snow days

It's been snow-storming the past couple of days. This means: no school, making marshmallows'mores in my rice cooker and enjoying the beauty of tea with my new clear bodum teacup.

habitus

My Footbinding history professor came to class with a sack full of shoes. We each get to take home (for rent) an authentic fin de siecle shoe that has possibly been worn more than a hundred years ago!! Being the leading scholar on footbinding, she has come to collect an array of little shoes differing in style and pattern. Our homework is to 'live' with the shoe for a semester, and let it be a part of our lives. I took some pictures just so you can get a sense of the size of things..

Pamuk, on writing...

"So yes, the real hunger here is not for literature, but for a room where I can be alone and dream. If I can do this, I can invent beautiful dreams about those same crowded places, those family gatherings, school reunions, festival meals and all the people who attend them. I enrich the crowded holiday meals with invented details and make the people themselves even more amusing. In dreams, of course, everything and everyone is interesting, captivating and real. I make the new world from the stuff of the known world. Here we come to the heart of the matter. To write well, I must first be bored to distraction; to be bored to distraction, I must enter into life. It is when I am bombarded with noise, sitting in an office full of ringing phones, surrounded by friends and loved ones on a sunny seashore or at a rainy funeral - in other words, at the very moment when I begin to sense the heart of the scene unfolding around me - that I will suddenly feel as if I'm no longer really there, but watching from the sidelines. I'll begin to daydream. If I'm feeling pessimistic, I can think about how bored I am. Either way, there will be a voice inside me, urging me to "go back to the room and sit down at the table". I have no idea what most people do in such circumstances, but it is this that turns people like me into writers. My guess is that it leads not to poetry but to prose and fiction. This sheds a bit more light on the properties of the medicine I must be sure to take every day. We can see now that its ingredients are boredom, real life and the life of the imagination." -Orhan Pamuk, "The Implied Author"

black bean chili

veggie chili

soft black bean taco

taco!

white bean burger

Martha Rose Shulman's amazing light and healthy recipe.

Future Primative: Papercuts

Hiking in the wilderness anthem.

Home: Edward Sharpe

Infectious southern road trip of a song.

savory muffins!

Muffins for dinner: brocolli, jack cheese, oats. There are infinite possibilities! Next to try: acorn squash and cheddar.

raw butternut salad

These are all recipes I need to try once I get my hands on a food processor. I've had raw butternut at Sweet tomatoes and loved it! I think it'll be great with raisins and a little vinegar.

healthier pies

Bittman's sweet potato pie secret: coconut milk and flakes in the crust

precious photo

oh my goodness. how incredible. two icons together.

pancakes

Pa jun by the Minimalist. Definitely going to try pancakes for dinner.

The Age of Innocence

In the rotation of crops there was a recognized season for wild oats; but they were not sown more than once. -Edith Wharton

more of mom's oldies

Woman in Love

Carry on till tomorrow

Rhythm of the rain

and Take my breath away: I hate Jessica's voice and cover, but LOVE the Southwest desert beauty background.

More Bruni!

I wanted to change this blog's background and came across more breathtaking Bruni&room decor pics!

Cafe Ole

The River walk was FREEZING this time of year. so we didn't walk too much and ducked into a very cozy Mexican restaurant. Tender and juicy beef fajitas (which my aunt pronounced fa-gee-tas lol). and their bean dip/sauce was especially good bc it was so well-simmered in big bacon bits. Got some soft saucy enchiladas too. Everything was so warm and rich!

River Walk and San An @ Night

oh, and my favorite San An building; can't get enough of neo-gothic!!

The Alamo (and its backyard gardens)

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park

I found this site through a tour guide book, officially my favorite historical site in Texas (yeah not much to choose from). It's actually part of the National Park system, which says a lot. These Franciscan missions (5 of them in total. The Alamo being one of them!) were built by the Spanish ~1700s to convert and house the natives. (They really remind me of this movie brought to life) They farmed, cooked, prayed, and held music and dance in specific areas of the mission complex. San Jose is the best preserved one.

Also, I ended up liking San Antonio more than Austin. There was more history and the down-town buildings are lovelier. I wouldn't mind living in San An at all. These are pics of San Jose:

Here are the other 3: Concepcion, San Juan, and Espada.

And here are the interiors of Espada and Concepcion; I totally thought the doors would be closed and we would only get to see the facade, so imagine my surprise opening a door to one of these interiors! Also, check out the impressive Biblical menagerie! heavy smell of incense and a water dispenser labeled 'holy water' (we rubbed some over our hands...no one was brave enough to drink it) greeted me at the door.

Oh, and a HAY-LARIOUS roadside find: