"What are we having tonight?"
It is now slightly blurry to me how I became responsible for cooking the evening meals for both me AND my two hosts on my 7 day trip to South Dakota, but that is indeed how it came down.
It all started a couple of years ago when I did a cold fusion residency in Wyoming and bonded (I use that term loosely) with another scientist there. (see posts from summer 2009 and the guy who lost my prize winning fish for me)
Anyway, he invited me to come show my research at his school in South Dakota, and we scheduled it for October of this year so I could get out of the Tucson heat and see some fall colors.
Because of my current state I nearly cancelled the whole thing, but he was very generous and changed the nature of my visit so it might be less stress. So I went.
I was worried the school there might feel they weren't getting their money's worth with the new arrangements, but I need not have. They got plenty.
After 5 full days of back to back 1/2 hr and hour discussions of fusion research approaches with dozens of different students, I returned nightly to my hosts lovely home situated right on the Missouri river and proceeded to cook dinner for myself and my hosts.
Because of my food restrictions they wanted me to feel comfortable with what I ate, which is great, but they also thought they would "just have what I was having" which turned into me cooking every night for all of us, which did get very tiring after long days of being "on" as the visiting scientist.
Oh well, at least I got to eat safely.
The pictures here are of the Falls in Sioux Falls where I flew into, and then shots from my hosts deck and back yard. They represent about 1/100th of the time I actually spent there, but are the only pictures I took.
The irony of it all is that it was a regular heat wave there and the temperatures were in the 90s most of my visit, so my visions of a snippet of cool fall weather were dashed. Seems I take the heat with me wherever I go.
In spite of the weather and cooking, it was good to get away from the pressures here, and because I was so busy and tired I had little time to think and dwell. (the bit of time looking across the Missouri was nice too)
3 comments:
Man those shots look like images for a tourism brochure! They are GREAT! Busy-ness and heat doesn't sound like a very "restful" trip. And cooking every night!? How "kind" of them...but as you said- at least you didn't have to worry about less than good cooking practices.
I assume you made it home safely (hence the post :0) Sorry we got cut off on our chat. I'll try to catch up to you again soon. Though I"m guessing you may be "catching up" on things you left in the land of heat...
Love you Missy!
It's beautiful. Maybe next time you need to keep you chef skills hidden. If it hadn't been so good, you wouldn't have had to cook every night :). I bet you are tired, but I hope it was a good change overall.
How sad the hot weather followed you on yor trip. Beautiful shots though. Getting away is always good. We are enjoying our stay in AZ. The sunshine & the heat are a nice change from Seattle. Looking forward to our visit in November!
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