the inaugural post

As an almost college grad going the requisite life crisis that involves becoming a-gag-"real person," I thought a blog might be the best way for me to keep track of my insanity. I'm an intern this summer at a giant, muy importante financial firm in their investments department, a history major with a mad passion for cooking. Basically, my mental fracturing can be described thus: my parents are both lawyers and because they expect me to go to grad school, and I hate both business and medicine, I’m starting my applications to law school. I plan on deferring for a year in the first place, so I have a while before I will start anyways. I would love to have my own bakery cum sandwich/coffee shop one day and am wary about how to:

1) Tell my parents. They know I love to cook but see me as the “good” child who’s supposed to go on to make the big bucks at some corporate law firm. Also, they paid for my undergrad education and are paying for part of law school, so if I even mention to them that I may perhaps want to go into food they probs will guard my potential law school funds with their life. Also, I may want to go to law school anyways and maybe specialize in legalities surrounding the food industry.

2) Go about this weird potential path of mine. Is it really necessary to go to culinary school? I.e. do you find the skills you learned there necessary to your everyday functioning? Not that I wouldn’t LOVE to go to culinary school…

3) How am I supposed to make money? Or do I even care? I can’t pretend I haven’t gotten used to a certain quality of life that can only really be sustained with a high-income job or super-crazy success in a less lucrative field. Maybe, though, I could survive in a shittier apartment, in a less expensive area, with less unnecessary material purchases clogging up my pathetic bank statements.

So basically this blog will be dedicated to the pursuit of me, or figuring out what’s actually going down in my head, sifting through thoughts and ideas and years of junk.

Since I’m making bank this summer, I’m supporting myself for the first time and am just getting used to having basically no money. This was my first real weekend since work started two weeks ago and the constraints weren’t too bad. My house had a bangin’ party, complete with three kegs, two fights, and one seeing eye dog (don’t ask). I went to the SOWA market in the South End for the first time, finally. I’ve been wanting to go since its opening weekend a month ago but haven’t gotten a chance. Emily, her boyfriend Joz, and I went to brunch at Aquataine before-we are brunch aficionados and have run through all the places in the Davis Square/Medford area and since I’ve realized the South End is my spiritual home, we started at the top of the line. Aquataine brunch was PHENOM. Soft and warm cinnamon sticky bun, luscious (La Taza) coffee, fresh squeezed orange juice, omlette, breakfast potatoes, and seven grain toast all for $9.95. Quite a bargain, for a self-supporting, cheapskate college student such as myself. The omlette Emily and I ordered was wonderful, with boursin, leeks, and mushrooms. It could have maybe benefitted from a little spice from some dried red chilis or maybe some caramelized mushrooms, but it was really on the button.

SOWA was great, too. It was a little drizzly outside but we had a blast checking out all the booths and crazy shiz at the antiques market. I found a black straw purse with a giant (functioning) clock built into its side and some pretty little antique glass bottles. Next week, when I have a teeny more cash, I would love to nab the glass bottles, plus a little framed black and white photograph and one of those miniscule gold peace sign rings at one of the handcrafted jewelry booths.

I wanted to grab some produce for the week, so I picked up a grapefruit and some veggies from the produce section of the market. So far, I’ve only sampled the grapefruit, but I must say, it was quite delish-just the right combo of sugary fruitiness and sour tang. The boy working one of the veggie stands was looking pretty delicious himself, but unfortunately he wasn’t carrying any spinach, which I grabbed from the Silverhill booth instead. The leaves smell like dirt, which I take to be a good sign. Edible delights on my SOWA wish list for next week:

-A handful of the beautiful baby radishes that lurked around every corner
-Local lavender-scented honey, maybe for a little plum tartlette
-One of the small rosemary pots to plant in the backyard (I’m planning to name it; more on that next week)

Tonight I’m making a Times recipe, involving chickpeas and sautéed spinach on toast. We’ll see how it goes. Tomorrow our friend Sara is coming over for dinner and I think we may try the new Minimalist recipe for the week, which is Thai peanut, kale, and sweet potato soup. I’m making some lemon-raspberry tarts for dessert with the weird David Lebowitz-sourced tart crust recipe. I’m schooled in the more traditional (pate aux choux), cutting butter into flour with some ice water, so this should be interesting, to say the least. Here’s my dinner recipe, courtesy of the Times's Recipes For Health section:

Chickpeas with Baby Spinach

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, lightly toasted and ground
Salt, preferably kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 (15-oz.) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock, or water
Cayenne to taste
1 6-oz. bag baby spinach

(I also added some chipotle chili powder and a crumbled dried red chili)

1. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat and add the onion. Cook, stirring, until tender, about five minutes. Add the garlic, cumin, tomato paste and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring for one to two minutes, until fragrant and the tomato paste has turned a darker color. Add the chickpeas, the stock or water, and the cayenne, and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce the heat, and simmer 10 minutes.

2. Stir in the spinach, a handful at a time, stirring until each addition of spinach wilts. Add salt to taste and simmer uncovered, stirring often, for five minutes. Add lots of freshly ground pepper, taste and adjust salt and cayenne, and serve.

(Basically I hollowed out a ciabatta roll, filled it with the goods, and grilled it in my Foreman)