It is not because...

It has been a long time since I posted anything here. A long time - months and months.

It is not because I haven't been cooking, I have been.
It is not because there haven't been other sources of sustenance in my life, there have been.
It is not because I haven't thought about it, I do.

Like everyone else my life is crowded.
Crowded with commitments to make a living, to take care of myself and others and the space that we live in, to keep in touch with my friends.
Just crowded... even if in a fun, joyful way.

I don't know if I'll post more.
I don't know if it matters.
I do know: I'll keep cooking, my life and the people and things in it will sustain me and I will keep thinking about it even if I don't write about it.

EL SALVADOR

I am a GRADUATE!

SFSU Graduation '08

Dude - My dad is cool

Think about supporting him in this important cause:

Hello friends and family,

I am joining with 9 other co-workers on our Bio-Rad, Redmond WA company team on Sat May 17, to raise money for the American Diabetes Association. We are taking part in the 2008 Seattle Tour de Cure.

We will each be riding various distances from 15 to 100 miles in this fund raising event.

I would appreciate your sponsorship for this worthy organization, as Taryn, I am sure will attest.

You can make a donation under my name by going to this website:

http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR/TourdeCure/TDC451018030?team_id=272528&pg=team&fr_id=5050&et=syMYbtx8AcRFZB_ait0_zw..&s_tafId=166229

So far, our WA team has raised just over $1600.

Thank each and everyone of you for your support.

Sincerely and God bless,

Ross

Last big push

This has easily been the hardest semester of my college career.

I knew it would be hard, I am taking a very heavy load of classes: Seminar in Clinical Dietetics, Advanced Nutrition, Nutritional Assessment, Food Service Layout and Design and Principles of Financial Accounting. I have continued to work nearly 40-hours a week between Trader Joe's and my responsibilities with the P-family. That coupled with with my mom's knee injury early in the semester, initial wedding thoughts and planning and attempting to maintain some semblance of a life has left me with NO free time.

No free time for reading (other than for class), no free time for movies, no free time for social events, no free time for elaborate cooking, no free time for just about anything... So, please forgive me if I never seem to regularly take photos or post about cooking. Maybe its the business of it all that nourishes me.

While I can't wait for it to be over (I am literally counting the days...) I also realize I don't know what its like to not live like this, with every second of everyday accounted for. Believe it or not, its a little scary to think about what I would do with extra time.... Free time??

Realistically its something I don't think I'll have to worry about for a while since after these last few weeks of school comes the preparation for and the move to Houston, 6-months of internship, real wedding planning, preparation and execution and whatever else happens to occur.

We should all be so lucky.

Serendipitously digging in the dirt

Today I serendipitously ran into my friend Leslie. I woke up with a head-ache (an all too common event) and was unable to go to class. After trying to sleep it off, I got up and decided to just start checking things off my daily "To Do" list. After a cheese roll at Cheeseboard, I went to Monterrey Market and while I was mentally making sure I had picked up everything for dinner, there she was in front of the chard. She was on her way to Berkeley Horticulture (maybe the best nursery ever) for the very first time. She tagged along for my grocery shopping, I tagged along to the nursery. After a stop at the butcher we had a lovely fresco lunch before parting ways. Both happy for coincidentally being able to be together.

Before now I have never lived in a place long off to know enough people to "just run into someone" anywhere. Today in addition to Leslie, I saw a friend-of a-friend and an old BMC buddy while having lunch. It feels lovely and familiar. I'll miss it next year where-ever we are.

So, because of this serendipitous meeting I started my garden plot for 2008.

Before:


And after:


I bought and planted:
- English peas
- Snow peas
- Artichoke
- Poppies that look like peonies (to attract pollinators)

Still to come:
- Herbs (parsley, cilantro, thyme, basil, oregano)
- Rainbow chard
- Spinach

An amazing way to start the New Year

Fall Preview

The end of summer is just around the corner. It hardly seems possible that in just a week, I'll be back in classes and all my free time will be claimed. This will be my last year at San Francisco State and my entire schedule is filled with classes that I have been taking pre-requisites for, for two years: Experimental Foods, Clinical Nutrition, Advanced Nutrition, etc... The tangible applications of Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Biochemistry and Physics. For the first time in my academic career I will be immersed in the subject I have chosen for my work's focus. It is simultaneously exhilarating and scary-as-all hell.

I am also looking forward to the busiest social calendar I have seem in months. Visits from friends from Utah and Canada, family from Seattle; two weddings and a big, 50th-birthday blow-out.

Farther out, close friends are planning a spring wedding in which I may act as an assistant baker. In order to be prepared I am researching and practicing my cake baking skills. So, look forward to cakes, cakes and more cakes!