Mexican food revisited

Nearly 2 weeks ago, I attended a Mexican-themed potluck holiday dinner. It was fantastic. There were many wonderful dishes, and lots of effort was put into authenticity. As I was cooking my contributions (chicken mole and esquite), I couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. It wasn't an ingredient I was searching for (though I made some minor substitutions to reflect what I could get), nor was it the wonderful weather of Mexico City (though I would have preferred it to the icy conditions outside); I was mostly just lost to be cooking Mexican food without one of my beloved balls of fire in the kitchen. My current rental kitchen might not be fabulous, but in over 3 months of using it I have not yet had a single fireball shoot out of my oven. Strange.

Sadly for my chicken mole, it was served in the kitchen with the other crock pot foods. This was a bummer, since everything else was served in the dining room and attendees mostly forgot about the second room of food. As a result, Keating has been eating chicken mole steadily for nearly 2 weeks (I spent last week presenting my Mexican research findings at a conference in California). I think he's ready to put aside the Mexican food again, fireballs or no.

The buildup to the conference kept me fairly busy, so I have taken longer than intended to post more stories from Mexico. Over the holidays I will try to post about our Buffalo-Mexico-Saint's Day-4th of July in between hours spent with family and spent polishing up a research proposal I'm working on. Happy holidays!

I'm still standing

Hmmm... December 4. Yeah. September, October, and November were good. I've been busy at the new job, which largely includes writing new papers, editing old papers, applying for my next job (seriously, that's considered an acceptable work activity), numerical modeling, and overseeing an undergraduate research project. I've also been enjoying having an American kitchen back, including an oven that has not once thrown a fireball at me. (On the flip side, I succeeded in giving myself chemical burns on my hands one night thanks to a misguided evening cooking with hot peppers. I can apparently do dumb stuff in any country.) Keating has been doing well also. He managed to find a full-time job shortly after arriving and has enjoyed spending time with his family here in Western NY. We're both thrilled to have our beastie back; Asher is asleep next to me, saving his energy to demand another early morning walk tomorrow (Keating gets up with the dog. I flail my arms and mutter gibberish.)

I still have stories to tell from Mexico, plus new adventures here in New York. On top of that, it's good for me to keep writing something that doesn't include 50-cent words like "phreatomagmatic." (Dad read that word in my most recently published paper and wanted to know if I made it up. Answer: nope.) That said, it's time to recommit myself to updating my blog. Here goes.