Friends and Chocolate

It is a widely known fact that I did not move back to Abilene two years ago for the scenery. It wasn't the art department that wooed me either. It was a certain few relationships that I just had a hunch needed more time and investment because they were worth at least that.

Tonight, standing and then eventually sitting around the kitchen of this house that has brought four somewhat random girls together, I loved the reminder that there are relationships I'm taking with me that I could have never predicted.





For a simple belated birthday celebration for one of my house mates, I made these cupcakes tonight. My other house mate and I surprised the birthday girl with a single candle stuck in the middle of one and a rather sloppily harmonized rendition of "Happy Birthday".

The recipe was excellent, and it was a lot of fun to do some baking and shoot photos at a leisurely pace along the way as I haven't been able to do that for a while. However, I will comment that if you decide to go the cupcake route with this recipe, definitely use muffin tin liners. The cake's crumb is wonderfully tender and moist but makes for some rough looking cupcake bottoms without them. Also, it called for a hefty amount of baking soda, and I'm a bit skeptical that the full amount is necessary. I feel like it contributed a slightly tinny flavor, though my friends didn't notice.

Oh, and disregard my runny ganache. I simply didn't have heavy whipping cream, so I subbed half & half and barely had time to bring it to room temperature before using. The flavor worked out just fine, though the presentation was less impressive than PaperSeed's.

Go on over to her blog if you're interested in the recipe:
Chocolate Buttermilk Layer Cake

And More to Come

While I didn't take these pictures today, I did manage to finally get them scanned into the computer this afternoon.

They remind me so much of Texas. Just look at that grass-less yard! But, because I'm challenging myself to think positively about this place in my remaining time (and it's refreshingly not that hard), I want to highlight more than the brown color of the ground.

First of all, these pictures are polaroids, which automatically earn some affection in my heart, and they were taken in this lovely family's backyard. I was experimenting with polaroid art (in this case, simply drawing on top of the film as it developed), and my uncle helped in the exploration as my mom watched, on one of her rare visits to Texas. The collaborative effort, bright colors, and remembrance of children at play make these photographs worth posting here tonight as I sit in a large house under and even larger star-sprinkled Texas sky.

I will hold fast to the memories I've formed in this state.

In Order to Remember

As I wrap up my time in Abilene, I want to highlight the more beautiful things of this place because often times it's easier for me to point out the ugly, or at least the areas of lacking.

To begin with:



This is in the bathroom I have adopted as my own while housesitting with a friend for the past month. The window on the long wall of the shower floods light into the room all day long, and in the mornings the combination of sunlight, white tile, and aqua wall paint makes me oh so happy...or at least it helps a bit in those early a.m. hours when I would prefer to still be in bed.

Something New

Those of you who read One Hungry Soul because you know me personally may be interested to know that I started a new blog about a week ago. It is to chronicle the next phase of my life once I hold the long-anticipated title of "college graduate."

In mid September I'm hoping to move to Auckland, New Zealand and you can read all the details over on this blog:

I do not plan on phasing out One Hungry Soul any time soon. There will be plenty to share between the time I leave Abilene next month and depart for NZ. I'll be spending a month in California, mostly in San Francisco, and almost a month more in Washington. Even beyond that, I am planning on maintaining this blog with the topics of photography and food and life-beauty.

If you want a more detailed perspective on my life in New Zealand, I'll be sharing what I'm learning and how I'm growing in more intimate details over on my new blog. Otherwise, stay tuned right where you're at. I cannot wait to capture the beauty of the little country of the kiwi bird through my viewfinder.

Dinner and an ode

I'm staying in a big, creaky house with a blue dining room and antique light fixtures in each room. It's a lovely change of scenery, but I have yet to transfer my digital camera over here. So, tonight, as I ate my steamed artichoke and the stripped leaves piled up in a blue and white hand-painted Polish bowl, I couldn't snap a picture to share with you. Along with a balsamic-spiked mayo dip, cold beer, and book of American poetry, it was quite a picturesque, albeit quaint, experience.

Here's a set of polaroids to share with you instead:



I took them in April while visiting my uncle and his family. I was immediately enchanted by the old bench with peeling paint tucked up against their back fence, and may this blog post transition into a bit of an ode to them. They are currently driving from Texas to Nebraska, having (heroically) packed up ten years of living in one house with three young children to boot.

It was such a gift to get to know them better, being that so much of my family is spread apart and when it comes down to it, most cousins, aunts, and uncles fall into the acquaintance category. Their home quickly became an oasis of familiarity in this foreign land known as Texas.



J, A, K, A, & W: Thank you for that. I'm glad I don't have to spend too much more time in this state without you guys, even if it was just knowing you and your espresso machine were three hours away.

Could This Be Love?

I wrote this story for a class, but the assignment was to submit it in a writing competition. I did just that and never heard back. Coming across it in my files earlier this week, I decided it's time to share it. After all, it was written to be read. Besides, the photograph it addresses always seems to be a hit with viewers. And, not to be smug, but even I never get sick of looking at it.

Could This Be Love?

My latest love affair is of the unconventional sort — like a couple kissing in a public square, it makes some people entirely uneasy. But I’ve got a thing for adventure. I like change. I like it extreme, often, and preferably with an exotic accent.

So it was that two years ago, while studying for a semester in Oxford, England, I was romanced by a new land. Personified, my England experience was my dream man. He first caught my attention with the words, “Cheers, Love.” (This was before I figured out that he spoke such words to countless other women.) But I was still hopelessly smitten walking through Port Meadow’s quiet sloping pasture and along the River Thames. The fact that from there dear Mr. Union Jack introduced me to fair trade chocolate at an Oxfam charity shop only worsened my condition. Not to mention the drizzly days spent at cafés with my hands wrapped around a cappuccino, trying to etch his features into my mind as the many faces of England passed me by.

