Into the Void

Tags:art, cooking, custard, enlightenment, food, nap, pudding, rice, school.

Now what…(?)
I mean, ok, I’m done with school. This is a very good thing; I know it and feel it deeply, profoundly. My desire to go on to grad school has abated for the moment, but I do still want the MFA.

Why?

Because.

I really can’t give a better reason, I just want it because I’ve always wanted it. Because.

So, that’s all fine and everything.
I’m feeling remarkably tired these days even though I have far less to do. I think it’s a factor of my slowing down: now I’m actually noticing how tired I am because I’m stopping to smell the roses (or coffee), and stuff. No more onward and upward for me. Time for a nap. Or many.

I’m trying to get back to cooking. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed and I still do (once I manage to overcome my inclination to do absolutely nothing for several months). I also enjoy eating food cooked from scratch; I used to be quite a purist about that sort of thing before frozen organic vegetables packaged in plastic bags became a staple in my household. (sigh)

To that end, tonight I decided to be resourceful and make some rice pudding from leftover cooked brown rice. Yes, brown rice (!). Already a red warning light is going off in your head, I can tell. No one makes rice pudding with brown rice! It won’t be, well, mushy enough! It was slightly overcooked actually and I decided to go for it. I also just hate to waste and since the microwave died it’s not very convenient to reheat anything (that’s a whole other ongoing misadventure in my kitchen life).

Anyway, rice pudding it was going to be. Only one recipe in Joy of Cooking but it seemed alright; the Joy of Cooking is always a good place to start. The recipe seemed to be more of a baked custard recipe than a pudding recipe but that’s ok with me, I like custard too. I substituted freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and grapefruit zest for the lemon juice and zest and skipped lining the pan with cake crumbs, both because I didn’t have any and because I’d never heard of such a thing when it comes to rice pudding. Oh, and I cooked it in a water bath because that’s what you do with baked custards. Other than the aforementioned minor alterations, I followed the recipe exactly. All the proportions were just as specified.

It is yummy, though a bit more ricey than puddingy. The kids were suspicious.

Actually, eating it reminds me of the raisins and rice my mom used to make for breakfast sometimes: leftover rice heated in a pan with milk, butter, raisins, and maybe honey. Good solid comfort food, and not too bad for you as long as you kept the butter to a relative minimum (hard for me, I love butter).

Tomorrow: banana bread and, here’s hoping, plum jam. Got to get that started before all those luscious plums go bad.

What does cooking have to do with art, you might reasonably ask, now that I’ve racked up so much debt getting my fancy art degree? A fine question.

One could argue that everything is art, but I won’t get into that.

Chop wood carry water, you know…

Um, yes. I did forget I had a blog. Why?

Tags:art, CCA, history, Italy, religion, school, travel, underachiever.

I know. Three months. Oh well, I’ve never been very good at keeping any sort of a journal. Why would a blog be any different? Besides, Facebook is instant gratification, almost.

So, what have I been up to anyway? Well, I finished the spring semester at my school. That was good, only one year left to go before I (finally) get my BFA. Almost 37 (I’m 37, I’m not old!) and I haven’t finished my undergrad yet. That’s right folks, I’m an underachiever (as evinced by my blog upkeep too, I fancy).

What else…hmmm? Oh, that’s right. I just got back from Italy. Uh huh. Underachiever maybe, but at least I leave the country every 18 years or so. (Went to France in 1990/91. Does Canada count? That was more recent: 2003.) It was for the summer session at my school (THANK YOU FINANCIAL AID); the class was “Italy: Art and Contemporary Culture.”

Still processing all of that, to be sure. I learned that all that Catholocism was a teeny bit oppressive and terrifying, but only in certain locations. I also discovered that Venice is not my kind of town, no matter how beautiful and poetic it is (also the 90-degree temps and 98% humidity weren’t my thang), but Rome and Florence abso-frickin-lutely were. Maybe I’ll do my grad studies in Florence?? Maybe I’ll just camp out on the Ponte Vecchio and never leave. Oops, too late.

Swimming in the Adriatic, visiting Etruscan tombs, walking through the Roman Forum and on the Via Appia Antica (that’s a real Roman road where you can walk on the original stones, chariot-wheel ruts and everything). It was…too much to sum up in a blog post. Transformative, almost transcendent at times. Cool.

Alright, now it’s summer and I guess I have no good reason not to keep up my blog. I will do my darndest, I swear (assuming anyone reads this thing anyway). Of course, I’m about to go help a friend deliver a baby tonight/tomorrow. That should make some good blog fodder. No rest for the wicked – uh, I mean weary.

love to all my peeps who actually missed me while I was gone (??!!) (who knew?).

- Jenny

When was the last time you felt wonder? (Not too long, I hope.)

Tags:art, beauty, school, skulls, space, universe, wonder.

I’m not sure how to rationalize putting all these things together in one post, other than that I’m far too lazy to post them all separately. Too much filler to write!

This particular post isn’t really about me anyway, it’s about the world, in all it’s peculiar and wonderful variety.

Have you ever heard of ice hotels? Most are seasonal, I think one up in the Arctic Circle is year-round. They’re one of the coolest things (sorry, that was unintentional) ever (IMHO). Someday, when money is no object, I will stay in one.
Here’s an article (and pictures!) about one where all the guest rooms are done by different designers:
12 Designs From The 2009 IceHotel: Catch Them Before They Melt!

In other mind-blowing news, some teenagers sent a helium balloon into the stratosphere and took pictures of space with a $60 digital camera. No, seriously. For real.
Here’s an article about it in The Daily Telegraph and here’s their Flickr Photostream.
I don’t know what else to say about it but wow. Wow.

In a final totally unrelated news item (from the most wonderful Boing Boing), a growing archive of US Military medical illustrations is available online. Ever wanted to see a beautiful illustration of a skull? I know I have.
There’s some other funky stuff, too. WARNING: page 2 of the overall photostream contains pictures of some weird eye procedure; you may want to skip that page if you find that kind of thing disturbing.
Well, here you go then: otisarchives1′s Photostream. Here’s the post on Boing Boing, too.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our little foray into the realm of the wondrous.

Join me again next week for…well, I’m not really sure. You’ll just have to join me to find out, I guess.