Here’s what you do.  You make this.  All you have to do is chop an onion (there is actually no other labor involved if you sub canned tomatoes for fresh ones, which is totally fine).  45 minutes later, you look like a savvy host who understands that “vegetarian” doesn’t mean, “I can only consume salads and veggie burgers.”  You’ll become a small celebrity in your social network.

I know the recipe doesn’t sound like much, but it’s actually comfort food at its best.  It comes out tasting buttery, tomato-ey but not overpoweringly so, filling, and it works as a meal on its own but could play well with side dishes.  You could dress it up with parsley and maybe even feta but it also doesn’t need those.  I’m willing to bet you could sub in just about any other grain* and adjust the liquid accordingly, and it would also turn out well.  I haven’t tried that myself, so don’t hold me to it.

Also, this recipe is vegan.  Surprise!  You’ll probably try to pry it from the hands of any vegan friends who want to steal the leftovers though, because it is goooood, especially this time of year when the weather suddenly turns colder and your body demands warm filling fatty foods stat.  And this one isn’t even very fatty.  Surprise!  Plus, that “buttery” taste above can be achieved with olive or vegetable oil as your base, no butter needed.

*Whole grains will probably work best, but I’m not gonna be one of those “never put a white grain in your body” people, cause this should also be about what you have in your pantry, and I recognize that bulgur isn’t a staple in every pantry.  Not your fault if your grocery store doesn’t have an epic bulk foods section for all your grainy needs.

Photo source.

Whenever I buy lychee nuts at the grocery store and the cashier doesn’t know what they are, I am tempted to inform the person that they should be thankful I am not my dad, who once made a cashier peel and eat a lychee on the spot after she said she didn’t know what it was.  I know because I was there and had to stand silently in shame while this unfolded.  Recognizing that telling that story would be almost as crazy as repeating the event, I usually just smile sheepishly and spell out “lychee.”  If they ask further, I uptalk-mumble something about “grapes, but with a pit?”

And yes, I decided I buy lychee nuts frequently enough to justify the use of “whenever” above.  I blame my strange-fruits-centered childhood* combined with persistent food snobbery, and of course Wegmans.

*Not any sort of euphemism.  Just an accurate description of my youth.  Really.

Today is clean-the-old-apartment day.  A true holiday, if you ask me.  And by “holiday” I mean accidentally bleaching a piece of clothing, shouting about the incredible cleaning powers of baking soda to a more-nervous-and-less-enthusiastic-about-baking-soda Dave, and improvising ways to make a lunch that will maximally use up perishable foods while also cleaning the stove.

I’m thankful that the new Two Cities stage of my life (Dave is still in Rochester, kickin’ grad school butt – when he’s not jet-setting to Paris for conferences) involves one new locale and one place I’m already familiar with.  Although it’s funny to come back to Rochester and realize by contrast the ways I’m still adjusting to Ithaca, I’m also glad that I don’t have to adjust to two new places at one time.

In other words, one year later, I’m still thrilled that I made the DC to Rochester move.  Take that, skeptics.*  Or: life planning!  Who knew it could happen to me?

*No, I didn’t really spend the last year brooding over the offhand remarks others made about my last move.  Don’t worry.

• Bright copper kettles
• Warm woolen mittens
• Brown paper packages tied up with string

And she makes her own clothes out of drapes, while riding a bicycle.  Jeez girl, just get a Brooklyn walkup already.

I usually find hipster-bashing kind of tired or belabored (or pointless).  But sometimes you gotta tell it like it is.  Plus in real life I think she was pretty mean.  Not saying all hipsters are mean, but if you make your own clothes out of drapes, you should at least be condescending about it.  Otherwise you’re twee.

At T minus 4 days to moving truck, I am hovering between 4 and 5.  I think this is a decent place to be.

