I've been waiting all this time to be something I can't define

 Finally, I am moved in to an acceptable degree. I slept on the couch in my apartment last night, despite the Seegers' offer to stay at their place (since the bed I was supposed to have in my room had disappeared). I remembered at the last minute that I had done the incredibly irresponsible thing of leaving a candle burning when I left. The supposedly soothing smell was apparently not enough to make me remember that it was burning in the first place. I'm not particularly good at uprooting myself and settling into a new place, so the past two days have been a little stressful. I still haven't gotten adequate groceries, but I'm supplied with the necessities (milk, cereal, cheese, tomatoes, rice, chicken sausage, tea, and beer) until tomorrow. 

People here do seem to be friendlier; the guy in front of me at the grocery store struck up a conversation about the Dogfish Head I was buying. Hopefully that trend will extend to the students I meet and actually have to interact with on a regular basis. 

I was kind of down this morning, not having a bed, not knowing anyone in Ithaca, etc., so I used a Borders gift card I had to splurge and buy the first season of 30 Rock on DVD and Along for the Ride. I think both of these things will make me feel immensely better when I really need it (it's nice to have a reserve of things that you know will buoy you up). I didn't bring any books with me, partially because I'm a complete disaster and couldn't handle the thought of picking and choosing books to bring because it would make moving seem more real, and partially because I just didn't have room in my car (my car!). 

Tomorrow will be devoted to decidedly not stressing and finding something to make my closet smell less like thrift store (cedar bits? febreeze? lavender?). 

 I've been very into pesto for the past couple of weeks, probably because we have a lot of basil (that I grew from seeds!). Since we lost some tomatoes to the blight there's only so much tomato and basil salad we can have. My two most creative pesto uses were savory french toast with parmesan and pesto and a grilled cheese sandwich with halloumi and pesto. 

The savory french toast came out of a need for something breakfasty that wasn't too sweet. If I eat french toast with syrup for breakfast I will, without fail, need a nap afterward. So I scrounged around and found a nice dinner roll (left over from Cory's turkey burger spree) and did the usual soaking in egg and milk thing with salt and pepper instead of cinnamon. When the two slices I made were basically wholly cooked I sprinkled some grated parmesan on them in the pan and let them finish. After stacking the slices on my plate I spread a nice schmear of pesto on top. I don't know if I'll ever go back to sweet french toast for breakfast. 

 Everything is a mess because Cory has moved home and I'm in the process of moving out. I've been going through all my stuff (which is unfortunately scattered everywhere) and found some interesting things.

-A booklet my class made in 2nd grade of what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wanted to be a ballerina and a carpenter, live in Germany, and build my own house. I went into surprising detail about what kind of gazebo I wanted in the yard. Other highlights include a kid who wanted to have only one child and who would hold it when it was old enough "about 2 months old," and another kid who wanted to be a dentist (because it was the best of the options his mother offered him of lawyer, dentist, or architect). 

-The card Lucy wrote me for my 18th birthday, back when she was an innocent. Also the huge photo of her face she gave me to put on my wall in my first dorm room.

-Transcripts of the Clinton impeachment trials, which I apparently printed out and though it important to file under I, for impeachment. 

-All of my ERB scores, my journal from 2nd grade (my handwriting was a lot worse and I wrote "I hate ______" with surprising frequency), and a lot of book reports, etc, that I saved. 

It's sort of odd that I took it upon myself to curate all my work and paper ephemera, pretty much from 2nd grade on, in an alphabetized hanging folders in a file cabinet. My love of organization goes way back (too far back?). I also had to finally part with notes I saved from high school, which was easier to do once I convinced myself that if I wanted to re-learn C++ (I can't imagine why) that I would not do it from notes I took 9 years ago. Despite all I threw away/recycled, I still managed to fill a huge bin with stuff. It's labeled PERRI'S PAPERS on 2 sides and the top for easy identification. Cory's bins so far are labeled KITCHEN SHIT and KITCHEN SHIT [FRAGILE]. We will never live together. 

To Do on a rainy day at the Cape:

-do Tuesday xword puzzle in pen
-wash all windows
-scrape and sand the bathroom to ready it for a new coat of mildew-resistant paint (I feel entirely responsible for the not-so-great idea of painting the area above the trim like sky and the area below like sand. Now that it's flaking off and molding I have a good excuse to paint over it).
-get dressed?

After accidentally eating a large portion of ice cream mid-afternoon (I took the kids I was babysitting out to get ice cream and walk along the river, they were going to sit around inside otherwise) salad with lettuce from the garden is amazing. 

The weekend at Cape Cod was great (albeit too short and a bit too rainy one day) and now I'm itching to get back up there at the end of July. I have two weeks of hard work to do up in Ithaca before then, so I'll feel like I deserve it more. I managed to get hired as a TA for the field school that will be going on while I'm up there participating in the survey of the same site. Hopefully I will come out of it with a better idea of what I would like to write my thesis on, and maybe with some data. I am a bit amazed that I will get paid to be up there and I feel incredibly lucky because I was expecting to be losing money for the opportunity (although the Seegers have graciously agreed to let me stay at their house). I may have to drive a van to and from the site every day, but I'm ok with that.

I only got to sail once last weekend at the Cape (good job Taty for your first time doing things on a sail boat!) and now all I can think about is going out on the water again. The sound of the water behind the boat when sailing before the wind down the bay is just one of those fantastic things that I would hate to live without (also: outdoor showers, one of life's great joys).

In an attempt to motivate myself to read my future advisor's PhD thesis (which relates to the site I'll hopefully be working at) I've been reading this. I don't know how much it actually has helped, but I've been aided in my procrastination. I did really like this:

"Walking and talking are two very great pleasures, but it is a mistake to combine them. Our own noise blots out the sounds and silences of the outdoor world; and talking leads almost inevitably to smoking, and then farewell to nature as far as one of our senses is concerned. The only friend to walk with is one (such as I found, during the holidays, in Arthur) who so exactly shares your taste for each mood of the countryside that a glance, a halt, or at most a nudge, is enough to assure us that the pleasure is shared."  C.S. Lewis

I think it also applies to walking around museums (oops, my introvert is showing).

Things I want to make this week:

French Onion Soup
Pa Jun (with crab instead of shrimp)
Cheese-stuffed potatoes with yogurt-spice paste and sesame seed crust (from bon appetit)

I might save the potatoes for Cape Cod next weekend.

Eating yogurt for breakfast always makes me feel especially virtuous in a way that a bowl of cereal with milk does not. Even with granola, raspberries, and honey it makes me feel as though I've somehow started off the day properly. Breakfast is one of those things I (almost) never go without. Even if I'm running late or feeling lazy or a bit hungover, I will eat something. Sophomore year was the year of Cheerios. Junior year I mostly ate granola with yogurt, raisins, and honey. Senior year I was much more likely to have a morning cup of tea, even if it was decaf, no matter what I ate. When I was working outside all day in Colorado, especially as it got colder, I ate a lot of oatmeal because nothing else would keep me full until lunchtime.

While finding that someone has eaten all of my cereal can put me in a bad mood for the morning, eating a "proper" breakfast usually makes me feel rather cheerful. Lucky for me I'm home alone with the dogs this week, so no one will be stealing my cereal. I am hoping it doesn't keep raining/thundering though--being alone with the dogs means that I am the one they will wake up when they freak out and I will be the one who has to wash all the bathmats when Tallulah pees on them.

I got a second job for June in order to supplement my dog-walking (which is nice and all, but only goes a certain way toward my attempts to save as much money as possible for next year). I'll be watching/shuttling around 4 kids between the ages of 8 and 15 between when they get home from school and when their mom or dad gets home, only 2 to 3 hours a day. I'm glad i finally found something to fit in with the dog walking, even if it means I don't have whole afternoons to take care of things in the garden or work on projects (still have a few more things to spray with rustoleum.....)

Next Friday I'm taking off for a week and a half with my grandmother to go see paleolithic cave paintings in France. I'm glad I'll get to see some of these places before they're completely taken over by mold and whatever other stuff has been encouraged to grow by the changes in temperature in humidity since the caves have been opened. I am also excited to eat French food, stay at a hotel with its own vegetable garden, make a stopover in London and go to the National Gallery, take tons of photos (three new memory cards for my camera, I am so set), and to see Alice relax a little bit. Since I'm usually too picky about taking pictures, and end up not taking enough, maybe I'll set myself a daily picture quota.

