staying awake

i think i may have figured out why i fall asleep in class : i fall asleep when i'm hungry. weird, huh? i guess my body decides to shut down or something.

i don't have too many food recountings to recount this week, sadly. sometimes i lose track of time because every day i just do work for 15-20 hours and the rest of the hours i sleep. makes for a very uniform type of existence. oddly enough, i never really get stressed out, because it all works out in the end (just repeat it over and over to yourself). anyway, the food : carrie and i made what was probably tex-mex on monday, i think it was. or maybe it was another day. it was sometime last week. i found the avocadoes we'd gotten from boston organics in the back of the fridge and we decided we needed to eat them, but not cold, because it was cold outside. we ended up with chicken braised in broth and tomatoes, with sauteed onions, corn, and the avocadoes diced and mixed in for good measure. oh, and there was some cumin in there too, which went well. to go with it, we made some rice, which is probably the first time i've successfully made rice in a pot. weird, huh? at lmf we had the rice cooker, and at home my mom always made it, so i've always been able to avoid the mess that is overdone/burned rice. at any rate, tex-mex or not, it was quite good, and there was enough of it (my tendency to overestimate amounts kicked in) to feed us for a couple more days.

probably the only other notable food experience of the week was grendel's, yesterday. grendel's is probably the closest thing to the bun shop at cambridge university, which is the ultimate college pub. or, pub in general, really. besides, you can't really get better than "the bun shop" for names. grendel's doesn't have food that's as good, but it is cheap. what makes it good, of course, is going with your next-door neighbors and other random people, and having some fun after spending the entire day alone in studio. i like to work in studio when it's quiet, but not really alone because it's such a big room. and i feel like i'm doing something wrong by coming in when nobody else is there.

but this is a food blog! food, food, food. i'd like to cook again sometime soon. i do love my knives. this is something that i think i say far too often, but they really are so wonderful... i could do anything (to food!) with them... hmm, if i could cook right now, i would make...chicken pot pie. well, it's not really cold enough outside for chicken pot pie. but what i'd really like to make is some sort of really involved dealio that's really horrible for you. something chocolate, that involves real mousse made with egg whites, and also fruit. god. do you ever just get the yen to make a ten-course meal? here's what i'd make:

ode to food, 31 october 2005

(i) some sort of fruit salad-y type thing. poached pears with cheese?
(1) potato-leek soup with bacon
(2) salad greens with pears and toasted pecans
(3) risotto with red bell peppers
(4) chicken pot pie with caramelized onions, peas, corn, and carrots
(5) tomato-smoked eggplant salad with balsamic vinegar and mozzarella
(6) spinach-onion-yogurt persian thing with toasted pita (borani es fanaaj? that's not right...)
(7) cheese course (things like taleggio, brie, and blue cheese, with honey and apples)
(8) oatmeal tuiles with strawberries and whipped cream
(9) caramel fondue
(10) complicated chocolate-mousse-fruit confection...