Thoughts on Intervals

There are few stages in life that consist so actively of thinking about how one wants to define oneself as those intervals that are spent looking for jobs. This process isn’t just about envisioning who one wants to be in the professional world, but it seems to be just as much about understanding oneself in contexts completely isolated from career aspirations.

Banana Muffins - recipe below

It’s been almost exactly a month since my job search in London started full-on. I’ve spent that time applying for positions, contacting companies I want to work for, and envisioning a possible future in various roles. I’m constantly imagining what my everyday life might be like were I to work here or there. Taking the very little I know about each place, my mind creates possible scenarios at each one, vaguely seeing myself doing this job or that. So much of my state of being during this phase seems to be spent looking towards the future, scrambling to get out of the here and now to where I’d like to be, to become who I want to be. 

Whirlwinds

Things have been kind of a whirlwind since I last posted. I spent the summer in NYC, juggling catching up with all of my loved ones and working on my MA dissertation. My plans of posting about yummy places in Prospect Heights, my adopted home for the 5 weeks I was there, will be shortened into this:

If you ever find yourself on the northeastern end of Prospect Park (maybe there for Grand Army Plaza? Brooklyn Museum? Botanical Garden?), go here for ice cream, here for tacos, here for brunch, here for lunch, here for coffee, and here for drinks.

Ample Hills ice cream in Brooklyn

After NYC, I spent two weeks in Oslo: an emotional experience after the events of July 22nd. I was glad to have good friends and family around who had been in Oslo during the attacks and was very proud of the way Norway responded to them. The summer ended with a rush to finish my dissertation and a mad apartment hunt all over London. After seeing loads of mediocre and downright depressing places, we walked into our new home and knew it was right.

As Ameri...I mean, Dutch as Apple Pie

I've been in Amsterdam for the past few days for a wedding and am just about to leave for the airport to get on a plane to NYC. I am so psyched to be on my way there: it's been ten months since last time, which is the largest amount of time I've ever been away. I miss you, USA!

I just took a walk through the Jordaan, and stopped off at Cafe Papeneiland for some of its famous apple pie (which Bill Clinton made even more famous because he had some a few years ago). Say what you want about all of the good old American apple pie I've had through the years, this trumps it. (I actually feel awful saying that, is it possible that my memory for good American apple pie is just not that good?!) The slabs of pie they give you here in Amsterdam are massive, but it's so delicate at the same time- not too sweet, slightly cinnamony, but just a hint of it. Not the kind of pie you need a nap after, just perfect.

American apple pie-lovers, go back to your Dutch roots, you won't be sorry.

In the meantime, I hope you'll still let me come see you even though I think you'll have to find something new to be as American as. I'm just a plane ride away!

Manageable Life

Once again, I find myself going through the papers and knick-knacks that have accumulated over the course of a year, tossing what I think I can do without, and zipping the rest of my life neatly into a few suitcases and bags. This has been my routine at least once a year since I left home at 18 and in some ways, it's really therapeutic, the fleeting feeling that yes, life is manageable, because, look, I packed it up and put it in that corner of my room there, and I will be moving it to another place just as I have decided to do.

Irish Soda Bread - recipe below

And then, of course, life moves on, sometimes with you running to catch up with it, but for a small moment, when the bags are stacked in a corner, you feel in control.

Do you want to go to the seaside?

My guy and I have been talking about heading down to Brighton some weekend to see what it's all about for quite a while.  With my departure for the summer from the UK coming close, though, it looked like it wasn't going to happen: I had plans every weekend I had left before the summer. Then it dawned on me: I am a student.

Brighton Smokehouse Kipper Sandwich - see below

Why not... go on a... weekday?

Duh.

Out Stealing Recipes

I've been living in a student hall this year, my first time ever, and it has had its ups and downs. Downs have been no real living room to socialize in (or to be able to invite people to) and a sometimes extremely messy kitchen. Ups have been being able to eavesdrop on other people's cooking, which has given me new ideas. I mean, living with Chinese, Italian, Indian, Kiwi, Ukrainian, German (etc.) people will inevitably give you some new food impulses, if only through smelling things in the kitchen you're not used to smelling or seeing things you're not used to seeing.

Easy-peasy

Hi!

*Sheepish grin*

Hey, remember when I made this big grandiose statement like a year ago that I would stop neglecting this blog? Ha.

Recipe below

Anyway, I'm back, not making any excuses for not posting except for that I've been studying the past year or so, and haven't felt like I had time. But I have continued to constantly come back- turns out I make the recipes I've put up here pretty often. And maybe because of that, forget the ones I haven't put up. So I want to keep this going, if only to have all my favorite recipes and food experiences in the same place and maybe some other people will want that too. Again.

The United Nations of Food

It's kind of surreal living in a student house at the age of 25. There are rules to follow here. Quiet hours at 11 pm. Visitors need to be signed in. Any new appliances are to be registered with the residence office. I'm not to keep any candles in my room. Plus the college has chosen to decorate my room with fire safety notices.

Still, I'm in walking distance of school and pretty much all of central London. I have a sweet little view of a garden and a park and the London Eye. I've made a nice little eating area in my room where I can drink tea whilst listening to the radio.

What makes it all worthwhile, though, are the other people who live here.

Saturday Food Market

So here's a fun fact: studying entails a lot of reading. Like massive amounts.

I somehow managed to forget just how much reading studying requires. I think I was focusing on the meeting new people, managing your own time, discussing interesting topics aspects of studying and it slipped from my memory.

So, I've been spending the better part of each day this week reading and I'm still hopelessly behind. But I am here in London, and I am a pro at procrastinating, so I took the morning off and went to a little food market on the Southbank with a few of the others from my student house.

Food market parking lot

Transitions

When I moved to NYC a few years ago, I was devastated by how fantastically overpriced food was. Eventually, though, I got used to the crazy prices and found the shops and products and restaurants that fit my budget, and ended up loving New York for its food despite my limited resources. I figured if I could make it work in crazy NYC, I can make it work anywhere (to paraphrase Frank).

But then I moved to London last week. Wow.

Tomatoes ARE Real Life

This weekend, I'm moving to London.

The tomatoes in the garden aren't ready to be eaten. In fact, I don't know if I'd even call them tomatoes just yet. They are really just little green lumps of taunting promise of someday possibly becoming tomatoes. Now autumn has arrived, though, and with it, the cold weather. So I most likely won't get to try a nice, glossy red, pulpy tomato from my garden before I become a Londoner without a garden.

Tomatoes in picture appear bigger than in Real Life. Actual size: a thumb.

I didn't know a whole heck of a lot about gardening when I started this project. Tomatoes aren't known for growing well in cold weather, and if there's one thing Norway has a lot of, cold weather is it. (If there were two things, the other'd be blond hair.) But I like tomatoes and thought it'd be fun to try to grow them. I didn't ever imagine that they wouldn't become edible in time for autumn.

A Food Medley

I've been jumping around from couch to couch in and around NYC the past few weeks, staying with good friends and family for two or three nights each, spending Good Quality Time with the people and the city I love.

It's weird. When I got back to NYC, I wasn't overwhelmed with nostalgia or haunting memories like I have been when returning to other cities. It just felt like I'd been out of town for a weekend, and here I was, back where I know how things work, (back where people know my name and they're always glad I came) back where people think like I do, but then also, where people don't think like I do at all and people thinking in so many different ways is a great thing.

This was weird because when I left NYC just seven or eight months ago, I was so ready to leave, felt so disconnected, didn't feel like I loved NYC at all. Yet, despite all the couchsurfing, coming back for this visit didn't feel anything like one. It felt like I was home. I guess it's true what they say: NYC is a city you never truly leave.

I've collected a lot of food stories and impressions over these weeks, so instead of posting about each of them separately, I give you here, a food medley:

Zucchini for Sillies: The Sequel

"You know what REALLY gets to me, though? What REALLY gets to me is that you're LYING. And I RESPECT you less for that."

A slightly overweight, red-in-the-face guy is standing over us, so aggressive I think he might punch me and my brothers and sister, or maybe there might just be a simple little *pop* and then his head disappears due to overexertion. Only, I know he won't hit us because we're at the Little League World Series and no one would actually hit anyone with all these kids around. Plus they don't sell beer here.

