Yummy in My Tummy: Summer Salad Spectacular!

Hi ho there! Greetings from the sweltering heat of this humid Boston summer! Now, granted, I spend most of my days indoors at work or in my air conditioned bedroom (yes, I know, I live a dangerous life -- do not try it at home!), but it is actually impossible to escape the heat. It always catches up to me somehow. Walking home, exploring the city, sitting on the porch, cooking in the non-air-conditioned kitchen, etc. And when it reaches at least 80°F every day, no one really wants to cook in a non-air-conditioned kitchen. I mean, I love cooking, and even I dread the prospect of turning on my gas stove and boiling water for even a minute. Salads, therefore, are basically the lazy, temperature-sensitive chef's best friends in the summer.

As anyone who lives with me knows, I'm a fan of grabbing whatever is in my fridge and/or pantry and making something new and different out of it. In the case of this salad, I did just that. Here's the recipe:

Almond and Pomegranate Salad

Ingredients:
Baby spinach
Arugula ("rocket" for all you Anglophiles in the audience)
Grape tomatoes
Black beans
Pomegranate seeds
Sliced almonds
Salad dressing
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions:

1. Wash all vegetables and drain. Remove stems from spinach if desirable. Toss greens together in a large salad bowl.
2. Add tomatoes, beans, pomegranate seeds, and almonds. Mix well.
3. Drizzle salad dressing over salad. Sprinkle with parmesan, if desirable.
4. Om nom nom.

Rachel's notes:

There are no specified amounts in this recipe. I measured nothing out when I threw this together after drinking a bottle and a half of white wine with my roommate and her friends. Everyone likes their salad proportions to be a little different, so play around with the amounts and see what works for you. Personally, I love heavier proportions of tomatoes, almonds, and pomegranate seeds because I think the flavors are so interesting and mesh together so well. One of my closest friends would probably choose to use mixed greens over arugula because she can't stand the taste of it. My roommate in France would have refused to eat the tomatoes. Salad is very much what you make of it, but I felt that this had to be one of the best salads I had ever tasted. And I'm not saying that because I was a little tipsy at the time. I replicated this recipe the very next night when I was 150% sober and still thought it was the best thing since cream cheese. This was a very last minute decision for a meal and it turned out marvelously.

Special note on salad dressing:

I don't usually make my own salad dressing. In this case, at any rate, I didn't. I used the Tuscan Italian Dressing with Balsamic Vinegar from Trader Joe's, and it worked great! I have a default salad dressing that I go to, however, when I run out and am too lazy to run to the store to buy more. I haven't tried it on this particular salad, but based on my past experience with this dressing, it would be a great match! I thoroughly encourage you, dear reader, to try it out and tell me what you think!

Walnut Salad Dressing

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp vinegar (red wine or balsamic)

4 Tbsp walnut oil

1 tsp Dijon mustard

Salt, pepper

Directions:

Mix together all ingredients, stirring aggressively as dressing is apt to separate.

This should easily make enough for 2 people to have salad dressing.

Wine of the Meal

Green Fin 2010 White Table Wine 

This is one of the really cheap wines that you can buy at Trader Joe's for about $4 (maybe even less back home in CA, since two-buck Chuck is three-buck Chuck in MA) and is surprisingly good. Normally, I steer clear of table wines because, as experience with French table wines taught me, they normally taste like someone poured some ethanol into some grape juice. However, my current roommates insisted that it was worth a try one night when they were cooking and, boy, was I surprised!

It's somewhat citrus-y, but mostly sweet and fruity (yeah, yeah, citrus usually equals fruit, but I mean something more like mango here). People who know more about these things would likely say that there are oak overtones or something like that. Maybe. Personally, I think it's the perfect wine to share after a long day at the lab as you sit out on your front porch, waiting for the temperature to go down, trading stories with your friends. It pairs pretty nicely with this salad and is a surprisingly good companion for ice cream, as I discovered this evening.

Frankly, it's a cheap wine that doesn't offend my inner scientist (why would I pay to drink ethanol and grape juice when I could make it for free at work?), helps cool one down on a hot day, and doesn't do a number on my wallet. That's a solid wine in my book.

That's it for this week! It's shorter than the last Yummy in My Tummy, and future entries will probably be somewhere between this one and the first one in terms of length and depth. To make up for the simplicity of this week's recipe, I leave you all with a question: What is your favorite summer salad? Leave recipe suggestions in the comments!

Peace, love, and pomegranates,
Rachel

Resurrection, or How I Learned to Stop Interpreting My Dreams and Marry Sam Winchester

And thus I emerge from blogging hibernation to resurrect this blog, just in time for graduation, summer, and unemployment!

Graduation, you ask? Why, yes, college graduation. I have completed four years of post-secondary education, and have received a fancy piece of paper that tells me all about this accomplishment in Latin. My degree is pretty cool.

Summer, you ask? Well, yes, I live in the northern hemisphere, so one might expect it to be summer here. Although, you wouldn't know it from looking outside. Thanks, June thunderstorms! Even if you aren't conducive to going outside, at least you are pretty conducive to bringing things back to life.

Unemployment, you ask? Sadly, yes, I do not have a job at the moment. I'm waiting to hear back from a few places before I decide it is officially time to drown my sorrows in wine, so hopefully someone will prevent that fate from occurring by hiring me. I'm looking to go into research at the moment, and I know that I'm a well-qualified candidate, but it's convincing everyone else and beating out the competition that makes the whole thing kinda challenging.

And so, while I am looking for employment, and when I am not busy preparing for a future career in medicine, I'll be updating this blog! Isn't that exciting? I'll be talking about all sorts of interesting things, and will likely do a few series on different themes. Right now, I'm looking at one that focuses on random thoughts and cool things I've learned, one that focuses on some of the cool places I've been lucky enough to visit over the past couple years, and one that focuses on book (and maybe movie) reviews. This last one is pretty exciting. For my first book in the series, I'll be taking a look at 50 Shades of Grey, which reads like mediocre fanfiction and yet has sold more copies than all of Ray Bradbury's work did when he was alive. I'm still looking for a snazzy title for this series, or at least for this book in the series, so if anyone has any ideas, leave them in the comments below.

So, random thoughts for the rest of this entry.

I have really weird dreams. And I don't mean surrealist dreams where I fly on the back of a cat through the Dead Sea. I mean dreams where I outrun natural disasters and save the world. Seriously. Let's take a look at last night's dream as an example. Last night, I lived up in Irvine, CA in my dreams, just a short drive away from Disneyland, and managed to stop a gang war. Seriously. In one corner, there were the silly white boys in their baggy clothes that looked like a throwback to late 1999/early 2000. Their leader was none other than Nick Carter, which likely explains the terrible men's fashion flashbacks; he was probably nostalgic for a time when girls ages 12-25 were willing to throw their bras, panties, and themselves at his feet.

Look at him, kneeling there and smiling. You can just tell he's plotting to corrupt today's youth with bad plaid and his older brother's hand-me-downs.

In the other corner, was a group of Latino men, who dressed in baggy black jeans and white t-shirts and shaved their heads. They were led by none other than Weevil from Veronica Mars.

I was definitely rooting for this guy throughout the whole dream. Even though I was supposed to be the objective, logical third party in all this.

I don't think I could have had a more Veronica Mars dream if I'd tried. I don't know what my subconscious was thinking, but it was certainly trying to hit as many blatantly awful stereotypes as possible. To be honest, I don't know how I ended up saving the day. I think I managed to do the impossible and actually talk some logical, reasonable sense into these boys and forced them to set aside their differences through the power of words, but it's hard to remember exactly. Anyway. As I drove from Disneyland back to the high school where this was all going down, I nearly lost control of my car and caused an accident (and there we get the bad-teenage-driver stereotype, even though I'm no longer a teenager in real life). Shaken and not entirely okay, I entered the high school and found my locker to be full of gifts from both parties. Weevil and Mr. Carter magically appeared on either side of me to hug me and thank me and show me the expensive gifts (there was a lot of gold involved) they had gotten from... somewhere. And it was all rainbows and puppies and smiles.

Awwww yeeahhhhhh.

My dream from two nights ago was a whole other type of monster. In it, Something Very Bad was about to happen. Something like the apocalypse. Something that would have ended the world as we know it.

And I feel fine.

These sorts of situations tend to, understandably, throw people's love lives into quite a tizzy. Worried that they might not have much time left on this world together, young lovers (and old lovers, too, let's not be ageist here) decide to do something crazy and get married. No time like the present, right? Duh. And so, this was how I found myself marrying Sam Winchester from the television show Supernatural.

And you know what? I am totally okay with that.

