Food, fool.

I have three things in my cupboard in the kitchen: cold cereal, hot cereal, and peanut butter. In the refrigerator, there is a gallon of milk (which I can't drink by myself before it goes bad), some soy milk, and some blackberry fruit spread (jam?). In the freezer, there is a loaf of bread and six bagels. I hardly ever use these because they're frozen.

When it comes to kitchen utensils, there is nothing. I just use everyone else's stuff. It was like this when I moved in. In fact, it was worse, and my roommates had to clear some space for me to put my stuff in the bedroom, bathroom, as well as kitchen cupboards. I didn't bring all my communal kitchen possessions: toaster oven, electronic tea kettle, dish drainer. Totally and completely unnecessary. Although I do miss the electric kettle somethin' horrible.

At first, I did bring my food, too. But it was sadly done away with. Maybe I had it coming, because all the dry goods were in a black garbage bag outside my apartment door for a couple of days. I just left it there, unwilling to try and fit it into the inches of shelving that had been cleared for me and hesitant to deal with the spilled rice grains and spaghetti noodles. I'm not sure if someone saw it and thought that all that food was unwanted, and took it for themselves. Maybe. Maybe they actually threw it away, thinking it was worthless, even though it clearly wasn't. It was a very heavy bag.

Obviously, I haven't yet recovered from that terrible catastrophe, because I have yet to go on a real grocery shopping trip this summer. For one thing, there's hardly enough room as it is. For another, I'm just not motivated to start from scratch. There's something disproportionately depressing about having to buy a bunch of spices, flour, sugar, and things you don't use too often, especially when you know that (a) there's nowhere to store it, and (b) you once owned that stuff and it's not completely your fault that you don't own it anymore [because you didn't eat it].

I depend on my brother (who conveniently lives in the same apartment complex) to eat meals, otherwise I buy food. Which is (a) expensive, and (b) unhealthy. (I had been wondering why I wasn't eating well. There was a week or two where it seemed I ate nothing but cookies. It's clear now that I was doing that because cookies are the only tasty thing you can purchase in the Cougar Eat. Mystery solved.)

As a side note, a simplistic and non-material lifestyle is ideal. Although, the food thing could be healthier. Looking back on much of my college career, I have "owned" very little--shoes, clothes, bathroom accessories, my laptop, a notebook or two, a few books . . . and . . . well, that's about it. It's rather unencumbered to live this way.

Back to the meat of the matter (haha! Pun intended!): Today was glorious. I cooked. At my brother's. And since he wasn't feeling well, he didn't help me. Having full reign in the kitchen really was healing for my cooking skills. When my brother supervises, I have a nasty tendency to turn the stove-top burners on high and burn everything.

Here's what I did (I didn't take pictures, but I did find some images on Google that give a good idea of what you missed out on.):

Shrimp sauteed in butter, garlic, lemon juice, and seasoned with salt and fresh-ground pepper.
Fettuccine noodles with pesto (I didn't make the pesto, sadly) added to the remains of what the shrimp cooked in, and some Parmesan cheese for good measure.
Sliced tomatoes topped with fresh mozzarella and fresh basil, fresh-ground pepper, and drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

For the first time in a long time, I feel full. In a good, non-nasty kind of way.