Non-hippie (but crunchy!) granola

Despite attending Yale School of Forestry, I don't like granola. My dislike stems mostly from a deep-seated hatred of raisins, a fixture in most ready-made granola.

That all changed last year. I wanted to send my sister a care package at school and, while perusing the aisles of Whole Foods saw a box of chocolate granola. Though it cost $7 a box, I bought it (not surprising, given my well-documented adoration of chocolate in all forms). And then I shamefully ate it myself. It was life-altering.

Being on a student budget and all, I thought making my own might be much more cost-effective. I found this fabulous recipe, courtesy of Orangette. Some actually made it to
Philadelphia and my sister loved it. I have been making my own chocolate granola ever since. It's so cost-effective with bulk almonds, coconut and rolled oats at any health food store. Also, in a bind, you can use instant oats. It is amazing as is, but over the year, I've come up with some excellent variations:

- Adding banana chips and substituting milk chocolate for the darker chocolate
- Nixing the dark chocolate for white chocolate and dried cherries (which don't offend me nearly as much as raisins!)
- Dried blueberries and very dark chocolate
- Hazelnuts and milk chocolate

Have fun! This simple but delicious recipe lends itself to value-add creativity. And I also strongly suggest doubling the recipe! I always have some on hand. It makes a great gift if you are a houseguest or as a thank you.

Things I learned about apple crisp and the best $20 you'll ever spend

For various reasons, I found myself burdened with eight super ripe apples this week. What did I decide to do? Bake an apple crisp, of course!

I ran into some trouble a few minutes in, when I realized I lacked not only cinnamon but also oats. So I threw in some apples, lemon, water, honey, some weird 8 grain cereal my housemate has, walnuts, brown sugar and a bit of butter. How bad could it be? Apple crisp turned out to be fairly forgiving and pretty delicious, in fact. Especially with some vanilla ice cream. Doesn't seem too fattening, either. More like a baked apple dissected than a baked good.

I topped it with a bit of chocolate sauce too. I use Jacques Torres hot chocolate mix, melted with a tiny bit of milk. Actually, I use it on everything - yogurt, ice cream, frozen yogurt, cakes, mixed with fruit compote (which is just frozen fruit defrosted) when I'm feeling a bit chubs but want something sweet. It's a bit pricey (~$20 for a tin - available here) but lasts forever and is AMAZING! And, according the box, it has more antioxidants than a cup of green tea. So health-conscious.

Guilty Pasta

The last couple weeks have involved some serious eating: between the graduation of a major beef lover and all the associated celebrations, the 30th birthday of his equally hungry brother (celebrated with at least six separate meals), and a bachelorette party full of chocolate-covered everything, there was no way to justify a major meal last night. That said, I wanted a major meal. Like pasta. With butter and cheese.

In the interest of assuaging both guilt and craving, I tweaked last week's Bittman recipe for pasta with peas, prosciutto, and lettuce (visit it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/dining/16mini.html) by cutting out most of the butter, and instead of flour-based pasta, using zucchini "fettuccine" as my base. Much less labor-intensive than making true pasta, all this involved was a potato peeler and a couple of firm, fresh zucchini.

Guilty Zucchini Pasta with Peas and Lettuce

(and for the carnivores, Crispy Prosciutto)

Ingredients:

• 2 large, firm zucchini
• ~1/2 Tbs butter (more if you'd like it richer; Bittman included a tablespoon or so of evoo as well)
• 1 large shallot, finely chopped
• 1/2- 2/3 box of frozen peas
• 1 head of butter or boston lettuce, tough/bruised exterior leaves removed, ripped into bite-sized pieces
• ~1/3 cup broth or white wine (I used chicken broth)
• ~1/4 cup loosely-packed freshly-grated parmesan, plus more to taste for topping
• Optional: Crispy prosciutto (see the Bittman recipe- fry bite-sized pieces of prosciutto in a little oil as if bacon; drain on paper towels and use shortly thereafter)

Put on a pot of heavily salted water to boil, large enough to accommodate your zucchini. While the water warms, move on...

