Move along, muesli

I’ve moved. Really, I’m still moving. Not my actual, physical, stuff. That has already successfully been relocated—bedding, boxes, disassembled furniture, all packed up and shuffled nine blocks to the East by two very kind friends. In fact, one friend put me to shame by moving all the possessions that I had dragged from Cape Cod to Brookline originally in two trips in a Rav 4 in two trips in her Echo (Note: if you are unfamiliar with the dimension differences between these two vehicles, please consult your local Toyota dealer, who will inevitably confirm that this move was magic). And then I was greeted at my new apartment by two lovely roommates who welcomed me, warmly, into their lives by having already cleaned out an entire kitchen cabinet and refrigerator shelf exclusively for me. Nothing says hope quite like a clean refrigerator compartment. They also created space for my pots and pans, ample dishes, and mugs, and greeted all sorts of ingredients with open arms too, saying they were excited for my upcoming culinary adventures. I no doubt impressed them then by eating cold cereal, out of a mug, two meals a day for the first week and a half while I settled into my new life, and its new pace.

I’m still moving food from café kitchen to dining room floor at work on weekends, and moving bins of dirty dishes to the basement washroom, and clean racks of glasses back upstairs to the tune of my bulging calf muscles audibly expanding with each trip up the flight of steps.

I’ve moved also from one part of Boston University’s Gastronomy program to another—shifting from Food Studies to Culinary Arts. Somewhere in the middle of two epic research papers, one about the classifications of vegetarianism as a signifier for eating disorders, and the other about the invented terroir of French chocolate (please contact me if you need some bedtime reading material), I realized that I had no time for some of the things that move me most, like reading, and recipe testing, and formulating my own creative writing portfolio, and researching other food blogs, and heck, writing to this food blog. So I put the thought of a Master’s Degree on hold (I’m really just collecting liberal arts degrees at this point, anyway) and signed up for the Culinary Arts certificate instead. And now I go to culinary school four days a week, with rotating weekend lectures too, and I have no time for things like reading, and recipe testing, and writing to this blog (you may have noticed), and often there is minimal time for eating or sleeping, but at least I spend the majority of my days entirely surrounded by food.

I joined a gym. I go to yoga classes in the morning that move and stretch my body in ways that I thought impossible. A middle-aged British man tells me to arch my back and imagine that the whole universe is contained in the space between my spine and the floor and to let that expand my stretch. All I feel is the expansion of my stomach, widening with each breath in eager anticipation of breakfast. You’re supposed to pair your yoga practice with an openness of the mind—a sort of mediation. I dig deep and meditate on muesli. After class I run for an hour while watching the Food Network. I watch Paula Deen declare the spinach and Gruyere puffed pastry pin-wheels a healthy helping of vegetables and feel relieved I’m on a treadmill.

This blog, I think, will have to move too. Not to a new location, but its purpose will have to shift. There is minimal time for recipe testing, and ingredient experimentation, it seems, and likely will remain the case for the duration of this culinary program. I eat too much eggplant, and often a lone sweet potato, and berate myself daily for not scraping together a bigger, better, blog-worthy meal. There is, simply, too little time to craft a comprehensive plate to photograph, and share, and savor. But there are stories—good ones even. I do wish I had a bit more time at home in the kitchen, but for awhile, at least, I suppose the story will have to be just as nourishing as the fodder.