Moving to Ithaca is becoming a bit more real; I'm going up this weekend with my mom to look at a few places and meet people I could possibly be living with. The place I would really really like to live is a room in an older house with two other grad students and a husky-mix. They share an SCA box, the Sunday Times, and they ride bicycles to campus. The other places are nice too, but this one is definitely at the top of my list. I realized that I need to get a cast iron pan before I move up there, otherwise I will not be able to make myself Dutch babies!

I was talking with a friend about avocados today (he had an overripe one that he was contemplating) and he told me about a method he uses for avocados, borrowed from a friend: you "add a disproportionate amount of avocado to a small subsample, mix it up, and taste it." This got me thinking about avocado buttercream, which has neither butter nor cream (good for vegans, I would think). Then I thought, what about avocado buttercream on a Dutch baby?! Then I thought: "I've probably gone too far."

It's like they don't even know me!

"Sleep-deprived people lack reason. They are dark shadows of gloom. They become tetchy and irritable. Everyone seems an idiot, and the world is hostile. One friend says he gets into a sort of murderous rage, and he doesn't realize that his fury is directly caused by his lack of sleep until he finally gets some rest. Sleep is a care-charmer."

It's an excerpt of a book about idle parents, but whatever. I love naps, and i feel bad for those who cannot nap. My friend George was incapable of napping and at the end the semester he always tended to look a little rough because he couldn't fit in the big chunks of sleep he liked.

One of my favorite things about being at the Cape is having the time to drift off for twenty minutes, while lying swathed in a blanket and wearing only a bathing suit, in a hammock. Nothing beats it (and the blanket prevents most of the weird rope marks one gets from sleeping in a hammock in a bathing suit without anything else).

Now that it's nicer I should start bringing my real camera on walks. Somehow the camera phone doesn't seem quite good enough (especially with focusing).

Looking forward to the warm weather this weekend. I have a bunch of gardening to do-- I am not letting the side bed get away from me this year.  Saturday there's an "Earth Day tag sale" at the community center, along with the farmer's market, and on Sunday my grandmother is giving a talk on the history of Palisades. I almost wish I hadn't agreed to schlep boxes of books; I've been meaning to make it to a NY Red Bulls game at some point this spring and that Sunday seemed like a perfect time, until I remembered my prior commitment.

In the story of the ongoing experimentation with Dutch Babies: last night we had a savory dutch baby, along the lines of savory crepes. This was with chicken and sauteed leeks in a creamy sauce and there was a little bit of parmesan in the baby itself (hee hee, parmesan in the baby). It turned out delicious, although it didn't rise quite the same way as it did without cheese. It was more like a pan bread this time.

Ugh, people infuriate me. Last month's Gourmet had an article that was generally about the conditions that migrant workers picking tomatoes in Florida face, and specifically a case in which farmworkers were enslaved by their "employers." They also provided suggestions about how to find tomatoes that are from operations that have been inspected. This article provoked this response from one Clarice F. of Washington D.C.:

"I can't begin to tell you how sick and tired I am of political propaganda that's slipped into every damned magazine. I've virtually canceled most of my subscriptions because off this, and yours will be next if you continue to print stuff like March's tomato-picking story."

First of all, "virtually canceled most of [your] subscriptions?" So you've canceled them online? Canceled them in your mind?

Second of all: Really? REALLY? You find an article highlighting the plight of slaves to be political propaganda?

So I think, who could be this much of a jerk? Who would threaten Gourmet because they occasionally publish articles about where food comes from? Not expecting to find anything, I google the name and city. It turns out that this woman writes articles for Pajamas Media, famed employer of Joe the Plumber and general purveyors of conservative propaganda. Most recently she wrote something titled "ACORN Linked to Illegal Aid for Obama Campaign" (on April 1st! I thought this whole ACORN nonsense was done with).

I wrote a letter to Gourmet, which probably won't be published because they don't seem to go in for that sort of back and forth thing.

"I object to Ms. Feldman’s characterization of Barry Eastbrook’s article as “political propaganda.” The issue of modern day slavery should be a concern of everyone, regardless of their political leanings.  People passionate about food tend to care about where that food came from, as well as the issues surrounding it.  I did not find the article to be politically motivated and think it is interesting that Ms. Feldman, someone who seems to produce a fair amount of partisan writing herself, found it so objectionable as to threaten to cancel her subscription."

Some people are really just jerks.

