All the Food I'm Dreamin' Of...

A list/ode to all the good food that I've been cooking up these past few weeks:

- Veggie clearinghouse soup

- Pressure cooker madness! Chili and potato soup, each in less than 20 minutes

- Pumpkin and squash casserole

- Molasses bread

- Chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies

- Spinach and pea pasta in cream sauce

- Pumpkin oatmeal

- Herb and goat cheese omelettes

- Homemade stovetop granola and yogurt

These delights are not only my procrastination, but my comfort throughout the week. So, readers, what deliciousness have you been dreaming of?

Appreciating Food through Its Politics

I want to lighten it up a little as we enter this week. I've been writing on heavy topics (both on the blog and in my private writing) because it's better to let them out than to keep them rattling around in my head. However, I think we all deserve a good diet of sweet with our bitter, dessert with our vegetables and all that. And perhaps one of the easiest ways to do that is to talk about my love of food.

Bounty

When the food is in the oven, I start taking random pictures.

Here's to a bountiful, relaxing Sunday.

A Feast for the Eyes: Cooking Photographs

This week, I want to give a shout-out to Smitten Kitchen, Joy the Baker, and The Pioneer Woman for being amazing cooking blogs that have provided me with recipes to cook with and the inclination to photograph everything (especially when it comes out deliciously). Take a gander at what I've been making since Christmas Eve.

Here's a list of all the foods I've made/improv'ed in the past few weeks:

Hummus | Pita | Mushroom artichoke pasta | Artichoke olive crostini (mine came out blegh, but yours might be better) | Chicken tikka masala | Cheese grits | Strawberry yogurt parfaits | Pumpkin oatmeal (in our rice cooker!) | Homemade Poptarts | Veggie stew clearinghouse (for all those random leftover veggies) | Spinach artichoke dip | Shrimp and pasta in cream sauce | Chicken and noodles (almost a soup, but the noodles soaked up all the broth - still tasty, though!) | Pesto goat cheese pizza | Cornbread | Black bean barley soup

...stay tuned for more.

All I Want for Xmas...

As you may (or may not) know, I do not celebrate Christmas. Although I could celebrate it in a secular way, the holiday has never really held that much appeal for me. However, I do know that it is a day of great joy and festiveness for a lot of people, thus there's a general good vibe on that day that I like to take part in. I hence resort to other forms of celebrating life as we know it on that day - such as doing ridiculous things or otherwise soaking up the good energy.

This year, I made hummus and pita from scratch in our kitchen and ran out of chickpeas for the mixture just when my hands were good and covered in sticky dough. I was listening to Lupe Fiasco and - after pausing said brilliance - had to flee the apartment in a flour-covered hoodie and barrel down 6 blocks to buy another can of chickpeas and finish the ever-so-important hummus recipe. When the clock struck midnight, I was checking the dough in the refrigerator for the last time before morning and going to bed.

My Christmas present was my father waking me at 8am to say that he'd arrived at my apartment and we spent the morning again covering our hands in sticky dough and trying to figure out the best possible method of making our pita into something that resembled the Middle Eastern variety - because, being Bengali, any bread we try to fry instantly becomes a paratha.

In the end, we walked all over the city, particularly through the barren trees of Central Park and marveled at the quietness. In my apartment, on the streets, in the park... all was hushed. We ate ice cream in the cold. We spent time in whatever way we pleased.

It is in these moments that I feel that living in the moment really takes on meaning. Oftentimes we go about our day on autopilot, moving from one spot to the next with some sort of envisioned end result. But destination mentality distracts us from the small moments that make life a fun and exciting batch of choices. Every moment, we have the ability to look at our situation and recognize its sanctity. Though it may sound obscure when our mornings are filled with pressing meetings and our afternoons are bound by schedules and our nights are too short to catch even a wink of sleep, when the holidays roll around, it's all we think about. I have said it before in many different ways, but here again:

We must invest in ourselves the good energy that comes on holidays everyday. We must bring out joy in the small moments. And we must allow ourselves the capacity to feel all emotions, not just the easy ones, and move through them in our regular lives.

Enjoy your post-holiday relaxation, everyone!

Caught My Eye: Mark Bittman's Opinion Column

Not that I need to plug the great Mark Bittman, of How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian fame, but I recently stumbled upon his opinion column in the New York Times. I must admit, his writing really makes me think about things related to food, culture, and our beliefs about things that I often believe as "commonsense" (but that my anthropology teacher might call hegemony).

Here are two pieces that I recently read and enjoyed:

The piece "Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others" is great if you want to learn about animal cruelty and feel depressed but enlightened.

Check out the "Sustainable Farming Can Feed the World?" piece to learn about the ways that I wish I could change the world.

You may also be interested in reading my post Why Eating Can Make Me Depressed.

