I walked to my neighbor's house to get eggs...

... and other weekend tales.









I have a feeling that if I am going to survive six months in a town this small, I am going to have to get creative. Luckily a lot of my hobbies (gardening, sewing, cooking/baking, running, biking) lend themselves well to a pastoral setting. My new roommate, Lauren, and I walked a mile to a neighbor's house down the road. There was a sign out front that read, "Farm Eggs - $1.50" that Lauren had spotted last week. In defiance of the threatening cacophony of 6 fenced-in hunting dogs, we approached the door, and asked to buy eggs.













This gave me a dozen farm-fresh eggs. My new project? - to chronicle the fate of those eggs. So far, I have made rice pudding and a quiche. Five eggs down, seven eggs to go.













Quiche













Crust:
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup cold water
Mix with fork and press into a pie pan. Cook for 2 minutes at 400 degrees.

Sautee in 2 tablespoons butter:
Half medium-sized onion
1 large clove garlic
10 asparagus stalks (all), chopped into 1-inch pieces
3 mushroom, sliced thinly

Add to pie crust
Top with:
1 teaspoon pine nuts
Some shaved cheddar cheese
Parmesan cheese

And finally:
Beat 4 eggs with 1/2 cup milk, and pour on top
Cook at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

This was (is) really delicious, but I would probably do 3 eggs and more milk. Instead of using skim milk, I would use 2% or whole milk.

Land O' Beer and Cheese

I learned a new word tonight - sedentarization. It means state efforts to permanently settle mobile people (such as nomads, pastoralists, hunter-gatherers, gypsies, vagrants, homeless people, itinerants, and serfs). I assume that includes itinerant scientists; they will never sedentarize me.













After 7 weeks of living in North Carolina at my sister's apartment, a hotel room, and a corporate apartment, Craig and I packed up yet again and set off on the road. This time, we were headed for the magical land of beer and cheese - Wisconsin. Along the way, we slept in rest stops in West Virginia, Ontario, and the UP of Michigan. In Canada, both of our cars broke down, we visited our friend Denver (who we met in Laos), and it snowed 3 inches on us. So far as I can tell, the only differences between Canada and neighboring states are cheap goat cheese, expensive beer, milk in bags, and no latches on gas pumps that you can push down to keep the fuel flowing while you wait in the car. Ten days after we started, we arrived in north central Wisconsin. I will be in this scintilla of town for the next six months.













Craig and I started a vegetable garden in North Carolina. We transported our seedlings with us, and aside from some not making it through the snowy night in Ontario, they are living in a windowsill and doing quite well. The parsley and cucumbers died in the move. The survivors include jalapenos, squash, lettuce, basil, and oregano.