Home

An idea, a concept, an intrigue has been floating - sometimes swirling - around in my head and pinging my heart recently. I catch it in song lyrics, conversations, and turning pages.

Home has been a fluid experience in my life, while also steady and stable enough in certain senses to keep me grounded in shifts of geographical location, school environments, and community circles. I am not trying to nail down a definition of it for myself right now, but I am wanting to churn through it intentionally in my art, my interactions, and my writing.



I know right now that "inner settledness" makes a lot of sense in relation to home, and in seeking this, the ability to name a place home for as long or as short as may be the case comes more easily. And love. Love is essential here; being in a place of receiving and getting to offer overflow.

Artistic Pursuits

So, I have this thing. This thing many consider to be a gift. For years I've carried it at arm's length. A beautifully packaged present I have been afraid to claim or become too attached to, I struggle to own the title of artist. I have acted courageously in response from time to time, but just as frequently, my attitude has been of (ashamed) apathy.

Beautiful things stir me; I know I'm not the only one. There's something about a purple carrot cut into a round revealing a radiating white center, something about sunlight filtering through a curtain, something about little details of life that stir and capture me and send me longing for more. I want something bigger, something even more breath-taking. And so I go to canvas. I go to textured water-thirsty paper. I set my fingers to lettered computer keys.

I make these inadequate attempts to say something that expresses what my soul thinks it's trying to say, what it longs to voice. Oh, it's a wondrous thing when clarity comes. But, most of the time, it takes a hard persistent journey to reach that clarity, and there is the ever-wondering if it will show its peaceful face.

Here's one example of clarity that came. I was honored to be commissioned to paint a piece for a mere acquaintance. She was looking for a wedding present for her husband and out of their love for art and the collage of their own experiences together thus far, this idea came together.

The bride and I got together for coffee and she shared the subject that initially inspired this idea. It is a tree she and her groom have continued to come back to during significant moments in their relationship, so from that, we talked about other activities and ideas they mutually value. There are many details in this painting, so I will just choose a few main things to expand upon. First of all, while I loved the look of the tree and recognized the great value of its sentimentality, I had also immediately recognized this couples' desire for a rich, grounded base together. Thus, the roots became significant. In order to keep the tree a main component, I repeated it from another perspective as well. Secondly, the shape moving upward and across the canvas is that of a kayak, a popular activity for the two of them and a symbol of a new and hopeful journey. Lastly, the words "Love, Trust, Adventure" written across the top are words the bride had engraved inside her groom's ring as a surprise.



I finished this painting in July, and my easel has been mostly unoccupied since. I have two large paintings that need some reworking and polishing this coming year. I hope to make 2011 a year in which safe, arms-length-away living just isn't possible, especially in the arts. Especially in who I'm meant to be as an artist hungering after the Master Artist.

A Great Fit of Wasted Energy

I entered into this fall season dragging my feet. In a sense, I willfully filled the soles of my shoes with lead and resisted the change with a great fit of wasted energy.

Even with all my struggling, the sun's face shied away. I lost my early morning running routine, late evening opportunities for dinner outside in a sun dress, and the satisfaction of a chilled glass of white wine. It had been a peaceful, enjoyable summer, and I did not want to let it go.

I am ashamed to admit that it took me until November to recognize my full resistance. It took this long to release my grudges against 7 a.m. darkness and limited access to fresh flowers. It took being startled by the season's own unique beauty to realize the blindness I had been living in.







In my longing, I had ignored the transitions and gifts of September and October, and all of a sudden, November was here. It came with a strong, striking posture and commanded attention through explosions of color. Even though half the trees had unburdened themselves of brittle leaves by the time my eyes chose to see, there were still mosaics of yellow, brown, pink, and orange across the sidewalks my feet cross daily, and some of the most brilliantly yellow and red trees are holding on. (My favorite scene is bright coral pink leaves reaching up toward a grey sky. I could live in this color combination.)





The season had to change, and just as fall is threatening to call itself winter, I am opening up my palms and willingly receiving. I don't run as much as I did during the summer, but I walk to and from work everyday, and those half hour segments of time in which I simply cannot hurry along slow me down and force me to reflect, think, articulate, and observe.

I'm finding winter ales to an excellent replacement for those glasses of white wine. I don't get as many evening dinners with my roommates, but our household gatherings are all the more precious when they spontaneously come about.

Little by little, I am seeing why I don't want to be anywhere but in this season right now. Some moments, the contentment is pure enough to nestle in -- the enjoyment of one day helping me look forward to tomorrow without wishing myself there too quickly.

So, winter, I anticipate your mittens and mulled wine and snowy pine branches. These are going to be lovely when they arrive, but I'll count and file away each mental and photographic image of autumn until the day to say goodbye comes. I intend to make it swifter, more gratitude-filled, and less selfish than the last transition. Until then, who's up for pumpkin pie?

Fluid: Creativity Boot Camp

Yesterday's Boot Camp assignment was to create a work outside of our typical style, to embrace who we are but also stretch ourselves and perhaps stumble upon a fresh discovery of ourselves.

At first I struggled with how I could intentionally do this and with the question of what was outside the bounds of my self-imposed "rules" of creating that I could capture in the few hours I have after getting home from work at seven o'clock. So often my subject matter in photography is limited to food and still life details with wide aperture settings and swift shutter speeds. The first idea that came to mind was people - photographing people. I squirm at this idea more than so many others because I have strong opinions about the sort of people photos I do not like and very rarely succeed in capturing them how I do like. But, then, I rarely try.

I do not like people to feel uncomfortable or under scrutiny so my most successful shoots have been with friends who are already very comfortable in front of the camera. Children are great in this way, too. But I do not feel like I have mastered how to relax people who would not otherwise be at ease and this is where the discomfort and doubt of my abilities come into play.

I hoped to get some people shots yesterday if the opportunity worked itself out, but instead stumbled upon these more spontaneous shots on the ride home from the grocery store. I do not like to do sloppy work. I love that food and flowers and chairs do not move, so that I can get the negative just right and focus in just the way I want. Being in a moving car doesn't allow this to happen easily. So I threw my shutter wide open to a setting that caused it to slowly wink and ramped up the aperture to make sure the exposure stayed balanced.

It was a gorgeous day and the breeze felt good on my hair as the golden dusky sunlight soothed my skin. As my sister drove, I leaned out the window and sporadically snapped pictures of the upward view. They're nothing worthy of hanging in a gallery but they're outside of my norm and happen to incorporate fluid strokes, which is perfect because the word "fluid" was our theme for the day.

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.

A moment of honesty

I took the polaroid in this shot in a moment of honesty tonight, and sharing it with you makes me a bit more vulnerable than I usually allow myself on this blog. Still, I'm going to press on. Sometimes saying things out loud (or putting them in print, in this case) helps the reality sink in, and then gradually the acceptance...

I do not often express my desire to one day drop the "single" label. Even privately, I so rarely allow myself to dwell on it that sometimes I wonder if I really do want to be in a serious relationship, married, etc. I loath the thought of being labeled as "desperate" and would prefer to err on the other extreme.

But tonight, as I sat down to a simple meal of salmon and carrots, all quickly cooked up in a skillet with garlic and a drizzle of honey, I really wanted someone to share these sorts of meals with. Nothing fancy, just straightforward, bright, nourishing flavors that can be appreciated by two (and eventually more).

Not now, but someday.

I like the thought of him helping me eat through a bundle of asparagus from the market before they start to have a rubbery bend. I like knowing that there will be someone to share a bottle of wine with on a regular ol' weeknight because it's such a waste to open a bottle for just one.

The realist in me has to add that I recognize I just highlighted two rosy parts of a relationship. I know there's so much more.

I'll get back to you when I have a real-life story to tell.

Simple Things

Sunlight through a glass and a scrap of paper turned shopping list.

I love it when the simple things become beautiful...

That's been a gift from this blog recently. If something doesn't present itself to me during the day, I have to set out in search of "it."

Each picture is taken on the day it is posted. Each picture is a reminder that life can indeed be beautiful.

Help Yourself

Aren't we always our own worst critic? I know I'm that way with my art, my cooking, my baking, and the list goes on.

Over the Christmas holiday my friend's grandmother declared numerous times that she was through with baking for the rest of her life. Yet another one of her recipes was a disaster, in her opinion, and she might as well just stop.



