Ben's Chili Bowl

At the end of a long, grueling week of term papers, proposals, and presentations, what's left for a food- and sleep-deprived college student to do? 

Enter Ben's Chili Bowl, right off the U Street metro stop in Washington DC. Open seven days a week and for 20+ hours Monday through Saturday, it's perfect for satisfying anyone's chili dog or burger craving day or night, sober or drunk. Having been defeated by the portion size and the pure cheesiness of the fries before, I convinced Sean to come along so we could attack this: 

Clearly, we accomplished our primary objective of actually finishing our meal of chili half-smokes --a smoked, hybrid sausage-hot dog and truly a thing of beauty--and chili cheese fries. Though the lines are long and the restaurant cramped, the food, atmosphere, history (also check out the DC episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations; youtube link), and hours (oh, the hours! For all of you Black Cat or 9:30 regulars out there) make Ben's a worthy contender for anyone's must-visit list. 

Duff on campus

First, SEE brought us Tim Gunn. And then, last night, there was Duff.

I really love watching Ace of Cakes. Because really, the only thing better than something aesthetically pleasing is an edible something aesthetically pleasing. And at this point in life when I have NO IDEA what the hell I'm doing, hearing a success story from someone who 1- likes making things and 2- also had no idea what the hell he was doing is reassuring.

At one point, someone asked,

"What's the best piece of advice you've ever gotten?"
"Keep your mouth shut, eyes open, and hands moving."

And he brought a cake!

Unfortunately, cake-eating last night was for VIP only. But a fact that my roommate (former baker) insists upon is that fondant is one of the worst-tasting bits of a decorated cake. And sure enough, this was confirmed last night with another Q&A quote (okay, I'm paraphrasing a little bit):

"Since fondant usually tastes terrible, do you do something different with yours?"
"We tell people to peel off the fondant like an orange peel... Fondant DOES taste like ass."

All in all, an entertaining evening. *And there's more! Unaired spoiler: one of Charm City Cakes's recent projects is a huge installation for a Yuri Gagarin celebration, with a space craft hanging from the ceiling aimed at a model of Jupiter and its orbiting moons WITH a spot light arranged so that the moons appear to rise and set. Whaaaat? This I have to see.

The rest of undergrad goes something like this

This is mostly for my own reference, but also I'd just like to commit this to some public format for motivation's sake.

Right now my fall class schedule is:

• art history--advanced topics (6 cr.)
• studio art--drawing I (3 cr.)
• chemistry--organic II (4 cr.)
• music--orchestra (1 cr.)

Which means that I have this much left to do:

• art history--surveys (6 cr.)
• art history--advanced seminars (12 cr.)
• studio art--theory (3 cr.)
• studio art--intermediate fundamentals (6 cr.)
• studio art--advanced topics (6 cr. minimum)
• foreign language--German (8 cr. minimum)

So that's 41 credits over 3 more semesters. An average of just under 12 credits a semester? Yay for not accidentally committing to all of this too late. So I can either throw in more electives, teach and gig more, and/or go part time for my last semester. The problem is actual logistics. Giant 2.5 hour chunks of studio time don't usually play nice with other classes. Plus, I've thrown myself off the studio art sequence by trying to finish chem prerequisites first; the original plan was to do intermediate studio and art theory first then orgo during super-senior year, but I'd be a much happier camper applying for jobs and graduate schools without orgo to worry about.

A tinge of regret: Because of crazy indecision and general lack of confidence I've done that wacky thing of having taken way too many freshman/sophomore-level courses. I think I'm graduating with at least 160 credits...

And the two nice things about this? One I can back out pretty much at any time by applying for graduation with just one degree (music). <-- Don't really plan to, but I like to think that I can dig myself out of trouble and not just deeper into a ditch. And the other thing is that I'm the least concerned about scheduling, taking, and doing well in the art history classes. You know, my (other) actual degree concentration. Thank goodness for major vs. overall GPAs.

Side note: I think doing any more architecture at this school is out of the question, but given what my choices were I'd be better off trying to get experience before doing any more schooling.

First, though, to survive orgo...

Recent favorites

*Clicking on the photo takes you to the flickr page that links to all the originals.

