The Runaway Cook

Hello eveyone! Today (May 20th) was officially the last day of classes at Johnson & Wales University here in Provi and I feel weird. Actually, I took my last final on Tuesday so today just feels like the weekend. I can’t believe that this is the end of my third (THIRD!) year here. I feel like I have spend hardly any time here, in that, it hasn’t felt like “ugg three years,” but at the same time . . I feel like this time I am in now has been were I have always been. I was walking up the hill the other day, (our campus is build on low ground near the bay. Meaning, to get out of the campus and back to my apartment I must walk up this big hill. I seem to do vast quantities of thinking during my journeys across Mount JWU)

With only six months until the true end of my time here, I seem to be thinking more about things. I think, “Where will I go? When I get there, what will I do? When I do that, how will I do it? Who will I know? Will I like it? Will I survive?” I forget that these questions are the same ones I had that summer before I came here. If i was able to Travel nearly 1400 miles to get here, a place I had never visited, and thrive not only in school but as a person, then I will be able to do it again. I just have to get through this tough spot. I have to push past the discomfort and keep going forward.

Well everyone, this was my second-to-last, full weekend in the States, and between procrastinating studying for my four finals, cleaning, and preparing for my trip, I decided to trade in the books for my mile-high glossy, strappy black heels. Whoo! It was refreshingly sweet to taste some delicious food I didn’t have to make and dance away all the stress.

After a six-mile walk and a day full of trip preparations, I was exhausted! I jumped into the shower only to be shocked cold. Yes, hot water was out, again. This is an off and on occurrence that I see

m to be very good at hitting. After a quick cleanse, I gooped up the curls, primped the face, slathered on coconut scented lotion, spritzed my favorite perfume- Noir by Victo

ria’s Secret, slipped on a black top with flowing sleeves and lave panels, cuffed white shorts, and those amazing black heels.

Careful not to trip, I flew down the stairs, out the door and into a silver car

with another woman just as gussied up as myself. We found our way to one of her favorite spots, Cafe Nuovo. Just beyond the canal and behind glistening glass doors is a classy little place that serves one heck of a pear martini!

It was about 8:30 at this point and I wasn’t too hungry so I ordered the tuna capraccio appetizer. Tender blocks of rosy tuna socialized with cubes of golden beet, dressed with just enough vinegar and drizzled with basil oil. Crispy lemony brioche, red raspberries, croutons and two small scoops of beet sorbet finished the plate. I am a ice cream, sorbet, and sherbet fanatic, so I was hoping for quite a bit from this below-zero treat. I got what I wanted. It was delicious! Such a light pink color and sweet yet earthy flavor, I suspect that they added a little apple to the mix. The croutons weren’t quite my taste- I’d rather have had them a little spicy. Perhaps ginger and chili, since the plate already had sour, sweet, meaty, oily, and herbaceous flavors. Despite my little criticism it was still fantastic! I love raw fish especially tuna! The flesh is so mild and smooth. It’s meaty and doesn’t even resemble the flavor cooked tuna or fish for that matter. I would highly suggest trying tuna sashimi if you like meat at all. It is tender, blushing deliciousness.

After a quick bite of dessert, (rich white and milk chocolate mousse with espresso ice cream and fruit sauces- it wa

s tasty, but nothing spectacular. The ice cream was too icy and the molded chocolate pot it came in was a little rough around the edges) we headed out to find some good music and dance up a storm.

Sigh. . . escaping all this mess of books, notes, EuRail tickets, uniforms, and research made it possible for me to breathe again. I love exploring, new restaurants, new places to dance, new people, new experience, but sometimes the planning for this giant summer of exploring seems to be too much. I know I can make it. I can do this. I will do this! It’s just this prep-work that gets to me ahhh. Thank goodness for amazing friends, good food, and dancing!

So the other night, I was just innocently grabbing a pickle out of my fridge and something incredible happened. As I hoisted the jar out of the lowest corner of the door, the loner pickle bobbed back and forth in his swampy juice. Dang! He was the last little sucker in the jar! Extremely saddened by the thought of no more pickles, I said to myself, “Gee, so many people love pickle juice- I think that they love sweet pickle juice though...”

“Daa focus Elizabeth! Where are you going with this?”

“OK! ok. Well, I wonder if this dill and garlic pickle juice tastes as good as these pickles I love so much.”

Sure enough a sip proved that hypothesis correct. The instant that briny solution washed over my tongue, I had an epiphany!!! DIRTY PICKLE MARTINI!! I thought for sure I had just come up with the next new fad! I mean if people drink martinis with jarred onions, why not pickles? Unfortunately, I was just a bit late figuring this out. Yes, if you google “dirty pickle martini” there are 863,000 results. Apparently somebody else had the same idea just a few years earlier.

Nevertheless, I shall press on and continue tasting things out of curiosity and desperation. I mean isn’t that how most good things came about. Take ice wine, or Eiswein its original name, some farmer was probably cussing up a storm in German (which sounds a lot worse than cussing in English!) about this early freeze that was killing his perfectly ripe grapes. What the !beep! was the poor guy to do? Dang it, he decided he was gonna press those frozen grapes and salvage what he could. What happened? A thick rich syrup the flowed from the ice filled presses.

