Saturday Thoughts

Ever since I visited Michigan, I’ve felt like I’ve been playing catch-up in everything from my work to my sleep. Last weekend, as fun as it was with Nate visiting, didn’t provide me with the opportunity to catch my breath. So when I finished work yesterday, I felt like I’d been working two weeks straight.

So it was wonderful to wake up this morning at 8 and lay in bed for another hour before starting my day. It feels like fall- clouds rolled in overnight and it’s drizzling on and off. It’s fairly cool as well, maybe 65 degrees. There’s something about the light, the way the breeze feels, that tells me the seasons are changing. There’s a weird urge to get ready for school to start but for the first time in my life, since age 5, I won’t be a student after Labor Day. Okay, this is only partly true; yes I’ll be taking classes at the University of Washington, but only 2x a week so it’s not a full-time obligation.

Throwing on a pair of jeans, my red flannel knock-off from H&M, my favorite boots, and stuffing my rain jacket into my bag, I headed out to our Farmers Market, feeling like a true Washingtonian. It’s smaller than the one in Ann Arbor, but has more of a community festival atmosphere—lots of restaurant vendors and street performers. I didn’t buy too much since I did most of my grocery shopping yesterday at Trader Joes. I did splurge on a baguette- the best I’ve found outside of Paris—and I’ll probably finish the loaf by this evening. I also bought a bundle of green onions, even though I bought one yesterday at Fred Meyer (like a Farmer Jacks or Meijier). The ones at the farmers market were so ridiculously huge and fresh and cheap ($1) that I had to buy them if only to photograph the two next to each other (will upload the image in the future).

Sometimes you pay more at a farmers market, other times, especially at the height of the growing season, you get higher quality food at cheaper prices than at big supermarkets.

My fridge is overflowing with fresh food and I’m excited to have the time this weekend to do some more cooking. I’ve already made my own hummus and then a yellow-bell pepper salsa that I added to a salmon burger, complete with these new Hawaiian-styled sweet bagels from TJs. As I mentioned to my mom yesterday, one of the greatest gifts she gave my siblings and me was an appreciation for healthy, good food and the ability to prepare it ourselves.

It’s funny how often food appears as a topic in my blog. Maybe because I’m cooking for myself and I feel the need to share it with others. I mean, that’s part of the nature of cooking, right? Hospitality among family and friends.

My friend, former classmate and fellow blogger, Michelle Panars, is also experiencing the joys of food and cooking (her blog is one of the links on the upper-right side of this page). Our lives are paralleling a lot right now- both starting our professional careers, both living on the coast, both in the upper latitudes of the country, both cooking and reading a lot, etc, etc. This has happened before when we were both studying abroad- her in Chile and myself in Mali. So it seems that no matter where we live, we still end up doing the same things at the same times. Thankfully we’ve got the internet to keep us connected!