Zucchini Chocolate Cake - recipe below

Something really American

Yesterday, I sat on a plane.

When I got to Boston, my brother picked me up from the airport and asked where I wanted to eat. "Sushi?" he said.

"How about something REALLY American?" I said, having been gone from the States for a whopping 7 months.

"Oh easy," he said, "Red Bones."

Yes, true. Yes, of course.

Summer Vegetables

Last week, it finally happened.

This:

turned into these:

Sneaky Sichuan Noodles

I went to see the pandas in the morning, cause there are only like maybe 2,000 left and I figured now's a good time to see them.

They're pretty awesome: they just hang out eating all day, a lot of the time not bothering to even sit up to get the food in their mouth. Sounds kind of like me on an off-day.

When I got back to Chengdu from the Panda Reserve, I was starved, so I went out to find some amazing food.

Beijing Cooking

Friends of mine had a beautiful wedding in Beijing this July, and about 30 people from Norway were present to witness it. It was a traditional Chinese wedding and was utterly fantastic. I mean, there were dancing dragons and bow & arrows involved, what's not to love?

I was in China and Tibet for about three weeks and this post and possibly the next one or two will be about that trip.

*****

So I'm standing on the street across from my hotel. I have been for 20 minutes. I'm frantically trying to wave down anything resembling a taxi, but it's rush hour, and there just aren't enough taxis to go around, what with the like 20 million people who live in the city.

Finally one pulls over. I show the driver the slip with Chinese letters on it I have with me. No, no, he shakes his head vigorously, waving his hand. "But it's just down there," I say in English, as if that will help, pointing down the street. No, no, he shakes his head again, and I climb out of the taxi and shut the door behind me.

I sigh.

And then I start walking through the streets of Beijing in the direction I have just pointed. I'm going to be late for my cooking class.

Time

A few months ago, while I was in Germany visiting family, I spent an afternoon with my cousin and her adorably gorgeous 1-year-old. She had been home with him for the first year, but had recently started studying again, so her son was spending days in daycare while she hit the books.

She told me how, after that first day away from him, when she picked him up from daycare, she could tell that he had changed. In those few hours she had been away, he had had experiences, had learned things that she wasn't there to witness, had been alive and grown and developed. This difference in her son was obvious to her, the fact that he was older and more worldly. She told me she had this same sensation often when she picked him up from daycare. In contrast to the first year of his life, during which she spent every moment with him, observing and being a part of every little triumph and setback, she now had the opportunity to gain perspective and see her son at intervals. Even if those intervals were only for a few hours.

[Carrot plants]

I didn't quite buy it. A day is just a day, I thought. People, even babies, don't change that fast. I thought, my cousin is sweet who is that attached to her son, but surely there was no true visible change in him after a single day apart. It was an appealing notion, but I wasn't convinced that's the way the world works.

This is London

I was three years old the first time I was in London.

I have two memories of this trip that I'm certain are my own. One of them is very vague. It's of my mom holding me and pointing at a big clock (Ben) and me going, "That's it?". The other is of a very shy me whispering in my mom's ear that I want french fries, while a waitress hovers by our table. My mom tells me I can order from the waitress myself, but that I should ask for chips. "But I don't want chips," I say, "I want french fries."

There are other memories of that trip that are not my own, stories that have been told time and time again, so often that I've created images and feelings to go with them. One of these is of the three of us, my mom, my brother, and me, just having arrived on a plane from the US, sitting on the tube together, one kid on each side of mom, holding onto her and taking in this strange new place. My brother, then an avid PBS viewer, also at night when the British BBC would come on the channel, looks around for a while at this and that, the people around us, then turns to my mother, and goes, "Mom, does EVERYBODY here work at the BBC?", figuring that talking the Queen's English was something you learned on the job.

Oh, children can be so sweet when they haven't got a clue.

[Pasteis de nata: more on this below!]

Yes, We Love This Country as it Rises Forth

Norway grew a year older on Monday and Norwegians everywhere bubbled over with pride and celebrated as per usual.

Step 1: Dress up
Step 2: Grab a flag
Step 3: Stuff yourself
Step 4: Go out into the streets.
Step 5: Stuff yourself some more with ice cream and hot dogs.