Long Time Gone!

Sorry for the recent absence, it has been a hectic month! Between homecoming and midterms and papers and working like a madwoman, I've scarcely had time to eat and sleep, let alone update the blog. But things are starting to calm down a little, and I'm starting to enjoy college life again.

Both my roommate and I have been working like fools lately, so I haven't been doing a lot of cooking, just drooling over recipes online and in cookbooks and making big plans, haha.

In other news, though, I've been doing a lot with Slow Food. For those of you who aren't familiar with SF, it's a movement that was started in 1986 in Italy to preserve traditional foodways and to protect things like artisan cheeses and heirloom vegetables from being quashed by the high-speed, fast food lifestyles we've adopted these days. A few weeks ago I attended a potluck dinner/meeting of the Bloomington convivium, of which I am a member, and got to rub elbows with some of Bloomington's coolest foodies while eating some of the best food I've had in a long time. There was a great selection of cheeses, several delicious breads and salads, and some very tasty potatoes, but Daniel Orr of the soon-to-be-opened FARMbloomington made the most fabulous, jaw-dropping lamb I think I have ever had. Granted, I don't have a lot of experience with lamb, but his black vinegar and star anise-marinated lamb with heirloom tomato and mint bbq sauce caused me to renounce my vegetarianism on the spot, haha. It was great food and fellowship, and a fun, food-filled time was had by all.

Today my Slow adventures continued. This afternoon I gathered with several other like-minded foodies at Trulli Flatbread on Kirkwood. About half of our group was made up of IU students, while the other half was comprised of several friendly "grown-ups," eager to help us with our undertaking. And what, exactly, was our undertaking? Why to start a Slow Food On Campus group, of course! We shared some delicious flatbreads (my favorite being bacon, potato, and leek) and talked about how we wanted to proceed. We share a lot of interests with a group that already exists on campus, Students For Sustainable Food, so we may combine with them for events and meetings. But for now we are just focusing on getting enough student members to officially charter the on campus group with the parent organization, register as an official student group with IU, draft a constitution, elect officers, etc. We're planning on meeting to accomplish most of this on November 8th (anyone interested is welcome to attend, but we won't really be publicizing the meeting). Then the next step is to utilize all of our resources and open the group to the campus at large and have a big, informational meeting. Then, if interest is high enough, we hope to host a big event on campus sometime in the Spring. That's what we worked out today; if you want more information or are interested in participating, please, by all means, contact me and I will get you more information!

Anyway, that's all I have for now. It's way past my bed time ;).