Well son of a...

OMG you guys. This whole, having a full time job thing, is like, way totally hard.

I teach six classes a semester. That's not a typo. I also direct the university's speech team, for which I get exactly zero hours of release time. So, actually...

OMG you guys. This whole, having two full time jobs thing (while only getting paid for one), is like, way totally hard.

In practice, all this means that cooking has turned into a soulless assembly line worthy of dystopian fiction.

From the silent classic, Metropolis, the title of which naturally amuses the hell out of me.

(Image via the Film History and Aesthetics Wiki)

So for spring break I went a little berserk, giddy with the freedom to fix proper meals using proper vegetables. Mostly I went for favorites, which already have pages on this site. Like, beef fajitas, pork chops, and breakfast burritos.

However, I also set myself the goal of cooking something I'd never blogged. I've got it! Chicken Parmesan.

Except...

I am a dumbass.

So I guess I'm off the hook for a detailed rundown of my supposedly ambitious dinner. Instead let me tell you about a couple of products I've discovered in the past year.

Alma's whole grain pasta

  

I switched to whole grain pasta a while ago, but only just discovered this kind. I tried to take a picture of the ingredients, but it turns out tiny text is outside my camera's skill set. So I'll just list them here.

• Whole grain semolina
• Water

Seriously. That's it. 

But what really sold me on these noodles is their flavor. It's hard to describe, but they're delicious. They have a sweet, kind of nutty thing going on. They don't even need sauce. I routinely serve them lightly tossed with basil wilted in olive oils. Oh, and Parmesan cheese. I don't think I've ever served a noodle without some kind of cheese.

They're comparable in price to the name-brand pastas, and so far I've used the spaghetti, linguine, and penne. All. Amazing.

Next up:

Alessi mixed whole peppercorns.

Also, do you love the breading mix in the background? I had such grand plans... 

The mixed peppercorns add a depth of flavor you just can't get out of McCormick ground black pepper. And because you grind it up as you need it, they don't lose their flavor as quickly.

Finally, just because I took the time to take this picture - which was hard because I was freaking starving...

Remember, no points for plating in my house.

So there you go. If I ever have time to cook properly again, I'll do my best to share it here.

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Snow Day

I've worked at a breakneck pace to get ready to for the supposed start of the semester today. But instead of printing syllabi, meeting students, and all that jazz, I'm on house arrest.

Oh we tried to get out, but I guess I forgot we live in a place where nobody's heard of a salt truck. Doug made it to the end of the driveway, before spinning wheels put an end to his endeavor. I'm so glad we have food in the house!

Anyway, I've been struggling to build a new identity for this blog. Not that anyone who reads this thing would have noticed. Teaching evening classes hasn't lent itself well to the fresh-from-scratch cooking lifestyle I was recounting here. No kids means no cutesy-pukesy pictures, and I don't feel like my days and nights of Wii and whiskey make for very compelling reading.

But I have an idea I'm going to try. I'm teaching a class in media, culture, and society this spring, and I'm making my students keep blogs to track their term projects. The idea is to try and keep everybody on track, by requiring weekly think-throughs of their term project topics.

For my term project, I'm going to check out some media representations of food and eating. I'm hoping a bit of solidarity will motivate me to keep up with this blog, the way NaBlo helped me out in November.

So... Ideas...

• Food, Inc.
• Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (assuming I can get it on Netflix)
• One of Michael Pollan's books
• Some TV commercials -- like, Happy Meal ads versus healthy eating PSA's
• OMG! Real Food Has Curves! I love Mark and Bruce's blog. Time to get their book!

I'd love to hear suggestions from y'all -- especially on which Pollan book I should read. I'll admit, I kind of despise that guy. His NYTimes editorials reek of smug superiority. Raging douchebaggery, in fact.

Can I type that word on a site I'll let my students read? Surprise, kids. Teacher's got a colorful vocabulary.

I'll be back... No seriously. I totally will.

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Nablo fail

 I suck at commitment.

I like to move house. Even though the older I get the harder that becomes. When I can't move I like to rearrange furniture. Even though Doug kind of hates me when I get that feeling. I like the rush of new, novel. Even though that always comes with the anxiety of not-knowing-what-the-hell-I'm-doing.

Which is all a very long way of saying, to expect myself to blog for 30 days in a row was probably madness.

My back is killing me.

Nonetheless I schlepped my ass down to the local R1 university to look around and maybe get some questions answered about their doctoral program. Total strikeout. Didn't learn anything I hadn't already found by obsessively stalking their website. The big question -- how much of my extra graduate coursework would transfer into the program -- is un-answerable, apparently. Something to be decided after admission.

Doug: "Did you bother to tell them that whether you apply actually hinges on this information?"

Me: "No. Because that's not really true. Whether I'll ever finish is what really hinges on this information."

Their website says to expect four years post-Master's for a full-time student to complete. Since I'm probably only capable of one class per semester (and three classes is full time), that puts me finishing in TWELVE. So those extra hours they may or may not accept as transfer credit would be extremely helpful.

Maybe this whole PhD thing is a bad idea... Too much of a commitment.

When I got home I tidied up a little bit and dug into the endless pile of grading laying at my feet. Clearly I've overloaded myself for this semester; for spring I'm cutting out assignments left and right. For the moment though, I'm stuck following through on another foolish commitment.

Right now I really should be out of the shower already and headed over to the office. I made a dent yesterday, but just a dent. I more or less just passed out on the couch in my fortress of white paper.

Is it finals week yet?

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Shredded

That's me right now y'all.

Shredded.

Like Cameron when he doesn't want to get out of bed in Ferris Bueller.

I'm going to try to interweave my tale of woe into a recipe.

Or, I was, until Doug just shut off the video game and decided to call it a night.

Suffice it to say, this having a job thing is kicking my ass. It doesn't help that I couldn't log into my course website until the second week of class. I'm so far behind I'm about to get lapped, and my 170 students (OMFG) are kinda getting shafted.

My husband is kinda getting shafted.

My diet is TOTALLY getting shafted.

Enough already. Bedtime.

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