New Job

I remember telling someone a while ago after hanging-out with a person in their late teens that I was sure glad I didnt have to go through that again! I was referring to that experience of confusion where I didnt know who I was, who I wanted to be, or what I should do. I somehow felt that now that I had turned thirty, such reflections were entirely a thing of the past. Boy was I wrong ... 

I guess turning 30, moving to another country, and suddenly having a few letters placed behind your name really gets you to start thinking about these things. - not to mention starting a new job. My job is to teach three classes, direct an honors thesis, engage in scholarly research and participate in a variety of departmental activities. Yet when I walk into the office, nobody tells me what to do. It is an extremely liberating and strange experience all at once. Every other job I have ever had involved approaching someone and asking them what I needed to do. This may take a little getting used to.

But back to my confusion ... I dont think that people necessarily gain a better sense of who they are as they grow older, I just think that as people get older, they are able to "perform" their age better. Perhaps these existential questions become part of a narrative and we simply become more socially adept at weaving this narrative.

I just finished two books that I am using in some classes that deal with these issues: Gergen's "The Saturated Self" and Dostoevskys "Notes From Underground." This is sure to be an interesting semester!

6:31 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

I think I should cook...
Category: Food and Restaurants

I think I'm going to try to cook more.  At my old place, I never had the time, equipment, or desire to prepare anything cool.  I lived by myself, and its hard to cook for one person.  Its different now.  Mike comes with cool bonuses like kitchen gadgets and cookbooks and the guts to try something new without a recipe.  I'm taking it slowly, but I think I will learn.

I started with somthing seemingly simple - mussels.  They are everywhere here in PEI, and they are super-cheap.  We heard that you can cook them in just about any liquid, and they are hard to mess up.  Mike cooked the first batch and they were fabulous.  They were in a sort of butter/garlic/wine sauce (which, by the way, you can't mess up anything with those ingredients).  My batch was good, too, but I think I got overly creative.  I used a beer (that was actually recommended) some garlic, and a spoon or two of tomato sauce (also recommended...but I'm not sure if the beer and tomato sauce were meant to go together).  Overall, it wasn't bad, but I wanted to do something better, more difficult.

I moved on to baking the other day.  I remember baking things as a kid and loving it.  I always made dessert when we had people over for dinner, or made brownies for Dad.  I figured if I had done it before, and I had a recipe, it couldn't be too bad. 

Maybe I left out some of the sugar.  It could have been that...or maybe it was something else.  The blueberry muffins tasted like blueberry cornbread, and I didn't use cornmeal.  I just followed the instructions on the back of the Bisquick box and baked them.  Yeah, they weren't very good.  In fact, they were pretty bad.

So Mike being the excellent chef (and competitve person) that he is, decided that he would try his own recipe for....you guessed it...blueberry muffins.  He mixed up all kinds of stuff and made a huge mess in the kitchen and ended up with some of the best muffins I've ever had.  They were really good (*grimace*)!  I had to do better next time.

Yesterday I tried again.  We had some bananas that were going to go bad, so I decided to make banana bread.  I found a simple recipe online and started mixing the ingredients together.  Quickly I noticed that the "batter" I was supposed to be making was turning into a paste, then to dough, and onto a really hard glob.  I looked at the recipe over and over again...flour, sugar, bananas, baking soda, salt, crisco...until I noticed that it didn't call for any liquid.  No egg.  No milk.  No vanilla extract.  Nothing.  So I tweaked the recipe.  Now you're thinking, "Oh no!  Kristen, don't do it!  You're a novice in the kitchen and you can't just go adding things here and there.  Stick to the recipe, please!"  Well, despite all of your pleading, I added one egg, and enough milk to make it a batter again.

I then baked the bread for an hour (which I thought was an exceedingly long time) and took it out of the oven.  Mike looked wearily into the pan and asked what I was making this time.  I assured him that this was a true experiment and that I would taste it first to see if it was actually edible. 

To my EXTREME surprise, it was great.  Moist in the center, a little crispy on the edges, great banana taste with a hint of cinnamon (also a spontaneous addition).  So I did it.  I cooked something that Mike and I will both eat, and actually enjoy.  If only I would have written down how much milk I put in it...

1:06 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment