Crock Pot Days

Our daily life centers around leaving home in the morning and getting home very late at night when we really don't have much energy for cooking. Or we (and by 'we', I mean, 'mostly Saori') end up spending time to cook that we would rather be showering, sleeping, working, etc.

So we bought a crock pot. Just a small, simple model that holds about four servings of whatever. Yesterday morning before leaving for school, I prepared the beef stew recipe which was one of the few recipes included in the tiny 'manual' pamphlet. Whole onion, two potatoes, some frozen stew beef, a garlic clove, and beef broth (although we used consumme and a splash of soy sauce). Cooked it for about ten hours. Not bad, a little bland. A little salt and pepper goes a long way. Very hearty and filling though, especially as today turned drastically colder (at least, for now).

I want to do beans next. I have very fond childhood memories of eating beans that have been cooking all day with bits of ham. Ladle that on top of some fresh cornbread and add a little chow chow. That's some pretty good stuff. They sell ham hocks at the grocery store, so time to pick up some dried pinto beans too.

Yesterday night, there was actually a dinner with faculty. Actually, it was more like three or four faculty and a bunch of students. I sat down with them since there was nowhere else to sit, and I feel like I'm not doing enough to reach outside of studio for contacts and resources. Got into a brief discussion with a professor about Wright's role in the design of the Arizona Biltmore, and it turns out the professor had actually written several books about him.

There's so much to do still. I can't even think. There's less than four weeks to the final review, and I really need to be mostly done in about three weeks.