Though the above muffins were truly tasty, the flip side of my roommate's note of "help yourself!" had a blunt explanation for why they shouldn't be enjoyable. Down to half a muffin and large crumbs, it looks like the note wasn't too convincing.

A Mess Too

Sometimes art just won't get done without creating a mess too.

Maybe this is why I shy away sometimes. I'm an orderly person most of the time, but after all the time spent listening to art-talk in my classes today, I went ahead and spilled scraps all over my bedroom floor and pulled out scissors, a marker, watercolor palette, paint brush, water cup, and x-acto knife.

I stole the water bottle scrubber from the kitchen too. It's just abrasive enough to scratch up a smooth photograph surface.

...today I'm grateful that going to university classes means making prints, painting, taking photos, talking architecture, and singing songs about Napoleon in French.

Here I Am

Hello? Is anyone still here?

I hope so because, boy, I've missed you guys. Thank you so much for your comments on my last post (and archived ones) while I was away. I read them all, and my heart was warmed.

About a week ago I got a real itch to head back to blogging. The desire had never completely left me, but as a new year was heralded in with champagne glass clinking and blue flames of rum, my heart picked up speed in anticipation of 2009. This is one big year, folks. And if it comes that in August all I have to show for myself as I head into the big, wide world is a BFA diploma and a humble portfolio, at least I'll have this blog. Not that it will get me a job, but it will at least be a testament to a few things I love:

Words, photography, and food.

What's new this time around is that food is going to take the back burner. I just don't feel like this season is a time to pour myself into its creation and documentation, at least not extensively, like a good food blog requires.

Today I'm presenting you with a taste of what's to come. I'm still a self-proclaimed Hungry Soul in search of beauty and satiety in this life, so I'm hoping to continue to use this blog as a canvas for satisfying that hunger.

I'll be looking for the little details in life and try to bring them forth on a daily basis through photography and words.

This afternoon the sun is shining warmly and brightly on the monochrome landscape of Abilene, Texas. However, its brownish, tannish, yellowish palette was brightened as I walked home from the grocery store with a big bunch of vibrant green carrot tops flowing over the top of my bag.



My roommate and I squinted down at the bleached-out sidewalk as we carried our groceries back. One more thing off our checklist before the semester starts. But I wasn't thinking of the beginning of spring semester. Rather, I was imagining that the January sun was casting its face on a late summer day and was even able to almost, almost convince myself we had just been to the farmer's market.

A girl can dream, can't she?

Where I Am At

Please don't cut me off. I need to get these words out and fast because I'm about to make a somewhat impulsive decision, but I believe it's a good one and am going with my gut in the moment. Some spontaneous acts are meant to be credited -- not all, of course -- and when a conviction with solid foundations is actually stronger than the other half of me that would prefer to remain oblivious, I better not choose the unsteady ground.

So, here I am before friends, acquaintances, and lurkers (who are always appreciated on this blog) saying that this hungry soul is taking a break from blogging. I'm not saying how long it will last because I do not know.



What I do know is that I have enough obligations before me right now to keep me up all night playing with typography in InDesign, staining my fingers cadmium red while applying oil paint to masonite panel, and, oh goodness, let's not forget the people that I kind of sort of moved back to God-forsaken Abilene, Texas to spend some time with. It would be nice to see their faces, I think. (By the way, I can tend to exaggerate in regards to Abilene; all sarcastic comments are spoken in love.)



So, the whites of my eyes have turned slightly pink in their weariness and the worn, seeking heart that I mentioned earlier have banded together to convince me that this is going to be okay.

I'll let you know if my blogging picks up somewhere else un-food related because I have a weakness for the melody of clicking computer keys and will continue to document life's story through my camera lens.



That's where I'm at. It's brief and just touches on the surface of all that is inside my head and heart right now. If we happen to be in the same town, I'd be happy to sit down sometime and talk with you more about it.

I'll miss feeding off your creativity, too, but for now I'm going to take an absolute break and then maybe I'll be able to slip back into your life as a commenter. Or maybe a blogger once again. I'm not holding any options too tightly.

Love to you. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, encourage me, and share in the enjoyment of life and food.



[Not to tease, but the pictures on here are just a random assortment that have been sitting on my computer waiting to be shared.]

More Important Things

This blog's header used to have a subtitle that read "food and thought". I still believe the thought part is as important as the food -- the words just got sacrificed in the improvement of my design.

