Hello fellow foodies!

Here's the sitch: I love to cook. And occasionally bake. If it were up to me I would attempt staggering feats of culinary genius every day, every meal. Alas, my job and my wallet do not allow for this.

Here's the catch: I'm starting grad school on March 24th. Specifically, the Physician Assistant program at Cornell University in New York, NY. This is going to severely limit even further my available time and budget.

Here's the explanation: I'm curious as to how I'll manage to adapt to these changes and still attempt to prove myself in the kitchen. I'm not saying I'm Mark Bittman or my mother, but I try. Dammit.

As for now I'm still in a state of denial of how much I will be absorbed by my studies. And I haven't been feeling great the past two nights so I reverted to comfort food: rice with melted American cheese and my favorite sweet chili sauce (Mae Ploy.) But Monday night I impressed myself with the following 4 dishes:

- Bay scallops (Whole Foods had a sale the other week so I bought 3lb.s in 3 1lb. bags and froze two of them, one of which I thawed for this) seared in lemon juice (about 3/4 lemon) with minced garlic
- Wilted broccoli rabe with minced onion & garlic sauteed briefly in evoo and spritzed with some leftover lemon juice
- Roasted grape tomatoes (halved) and porcini mushrooms (sliced) with evoo, salt, and cracked black pepper
- Roasted root vegetables (one turnip, one celeriac, cut into matchsticks) with evoo, s&p, and fresh thyme (not terribly fresh, it had kind of been in my fridge for a week)

The tomatoes & mushrooms were tastiest. I ate the entire pan (oops.) The root veggies' flavor has improved over the past few days. The rabe was a little too bitter. I think in the future I need to turn down the heat to cook the onion & garlic slower and add more evoo.

So here we go! The next 6 weeks should be fairly normal in terms of my culinary adventures but after the move back to Manhattan it'll get far more interesting!