We are the Panda-Champions

I like you all, so I'm going to share with you one of my favorite things I've cooked in a while as a sort of early-Halloween gift. Heather and I made this rather unusual (but festive!) chili on the fly and it came out super good. So good, in fact, that it won the ward Halloween party chili cook-off. I'm pretty proud of us. Here's an approximate recipe written after-the-fact—I did my best, but you should definitely feel free to adapt it to your own culinary whimsy :) Happy Halloween!

Halloween Harvest Chili 

3-4 sweet potatoes, diced

Olive oil

Sea salt

Pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 small onions, chopped

1.5 Tbsp rosemary

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

2 chicken breasts, cooked and diced

4 cans Great Northern beans

3 cans chicken broth
2 cups milk, divided

1 1/2 tsp chicken flavored bouillon

1 rounded tsp garam masala

1/2 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp basil

2 Tbsp masa flour (or regular flour)

1 hot yellow pepper (or any hot pepper you like)

1 cup raw pumpkin seeds (without shells!)

1.5 cups dried cranberries, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup(ish) of brie, cut into pieces (About 1/2 small wedge. Do what feels right.)

Pre-heat oven to 400°. Line two baking sheets in aluminum foil. In a medium mixing bowl, combine 4 Tbsp olive oil, 1.5 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper. Add sweet potatoes, toss to coat. Spread evenly on baking sheets. Bake about 8 inches below upper heating element for approximately 20-30 minutes. (I was checking them about every 5 minutes. Take them out when they're sufficiently roasted and "screaming.") Set aside.

While the sweet potatoes are cooking, combine 2 Tbsp olive oil, garlic, onions, rosemary, and cayenne pepper in a large pot. Cook on low heat until onions are translucent. Add chicken, beans, broth, one cup of milk, masala powder, thyme, basil, and whatever other herbs/spices tickle your fancy. Bring to a boil. In a small bowl, mix remaining cup of milk and flour. Add to soup while stirring constantly. 

Cut off the stem of the pepper and cut the pepper in half lengthwise. Remove seeds and white membrane. Flatten each half of the pepper and place skin-side up on an aluminum-foil lined baking sheet (I transferred all the sweet potatoes to one baking sheet, and then re-used the empty one). Broil 4-6 inches below the upper heating element for 8-10 minutes, or until the skins are dark. Remove from oven and wrap foil tightly around them. Take care, as foil will be extremely hot. Let peppers "sweat" in the foil for at least 15 minutes—this makes it easier to remove the skins. (I sped up the process by sticking them in the freezer.) When they're done, peel off the skin. Chop finely and add to pot.  

In small mixing bowl, combine 2 Tbsp olive oil and 1/2 tsp sea salt. Add pumpkin seeds, toss to coat. Place on aluminum foil lined baking sheet. Roast under broiler, about 5 minutes. Add to pot. 

Add sweet potatoes, cranberries, and brie. Stir to help melt brie. Add salt and pepper to taste. (It will definitely need salt ... we added it so sporadically that I have no clue how much it was. So add slowly and taste liberally!)

Serve warm with (homemade) bread!



Also, it looks pretty cute when you serve it in a pumpkin. If you can cut the pumpkin to fit a bowl in it, bigger win for you because you don't have to clean it out all the way :)

Making Life Hard

Oh, the things we do to make our own lives difficult.

You know what I'm talking about: eating food that's not good for you, procrastinating studying and paper writing, staying up late for no reason at all, getting hopes up over things that can't happen ... You know, taking your head and wedging it between a rock and a hard place, then buttering your face so it slides down even further into the crack and stays there.

Why do we do these things to ourselves? We glut ourselves on these things that give such fleeting satisfaction, and typically do more damage to us and our lives than they improve them. I mean, I'm sitting here with grandma's ugliest Alaskan sweaters on my teeth, I think I've burned the tastebuds off my tongue from sheer acidity, and my jaw is cramping from chewing. But will that stop me from putting more handfuls of Skittles in my mouth? As yet, the answer is a resounding NO. I'm not even enjoying them; in fact, they're contributing significantly to my non-enjoyment of this particular moment.