It was a very surprising turn of events, to be honest. I'm pretty certain that just prior to the wedding, I had managed to do some major butt-kicking. Comme toujours. Zombies, ghouls, vampires, does it really matter what I was fighting? The damn apocalypse was still approaching. Anyway, the point is, I had had to do some major butt-kicking to arrive at the safe house where everyone, including Sam Winchester, was waiting. As soon as I arrive, one of the older guys there who is apparently somewhat of a father figure to me pulls me aside and explains that Sam wants to see me. Well, alright. I won't say no.

After all, who could say no to that face?

This is where he proposes. Quite literally. He gives one of those heartfelt end-of-the-world speeches that heroic men in love seem to be so good at, and before I know what's happening, I've been shoved into a wedding dress and am walking down the aisle to meet my future husband, walking past fellow hunters and butt-kickers that I know and love from a surprising variety of TV shows. When I get to the altar, Sam is all smiles and grips my hand tightly, almost as if he's afraid he'll lose me forever if he lets go. The music and my emotions swell, and we are married and we kiss and it is magical.

Dream Sam Winchester looks damn good in a tux. Also, he gives really good hugs.

Also, I have some weird-ass dreams.

Peace, love, and June gloom,
Rachel

In Which Aristophanes Takes a Tumble

You may have noticed that I’ve been noticeably absent from my blog lately, and I feel dreadful about it. I promised you tons and tons of new posts (and believe me, there is plenty to write about), and yet I have not delivered on any of them. I feel as rotten as a politician.

But I have an excuse.

Well, several excuses, really, but there is one big one that totally takes the cake. Beyond the whole “I’m busy” excuse (which, ironically, seems to be the same excuse that keeps interfering in my love life) – involving moves across oceans and countries, working reunions and partying with Wellesley alums, getting a driver’s license, getting in touch with old friends, and just trying to be available for a family which really does need their daughter’s help – there is something much deeper at work here.

Aristophanes, my beloved computer, broke. Again.



This is not the first time that my dear, sweet, amazing, sexy laptop took a tumble. The last major problem led to a new motherboard and new memory. This time around, though, it seems that the love of my life was out for blood: the hard drive failed.

In all honestly, I knew this was coming. Aristophanes had been dropping warnings left and right. Files were corrupting, the bios and Windows were taking a long time to boot, and things just weren’t running as smoothly as they once had. I should have had the foresight to back up all of my files. Yeah, shoulda, woulda, coulda. The point is, in a bout of impressive laziness and astounding forgetfulness, I failed to back up my computer with my (literally) thousands of images from France. Not to mention my music, my writing (which is mostly backed up, actually), and some important documents for school and life in general.

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to cry over a piece of technology before.

Most of my life flashed before my eyes as I thought of the gigabytes upon gigabytes that might potentially be lost forever. I managed to get a new hard drive through Dell that was covered under my warranty, and my family bought a copy of Windows 7 for me to install on my computer, so I soon had most things up and running again. However, I still hadn’t made any attempts to recover the data on the dead drive. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to salvage anything and that so many memories would be lost to hard drive heaven (or hell, I suppose).

In the end, though, I pulled my act together, mostly thanks to my dad, and took my hard drive to San Diego PC Help, where they told me that they could do a full recovery of all the data on my drive.

Huzzah!

In the immortal words of Buffy Summers, “We saved the world. I say we party.”

Now, while I have yet to receive all the data from my old hard drive and confirm that everything is indeed there, I am fairly confident that I am going to get my hands on all my important pictures and not lose all the lovely images of my year abroad. I suppose that we shall just have to wait and see, but I am choosing to be optimistic here.

So there you have it. No pictures = no updates. I don’t want to present you with massive amounts of text that, while possibly descriptive and accurate emotional descriptions of my experiences, just wouldn’t do justice to anything without some sort of personal visual aid. Therefore, expect more posts soon, dear reader, for I will eventually have my pictures sitting at my fingertips (backed up about six times), ready to be posted in awe-inspiring posts about Italy, England, and beyond!

Aristophanes has been my loyal companion for three years now, and though she has been a frustrating  and unruly mistress at times, I just can’t imagine giving her up for another model.

…I sound as though I am writing about a transsexual computer from Ancient Greece. Well, I suppose we all have our quirks.

Until the next entry, dear reader.

Bisous,
Rachel

Oh, look, new things!

Hi, y'all!

