Last days of summer vacation

Without school, life in Ithaca has been pretty boring. I love it. School starts Thursday and so I looked forward in the public folder in the school’s event’s calendar – wow, it’s really full. I almost forgot how fast paced things are. So I’m enjoying every second of these last slow-paced days. Whenever the subject of school and my second year came during the summer, I said that I feel that this year I have thing much more in perspective, and that I think I’ll be able to priorities better, I’ll be calmer about things etc. But looking at all the events that start as soon as we get back, I remembered it’s easier said than done.

In the last few days we did do quite a bit of cooking. We invited some new Israeli neighbors for dinner on Monday and made home-made pasta. We finally made a pasta that I’ve been wanting to make ever since Uri’s cousin Talya came back from a trip to Italy. She told us of this little place where they ate pasta that the dough itself was packed with ground black pepper. Doesn’t that sound good? Whenever I thought of making it, I could really envision the dish, which is something that never happened o me with something that isn’t a dessert. In my mind it was the fresh pasta with a really light and fresh tomato sauce, one without many flavors, so that the flavor of the pepper from the pasta would come through. What a perfect summer dish, since tomato is a summer fruit! Well… not in Ithaca… despite the fact that it’s summer it’s impossible to get really good tomatoes, so I used canned whole tomatoes which a puréed and then put through a sieve. Side note: I put the residue that didn’t go through the sieve in cheese puffs (buyakos, page 66, The blue Sheshet ). The end result wasn’t exactly what I had in mind – we put the pasta in the sauce, and it drank the sauce up super quickly. Next time (I hope there is a next time) I’m going to ladle the sauce either over or under the pasta in each dish.

I don’t remember what happened Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, but Saturday was a very eventful day. Cornell had something called the “Dump and Run”. It’s basically a huge yard sale of things people left in their on-campus housing units. Most of it is junk, since most of it belongs to undergrads. Adding to the junk effect is the fact they really put anything in the sale – thinks like half used cleaning supplies, or Mardi Gras beads (I’m pretty sure the latter is the leader in the junk category, though I’m equally sure that there are people who actually buy them). Anyway, it’s become a really popular event which means a huge line to get in. I came first thing in the morning, and still stood an hour in line. Was it worth it? Well you judge – I bought 3 really good winter coats (a new one costs $250 and up), 2 cute winter hats, a sweatshirt and a kitchen rug for, all for a total of $32. Later in the day Uri and I made dolmas (stuffed grape vine leaves). When I said “Uri and I” it’s because ewe both rolled them, Uri is the one that actually made the rice blend to go in, so he should get the real credit for how delicious they came out. It’s not hard to get dolmas here, but all of them are from the lemony – loose rice variety and not the sweeter, gooey-er variety that I like. I think my favorite are the ones that are sold in the Iraqi counter in Dizingoff center’s farmers market), Uri’s didn’t come out as sweet as these, which is probably better because they’re gooeyness is probably 50% attributed to the amount of oil she puts in them, but they did come out great – just the right amount of sweet that makes you savor each bite, but doesn’t make you feel like you’ve gotten to the dessert course. Oh – as I typed that last sentence I remembered another really good dolma, and since I already mentioned Talya in this post, I’ll also mention that Talya’s mother in law (aka Ido’s mother) also makes really good, sweet and gooey dolmas (also sweeter and gooey-er than ours).

Yesterday, we went to dinner at Dafna’s house. Not that we need a reason to get together, but the excuse was that our friend Amit, who will be spending this semester big the Big Apple came up to Ithaca for a week. I made another desert from Dorie’s book – chocolate mini-bundt cake. They didn’t come out that good. I mean, they were fine, but nothing to write home about, and since half didn’t come out of the pan properly, nothing to send a picture home about either. Dafna and the majority of the people she invited for dinner are vegetarian. So the dinner was a vegetarian meal. Since I was the one that planned and prepared most of Tuesday’s dinner, it was vegetarian as well. This means that Uri ate 2 non-meat dinners in one week! I think this is the universe’s way of balancing out the atrocity that was our diet during the road trip.

As for today – both Uri and I have back-to school things we need to get done. So that’s what we’ll do. For me, it’s mainly bureaucracy stuff, but Uri actually has to study up since he’s starting to teach next week. It’s his first time really sitting down and “cramming” since before he graduated – so he’s a bit out of practice. Wish him back, and I’ll report later if it helped or not.