Chelsea Handler Moment of the Week

Yesterday, after a 15 hour day on campus, during which I had to deal with seven student conferences (in addition to the twenty four I had given the day before), a class of freshmen that can't for the life of them understand that in college we bring our textbooks to class, a furious attempt to burn EVERY DVD that my workstudy office holds to mail to a man in Texas, and a class rescheduling that required me to be on campus in a classroom, discussing Othello until 9:30 pm, I decided to go to the bar down the street in Durham.

Yes, I was alone. Yes, it was a Tuesday. But I needed a bloody mary. The bartender told me they didn't have tomato juice, to which I replied, "Okay, I'll have a gin and tonic. But can you make it a double?"

The bartender looked at me, oddly confused. "It's two for one night."

Blank stare on my end, this time. I asked, "Allllright. Can I have two gin and tonics? But can you put them in one cup?"

The bartender's friend asked me if it had been a long day. I nodded, and went into the corner to nurse my drink, puzzle through yet another Spivak article, and eye the drunk frat boys at the bar, envious of their ability to let loose on a Tuesday night.

Soft Pretzels

We found this recipe on smittenkitchen. Which is pretty much where I find the majority of my recipes that aren't in my own cookbooks. Check out that kitchen photography!

And then serve with spicy brown or Dijon mustard.

Girls Gone Wild: New Hampshire Spring Break '10

Spriiiinnnnnggg Breeeeaaaaaakkkk Woooooooo! Get crazy! Actually, we mostly just hugged and cooked. Kili and I decided that gauchedroitegauche should temporarily become a kitchen blog for a while, in honor of the fact that we cooked tons and tons (this is probably not an exaggeration) of delicious food, which we had been planning for weeks. Let me take this opportunity to make you drool. I post these photos with the disclaimer that neither Kili nor I are skilled photographers, which means that this food was actually better than it looks. And it already looks great.
We began spring break in Boston, the weekend before St. Patty's Day. The city was already gearing up for the holiday, and there were pub crawls and parades and drunk Irish-Americans in all the bars. We stayed in a hilarious hostel, and pushed the two double beds together to make a giant cozy nest of friends. We saw the Boston production of Othello, which was put on in a gorgeous theatre and was overall a beautiful play, despite the fact that it was produced in a far too forcefully feminist manner.

We found a cafe that could be found on any side street in Portland, Oregon, and felt right at home. It was even raining outside to help make the experience complete. AND we had to bus our own tables! Oh, PNW, how I missed you. As Boston was incredibly windy and rainy that Saturday (it felt much like December in Boston, actually), we spent the day on the Freedom Trail, hopping from restaurant to bar to restaurant again in an attempt to stay warm. We had deep conversations. And took photographs of us with dripping wet hair and clothes: And we found out how much Ian hates spring break, Boston, and pictures taken of him:

And then we went back to New Hampshire and cooked a bunch. Like, a lot. Like, we generally didn't have enough time to eat all the food we made. Like, Ian and I are still working through the leftovers, over a week later. A list of all the food we makes follows. Stay tuned for some delectable photos to accompany it.

• chicken pot pie
  
• pretzels
• ricotta cheese
• sugar puffs
• blood orange tart
• goat cheese and honey ice cream (failure. epic failure.)
• no-knead bread
• champ (Irish-style mashed potatoes)
• Irish Car Bomb cupcakes
• vanilla ice cream
• chicken marsala
• savory biscotti
• egg salad
• shiitake mushroom and asparagus risotto
• fried chicken (Thanks to Babes, from Tennessee)
  
• hashbrown casserole
  

Liz Lemon Moment of the Week

Yesterday, at work, after my supervisors/bosses had left for the day, I found a bagel and cream cheese in the mini-fridge. And then I ate them. I was hungry. Don't just leave food lying around!

A Gentleman and a Scholar

The week before spring break, when it was cold and windy and rainy and the bus home to Dover was packed with wet, smelly college students, we all stood shoulder to shoulder, listened to our iPods, and eyed the people lucky enough to have seats. Well, I wasn't, because I actually prefer standing on buses.

The boy seated in front of me looked up, saw three girls standing there in front of him, and asked each of us, in turn, if we would like to sit down.

That boy is going to make some woman very, very happy someday.

KILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILIKILI

5 Year Plan

I want to bake bread. I want to graduate with a Masters degree and get a job for which I am overqualified, working in a bakery in some hippie-infested city like Portland (either one) or Seattle. I want my customers to be tattooed, my fellow employees to be pierced vegans who smoke cigarettes on their breaks in the back alley next to brick walls. I want to knead spelt and sunflower seeds into yeasty breads, let them rise and bake them until they are browned and beautiful.

I want to serve coffee with my bread. I want to bartend, and make ridiculous tips off of drunk people who tell me they like my eyes. Or hair. You know, the classy ones. I want a car with the cupholder armrests. I want a car, man.

I need a break, I think. After this program. I need a few solid years of living before I re-enter the wilderness of academia, before I plunge myself right back in to writing papers and publishing in journals and conferences. A break where I make bread at work, instead of edit papers (my own and my students'). A break where I make bread at home, instead of edit papers (my own and my students'). (I'll be honest, I still make bread at home....)

I am tired. And I want to make something that more people will experience and enjoy than the three COUNT 'EM THREE people who read my papers I write for graduate courses. Bread feeds people. What constructive thing does deconstruction do? This is my conundrum, my existential crisis, my struggle with post-modernity. I want to make something with my hands, something more substantial than that which comes from this ticking of the keys on my laptop.

So this is my five year plan. Graduate. Wear the funny gown with the long sleeves. Yes, I am going to this ceremony. Work. Save money for travel. Write--on my own. Study--on my own. Travel. Make it back to Europe by 2015. This is the only part that makes this a five year plan. Learn to sew. Make cheese. Sound sketchy? I'll figure it out.

There may only be one of me, but I have a plan.

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring...

This is a cross section of an interior wall:


On the other side of my bedroom wall, there lives an old man who snores from 9 pm to 7 am, and has a standing phone date with Morty on Friday mornings. I think I might move my bed to the other side of the room.

It might not be raining, but the old man certainly is snoring.

No I won't stop now...'Cuz I can't stop now....

Just a little freebie.

Last night Sigourney Weaver showed up in my dream. She lived in a cabin in the woods, and some evil people shot a canon that forced an avalanche down onto her home. She lived there with wood animals and squirrels sat atop her table and there were cats all over the place.

When she entered her home, and saw that the roof and the walls were coming down, she screamed in desperation, and tried to shoo the animals out so that they wouldn't die in the wreckage.

I ran around her cabin with her, opening doors and windows, pushing cats and squirrels and possums outside, into the snow.

I have no idea what any of this means.