Good People, Good Meals

I apologize for not updating in such a long time! Between being sick, Desiree's visit, and being sick again, I haven't really had much time. I'm recovering from the flu right now and spent last night in a puddle of sweat from the high fever I had, yuck. But this, too, shall pass!

Over the past couple of weeks, I've realized what a good meal does for me. And by "good meal" I'm not necessarily referring to the taste of the food. Because I think it's possible to have a good meal with burnt rice, undercooked potatoes, and flavorless meat--so long as you're in good company and can make light of the situation.

At my apartment, we have good meals almost every day. Since there's not really much else to do (no bars, no nightlife, no nothin'--and it's cold outside), we spend our nights cooking, inventing recipes with whatever is left in the fridge, making rounds at the supermarket picking up strange vegetables and figuring out how they are to be cooked, and inviting neighbors, co-workers and new friends over. In the two months I've been here, I have learned countless recipes from all around Europe: Italian, French, English and Spanish. I have discovered fennel, artichoke (as in the actual vegetable, not just the heart), brusselsprouts, turnips, real pasta a la carbonara, fugasse, rissotto, and the list goes on.

Through these long meals, I have learned a lot about the people I work with, which I can now call my friends. I know their eating habits, their embarrassing stories, how their work day was, their love stories, new French words, new English words, their culture, their worries, their struggles...a lot. It's nice to have people to share a meal with, and I can appreciate taking my time to eat the meals set in front of me instead of scarfing it down in 10 minutes or less and then going back to my laptop to waste countless hours on the Internet.