DIY Interlude: Improvised Veggie Soup

Last week, I made my first good homemade soup in the company of my significant other, Josh.
Interestingly enough, unlike most of my other creations, it has come without any use of a recipe. Being a baker, I am notoriously addicted to clear and simple recipes to follow (embellishing here and there as I see fit). But it turned out that just combining the key elements (vegetables... beef... kind of a no-brainer) can turn out a fabulous concoction.

The soup above is made with four carrots, four russet potatoes, 1lb. of beef, a small bag of pearl barley, half a small freezer bag of green beans, half a small freezer bag of peas, a box of beef stock, two cups of water, salt, and Johnny's meat seasoning.
Everything was cut into small pieces and we cooked the beef through in a pan and seasoned it before putting it to boil with the potatoes. Once the potatoes were semi-soft, we added the rest of the vegetables, and adjusted the seasoning as necessary. I garnished it with shredded cheddar cheese.

Two problems we found were 1. the barley soaked up the remaining liquid, so we might want to use more broth and/or water next time to make it more soup-like and 2. we needed to reduce the other ingredients to make it soup and not stew.
Next time I want to add tomato paste to add some low-light flavor and give it another added veggie boost.

Check out some more food-related posts.

Why Eating Can Make Me Depressed

I've returned to Barnard on a pretty dreary day, so I feel compelled to open up the week with a pretty dreary post. Yet, as with all dreariness, it's designed to make you think rather bring you further down in the doldrums. So, enjoy.

I consider myself a conscientious eater. I have made peace with my food issues, questioned the food fads put up in the media, and tried to separate eating from body image and make both of those more positive.
Yet I still get caught up on one particular eating paradigm: sustainable eating. This (admittedly very long) article by Michael Pollan opened up that can of worms again for me, the first time having been after I read his book The Omnivore's Dilemma. The article, and his book, tout the mantra "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He goes on to debunk the myths of nutrient-based nutrition and favors whole foods for the reason that they are better both for the farmer and the eater. And I find all that wonderful, interesting, and something that I want to apply to my life - until I reach the grocery store or the restaurant.
Finding whole foods in the grocery store is easy enough if I stick to the right aisles (produce, meat, dairy), but the basic fact is that these foods need preparation. Which means equipment and time. For a college student that doesn't have an oven, that rules out a lot of possibilities. So, heading deep into the center aisles, I began to scour labels and decide what a whole food looks like when industrially prepared. Those foods I found that contained even something that remotely resembled a whole food were extremely expensive. Again, a college budget does not allow for much wiggle room. What I came out with wasn't nearly what Pollan intended when he sat down to write that article.
Thus I came out of the grocery store anxious and somewhat depressed at my gatherings, and with one key question: how can I possibly make sustainable eating work for me? Or for anyone else who has a low-budget and low-time lifestyle?

The answer is two-fold:
1. Giving yourself a darn break. I think sustainable eating has to come in small increments; on the one hand, because American culture hasn't caught on to it, on the other because you can't flip a switch and change your monetary situation, the amount of time you have, or your cultivated eating habits from childhood on up. Pollan presents some good ideas, but self-selecting the parts you can do and setting aside those you can't requires a personal evaluation.
2. Separating self-worth from eating. Thinking about the emotions that came up for me after I left the grocery store, they were very much akin to those I had when I was dieting. Sustainable eating presented an unrealistic set of goals that, when I failed to meet them, caused me to spiral down the ramp of low self-esteem in the exact same way. While this is not to say that sustainable eating is the same thing as dieting or that you do it for the same reasons, but the association between eating habits and self-worth is the same. The only way to make changes without those same negative thoughts is to recognize and recognize that the two are not parallel.
Pollan may include some really good ideas for a fulfilling sustainable eating pattern, but he doesn't address any of the other concerns (money, time, or emotion) surrounding what you put on your plate. It's up to everyone else to fill in those gaps with their own solutions.
What is your take? Should sustainable eating even be put in the same sentence as dieting? Does it exclude people? Should it be the norm? And how would you make it happen if that were your own goal?

You might also be interested in posts about eating at restaurants.

DIY Interlude: Cookie Dough

 

There's not much left in this batch... I wonder who's been eating it all...

As my life has been taken over by theorizing how the body works in society and reading Nabokov, you can imagine that I've been caught up in the cerebral a lot these days.
Yet, whenever I spend too much time reading or working on an essay or doing something academically stimulating, my hands start itching to be used in some other way.
And that's where cookie dough comes in.
Courtesy of this wonderful recipe blog post by Joy the Baker, I have an outlet for my 1. constant need to do something domestic, and 2. leftover Greek yogurt.
Mine is pictured above, but you should definitely try making this recipe for yourself - it's eggless so there's no fear of salmonella and if you use peanut butter instead of yogurt, it becomes a dairy free treat! Enjoy!

