Summer pleasures

I think in a future life I will be a chef. LH gave me a few new cookbooks yesterday for my birthday and I am absolutely giddy. One of them is a beautiful William Sonoma number with luxurious photographs of mouth watering healthy foods. Since LH also just planted this season's round of herbs in one of the little beds in our backyard, I am itching to cook things. The business of the semester generally interrupts my cooking pleasure (for instance, last night for my b-day dinner, I stopped at the local grocery store and bought some egg rolls and seaweed salad. Not nearly as luscious as the healthy WS fare, but I am addicted to finger food due to a long family history that has solidified the association of spreads of finger foods with celebrations and family gatherings). Since the end of the semester is near and summer right around the corner, though, the opportunity to spend evenings in the kitchen is beckoning. The summer ritual has been that I spend the morning and early afternoon working, exercising (ooooh running in the morning in the summer!), and teaching. By mid afternoon, there is a trip to the grocery store and the evening is spent collecting an assortment of herbs from the garden, sipping wine, chopping lots of fresh things, chatting with LH who sits at the table, listening to music or NPR, and generally enjoying the process of making something that has immediate gratifying effects (unlike so much of academic work which tends to defer gratification almost indefinitely). I simply can't wait for the semster to end!

Oh, and as I was buying wine yesterday, the check out person CARDED me (I was born in 1969, you do the math). I nearly kissed her!