Confetti cookies

Robert Frost once said, “the best way out is always through,” and after one year, three semesters, intense hard work, being strung out like a robot, eyes in front of the computer, hands frantically typing away during nights/mornings/noons at the library, coffee shops, and my desk, 60ish papers and writing assignments, fun times, cooking cooking baking baking, snacks, wine drinking, city exploring, people meeting and getting to know, growing, learning, reading, reading, reading, analyzing, discussing, sitting and drowning amongst piles of books and papers contemplating sticking my pen in my eye, wanting to quit only to come out stronger and bolder than ever, I have finished my masters program and I graduate today.

From-scratch sweet corn polenta with eggplant marinara

When I think of what happens when we’re encountered with something foreign, my mind goes in all sorts of directions. What do we truly prefer? Is this specific to the individual? Is it something we’re used to? Is it always a dilemma of safe vs. dangerous? How often are we open to new circumstances or surroundings, as we are hit with them constantly on a day by day, no, second by second basis. New options, new ideas, new people, and a frequent in my life especially, new foods. Which I try and experience all the time. Nothing is off limits, ever, including tons of cheese rinds aka pure mold or fresh sausages made with blood. I open myself up like a venus fly trap, always ready to capture new dishes, new cultures, new ways of life, and new people. But although I might venture off the beaten path, I always end up coming back to my food home.

Whipped cream cake

I believe some of life’s best moments come alive following bouts of heaviness. When the lows are low, the highs are even higher. This heaviness and density provides substance, meaning, grittiness, realness, truth, and sincerity…all which make for living a rich and fulfilling experience on this planet. Which is what we all ultimately strive for, right? At least I do. But there are some people in the world that are like human Eeyore’s, dragging their blankets and permanent heavy heart into life and never coming out of it.

Honey roasted pineapple with pistachios and yogurt

Unfortunately (or fortunately…?) my mind is soaked with sarcasm. Like an industrial-sized sponge, this brain absorbs words and sentences and out drips pure, sarcastic musings a lot of the time. I’m very internal, so thankfully most of these stay enclosed. And I want to look like I’m a very put together human being most of the time, so these are for me, my brain, and people who I know are just as or more sarcastic as I am, which are all my friends and loved ones. Like people share like brain wavelengths.

Salted butterscotch pudding

Back when free time was abundant and our lives were not obstructed with, well, life….some of my girlfriends and I used to get together once a week for what we liked to creatively call…wine night. Coming from a variety of backgrounds including Italian, Chilean, and Cuban, we’d rotate cooking elaborate three course dinners complete with… duh, wine. Lots of wine. Lots of conversations, sometimes tears, stories, advice, confusions, and laughs, definitely lots of laughs. Especially one time, at my house, where I threw something “unbreakable” into the air and it shattered into a million pieces. I know they still remember that.

Roasted eggplant with saffron yogurt

As my graduation from my masters program looms nearer and nearer, I realize that I need to think quickly about “what I want to be when I grow up.” While I feel like I know my purpose, and I’m aligned with it on a daily, surrounded by like minded people, it can be hard to place yourself or think about “applying” for a job that the world is in desperate need for but doesn’t even know exists yet. I’ve come to the realization and subsequent acceptance of it that I’m going to have to invent what I want to do.

Flourless peanut butter cookies with raisins, cinnamon, & cayenne pepper

As part of my food writing class, we had to complete a product tasting and write about it. At first, heavenly  visions of frostings, macaroni and cheese, cupcakes, and brownies flooded my brain, but then remembered I live alone and having heaping quantities of those foods around would not be good. I realized I needed something I eat all the time, every day. Something I’m obsessed with. And that’s peanut butter. I’d have no issues with having six jars of peanut butter lying around.

Rich vegan chocolate cake

Having your cake and eating it too is a concept I peruse in my mind with regularity. This notion can be either great and positive, or dreadful, appalling and steeped with negative energy. Many people figuratively have their cake and eat it too with relationships, which is totally unacceptable. Once I feel someone is having their cake and eating it, too, with me, I say sayonara. That means they’re stomping on you, and you’re totally worth more than that. At least that’s what L’Oreal has been telling us all along. But on the real, we are.

Sweet potato gnocchi with brown butter & chestnuts

The only things standing between my masters degree and me are….a twenty page paper, a day with Jacques Pepin, a field trip to Vermont with my cheese class, a case study, another ten page paper, another twenty page paper, a ten page paper, a presentation, readings, a journal, a five page paper, and two cakes. This sort of to-do list overwhelms me. It makes me feel like a five year old that just got a happy meal toy taken away from her. It makes me want to come back to life as a puppy so everyone can hold me or pet me or something. In short, I need to be comforted.