Its been about three months since I last posted on this blog. And I was beginning to think that I would never get back to it. Because on August 16th Jose and I drove 10 and a half hours from DC to Bloomington, Indiana. We arrived tired, headachy, and starving. I promptly hopped on the local wireless and did a search for "best pizza in Bloomington". Thus I found
Avers Pizza, a Chicago style place, and ordered our first meal, a Deluxe deep dish.
The next day after crashing on an air mattress in an otherwise empty bedroom we arose at 7 AM to greet the moving truck and spent all morning and days afterwards moving into my new, suburban apartment. After living in the beating heart of downtown Washington DC it was quite an adjustment, and continues to be so, to live in a culdesac where at night it is completely pitch black outside. A 10 minute walk takes one to the strip mall, a grocery store and movie theater and many other suburban amenities, but it just doesn't replace my DC neighborhood.
So then why, one may wonder, would I leave DC for Indiana if DC is so wonderful? Well, as I have mentioned previously, its all about the PhD. Specifically, the PhD in socio-cultural anthropology with a concentration in Food and an outside minor in Human Sexuality (at the famed Kinsey Institute). The past three months I have spent trying to construct a new life, in a new (college) town, a new routine, new friends and a new focus: my PhD. I've also returned to DC several times already to see my friends that I consider family, and to eat seafood without feeling guilty. (Its just hard for me to eat seafood when living in a state that is soo freakin' far from the sea!).
So for those that were wondering, that is where I have been. My first month here I barely cooked except for the occasional pasta. Even since then my cooking has taken a nose dive. Bowls of oatmeal, grits and cereal, pasta and canned sauce and quick one pot melanges of whatever veggies are at hand have been my mainstay during the past weeks, supplemented by eating out way too often for health or budget at cheap cafes in Bloomington.
But yesterday was my birthday and even though I am in the middle of my final papers (including a treatise on the role of
terroir, sustainability and landscape in the debate over the meaning of Organic Agriculture), I have promised myself that I would start updating this blog again. It has been a source of great fun and fulfillment to me since I started it and I hate to see it fall by the wayside. So again, for those of you who have given up on me ever updating this little site again, I promise to be better in the future and try to put up at least a couple entries with photos and food every month. I will also probably share with you some of my work and discoveries about food and farming from my PhD projects. Thanks for waiting and I hope not to disappoint in the future!!
