of the year, it feels like a slow unraveling, the beginning of an ending. It is strange to look at the next twelve months knowing the changes that will occur, and seeing how much I have to do to make sure that end up in the best possible position. They should be good changes, but it's still a little overwhelming. And as eager as I am to leave Birmingham, it is still the place I have called home for the past five years. I'll be leaving behind friends and memories, and that is bittersweet.
So here's to a new year-may it be an adventure:)

Winter Braising

In honor of the first/probably only snowfall of winter, I made a hearty dinner full of braised foods. It was delicious. Braising is underrated as a cooking technique, I think. It's easy-you sear meat or vegetables on high heat, then cook over low heat in liquid pretty much indefinately. It's also an easy way to experiment with flavors and making up your own recipes-once you know the basic timing for braising a particular meat, it's hard to mess up. Plus, meats that you braise are usually the cheaper, tougher cuts, so if you do mess it up, it isn't as big a deal as say, messing up filet mignon.
Tonight's adventure included Smitten Kitchen's Braised balsamic brussels sprouts with pancetta and cider braised pork chops with raisins and cranberries, a recipe I made up as I went along. I'm not good at writing recipes, but I wrote it out below the pictures of my culinary adventure.


Figure 1: Counterspace fail. This is the sum total of counter space in my apartment.


Shallots, in various stages of undress


My sister made me an apron for my birthday. My sister is 24.


Breadcrumbs, toasted until golden brown and then for about three minutes longer. oops.


VERY IMPORTANT. When you use a cast iron skillet, cover the handle, or you will grab it and burn your hand 2350832 times. Burns across the palms of your hand=the suck.


Steaming sprouts



Braising pork chops


The finished product!

Cider Braised Pork Chops
4 bone-in center cut pork chops
3 Tbsp butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
1 12-oz bottle hard cider (I used woodchuck)
1/2 cup chicken broth or stock
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried cranberries
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Season pork with salt and pepper. Melt 2 tbsp of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sear pork until browned on both sides, about 3 minutes/side. Remove pork from pan, place on plate, and cover with foil. Add remaining tablespoon of butter to pan and melt. Add shallots and garlic, cook until soft and lightly browned. Add cider and broth to deglaze pan. Turn heat down to medium-low, return pork to pan and add fruit. Allow to simmer until pork is tender, 20-30 minutes. Remove pork from pan. Turn heat up to high, add apple cider vinegar to pan. Cook 3-5 minutes, or until sauce thickens. Serve pork topped with sauce and fruit.

springs

I am not doing well at sitting still today.