Newark Liberty International - Dec 2009

EWR -> BTR, 7a

more (food for the soul)

this is from Ben--new to me-- as he mentioned it on Monday. And I cannot see it not prevailing in truth more than ever at the moment..
Substitution
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
When some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new -
What hope? What help? What music will undo
That silence to your sense? Not friendship’s sigh,
Not reason’s subtle count; not melody
Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew;
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales
Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees
To the clear moon; nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted, nor the angels’ sweet ‘All hails,’
Met in the smile of God: nay, none of these.
Speak Thou, availing Christ! – and fill this pause.

St. Petersburg, 29 Feb 08

More food (this time for the soul)

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
2 O my God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies exult over me.
3 Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

4 Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
5 Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.

6 Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

8 Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
9 He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

11 For your name's sake, O Lord,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.
12 Who is the man who fears the Lord?
Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
13 His soul shall abide in well-being,
and his offspring shall inherit the land.
14 The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant.
15 My eyes are ever toward the Lord,
for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

16 Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
bring me out of my distresses.
18 Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.

19 Consider how many are my foes,
and with what violent hatred they hate me.
20 Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
21 May integrity and uprightness preserve me,
for I wait for you.

22 Redeem Israel, O God,
out of all his troubles.

-Psalm 25

Reluctance

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods

And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

And looked at the world, and descended;

I have come by the highway home,

And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,

Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

No longer blown hither and thither;

The last lone aster is gone;

The flowers of the witch hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

But the feet question "Whither?"

Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?

Robert Frost

Whirlwind

I'm in a whirlwind of life. School has been busy so I haven't had much time to make anything worth posting, but here is a photo of some delicious apples recently picked from a sweet trip to CT w/ Schellack to visit friends. It was a great drive; complete with PB&J sandwiches and a bebe!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NO PARKING in Greenpoint - Brooklyn

Oct 2009:

Foto?

Salad no-lettuce salad...Guest Dish!

It's simple really, but done well it is perfect at the end of a warm summer day; as an appetizer or even a main dish for vegetarians.
I can't really tell you exactly how it was made but my tastebuds give the following report:

- red & yellow tomatoes
- (navy?) beans
- black olives
- fresh basil, chiffonade (she went generous on the basil since we have it growing in the backyard...a bit intense!)
- Monterey Pepper Jack cubed 1/4"-1/2" and a bit shredded
- EVOO
- Apple Cider Vinegar
- speck of salt and a bit more pepper

Convince anyone to eat salad...

with bacon dressing!

A fulfilling, summer salad -- showcasing the simple flavors of hard-boiled egg and fresh mushrooms with the crunchy textures of bean sprouts, complete with spinach.  

Generously douse with a sweet/savory bacon dressing.

*win*

What is it like 3 miles up from sea level?

Mt. Elbert, Colorado

Lookout Mtn

6 oz. seasoned (Italian) tuna,
artichoke hearts or crown,
spinach and
a hard-boiled egg, sliced.

Sweet & Sassy flax dressing and 2tbsp of whatever the artichoke is marinated in...

simply deliciously simple salad!

Okay, I admit...

butter is good. I sauteed some Mexican and yellow squash (should I have added the zucchini too? meh) in a pan of hot butter and garlic. S&P. That's it. Towards the end, I tossed in some diced tomatoes. Two minutes later, took it off the stove onto a hot plate and threw on a mix of cheeses and put the cover from the pan over it to melt the cheese. The only thing that could have made it better is maybe some blue corn chips on the side...and a Corona. :) No photo here, b/c I actually finished it while it was HOT.

It is thunder storming, and it is awesome:

I missed Chinese food...

I missed Chinese food... so I went to an Asian (Pacific Mercantile on Lawrence St) market and bought some food for, you know, to make Chinese food. Among the goods were seaweed, soba, bok choy, fresh ginger root (aweeesommmeee), a 5-lb bag of rice...standard, ya know?! And then I came home and decide to make... rice pudding. Oye vey. How Americanized am I? :P

The mint leaf was initally used to make it look nice, but I decided
that I really liked it as a palette cleanser prior to diving in to the
glass of deliciocity. Niiceeee.

Fortunately, all is not lost. I made a soup tonight that made me very happy (and healthy, I'm sure :). It was simple and delicious. And I'll post it as if I were going to make it again (with changes):
- Thin "coin" slices of ginger root into hot soup base (I'll stick to good ole' water until I find something better, and it won't be chicken broth or anything like that).
- Finely minced fresh garlic into lightly boiling soup base.
- Toss in the 1" slices of bok choy (stems first!)
- Bok choy leaves a couple minutes later.
- Soba noodles shortly thereafter, unless one prefers a not-so-crunchy texture of vegetables, then wait a bit longer. The buckwheat noodles will have to cook for about 8-9 minutes, shorter if your not in Denver. Womp!
- S&P to taste.

So there it is. Perhaps some mushrooms next time would be a nice addition, and they would have to be straw mushrooms. Golly, that would REALLY bring me back!
No photo here. I finished it before I could blog. :D

Apple Crisp

So sweet! This was from back in early March so I don't remember what I did, but I think the topping (oats/nuts/spices) was amazing. then tradish with the natural vanilla ice cream.

Potato chips...

I made some.

