camping is for winners only.

Tracer Bullet performing at The Bottom Lounge in Chicago on a Thursday sometime in June.

The vegan cake I made Erika for her birthday.

Tofu eggplant moussaka, a vegan twist on a Greek tradition.  It was yummy!

Some chilaquiles I made for Derek for breakfast on his first day of work.  I still don't understand how they are considered breakfast food, but whatever.  I like them for lunch maybe.

Chloe gave me a haircut.

Fresh blueberry scones.

Brushetta made with eggplant sauce.  We ate this with the moussaka.

Derek got a new bike!  It is a Schwinn Le Tour just like mine.  Here we are with our bikes before going to Pitchfork.

Derek uses magic to levitate a hacky sack.

The Flaming Lips in concert at Pitchfork.  It was unbelievably crowded.

I'm bad at updating this.  Well, tonight we have our dancing lessons again.  These next two weeks are going to be really busy.  I'm shooting some short films with Jeph, writing about that for my independent study, going to a birthday party, a going away party, seeing Harry Potter, and seeing Hedda Gabler while I wait for the weather to warm up so I can go back to the beach.  Saturday we are filming all day, and Sunday Derek and I are going to attempt to go to the botanical gardens again (like on the 4th).  I'm also making a picture collage for the guy who is going to animate Derek's soundtrack.  Now I'm going to go buy some bananas from Cerm Prod.

Lots of food and happenings

I like to cook, evidently.  I cook all the time and I guess I got Gran's cooking genes because I've had excellent luck with everything I've attempted. The above is a veggie pizza we made for Documentary Night, a tradition that hasn't quite taken hold yet. The basic idea is to rent a documentary from Netflix and watch it during dinner. We watched "Dark Days" which is about the group of homeless people living underground in New York City's subway tunnels. It was very good.

This is carrot ginger soup with browned tofu and rice. It was so spicy that it made our noses run, but it was worth it because it was very good and healthy. I didn't use butter or anything, just carrots and low-sodium vegetable broth to boil it down, then added grated ginger root and blended it in the blender while it was still hot. It was pretty easy and very ethnic tasting.

This is just some basic pasta with roasted asparagus and a spinach salad with beet slices. It was quite easy to make. This is Derek's portion, which was much bigger than mine, which is why I took a picture of it. I burned the asparagus a little because I forgot it in the oven, so I ate most of his. I like it kind of burned.

We went over to our friend Josh's new apartment because he was kitten sitting. I was so thrilled to meet the kitten, but he was just wild. Josh's cat Bolo was not happy about the kitten being around.

Here we are feeling awkward in front of Bolo.

Derek is excited to see the kitten leap. I tried to fix his demon eyes but it didn't work out too well.

Erika and I cooked some fancy dessert, and I guess Derek told us to show our grills or snarl or something because we both look pretty fierce/crazy in this picture. Nothing to help the demon eyes.


Rachel played a mean joke on her cat. It took him a good 5 minutes to notice.

So, this is the coolest thing ever. I made barbecue out of fruit. Jackfruit is a southeast Asian fruit. When it is ripe, it is sweet and is served as a dessert. When it is unripe, it is flavorless and can be shredded to look and feel like meat. It soaks up the flavor of whatever it is marinated in, such as barbecue sauce or chili sauce, and then it can be used as a very low-cal meat substitute. The "pulled pork" on our sandwiches had less than 50 calories including the sauce. It tasted great and was fairly easy to make. I served it with vegan coleslaw, steamed broccoli, and very low oil home fries.


I fixed dinner for all three Porter kids and Mother Porter when she came through Chicago. She provided a salad and brought wine, and I cooked the 3 other courses. We started with ratatouille over brown rice, as pictured above.

The third course consisted of this tofu quiche. It really works in my favor that Erika, Jeph, and their mom are all totally lactose intolerant, so using soy substitutes wasn't weird for them. It also means that Derek was raised on soy, so he's not weird when I use tofu either. This quiche was heavenly (and we still have this much in the refrigerator for later.) I baked it the night before and let it set up in the refrigerator overnight so it was less runny than the last one. It was just great. Everyone scraped their plates.

The dessert course was homemade crêpes with a baked cinnamon apple and walnut filling served with soy vanilla ice cream. I had thought I was going to buy the crêpes pre-made at Whole Foods, but they don't sell them at my location! I was distraught and had to bike home super fast and learn how to make the thin little pancakes. They turned out quite well! I was impressed with my apple filling because I did not use a recipe.

In this picture, you can kind of see the filling.

Jeph and Ms. Porter enjoying the ratatouille

Everyone had a grand time. I enjoyed myself immensely. After dinner, we rolled into the living room and told jokes for a couple of hours.

Q: What is blue and smells like red paint?
A: Blue paint.