Maybe the punishment isn't strong enough, you say. Perhaps the stakes are not sufficiently high to produce the resilience necessary to combat the tempting flavors happening in my mouth. But I can tell you that, all too often, the stakes are high enough and the punishment is horrifying enough that it should produce proactive and preventative behaviors. I should be able to say, "No. Get away from my mouth. You're messing me up right now."

But not so much.

For your sake, I hope you are not like me. I hope that you have the kind of fortitude that keeps you from procrastinating all your studying, paper writing, and packing so that you can enjoy the last three days and nights of this period of your life. I hope that you can force yourself to go to bed when staying up late takes so much and gives so little to you. I hope that, when you're alone with a tempting bag of Skittles Blenders, you can reach down inside of you and access that well of strength that will make you put them out of your reach. And for heaven's sake, I hope that when fantasy knocks on your door in rather shoddy disguise and asks to stay for two and a half weeks, you have the gumption to demand an inspection of intentions.

I hope that you have the power to resist the things that make life so beautifully difficult. I hope you can look past the appeal on the surface——the having fun, the tasty sugar, the writing silly and metaphorical and cryptic and self-centered and patronizing blog posts in the wee hours of the morning, the illusion of happiness——and keep your life in control.

I hope you can tell the difference between what is just going to make life difficult... and what is worth it.

Because I sure as heck can't.

A Study Break Discussion of Mac&Cheese

Since I am taking a study break to make food and I'm also waiting for some water to boil for my Mac & Cheese, I find it appropriate to address the following photo: 

I saw this a few months ago on Pinterest, and found it to be both true and hilarious. The infamous "To open push here" tab has been victimizing thumbnails and willpowers for just about as long as I can remember. While I have labeled it simply as a deceit (see word and arrow in photo above) and a punisher of young, hungry victims, I have another item of business to discuss:

This darn thumb tab is completely and totally useless. 

Most people are not aware of this, because, as stated above, it's mostly just a horrific item intended to make us suffer. But suppose, just imagine with me for a moment, that it did, in fact, work as it purports to work. What would be the result?

You would, indeed, be able to pour the macaroni out of the box and into the pot of boiling water through the nice little opening that the tab would theoretically provide. This, if it were possible, would be true.

But what of the cheese?

I speak here of the cheese packet, the cheese that is the "Cheese" in "Macaroni & Cheese." One might even refer to it as "The Big Cheese." (Though there may be some argument as to whether "The Big Cheese" should refer to the largest cheese, or what Kraft claims its Macaroni & Cheese to be--that is, "The Cheesiest." As yet, consider the question in question to be still under debate.) 

Back to this cheese packet and the tabbed opening of the Macaroni & Cheese box. Let's say you have, by some feat of human strength, agility, and unbeforeseen prowess, managed to get this tab open, thereby creating the opening that permits the macaroni to exit the box in an orderly fashion. Now you want to get the cheese packet out of the box. You tip the box, but alas! The cheese packet is, shockingly, too large to fit through the tiny opening that the tab provides. What do you do now?

You open the darn box the way that boxes are meant to be opened, and fetch out yo' cheese. 

So tell me, world: why in the heck would I use the danged tab opening when I have to open the box the old fashioned way anyways to get the crappin' cheese out when I am fully and completely capable of opening said box the old fashioned way, fetchin' out ma' cheese and settin' it on the counter, and then pouring the noodles into the pot of boiling water, thereby avoiding the thumbnail abuse and ego-damage that this box entails to any person fool enough to try to use the stinkin' tab?

You know, I think that the tab just exists as an insult to humanity. Because we're not smart enough not to pour the cheese packet into the pot of boiling water with the noodles. 

Then again, we're not smart enough to figure out the motherfatherin' tab, so I guess I really don't know who is really in the wrong here. 

Huh.

Anyways ... time to get back to the books!

