seriously...

this week=amazing

holy crap

i heard from Brent today!!! that was really exciting! we talked for almost 2 hours O_O but it was SO good to talk to him again, i really miss talking to him, it's always fantastic conversations, he has very wonderful insights :)

i'm basically finished with my Hugs project and will do the final presentation tomorrow, then all i'll have to do is turn in the print version on monday :D

i found this WONDERFUL bookstore today! floor to ceiling shelves crammed with all sorts of books. there's also TONS of old books! reasonably priced too :)
i got two books from the 1880s, one is "The American Housewife Cook Book" it's awesome, and i also got "Home and Health and Home Economics" what better way to learn about housewives of that time then to read the books they did?

The introduction to the Cook book is incredible:

"God gave food, but man made cooks; and cooked food, the result, is like all attempts at blending the perfect with the imperfect, in the main, a failure. Now and then some inspired being arises capable of demonstrating the wonderful pitch of excellence to which cookery may be carried; but when these creatures instinct with culinary inspiration die, their mantle rarely falls upon worthy shoulders, and darkness settles down again for a season upon the world of pts and pans. Absolute genius in cookery is rare, for genius is a birth-right and cannot be attained by study, however laborious and persevering; but culinary talent is latent in almost every human being, and needs only proper stimulation to arrive at any reasonable development. Yet it is safe to say, that from Greenland's icy pemmican to the under done missionary of the torrid zone, the major portion of the food consumed by mankind is unpalatably and unwholesomely prepared; not intentionally, but simply because people do now know any better. As civilization advances, the need for practical reform in this matter constantly manifest, and spasmodic sporadic attempts are being made throughout Christendom to achieve a better order of things in the department of the kitchen. The primal source of bad cookery lies in the failure to recognize the fact that knowledge of cooking, like all other arts, must be acquired by study-is not, in other words, a natural attribute. "

(now this is the best part)

"For some reason which has yet to be explained, there is popular belief in the absolute potentiality of all women, with or without instruction to cook food in such manner as will render it acceptable to the t aste, and meet for the wholesome subsistence of man. This belief is wholly unfounded. It is true that the average woman does possess the elements essential to culinary excellence-patience, nice sense of taste and smell, and that superior, intuitive judgment which enables her to unravel such mysteries as "seasoning of taste." and "adding enough flour to make a good dough" -but, unless these elements are brought into homogeneous by actual experimentation, they are neither more not less than theoretical nonentities. With the earnestness of purpose and absolute concentration of mind upon her task, the owman who would cook must give herself up to serious study under competent instructors, and it is safe to say, that while by this means, only the exceptional woman will rise to greatness, the average woman will achieve a measure of success which will fit her shine as the care-taker of a household.
But here is another difficulty of procuring that competent instruction which is necessary to quicken the embryonic culinary idea. In comparatively few households, we regret to say, is exemplary cooking to be found, for the kitchens of america are cursed by the pie dish and the frying pan, and their out-put, to an extent which, in the aggregate is horrifying in one or another sort of mucilaginous* or oleaginous* compound provacative of dyspepsia*. So our girls grow up with their latent talent undeveloped; grow up, themselves dyspeptic, to marry dyspeptic husbands, and raise a generation of unfortunate beings with utterly disordered insides."


haha...i love the last description of the majority of food in america...

*mu-ci-lage (noun): A viscous secretion or bodily fluid, an adhesive solution; gum or glue
*o-le-ag-i-nous (adjective) : rich in, covered with, or producing oily; oily or greasy
*dyspepsia: indigestion

love it. love the bit about how woman are expected to know how to cook naturally...i think many people know that this is not the case...just because you're a woman does not mean you know how to cook...or that you cook well...

it is pretty true in my case...i feel i'm a pretty good cook :)

this week only gets better...this weekend should be good too!