Eggplant, Coffee, Cabbage, and Vinegar

Eggplant and cabbage are not your usual vegtables. I didn’t try eggplant until I was 15. I was eating at the Olive Garden with my future sister-in-law, Jenn, and the other bridesmaids, and thought I would try it. Sometimes I just decide to try something. My first coffee beverage was an iced americano (espresso, ice, and water), which I chose because it sounded the most “American.” I went through a lot of sugar packets to choke that drink down.

Eggplant is a scary plant. Difficult to cook and has often alluded me in recipies. But tonight, we conquered the plant. We made a great eggplant and peppers pizza. Wondering how we did it? Brush the eggplant and peppers with olive oil and a bit of salt and broil for 5 minutes on each side. Create pizza and be happy that you are eating a new pizza ingredient.

We have also made an asian cabbage dish that is quickly becoming a favorite. Cabbage, ginger, garlic, scallions sauted in vegtable broth. Good food. My only memory of cabage is either in soups or boiled, eaten with lots of vinegar (which I loved as a child). My brothers and I used to have “vinegar face” contests where we would each have to slurp down a spoonful of vinegar and the person who could keep their face the straightest would win. We got pretty good and can still compete with the best of ‘em today. Food creates the wierdest memories.

Consumer of Books

I am a book consumptionist. I love books that I can read for hours and keep me interested the whole time. Often I will hit a dry spell and meander through several books, maybe read parts of a few books for a few months…but I always find one. A book that consumes me.

I just finished my most recent consumption, but I wasn’t prepared to finish it. Tim and I were out reading and all of a sudden I only had 10 pages left. I was shocked. I like to know when I am going to finish a book. I thought we were going to leave before I had time to finish and I would wait until the next day or later that night to finish the book, but Tim was working well and we kept reading. As is usually the case after I finish a good book, I go through a grieving period. But this time it was even worse because I was unprepared for my grief. I am always sad that I will have lost my good friend, the book. I also feel it is essential to have a proper amount of time in between one good book and another. I do not want to ruin the memory of one book with another.

This time my consuming book was a Chaim Potok book (an author who always writes consuming books), Davita’s Harp. It was an intense book and may not be for everyone.

I have now posted a book entry - one of the essential elements of a “good” blog. Thank you.

On Being Stood Up

Yesterday I drove 30 miles for a second interview with a new alternative middle school. I was interveiwing for a Dean of Students postition and things were going pretty well. I was still trying to decide if I liked the school or liked the position…and I know that I don’t like the drive since it is on the same road that leads to New York (meaning major traffic in the mornings). I showed up to the place really early so I waited in the car until about 9 minutes before the interview was set to begin. The school is located on the 4th floor of a building that looks like an abandoned warehouse. I finally find my way around in the maze of buildings and find the school banner and decide I must be in the right place…except for the fact that all the doors are closed and locked and there is no one in sight. I keep walking up and down the halls looking for anyone. I found no one except the truck driver school workers who share the same floor as the school. I run into a custodian who says that everyone left. I find the phone number of the school, call and leave a message and confusedly drive home.

Everyone knows that if an interviewee shows up late to an interview it is extremely bad news and most likely you will not be hired. If you are late on your first day of work, don’t even bother coming because you will be fired on the spot. So what should my interpretation of the school be since they are the ones who stood me up?

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with the school and they said I was scheduled for next Thursday because they didn’t even have school yesterday. In my defense, when the interview was scheduled earlier this week, she said Thursday. Not next Thursday…Thursday. From now on I will be sure to check on the actual date before driving 30 miles for an interview.

Where are the Muffins?

Where are the Muffins?

Tim and I went leaf-peeping on Saturday (yes, they call it leaf-peeping). View some of our photos here. We accidentially made it into Massachusetts. Tim says he planned for us to cross the border, but we didn’t know we were in a different state until we noticed the town we were in was not on the Connecticut map.

We had a great time and found many small towns with very few stores - take note of the picture. The closed store directed us to THE restaurant for muffins. It was nice to see a slower side of Connecticut.

Benefits of an Ivy League Town

I can earn money being a lab rat. Researchers are constantly seeking people for a study of some sort, and they usually give money to their participants. In the last week, I have signed up for three different studies. People could make a decent amount of money just being research participants. Tim and I went to one last night for the school of management. We each were given $10, some candy, and Tim was seleceted to randomly receive a free t-shirt. We could have each made one more dollar, but they had one question on the survey which you had to pay a dollar if you answered incorrectly. My question was “what year was the parking meter invented?” I said 1957 and I was fined.

Pizza Urges

Congratulations to us. We have made it a whole two weeks without ordering a cheese pizza from the pizza place on the corner, East Rock Pizza. Some of you may not know that New Haven claims to have invented pizza - or at least their version of pizza, which is really great thin crust, brick oven pizza - needless to say, there are a ton of pizza places here. The place on the corner has an excellent cheese pizza, which is nice because it is the cheapest, and I mean cheap. I also think they have some sort of addictive flavoring in the pizza which has drawn us back because there were nights we couldn’t help ourselves and we had to get some East Rock PIzza. I was noticing an addiction forming and have been working really hard to fight the urge of East Rock Pizza, just to prove that we weren’t addicted. It was hard for us in the beginning, but we have made it two weeks. Alas, our love of pizza cannot be denied and we had pizza at another joint the other night as well as made some homeade pizza for dinner sometime last week. I forsee a celebratory pizza in the near future.

Why Did You Move Here?

Every place I have lived, I have had someone question why I moved to the current state. Usually the poeple are not just being polite and asking questions, but they are asking with disgust as if no one would ever want to come to the place where they live. Tonight, a woman in a store said, “I know Connecticut wasn’t a place you wanted to live, so why did you come here?” When I was in high school, every kid counted the days until they could move to another place. Usually it is the people who have lived in the same place for their whole lives who can’t imagine someone enjoying their current state. Is there any place where everyone knows why a person would want to live there?

Flies

A few days ago, Tim and I started noticing some very small flies in our kitchen. We think they may be related to fruit flies. I made it a point to clean up the kitchen and try to scrub on some of the filth still left from the previous owners. Our house was pretty gross when we moved in. Everything looked clean, but if you wiped your white glove on the counter, it would turn out a dark gray/yellow color. We both assumed there was maybe a small nest (are there nests of flies?) of flies and we would have to find it. I have gotten particularly good at killing the flies while they are flying. I can kill three to four flies each time I go through the kitchen.

The other day, I was in a coffee shop and also a cafe. Both places had the same sized little gross flies flying around their establishment. The flies are native to Connecticut, not our kitchen. So it isn’t our fault the flies have survived. Our dirty kitchen can become clean and we will still have flies.

We Like Quirky

I think I was just told I was too professional for a coffee shop job. I was having my second interview with a local coffee shop in New Haven and things seemed to be going well. Everyone was so impressed that I have had experience and the interview was seeming like a formality until the owner started to explain how he liked his workers to have a personality and be unique. He desccribed one worker who used to tap dance while he was serving customers and another employee who constantly had his ukulele strapped to his back and would periodically play for the customers in the store. He never asked me if or how I was quirky, but it was obvious he was trying to describe how important it is to fit into the odd family and he was trying to decide if I would fit into such an environment.

I am only trying to work at this place in order to be getting some income while I look for a job that would use my great skills…but now I am I questioning whether I am quirky enough to work for this guy. Do I want to live up to a constant quirky standard? Can’t I earn a buck while just meeting the customers’ needs?