The Reality of Frozen Yogurt

Frozen yogurt places are quickly becoming Utah's greatest culinary prostitute. Is there a single block between Provo and Salt Lake that doesn't have a Yogurtland, Spoon Me, Spoon It Up, Yozone, etc.? If it weren't for cupcakes, fro-yo would be Utah's only culinary prostitute, and we know that the only thing taking up more real estate than fro-yo places is LDS chapels. (Now don't get me wrong--I love the fact that I can travel down 9th East in Provo and see, I dunno, 28 chapels and 13 more under construction (rough estimate).)

But I'm digressing from my point. 

I've never really been a frozen treats kind of girl. I can enjoy a good vanilla cone, or small dish of ice cream every now and then, but I will never be the kind of girl that craves it. Blame it on my sugar-free-cereals upbringing, subsequent sugar gluttony, and then recovery. Or blame it on the fact that I have sensitive teeth and a tongue that just don't like cold things. Whatever reason you choose, take it, run with it. Fact is, I'm not an ice cream girl. Or a frozen yogurt girl. If anything, I'm a frozen custard girl, but that's another topic for another day. For me, the point of frozen yogurt is to get enough to allow you to get as many mini gummy bears as possible half-frozen on top of it. The fro-yo's just an adhesive cooling device. 

Now, I suppose the fact that I'm already not such a fan of frozen yogurt really discredits my reliability as a giver of the following opinion, but so be it:
Frozen Yogurt is a LIE, STEVEN!!! 

Just kidding. Your name isn't Steven. I was just channeling Jack Black there for a moment. (Please view the following video if you no comprendo.)

Anyways. Back to the reasons why frozen yogurt is a lie. 

You may notice as you have gone to these frozen yogurt places that fro-yo typically has the consistency of soft-serve, maybe a little firmer, and is somewhat less creamy and more tart than regular ice cream. This is in the style of regular yogurt vs. cream. In theory, frozen yogurt and ice cream are just the significantly chilled versions of their refrigerated counterparts. 

This is not true. How do I know? Because I am eating a frozen yogurt right now and it is not the same as fro-yo!

I know. That doesn't make sense. Because frozen yogurt and the general concept of fro-yo are two very different things. I'm talking about a yogurt, Raspberry Yumberry to be exact (yeah, idk what a yumberry is either. Stop worrying about it. It tastes good, and that's all that matters.) which I bought probably a week ago. This yogurt, as it so happens, fell victim to the everyone-in-our-apartment-has-too-much-food incident, which tends to result in fridge-tetris, hard-to-shut-doors, and an inability for the cool air to get around to everything. You may be thinking that this is a problem because the food closest to the door can't get cool. Oddly enough, that is not the problem. The problem is with food getting stuck in the back where all the cool air is also stuck. Hence, the reason I think of that area as the second freezer. 

Other foods of mine have been a victim of this, mainly produce, like the lettuce and my celery (R.I.P. celery). You wouldn't think that freezing would really be much of an issue. Just defrost it, right? WRONG. My poor celery got freakishly floppy and looked bruised, and the lettuce last year was just as much of a disaster. Needless to say, I get a little angry with the fridge, but it's nbd, right?

I suppose I should have realized that my Raspberry Yumberry yogurt, having been knocked back into the second freezer area of the fridge, might have fallen victim to this chilly death. It wasn't until I pulled back the foil that I actually recognized that it was, in fact, frozen. And instead of moving it to the front of the fridge and allowing it to slowly defrost, which may have worked, I kept pulling back the foil. 

This was the wrong decision. 

Somewhere in my head I thought, "This will be fine. It'll be just like fro-yo in a cup. Or like one of those awesome Minute Maid frozen lemonades. Just with a more yogurt-y taste."

WRONG, my friends. SO MUCH WRONGNESS. 

I may have experienced some anger at this realization. 

And what a realization it was.

Turns out, when yogurt freezes, it also separates. Yeah. Into the watery-ish part, and the actual yogurt goop part. To make matters worse, I tried to microwave it slowly, so as not to have warm yogurt. I tried a couple sessions of 30-seconds at 50% power, which were interspersed with spoon jabbings into the little cup. Welcome to shards of ice in yogurt dregs. 

At this point, fearing the imminent yogurt soup, I gave up on the microwave, and decided to stir it into submission. Nothing like a little friction to get things moving slowly, right?