Make your fauxtuccine by peeling long strips-- end to end-- from your zucchini, paying some attention to the angles you create so as to peel strips of the width you want. Stop when you reach the seeds, and discard the cores. Set zucchini aside.

Melt the butter in a large pan (large because it will ultimately have to accommodate the entire dish) on medium. Add the shallot, and saute until softened.

Add peas, stirring occasionally. When peas are largely defrosted, lower heat to medium-low. Add lettuce, and stir to combine. Some pieces of my lettuce turned a less-than-appealing brown, but this did not affect the flavor. Lowering the heat will likely help to combat the brown. Complete the remaining steps swifly so that the lettuce doesn't become overly limp.

Add zucchini to boiling water. Boil for about 90 seconds- just enough to warm them up and soften them slightly.

While zucchini boils, add broth to the pan with peas and lettuce, and stir to coat. Add cheese, and stir to combine.

Remove zucchini from heat, and drain. Add the drained zucchini to the pan with peas and lettuce, and toss. Remove from heat.

Serve, garnished with additional grated parmesan, and cripsy prosciutto if you so choose.

A new leaf

Time moves fast. Gold and I haven’t touched this blog since…2008! We’ve moved on. We have boyfriends (Gold is living with hers!), inklings of careers and futures. We’ve both started feeling an irresistible urge to nest. But…we’re back in school on the East Coast. Gold’s doing a JD, I’m doing a joint MBA/Master’s. We both have two years left. So, we’re both still depressingly broke. And still addicted to the finer things in life.

Thus, the blog revival. We want a repository of our great finds – and we have so many. A place where I can find Gold’s amazing stewed veggie recipe when I’m in a bind. Where we can look up great gift ideas we had for our friends weddings. Or, where we can recall the beautiful Alberta Ferretti calfskin coat I got for $80 (more on that later) on a rainy day. These are the things that make us happy.

how many polar bears will it take for me to write my thesis by Ivy

So I am sitting on my porch, in only a tank top and juicy sweats, writing my thesis, which ironically contemplates the consequences of global warming. Hmm, too bad individual narratives won't fly for an honors thesis. I could write an entire paper on the negative impacts of global warming on the fashion catwalk taking place on the sidewalk in front of my house: people with flip flops and North Face vests, t-shirts and uggs, almost as if their tops and bottoms are experiencing different seasons. Or, if you're an anxious, guilty liberal like myself, your head wishes it were colder, but your body is happy. So you try to fool your head by throwing on that extra layer becuase, well, it's March 2nd. But, really, you don't need it.

Another good thing about writing outside, besides observing the effects my subject has on my peers, is that it forces me to actaully write. (Notice how I don't specify what), but I can't partake in my usual procrastination ritual of eating my entire refridgerator content. I guess there's an upside to everything.

So I am sitting on my porch, in only a tank top and juicy sweats, writing my thesis, which ironically contemplates the consequences of global warming. Hmm, too bad individual narratives won't fly for an honors thesis. I could write an entire paper on the negative impacts on the fashion catwalk taking place on the sidewalk in front of my house: people with flip flops and North Face vests, t-shirts and uggs, almost as if their tops and bottoms are experiencing different seasons.

Another good thing about writing outside, besides observing the effects my subject has on my peers, is that it forces me to actaully write. (Notice how I don't specify what), but I can't partake in my usual procrastination ritual of eating my entire refridgerator content. I guess there's an upside to everything.

Ivy's non dilemma dilemma

Let's get our hands dirty, shall we?

I have been thinking a lot lately about Next Year. In my anxiousness, I have also been contacted/contacted many of my friends and peers who have already been there. Here's the dilemma: do I take the job with the big consulting firm or not? I know, boo hoo, but it's a pretty big life decision. Do I make money for two years, take all of my vacation, work until all hours of the night, learn BS 101 like the back of my hand? Or, do I hold out for something better? Can I find something better? This is two years of my twenties. When else will I be young and fresh? never!

