The Recipe Junky

My staple cookbooks

Confession time:

I've spent countless hours online looking up recipes and too much money on cookbooks. Personally I blame Amazon's 1-click shipping option. I can be spotted snooping around Whole Foods with excitement and apprehension all because I want to be more adventurous with my meal choices. I'd love to get to the point where I can look in my refrigerator and whip something together without a glace at a recipe. Whenever I lack creativity or am just plain lazy I always head back to my staple meals.

Breakfast:

• Oatmeal steamed in almond milk with golden raisins, walnuts, agave nectar and cinnamon. Throw in some slices of banana and it taste just like banana bread in my mind.

Lunch:

• Mashed avocado sprinkled with sea salt with a soft fried egg on toast. Along side some roasted plantain chips, or fruit bowl and I'm set.

Dinner:

• Favorite sandwich! Avocado, hummus, mushrooms, sprouts between bread. Quinoa salad on the side.

It's dinner time!

Breaking New Ground in Montgomery County

I am currently working as a Research Fellow with the Breaking New Ground project. Breaking New Ground is an oral history project dedicated to preserving the history of African American farm owners since the Civil War by collecting oral history interviews from Black farmers, Black landowners, and the descendants of those farmers and landowners. The interview recordings and transcripts will become a permanent part of the Southern Oral History Collection at the University of North Carolina.

As a Research Fellow it is my job to gather contact information for potential interviewees. I want my interviews to focus on the stories of Black farmer, landowners and their descendants located in historical Black towns in the DC, Maryland and Virginia (DMV) area. So far I'm having a blast doing so! I've taken a particular interest in Montgomery county Maryland and I've already located about a dozen of historical black towns and pocket within neighborhoods.


Ms. Hunter, a community member from  the Boyds, Maryland drove me all around Montgomery county Maryland pointing out all of the historic black communities that have just about vanished over the last 30 years. Just like in Gainesville, Florida there was a Lincoln High School dedicated to educating all the black students in the whole county of Montgomery. Because of this one school all the mzee in the county know eachother and have formed a bond that is incomparable to anything I've seen.

My grandparents are not that old. In fact both that are still living and in their 60s so when Ms. Hunter began introducing me to the community elders it was so amazing to be embraced as family. They are excited about this project as am. They understand the need and importance to preserve their community's history. The land that holds so much history is literally being bought from under them and the struggles that their ancestors  faced to acquire such land, keep it, and cultivate it, are being silenced by the million dollar houses that now sit on top of much it...

Being an Archaeologist

I'm not sure what people are calling these but i couldn't find one for archaeologist so I made one.

Avocado Smoothie and Lent

Last year for Lent my Aunt gave up bread, facebook, and meat on Fridays, so this year as I'm sitting in her favorite butterfly chair which I have commandeered  as my own property in her living room by placing all my tech gadgets and books around it, she asked me what I intend to give up for Lent. This will be my first time partaking in Lent and not for any religious reason but more for a test of self-control.

After going back and fourth between what I'm addicted to I decided for Lent I will be giving up Facebook, going vegan, and giving up junk foods. The new boyfriend (oh yes there is a new boyfriend by the way) is also going vegan so this will be an nice endeavor to go through together. 

I'm already vegetarian so the main obstacles that has always been standing between me and vegan has been dairy products. Cheese makes everything taste better, but somethings gotta give. So with my new task came a new interest in vegan recipes. Introducing the Avocado Smoothie. I love everything avocado and this smoothie was so  nice and fluffy. It felt like sipping on green pillows of goodness!!! 

The recipe is from Healthy Blender Recipes and can be found here! I used almond milk to cut time and added another avocado which made it more creamy and bit more green. I also only added two tablespoons of agava nectar because I'm not a fan of too sweet smoothies. It was sooooooooooooooo good!!!!!

the creamy goodness!

Post Graduation, Unpaid Internships, and New Decisions

Two months into the 2012 and I’m still running on the high of it being a great start to a new year! Key Points:

• I Graduated! Now living my post-undergraduate life I’m loving all the free time I have in-between my internship, conference preparation, and training for a half marathon. I’m going to miss it come Aug when graduate school starts.

• My internship is working at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American history and Culture. My aunt has kindly named me “one step above hobo” because the internship is unpaid and I’m currently living out of two suitcases and sleeping on a blowup mattress in her one-bedroom apartment. Hobo or not I’m enjoying the internship and can honestly say that it feels nice being a part (even if it’s the smallest) of an historical institution in the nation’s capital.

• Graduate school decisions are coming out soon and some important decisions need to be made! I’ll keep you posted!