Too dreamy? Perhaps. But I like to get carried away with filling in the gaps in other people’s stories, and Mr. Union Jack just made that easy to do. He also laid the ground for a photo opportunity I will probably never get again.

One evening a friend and I were eating our dinner while sitting on the ledge of a fountain in Trafalgar Square. We had taken a day trip to London and were enjoying the warm September sun when I looked beyond Katie’s shoulder to the tall stone wall encircling the square. A young couple caught my attention. As they leaned close and touching each other's face, his all-black attire blended into hers, making their entangled body parts indistinguishable.

It was hardly an unexpected sight in such a large, metropolitan city, but what made my gaze linger was another couple sitting an uncomfortably close two feet away.

Likely in their seventies, husband and wife sat next to each other wearing shades of white and khaki except for her red vest. The old woman appeared silent and thoughtful next to her bearded, potbellied companion who seemed absorbed in the paper he was reading. She must have grown bored because she began to take note of her surroundings, namely those sharing her bench.

As Katie and I continued to eat our dinner, I noticed the old woman begin to glance sideways at the affectionate youths. Her husband’s head remained bent forward, but the wife’s curiosity only seemed to grow as her gaze lingered longer and longer.

Perhaps at this point she was thinking of her own grandchildren and worrying about the indecencies they might be performing in another square or park at this moment. Or, I like to think, she was taken back to her own young love. To the times when her and her husband would sit in a similar position, with her legs crossed over his, made oblivious to the world by their love. When they were so attracted to each other that the whole world knowing about it was a desirable exciting concept that led conventions and etiquette to be thrown out the window.

Then, just as the old woman’s wizened face turned toward the younger couple again, I leaned around my friend with camera in hand, zoomed in a bit, and clicked. Perfect.

Back in Oxford with the picture uploaded on my computer, I saw that it had turned out as well as I hoped. Except for a lack of crispness because of the necessary zoom, it became my favorite picture from my travels. The red on the woman’s vest popped out as the only color in a stark palette of black and white and grey. Her husband sat hunched forward beside her, focused on the paper in his hand. And then there’s the couple on her right. Entirely black except for a pair of white skater shoes with green laces and two profiles bent toward one another, they tell a story all their own.

At this point, though, it is the old woman’s story that becomes clearer. The look of unease on her face is hard to miss, and the likelihood that this experience is causing her to fondly reminisce is slight.

Still, I like to dream. I like to see the unexpected adventuresome side of people come out. And since I have no love story of my own at present, I channel my adventure and my passion into life experiences, preferably in different geographic locations.

I had my fling with Oxford, which I’m still hoping will one day rekindle itself as something more. Then I flew home to my Bellingham, in the far northwest corner of Washington State. The city of my adolescence, I have fallen more in love with him in my time away. I see Mr. B. Ham as the young man who faithfully waits on my front porch. He loves the rain and good coffee and thrift store cardigans. Every time I leave him it’s so hard to explain the “it’s not you; it’s me” line. I just don’t know for sure what’s good for me, and I want to keep a lookout.

Life’s short. And yet there’s so much of it to be lived, and I’m just not ready to settle down with any particular person or place yet. Maybe it’s the old woman’s face that haunts me. Her loss of enthusiasm for carefree daring and passion…is that the look I’ll be giving as I sit next to my oblivious husband when my hair has turned white and my "flings" have faded away? No, I determine here and now that it is not. As much as I desire to be continually romanced by land and sea, there is a unique passion that weathering joy and difficulty with another person brings which I want to hang onto until the day I die.

Just melt and flake and crumble

Last weekend I got one of the best gifts ever. It was especially, well, special because the Foodzie mail I was expecting was a work assignment. Though that was still an exciting prospect, finding a note of thanks and encouragement from my team over at Foodzie and an assortment of goodies was a wonderful surprise. They had sent me a finals week care package full of treats from La Cocina!



Just an recap if you missed my post a while back...I've been interning remotely for Foodzie, a San Francisco based company passionate about seeing artisan food producers and growers succeed while also helping food lovers find the unique items they're looking for. I love what they do and who they are, and apparently others have noticed too because they were recently recognized by BusinessWeek among the Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs of 2009!

So, when I opened the box and zig-zaggy strips of stuffing began to fall out and reveal cookies, preserves, and glorious nuts, I stopped to grab my camera. I knew this would be a blog-worthy subject.

I spent the next half hour (at least) opening each package and placing its contents on my coffee table facing the afternoon sunlight. Sometimes nibbling was required to get a more interesting photo, so I got to try a little taste of each treat as I went.

I hope to share with you many of these delicious goodies available from La Cocina, but tonight I only have time for one. It is the one that ended up disappearing completely by the end of the photo shoot. Though everything was memorable in its own right, I kept coming back to this buttery shortbread cookie.



So much more than a cookie, Clairesquares' take on Millionaire's shortbread, or a Wellington -- its name in her native Ireland -- is addictive to say the least. Each layer could stand on its own (if you're into dipping your finger into straight caramel or licking a surface of pure Belgian chocolate). The shortbread might be more polite to consume alone. Just snag some fresh off the cooling rack in Claire's kitchen. I wish I could myself; it really did just melt and flake and crumble all at once in my mouth like truly decent shortbread should.

This cookie is available in each of La Cocina's sampler boxes, which are perfect for treating yourself to a variety of artisan producers' creations or expressing a heart-felt thank you to a friend. From smallest to largest, you can choose the Teaspoon Box, Half-Pint Box, Quart-Sized Box, or Stock-Pot Box.