"The word was a transitive verb, an exclamation, a command, of which an exact English translation is impossible. The closest equivalent probably would be the phrase:

Lighten up!"



I love it. I love Tom Robbins. I love how it looks like it is straight out of the book. I love the direction my life is taking, in spite of all of the uncertainty. I love the people who have stuck around.

Every tattoo has been a marker in my life. Cheers to a new stage :)

Six years before Skinny Legs and All, Ellen Cherry Charles was alive and well in Jitterbug Perfume. I'm thinking a rereading of Skinny Legs and All is next.

Also, Tom Robbins has written a children's book about beer titled B is for Beer. At 128 pages I think I'm going to have to read it, but I'd like all of my favorite authors to stop writing novels for the wee-ones (Neil, that goes for you as well).

As fate would have it, Sunday's beach plans were rained on and instead we decided to go to Heidi's Gasthaus for some German goodness. Sadly, we learned that after that night Heidi's would close. Thank goddess for that rain, because I would have been devastated if I hadn't had weiner schnitzel one last time. We even bought some beer glasses for memories. Heidi's was amazing -- their food was always on point and their staff was always friendly. I will deeply miss it, and now I really need to eat at all of my Miami favorites just in case they close too.

In any case, in fourteen days I will be eating weiner schnitzel in Frankfurt before heading over to the motherland.

So I finally opened the Amazon box with my study materials which had been sitting on my chair for months. I think that someone should warn you that one day after you finish your undergraduate education you might want to continue onward, and that when that day comes you are going to need your high school math skills for the GRE. Perhaps then you wouldn't have gotten so excited at the idea that you never have to do actual math again in college.

18 days before I leave for Russia.
I need to get my license -- it is amazing how I have managed to get through college and not learned how to drive.

"Life Story" by Tennessee Williams

After you've been to bed together for the first time,
without the advantage or disadvantage of any prior acquaintance,
the other party very often says to you,
Tell me about yourself, I want to know all about you,
what's your story? And you think maybe they really and truly do

sincerely want to know your life story, and so you light up
a cigarette and begin to tell it to them, the two of you
lying together in completely relaxed positions
like a pair of rag dolls a bored child dropped on a bed.

You tell them your story, or as much of your story
as time or a fair degree of prudence allows, and they say,
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, until the oh
is just an audible breath, and then of course

there's some interruption. Slow room service comes up
with a bowl of melting ice cubes, or one of you rises to pee
and gaze at himself with mild astonishment in the bathroom mirror.
And then, the first thing you know, before you've had time
to pick up where you left off with your enthralling life story,
they're telling you their life story, exactly as they'd intended to all
along,

and you're saying, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, the vowel at last becoming
no more than an audible sigh,
as the elevator, halfway down the corridor and a turn to the left,
draws one last, long, deep breath of exhaustion
and stops breathing forever. Then?

Well, one of you falls asleep
and the other one does likewise with a lighted cigarette in his mouth,
and that's how people burn to death in hotel rooms.

Cooked the pasta in chicken stock left over from Monday's cream sauce. Sauteed some sage from my garden in butter and a bit of truffle oil. Topped with Parmesan. It was really flavorful and the truffle oil was a perfect addition to send this lunch over the top.











I have a French test in less than 3 hours, and I cannot say I'm fully prepared. I'm glad to be learning the language, but right now there are oh so many things I rather be doing.

First, to give credit where credit is due, it should be noted that tonight's dinner was a cross between this recipe for roasted tomato and shrimp pasta with garlic and white wine sauce and fotocuisine's champagne chile cream sauce.



I've been trying to use the herbs in my garden as much as possible, before they potentially die (I haven't got much of a green thumb). The other day I sauteed pork chops in a mixture of garlic, onion, rosemary, and sage. Quite good. Today I used some Italian basil in this recipe-hybrid.

I mainly used the techniques featured in fotocuisine, but replaced the oregano in the sauce with basil (along with the oregano at the end with -- you guessed it -- more basil) and added red chili flakes along with replacing the chili puree part with a roasted tomato puree. The other website provided the inspiration for actually making this.



This was enjoyed during the How I Met Your Mother season finale.

From Les Halles - Coral Gables, FL




No cooking this weekend, but I did go to Les Halles. The coq au vin was tasty, but it didn't blow my mind. I don't recall if the last time we ate there the food was better, so maybe I'll just conclude that I'm not crazy about French food. I also have to admit that although I'm determined to be fluent in French, I don't care much for the language either. It doesn't sound as beautiful to me as it does to others, and speaking it is a bit of a pain.

It didn't help that the day before we ate at Fratelli Lyon which had amazing food. It definitely earned its place among my favorite Miami restaurants and it is in fierce competition with Cacao for where I would like to go to eat dinner on my birthday with the family. I had chestnut pasta with wild mushrooms and truffle butter. It was divine.

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."
- Louisa May Alcott

So in my quest for gastronomical adventure I have ordered a variety of fun Kit Kat flavors from Japan. I don't really eat candy anymore, but I used to be quite fond of Kit Kats as a kid so I couldn't resist. I used to eat the chocolate surrounding each stick first, and then finish off the wafers. Good memories, good memories.

I bought the following flavors: matcha green tea, green tea tiramisu, coffee tiramisu, blueberry cheesecake, peach, jasmine tea, and red bean. Reviews to follow.


Ani DiFranco concert tomorrow. Wooot.

... I have missed you.
Why are you so awesome?

Went to Rock-a-Bangkok today.



( one more with the duck served over white rice )

 I'm off to the Dominican Republic tomorrow (or today really). I'm excited, but I miss my friends and cats already.

    Yesterday my bebes came over to help me pack and then we met up with Jessica so that Sabrina could get her first tattoo while Jessica added some features to her previous tattoos. During the process, the artist's next-door neighbor brought over some beer and we talked shit for a bit. I really wanted to get some ink, but I couldn't because of my trip. I'm getting some ink in December courtesy of my parents, and then I might go back with the girls for something else with the guy who did Sabby.

Fall:

Political Science Analytic Writing
Legal Writing
World Politics
Sociology of Gender
History of the Gendered Body

Spring:

Periods in American Lit: American Modernism, 1910-1950
Politics of Mexico
Women's Prose/Film: Narratives of War
Political Parties
Latin American Feminist Films and Theory

I'm excited.

  I made dinner for my family (including Grettel) and madee bread to go along with it. I was initially going to make an Italian bread, but the preferment fermented a little to much and began to taste like beer, so I decided to start over. I didn't have time to make a new preferment, so I worked on a loaf that didn't use one, and made a honey whole wheat loaf. The 20 minutes worth of kneading I did made me want to take a nap (which is a big thing for someone who has trouble falling asleep).

The shape of this one was a lot nicer than the last loaf I made -- mainly because I used a bread pan, but I also spent more time shaping the loaf. They're still not as big as I want, but that should be easy to fix. The bread was delicious and had a really soft crust (I glazed it with milk, and didn't create any steam).  Overall, another great experience. 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure! It is our Light, not our darkness,
that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us. It's in everyone.
And as we let our own Light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fears,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

-- Marianne Williamson
(in her book "A Return to Love" )

After starting the process at 1:30 A.M. I completed it at 7:00 P.M. It was truly a full day process with random cleaning going on during the entire ordeal.
The picture of the oven is just to display the configuration. The pan at the bottom is to place water in which (obviously) creates steam which helps create a decent golden crush on your bread.

I baked for 40 minutes, rotating 180 degrees after 20 minutes.

The dough was a mixture of whole wheat flour and bleached all purpose flour. The mixture created a
really great texture and flavor. The crust was crunchy -- I'm not a big fan of crust so it was a little hard for me, but the flavor was good (I actually ate it and did not remove it as I usually do). The inside was really soft. I had two slices so far, one with salmon caviar and one with simply butter. My mom should be home with some soup soon and we will feast on more bread.

The most  difficult part was trying to shape the loaf. I say "trying" because it did not come out  how I would have wanted it to, but it was a great first time. If today's bread disappears then tomorrow I'm going to make some more. I have all the ingredients necessary for making a honey whole wheat loaf =]