Love In The Asylum

I am dedicating this week to the doing of responsible adult things, like getting my ID renewed and dealing with my bank accounts. I've had a checking account with Bank of America since I left for school, and while I've never had any trouble dealing with them, I've been getting increasingly fed up with the crap they pull on their customer base. And now that I'm more or less settled in the area for the near future, it seemed like a good time to switch over to a local bank or a credit union, because seriously, fuck big banking. So my dad offered to take me around while we were out grocery shopping this afternoon, and now I have an account with the Bank of Albuquerque, and as soon as I get my debit card and make sure everything is working right, I'm going to transfer the rest of my money and close the other account. I also split some money off and put it into a 14-month CD - it won't be a huge return, but it still makes me feel weirdly grown-up to even have it.

This link from the Move Your Money project, incidentally, was really helpful in figuring out what I needed to do to get everything sorted out in changing banks.

I also have a recipe to share today! The weather here has been cold and grey and nasty (not as bad as the east coast, of course, but still pretty ugly for us, and we almost got snow last night!), so I've been experimenting with lots of spicy, hearty dishes to warm things up - I am really developing my braising, stewing, and curry skills a lot. This is a kind of amalgamation of a few different recipes I found for daeji bulgogi, using this recipe as a base. Don't be intimidated by how much chili paste it calls for! It's pretty spicy, but the pork is so rich you are only eating a little bit at a time, so it's not as hot as you'd think.

Braised Daeji Bulgogi

( tasty food under the cut )

Now that that's done with, I have opera to listen to. Thank you, livecast stream from the Met!

OMG, dinner tonight. I didn't even realize how badly I've been craving fish until I had it on my plate. It wasn't even supposed to be on the menu - I've been kind of vaguely jonesing for pizza all week, and frozen pizza is always nice and easy - but when I got to the grocery they had a couple of yellowfin steaks still out that were within my budget, and, well, I yielded to temptation. With no regrets at all, it was a lovely piece of fish. Seared with cracked pepper and lemon juice, and a side of fresh snap peas and pasta with garlic and olive oil? To die for. It's a good thing I eat alone, because my enjoyment of this meal was positively indecent. :)

To Do This Weekend:

- clean the bathroom (oh god, our bathtub, don't even get me started)
- laundry
- things of a breadly nature
- get a listing up to sell my fridge (incidentally, anyone looking to buy a mini-fridge?)
- reading for short story class/remix class
- watch kabuki film for ghost class
- football!
- get my mom a list of hotels in the area
- work on my Sherlock project (so excited about this!)

In the process of making dinner tonight, I burned my arm, set off the smoke detector in Apartment Roomie's bedroom, and set one of my pot holders on fire. Not my most elegant of moments. But oh wow, the ribs with black bean sauce and the garlic-braised baby bok choy was totally worth it. SO GOOD. I've been a bit hit or miss in the kitchen this week (we aren't talking about the honey-mustard chicken, okay?), and it was nice to have something turn out this good. I'm really glad I brought a bag of fermented black beans back from home with me, I'm already coming up with a whole list of recipes that I've been dying to make but couldn't because I didn't have them.

To Do List for this weekend:

• make crepes
• make sourdough bread
• read the next four letters out of Abelard and Heloise (oh my god, more Abelard The Unceasingly Arrogant, I love it)
• buy a ridiculously expensive course reader
• work on coming up with a syllabus for my Levinthal (btw, if anyone has any good recs for short story collections that are a) set in the American Southwest, especially NM and/or b) written by Latino or Chicano authors, I would love to know)
• clean my unbelievably disgusting kitchen
• dye my hair purple (the best thing about the purple, as opposed to the blue or red, is that it fades out really pretty and as natural looking as purple can be, but still, it's been months, wtf self)
• finish season two of Being Human in time for the new American series and the third BBC season, which is sad but actually unusually timely for me, Slowest Television Watcher In The Universe

I live the most exciting and dangerous college life ever, y/y?