a quick escape from philadelphia

Hannah made me a plate of nibbles... it's a family obsession. 

Snow! And the whole time philly was walking around without jackets on. 

And of course, this is what I come back to.....

After deciding it was high time that I get more use of out my train pass I planned a spontaneous trip to Providence last weekend (I guess one cannot plan a spontaneous trip, can they...). This was also part of my campaign of being a better cousin, seeing that it took me a whole year to get myself up there for a visit. Shame on me. It was a quite visit, as both Hannah and I had piles of work to do (she, of course, has a real job too boot, I just have ID to contend with). My saturday felt a lot like a human factors observation project. I perched myself at the counter of blue state coffee and watched as my petite cousin stood on her tippy toes to reach things down from the cabinets. There were also a few blaring problems with the layout of the space, clearly it wasn't set up by anyone what would ever work there. What I found most interesting the whole time was the fact that ID has put my observation radar on so seriously. I can't stop noticing things! 

what I ate wednesday? scrumptious sundays? mouthwatering mondays?

Rhyming names aside (I have developed an embarrassing obsession with corny names and puns. 3d modeling is CADastrophic, anyone? But if you know my family, you probably know where this comes from...), I have been thinking about starting a food feature here. I am not the biggest fan of theme days. I adamantly dressed up on dress down days in high school, for example. So let's not call it a theme day, no what I ate wednesday. Just maybe some random day throughout the week that I blog a bit about a meal I made recently. You see internet, I am a lover of lists, and just enough of a deadline or structure to kick my butt into doing something. Another, even more important, characteristic of mine is that food thing. I am obsessed. With a somewhat restrictive diet, let just say for health and moral reasons, and no I am not a vegetarian... I am a cook. With that I believe that part of being a good cook is being respectful to your ingredients. Know what they are, where they came from, and do something wonderful with them. Point being, I have been considering showing off some of my culinary pursuits.

Sadly I have no fabulous pictures of my last good meal. Jordan and I got to quick work eating everything up. I finally got to use my kitchen table/desk/mess for a proper meal, and was it ever wonderful. I'm not one for using recipes, but I did vaguely base the dish off of something I saw on 101 Cookbooks once. Kale, potatoes and bacon. Because really, what else do you need? It was a delicious not quite soup, not quite stewy stick-to-your-ribs, warming-from-the-inside dinner. Plus, the leftovers were equally fabulous. I might start sharing recipes if this food feature sticks, and of course feel free to ask if you want to know more!

whoops, totally just 'put a bird on it' today....

(for those of you who have not been obsessed with Portlandia and have no idea what I am talking about... I present to you, put a bird on it)

thank you philadelphia

we've been waiting for this.

fun with stop motion

So pleased that Megan posted our video on her tumblr:

cooking without eyes

When I came back to school this semester I had no idea who much more intense things would be. Sure it's a hard comparison to Italy, I didn't do much there school-wise, and when I did it was a more fun project for me, something I might be doing anyways. But getting back to id@uarts, well, that's a different story. Not to be misunderstood, I am really very pleased to be home, back doing what I love. But DAMN, is school over harder this semester. It's just so much work, allll the time. 
One of the classes that seems to be getting me every week (this may be thanks to timing rather than purely the workload), is human factors. It's a full project every single week. This past week we looked at work environments. More specifically, the anthropomorphic factors of the user. But all that aside, the images seen above were from the best assignment we had: blind cooking. Have you ever had to cook an omelet with your eyes closed? Well now I have, and let me tell you it was delicious! 

It's been a fun week. School has put me way over my head in projects. Another 'twendsday,' a lack of sleep tuesday night making for a hell of a wednesday. Of course this time, when coming home at the wee hours of the morning I was greeted by the rude news that the power was out on the block, meaning that I would have to climb 19 flights of stairs (excuse me, 18, there is no 13th floor). This week has also been an experiment with living without a desk. I can honestly say it does effect my work habits a bit. So this weekend I had a date with my decorators, my mother and grandmother, who brought me the gift of table and another chair to keep the other one company. 
In other news, I started a fair isle—heavy pair of fingerless gloves to use up some of my leftover italian cotton. Pictures to come soon. I also took a spontaneous trip to nyc, which included hearing about the amtrak train number 666 (at which find out about its existence jordan exclaimed, 'dudeeeee, it's the train to hell!'), buying more spices at kalustyan's, muji muji muji, getting caught taking forbidden pictures at opening ceremony, and the best gluten free pizza to start off the birthday week celebrations.