Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

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I don’t cook as much as I used to, and this weekend, I remembered LOUDLY why that is. I am much more excited about cooking when I can do it with others.

On Sunday, I met Sunitha, Nanu, Poornima, and Koichi for brunch at 11am. Afterwards, we stood in the parking lot and created a menu for later. We spent the next hour or so driving around to markets in Bloomington getting ingredients. We spent the entire afternoon cooking and at about 6pm. I realized that since I left Bloomington, it usually goes a different way. I am told that there will be a dinner party or potluck. I do all the planning, shopping, and cooking alone. The only part of the experience that is shared is the eating. To me, that misses the point. Eating is fun, but the collaboration is the point. And I swear food tastes better when you eat it with your collaborators.

From a nerdy neuropsych perspective, I think my executive functioning (e.g. my ability to organize my thoughts and develop a plan) isn’t my best skill. It’s nice having Sunitha ask organizing questions like “How many recipes require onions?” While I am able to create a menu myself, it’s an effort for me. I’ve always had a strong experience of social facilitation in pretty much every area. When another person is there and there is collaboration, I’m highly productive. When working alone, I’m far less so. Cooking with Sunitha and Nanu and Poornima felt so natural. We all know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We all enjoy ourselves. Noone panics. We all have enough skills and interest that we work it out, no matter what. In the end, we had a wonderful experience and a delicious meal.

Sunitha called this our “Set List”

I have enough foodie friends in the Triangle that I’m thinking about trying something similar. Even though none of my foodie friends really know each other, I’m confident that if we all sat in a room with a stack of cookbooks, we would – over the course of a few hours – have a lot of fun and end up with a culinarily/photographically-worthy set of dishes that we will remember for a long time. My birthday is coming up. I may have to have one regular party and one “Let’s Cook” event. Kathryn? Ajith? Josh? Don? Katy? Nik? Ears ringing yet? Maybe Cathy? Jen? Perhaps we could have others come for the end part, too. I’m plotting. It always seems to work out. I’ve found that the natural head chef/sous chef roles always become clear very quickly. When it was Indian, the leader was either Sunitha or Nanu. But when we cooked more Mediterranean (or even Southern) dishes, I was in charge. Perhaps this sounds like pandemonium in the making, but I have to try.

Update: Well color me lame. How on EARTH could I forget Baron?!! Major oversight!!

Tailgate Menu Planning

Me and Marsha (my supervisor for three years)

Helen, Kathleen, Me, and Sunitha

I have excellent timing!

I’m in Bloomington with some of my favorite people ever. We’re cooking a massive Indian meal right now. The smell is unbelievably amazing! Yum!!

THE MENU:
Brinjal Bharta (Eggplant Pate)
Punjabi Chicken Curry
Moongsprout Salad
Aloo Paratha (Potato Flatbread)
Apple Raita (Yogurt Dip)
Jeera (Cumin) Rice
Rasgullas (Indian Cheese Dumplings in Sugar Syrup)

So yesterday, I called to schedule my state licensure exam. Apparently, I had 4 months to schedule, and because I had on my national exam blinders, I forgot about the deadline. I’m really glad I learned this on the phone before receiving the letter in the mail yesterday. I’ve been waiting for the pass/fail test results from the national exam, and when I saw that letter in my box, I got really anxious. I opened and saw the word “failure”. Eep! Had a mini-panic, then realized that this was what the woman on the phone had explained – that failure to take the state exam in time results in a failure. There aren’t too many repercussions of this “failure”, only that I have to take and pass the exam within four months… Yeah, that was the plan anyway.

My state exam is now scheduled for October 9th. I’ve heard it’s pretty straightforward. The contents are all printable on about 40 sheets of paper – nothing like the reams of information included on the national exam. Soon, I will be licensed. Oh yes, I shall be licensed.

I’ve avoided blogging too much, since on Monday through Friday, I’m trying to remain focused on professional tasks. I’ve also started setting an alarm to make sure I get up at a reasonable time. Without structure, my sleep and rising times have moved later and later. The side benefit of this new plan is that I’ve bought a new alarm clock, which I keep set to WCPE. My friend Tara is a DJ there during the night shift (“Sleepers Awake”). Despite an extensive classical musical education, my listening time has primarily been devoted to non-classical music. It’s nice to revisit this music once again. The side benefit is that my cats have started sleeping near the radio when it’s on. They apparently like classical music.

I’ve seen some wonderful gigs recently. I’ve written about Andrew Bird before (The review was actually picked up on Scenestars, too). I won’t review him again here, but I will say that this was probably the best of the times I have seen him. He is talented, visionary, unique, quirky, incisive, and seeing him was an utter delight for me. I’ve never been a huge Elvis Costello fan, but seeing him with the symphony with friends on a nice night was a treat. We hit up Whole Foods and brought rosemary bread, Boursin cheese, organic grapes, spinach dip, etc. Part of the time was spent on the lawn, and part was spent in the first few rows taking some excellent pictures.

This Saturday was The Old Ceremony at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, and again, I’m limiting the length of this post since I need to be doing so many other things, but it was a wonderful show. The OTT review I wrote after the first time I saw them still applies, although I will add that I’d forgotten how much better they are live. I love their CD Our One Mistake (available on their web site) and listen to it in the car all the time (have since that first show), but I love that live, the cello and violin are turned up quite a bit more in the mix. This was the first time I’d seen them on their home turf, and the crowd was definitely appreciative. I’m very happy with my pictures from the night, and some of Brian’s pretty much blew my mind.

There’s a little bit of video from the gig. This is their fun encore song, with their string players rocking out on tambourine and cowbell, and who knows what the keyboard player was doing back there. I couldn’t really see, since I was dancing my ass off. Because I was dancing (i.e. moving around) so much, I passed my camera to Shannon to videotape the song. She misunderstood and thought I wanted her to videotape me dancing. So yeah, listen to the fun song and watch me dance around like a fool. 😀

The Old Ceremony Performing “Dumbed Down” at Cat’s Cradle, 9/20/2007 from abbyladybug on Vimeo.

Be sure to pay attention at around 2:35 when Django throws in a riff from Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”. Come ON! How much do I love that?! Oh, I love it a lot!

Well, I knew that I liked it, but I just worked out that it made Explore on Flickr. Maybe there IS something to Explore!