NFR: Delayed Gratification

Guys, guys, guys. (okay, fine) People, people, people. It's been a long month. A month full of driving, flying, packing, unpacking, drilling, cleaning, hauling, and labbing. A month spent in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and finally California. A month spent in more crappy hotel rooms than I ever want to see again.

Yes, it's been exciting. Seeing my empty Oshkosh, WI apartment, all cleaned out with the moving truck out front. Spending just one last day at home (home home, where I grew up) with the goats and chickens and horses and dogs and cats. Nervously driving to Chapel Hill, worried that my dad wouldn't keep up in the moving truck behind me. Exploring Chapel Hill, getting my barbecue fix, finding a wonderful dinner place, and checking out the apartment the fiance had signed a lease for (he did good, people). Flying out to California, spending days in Pasadena. Not seeing much of Pasadena, since, well, I was in the lab the whole time. And finally, Bakersfield, where I'm getting the chance to hang out with some pretty neat people, people who are just as oddly excited to study air quality as I am. And now, planning hiking trips with friends, old and new, coordinating Glee-watching parties and attending impromptu barbecues.

But people. People, people, people. You know what's missing in all that excitement? Any real cooking. Any real baking. Getting to spend time in the kitchen, playing with ingredients and (of course!) enjoying the results. So I've been storing up ideas. Things that I have to cook or bake when I get a fully stocked kitchen back. There's these black bean burgers, some crumb buns, probably the most delicious looking breakfast/dinner ever, this fantastic looking grits casserole, and this wonderfully light lemon pound cake. Oh, and when tomatoes come into season, this awesome tomato and corn biscuit pie. And that's just things I've actually bookmarked! I still want the chance to make some homemade pop tarts, a good crusty bread, and something, anything chock-full of seafood.

So people. If you had been oven-less and essentially kitchen-less for a month, with another 1.5 months staring you in the face, what would you be contemplating making? When you finally got your four burners + oven back, what's the first thing you would want to make?


In case you were wondering, this has been lunch or dinner quite often since I've gotten two burners and a microwave about 5 days ago. Mini pitas, tomato sauce, goat cheese, and spinach. Nuked. At least not restaurant food, but no pulled pork sandwich.