Still so wrong. 

Ultimately, I ended up with some watery room-temperature Raspberry Barfberry melange with little cottage-cheese like curds of stubborn still-frozen yogurt dregs swimming in it.

What I'm really trying to get at is this:
frozen yogurt 
is not the same as 
frozen yogurt.

And you know what the worst part of it all is?

... I still ate it. 

Random Musings on Being Home and Whatever Else Comes to Mind While I'm Sitting Here

Don't mind the Fall Out Boy-esque title to this post. It just happened. Normally, I prefer a concise title. But the current one seems to reflect my general mood right now.

So! I'm home! I know I technically already posted something after being home, but it wasn't really about being home, so it doesn't count as much. You know, I cannot believe it's Thursday. The days are flying by me without me having a chance to say anything about it. They just disappear! I swear!

Well, as far as news goes, I am (as you might have heard) on a diet. A really rockin' and effective diet, but as a first time dieter, I'm absolutely dying. Now first let me explain how this diet works. It's called Ideal Protein, and it's a phased dieting system where you start off cutting out not just sugar, and not just carbs, and not just fat ... but all three. That's right, folks. I'm on SERIOUS restrictions here. A typical day looks like this:

Breakfast: Protein shake, or Ideal Protein pancakes

Lunch: 5 oz. of some protein, and 2 cups of vegetables

Snack: Some Ideal Protein snack, such as apple cinnamon soy puffs, peanut balls, barbecue chips, or lemon bars. ***

Dinner: 5 oz. of some protein, and 2 cups of vegetables

In case you hadn't noticed, yes, this diet (in the phase I'm in right now) is fruit free. And I drink so much water that I'm in the bathroom like 4 times an hour. It's kind of heinous. As far as other rules go, I don't have to eat everything exactly when it says to eat it. Often, I only have a cup of veggies during meals and use the other cup to stave off the hunger monster during other times of the day (since I am basically a 100% all-the-time-hungry kind of girl. Really. Little known fact: I am rarely not hungry). I'm also allowed to eat as much lettuce as I want! (Yes, my diet now matches my rabbit-teeth, thank you for noticing :D) Often, we (since my mom, dad, sister, aunt, and grandma are also on the diet) boil some rhubarb chunks and serve them up with Splenda, cinnamon, and a dash of vanilla. It kinda tastes like pie at first, and then eventually it's so sour and you've eaten it so many times that it starts to lose a little bit of its glory. We also have cabbage with rice vinegar, Splenda, and soy sauce. This is pretty tasty as well--for diet food.

That's becoming quite the caveat in my eating experiences recently. Such as, "It's good ... for diet food." Because who are we kidding, THIS CRAP ISN'T GOOD. It's just good enough that we're willing to choke it down for a few weeks to get rockin' beach bods (and yes, that's what I plan on having).

So how does this diet work? Well, basically because you're eating, like, nothing, your body goes into ketosis. Ketosis is when your body stops running on the food you're taking in and starts running on the fat that's stored on your body. You stay on this until you've achieved 90% of your weight loss goal, and then move onto the next phase. I haven't watched the video for it to explain all the scientific mumbo jumbo, but I know it also gives your pancreas a rest, and is enormously effective. I've never felt so in control of my weight before. Just to give you an idea of how effective this is, my grandma has lost 60 lbs. since January, and she is skinnier now than she's been in my whole memory. She's tried so many diets, but this one actually worked. And basically as soon as you start getting chunky again, you just go back into ketosis (and the Ideal Protein products aren't actually necessary for this) for a little while, and bam--the weight's gone. I've only been doing it for a couple of days, and I haven't been religious about my scale-checking, but I'll let you know how it goes after a week. I'm so excited!

