If It's Too Hot, Then Get Out of the Kitchen

Sorry for the irregular updates.  I'm settling into my new life here in Wrigleyville, which comes with its own set of quirks to get used to, such as the fact that Cubs fans are rude and bad at riding the train and that I am living in a house of boys.  So between everything else, I haven't had much time for writing.

Which is weird in and of itself because I'm not even in school.  Nor do I have a 9-5 job.  (I do, however, have an 8:30-1 job, that, including commuting, is more like a 7:45-1:30 job.)  So since I don't have much legally related stuff to tell you about, I thought since our time here will be coming to an end (BECAUSE I'M A 3L NOW!!!!) you should get to hear more about my life.  Today's fact:

I love to cook.

Cooking is one of my favorite things to do.  It's methodical, creative, and delicious.  Plus, I have the most awesome apron in the world to wear when I do cook.  And it comes with truly delicious results.  (Most of the time.  I have had some real kitchen failures.)

And before you think I learned it from my mom, stop yourself right there.  I didn't.  My mom is the first to admit that she can't cook.  I mean, it's not like she can't boil water, but she's pretty limited to casseroles and pasta.*  The Harling women have a saying:  "God made you for better things than cooking and cleaning."**

So when it came right down to it, I had to teach myself to cook.  And kids, it was NOT EASY.  Growing up in the midwest means that everything is made with cheese (either of the shredded or cream variety***) and leaves you feeling full and bloated.  Plus, there's not a whole lot of creativity going on.  It's pretty much "Add everything to bowl.  Stir.  Pour into pan.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour.  Top with potato chips."  There's a time and a place for that kind of food, but it's not every night.

So I started frequenting food blogs.  This taught me not only how to cook, but what to cook, and how to make substitutions.  It's also taught me about seasonal cooking, and how to walk into a farmers' market with the best of them**** and form recipes in my head.  Reading about food has taught me that I like light, easily prepared food that leaves me feeling full but not groggy.  I've tried to cut out a lot of carbohydrates in my own food.  I can honestly say that for many of my meals, at least half of my plate comes directly from the earth, not any sort of processing plant.

Cooking for yourself is not only empowering, it's cheaper.  True, I just spent way too much money on groceries.  But the food I bought will last me at least 3 weeks (with a couple smaller runs throughout that period), and I won't need to buy food elsewhere.  To eat out twice a day (if I did it REALLY cheap, nearly impossible here in Chicago) would run me about $250, and the food would often be greasy and badly prepared.  Even doing it once a day would cost $126 and then I'd just be hungry.  Sure, it's costly upfront, but there are definite long term savings.

My go-to food resources are as follows:

In fall and winter, I love Elise Bauer's Simply Recipes.  These are mostly family recipes and seem to just pack and extra punch of warmth and coziness.  Even my mom can cook these!  Plus, there's an apple cake that is my birthday cake every year and I've never met anyone who doesn't like it.*****  So easy and yummy.  Plus, it's great for school because the recipes are time-tested by a woman with six kids on a shoestring budget.  So, someone with no time and a little money.  Win!

In spring and summer, I live on Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks.  It's entirely veggie and sticks strictly to seasonal cooking.  Because I'm often too lazy to cook meat, this website has taught me a lot about preparing veggies and how to use herbs and spices to make your food spectacular.  The salads and soups are delicious and simple.  Check out this brussels sprouts recipe, which got even my veggie-fearing boyfriend to like (properly prepared) brussels sprouts.

I also like The Smart Kitchen Blog, as it's written by a twenty-something who loves easy simple food and always comes up with interesting ways to cook, and Smitten Kitchen, where the recipes look sinfully delicious.  (I'm about to make the strawberry cake that's on the homepage.  Yummy.)

What about you?  Do you like to cook?  How did you learn?

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*Which, don't get me wrong, are both delicious.  I learned one of the best pasta recipes of all time from my mother, and if you ask nicely, I'll make it for you.

**We never bought into that whole biblical "Women, submit to your husband," thing.  More like that one part of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  "The man might be the head of the household, but the woman is the neck.  And she can turn the head any way she wants."

***And in my household, ricotta.

****City living, my friends.

*****Until I tell them how much butter is in it at least.

What is on my face?????

Congratulations on finishing up your law school finals and taking a well-deserved break!  Now back to your regularly scheduled RWF programming.

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Not to brag, but I have always had great skin.  Ask some of my closest friends.  At fifteen, when everyone’s skin resembled a particularly greasy pizza, mine was perfect almost all the time.  I didn’t even start wearing makeup until halfway through college, and that was because I thought it might be fun, not because I needed it.

So imagine my shock when I looked in the mirror a week ago and realized I had wrinkles.  I didn’t have them when law school started, but there they are.  Fine lines around my mouth and the corners of my eyes.  A faint crease across my forehead from wrinkling my brow when I’m skeptical, frustrated, pensive, or pretty much any other emotion.  On top of that, I’m starting to inherit my grandmother’s dark circles under the eyes.  Law school has aged me ten years in two years.  My skin has even lost that glow that I thought always made me look awake and enthusiastic.  Now I just look kind of gray and flaky.  I had to fake the glow this morning with the cream blush that I bought 3 years ago for the hell of it.

