Lumpily is now a word.

So how long have I been absent? A freaking long time, that's how long. But of course, don't expect me to start spouting about how I super duper promise - pinky swear! - never to vanish ever again, partially because I doubt there exists a world in which such a declaration isn't massive jinx-bait, and partially because I sincerely doubt anyone really wants to hear it.

But I had a pretty photo of food, and thus, I return to post it.

This, my friends, is the 'Dawn's Vegan' salad from Specialty's in Seattle. Mixed baby greens, peas, sweetcorn, black beans, carrots, baby tomatoes, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, fresh mushrooms, avocado, and marinated artichoke hearts. It comes with a balsamic dressing, but I ordered it without, being a dressing-hating freak. It was as good as it looks.

I also found a contender for the World's Weirdest-Looking Orange competition, if such a thing exists. Yes, I like posting photos of oranges a little too much. Don't judge.

He was delicious. Lumpily awesome. I plucked him from my step-aunt's tree after she told me those oranges weren't very good. She was very, very wrong.

Citrus and shine like the sun

I am sorry. I am not as dutiful and attentive a blogger as I think I should strive to be. But let me just say one thing: school got its serious-business face out, and it wasn't kidding around! Well, I suppose in the strictest sense I could have made the time to scratch out a few words in April (oops) but this month... yeah. Hello, exams. You're a lot bigger up close.

Earn your happy ending, boy.

Today, I am king of the castle. I, the Almighty Greenling, stand triumphant, surveying the magnificence of my deeds. Not only have I crammed a kitchen floorful of groceries (the dairy and wheat items being, of course, property of my aunt) into a single fridge, not only have I made my inaugural pot of compost broth, I have, for the first time, succeeded at that strange arcane alchemic art that is gluten-free baking.

More like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff.

I'd had some iPhoto troubles recently, hence the picture of pigs in the snow posted in late March. That's been resolved by it being spring break and thus my transferring to a different network that doesn't have a tangled mess of firewalls and proxies. I guess that means I'll be back to trying to patch things together with spit and tinfoil when term starts up again... but let's not dwell on that.

You got your ethics on my Sunday afternoon

 

I know a good number of people who don't believe in factory farms. I don't mean that in the sense that they disapprove, I mean it in the sense that they regard the concept as they do the monster under the bed and spider eggs in bubble gum. I never used to understand how anyone could simply not think that factory farms and feedlots and battery cages exist. Until I hopped the pond to Scotland, and remembered the days when I didn't believe in factory farms, either.

I'm a student, I eat food.

My RA is a lovely and wonderful person, with endearingly hippie-organic-all-natural leanings. Having heard me rampaging the halls bitching and moaning about my inability to be a perfect decent marginally acceptable student, she took a moment while she was in town and got me a chocolate bar, just to cheer me up. And because she is a lovely and wonderful person, I received a gluten-free, Nakd Cocoa Orange bar. Love!

Don't let its unprepossessing appearance fool you - this little thing has a heady chocolate-orange aroma that's almost floral. As I boiled the kettle to make myself a cup of tea, I took a tentative bite, wondering how the taste would compare.

O. M. G.
My tongue savoured, my mind whirled back - years back - to a half-remembered sweet, chewy and dense and fudgy and sweet just like this. Through the haze of memory, it took me a moment to realise... This bar tastes just how I remember a Tootsie Roll.

(It totally made up for the 'Oh wait, did we write 'pimento'? It's meant to be 'pepperoni.' Who marked this as vegan?' thing at lunch.)

And now... to try and make good on this gift of a snack and go attempt at least to be a better student. -_-;

Oh, to heck with it

I should be writing Englist lit coursework comparing the aspects of tragedy and comedy as they relate to themes of love within Old English poetry, Elizabethan theatre, and the modern novel, and doing various editor-monkey tasks, and looking up exactly what it is that copper (II) sulphate does when it gets happy with ammonia, but seriously? I'd rather be lazy and procrastinate. And, you know, let my mind drift back to... oh, Christmas or so. Not that the day itself is really significant or anything. What's important is that some time between Christmas and New Years', I made the most decadent trufflepiething concoction I have ever eaten.

It was sort of based off a smlove, but because I have only so much of a deathwish, I left off the crust, caramel, and pecans, and instead just made it in a springform pan. Oh, and I kind of kludged all the rest of the ingredients and substituted this and that and... well, anyway, it was a smlove at heart.