Nerd Girl Inc: On a Lighter Note

Ode to Food at A Fancy Restaurant: A Detailed Account of My Dinner
 Bread selection, bread selection, hit the spot just right -
Tomato basil's bright but ciabatta wins the night.
Merry merry start with the ravioli tart, with some sweet cranberry, no pancetta if you please -
Middle, hit the middle, with a tender tender loin,
Mashed potatoes - called puree - with some great and goat-y cheese,
Corn adorns the plate, stewing merrily beside,
A wave of jus, the finest beef, skipping pig with this tide.
Ending off, ending off, oh how I wish it'd never end -
Mango passion in a shot glass leaves impression for the guest,
But sink your teeth into the chocolate and you'll surely be impressed,
By the souffle - light and fluffy - hissing steamy with the cream,
Earl Grey chilled and poured in heavy stream.
Then we're sitting - what is next? - and waiting for some news -
Lo, behold, what about the caramel chews?
I am blushing, truly glowing, with this lovely lovely meal,
What better portions could there be? What surprises they conceal,
And then, as we are leaving, the madeleines just seal the deal.

Today is one of my longest days yet, so this post is coming to you in the margins of my free time. I got up today at 5:40am to go to English sign-ups - Barnard's method of weeding out the meek from the strong in getting their beloved English classes - and now have a full day of work, class, meetings, and Well Woman ahead. Hopefully I won't fall asleep in the middle of it.

If you liked this post, read my writing in strange places reviews.
You may also enjoy reading Why Eating Can Make Me Depressed, or perhaps some more poetry.

Aureole

(Madeleines from the fabulous restaurant Aureole)

Day One: I ask God for hyperboles,
Mixed metaphors, logical adjuncts, plot lines and summaries;
He responds with a idea freeze, a tease, a set of unintelligible characters bleeding out onto the--
Page.

Day Two: We are wise to wonder at the progression of creativity, as we
Tumble back and forth, houseplants in tow,
Baggage in our ears much heavier than under the bus;
Still I lust
For the easy breezy,
The days when words pour forth like passing road signs,
Message out in the blink of an eye,
But I just feel nauseous.

Day Three: Big dirty city presents,
Pigeons screeching on the opposite ledge, a boiling room, few hours of rest, and a
New opportunity for navel gazing.
We watch our doubles stare back at us eye to eye, wall to wall, and get seasickness,
I crave the space to carve words out like stone pillars, like Adonis rising from blank marble--
But sleep deprivation castrates me,
I am half-whole and scrambling,
I worry on pink paper and process my thoughts,
Before slipping into dreamland.

Day Four: When it rains, it ___
Gives me the gift of brief connections,
Teaches me how to stay inside all day,
Astonishes me with the solidarity in windy nights,
And forces me to warm internally.

Day Five: Gratitude on the wings of opportunity;
A morning writer's break, some choking involved,
I string my 'thank you's along for all the small things - summer dresses and handwritten letters,
The independence I feel,
At changing my own skate wheels.

Day Six: I'm full of questions.
Are you a woman or a hockey puck?
Are you going to get her out of dreamland?
Are you going the right direction?
Are you going to try or fail? Try and fail?
I stretch my limbs for purpose and find:
Turkey bacon and three pancakes. A full meal.

Day Seven: Extra vigor with your dessert, ma'am?
Battlefront stance: mow down the competition.
Entry after entry falls to my spray.
I arm myself in gear made for fancier clientele, attack the biting cold with covered hands,
Sink my teeth into each waiting morsel,
Leave no survivors.

Hope you enjoyed this set of Week in Review poems - after novelling for days on end, I felt my prose needed a break!
Also, if you want to visit a more detailed website about the artist Marlene McCarty, here you go.

10,079 words.

Pre-Passionate

So maybe I always knew it would come to this. The timing is perfect, the schedules align... heck, even the technology is cheering. And so it seems to ask me: why not?
If I remember, my New Year's resolutions did not include "exercise more," yet the probability of that is going down and down as I continue to fulfill my first resolution: EAT LESS CRAP!
After reading those articles about how you can fulfill any goal, after changing my schedule to accommodate waking up at 5am and going to bed at 9pm, after realizing that audiobooks can now be bought and downloaded directly from Amazon, and after finally finally understanding that I am uncomfortably overweight, I now have decided - I am going to exercise more.

My decision will progress as follows:
- Wake up at 5am
- Work out for at least 15 minutes [as per the articles: make it so easy that you can't not do it]
- Attend the gym 3 times per week [Sunday, Saturday, Tuesday sounds good]
- Go to yoga [Mondays]
- Look for interesting classes at the gym or articles to keep up
- Download an audiobook and test out its merit
- Repeat for 4 weeks

If I hate it after 4 weeks, then I can scale down. If I love it after 4 weeks, I can scale up. There is no harm in trying, I think. And so, we go!