But tonight a friend reminded me why I started this blog.

In my first blog post, just over a year ago, I stated my philosophy about food and still stand by it. Food is something worth taking a stance on when it plays as much of a role in life as it does in mine. Somehow it has crept in and filled my spare time, determined my budget, turned my conversations, and motivated my artistic endeavors. If something shapes that much of my life, I like to make sure I have the right perspective and priorities.

So excuse me while I forgo sharing a recipe with you tonight. Hopefully this will not just be some selfish public journalling but maybe will benefit you as well.

And I think that just hit upon something important. Doing things selfishly is what starts to prick my conscience and makes me want to simply remove myself from those things, leaving them behind. But that can't happen with food. We are required to eat it to live, and it is only a small percentage of humanity that has the luxury of getting sick of it. Many other bellies, those that are perpetually hungry, have no concept of this.

So, I don't want to react begrudgingly or ungratefully when my life gets a little out of balance, and it feels like food and this food blog and my food photography and the comments I'm expected to make about food are to blame. I have thought about ceasing this blog at those times, and while I'm not signing any contracts for the coming year (or five), I'm not saying all of this to get to the word goodbye.



I am taking life in small increments right now.

Tomorrow I get to sit around a big, long table eating soup and bread with friends, and that's an image I love.

Less than two weeks from now, I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving with my mom, sister, brother, sister-in-law, and (the star of this year's holiday...) my two-month-old nephew. And as nice as roast turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie may be, it is not these things that get my heart racing for the plane ride that will take me home. It is the faces I'll get to see and the shoulders I'll get to rest my head on.

And now I'm really leaping ahead, but in July I'll be packing my bags and leaving Abilene, Texas with a university diploma under my arm. I don't know where I'll be yet or what sorts of foods I'll be eating or if this blog will even be possible in those circumstances, but I do not want to make the last two unknowns determining factors in my decision.

I always want life to be bigger than food. After all, I have soul cravings.

Just has I have a stomach that growls when it's meant to be fed, I have a heart that insists there's something more.

A Rainy Evening

When it rains here my university campus turns into one giant pond. Water comes so infrequently that the ground doesn't know what to do with it, so it flows along the surface of the dirt and pools in every dip of sidewalk and road.

This means that on days like today, when low dark storm clouds move in, and I find myself halfway across campus, the best thing is to wait out the worst of the giant raindrops. Then I roll up my pants, take off my flip flops, and tiptoe through the cold water all the way home.

Today's pond rose above my ankles and splashed water up the back of my pants, making me feel like both a little kid in a giant puddle and like someone quite ready for fall to close in and soup days to begin. In fact, I would have come right home and put on some soup if I had been prepared for this urging, but when the daily high temperature is in the 90s, one does not stock the cupboards for such things.

So, I'll be patient for soup season to fully close in and then, surely, be enjoying it on a daily basis. For now, I'll keep enjoying the rain because despite the way it flattens my hair and ruins the hem of my jeans. I have a fondness for wet weather. Being from the Northwest, I just can't help it.

A good rain shower feels oh so cozy.

And, so, I apologize that I do not have a recipe for you tonight, but my studies are calling my name and those darn slow-roasted tomatoes were supposed to make up a (successful) post of their own. Instead, I give you one of my other loves. Apart from food, I do love rainy weather and have spent some time back home in Bellingham and here in Abilene capturing the world after it has received a generous drink of water from above.

Procrastinator? Who, me?

I seem to have become a pro at being unproductive. Seriously, people, I'm starting to scare myself.

I can no longer point my finger at the mid-semester slump (in fact, did I make that whole idea up?). School is coming to a close very swiftly, and I'm anxious about the downward slide. Will I be able to keep up? The pace only seems to be picking up as I'm slowing down.

Where did this weekend go? I started doing homework Friday afternoon but was rescued by some friends who called in search of a pan for cheesecake. I answered their plea, and the three of us set out on a grand cheesecake-making/apple-eating endeavor.

My Saturday simply disappeared. A fifteen mile run in preparation for my marathon cut out four hours in the middle of the day, followed by an essential grocery store trip, granola-making for the week, dinner with June, and an early night in kind consideration of my exhausted, aching body.

