Cooking Zeal, Break Plans, and Walking
I've been on a bit of a cooking fit lately; I cured salmon Christmas eve, made butternut squash and sage soup yesterday, and today wrapped up making my first tarte tatin which came out almost perfectly. Something about the holidays makes me feel like Nigella Lawson, and it shows no signs of slowing down. I've been obsessively keeping watch over new cookery books, all the while avoiding Food TV. (Although I look forward to their importation of Jaime Oliver's Jaime at Home, and their revival of Nigella Lawson. Besides the wonder of The Barefoot Contessa, most FoodTV personalities and shows are irritating me to no end, driving me into the hands of PBS's more limited, but more informative, programming.)
The first week of break is settling in nicely, a good balance between seeing people and getting to run around LA. With Alexis and I sharing a car, the schedule compliments the balance, running around with the car and seeing people and spending the other time finishing up some work (I have about six applications for paid internship work to fill and re-writing my resumes) and working on some goals for break. One, which is working quite nicely is, in the words of Clueless, reading two non-required books a week. I'm already wrapping up Moveable Feasts: Ten Millenia of Food Globalization and The Joy of Coffee; next week has me reading Partly Cloudy Patriot and Breakfast of Champions. The Perks of Being a Wallflower comes up next, but I'm still looking for a book in sci-fi to accompany it.
I'm also making it a point to walk around while at home; with no gym membership, I'm relegated to doing core workouts in my room and walking or hiking around. I've already hit up Fryman and Runyan Canyons, and am aiming to do some work around Malibu or Oxnard in the coming weeks. I've also got some urban routes planned out, mostly for East LA and the Beach Communities, but those may take some time. Otherwise, I'm just making it a point to talk everywhere in Studio City and Sherman Oaks, since it's pretty easy, and on top of it, the busses around where I'd be going are fairly frequent if I get tired.
Places I need to go in the next few weeks: Pho 999, The Hungry Cat, Osteria Mozza, and go back to Jar; hit up Intelly and Cafe Luxxe; and hit up Grand Central Market...repeatedly. We'll see how much this holds, or how much my bank account will withstand. Any takers?
The first week of break is settling in nicely, a good balance between seeing people and getting to run around LA. With Alexis and I sharing a car, the schedule compliments the balance, running around with the car and seeing people and spending the other time finishing up some work (I have about six applications for paid internship work to fill and re-writing my resumes) and working on some goals for break. One, which is working quite nicely is, in the words of Clueless, reading two non-required books a week. I'm already wrapping up Moveable Feasts: Ten Millenia of Food Globalization and The Joy of Coffee; next week has me reading Partly Cloudy Patriot and Breakfast of Champions. The Perks of Being a Wallflower comes up next, but I'm still looking for a book in sci-fi to accompany it.
I'm also making it a point to walk around while at home; with no gym membership, I'm relegated to doing core workouts in my room and walking or hiking around. I've already hit up Fryman and Runyan Canyons, and am aiming to do some work around Malibu or Oxnard in the coming weeks. I've also got some urban routes planned out, mostly for East LA and the Beach Communities, but those may take some time. Otherwise, I'm just making it a point to talk everywhere in Studio City and Sherman Oaks, since it's pretty easy, and on top of it, the busses around where I'd be going are fairly frequent if I get tired.
Places I need to go in the next few weeks: Pho 999, The Hungry Cat, Osteria Mozza, and go back to Jar; hit up Intelly and Cafe Luxxe; and hit up Grand Central Market...repeatedly. We'll see how much this holds, or how much my bank account will withstand. Any takers?