1. Uuugggghhhh.  Maybe you just won’t move.
2. Mental inventory of stuff, all while sitting on couch.  Conclude that it won’t be that bad.
3. Go on “donate it” rampage.  The key to piece of mind is less stuff, clearly. Your soul is weightless as you drop those shopping bags off at Goodwill.
4. Sense of victory fades as you realize that (All Your Stuff) – (Two Shopping Bags) still = A Lot of Stuff.
5. The dreaded it-will-never-be-done step.  You feel as if your possessions are being packed into tiny squirrel boxes by someone with tiny squirrel hands.  That’s the only explanation for why your apartment looks the same amount of full, or actually more full because now there are boxes accumulating in underused corners.
6. Repeat step 5.
7. ALL THE STUFF!  WHY???
8. Important items that are boring, hard to pack, don’t categorize nicely into coherent boxes, or that are used sparingly but are utterly essential.  See: paper shredder, because you inherited that fear of identity theft that your mom has; see also: snow shovel; but see: anything that will fit in a shoe box, hallelujah.
9. If you never have to consider the utility of a kitchen gadget lodged in the back of the kitchen gadget drawer ever again, you will be a completely happy camper.  Forever and ever, pinky swear.
10. Applies to multi-party living spaces only: is that your spatula, or mine?  Worse: is that your college swag item, or my identical version?
11. Cold sweat over fragile items.  Plants?  Musical instruments?  Inherited pottery?  Real art?  You will never again feel sorry for yourself for only shopping at Target, since at least Target items are replaceable.
12. Hot sweat as you load your moving vehicle.  Realize you packed all your cups.  Show up at convenience store looking like crazy person.  Try to make face that you think conveys, “I’m not a member of a frat, even though I’m buying red Solo cups.”
13. Convince other people to help you load large furniture.  Vow to never again buy furniture.  Ply your friends with water, the only beverage you have left, in Solo cups.
14. Drive off into the sunset.  Blissfully ignore the unloading and unpacking that await.  Sing along loudly to the bad radio available in the moving truck.  Dream of all the furniture you will buy to fill up your new space.

I was flattered to receive your spring outdoor and garden look book, even though 1) it is August; 2) my personal spring redecoration event never took place; and 3) I do not have the funds to purchase any items listed.  Example: the only outdoor furniture I have ever purchased included two $7 folding beach chairs from Target, because that is where I am right now, as a life stage.  It was still thoughtful of you to send, especially since I have not purchased anything from you before, not even gifts for loved ones.  That would possibly explain the mix-up described below, but alas, no dice.

I would like to know why the catalog I received at my real, live, grown up street address came addressed to my brother, with whom I have not shared a residence since three addresses ago.  How do you know who my brother is?  Are you trying to hint that he should come visit me?  (I agree!)  I understand that he has a relatively common boy’s first name (because many boys have your standard probably-Biblical first names) but it still seems uncanny that you would have accidentally put together his first name, our shared last name, and my current street address.  In fact, the only other time I have received mail in my brother’s name was that one piece of mail in high school that came addressed to both of us, as if we were a married couple.  At least you did not make that gaffe.

You seem to have several misguided ideas about the consumer living at this address.  I’d like to gently point out that 1) I am not my brother; 2) I may aspire to your level of class, but I am clearly not yet there; and 3) it angers me when furniture collections are named things like Provenance, because that’s a dumb name for furniture.  I don’t care about the origins of a wicker lounge.

In summary: who are you, Restoration Hardware, and what do you know about me?

Sincerely,
Ruth

Confession: I find it insanely difficult to drive across Massachusetts without veering off course and parking myself somewhere in Berkshire County and not moving the car ever again. I actually make a sort of whimpering sound when I have to zoom past exits 1 and 2 on the Mass Pike. You’d be wrong if you think that’s a joke, and yes, I understand it’s obnoxious behavior. Oh, and it’s not even limited to when I’m alone in the car. Sorry, and fair warning, potential passengers!

I’m not a person who collects inspirational quotes. Really, the trend where you write some phrase in a cool font so it looks more design-ey and less cross-stitch-ey usually still reads “preachy” to me. But I do happen to have an electronic sticky note on my computer with the following wise words from a Modern Love column from several years ago:

Maybe this is what we get in life, a few great loves: loves that return us to ourselves when we need it most. And maybe some of those loves aren’t people, but places — real and adopted homes — that fill us up with light and energy and hope at moments when we feel especially tired or lost.

Well, Berkshire County, you are one of my great loves, I guess.

The Atlantic Ocean* is another non-person great love, and it was for the sake of the Atlantic (and my sister! and her sig-o!) that I made this spontaneous-for-me** summer pilgrimage across two states this past weekend.

One advantage of the semi-nomadic post-college lifestyle is getting to add places to your Important Locations list. It’s fun to learn the ins-and-outs of a new hometown and to identify with a new place as a local (or an invested visitor, at least). I readily admit that I’m not describing any universal truth here. The new homes process may not be your jam. I happen to thoroughly enjoy learning to be a local, so for me that justifies the scary aspects of the process. I’ve also found so far that I’m flexible about places I’m capable of falling in love with. Or at least that so far I’ve been lucky and have learned to love every place I’ve lived or even done extended travel in.

The clear disadvantage to this model, of course, is that you’re also adding to the list of Places to Miss, as illustrated above. In these cases, you shouldn’t be held responsible for the strange noises that issue from you as a manifestation of your missing.

*Other large bodies of water will do in a pinch, but they ideally should be saline, tidal, and have waves. And I don’t want to get into that argument about how the Pacific is better because I grew up on the Atlantic, so that’s how I roll.

**My version of “spontaneous” involves several days of angst in which I do not plan, but merely consider the possibility of the action, and worry about abstract things that I feel are preventing me from taking said action. The actual planning part is usually quick and painless once I resolve to act. Anything more short-notice*** is usually not my idea. (See: that one genuinely last-minute road trip in college, which was entirely not my idea.)

***WTF, Word? Why are you trying to correct “more short-notice” to “short-noticeer”?! Especially since you correctly identify “noticeer” as not an English word.

• When it gets above 90, never take the water glass out of your hand.  Just don’t stop.
• Bananas!  No, really.  It combines two favorite interests of mine: Nutella and nondairy adventures.  (Thanks for the tip, B!)
• This.  I’m proud of myself, because I was contemplating a blog post about my strategies for feeding myself during a heat wave in the land of zero AC.  And had that post materialized, it would have embodied the very same ethos that Bittman conveys through these recipes.  This is not surprising, since I learned to cook using HTCE.  But I feel like the student has become the master, because I didn’t need Mark to tell me how to do it this time around.  Although I will not begrudge 101 suggestions.

Physical Activity

• I not so secretly prefer hiking to running.  I have now completed my first speed and hill workouts as part of a new 10k training plan.  I liked the hill workout much better. But what’s a girl in a glacially smoothed over landscape to do?  At least my professional goals line up well with my fitness preferences.  Cause that’s something everyone worries about, I’m sure.
• Hills are better for walking or running than they are for biking.  Even after you learn how to change the gears on your bicycle — after 12 miles.  Come on hills, what gives?  The incline changes and suddenly your efficient mode of transportation feels woefully inefficient.  I chose to blame the bike, not the legs that power it.

Embarrassing Personal Failings

• (See also: “Physical Activity” section, above)
• It’s probably wiser to operate under the assumption that your landlord will show your apartment without letting you know ahead of time, rather than trusting you’ll have at least an hour’s notice to actually put away that laundry, or that pile of sweaty running clothes lurking in the bathroom, or those rows of de-labeled beer bottles in the kitchen.  I gather not everyone jumps to the correct beer brewing conclusion when they see that many empties in one place.

There is a new book in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series.  This is the type of thing that only my mom knows about.  And then when she mentions things like this in conversation, I’m always uninformed, and she’s always a bit surprised.  So, point #1, a new book exists.  I was previous unaware.  In my defense, I thought the series had ended, so it’s not like I was keepin’ an eye out.

So clearly she sent me a copy of this latest book in the mail.  It came on Friday.  I spent Friday night on my couch reading this book.

Public service announcement time.  Fair warning!  This book, which I guess is supposed to be for grown-ups, and therefore distinct from the other books in the series, is intense.  If you and your mom also have a girly book club, I advise reading this alone on your couch or bed when no one else is home.  The fact that you’re now old enough to drink whiskey while reading a SoTP book will really not help.  In fact, it might make things worse.

I’ve decided to be okay with spending my Friday night reading intense chick lit, since I spent my Thursday night playing* in [the encore segment of] a Second City show that’s playing in Rochester.  It was fun to rep for Rochester improv, since we have a great scene here, and the Second City people were super nice.  Then the lovely other local improvisers and I went out for drinks and unofficially but maybe officially formed a brand new three woman improv group called Is It a Salad?

So I definitely had no choice but to balance my I-haven’t-had-this-exciting-a-Thursday-since-college** Thursday night with a socially isolated, book laden Friday.

Okay, so the book isn’t traumatizing or anything, don’t worry.  Not like that time in high school when I decided to read Native Son while alone in my sister’s apartment in Manhattan at night during the summer.  Now that was a traumatic reading experience.

*”Playing” is the comical improviser word for participating in a show, since we don’t like to say “acting.”  It’s actually funny when you’re talking to improvisers and they earnestly say things like, “I’m so happy to be playing tonight” or “Great playing with you!” or “We’ll just get out there and play.”  Playing is a very serious word to improvisers, and they usually aren’t trying to be ironic when they talk about it.  One of the true secrets of improv is that improvisers are serious about what they do, and many are not Funny People in real life.

**FRR, I thought of you.  I pretty much always will on Thursdays.

After years of having cereal make me nauseous,* I self-diagnosed mild lactose intolerance.  In fact, my sister independently arrived at the same conclusion at around the same time, and ya know, genes, so clearly we are both correct.  My awesome former roommate is also an adult soy milk convert.  Since our combined degrees in subjects like library science, women’s studies, and earth science make us extremely qualified to make medical decisions, you should trust our advice.

It wasn’t until about a year ago that I went all-out and stopped using milk in almost everything, including tea, which is a pretty big step for me.  Part of the reason it took that long is because milk alternatives (I will not forgive myself for writing the words “milk alternatives” in a public space) are pretty foreign.  My guess is that if you are an American grownup in 2011, you weren’t raised with soy milk or its nondairy friends unless your upbringing was, like, way hippie.  And my upbringing was a little bit hippie (see: that Country Joe and the Fish album cover my dad claims to be on), but mostly just involved copious tote bags.  There was no soy milk.

So after a year of hard work, I have some basic rules of thumb for buying and consuming soy milk.  And because you did not ask, I am sharing them with you.  Who knows, maybe if breakfast makes you nauseous too, I will have done a good deed.  I promise it’s not too scary.

No, really, everything after the jump is about soy milk.  I’m sorry if you were expecting something more exciting.  If you like cow milk, I’m down with that.  The rest of this post is probably not for you.

Step 1, Buying Soy Milk (cue the Strong Bad learning music from the famous “skills of an artist” Trogdor sketch)

• There are many kinds of soy milk.  There are like 4 kinds of cow milk (skim, 1%, 2%, whole) and whether you get it from the Dairy Barn or Whole Foods, it tastes roughly the same within each category.  Soy milk can sorta do whatever the heck it wants, and will therefore taste different, even among similar flavors from different brands.  You can broadly figure out whether you’re a plain or vanilla person first, and then narrow it down to brand.  But I know of no efficient way to find your favorite brand other than to go a little nuts in the Nature’s Marketplace section of Wegmans.  I’m sorry if you don’t live near a Wegmans.  This project might be harder for you.
• If you’re me, you might think you dislike soy milk in general because you’ve only had soy milk you don’t like.  I’m not gonna hate too hard, but I discovered I don’t like vanilla in general, and I specifically don’t like Silk as a brand.  And I have a feeling that vanilla Silk is super common because it’s readily available even in non-weird supermarkets and it tastes like vanilla!  I like vanilla, just not in tea.  So stick to your sick-of-being-sick guns and try different kinds.  My weapon of choice is Westsoy organic unsweetened.  (Note: plain does not always equal unsweetened.  This is important for me.)
• As you can see, my process was strongly flavor-motivated.  But you might be interested in the nutritional content.  Just read those boxes, because again, soy milk can do whatever the heck it wants.  It’s not necessarily going to be healthier than regular milk is, whatever that means for you.  So you gotta do the homework.  Just know what you’re buying and be down with whatever’s inside.

Step 2, Storing Soy Milk

• This part is super easy.  Milk is a pain.  You always have to be worried about it.  Soy milk doesn’t spoil as easily as milk.  You don’t even need to store it in the fridge until it has been opened.  Just think, regular milk can’t have a backup in the pantry for if you run out some morning.  Someone just has to put on shoes and go to the Corner Store when that happens.  (Yes, ours is actually called The Corner Store.)  Or you skip your milk-based routine that morning, and then you get to work and you’re some weird monster who’s like, “I didn’t have my oatmeal!!!” and no one wants to be in meetings with you.
• Once opened, soy milk is fine to hang out in the fridge for a while.  I actually still don’t know how long it keeps.  You just give the carton a little shake before you pour, and it’s fine.  If you use it daily, even in small amounts, you will run out before it turns.  I’ve even used it after returning from a trip, and it has been fine.  Shhhh.

Step 3, Cooking with Soy Milk

• This part was the hardest for me.  Messing this up earlier this week prompted me to pen this post.  Fair warning.
• We still have regular milk on hand because Dave is proudly a whole milk drinker, so I usually use milk in cooking.  It tends not to irritate me for cooking or baking.  (I use soy milk for tea, oatmeal, other “splash of milk” activities.  I still don’t like cereal after years of forcing it down.) But then people are like, “Oh, it’s totally fine to cook with, just use it like regular milk.”  Which is an intriguing idea, and is sometimes true.  And sometimes very not true.  In my experience.
• You CAN: incorporate it into baking or cooking where milk is not the main event.  It works completely seamlessly in muffins, scrambled eggs or omelets (for real!  and yes, it’s funny to use vegan milk in eggs), anything that wants a tablespoon of milk for almost any reason, etc.
• You CANNOT: use it where heated milk is the main event.  The two that have messed me up real bad are hot chocolate (I know, I know, what was I thinking) and bechamel (again, I know, I know, what was I thinking). In my experience, soy milk is even fussier to heat than regular milk, and you end up with a weird flavor that is not. good.  Just, it’s bad.  Trust me.
• Conclusion: if a recipe says to add milk, and then multiple components are later heated, that’s fine.  If a recipe says to put milk in a saucepan, that’s not fine.
• The good news is that if you’re only mildly lactose intolerant (is that even a thing?  or are my sister and I just making stuff up?) and you don’t have moral or other dietary objections to dairy products, you can use regular milk in bechamel.  And you can unfortunately avoid hot chocolate, because you are screwed either way.  If you live with a milk drinker, this is super easy.  And if you don’t, then you just need to do a little planning ahead and pick up a tiny container of milk before you cook tasty baked pasta dishes.  And I won’t tell anyone if you cut the milk with water in those instances, so that you feel better psychologically about knowingly consuming a product that makes you a little ill.  (Using “ill” still almost always reminds me of that N’Sync song.  The one that ingeniously rhymes “ill” with “feel.”)

So now, go forth!  Consume soy milk!  Once you have it a few times, it just tastes like your normal morning routine.  And if that new normal morning routine means you no longer dread breakfast, then more power to you.  Don’t worry about the haters.  They don’t know our pain.

*Okay, it’s not that unreasonable that this continued for years unabated.  I had one of those Mysterious Undiagnosed Chronic Medical Conditions crop up in middle school, which I now know to be a completely controllable fainting disorder, but which wreaked havoc on my daily routines until I figured out how to manage it.  It included a sudden hate of most breakfast foods, but a need to eat every few hours, so there was this Rocky training montage where I forced myself to eat breakfast, queasiness be damned.  Not.  Fun.  So that’s why it wasn’t until about a year ago, once other kinks were worked out and I still didn’t like breakfast, that I decided milk was among the culprits.  Because yes, other things were ruining breakfast too.  The efforts to keep myself conscious and not nauseous are intricate.