I know what you’re thinking:  You’re 24 years old.  It’s part of being a grown up.  But I’m only 24 years old.  And if law school is aging me 5 years for every one year of school, by next year I’ll be 37.  Thirty.  Seven. 

Boy insists that he doesn’t see any wrinkles, but I KNOW they’re there.  Waiting to pop up at the least convenient moment.  I also know that I just need to get over it and accept the fact that two years of squinting to read teeny, tiny legal print has permanently affected my face.  And I need to embrace the fact that a few fine lines are worth the knowledge I’ve gained and the experiences I’ve had.  Don’t sweat the small stuff and all that.  Wrinkles are the sign of a life well-lived.  Accept the reality of the circle of life.

And barring acceptance, there’s always plastic surgery once I get the loans paid off.

Drugs

Me:  "I think the answer to my problem starts with "A" and ends in "Derall"

Other:  "I could get it for you, but is that what you really want?"

Me:  ".........."

I've mentioned on here how important I believe a well-stocked medicine cabinet is.  It's essential, in case you didn't know.  Seriously, I have so many different kinds of painkillers for different pains/times of day, I could probably run a pharmacy.  If you need some Ibuprofen, I'm probably the girl to see.  I even have back up bottles under my sink because I hit a sale on extra-strength tylenol once.  But in the example above, I turned down the adderall.  Why?

Because in the words of my friend Orale*, who admittedly was quoting Cool Runnings at the time, "If you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it.  Or, in my own words (which are SO much better):

If You Can't Do It On Your Own,

You Can't Do It.

I'm not trying to preach at anybody here.  You do what you've got to do to get the job done.  But it's probably a bad idea to put something that you don't NEED into your body.  It's probably a really bad idea to put a prescription drug without your name on it into your body.**  Your doctor hasn't told you it's safe.  And nothing, not even law school finals, are worth harming your body.  

In my humble opinion, drugs (yes, even painkillers) should always be the last resort.  You don't need caffeine to keep yourself awake if you get some sleep.  You don't need drugs for concentration if you're willing to forgive yourself for needing a break once in a while.***  The human brain wasn't made to focus non-stop.  

So, you know, do what you've gotta do.  But be careful.  And maybe take up yoga before you resort to anything extreme.

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*Oh yeah, once you get a code name, you're somebody I spend too much time around.
**I'm not a doctor, so I can't actually make these statements, but I think it's a generally held axiom that someone should actually prescribe a prescription drug to you.
***Or maybe you do.  Once again:  Not A Doctor.  But if you think you need drugs, you should definitely see one of those.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I’m sure you’ve heard by now about the big news for America.  Osama bin Laden is dead.  And I keep seeing and hearing tweets and Facebook posts like “Fuck yeah, America,” and “Glad that bastard is dead.”  And while I’m excited, I guess I’m mostly conflicted. 

I remember when I first heard the name Osama bin Laden.  I was fourteen years old.  I’d had a particularly terrifying day at school, since the administration refused to tell us what was going on, but we’d been hearing rumors that were wrong but still scary.  I can still remember Brittany M. running down the hall while I was sitting in Mr. Divelbiss's honors biology class and telling us all that the Pentagon had been bombed.  And that was in second period.  We didn’t find out what had actually happened until we got home that day.  And all I could think the whole day was “Now that the Pentagon is gone, any of us could go.  At any moment.”  

And I remember weeks of news coverage that just consisted of watching the twin towers fall.  It was the news EVERY DAY.  We wallowed in the psychological blow and bin Laden’s name was all over the news reports and on everyone’s lips.  Journalists told us that he would be captured within a year.

I remember when (exactly 8 years ago) George Bush announced “Mission Accomplished” and I remember the political cartoon that went with it:  President Bush walking in an Escher-like maze, repeating those words futilely over and over.  And I remember wondering why our troops couldn’t come home if the mission was accomplished.  And why my friends were beginning to join the military and going over to a wild, dry place that I couldn’t imagine.

And I’ll always remember that bin Laden wasn’t caught until the end of my second year of law school.  This one man defined the last 10 years of American policy and the way we as Americans lived and traveled.  My own father was often stopped at the gates of the military base he worked on and his car was searched for incendiary devices solely because he is a swarthy man* with a mustache, something that had never happened before in his whole career.  Due to new technology, we’re all seen naked by TSA agents every time we want to get onto a plane.

And I’m not sure how I feel.  The memories of “where I was when” are incredibly powerful.  It’s shocking to me that these events are going to be in the history books of my own child one day.  It’s amazing to me that one day that child is going to ask me about it.  And I think that what will color that story is what happens next.  Does this mean that the mission is finally accomplished?  Will troop withdrawals actually start in 60 days?  Or will this just start an era of new faith in a disorganized war that should never have started?

What happens next?  And where will we be?

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*Due to spending years on the deck of a naval ship