Amazingly Delicious Cookies

In my last post, I mentioned that I had tasted some of Sue's food from her blog. It was these almond butter chocolate chip cookies. They are absolutely incredible. I recommend them most highly.

I will be posting more of my own food just as soon as I get back on my feet with my work.

Forthcoming

So classes recently started in my PhD program. The last little while has been a whirlwind of orientation, meeting new people, setting up all of the administrative things, and trying desperately to navigate a new public transportation system (which seems to me to make very little sense). In fact, things have been so crazy I missed 2 out of the three trains home on Friday due to inexperience and bad luck.

I did bake my first bread in my new oven as well as a set of English muffins with the same dough.  I will be posting that in the next few days. They were very simple but very delicious.

Also, I just wanted to say that I made some pumpernickel bread with Sue today (I will be posting that bread soon as well). It was a lot of fun and it tasted pretty good for a rye bread, although the loaves were really ugly. She brought over some of her baking for the blog for Servia and me to try. I won't spoil the surprise because she's posting it later this week, but I have to say that it was absolutely delicious. I will put up some sort of alert when she posts it.

However, it may be a few days before I post because I'm buried under all of the reading that I put off this weekend (oops). For now, check out Sue's microwavable chocolate cupcake recipe, which I'll probably succumb to making some night when I'm up late studying.

And They Say Philosophy Isn't Relevant Anymore

Apparently, two Russian men got into an argument about a week ago. It became so heated that on man shot the other repeatedly. You can read the basic facts here, and there is a wider discussion here.

At graduate orientation, two of my friends and I were taken to the university pub by a philosophy PhD first year (in logic) who bought us all beer. Apparently, this guy recently won $1000 in Vegas betting on the particular part of Kant about which the argument took place. I didn't even know one could bet on things like that. Anyway, I guess philosophy can make money after all.

Tartine, Revisited

This weekend, I was helping Egnatius move in to his new apartment. He's a lucky boy-- he's in a beautiful place with a great roommate, fabulous resources within walking distance (including a shop that sells locally-grown, organic, high-gluten, first clear flour in bulk for cheap-- I'm so jealous!), and has a magnificent coffee shop on campus.

Despite this, we dragged ourselves away from there to take a long journey to see some old friends of ours in SF. It was really nice to see them and they both have cool jobs in publishing. While we were there, we visited Tartine, which is the bakery that produced the book that made me a real bread baker and which I reviewed as a disappointment last time I visited.

Not so this time around.

The bread wasn't over-proofed (like it was last time), despite the heat of the day, so it was delicious. I don't have a picture of the loaves. We got a country loaf and a baguette, because that was all that was left when we arrived around 6:30pm. The bread didn't taste exactly like mine; the crust was slightly thinner (although it was still nice and crunchy) and the bread was fairly sour. I like the sourness, so I liked the country bread much better than the baguette, which I thought was a little too bland (although it had an even crunchier crust, which was nice).

If you haven't seen the video yet, the Tartine video is beautifully put together:
Now, I would, like they do in the video, recommend that everyone (who is not gluten-intolerant) try Tartine bread at least once. Even if you make it yourself. Actually, especially if you make it yourself.

Also, it looks as though Chad Robertson, founder of Tartine, has a new book coming out in November.

A Lesson to Be Learned

Much of the time, I am communication-o-phobic: I hate calling people, I often don't carry my phone with me or neglect to answer it, I'm not great at replying to emails (and especially bad about sending them to people whom I have not met), and I just generally avoid dealing with things. I try to be sociable and reasonable about modern communications, but it's not one of my skills.

However, today I considered posting this status on facebook: "I called to talk to the head of an office that deals with 28,000 students at my new university and he instantly recognized my name. Lesson to be learned: If you don't confirm that my paperwork is received, I will keep harassing you until you do."

I realized that that was dumb, so I refrained. It just shows that, when I have the impetus (in this case, making sure the money from my fellowship was going to cover my tuition), I can move mountains. The best part was that the head of the office laughed when I called-- he didn't seem annoyed that I was worried about my information. So, as of today, I'm trying to turn over a new leaf.

I'll post some more bread in the next few days-- my family and I just finished off the wonderful SFBI loaves and so we'll be needing more bread.

Downton Abbey: Season/Series 4 Trailer

Despite the rather disappointing end of last season, I'm still a Downton fan. So, I thought I'd share the trailer for the upcoming season. It still won't say when it's coming out in Britain, but it is coming out in the US on January 5th.
Enjoy!