Trip to Pittsburgh, NCECA conference

This March, during spring break, I went to Pittsburgh to the NCECA conference. My

parents came too- Mom is from the area (Mars! My mom went to Mars High) and they were celebrating their wedding anniversary. Needless to say, traveling with mes parents upped the posh quotient of my trip considerably. The other ceramics students came by train and slept 10 to a room, like a bunch of drunk puppies. We stayed at the conference hotel and ate really well. Mom took us around Pittsburgh, visiting her nursing school, Carnegie Mellon, and other areas. Pittsburgh was great- I loved the way the city looked and felt. Lots of ethnic diversity, great restaurants, culture, shopping...

But the best things of all for me were the markets in the warehouse district. We went to a fish market that was gigantic, filled with fish of every sort and customers everywhere. We noticed that they were serving lunch- they had a sushi bar and a fried-fish extravaganza complete with macaroni and cheese and huge french fries. We ordered fish and chips, macaroni and cheese, and buttery mixed vegetables and ate them. There were at least 50 people eating in the upstairs dining room, and a line out the door for the fried fish... and it was just as good as it looked and smelled. The fish was perfectly fresh, the batter thin, salty, and crisp, and the macaroni oozing yellow cheese sauce, topped with buttered breadcrumbs. Ony 100000 calories per serving, but we walked it off later.

There is simply nothing in Wichita that compares to an east-coast fish shop.

Let's have a little catch up with that...

I make food and dirty dishes. I hate doing dishes, but as I hate all housework, it is a lesser evil than say, vacuuming. I really hate vacuuming.

The entire semester went by in a flash. I have finished the foundations program. I made many objects, including paintings and drawings, some more successful than others. I had my first panic attack, in drawing class on the last day of school. I cooked and ate things. Music was made, including my first concert improvising with Lucky Me. Wayne built a new Split Lip album and Evan is exactly as tall as I am. My best friend's husband left her for a student and now she's moving away to California. I forgave my ex-boyfriend for past hurts and now he's invited us to his wedding. I won a scholarship that pays for half of my classes next year. I designed a golf course kitchen in my old hometown. I danced in my first bellydance show and was a participant in the Renaissance festival (insert irony here).

I have decided that to alleviate my general anxiety I'm going to use this blog to not only comment on my work in art, but also my work in food. I have let food go for the last year or so, not teaching classes, not catering, barely consulting, in order to focus on school. I was okay with it for a while, but food is my first passion...and really the only thing I have ever really mastered. I have begun feeling a little worthless, a bit unimportant. I realized the other day that I have so much school to complete to earn the degree. Evan might complete high school before I finish my BA. Food and cooking are things I can use to comfort and reassure myself that I actually know something about something...

Let