Oh! I almost forgot! You might have noticed a few stars/asterisks (***) after my snack section in the daily menu. Let me explain: these are some of those "for diet food" snacks. For example, with those barbecue chips, there's a weird, meaty aftertaste (apparently that's what protein tastes like. Yum). Now, I've managed to put up the things that are actually really good for diet food. I haven't had the apple cinnamon soy puffs yet, but I hear they're pretty bomb. The peanut balls ... well, they're kind of like peanut butter around a malt ball (ex. a Whopper), but it's slightly more granular than a malt ball. And those little puppies are delicious. I would eat them by the bucket if they were eat-as-much-as-you-want. The lemon bars are actually like granola bars, but they're lemon poppyseed, so the inside's all grainy and poppyseedy, and then there's a lemon frosting-like thing that it's been dipped in. Oh, baby, it's really good ... for diet food. What I didn't mention were the puddings (even my mom, with an experienced dieter's stomach of steel can barely choke those down without serious doctoring). And in case I didn't clarify, those barbecue chips could curl your big-toe hair (assuming it isn't already curled ... ).

Other downsides to this diet include:

• Price: each snack or other meal replacement item is $3 a pop. Which I suppose is okay because it's supposed to replace a meal, but at the same time ... yikes!
• Halitosis: one of the signs of ketosis is stinky breath. And it's not just your everyday stale morning breath. It's like someone parked a Port-O-Let in your mouth. Just sayin'.
• Fatigue: because your body is running on its own fat stores, you get pretty tired pretty easily. I haven't noticed this as much because I haven't really tried to do much since I got here, but my sister will vouch for this. I might also be having headaches, but there are other possible explanations for that too, so I'm not sure.
• Bathroom: I hate being in the bathroom. I will avoid it for as long as I possibly can, basically subduing the gotta-go feeling until the pipes are ready to burst. Unfortunately, because of the huge amount of water I need to be drinking in order to process all the protein I'm consuming, I'm in the bathroom all the time. (Think Zac Efron in 17 Again talking about being hungry, which, oddly enough, is also how I feel.)
• Being Hungry: my parents aren't having as hard of a time with this, but my sister and I are just on the verge of death with hunger. And since I have little to do, I have little to distract me. Also, I keep ending up at the grocery store where everything looks delicious. I have been craving homestyle mac'n'cheese for days now, and there's been a bag of rolls making googly eyes at me since Monday night.
• Cheating: on this diet, you can't cheat. You can't have a lovely cheat day and say, "Okay, well, I'm going to treat myself to a little bit of cake today because I've been doing so good these past few days!" No. You can't do that at all because it kicks you out of ketosis, and then you lose all your fat-burning momentum. It's not worth any of the things you're suffering (see list above) to suffer the effects of cheating. So that bowl of jelly beans that I've been hiding in the cabinet ... yeah. I can't even pop a couple of those because the sugar might throw my body out of ketosis and ruin everything. And my goal is to lose my 90% of my weight loss goal as fast as freaking possible so I can get back to eating real food.

So yeah. That's the stat on the diet. I hope it works, and quickly. I actually really think it's awesome, and ... yeah! Hoorah for diets! :)

I also went on a couple shopping trips over the past couple of days. My mom had a meeting up in Columbia, so my grandma and I hit the mall. I looked gross, and therefore had no intention of buying anything (plus I kind of expect to go down a size or so, and I don't want to buy clothes that are going to be too big in a couple of weeks) ... But I confess I did. Remember this Seventeen cover from like 2 years ago?

Me too. It's awesome, and the best part of the whole thing is that necklace that she is wearing. I have been coveting a necklace of such style--huge, flowers, multi-colored, kind of flat in the way that it lays on you--since I saw that cover. And I am proud to say that I finally have one. Now, it's not exactly what TSwizzle's got going on, and it's quite a bit more gold than that one. It's got a chain-mail-y base with these big gold flower charms that have fake diamonds in the middle of them, and then multicolored beads all over. Sounds ghastly, I'm sure. I'll take a pic on Sunday (when I will wear it for the first time) and post it so you can see what I really mean. It's quite the necklace, let me tell you.