I am truly torn. So torn, in fact, that I cannot even bring myself to look at the blank sheet of paper that I hope will magically turn into a 15-page reaseach proposal which will result in my final grade for a course. I find all of this is severely pressurized and depressing. I have decided that I should just move somewhere fabulous and work it out. Paris? London? I have a great school to back me up, a good GPA (before tomorrow), and some great experience. I try to tell myself that I can take the job or leave it, but I'm not so sure. It's difficult when everyone I know is off to New York to do ibanking or consulting and make $70,000 off the bat. The Ivy League makes us so confident and unsure at the same time. It's also hard when your parents are cutting you off next year, so I'll need that money to survive....

Anyway, I may as well go out with a bang. Having procrastinated the day away by shopping, the gym, painting my nails, going to dinner with my roommate, and you name it, it is time for me to write this paper. Maybe long nights at the office will not be a problem for me.

Just Because You're All in Your PJs Doesn't Mean This Is Your Bedroom. Gold Moans.

I am guilty: I've left my room in spandex and not headed straight for the gym. Nope, not at all: I went and got some tea, said hello to my boyfriend at work, and settled into a big, square desk I had all to myself at the library.

All to myself, that is, until another girl in spandex decided to spread herself and all her crap all over the table: notebooks, a huge crinkly bag of chocolates she reaches into every 5 seconds, a water bottle that makes strange sucking sounds when she drinks from it and snaps back loudly as soon as she is finished, large tomes I should have read for long-passed classes but never quite got around to... But this is college, and it is her prerogative to work, hydrate, and keep up her sugar levels while at the library.

What is not her prerogative, however, is to breathe like a drowning, anxious, asthmatic giraffe. Periodically-- and not quite regularly enough to ignore-- she sucks air in like she has just come across one of the last remaining vestigial pockets of the Earth's atmosphere, and her only chance at survival. How sad, poor thing, you think-- but no, I say, the rest of the time she breaths normally. Her respiratory system seems to be just fine. No reason for pity. I am here in the library on a FRIDAY (this has not happened for years) because I have so much work to do, and she is so distracting that she has DRIVEN ME TO BLOG. Oh, the unimaginable horrors.

On an at best minimally related note, I am currently mired in a great philosophical quandary: does the legging trend make it OK to go through life in spandex, or make it worse? You see, before the trend, it was athletic wear worn outside of its intended context: not the best choice, but at least referential to some fabulously active life you might have outside of the brick walls of the library; however, now, is it assumed to be an attempt at a fashion statement? A misinterpretation-- or worse, bastardisation-- of a rampant trend?

Fashion pariah or so-athletic-I've-forgotten-non-stretching-clothes-exist, I'm comfortable. If only she'd stop with the breathing...

Autobiography of an Ex-Andersen Cog by Ivy

Walking through the campus bookstore today, I passed by Denzel Washington’s new autobiography and it occurred to me that everyone who has amassed any sort of fame has convinced themselves that the world would like to know some more about them. I think anyone else's life would make a much more fascinating read. We all know how glamorous, dark, and exciting being a movie star is. Denzel happened to get lucky. I personally would rather hear about the more odd choices in career and lifestyle. ". . .when I was 16, I discovered an undying love for accounting. I was watching my mother calculate her budget (and make sure her new shoes weren't put through until next week) for the week and the numbers just seemed so exciting. From that moment on, I took every single math class I could in high school, eager to learn how to catergorize numbers and rename transactions. This lead me to apply to business school. Since my entire family went to Penn, and I had been an avid math student, I was able to attend Wharton and concentrate in Accounting and Management. My biggest break, however, came when I landed the ultra-competitive internship with KPMG between my junior and senior year. I think it was due mainly to my suave suit I bought while studying abroad in Paris. I noticed the attractive young interviewer eyeing my cleavage across the desk and had my future not been on the line, I would have made a bold move and jumped him. . ." The stories people would tell. I guess that's what blogging is for.

Anyway, it's almost Thanksgiving break and I am sitting in the library not wanting to research my research paper. Most people have gone home for the week and those who haven't are already deep into the second margharita of happy hour. It's funny how much I drag my feet about schoolwork but how much I know I'll miss it Next Year.