Week 3, or I’m so behind…Well, life got in the way of blogging these past few days… or over a week. Although, my last post was after fourth of July, and that was a super busy weekend. Between going to NYC to see Jade and Eric, having Eric come to visit on Saturday, Argentina’s loss, bbq and movie outside, wine tasting, and going to The Place… very nice long weekend. Then, more world cup during the week, which culminated in a less-than-exciting final game. But I digress… Week 3 share, aka: when we learn exactly how many different types of pod vegetables exist:
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Week 2I got a little behind with the blog posts. Between the World Cup–so sad that Argentina is out of it!– and summer arriving, I procrastinated a little. Now for WEEK 2 CSA share: * Lettuce |
Argentina’s gifts: chimichurri and soccerI definitely have World Cup fever! Argentina’s doing awesome, in spite of our hilarious coach… and the US is still hanging on! |
5.5 milesWe have decided to embrace the “buy local” movement, just a tiny bit, and bought half a “share” of the Hindinger Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). This farm is only 5.5 miles away from our apartment!
Basically, Ryan and I (and two of our friends–each share technically feeds a family of four) stop by the farm once a week and pick up a basket of fresh fruits and vegetables. These will obviously vary by the season/month, but have been picked fresh within a few days and are harvested using “Integrated Pest Management”. So, it’s not organic–it does use pesticides, but is more common sense and is better for the environment.
The EPA says:
Anyway, so we’ve signed up, and I picked up our first share today! Contents: Note: remember to write down what they say they’re giving you… especially if you’re a novice like us! We are still trying to figure out what one of the vegetables are… and we learned through cooking the peas, that they were in fact peas and not snap peas. Luckily both go well in stir fry!
Storage: I’m still learning about this, but apparently you can cut off the leafy part of the beets and use them like chard. Then you can put the root part into a plastic bag and it can store for weeks. Also, if you bake it in foil (for 45 minutes to 1.5 hours) it will stay in the fridge for 3-4 days. Meal ideas:
Beautiful presentation, with some sake!
Up close, looks delicious…
Once we realized they were peas and not snap peas… Yummy strawberries for dessert
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<–The whole share 
and our portion –>
Spring makes all the worries go awayIt’s 45C with a high of 55. That’s right, spring is here. Ok so it promises to be 80 on the weekend. SPRING is HERE!!! Thank goodness. Basically every morning I’m so excited to see some tulips, the trees blooming and not having to wear gloves. Yay! Then I head over to lab and realize that grad school is a pain. Get sad for lack of Repeat as necessary, and you realize that there are two things that cheer me up: Ryan and spring. Then there’s the weekends. Softball (played by Ryan and I), tennis and ultimate frisbee. Throw in some yummy food (like the crack-addicting chicken from Lao Szechuan) and movies with friends– oh yeah and some lab work thrown in for good measure- and you got yourself a busy/fun two days. So that’s what I’ve been up to, in a nutshell. |
Is it spring yet?The lack of posts is glaring, I know. The day after we arrived from Argentina , I had an experiment, and time has just flown since then. I’ve been taing a lab, which has been great, but very time consuming. I have to go in Monday and Wednesdays from 1:30 to 5:30pm, but usually goes over. The students are great, they’re excited about having a lab that has an actual relevant project. I like the fact that there are always three of us teaching, so we can interact with every student. I also got to grade their first assignment about a month ago. I started grading 2 papers an hour, and with 31 students the pile seemed infinite! The pace quickened, thank goodness, and I had to leqrn all about Ir0n abs0rpti0n in pl@nts, so related to what I do… Not. The slew of emails before the assignment was due made me realize two things: one– wow, I am the TA and have all the answers, or have to come up with them at least. Two– wow, I must have been a really annoying student! I promptly IMed my old TA, who claims I wasn’t… At least not in his class. Other things keeping me busy/stressed: lab. Things went from turtle slow to roadrunner crazy! Half my project is finally progressing, and the other half too but in a more frustrating way. I don’t want to delve into the specifics, but oh boy is grad school a tough roller coaster of emotions! We also went to a keyst0ne symposia (big meeting in a narrow field) in Taos, NM. It was such a good meeting, about 80% of the talks were somehow relevant or interesting. Very awesome. But it also made us realize that we needed to speed up my project progress. So, “spring break” started on Friday and since then I’ve had 2 office hours and have been in lab since Sunday with crazy hours! Ok. Off to work. |
Happy Birthday Ryan!!We’re celebrating Ryan’s birthday today!
My awesome husband turns 26 today, past the quarter century mark!
To celebrate we’ve invited some friends over for some food, movie and cake. Ryan of course has to showcase his newish BluRay player, so we’re watching one of the ones we have. Pizza will be from Modern (we’ve got to enjoy it while we got it). |
Buenos Aires: Just Getting ThereG and I arrived safely in Buenos Aires yesterday. Getting there is another story: Perfectly scheduled between two early winter ice storms, only Griselda’s optomism and hope stopped the snow long enough for us to escape Connecticut. That same hope got us through a severly crowded JFK, where many stranded travellers from earlier flights were vying for new tickets. After a nice lunch/dinner (lunner?) at Bonfire (great burger, decent tacos, better than normal airport food) and a beer at Sam Adam’s, we waiting for our plane to board… …BTW, if you ever have a connecting international flight that’s more than 12 hours after you check in at the first airport, the new baggage policies are a headache, as they’ll try to charge you for your baggage, since the international flight doesnt show up yet, but the Delta representatives at the airport were very helpful… The overnight flight to Buenos Aires was a good idea, as G and I were able to sleep most of it off, between the screaming kids and mild turbulence that is. And there was actually food served…well it was edible, though I’m pretty sure it only qualifies as food in the technical sense. But the ten plus hours in the air, coughing, crying kids in the seats in front, blah movies and even blah-er food, were totally worth the look on my wife’s face as the plane touched down on the runway in EZE…we were in Argentina, my first time and my wife’s first trip back since 2001.
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Winter a month early :(It’s 27F today and we still have a month to go until winter. This month has gone by a bit too fast for my taste. Keeping busy in lab, things are progressing–which is always good. Ryan’s work is going well too, he’s being more social with his workmates which is great. We went to our first Yale hockey game of the season last Saturday along with a few of our friends. They won 3-0 against Brown! I think that’s the first Yale victory that we’ve seen. (Ryan no longer seems to be bad luck for the home team). On Sunday we went to go see Quantum of Solace, the new 007 flick. Daniel Craig was great, as always! It was very action packed! There were foot chases, car, motorcycle, boat, helicopter and plane chases!!! Ryan and jamie also saw an old Hitchcock movie at Criterion’s Sundays Movies and Mimosas. The ladies stayed home and worked! Oh, I forgot to mention that Ryan went to the new best buy and got us a bluray (an early Xmas present) that he’s very very excited about. That’s about it…. We did partake in restaurant week here in new haven. Bespoke was awesome! Union league cafe ( this French restaurant) had mixed reviews. (read: Ryan loved it, me not so much). This weekend goals: Until next time, Griselda
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