Now it is Sunday night, and I have less than half of what I wish I had done this weekend accomplished. I wish I could just slow down time, but I know I'm not being the most efficient with what I do have either. I could take fewer study breaks; I could not be writing on this blog right now; I could have skipped making the pancakes I did this morning (though I certainly wouldn't have been doing schoolwork that early in the morning!) or any other time-consuming meals. "Time-consuming" is very relative, though, and putting in half an hour maximum for a good meal is very worth the minutes to me.

In my defense, I need study breaks to keep my vision from going fuzzy or my artwork from getting sloppy but should be more disciplined about them. I need to allow myself time to crazily type away at the keyboard and get my frustrations out. And I need yummy, nourishing food that stops me in my busy day and demands that I slow down and take in that which is around me and going into me.

Yesterday Highway 351 and cold soba noodles did that for me. Two friends and I jogged out nine miles, across two county lines, encountering nothing but simple homes, mostly-brown fields, and the occasional horse. The plan was to do eighteen miles, but as I hit about fourteen my nagging injury from high school cross country flared up and after another mile I made the decision to stop and walk the rest of the way. Being forced to slow down also compelled me to more fully take in the scenery around me. Those houses had character. Some of those fields stood out from the rest in the most brilliant of greens. And those small mesquite trees were indeed a precious few, often only one to a pasture. I love being surprised by beauty.

Some other beauties from this weekend are, suitably, food related. The soba noodles I mentioned above were June's, and to sit across from each other with chopsticks in hand, a bowl of broth to ourselves, and a larger bowl piled with noodles in between and feast across cultures and languages and lives was entirely rewarding.

This morning my family recipe for whole wheat pancakes brought May, June, and me together again. Lunch was eaten on my own, but as I gazed out the window and slowly bit down on each soft piece of gnocchi flavored with a basic cream and blue cheese sauce I was able to sigh in gratitude for a sun-filled day and bountiful fridge.

My point in writing this post was not simply to procrastinate further but to express my frustrations and ultimately remember all the good that I'm still being given in my life, even if I'll pay the consequences for being less productive this weekend with fewer sleeping hours in the coming days.

So it goes...I'm still learning and relearning and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.

Monday is almost here - I've got nineteen more minutes - and before I call it a night, I plan to get some poetry reading done I should have completed hours ago.

I hope you find peace in this coming week.

Going and staying

I found myself back home today. And that's no simple statement because it means I have made yet another home for myself. It means I have laid down roots somewhere new, and it will take time to re-root when I leave. I know all about re-rooting, though, and often look forward to the new adventure it implies.

On those thoughts, "place" has been a frequent subject in my English class this semester, and I have come to understand that my experience with geographical place helps organize my life:

1. There is my birthplace: Hawaii.

2. There is my first-snow place, Wisconsin, which I will only ever remember through pictures of a toddler bundled in baby pink and perched on a sled with her two big brothers.

3. There is my new-sister place of Seattle where I gained a constant roommate for the next sixteen years.

4. My first-day-of-school place, Auckland, New Zealand, is shrouded in mystery and cannot be summed up in any brief phrase related to my educational journey. The mystery comes from the heap of fading memories coupled with the deep impression those years of my childhood made on my life.

5. My it's-scary-to-be-in-a-spot-this-long place still did not lack shifts in scenery. I spent ten years in Bellingham, Washington, and attended five different schools. I was ready to leave with high school graduation but blew many kisses to my beloved Pacific Northwest from my airplane window.

6. My plane touched down in Texas, and this became my I'm-learning-what-I-don't-like place. With a large amount of grace I was able to make it through my freshman year of college and look back with appreciation.

7. Summers since then have been new-adventure places each defined by their own unique settings and life lessons.

8. Oxford was my let's-slow-time place. Somehow I managed to be dragged onto my return flight after four months of study, travel, and Digestives galore.

9. Without a set plan for following my artistic dreams, I returned to Bellingham, which became my semester-from-hell place. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but my job during this period bordered on daily torture.

10. Next I settled in my pinch-myself-to-make-sure-it's-real place -- Westmont College. Set in beautiful Santa Barbara with an exceptional academic reputation, I had toyed with the idea of attending this place since high school. Though far from an idyllic year, it was essential to who I am as a budding artist and ever-hungry soul.

