Adventure #1: Chicken Parmesan
The Bread Loaf cafeteria food here is decent. Some days are better than others, though. For example, shepherd's pie that's really just soup with beans on a plate is not my...well, it's not my shepherd's pie...it's not really anybody's shepherd's pie because it's just soup on a plate. Most meals aren't too bad, though, but they do tend to feel college-dorm-esque, so Dan and I decided that we wanted to cook some real food. After excessive deliberation, we decided to experiment with making Chicken Parmesan from scratch (and without a recipe, because we're adults, and cooking shouldn't be that difficult). The recipe for our Monday Night Chicken Parm.
1. Decide which ingredients you actually need. Check the fridge to see what you don't have, then decide to use some of Jake's food (ie: eggs) just as Jake walks in the door. Perfect timing!
2. Go to the co-op to buy bread crumbs, flour, and too much chicken. If you pass by a fancy new beer, you have to buy it because you're shopping for a meal with Jake and Dan.
3. Get back and figure out your plan of attack. Decide how to bread the chicken, and what order to cook the food in. Determine that frying the breaded chicken before baking it with the cheese sounds about right.
4. Get 3 pieces of chicken fried and in the baking pan, then realize that there's too much chicken for just this one pan, so get another pan going while you wait for the oven to preheat.
5. Notice that the one of the burners is a little smoky, so open all the windows and the door. Watch as a neighbor you don't know walks by, and make it look like you know exactly what you're doing.
6. Stare confusedly at the oven when the chicken refuses to cook anymore. Realize that the oven blew a fuse.
7. Go ask that neighbor you just saw if you can awkwardly use his oven since you're in the middle of cooking a meal. The neighbor says yes.8. Arrive at the neighbor's apartment with all the pans and excessive amounts of chicken. Start preheating the oven. Make awkward small talk with the neighbor whose stove you're using.
9. Have Dan call the landlord while you're in the other apartment with Jake and the neighbor. The landlord will explain where the fuse box is and tell you how to fix it.
10. Precisely at the time the neighbor's oven is preheated, find out that the oven in Dan and Jake's apartment is now functional again, and schlep all the necessary items back there to finish cooking.
11. Don't preheat the oven to a hot enough temperature, so only cook half of the chicken fully before deciding that you don't have enough time to wait for the rest of it if you want to make it to Adventure #2, so eat what looks mostly cooked, hope you don't get food poisoning, and dash out the door.
Adventure #2: Hearing Susan Choi, Bread Loaf professor, Pulitzer Prize nominee, and author of books like My Education, American Woman, The Foreign Student and Person of Interest read from her most recent novel.
Adventure #3: Watch as everyone you thought you knew becomes addicted to Pokémon Go.
Adventure #4: Spend 5 hours in the library "rereading" a 700 page novel in order to find every single reference the author makes to outside sources...Yay for final papers starting!
Adventure #5: Trivia Night, Second Year Edition
As you may recall, our trivia team was pretty boss last summer. If you can't recall, click here for a reminder of how well we did. This week, we got the band back together and we...definitely didn't do as well as last year. I'm pretty sure we tied for second-to-last place. Our team name was epic, but, alas, we didn't win that prize this year either. We still had a blast, though, and correctly answered some very obscure Bread-Loafian questions.
Adventure #6: Take way too many nighttime photos just to get this one.
Adventure #7: More Chuck Pierre sightings! (You're just going to have to trust that there's a woodchuck in that photo.)
At the beginning of the summer, my WWI Lit and Culture professor, the amazing Jennifer Green-Lewis, essentially dared our entire class to spend our 15 minute break running down to take a dip in the pond. Yes, it's the same pond as the Pond Reading pond. Last week, Maggie and Maya convinced me to join them on their mission of taking on JGL's challenge, so, on Thursday, we brought our swimsuits to class. Before the session started, we collectively freaked out about how gross the pond water would be (probably covered in algae or something), the creatures we would likely encounter (Please, God, don't let us be bitten by leeches!), and the possible medical issues that might follow our adventure (Falling on a slimy rock and hitting your head? Definitely possible. E coli in the water? Also possible.) Despite our trepidations, we decided to go for it at the 3:30 break of our 3 hour class. Unfortunately, we were only given a 10 minute break, as opposed to the normal 15 minute break, so we literally ran all the way down to the pond. The water was surprisingly clean, though definitely not clear. No algae on top, yay! We did spot a toad and a fish, but they pretty much left us alone. We walked into the water, almost slipping on the muddy bottom several times. Pemberton joined us, too, even though (brave soul) she hadn't brought a swimsuit with her! We swam for a minute or two, then hopped out in order to change again before heading back to class. As we stood on the bank of the pond changing under our towels, just as most of us were halfway dressed, it started to rain. And I mean, it RAINED. There was thunder, wind, and a torrential downpour. Luckily, we were all already wet from the pond water, so we didn't mind much, but we were officially soaked when we got back to class. I'm pretty sure that pond jump was one of the most Bread Loaf Vermont-y things I could have ever possibly done, and it was awesome.
Jennifer Green-Lewis (the WWI professor, you'll remember) absolutely loves discussing the works we read and would probably spend all day doing so if she could. So, when she asked if our class would like to meet outside of our scheduled time to chat about Wilfred Owen and David Jones some more, we obviously obliged. Added bonus: Gwyneth Lewis, the inaugural National Poet of Whales, came to talk to our class about In Parenthesis, a "novel/poem/prose" piece that includes a lot of Welsh mythology. I could listen to the two of them talking about their love of poetry forever.
Adventure #10: Feel human again.
Bread Loaf is an amazing place for innumerable reasons. Sometimes, though, it's easy to get caught up in the rush of it all and lose yourself in to do lists, writing assignments, mini-adventures, and the whirlwinded chaos of it all. Last night's pond reading was a much needed jolt out of that mindset. In the Barn instead of at the Pond (because of the thunderstorm earlier), Oskar Eustis, the Artistic Director at The Public Theater, read this piece to us. It's about, among other things, the fragility of life, the finality of death, the necessity of moving forward, and remembering who you are. Many in the audience were moved to tears, as was our reader. When all else around us is so easy to be swept up in, hearing these words made me feel human again. They brought back reality, and made all of us think about what really matters. Yes, what we are doing here is good, but it is not the end. We live lives outside of this campus and off of this mountaintop, and there are people in those places who are hurting. We are so safe, so secluded up here, and it's easy to forget that we are people, that we are alive, and that the real world is still turning. So, thank you, Oskar, for bringing back that moment of recognition for us, and helping us to feel again.
Adventure #10: Feel human again.
Bread Loaf is an amazing place for innumerable reasons. Sometimes, though, it's easy to get caught up in the rush of it all and lose yourself in to do lists, writing assignments, mini-adventures, and the whirlwinded chaos of it all. Last night's pond reading was a much needed jolt out of that mindset. In the Barn instead of at the Pond (because of the thunderstorm earlier), Oskar Eustis, the Artistic Director at The Public Theater, read this piece to us. It's about, among other things, the fragility of life, the finality of death, the necessity of moving forward, and remembering who you are. Many in the audience were moved to tears, as was our reader. When all else around us is so easy to be swept up in, hearing these words made me feel human again. They brought back reality, and made all of us think about what really matters. Yes, what we are doing here is good, but it is not the end. We live lives outside of this campus and off of this mountaintop, and there are people in those places who are hurting. We are so safe, so secluded up here, and it's easy to forget that we are people, that we are alive, and that the real world is still turning. So, thank you, Oskar, for bringing back that moment of recognition for us, and helping us to feel again.
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