what i've been eating

I've been doing a fair amount of cooking since I got here, trying to get back in the groove of making most of my own meals after stress, laziness, and oh yeah, my thesis, totally obliterated that habit last fall.

First up is a pasta salad made with homemade pesto (basil purchased from an organic farmer here in town), Dreamfields pasta, veggies and chicken. As an aside, the pasta tasted just like normal white pasta does, to me, but allegedly has far less "digestible carbohydrate." There aren't too many reports on the actual GI of this stuff. I enjoyed it, but can't say for sure if it meets its claims.

Here is the pesto:



Here are the veggies (broccoli, yellow pepper, zucchini, sundried tomatoes), waiting for their chicken, pasta and pesto friends to join them:



And here is the finished product, which I ate for a million days straight:



Next up is an adaptation of Mollie Katzen's Green Beans and Tofu with Crunchy Thai Peanut Sauce which I adore and first made my senior year of college, lo these many years ago. I wasn't feeling the tofu, so I marinated 3 chicken breasts in soy, garlic powder, fresh ginger, some oil and some Splenda.

First you make the peanut stuff, which I make with peanuts, lime juice and zest. Process until coarse. You add this to some sauteed fresh garlic and ginger and end up with this:



Then I browned the chicken, removed it from the pan, and stir fried the green beans (I used frozen from Trader Joe's, but this is simply divine with fresh):



Combine everything and you end up with this:



..which I also ate for a million days.

well, hello

I've survived my first week of work. It was a pretty easy one, as my boss and mini-boss are trying to make sure we're well-rested, prepared, and underwhelmed by the time August (and 21 straight working days) hits. I am still enamored with the school and its leadership and my department, but I don't think I really adequately prepared myself for the transition from Tucson to small town, rural conservative Midwest (though I've lived "there" but not "here," before, if that makes sense) and from tight-knit similarly minded community to...not so much. To say I've been surprised by some of the things I've heard and seen is an understatement. My boss more than adequately labeled it culture shock and it is, of course, compounded by the other transitions in my life and possibly more so, the fact that I don't quite have "home" yet due to my apartment not being ready until the end of the month.

However, because I need to get over my culture shock at some point or another, I've decided to actively embrace some of the..benefits? quirks? of small town living and thus, I will be entering AT LEAST one recipe in the upcoming county fair competitions, providing I can figure out how to do that. Information on the Internet is woefully absent in these parts, so I am going to have to make an actual phone call (holy cow!) to the office that coordinates these things. I'm thinking that if there's a cookie competition, those ridiculously bad for you chocolate oatmeal caramel bars are definitely on the docket.

I may also repeat my Tucson culinary tour in a slightly different way--there are probably a dozen little local restaurants in this town, none of them terribly good, but I may as well make some kind of goal of getting to know them all, for the sake of something to do and for when guests come (COME VISIT. PLS. BRING CACTI. AND SPOTTED COW. AND GOOD MEXICAN FOOD.). Bring on the spreadsheet, baby!

I've also started running again because, well, it's past time for me to do something nice for my body and mental health on a regular basis, having taken the last year and change off from any type of regular training and exercise. There are some truly excellent places to run around these parts (where the sun doesn't burn your flesh, either!) and I've been enjoying those in the morning.

Um, this is starting to sound like a "What I Did With My Summer" post in a weird sort of way, so...T-Rex out!

happy independence day

just turn the corner, the stars are packing up mercilessly.
and i'm staring up at the bombs bursting in air
and i'm pondering the reverance for the ramparts red glare
and i'm wondering how relevant ramparts are
cause divided we stand and together we're falling
on this fourth of july in denver,
i proudly hail the twilight's last gleaming
as i stand sadly white skinned in the perilous beaming
embarrassed and ashamed at what my people have been doing
a progeny of hostages, chattelry grooming
like cattle, like the trade block, like death row
men lined up for their last independence meal
their last independence meal.
it's the fourth of july in denver
and the sky is bursting
the sky is bursting.
--excerpted from "Independence Meal" by Alix Olson

A truck adorned with two confederate flags flying behind it sped through campus the other day. When I relayed this and other stories of my first week back in the Midwest to my father on the telephone, he told me he guessed that I'm now back in "normal America." I told him "normal America" scares me. That's all I really have to say right now on this, the 4th of July.