I also managed to acquire a grand pair of shoes. I can't find a picture of them online (or the necklace), but I will probably also wear those on Sunday in which case there will also be a picture of them. They're darling. Floral, bright colors, a really nice brown leather for the straps, kind of a wedge-type heel, and a big yellowish green flower right on the front. Peep toes, of course. So cute. Can't wait for you to see them. They're more flattering than almost any shoe I've ever worn, not just because they make my feet look tiny, but because they just plain make my feet look good. And when do my feet ever look good?? Passable, sure, but good? Rare enough that I can't think of a time that they actually looked legitimately good. I'm stoked to wear them; I think they'll go together smashingly!

Hmmm .... other things, other things. Well, I've got a job, or should I say jobs, and some quite resume-pumping work at that. It's pretty exciting stuff.

Also, I can't believe it's Thursday/almost Friday. I feel like it was just this morning that I was thinking, "Wow, it's Tuesday! Josh flies out today! We were just sitting in his kitchen a week ago, being shocked that he was going to fly out in a week ... and now it's here!" Only now it's been two days since then, and I can't figure out how time is moving so quickly! I feel like I must be sleeping through my days or something. I guess they're all just so lack-luster (and I've been kind of not exactly changing my clothes too much every day) that they're all just melting together.

Well, I suppose now's the time to post. This has been really long-winded and silly and pointless, but that's what happening in my neck of the woods (thank you, Al Roker, and too many hours of the Today Show this morning for that little phrase) ... Toodlepip! :)

The Parable of the Fork

In only slightly belated celebration of Easter, I'd like to share with you all a story that was told in sacrament meeting yesterday. It's called The Parable of the Fork:

There was a woman who had been diagnosed with a deadly illness and had been given 3 months to live. Her doctor told her to start making preparations to die, so she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss certain aspects of her final wishes. She told him which songs she wanted sung at the service, what scriptures she would like read, and what she wanted to be wearing. The woman also told her pastor that she wanted to be buried with her favorite bible. Everything was in order and the pastor was preparing to leave when the woman suddenly remembered something very important to her.

"There's one more thing!" she said excitedly.

"What's that?" came the pastor's reply.

"This is very important," the woman continued, "I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand."

The pastor stood looking at the woman not knowing quite what to say.

"That shocks you doesn't it?" the woman asked.

"Well to be honest, I'm puzzled by the request" said the pastor.

The woman explained: "In all my years of attending church socials and functions where food was involved, my favorite part was when whoever was clearing away the dishes of the main course would lean over and say 'you can keep your fork.' It was my favorite part because I knew that something better was coming. When they told me to keep my fork I knew that something great was about to be given to me. It wasn't Jell-O or pudding. It was cake or pie. Something with substance. So I just want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand and I want them to wonder 'What's with the fork?' Then I want you to tell them: 'Something better is coming so keep your fork too.'"

The pastor's eyes were welled up with tears of joy as he hugged the woman good-bye. He knew this would be one of the last times he would see her before her death. But he also knew that that woman had a better grasp of heaven than he did. She knew that something better was coming. At the funeral people were walking by the woman's casket and they saw the pretty dress she was wearing and her favorite bible and the fork placed in her right hand. Over and over the pastor heard the question "What's with the fork?" And over and over he smiled. During his message the pastor told the people of the conversation he had with the woman shortly before she died. He also told them about the fork and about what it symbolized to her. The pastor told the people how he could not stop thinking about the fork and told them that they probably would not be able to stop thinking about it either. He was right. So the next time you reach down for your fork, let it remind you oh so gently that there is something better coming.

:)

The Diet of a College Student

Here in K1, we pride ourselves on the quality of our meals. We stand proud behind our beautifully displayed pasta bar. We rejoice in our massive exhibition of cupcakes and dipped cocoa spoons. We will ravish your taste buds with our calzones, spaghetti sauces, pizzas, meatballs, and Chinese Buffet Doughnuts. On any given evening, without occasion, we, unlike most college students, will whip up a full blown and incredibly delicious meal. It's a beautiful thing…
… most of the time.
Now, I guess it's not fair to implicate my roommates in this. It's mostly me. I'm really the one to blame here. Why? I'm not really sure. If I had to guess, I'd probably say it's because I either want to go all out, or I just quit. It's kind of like me with cleaning. If I can't do a full-blown spring-cleaning kind of deal, I will probably just ... not. You’d think I’d just get over it and make a quasi-real meal. No. I just go straight down the path of crazy. Here is a list of some of the bad food choices I've made this year:
5. Things Straight Out of the Can
Be it the pineapple tidbits I just finished, the cherry pie filling that left me full of sick, or the jellied cranberry sauce that’s on my list of “never purchase ever again,” I’m semi-notorious for eating stuff out of the can. Idk what’s wrong with it. It saves me from having to do dishes. But it’s not always (read: ever) meant to be eaten that way, so it tends to taste pretty shady. And yet I keep doing it … huh.
4. 7-Up … on Frosted Mini-Spooners