1 is by madame_ulani (on flickr) does great, great crochet work that reminds me of deep sea corals and other gracefully sinuous things. Being primarily a knitter I am even more in awe of the possibilities of crochet. Then I found tara.bursey (also flickr link) through this photostream and was equally in love with these onion skin pins as well as the garlic gloves and oh, especially the "ghost steps." Check it out.

To me, 4 is related to 1 in its imagery but the idea is something very cool and noteworthy:

Jell-o fruit flavors are juxtaposed with images of skin, bone, and collagen -- what gelatin REALLY is.

This, other flavors, and REALLY cool portraits on Laura Schlipf's photostream.

3 and 12 are via the Strobist pool: the photographer of 3., especially, has a set (link here) full of lighting goodness--plus he posts lighting info in the description which for me is the biggest plus.

6, 7, 9, 14, and 16 appeal to my love for (semi-)colored line drawings. I think pen, ink, and wash is one of the best combinations of media out there, yet these don't necessary follow that trend but have that same look. 6 is I think marker, 7 is gocco, and 11 is newspaper plus others... but I really like it all. I'd take a look at Jen Stark's sculptures and drawings as well as Daria Makarova's portfolio, out of these.

5 and 8 are two crafts I don't know how to do right now (sewing and sculpting) but would really like to learn after seeing these.

13 is a short Jess Fink comic :)

And finally, 10 and 15 hint at something very exciting happening soon... !

EDIT: Two more I forgot to add to the mosaic but deserve mention: juana.medina's photostream and this Strobist setup for a snooted flash with white foam reflectors.

Progression

Tempera and India ink on cold press boards for 2D design fundamentals.

In which I eat up two (at most three) people's feed readers

For the first time since college started I am not ashamed to say that I spent my entire spring break on the following:

(Except: Jess, if you're somehow reading this, I did practice the Brahms at least. Really!)

Youtube and sweater-knitting are sanity-savers for sure, especially with the unexpected trips back home I needed to make throughout the week. From top to bottom the shows are:

• 꽃보다 남자 (Boys Before Flowers): K-drama version of 花より男子 (Hana Yori Dango, wikipedia link). This requires some backstory. I read the manga some time ago; drawing style is not my usual taste, but the story was cute shojo fluff that for me is the comic-book equivalent of a pint of coffee-flavored ice cream: too much me to handle but completely necessary at times. And then I watched the J-drama version with Steph and enjoyed a lot of it (especially counting the number of times anyone wore fur-lined coats... the number was high) but really disliked the ending movie (HYD "F"). Then I was tempted to watch 流星花園 just to live up to my own heritage but instead ended up with BBF thanks to Hannah, the same friend who got me started on this whole drama kick with KSS and Coffee Prince. Phew.
  
• Make Me a Supermodel: Didn't this used to be on after Top Chef or something? I can't remember why I started watching this model show, but I loved Holly from first season (but not her voice oh man) and so came back to second season now mostly because Jenny Shimizu > Tyra Banks any day. I don't have anyone I'm rooting for, though. Yet.
• ANTM doesn't even really need a link; instead, I give you this absolute golden video (via Santana) which made me laugh so hard I HAD to watch this season. Go Allison!
  
• The Office. Still a fan but still love rewatching the original.
  
• 30 Rock. I'm still not caught up on the episodes, but it's conveniently after The Office Thursday nights and I feel like all I really needed to watch for backstory is the first episode. The humor carries the show, which is more than one could say for most others.

PS. re: previous post: no interesting cooking over break. Sigh. But prepare to be overrun with pictures when David visits, blog.

On cooking aspirations

There is a whole, whole lot to like about François-Xavier and his website FXcuisine.com. I'll do a better write-up later--only after I make the apple spatzle--but really, the high resolution photos and this guy's kitchen photography setup (image link here, check it out!) is awesome.

Spring break is coming up soon (2 days!!) so hopefully I'll be able to cook again. There's very little satisfaction in daily $1 burrito lunches and microwaved scrambled eggs, after all. Now that PW has such a great recipe file up I'm bound to find something to try. Either that or stock up on frozen goods. Or both. Yep, both.