Raising the bar

Oh dear. I promised myself I wouldn't stop blogging just because I was studying for the bar exam. But like most promises to myself (I will make it to the gym 3 times this week, I will never watch "The Shining" again, no more white wine at weddings...) it seems I only had to make it because I knew I would break it.

At any rate, I'd love to say I was off gallivanting around Europe this whole time (only a little of the time, more on that later) but I instead have mostly been sitting inside a quiet room, staring intently at an outline book, and listening to the gratingly-nasal-yet-soporific sound of bar exam lecturers droning on about equitable servitudes and hearsay exceptions. For those of you that are, happily, non-legal people, the Bar Exam is a two day exam one takes after graduating from law school that takes about two months to study for. Despite the fact that everyone has to do it before practicing law, its still insanely stressful. I think its safe to say this has not been my favorite summer ever. (And weirdly, my hair has been falling out because of stress... soooo, um.... that's not good.)

And yet, there are still some things to be happy about. First of all, I am almost 100% moving to Brussels, Belgium in September to begin a masters program. WOOO! Pommes frites, sexy Eurocrats, and amazing chocolate here I come!

Second, no matter what else is going on in my life, food can always cheer me up. And I've pretty sure that vegan food makes you smarter, so I've got that on my side too.

Today for instance, I started off with some of B's magic oat-nut pancakes, spruced up with extra flax seeds for brilliance and some bright cheerful cherries for soul power. These are so good and the recipe is really flexible if you don't have all the ingredients.

For "lunch", aka, cramming food in the general direction of my face while taking furious notes on Contracts, I had a quick saute of faux-beef (the kind they sell in little packages at the groceria) with some broccoli, onions, and plum sauce in a wrap. I've been eating a lot of these kind of wraps lately, since its so fast to throw leftover salad, guac, or tofu together and come up with something marvelous and moderately hands-free. So good.

For dinner, my Mom and I got a little adventurous and decided to try the Eggplant-Potato Moussaka with pine-nut cream from V'Con. This recipe is slightly labor intensive but its all really easy steps and everything came together beautifully. Seriously, it was such a hit. The best part is, its a traditional moussaka with a rich cinnamon-spiked tomato sauce, layers of roasted veggies, and thick, rich pine-nut cream on top... but it tastes really light, not at all the way a regular moussaka or lasagna tastes. And the labor intensiveness got me out of a few hours of studying! We served it with a quickie salad of vidalia onions and cucumbers tossed in Italian dressing.

Anyways, I imagine everyone else's summer is involving a lot more, like...., going outside... at least I hope so! I'll be catching up on everyone's blogs in the next few days in between scarfing down more wraps and contracts. :)


Song of the Day: Belle and Sebastian- A Summer Wasting