Grad school

Don't do it. Its like undergrad except that you're surrounded with really smart people and you feel bad about yourself most of the time.

Adventures in Vegetarian Cooking

So, there are a lot of crappy vegetarian recipes out there. I don't know if vegetarians have completely lost sight of what is tasty? Judging from the Tofurkey brand (which is the most disgusting tasting brand on earth) - it appears as if they have. I love to cook so I've been toying around with perhaps collecting some tried and tasty vegetarian recipes that I've altered or come up with or found online.

Our first installment is - Wegetarianski Krupnik (Vegetarian Krupnik)

For those of you who don't know Krupnik is a Polish soup made with vegetables, sometimes meat, and always with barley. Everyone makes it differently... as is the case with every Polish culinary item there is. People have arguements over these things (see the Gabby and Sam kopytka debate of 2002... I still retain that putting sugar on kopytka is blasphemy.)

I took this recipe from a cookbook entitled "Polish Cooking" (riveting, I know.) Anyhow, I surprised to find that the recipe itself was already vegetarian. The recipe called for pearl barley, and I did make it with the tiny barley, however I'm going to suggest buying the regular sized barley. Also, the recipe wanted me to cook the barley for 2 hours. It didn't take NEARLY that much time. I cooked the barley until it was done soaking up the liquid and fully cooked which took about 45 minutes. My mom said that you can just throw the raw barley into the soup and have it cook that way. I might try that next time. Also, please do not omit the smoked paprika, its the secret ingredient! It lends a smoky meaty flavor... totally tastes like you've had bacon simmering away in the soup.

Wegetarianski Krupnik

Ingredients:
2 carrots, diced
1/2 celery root (its terribly difficult to chop... so I just threw the whole thing in there after peeling it.)
1 parnip, diced
2 potatoes, diced
1 onion, diced
1 T butter
2 T sour cream
4 T barley
1/2 T butter
1 t smoked paprika
salt
chopped fresh parsley leaves

Wash and strain the grits. Place in a heavy bottomed pan and add 1/2 T butter cover with cold water (about 1/2 liter) and cook. Stir from time to time while cooking. Meanwhile, boil the vegetables in 2 liters of boiling water (seasoned with about a T of salt) for about one hour. Add the cooked barley to the vegetable stock and season with salt and smoked paprika. Remove about a 1/2 cup of the vegetable stock and whisk with sour cream. Place sour cream mixture back into the soup. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve.

Juicin'

I am doing a raw food cleanse. Basically, I eat raw food until dinnertime. I'm going to be really crabby. I have a lot of vegetables in my fridge. I am impossibly caucasian.

Look how white these ladies are:

Summer can be boring.

I've been bored lately. I don't have a job. I keep going out and buying things so I am not bored. Also, I hang out at Barnes and Noble way too much. Speaking of, I think I'm going to go buy a Moleskine. I'm gonna be all Darwinian about it.

Summer Reading for Desperate Students

I am recording my summer reading list here. Because I can.

I Was Told There'd Be Cake - Sloane Crosley (genuinely enjoyed it.)
Don't Get Too Comfortable - David Rakoff (what a waste of time and energy.)
Biohazard - Ken Alibek
The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women - Susan Douglas This totally wasn't the book I thought it was going to be, therefore, I have nixed it.
My Life In France - Julia Child
New Kings of Non-Fiction - Ira Glass (ed.)
The Meaning of Wife: A Provocative Look at Women and Marriage in the Twenty-first Century - Anne Kingston
This Is Not Chick Lit: Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers - Elizabeth Merrick (ed.)
The Secret History of Moscow - Ekaterina Sedia
Professor Martens' Departure - Jaan Kross
Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior - Temple Grandin
Travels with Herodotus - Ryszard Kapuscinski
Dojczland - Andrzej Stasiuk
Lalka - Boleslaw Prus
Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History - Robert D. Kaplan
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World - Michael Pollan
Between Fire and Sleep - Jaroslaw Anders

I've given it serious thought.

2 Rum and Cokes

I'm a lightweight at best.

10:16 PM
me: MARVIN. Lady Gaga has a great ass.
I want french fries.
Tzatziki.
And ranch
PIckles.
Big macs.
Spicey Chikn Sammmich.
10:17 PM
me: Grape juice.
There's an app for that.
Grape juice app.
DENNY;S
There's an app for that.
10:18 PM
Alkaline trio is so gay.
Cheetos.
10:19 PM
OMG. JOHN TRAVOLTA LOOKS SO WEIRD NOW.
White Castles.
10:21 PM
I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
10:22 PM
Marvin, do you remember in grade school, when someone would barf.. they had those woodchips?
What IS THAT?
Brett Favre loves Wranglers. And probably Nascar.
10:23 PM
Are you doing sexes with ladies?

He died in a bizarre gardening accident.

He did.

Sloane Crosley... I hate you.

I read "I Was Told There'd Be Cake" this week and it made me upset. I enthusiastically read every essay and I loved each one. Of course, I acknowledged that I was destined for self-loathing because Crosley is the writer I could never be. I don't think she is a particularly great writer... however, her style is so similar to mine that its a little creepy. I mean, I'm neither a writer nor a literary pundit but Jesus, if I only applied myself a couple of percentage points more, I could have wrote this book. Instead I am complaining in my blog that is littered with grammatical mistakes. Hmph.

Your face. Don't wash it.

I've been having problems with my skin lately. I've always had good skin, and then POOF! blackheads and pimples everywhere. So, I pretty much tried everything.. Organic bullshit, Neutrogina bullshit. Its all bullshit... you know what works? DON'T WASH YOUR FACE. I used to never wash my face and I had great skin... all of a sudden I started washin' it and then I magically got pimples. I'm telling you... its a conspiracy. They try to keep you hooked on the products, man...

I just had the most lovely day. I went to the gym and then I stayed to lay out by the pool. I felt like a kitten on a windowsill, except there were more frat boys and overexposed breasts.

In order to fulfill the requirements for my FLAS fellowship, I have to learn a new, less commonly taught language. I chose Czech, because well, I don't know why. I enjoy their literary tradition, I guess. Anyhow, these Czechs are CRAZY. They seem to hate vowels, even though they have 10.

Observe:

mrzl (frozen solid), ztvrdl (hardened), scvrkl (shrunk), čtvrthrst (quarter-handful), blb (fool), vlk (wolf), or smrt (death)

Check out this sentence:
"strč prst skrz krk," or "Smrž pln skvrn zvlhl z mlh."

WHAT?!

Oh boy, oh boy.

Let me tell you... trying to customize this thing was a challenge. I pretty much failed, too. Oh well. I am almost done with school. My head hurts from writing about Slovenia. I shake my fist at Slovenia.

Grad Schoolin'

So, I got into three grad schools. (UMich, OSU and UIUC, if you're curious.) Anyhow, after a long period of stewing and brewing, I've decided to go with UIUC. Mainly, because they were the only one's to offer me a concrete source of funding. I got a FLAS, which carries a full tuition waver and a 15,000 a year stipend. Pretty great!

All of this being said, I'm pretty nervous. I mean, I'm pretty sure most of grad school is about time management ... and frankly, I'm not too good at that.