  ⁺⁼

One sunny Saturday morning, I woke up excited for breakfast. As I was about to pour myself bowl of Frosted Mini Spooners (remember, this was back at the beginning of fall semester when I was relishing every moment I had with cereal that didn’t taste like horse feed after a summer of Kashi and Chex. Woof.), I spotted a 2-liter of 7-Up sitting on the counter, and thought, in the middle of my morning intellectual fog, “Soda sweet. Cereal sweet. Sweet plus sweet equal very sweet. Good, yes?” Reason caught up with me for a moment, and said, “Are you serious?” A few seconds passed, and I was unsure of what I would do. Then I said to myself, “I’m in college. I DO WHAT I WANT.” Fortunately, I had enough foresight to only put seven or so Frosted Mini Spooners in my bowl, and only a quarter of a cup of soda in my bowl. Strangely enough, it tasted just like Fruit Loops at first. Then that 7-Up-y tang and carbonated fierceness that Sprite could never harness threw me into a tailspin. Rude.
3. My New Year’s Eve Feast: Ritz crackers, a chocolate Snack Pack pudding, a raspberry peach fruit juice, and peanut butter … I don’t even know what else.
++ +  +  =
Being that I had just flown back home from Christmas break that day, and had spent like 14 hours travelling, it was perfectly acceptable that I didn’t want to go out and party on New Year’s Eve. I’ve never really cared much about the New Year, except how it destroys my erasers because I am constantly having to rewrite the date. I don’t make resolutions, because hey, who wants to be hugely disappointed in themselves come February (or January 5th, as the case may be …) when they realize that they’ve completely failed as a human being, and can’t even successfully give up carbonated beverages for a month (5 days …). Not like I’ve ever tried that, because I have a full-blown addiction to carbonated things, and I would never give them up because I see no reason to, as I have limited access to them.
So as I’m lying on the couch, I realize that I’ve got no groceries, but also that I don’t want to cook, and I’m capital-H Hungry. I’m too lazy to walk to the market (slash forget that it exists), and so I start scavenging the cabinets for things that are edible. What I find are Ritz crackers, a chocolate Snack Pack pudding, some raspberry peach flavor packets, and peanut butter. I might have found a few other things, but I know that those things were definitely there. I collect my items, ashamed of myself, and shut the blinds tight, lock and bolt the front door, fluff the cozy sack, and find pillows, blankets, and my cellphone, and plop down in front of the TV to watch Oceans 11.
But it doesn’t stop here. I know, it already seems bad enough that I’m spending New Year’s Eve alone in my apartment, eating these things, wrapped up in my little cocoon of loser-dom. Oh no. I had to get creative. I’m mixing up my peanut butter and pudding, I’m sloshing juice into my mouth before I can even swallow the cracker (which is, surprisingly enough, not that bad …).
I don’t really remember what else went down in my fit of insanity and sick hunger, but I am not proud. Not proud at all.
2. Straight Sea Salt

