Wednesday, April 27, 2011

How I really feel about food blogs

is that they should have beautiful pictures.

I don't have a camera, so that might not happen for a minute here, but I'm cooking a lot lately and starting to record the fruits here.

Come and read, it will be fun!

(Also. How do you really feel about food blogs? Any advice on making this one better?)

Loves,
ke.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Review: Mountain West Burrito

So Mountain West Burrito is the place that went into the old gas station halfway up the State Street Provo-Orem hill and it is tasty. Everything is fresh and free range and the guy who owns/runs the place is very friendly and handsome. A solid burrito will run you like 5 bones, the giants (more like 7 or 8) are great to split.

Independent business! Delicious food! The steak is the best thought the carnitas is really good too and I think steak+veggies might be fantastic though I haven't tried yet (spring for the sour cream and guac for a buck more)!

They do salads too, and tacos, and chimichangas (I never should have opened this Pandora's Box of deep-fried deliciousness, I'm not sure I can go back to a standard burrito), and nachos and everything else you can do with toppings and grain-based outers.

I think the word is getting round, it's been busy every time I've been, but also super quick.

Anyway. Two thumbs up. Go and go.

Easter easter easter

I really love Easter. I seem to wake up to sunshine every year and also to Sunshine, if you know what I mean. That is, God always takes it upon himself to remind me that he's around and that he likes me on Easter Sunday, and today was no exception.

I like thinking about Jesus today.
I like singing Easter songs.
I like eating ham because I also get to eat mustard.
I like hanging out with my family.

I don't know. It seems like kind of a triumphal day, and I don't look for enough of those.

:)

ke

Thursday, April 21, 2011

!

So. It's nine o'clock on what should (oh please dear heavens) be the last all-nighter of my academic career ever. I have 8 pages of collected quotes and outline toward the 8-10 pager due tomorrow before James and I can head off somewhere warm and sporty, a nearly emptied 44 and a back-up liter (the empty liter got me through last night and this morning), an interesting if not-quite-articulated argument, and David's new Chili-lime sunflower seeds (so much better than the off-brand. I am in love). I am feeling good.

And. In case you missed it. Last ever. Academic all-nighter. Potentially (future Kjerstin: write your thesis in the day time? You're a peach). 






Let the games begin.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Working through

Last week I was over visiting with Annie as she and Simon were housesitting. Maren pulled me into her cousin's (sort of?) room where we were playing with horses, then Annie joined us and Maren started handing me Polly Pocket dolls to dress for her (Polly Pockets are, like, 3 inches high and their close are silicon-y--stretchy and plastic and kind of a lot of fun to touch and play with). So I dressed dolls for Maren and then when Maren got bored I started looking through the pile of doll clothes and putting together my own outfits and then I as Annie and I discussed never really playing with Barbies, just dressing and redressing them, I asked her for help to find matching tops and bottoms and so we sat, me instead of writing a final paper for my master's program and Annie 6 months pregnant, playing with these dolls. For like a half hour. And it felt really good. Is the thing. Really good.

And it got me thinking. I've thought/written before how weird it is that as I get older I change only in that I understand how little anything changes. As a kid I was under the impression that adults were privy to some secret knowledge or power or something. That they were materially different than I was. I'm shocked everyday, now that I'm technically a grown-up, at the childishness of other grown-ups: the selfishness and pettiness and the power plays that we pull off because we can. Because who's going to tell us otherwise?

And it got me thinking, too, more specifically: that not only do *people* not change that much, *I* haven't changed that much. There is in my the little girl who loved performing, who loved frills and sparkles, who got sort of sensitive when Mrs. Whitaker talked about "Bossy Betty." I feel like I/we focus so much on change--on the way we're changing/growing/regressing/whatever, that I forget the parts (the most of me) that are just the same now as they were 25 years ago.

And this is important. Because. I look back at me at 10 and 14 and 20 and sort of shudder a little sometimes? Like, remembering me being too loud or cruel or poorly dressed or whatever is kind of hard. My impulse is to distance myself from little Kjerstin, to argue that I'm different from her, grown up or whatever. But I feel like that's not the answer at all. I feel like what I need to do is embrace tiny me. Take the bad with the good (and I was very adorable and precocious and charming). Come to terms with the fact that I haven't changed that much and that I probably won't change that much. And that that's really great, actually.

Anyway. I feel like this is probably one of the revelations I need to have every couple of years. So.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Restaurant

So, Rooster has closed (I know there were a lot of fans. I am not that sad about it because I feel like I could defrost dumplings just as effectively and more economically, though I never tried the bulgogi [is this the thing they had? Or sandwiches or something?] there and I'm pretty disappointed about that) and in it's place there's a new Indian place: Noodles, burgers, etc. I should wait to write this review until I know the name. But. Am. Not. Doing that.

I'm excited about it: it's nice without feeling precious or boutique-y, it's ethnic without stepping on downtown Provo's already diverse downtown lineup, it's really tastey and this is the thing, it feels like a real place. Not another cupcake bakery or artsy (=unhardy/pretend/wilted) cafe, I feel like this place has staying power because its food is real and interesting; it seems like food that an actual Indian person might actually eat (I could be wrong. I have a conflicting idea that actual Indians have access to every day culinary perfection that we can only sort of imagine. But.). And they spent more time thinking about what to put in their food than in designing their concept and menus. Poorly designed menus seem like a very good sign.

The food: quick and Indian. The noodles I got (I was very excited for a noodle bar, I've been craving good noodles for at least two years, ever since my own noodle experiment ended up with me curled up on a cold bathroom floor swearing off fish sauce forever. eef) were disappointing: a little too La Choy-y tasting for me. But James's potato-garbanzo bean dish (#5. Their most popular. Again, if I knew I was going to write a review I would've paid more attention) was delish. Fast and spicy and warm and perfect.

The food seems heavy-ish and rewarmed and in that sense not everyday fare, but I'd like to explore this menu more. You should too. Let me know how it goes, yes?

Monday, April 11, 2011

April

Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring —
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. — Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins