Settling

It's been a bit of a food time-warp for me.  Way too many years ago during a semester in Italy, I lived by a menu that was both cost effective and tasty: roll for breakfast, pb&j and apple for lunch, and linguini with carrots, broccoli, and tomato sauce for dinner.  Once a week I'd change it up, sauté thick slices of potato in olive oil and top them with parmesan.  My friends across town had me over for ravioli-making dinner parties, and one roommate occasionally presented us delicious veal-and-eggplant dishes.  Ok, sure, I ate out some as well.  But for four months, night after night, it was me and my pasta.

So, here history repeats itself, and cooking simply for myself on the cheap = lots of pasta, of which I will never tire.  Or, after a ten-hour day of egg cracking and potato frying, I might just dip apple slices into a jar of peanut butter.

One big difference is there's lots of great beer in Alaska (though I do miss those 2-euro bottles of chianti).  The query of my trip to "town" today is now chilling in my fridge, ready to effervesce a bit of pleasure into any day.

I got to town on another group bonding trip: dishonoring nature's beauty be tearing through it on ATVs.  Here you can see me (surprisingly) in pink, coaxing my death-wish vehicle over a small stream.  Driving over uneven, rocky terrain?  Forget the seatbelt -- just hold on tight to those handle bars, and hope against a neck injury.

In other news, I switched rooms.  Being beside the slamming door, next to the staircase, underneath evening-shifters that play darts and smoke lots of pot was not a good recipe for sleep.  Let's hope the new digs are a  it quieter.

Fun mistake: when I told the 19-year-old dish washer I was a quiet old lady, he guessed I was 23.