Today I had a job interview at North Beach. Erika works there as a volleyball referee or something like that, so it would be good to work close to her. I would just advertise for a beach photo company, walking the beach and telling people about the services. I hope I get it! The hours and pay are phenomenal, not to mention the fact that it is outside on the beach, which is fantastic compared to working in a restaurant. I'm supposed to call him Monday to see if I got the job. I told him that I'll call Monday, but he'd better have good news for me because that is my birthday. He should remember that.

I rode my bike almost 30 miles today in total, ran 2.5, and walked almost 3. I should have worked off that rich French dinner I ate last night.  Riding my bike has made my quads and hamstrings become a lot more dense.  It used to make me feel like I was getting fat, but now I feel strong and healthy.

Derek and I are babysitting his old roommate Blair's new greyhound tonight and tomorrow. She got her off of the track. They are such great dogs. I'm looking forward to taking her on a walk in a little while. We're going to watch Milk tonight, and Ammi (short for Amélie) is welcome to come watch with us.

I'm having a good week.

Mucho pictures

2nd blog! I thought my mom might be bored since she just had surgery so I'll give her something to look at.  My pictures are sparse since I have been using mostly film lately.  I have some great pictures developed, but I don't have any way to get them on the internet.


Nacho Night/Family Night! Derek and I made a dinner of vegan nachos featuring my original beaze sauce (it's white beans blended up with cilantro and peppers to mock queso in a very healthy way), fresh homemade guac, black beans, corn, chopped bell peppers, onion, and fresh baked chips from Nuevo Léon, the famous Mexican restaurant that is located right in our neighborhood! Guests included Mike from Tracer Bullet, the newly-engaged Josh and Jessie, and of course, roomies/relatives Erika and Rachael.





Derek and Mike are caught by surprise at my quick camera, but really I am posting this because it is the only picture I have of my beautiful 1973 Schwinn Le Tour that I have lovingly named Mr. Kite.

Brett and Kyle, some of my old friends from Montevallo, scale the graffiti-covered rooftop to Brett's apartment building in Brooklyn while Katt watches from a safter standpoint.

Derek on the beach in New Buffalo, Michigan.  We were going to bike from Chicago, but we ended up having to drive to the Michigan border because of the weather.  We did bike around Lake Michigan quite a bit that day.  We had amazing ice cream and had some film developed in New Buffalo.  It was a nice town.

On the rocky coast of Lake Michigan.  Yes, we do have the same sunglasses, and yes, people do point that out all the time.

Times were fun and then we saw this rotten fish skeleton.  Times were still fun after that.

I made a tofu quiche with asparagus, onion, spinach, mushrooms, and tomatoes in it.  It took us two days to eat.

This is what it looked like just two mere hours ago before we devoured the last of it.

That's it for the pictures.  In other news, I quit my job after a 3-day training stint at Ristorante al Teatro.  It was a bad energy place and the owner talked down to me a lot.  He was horrible at communicating and I just didn't feel like spending my summer dreading going into work.  I can babysit and maybe walk dogs.  I am also wanting to run a 5K on June 28th at the Taste of Chicago fair.  It costs $30 to run it, but that is a charity donation and it also gets me a month long membership to Bally Total Fitness.  I'd love that!  I'm going to try to get a job working booths at the summer festivals here in Chicago because they are always hiring and it is 3 or 4 intense days at a time that will pay me several hundred dollars and I could eat free for the whole time.  Sounds good to me!

Well I'm going to do other things now.

Chicago catch-up picture post

Yay, Derek graduated!

I got a bike and then fell off a couple of days later crossing some train tracks.  Here is my leg wound on Day One.

We went to a sock-hop.  I bought that dress at a vintage store, but it was very much 80's vintage--puffy sleeves, ruffled collar, the works.  So I remade it to be a 50's swingin' dress.  It was very much fun to work on, and it looks a lot better after.  I wish I had taken a before picture.

Before the sock-hop.

Mike and Derek.  Me- "Oh, that was a good picture, except for Derek!"

Leg wound, Day Three.  The bruise emerges.

Leg wound, Day 4.  The bruise continues to emerge.

Tracer Bullet played a show at The Horseshoe on Saturday.  This is Derek playing the bass and Chris playing the keys.  Chris usually plays the saxophone, but not during this song.

A shot of Mike and Derek and Zach.

The leg wound, Day Seven.  The scab has mostly peeled off and the bruise is an unnatural yellowish color.  I haven't shaved since the accident.  Whoops.

That's about it so far!  I'm going to do another post later with the food we've been making.  Derek and I are also on a mission to find the best Thai food in Chicago, which will be difficult considering our time/money limit and the fact that there are almost 2,000 Thai restaurants in Chicago.  So far, we have eaten at 3.  Two on other visits, and one last week.  So roughly 1,997 to go.  We can do this.