Detours

I'm in dissertation hell. Two weeks before my defense I end up here:
It's only a 10 hour flight from the East Coast island hub, Charlotte. Let's see, that would be 10 straight hours of writing and editing dissertation after waking up at 3:30am.

I splashed a bit in the water before heading over to Rainbow Drive In for BBQ pork (delicious but so much meat) and see this along the way.
Okay, the mountains look dumb in this photo but they are, in real life, enormous and towering and majestic and made me go "oooooh!" Must come back here to climb.

And no island would be complete without some cheesesteak. Philly represent!

paring down

The past six months has been an intense time for me. I was finishing up the last pieces of my research for my dissertation, working on a journal paper, writing my dissertation (well, it's almost done) and spending too much time inefficiently looking for jobs. My activities were pared down to doing these four things at least 12 hours a day and maybe one or two small adventures a week like rock climbing and tango. Then things heated up even more in the last month as I was getting incredible amounts of new data and learning more than I ever have in the same time period. Back in December, when I was just starting all this, I felt a dread in me. I didn't know if I wanted to do all this or if I could or if I would be completely unhappy and if so, how the hell would I be able to work a job as a post-doc or in a solar company? And it turns out that I... have been doing just fine. I've been really really surprised by this. I work crazy hours, I'm exhausted, I'm on a continuous roller coaster of feeling stupid one minute and very clever the next. I have had to ask for so much help which I usually shy away from doing and it has been stunning how willing people are to help out and how much I have learned from other people. I haven't been unhappy. I'm not always happy either. I guess I'm feeling focused and okay with being so focused. The little amounts of time that is usually distributed between lots of activities is now mostly focused on one big chunk. I'm making a plan to keep this focus for a while, even after I defend.

In the past month, there has also been another big change in that our lease ended for the house I've lived in with wonderful roommates for the past 4 years. I was incredibly sad about moving out as it was such a clear delineation defining the end of a period of my life and foreshadowing the changes that will also come in a couple of months. It was a great time to start paring down the things I carry around with me too. I gave away a lot of things and it felt great. I moved into a sublet for the summer and haven't unpacked much from my boxes. I've been trying to live very simply, only unpacking a small subset of clothes and still putting many things in the "give away" box. This simple idea has also carried through to cooking. I don't have much time for the elaborate desserts that I dream about making. But I've always been interested in seeing if I could eat just very simple foods, mostly produce and things not from packages. This week has been so interesting. I've cooked without salt or pepper, onions or garlic all week and find that the food tastes just as good. This morning I made a tofu scramble that tasted so fresh. Another pleasant surprise. Here are some things I've made. These are all single servings.

Pepper, corn and pine nuts
- 1/3 cup pinenuts
- 1 cup sweet corn kernels
- 1 bell pepper diced
- 1 T oil

Toast pinenuts until fragrant and light brown. Heat oil over med-high. Add pepper and corn. Sautee until peppers started to get a little browned. Stir in pinenuts.

Simple Tofu Scramble
- 1/2 block firm tofu squished between my fingers
- 1 carrot grated
- 2 big fistfuls of spinach
- 1 tomato diced
- 1 T oil

Heat oil over med. Throw in carrots and tomato. Cook 3 minutes. Add in spinach and tofu. Cooked until tofu loses the beany flavor (5-10 mins?). Eat.

waking up again and again

Pea shoots

Spring is the time for pea shoot tips. They are a delicious green - just a tad bitter like arugula but also quite sweet. It takes about 10 mins to whip up this dish. Put the rice on to cook before preparing the greens since they are likely to be done sooner than the rice.


1 lb snow pea tips
1/2 lb snow peas
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp kosher salt
2 T canola oil

Wash and dry pea tips and snow peas. Crush garlic with the flat of knife. In a large pot, heat oil on med-high heat. Add garlic and sautee until fragrant (1 min). Add pea tips and snow peas and stir fry until snow peas are bright green and pea tips are wilted (3-5 min). Sprinkle salt and stir. Serve over rice.

Asparagus pea pasta

1 bunch asparagus (1.5 lbs), woody stems removed and chopped into 2" long pieces
3 cloves garlic sliced
1/3 cup pecans chopped
1 T olive oil
1 T butter
1/4 cup white wine
1 cup peas
1 cup corn
salt and pepper
3/4 lb angel hair pasta

1. Cook pasta and drain. Heat oil and butter on medium. Add garlic and pecans. Sautee until fragrant about 1 minute.

2. Add asparagus. Sautee until the asparagus begins to turn bright green (2 mins).

3. Cover and let asparagus steam for a while (3 mins?).

4. Uncover, stir, add white wine. Cover and steam again until barely crisp done. Uncover and add in peas and corn. Salt and pepper to taste. Stir in pasta and sautee until warm. Sprinkle or generously mound dish with cheese.

Italian Flat Beans

This dish also came about because of the weekly farmer's market. One of the stands I always like to visit is run by a farm up in Lincoln University. Later in the summer they start selling italian flat beans. These beans are huge and flat but the pod is still edible. To me they taste more buttery than string beans. There's also a huge variety of heirloom tomatoes at the market. My favorite one was the zebra tomato, sadly shown gutted here in a bed of basil:
Putting these two together made an awesome combination. The recipe was something akin to this one but from the evidence below, it appears that I decided to drown the dish in Parmigiano.

Apricot Tart

Towards the end of August, the Sunday farmer's market at our co-op had some delicious fresh apricots. I love to eat apricots by themselves but I never can resist looking up what I can bake with new goodies. I found a recipe for an apricot tart that got rave reviews. The result was delicious. If you ever get fresh apricots, try this tart. The crust seems to get a bit soggy after the first day. All the better to share with friends... or just eat it all yourself in one day and no, I did not do that, you can't prove it!

You want to eat this.