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.

Drown

I wish I could read more books. I don't have as much time now that school's begun again and I am running around trying to finish things - I probably have to make time, but it's halfway through the first week back and I can't completely handle the adjustment yet.
I got to hang with the chicks and audition people I hadn't even thought about in the middle of class and Crossroads [hooray! fresh meat!]. I somewhat broke my resolution by eating non-fat yogurt vanilla ice cream today, but I justify myself in that I am not eating total crap [lame? probably. but's it's an adjustment] We went back to Sophia's house and that's where this picture is set. Dual top-knots: so cute!

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.

School. That's It.

I wasn't expecting to go to school this morning. I didn't set an alarm, didn't think about my game plan, and didn't fall asleep at 10pm. There was 2 inches of snow on the ground and a gust of it blowing in by the time I fell asleep. But, alas, the morning came and the rain washed the snow into slush. It was time.
The return to school today wasn't altogether bad - I got to get my scholarship stuff done in a timely fashion and I learned a bit of what I should have already known... it was just that my eyes barely stayed open and I was having distinct cravings for unhealthy food. You ever realized that work/stress, when immediate, makes you feel like you're more hungry and tired than you actually are? Trust me, it's no joke.
During yoga today [yay, I finally went back!] I learned that a lot of stress just comes from thought-energy that is being overworked and chewed to death. I don't know if it's possible right now, but I hope that I can turn around my thought process in some way so that I don't worry so much about everything (I am a notorious over-thinker who frets about both past and future *sigh*)
The picture above is somewhat of the visual representation of my frantic nature today - which was only resolved later after realizing that Heathy knows me frighteningly well. [She bought me a large yellow bag filled with random yarn! I must be a little kid who plays with the box more than the items, because I love that big hobo bag. (yes, it's literally called the Slouchy Hobo)]
This means war. A war of present-giving. *epic music*

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.

Happy New Year!

So, it's time to make resolutions and figure out what I'm going to do with my life for the next year! [after returning from the little schindig with Ka-chan, Sophia and the guys].
Photojojo said something really interesting/applicable that I think I am going to inherit. They say that you should focus on ONE resolution - and make it fun! I don't know if my focus is really 'fun' but I am going to choose the first one off my "prototype" list for resolutions as the one I follow most closely. Here it goes.

1. STOP EATING CRAP
There are many reasons for this: one, I don't like eating crap; two, it hurts my stomach to eat so much; and three, it just doesn't help me in my road to healthy living. Therefore, it's time to give it up. No more fast food and lots of lima beans from home for snacks - yippee!
2. Update blog more often
I think that it's good to communicate from the world, and from what Gala Darling puts up, it can be both inspiring and fun. I think that I am going to use my blog as a fashion diary; taking a picture per day of the outfit I am sporting [even the ones of me just in a t-shirt and sweat pants] and deciding whether they are worthy to put up. There are another bunch of ways to involve myself; probably craft project agendas and other things. I think I just need to write about, well, me more. Call it conceited, but I prefer to think of it as 'personal interest.'
3. Finish college blanket before college
This is seriously a no-brainer. It would just be sooo lame to finish it late considering I have half of it done already. Seriously, no duh.
4. Complete Davidson Fellows
It is an insanely difficult process, but I think I will emerge a better writer because of it. Regardless of the money, this challenge will let me write a cohesive portfolio and re-troll The Big Picture 2008 photographs for beauty and greatness. Good luck to me!
5. Produce Speak
This is vastly for me, my pet project. But I think also that the community benefits from these sorts of things. Talking about issues, approaching them in a new way, working our butts off to produce a play that the entire school is involved in [not just the students!] It will be an amazing ride and I won't let anything get in my way.

And thus, my resolutions are set. These aren't really 'resolutions' so much as goals, because I have a clear plan or am in the process of making a clear plan for all of them. There was only one prototype that I took off the list - to exercise more. I think that it will just flop because I always fail that one. I would like to concentrate on what I can do starting today rather than something I'll regret. The others I am going to toy with are: no swearing, use up all magazines/college mail in crafts and projects, make a zine to commemorate high school, keep up with all friends through the mail, learn to sew, watch more movies; less TV, and knit a well-fitting gorgeous sweater.
The theme of this year is to turn over a new leaf, and I am going to sell most of my wardrobe tomorrow and buy some new clothes to baptize this ideal. Hooray! Other than that, college occurs in this year, graduation occurs in this year, working for myself starts this year, and general mayhem and chaos returns in force this year! Let's enjoy it!
Oh, and in case you were wondering, here's the January 1st picture of my outfit - an orange dress I bought in NYC belted with a black shiny thing. The quality might not be too great, but I was experimenting with ISO speeds, flash, and looking down on a subject [hooray new perspectives!] Enjoy.

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.
You can see even more at my DeviantArt.