Anyway, the weather is going to be great tomorrow and Saturday. Today I managed to clear most of the wild grape, brambles, and mysterious strangling vines out of the side bed; tomorrow I'll finish and it will finally not be such an embarrassment. Even though my wrists look like they were viciously attacked by a very upset cat, it's worth it. And my tomato plants (which I grew from seeds!) are looking pretty darn good. I'm working on making up for killing all of the plants I ever tried to have in my dorm rooms.

Today did not start out very well: I had to do an early walk (8:30am), I couldn't get enough hot water to wash my face, and I discovered that organic/healthy versions of honey nut cheerios just don't measure up to the real thing and I should have just gone with granola and yogurt. It was also an unseasonable 37 degrees.

Then I got back to find that Cornell's Archaeology course offerings for the fall are really interesting and I could have a schedule made up of: Faunal Analysis, Dendrchronology, Environmental Archaeology, and Historical Archaeology of Indigenous Peoples. I have always wanted to take a faunal analysis course. I thought about deferring for a year so that I could be reconsidered for funding, but it sounds like getting funding will be just as difficult next year, and if I get started now I can work on applying for an NSF research grant which could theoretically carry me over into a PhD program. Being able to get a BA and an MA from two private, well-regarded colleges with less than $15,000 in debt still makes me luckier than a lot of people.

Second good mood inducer: salami on ciabatta with pea-shoots and tomatoes for lunch!

Third good mood inducer: I get to deposit my first paycheck today. Not much, but something.

I read Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running this weekend, and really enjoyed it. In some ways there's something incredibly practical in the way he goes about things, but it's not always 'normal' practicality. It's the same quality that I often appreciate in his protagonists. While I will probably never be as dedicated a runner as he is, and definitely not in the distances he runs, I loved reading his thoughts. It also made me a little ashamed of how easily I have been dissuaded from running recently (it's too rainy, I have a cold, what if I run into the panthers?, I already walked a bunch of miles today, etc.). Maybe I'll have an epiphany when I'm around 30, like Murakami did, and start running almost every day. Maybe not. 

This is one of my favorite sections from the book, partly because it's not applicable solely to running:

"Even if, seen from the outside, or from some higher vantage point, this sort of life looks pointless and futile, or even extremely inefficient, it doesn't bother me. Maybe it's some pointless act like, as I've said before, pouring water into an old pan that has a hole in the bottom, but at least the effort you put into it remains. Whether it's good for anything or not, cool or totally uncool, in the final analysis what's most important is what you can't see but can feel in your heart. To be able to grasp something of value, sometimes you have to perform seemingly inefficient acts. But even activities that appear fruitless don't necessarily end up so" (Murakami 172).

There's one section where he describes running along the Charles in Cambridge and being passed by energetic blonde undergrads wearing Harvard sweatshirts who are clearly middle distance (rather than long distance) runners. When I read that I thought of how that could have been me, albeit in Morningside Park and wearing the sweatshirt of a different school.

I guess for today, since I have a nasty cold and it's miserable and rainy, I'll settle for going on four half-hour dog walks.

I have had this song stuck in my head all day. It's a dangerous thing to find yourself almost singing in public.

I have been wanting to make a Dutch baby for a while now, at least in part because it's fun to say: "I'm eating a Dutch baby." It also looked and sounded delicious. I have no photos of the Dutch baby I made because it got eaten before I got the chance to photograph it's glorious, puffy, golden goodness. In addition to the lemon sugar we also had some fruit to go with it (canned plums, frozen peaches, and some frozen cherries simmered in some of the plum juice and orange juice). I had this for dessert, but with fruit it would be really good for breakfast too. Kind of like easier crepes or pancakes (easier because you don't have to stand there and flip anything, it just goes in the oven)

Dutch Baby with Lemon Sugar (from Gourmet)
1/3 c sugar
2 tsp grated lemon zest
3 large eggs at room temperature 30 minutes
2/3 c whole milk at room temperature
2/3 c all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces

equipment: 10 inch cast iron skillet

-put skillet on middle rack of oven and preheat until 450 F
-stir together sugar and zest in a small bowl
-beat eggs with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and frothy, then beat in milk, flour, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt and continue to beat until smooth, about one minute more (batter will be thin).
-add butter to hot skillet and melt, swirling to coat. Add batter and immediately return skillet to oven. Bake until puffed and golden brown, 18-25 minutes. (We have a convection oven and it took only 17)
-serve immediately, topped with lemon sugar.

I will definitely make this again. So easy (and kind of impressive looking)!

...and countdown to food coma