But here's an update for now. I have two months left until I graduate and leave for San Francisco. Jeanette and I will be heading out there and living in the same apartment in which we lived last summer (which is amazing), and we'll be starting our bar exam prep classes in late May. The bar exam is at the end of July, and after that, we'll be taking an extended vacation somewhere internationally. At the moment, I'm leaning toward Southeast Asia (Thailand, Bali), Jeanette is leaning toward Mediterranean (Italy, Greece), mostly because she fears the monsoon. Having grown up in Florida, with its summer showers, I think I could manage it. After that, at the beginning of October, we start our new jobs.

I'm working for a upper-middle sized, awesome law firm called Fenwick & West, which reps technology companies. I'm in litigation, so I'll be doing lots of grunt work at first, but at least it'll be for cool innovators like Apple, Google, and many more that I haven't heard of but which are, upon investigation, also cool. I'm looking forward to starting work, even as I am realizing more and more that I really just want to be a chef. Nevertheless, this is the path I've chosen, and I plan to stick it out for long enough to build up some serious savings (five years?). And I really like the people at my firm, so that makes working there a lot more exciting prospect. Jeanette is working in litigation for a different law firm that is much bigger and less cool (in my opinion, at least--we have an ongoing rivalry, but whenever we pitch our firms to other people, mine wins).

I'm going to miss my DC roommates when I leave, as well as my Georgetown friends, and the few Vandy friends that I've somehow stayed physically close to, and close friends. There's a lot to like about DC, but but that still only makes it about one ninetieth as awesome as San Francisco. And besides, white people like San Francisco, so I have to go there (nearly everything on that website applies to me, by the way--goddamn yuppie!).

So, that's what's happening with me. If you and I are friends and haven't spoken in a while, leave a comment or drop me an email letting me know how you're doing. I'm not great at tending friendships, even though I do care about them. So let's chat. But don't expect such chatter to happen on this blog very often for the time being. Read EatFoo. Post bunches of comments. Email me about food or about life. See ya.

My experiences with the new technique of gelatin filtration, a brand spanking way to clarify your stocks.

I just ordered a book called Things I’ve Learned from Women Who’ve Dumped Me on the strength of an excerpt published here. The book contains vignettes from a bunch of famous people about what they've learned from women who have dumped them. It's edited by The Onion's Ben Karlin, and contains bits from Stephen Colbert, David Wain, Dan Savage (who may have been dumped by a man, not a woman, but that is inconsequential), etc.

<Emo>

This part of the excerpt, though not one of the humorous parts, was particularly poignant in its application to the last long relationship I was in before my present one. I think she'd agree.

"[T]hough the heady days of falling and falling and falling in love were shrinking in a rearview mirror, there was still hope. That niggling itch that if you keep at it, persevere, it will come back. Maybe not permanently, but in waves big enough and frequent enough to make everything else worth it. I wasn’t ready to give up. And what came of it?"

</Emo>

Carbonated oranges (which were amazing), chocolate "chantilly," chocolate chip cookie crumble, passionfruit gels (fluid and set). At EatFoo.

While doing yardwork as a kid of maybe seven years old, I once was cutting some elephant ear fronds and got some of the sap on my inner elbow. The area turned red. I ran inside to wash it off, and then told my parents I couldn't cut elephant ear fronds anymore, because I'm allergic to the sap. I maintained this argument for maybe a year, and then decided voluntarily to cut those fronds the next year because the alternative was raking leaves, which I hated more. Naturally, some of the sap got on me again; no reaction. In retrospect, the most likely explanation for the original irritation was that a frond's jagged, freshly cut edge had scraped me as it deposited sap on my arm.

So... do you have any allergies? What about food allergies? Jeanette claims to be allergic to codeine without having been clinically diagnosed. Her sister, Betty, claims to be allergic to peanuts without having been clinically diagnosed. What do you think you're allergic to? Think about it. Okay. Got it in mind? Now check out this little fact I just read about:

"More than one-quarter of the population in seven countries in the European Union claims to suffer from food allergies or intolerances. ...[C]linical tests indicate that the incidence of such allergies is much lower than commonly believed (about 3.5% of the population)..." -- Herve This, Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring The Science Of Flavor

So... 86% of those who claim they have food allergies are wrong. How sure are you about your allergy now? Are you missing out on all sorts of delicious, peanutty goodness thanks to your own misdiagnosis? Are you avoiding oranges just because you caught a virus after eating them once? Wouldn't you rather feel guilty about eating ice cream because it makes your thighs fat than not eat ice cream at all?

It seems to me like it would be worth getting my allergies clinically tested. Or, if I'm one of the people claim to have a "mild allergy," it seems like it would be worth jumping into the deep end of the pool: Eat what you fear, and see how bad it really is. If you know it's not a serious enough reaction to cause permanent injury, and you don't have anything important going on that weekend, just eat it, and see what happens. There's an 86% chance that you'll experience no adverse effects.

Cross-posted at EatFoo.

Crispy sauteed skate wing, roasted beet cubes, roasted russet potato cubes, leek-potato mash at EatFoo.

Escolar poached in olive oil with port wine caviar, meyer lemon juice, thyme, sea salt, at EatFoo.