But I have been keeping myself busy. I bussed, escalatored, flew, trained, and monorailed (whew!) to NYC for the May 21-23 weekend to visit my aunt and show Theresa, who was a german exchange student at CMU for my first year, and her family around. It was a veritable blast. The german clan and I got to see a lot of fun and unusual (or NYC-usual, but everyone-else-unusual) sights such as:
@ dance fest and High Line nature walk respectively
And Sue and I visited modern-day foragers (wild sorrel and stinging nettles were most memorable), successfully spent one of her gift certificates to a high-end clothing place (surprisingly difficult), and got her a super cool table. Probably the most relaxing NYC trip yet, just because it was so last minute. Success!
Then I spent a very stressful week in Pittsburgh giving my first presentation to my research group (eek) and then escaped to DE to attend a friend's wedding and crash Newark Nite. It was even more excellent than this picture, which is saying quite a bit:
Afterwards it was Three Rivers Arts Festival time! I missed some big nights (but hey, a wedding is a big deal too) but made it out for Ingrid Michaelson, who was excellent but also much more hilarious in person than I ever thought she'd be. Also, adorable:
In the food world, it was strawberry season and Peter and I drove some friends down to Triple Berry Farms to pick some ourselves. Not the brightest idea I've ever had, since it was hot as heck and strawberries are not the easiest things to pick (and harder still to sense if they're rotten on the bottom, sigh) but hey, strawberries!
Finally, it takes me quite a bit longer to pick meat out at the Giant Eagle than some people as I try to go with grass-fed, organic, etc kind of happy meats. Peter bears this relatively politely for the most part, but at one point got really fed up with my indecisiveness and was like "well let's get that quail then!" which was off to the side. Probably to his surprise, I conceded, and so we bought what we thought was a package of one (1) quail. Turns out quails are really freaking small (insert joke about city kids here) and there were four in the package. Oooops. After brining and baking they were delicious, but it definitely qualified as a very silly night in our kitchen. Just so you don't make the same mistake, here is the size of a quail (sorry, vegetarians):
Lovely, no?
Oh yeah, speaking of lovely - all that mint that you saw in the trough last time is no more. A one-two punch of aphids and sudden drought (ie, both of us left for three days to go to the wedding) was too much for the mint, although the basil powered through. I replaced it with some rosemary but that, too, isn't looking so great after our recent foray to the beach (photos of which are to come). My friend just gave me some cuban oregano, though, so there's not a lack of friends for the basil. Just a bit depressing that I keep killing them, but I've learned my lesson: next time, leave them with someone, or maybe in the office. Those little life details...
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