So, I was scheduled to work with Numi Organic Tea but they ended up having more people than they had tea to sample. I left this woman my number, pretty much getting the point that she need not any more help and said she would call if they needed anything. I was off the hook and left to roam the festival for the rest of the day! I got there around 1:15pm, planning to catch the speakers on issues of sustainability in government during which I would attempt to weasel my way into networking, which I did and then went to my Numi shift so I had about half of the day---perfect for what I wanted to do. Then I actually helped out with the Green Festival itself: re-packaging goods, breaking down tents, and the very unique and absurdly bonding experience of sorting out trash into
-compostable
-recyclable
-landfill
&
-cliff bar wrappers
-plastic bottle caps.
Met some fun people there.
I heard from exhibitors that this was the smallest one yet, mainly in large part to it being Denver's first year versus the eighth year in San Francisco or Chicago or... Regardless, everyone had a great time and I thought it went rather well. Definitely on the sparse side of attendees (~11,000 compared to 30,000). But it was great and I bumped into several ppl I knew. Who knew I even knew this many people in Denver?!

Anyways, the point here tonight is to document my chip-making experience :)
Pretty simple and short , as I started at nearly 10:30 at night. Womp. But I was up for it!
1- I used red potatoes... in the future, I'll use these for more savory things...like in stews or something. I'm not sure they fared too well being broiled/baked (I'll avoid frying if I can help it).
2- I tried 2 different thicknesses. Either you'll have to be extra careful, or I wouldn't slice 'em thinner than 3/16" (I say this b/c someone may freak out and think 1/8" is too thick :P
3- Some say you should salt the slices and let them sit for a bit to "sweat" then rinse, them salt again. Seems pretty useless since I found it helpful to leave them moist.
4- Used butter on one batch, EVOO for another--they baked fine either way, but I think I prefer EVOO.
5-I started baking, but switched to the broiler. It's a cheat, but works miracles.
6- I played around w/ some herbs! from paprika to tarragon, so I actually would know what each of them do to food.
Overall, a fun time.
Oh, and so I ate my chips with a bowl of RT tomato bisque.
























OH! and I bought a peppermint plant a few weeks ago, when David and I went to Sunflower Market. It makes my tea pretty and delicious. :)

Boycott Maker's Mark whiskey

http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2009/02/25/makers-mark-mocks-michigan-football/

Don't wear white...

after Labor Day or when cooking beets. Fortunately I had no problem :) but...I'm just sayin'. So I think in the future, I'll just eat beets plain, or with a sweet twist to it. Because the whole olive oil/onion/garlic combo just didn't do it for me.

From Blogger Pictures

Luckily I enjoyed a salad prior to the beet surprise, so cooking tonight was all together a + experience.

From Blogger Pictures

gChat video is too easy.

So fresh, so clean...

...I mean delicious. Thanks to David and his thoughtful efforts to make sure I'm eating well, I made a darn good dinner again tonight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. You're thinking, "How is that good? There is no MEAT involved!" Well, I just like my trees.
<--fresh mozzarella diced into perfect bite-sizes, chopped celery, marinated artichokes (which were so good I could eat them forever), drizzled some balsamic vinegarette, and sprinkled over a tad of parmesean, all over a crisp bed of baby romaine. Of course everything was organic (yikes) or manufactured conscientiously; I'd like to keep it that way. What could have made it better was...wait, nothing. Toss in a couple of grape tomatoes and that would be nice, but it was pretty fantastic this just like this.

I made some cous cous which was cooked up in a bit of olive oil and salt, then threw in a third of a cup of green onions and let it sit for a bit. If you wait a little longer, the green onions take over--and boy, do you want them to.

Another fine experience in simple food prep.

There's something strange, in the neighborhood...

There's usually not much to look at outside the window from the workout room, but last week something extremely neon and bright flashed in the corner of my eye. It looked something like this:
Between the chorale of horses and cowboy hats in the midst of snow, I thought I had ran myself into delirium right into the center of town of the Wild West during the late 19th c.--this proved to be false; it was actually just an act unloading for the Western Stock Show. Oh well, it was still really funny.

Slumdog Millionaire.

Do yourself a favor, and...
GO SEE IT.
don't even bother with the link but if you must, so you can get a taste for its equally praiseworthy soundtrack:
http://www.foxsearchlight.com/slumdogmillionaire/

Finally got to see it, after several failed attempts w/ Jordan (we were never too sure that we'd actually see it until we were in the seats and even then, there were reasons to doubt our success. Nonetheless, we saw it and it was BOMB). 7:15p was sold out so rather than try and catch a 7:35p at another theatre we settled on getting tickets for the 9:35p showing and grabbed a beer at Wynkoop (B3k, a good dark). Good night.

The sky is burning...again.

The GREs have proven to be nothing more than a(n un)necesary obstacle to confirm that I, in fact, can read, study and "be an analytical thinker which are all key in graduate school" (apparently). Anyhow, it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be, on top of last-minute decisions of applying to graduate school (for Urban Planning). The appication process, though tedious, has really led me to clarify thoughts and inchoate ideas of my future/career. All together, not a bad experience! In fact, I dare say it was kind of fun.

As if I haven't taken this shot enough times, here it is again. The sky burning:

Jessica moves from baking to meat.

some cheap-ish meat with good veggies.