11. Finally having reached the present...I am clicking away at my laptop in my life-is-full-of-surprises place. It is the same campus on which I found myself a foreigner three years ago. Who knew?

I certainly could not have predicted I would be in Abilene again and calling this place home. Granted, I use the term "home" loosely, but when life involves such brief intervals of familiarity, it is required that one embrace the familiar for as long as it lasts.

I loved the familiar sights I encountered as I entered my apartment tonight. Two roommates moving about the kitchen and dropping everything to say hi and welcome back. A bed covered with an antique sari design and fluffy cream colored pillow. Maple leaves filling my window's view.

And what makes a house a home? -- Good food. (That's an important part of my answer, anyway.) Us girls who live here -- May, June, and me (I'm April. Have you caught on yet?) -- love to share in the enjoyment of food, as anyone could have witnessed tonight as I dumped shopping bags on the counter, and my roomies gathered around to ooh and aah at my treasures with me. Then it was May's turn to show off what she got on her own Dallas trip. We plotted our next meal together.

June most graciously offered to make me dinner as I settled back in, and I could not turn down such a proposition. So about ten minutes later I sat down to a delicious meal of cold udon noodles with cucumber, tomato, tuna, carrot, mushroom, and seaweed. Delightful food accompanied by even more delightful company.

I did not exactly plan out this blog post. Or, at least what I did plan was a bit different from the result. I imagined myself writing about the struggle of being satisfied where one is at, especially when one does not desire to stay there long.

However, I am now reminded that planting roots is worth the risks and pains involved. Even if the uprooting comes quickly, having simply opened up allows one to generously contribute to the present setting as well as humbly gain from it.

Alright, I'll stop preaching to myself...

For my own peace of mind, I promise to post a recipe in the coming week. I'm not sure what, but after my exciting trip to Dallas, and all the hard-to-find ingredients I acquired, I am sure it will be a good one!

Thoughts and food

Today it is thoughts first. Then food. After all, this is my first blog entry, and I think you deserve a little introduction.

I discovered my first delightful food blog about a month ago when I stumbled upon Molly's Orangette through a series of links. I was instantly hooked. Not only is she a talented writer and cook, but she transports me home to the Pacific Northwest. You see, I'm a roaming college student who is currently in the state of Texas this particular school year. I knew I could easily subtitle my blog something like "the culinary adventures of a college student," but when it all came together that idea was set aside. Regardless, I would like to emphasize the adventure it truly is trying to find good ingredients in this barren land of West Texas!

(I also felt like sticking the "college student" line in my header would earn me some grace regarding my haphazard collection of kitchen tools, tight budget, etc.)

The most important thing to me in stepping into this endeavor is to address more than just the relationship of baking soda with lemon juice but the relationship between people and food. It is undeniable.

I'm not going to lie: food gives me sooo much pleasure. The way balsamic vinegar tickles my tongue as it rolls off the leaves of spinach salad. The way the smell of granola fills the whole house as it toasts in the oven. The way a simple apple crisp with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream can taunt me as its warm and cold contents marble and inevitably disappear from the bowl.

I have been so spoiled by the good food I have enjoyed in my life.

And that's where I pause with this blog and ask, "why me?" Why do I have the privilege of going on about fresh bread, homemade pesto, and chocolate cake? The answer to the why isn't so important as not forgetting the abundance in which I live and being humbly grateful for it all (especially when I'm in the grocery store longingly staring at the most expensive bottle of olive oil).

As much as I want this to be a light, enjoyable blog with tantalizing recipes and beautiful pictures, I do strive to take seriously the gift of food. I hate to eat on a full stomach, even when it's the last crumbs of my mom's banana rum bread because something about that cheapens the act of gratitude. It also perpetuates a natural attitude of immediacy, which, though widely embraced in the West, I would prefer to avoid.

I am sure I'm not alone in this search for balance as a food blogger (and consumer), but it will likely continue to come up in my writing as I process life through challenging risotto recipes, daring salad combinations, and every possible variation on the scone. And hopefully I'll know when to stop and pick up my journal or a book when the flour runs low, or I'll know when my stomach's only pretending to grumble because it wants to distract me from the mountain of homework I have to do.

Bear with me, dear reader. This is a lifetime work in progress. I do not practice what I preach all the time, but I do believe what I say here with all my soul.