good eats

I know that some of you actually do work and live in on university campuses so this post will probably be yak inducing, but please, humor me for a few minutes anyway.

S, while not having a live in position, does work for a university. She, like all of the faculty and staff there get paid once a month. This is not usually a problem for us because I get paid weekly, so there aren’t huge gaps of time where we’re without cash flow. The same can not be said about other friends who don’t have alternate partner income to rely on, and so the last week of the month can be somewhat tight financially.

The university that S works at has two campuses. One is downtown, and I think, mostly commuter students go there, but there is also shuttle service to the other campus, which is mostly live-in, and about 30 minutes away from the city. It is where all the athletic buildings are, and residence halls, and typically looks like a college campus. S spends one day a week on this other campus, and often goes out there for events in the evenings. One night last week one of her students, a performance major, had his junior piano recital, and we went to show some support. We had decided to have dinner with our friend A, who works/lives on campus, but being that it was the end of the month, knew we were going to get some cheap eats.

Imagine our surprise when we got there and A said “Lets get some dinner -on me!” A took us to eat dinner at the dining hall. I hadn’t eaten dining hall food in over….12 or so years. I remember that my last encounter with dining hall food made me take up vegetarianism for about 3 years – I was game, but not really expecting anything wonderful, and I knew that worst case scenario I could always get a pb&j sandwich.

I was totally impressed with the offerings available. It seemed like it was “Thanksgiving” that evening, with roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and sauteed green beans. All in small sized pans. No steam baths. Home made style. It was really really good. I believe it is part of the “Real Food on Campus” campaign, and it was great. In addition to the holiday like deliciousness, there was a dessert bar, and a pasta bar and a HUGE salad bar. Of course I had some jello for dessert, just for old times sake. But seriously. It was a relatively healthy (more beans, less stuffing) dinner, it was “free” (and even if we had to pay for it, it costs $8 for the whole meal) and the best part – I didn’t have to do any dishes.

My request to S? Next job? Live in…please!!!!!

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daily rumination

I’m trying to pinpoint exactly when it ceased to be that everything I owned could fit in my car.

I’m also trying to figure out when packing to go away changed from throwing some stuff into a knapsack and turned into making lists and deciding which/how many pairs of shoes were absolutely necessary.

who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?

Sweets are not really something that S and I keep in the house on a regular basis. If we’re in the mood for ice cream one night, we buy it, eat our one serving, and then it sits in the freezer growing ice crystals till we remember we have it – about 3-4 weeks later.  As much as I love CAKE (and what’s not to love about cake?) I don’t really like pre-made mixes, or grocery store cakes.  So when I want cake badly enough, I’ll make it myself, or venture out to Two Fat Cats bakery for some of their delicious cupcakes. 

I do have a not so secret love for Lazzaroni Amaretti Cookies,  which are crisp and sweet and lovely.  They are not exactly easy to come by either. They are found (here, anyway, where the Italian population isn’t exactly huge) in one specialty shop and they’re not cheap. Though they do come in a delightful metal tin that is very re-useable.  We usually buy a tin every 4 months or so – and like ice cream, I forget that we have them, until I want one, and then (they have a low moisture content and it is dry here – they last forever) I blissfully enjoy one of the pink or blue packages. 

Well, a few weeks ago we bought a tin of these cookies, and I had a few that day, but then they sat in the tin in the kitchen, pretty much untouched. Or so I thought.  Yesterday, when I went to get a cookie for dessert, there was only 1 measly pink wrapped package (they come in 2’s) in the tin!!!!

The following conversation ensued:

j:  “You ate all the cookies!!!???!!” 

S: “No, I didn’t.”

j: “There’s only one cookie left!”

S: “See, I told you I didn’t eat them all. I left you some.”

j: “If by some you mean one little cookie!!”

S: “They come in two’s. I left you some.”

j: “I can’t believe you ate all the cookies!”

S: “I didn’t. Besides, I had too, they were going to go stale.”

j: “S! They don’t go stale!!! You ate all the cookies”

S: “Are you enjoying a cookie right now? Hence I didn’t eat them all. See?”

j: “Harmuph. You’re the Cookie Monster!!!”

S: “Rawwwr.”

 

Macabre talk

For as long as we’ve been together, S and I have been pretty big fans of the show CSI. We own a lot of the seasons on DVD, and often watch our favorite episodes (our favorites are the ones that have Lady Heather in them) over and over.

Sometimes, when we watch, we’ll say sweet little things to each other like, “honey, please don’t kill me, and then shove me into a trunk, and when my whole body doesn’t fit, please don’t chop my head off,” or “love, please don’t shoot me and then leave me to die in the woods where wild animals will eat me.” Lovelyl conversations, I know, but whatever, they seem to pop out of our mouth when we figure out what the whole story is.

With the advent of our few cable tv channels, this type of conversation has escalated a bit, being as one of the networks (Oxygen) seems to devote itself to hour long shows about women who kill their husbands/partners. After watching yet another commercial for one of these shows, I said to S, “please don’t hack me up in the living room and then put me in the dryer.” She responded, “I probably wouldn’t do it that way – that sounds really messy.” To which I replied “oh yeah, we’ve already ascertained that you’re not so good at the cleaning thing.”

She said, “exactly. I’ll have to find a neater way.”

Suhweet.

self satisfaction

The tell tale ring of orange dirt around my ankles that says “I’ve been playing softball” means one thing: Spring really is here.

Today was my first practice and I had a ton of fun. The weather was beautiful and it was awesome to be outside. I’m better in the field than I remembered, and all of the practice swings I’ve taken at the cages over the last few weeks well – besides getting my swing back – were kind of pointles, only because this is a slow pitch, high arcing type league, and I’ve never hit that kind of pitch before. I guess I’m just going to have to learn patience (ha) and wait for the pitch to actually reach me.

Also, for whatever reason, I was really missing my dad today. I decided to channel my inner Sicilian man and made one of his favorite easy dinners, sausage and peppers. I even threw on a Guinea T and boxer shorts while cooking to make it “more authentic” – in my head, anyway. And it was delicious. When I was a kid he would make this meal and serve it with pasta and crusty bread, and I remember digging out the inside of the pieces of bread and making little spaghetti, sausage and pepper sandwiches. It was as delicious tonight as it was all those years ago.

duuuuude

Happy 4/20 ya’ll.

What can I say. Once a stoner……

it feels like years since it’s been here

This morning it was really hard for me to hide my smile when I peeked out the window at the glorious sunshine coming back in through the rain stained glass. I think, for real this time, that the spring has sprung here in New England, and I’m hoping that we can put heavy coats, gloves, and window scrapers away for the season.

If you were not already aware, earlier this week, we celebrated (well, Maine and Mass, anyway) the big “Patriot’s Day Nor’easter.”  Thank goodness the storm of the century fell on a holiday, because otherwise, all of the news outfits wouldn’t have had anything clever to call it!  In all seriousness, the storm was pretty horrible, with HUGE trees ripped from the earth and deposited on their sides like fallen dominoes are everywhere, and there are STILL people in the city without power.  S and I were lucky, we only lost power for an instant (and I wasn’t home for it,) and had a tiny bit of water coming into our dining room through the window, which S cleverly rigged cups to catch.  You almost can’t blame the house for letting some water in either, it was an onslaught that lasted for almost 4 days.  Pretty powerful and incredible stuff, I tell you.

I will admit that admiring the wrath of mother nature has once again put me in that place of both wonderment and fear, and reminds me that our efforts to keep things in balance by being good to “her,” are vital to our existence.

Yep. Consider that my pre-Earth day, Earth day post. Happy Thursday.