I’m one of those people that really likes salt. I like salty popcorn, salty caramel … all sorts of salty things. Now, our apartment has a spice rack, a really cute one, on which there is a bottle that holds (you guessed it) sea salt. And it’s the cool stuff that is in pretty sizeable chunks too. It’s great stuff.
So let’s set the stage for this a little bit. We’ve invited some of the gentlemen from #6 over to watch a movie and make homemade caramel, and we’re having a lovely time with them and a few other people that we didn’t really know. As Logan is stirring up the caramel, I’m chilling in the kitchen and I see this little jar of sea salt. So I start pouring tiny piles into my hand and eating the little pebbles of sea salt. Nbd, right? Well, as I'm going along, my throat kinda starts to burn, but it’s a cold, wet burn (yes, all three of those can be happening at the same time). It was weird, but I didn’t really think anything of it, and I kept eating the sea salt.
Suddenly, I realize that I’m going to barf. What do I do? I walk past everyone straight to the bathroom, kneel down in front of the toilet, and proceed to offer up my oblations to the porcelain god. Then Natalie came in and I was barfing and my face was covered in tears, because even if you’re not distressed, vomiting is one of those things that makes all the liquids in your face start coming out, whether you will it or not. That’s just reality.
1. Campells Chunky Baked Potato with Cheddar and Bacon Bits Soup … on Rice

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This was probably the worst possible thing I ever did. Let’s just clarify that shopping hungry isn’t only bad because you want to buy things you don’t need. It’s also bad because suddenly, things that should never, ever look good suddenly look delicious. It’s a good thing we’re not supposed to shop on Sunday, because if I went grocery shopping on Fast Sunday, I’d probably come home with a jar of pickled eggs or pigs’ feet or something. Granted, I was further deceived by the $1 price tag. A meal for $1? I’m on that like white on rice.
Which is funny, because rice is where things start getting really shady… Well, shadier than they already were.
So I make this soup, and realize that it’s not what it was pretending to be. The thing about canned soup is that it looks like there might be some variation in there, but they let it sit in the cans for like a billion years before they try to sell it to the public, and by that point everything has just decided to share flavors and textures, so it’s mostly just this homogenous slop that’s also probably carrying botulism. I realize this, and suddenly also realize, thanks to the stank … I mean steam rising out of the pot it was brewing in, that this soup is very dense with “flavor.” Knowing that my taste buds couldn’t take that kind of intensity, I knew that I had to find some way to stretch the flavor out and dilute it. I was afraid to put water in it, because that would make it grosser. Then I remembered that I had a Tupperware of rice in the fridge from some previous meal. I think to myself, “Soup on rice? It’s kind of like a sauce thing on rice, right?”
WRONG. It was like my mouth was Hiroshima and my own stupidity dropped a starch bomb on me, decimating all hope of happiness for the rest of the night. I was full within like 3 bites, the smell of the Cheese-Whiz-y cheddar “flavor” in the soup was giving me a headache, and I think they used hog tongues to make those bacon bits. So … awful … ughhhhh.

The Lost Chicken

DISCLAIMER: I know this is gonna look like I really care, but I don't. I mean, a little bit, but not enough to make a real issue out of it.

So I haven't eaten very much meat lately. I can't really explain how I've been getting away with this. Dinner group, of course, has played a part, but I don't really know how else I've managed to do this. I can't even think of what I've been eating the past few days. All I know is that I haven't touched my chicken (the only meat I have) since before Josh's birthday. I am absolutely, 100% certain of this.

You can imagine my surprise then, when I came home after a very long day and, having decided to make chicken alfredo pasta, found that I didn't actually have any chicken.

Now, I know I had some before Josh's birthday, because last time I used it (whenever that was) I hadn't used my last piece. I hadn't even used my second to last piece. I'm pretty sure I had like four pieces of chicken left, actually. Maybe three. Idk. But when I got in the freezer to get my chicken so I could cook it up for my pasta, my chicken was gone. The entire bag had disappeared.

Let's just get something straight: I don't mind people using my food. Within reason, of course. I mean, I'm not going to let someone starve when I have food, but it's just not fair to expect other people to provide food you, and I'm not the kind of person that's super okay with getting mooched off like that.

Where I'm having a problem (and it's really not a problem. Not this time anyways. Mostly just funny.) is with the fact that somebody used up the last of my chicken and didn't even tell me. I mean, seriously? What, are they like so ashamed that they used the last of my chicken that they couldn't even inform me?

And like I said, it's not a big deal. At this point I just think it's kinda funny.

Yeah. Let's just leave it at that.