tarragon and triscuits

I am bored, bored, bored. My life – I mean my laptop – is sitting in my apartment lazing around, doing nothing. At least I have my chocolate chip cookies with me. When one is in a boring job, it’s surprising how much more interesting food becomes. Free time becomes inexplicably tied to food: lunch is time to yourself where you don’t have to do work (and I don’t get paid for my lunch hour here anyway), celebrations like birthdays always revolve around cake rather than the person whose birthday it is, people gather around a box of cookies someone has brought in. I look forward to my lunch breaks because I can write email with nobody looking over my shoulder making sure I’m working 100% of the day (who works 100% of the day? Your mind can only really concentrate in 20-minute blocks anyway). Of course, that says something about the quality of the job if lunch is the high point of the day.

I have been successful thus far in my quest to bring my lunch all the time. Yesterday I had dinner with two other interns in Hyde Park, at this Thai restaurant called Snail. It was pretty good, and pretty cheap, although (sorry Jazmin) I’ve had far better Thai food in Boston. I had some pork shumai that were good – I really want to have dim sum soon, it’s been far too long – and drunken noodles. Thai basil has to be my favorite herb. This is probably a result of stereotypes, but to me, it’s the ultimate Asian herb in that I smell it and think of Asia. Its flavor profile is just “Asia” – exotic in a way that’s distinctly un-European. Now that I think of it, one of my favorite “regular” herbs is tarragon. But I hate licorice. Go figure.

I just finished The Making of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman last week. I have such trouble finding good food books (Salt by Mark Kurlansky comes to mind in the realm of extra-dry writing) and I was thrilled to find that this one was superb. It made me want to go to culinary school, despite the masochistic class schedule. However, I’m convinced that nothing is more masochistic than MIT, or at least architecture studios. I figure I’d be set on the masochism, but probably not the talent sector. I think I’d be content to tinker around with food at home, or run a bakery-café-that’s-open-late. Perhaps it’s just that my ambition has currently been diverted towards architecture. I suppose we’ll know in ten years.

(Sorry, no triscuits. I needed the alliteration.)