26 February 2012

17 Steps to Having a Great Sunday Afternoon

1. Turn on the Joy the Baker podcast.
2. Be grateful for the unspoken, yet obvious, observations gleaned from listening to Joy the Baker, e.g., That Guys Don't Ask Girls Out Anymore (Joy the Baker podcast #38). Thank you, Joy and Tracy. Someone had to say it.
3. Destroy half of an old loaf of rosemary sourdough bread, e.g., turn it into breadcrumbs.
4. Toast the breadcrumbs in a 350 degree oven.
5. Notice very old bananas in fruit basket.
6. Whip up a batch of chocolate chip banana bread.
6 1/2. Contemplate whether "chocolate chip" should be hyphenated.
7. Become suddenly ravenous at the most inopportune time to become ravenous: 4:00 pm.
8. Notice stalk of brussel sprouts. Legit brussels sprouts, still on the stalk.


9. Annoy cat with said brussel sprout stalk.
10. Break out your new All-Clad pans you got at a screaming Williams-Sonoma sale by frying brussel sprouts in butter. Do not attempt to fry sprouts in olive oil or any low-fat alternatives. They are stupid.


11. Boil shrimps (the correct plural usage of "shrimp"). Take shells and leggys off shrimps. Add to pan.


12. Add leftover whole wheat penne pasta for quick fry-up.
12 1/4. Contemplate whether "whole wheat" should be hyphenated.
12 1/2. This leads to contemplations over all of life's many mysteries.


13. 4:15 pm. Eat.
14. 4:20 pm. Commend yourself for being so spontaneously brilliant in the kitchen.
15. Take a brief moment from your strenuous afternoon of being so brilliant by enjoying a cuppa of black currant tea and a slice (or two) of your banana bread.


16. Attempt to work on homework before the evening's cooking spree involving sourdough breadcrumbs (see steps #3 and #4) begins.
17. Steps to having a Great Sunday Evening to follow.



21 February 2012

"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

I believe in bettering oneself. 
I believe that memorizing poetry is an exceptional method for bettering oneself. 
Therefore, I memorize poetry.

     Or so I've begun to. I can't help myself--Whitman, Tennyson, and Keats (always Keats, always) have had my heart lately.
     I don't know what it is about Walt Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", and in particular, this section below, that gets me so. It must be something to do with the grandiose way Whitman idolizes New York: All boroughs, all citizens, all hills, all towers--not a thing is beyond him to love. Or how, in section 8, he veers away from his proclamations of love for the city to humanly love: 
deep, meaningful, undeniable love. 
Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" (1856)

Lines 93-100 are what most goad me. If the text is unclear to you, it reads: 

What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and 
         with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my
         nighest name as I approach? 
What is more subtle than this which ties to me to the woman or
         man that looks in my face? 
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?

We understand then, do we not?
What I promis'd without mentioning it, have you not accepted? 
What the study could not teach--what the preaching could
          not accomplish is accomplish'd, is it not? 

Le sigh!

20 February 2012

afternoon




Chopping vegetables in like a salve for your brain. The methodic movements calm nerves and create plenty of safe space in one's head for sorting out the day's emotions. Thus my Sunday afternoon. I made this spiced chicken soup with chickpeas a few months ago and have been thinking about it ever since. Thoughts of this soup haunted my one o'clock literary history class. No more, for I have enough to last for a week's worth of lunches. Pair it with a loaf of crusty rosemary sourdough and you've got yourself warmth and comfort in a bowl.

Need something edgier? Did that afternoon nap you took erase pent-up stress of all the weekends homework you're sure to leave to the last second? Make dark chocolate lava cakes to share with friends while gripping each other in girlish-fashion at the conclusion of Downton Abbey.

Finally, the Valentine my sister made me. She's alright.

02 February 2012

breakfast



This was what breakfast looked like today. Or maybe it was lunch...

cozy snow







A pot of tea for an evening of homework at Two Creek.
Patches of snow. Obviously, Susannah. 
Sheesh.
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