Ok hold it! Think back to when you were a little kid. Ok, now it’s a hot summer day and you have a popsicle in hand. Mmmmm! It’s cold and sweet and delicious and . . MELTING! Quickly you slurp up the drips, latch on to a spot, and suck out the juice. When your lips leave the frozen treat, the edge is nothing but white ice. BINGO!! That syrup you sucked out of the popsicle is the just like the syrup used to make ice wine.

The wine that comes from this grape syrup is sweet, acidic, and full of juicy fruit flavors rather than the dried fruit flavors exhibited by most dessert wines. Today, this is some of the most sought after wine, with whole festivals dedicated to it. Ha! To think that it all came from some pissed German winemaker. That’s just nuts!

Hmmmmmmmm, maybe tonight I’ll run out of something else that makes me try a new and odd combination. I do have the lettuce in the fridge. Fudge! I’m out of vinegar. (Lightbulb!) Dill pickle vinaigrette!

It’s raining . .AGAIN! Will providence ever dry out? On the 8-block walk to the library I stepped in countless puddles and drenched the bottom twelve inches of my denim flares. Wearing flip flops- may not have been the brightest idea. . . (hey! I didn’t want to ruin my shoes) Each pool of water seemed to team with life as the drops of rain made the surface flicker. However, the life found in these pools was not so pretty. Within a ten foot span on the sidewalk, I counted 68 blackish funny-looking worms. Each one was desperately squirming and squiggling around, looking for I have know idea what. By the time I got to number 68 I thought, “Gee. Is this what my weekends are coming to, counting worms in puddles?”

After about two hours in of nonstop printing for the trip, I was starving. I grabbed my 2 inch stack of papers, shoved it into the least likely to get wet section of my backpack, and headed out into the thunder. Luckily at this point the rain was down to a sputter. “Just do it Elizabeth! Go to the store and buy some milk and half & half so you can make risotto.”

Run to campus convenience, damn they only have pints of whole milk, I never buy anything but whole milk unless I’m dying. Then and only then I have been know to buy 2% but I hate it. Settling for less milk fat is like settling for Hershey instead of Dagoba or Terra Nostra; it’s just not even the same food.

Tromp home, hood up, hair down, and smell the charcoal from someone’s grill . . mmmmmm I will miss that. I will miss the smell of Iowa summer. I will miss how we eat sweetcorn for eight meals a week. I will miss how dad plants too much in the garden for me to keep up with. I will miss the farmer’ markets, the late nights at the bakery, stopping at grandma’s every Sunday after church, the way it rains and how my brothers and I still play in it.

Isn’t it odd how just one aroma can make you think about so much. It’s as if our whole lives, our memories and experiences, are all attached to this small thing. I think I am sad that I will not be home this summer. It’s my first summer to spend anywhere other than Iowa, and part of me is afraid. I feel as though I will miss something in not being there.

Recipe

1. Walk in the door, drop keys on chair, fling wet backpack over shoulder and onto floor, place dairy products in the fridge.
2. Squat in front of the fridge and survey the possible ingredients: mushrooms, tomatoes, parmesan, asiago, chicken sausage, fresh parsley, butter, half and half then to the onions, rice and seasonings.
3. Chop, melt, saute, dump, stir . . . and stir . . . and stir more. This is why Italian women sit when they cook. Oaf!
4. Portion and put extra in fridge. Smile and sigh because you have creamy mushroom-dotted pearls of heaven topped with glossy red chickeny tomato deliciousness.
5. Take a bite and realize you won’t be missing it all. Breathe in the steam, and breathe out the stress. Savor the flavor and let go of the fear.

It’s late. My neck has a kink in it, my ankle is swollen and sore, and shrapnel of notebooks, papers, and writing utensils surround me, while my poor computer sits on my lap getting hotter and hotter. Today has been full of nonstop planning. Partly because it’s 21 days to lift off, and partly because THAILAND IS CANCELLED! @#%>!$@#*^@!!!

Yes you read that correctly, I am sorry to report that, due to “political unrest,” aka chaos and danger, the US government has prohibited us from going. Ok, maybe I’m being a bit dramatic, but this is a dramatic turn of events! No Ancient ruins, no monks in orange, no elephants, no cheap but awesome markets . . . I have reason to freak!

On the bright side, we are still going to Singapore, thank goodness. However, now we are spending the last week in Malaysia. This is actually ok with me because I know three malaysians from school, and two of which immediately told me that Malaysia is no Thailand, but it would still be good.

So now, I guess, is where that good ole flexibility comes in. I just have to pretend I’m cooking and an ingredient is missing. Although I don’t have pine nuts for my basil pesto, I have cashews. Well, I like cashews . . . and in pesto they are actually delicious. Despite the fact that, I have to change the flight. Oh! And on the day I need to leave, and the surround days, Rome is completely booked and my travel agent doesn’t know if he can change the ticket to Milan, I am going to make it.

Things happen for a reason. Just like my swollen ankle, it keeps hurting me so that I’ll stop going a million miles an hour, and relax. This special change to a seemingly perfect schedule, may bring something better than elephants. We’ll just have to wing it and see what that is.