Just wanted to let you know that I changed a couple things on the blog. First of all, I updated the description under the header for the the site because I figured that now that it has actually taken shape, the old description didn't quite do the blog justice. The bit at the end about "my time away from home," for example, didn't seem to fit anymore because I have posted from Boston, which has become a second home, and France has certainly become a third home to me at this point. Also, once I return from France, I was thinking I might continue this blog and talk about any other journeys that I might take. So "voyages" really fits more. Not that you, dear reader, particularly care about the description too much, but at least now you know that I have plans to continue the blog after France.

Secondly, and more importantly, I added some links over on the right of the page. The first section, entitled "Blog Heaven" has links to the websites of my friends! Exciting! Be it Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, or any other site that hosts the interesting musings and works of my friends, I am happy to link up to it. So, friend, if you are reading this, look over to the right and see that your blog, website, online store or what have you is not there, and you would like it to be, let me know and I shall add it (for only four low, monthly payments of $39.99! Haha). The second section, "Internet Obsessions," presents you with links to websites that provide me with limitless amounts of amusement. Feel free to check them out or to get me hooked on my next great Internet obsession.

That is just about it for now, kids. I've got to go think about studying for a midterm. My next post will be about my Christmas in Paris, and the post following that will detail my travels in Italy during Carnival.

Peace, love, pandas, and midterms breathing down my neck,
Rachel

A Slight Misnomer

I am not an elf. I feel compelled to clear that up before anyone is confused and people begin sending me comments along the lines of "OMG!!!1 I've known you for friggin ever and NOW you tell me that your an elf?!?!" First of all, the grammar, spelling, and punctuation in that comment are painful to read. Second of all, there is a story behind the title of this blog that I wanted to share.

Years ago, when the world was young... at the beginning of the Iraq War... when we still were under the reign of the Bush the Second... when college was something for adults and older siblings... right smack-dab in the middle of my favorite awkward period of life known as adolescence... I had a very close group of friends. (Well, I still have a very close group of friends, but this one was special). And together we decided to create story, which all of us would write, in which all of us had our own character that represented us in ways both obvious and vague. My character was based on my love for J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, and she was one badass elf named Lauremir. She was strong, graceful, wise, occasionally a leader, and turned into a big green monster whenever she didn't get what she wanted or whenever someone angered her.

Eventually, these characters became us, and my friends and I became synonymous with our characters. "Lauremir" became not just my nickname, but a nerdy 13-year-old with acne and an insatiable appetite for books. And so, I became the elf. To my friends. To anyone else, that probably would have been a little weird.

The name, and to some minor extent, the persona, has stuck with me over the years. The last name "Bennet" was added at some point as an homage to my all-time, number one, absolute favorite female author, Jane Austen, and the name "Lauremir Bennet" has since been used in pretty much every online social networking/blogging/art site I've ever joined where a screen name was required. It's nice to have a little continuity, or perhaps constancy, in life.

Thus, I am not an elf. But, indeed, the elf I am.

The slight misnomer comes into play with the word "travelling." It is perfectly true; I will be travelling from Boston to Paris, from Paris to Aix-en-Provence, and from there to who knows where. However, it will not be a constant in my life. I will not be travelling the world. I will not be in a new country every other week. As awesome as that would be, it is unrealistic, and so I ask of you to instead think of the full title of this blog as "The Elf, Who Is Actually Human, Who Experiences Punctuated Travels, But Mostly Stays In One Place In France." Not a very pretty title, though, is it?

Therefore, at the price of ever so very marginally misleading you, I have opted to choose a much shorter and nicer blog title: "The Travelling Elf."

I do ever so hope that you enjoy reading this blog. It is my intent to create a new entry on a weekly basis, and perhaps even more frequently than that, should there be something particularly interesting that I just must share with you in order for my day to be complete. I plan on sharing as much as possible about my time spent away from San Diego and away from Wellesley with all of you lovely people. This includes, but is not limited to, stories about my travels, awkward moments with strangers in foreign places, unfortunate mishaps that led to fortunate results, photographs of whatever happens to strike my fancy that day (or is pertinent to the blog entry), musings about the world at large, rants that express my frustration with life and school, and so on and so forth.

Originally, I had promised to send roughly five people short of a gazillion letters about my time in France. However, I decided to use a blog, instead. There are a few people who will still be getting postcards and/or letters (they threatened me with shoes, cluebats, and death by fire, so I had to say yes), but for everyone else, I look forward to communicating with you on the Interwebz!

Much Hugs and Love,

Rachel