Enjoy,

the more you live with somebody the more they irritate you. everything he does now irritates me. even his smell doesn't smell right anymore. when the pheremones aren't even working, you know there is a morphilogical problem and thus psychological disalignment. Yep, it's all over now, baby blue time for me to leave this cold climate and head home to San Francisco. I will finish up my degrees in Theology and French. I might even study abroad in Ho Chi Minh City and travel SE Asia a bit from there. I'm not sure. I have been enjoying two blogs today.
1) GRRRL Traveler
2) Jeffrey Alford
I really admire Mr. Alford for his various fantastic cookbooks, the fact that he is a pioneer of heritage food preservation and the fact that he currently lives on a farm in eastern Thailand. His blog is delightful to read as his truly remarkable, candid, funny, and open spirit transmits to careful readers.
A man from my past has been haunting me again. It's gone on this way for three years now. His spirit and love for me never dies and he pops back into my life out of the blue mist and says he's changed, he owes me an apology, I'm often on his mind, there's been no other gal for him... sigh So we get on a bit and my fantasies run rampant as I dream of living on his family's farm, reviving it to a lush New England garden of Eden with goats, ducks, pigs, cabbages, onions, carrots, potato, pumpkins, strawberries, rhubarb, peppers, tomatoes, apple and peach trees... cooking for him and teaching him how to make his own beer... and then he flat lines again. pffffffff goes my balloon of romance. If we're going to happen then I suppose we'll happen, when it comes to him, things are out of my control and the harder I try the more damage I do.
When I'm not fantasizing about him and our garden of Eden I am dreaming of my future time in San Francisco. Semester begins Jan 23rd but I think I will be there a few weeks earlier. I'd like to start up a small cooking business to provide affordable, wholesome, hot meals for fellow dorm dwellers. The food in the campus cafe SUCKS and is hardly open. They don't even sell rice. Thus, it is my duty to provide fresh rice, dahl, and simple stir fries at first for affordable price. If this goes well then I can start offering scrambles, dumplings, wraps, and other whole grains like kasha, polenta, and so much more that I have not yet discovered. I just spent today cooking 3 different batches of white rice. 1) soak rice for an hour in warm water and vinegar, lots of garlic, jalapenos, salt, butter, curry powder, white wine, more vinegar, cream. steam for 18 minutes, add yogurt and more salt. 2) rice, vinegar, cream, garlic, peppers, onion, pumpkin, salt, lamb fat, sesame seeds, curry powder, white wine, soy sauce, butter. steam for 18 minutes, add more butter and salt. 3) rice, vinegar, white wine, soy sauce, garlic, chiles, chipotle spice, curry, pumpkin, hot sesame oil, lamb fat, butter, cream. cook for 18 minutes. the first two were very similar, creamy, delicious! I love the addition of cubed pumpkin to the raw rice. The third was less creamy but more hearty with the addition of lamb fat and sesame oil. I love to cook rice creatively and hope to share it with others someday. it wouldn't hurt to make a few bucks off it either and I have a feeling that students are going to be willing to exchange a few dollar bills that would otherwise get eaten by the defunct vending machine for a fresh hot wholesome bowl of rice. Provided that they bring their own bowls of course! I'd also like to hold "sushi making" classes and other fun cooking classes. It would also be fun to bake a ton of pies and sell slices. I have a lot of good food ideas, I hope I can actualise some of them. ... another is dumplings. I am so crazy about dumplings from every single corner of the world. Manti, pierogi, momo, har gow, potsticker, gyoza, dim sum, ravioli whatever you want to call it, I love it. Today I whipped up a dumpling filling of onion, garlic, chiles, pumpkin, cabbage, and kale that I will stuff into wheat dough. Ah but first I just needed to write, I needed to talk to somebody. I think Jeffrey Alford writes his blog for the very same reason. There he is in the middle of rural Thailand with nobody to speak openly in English with. He's sacrificing a lot, but he says he lives there because it is simpler, so much simpler than life in North America. I couldn't agree more. Once somebody is successful and wants to keep their freelance writer ball rolling things get so complicated; tweeting, facebooking, blogging, stalking, hipping and hopping just to keep up and compete. Yep, I don't blame ye Mr. Alford. Signing off now, going to read a bit more before I get up and start smacking together some dumplings for supper. Cheers.