Food, Travel, Music

Isn't that the title of every blog post, or shouldn't it be?

It's Sunday morning--nope--afternoon. I've started the day off in an extremely laid back manner. Ben woke up at 5 to get his climbing pass. I slept til 9:45. Wow! Went and picked up Ariel's NYTimes and started to cook for the week ahead. Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins/bread,
It's too bad I didn't take a photo of the mess I made all over the place. My whole style of cooking in our tiny kitchen borders on ridiculous. I pull out drawers to create more counterspace and put bowls there, put stuff on top of each other, drag my whole mess out to the other room where I create a workshop of drippy mess... But hey, it's all good...because it all turned out delicious. My Willy Wonka operation turned out about 400 muffins, loaves, etc. Beware all of you who either live near me or are about to see me, you can guess what's coming your way! That is, if Ben and I don't devour it all first. curried lentils with ginger, swiss chard and sweet potatoes, (one of our vegan "tricks!")
and beet and lemon-tofu risotto. I urge you all to try some of these recipes (click on the link to view!)--they are healthy (uh, except for the pumpkin goodness!), tasty, in season, and delish!
Above you see the garlic/lemon marinated tofu that Ben prepared the day before. The risotto rice soaking, the beets ready to be peeled, chopped, and cooked! That was the whole caboodle.

I cooked two dinners tonight--one for our friends KC & Michelle who just had their first little child, so in bringing over the food tonight we got to sneak a peak at this new human being! And then I made dinner for other friends coming over. Two vegan dishes in one night?!

Life with "boring" weekends is an absolutely wonderful experience. My weekends used to be filled with crazy travel, which I honestly do miss a bit. But having time to go to the gym, listen to music, read, and cook like crazy has been delightful. I've been able to go to most West African dance classes, which I love, and yesterday brought my friend Alice.

Last night Ben made a whole wheat pasta with roasted pumpkin and turkey sausage from the cookbook "Simply In Season," a cookbook given to us by Mimi. I took the pumpkin seeds and candied them with a bit of butter, sugar, cayenne, paprika, cinnamon and a wee bit of salt. They turned out crunchy and delightful!Mmmmm...That was good!

For Thanksgiving, Ben and I are doing this crazy thing of spending half the time in Cincy and the other half in CU for Nell's wedding. We are excited about both! We will get to do our favorite things in CU, that is, eating to Radio Marias, seeing DJ Spinnerty at Cowboy Monkey, tastings at the Blind Pig, and hanging out with all beloved high school friends. This is especially appropriate considering I am missing my 10th year reunion. If you had told me 10 years ago I would miss my 10th year high school reunion I would have never believed you, and would have shouted "Uni High for Life" or "Uni High Til I Die" or something equally appropriate.

High school has been on my mind, and friends have been floating into my dreams. I've now had three dreams recently about my friend, Matt Wilhem, who was riding his bike and was hit by a car, whose driver was downloading ringtones. It was so unfair. He was killed two years ago, and I still remember exactly how I felt when I got the news. It brings my stomach into a knot. I've also been thinking about him because I was wearing shorts coming home from the gym on a freezing cold night, and I remembered how Matt never wore pants in the winter--always shorts. I will never forget him, and our friendship. I miss him.

Here in the A-T-L, weeks have continued to be busy and good--settling into my job with CARE and spending nights with friends through beer club (see Rupe below...he won this gorgeous pretzel necklace from the beer quiz based on this article about Dogfish Head).
Now that all that crazy Obama-teering is over, there's a lot more time. I sit on the grants committee of the Fund for Southern Communities and have really enjoyed the site visits, the grantmaking process, etc. There's something so powerful about communal grantmaking, especially with a social justice lens!

And now my gift to you, my friend. Do you want to listen to some good music from all over the world? Check these out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spgb1v0Ufps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUjIl4_DYiU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbL7UPHWgCw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa6R9Z576Yg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv4D5glbdx0