parasite (in foot) cake.

Okay. Give me a chance to explain.

I'm in a Parasite Ecology class/lab. Recently, the class was assigned this creative extra project sort of thing that we could do for a chance to win a large fish to dissect in lab. Large fish = more parasites for my partner and I to isolate!

The result of my attempt? this cake.

I actually initially wanted to write a blogpost on this endeavour to validate the fact that I didn't just find a picture online - that I actually baked, shaped, and created this beauty (if that's what you'd like to call it).

pumpkin pie bars.

Let me tell you about a fantastic baked good I recently had. I would say it is the best pumpkin item I've ever had.

Okay. Imagine a homemade yeasted bread. Sort of like really fresh bakery bread. It's not too sweet, which works in this case. Now imagine a ton of crumb pieces the size of ping pong balls (maybe a little smaller, but not by much) embedded on top of the bread. The crumbs are brown sugary, cinnamony, and buttery. What with the crumbs and dusting of powdered sugar, you don't notice the inside until you cut into the loaf. What do you find?

Swirls. Thick, massive indulgent swirls of straight up pumpkin pie, in the bread. Sometimes you get a slice that is more pumpkin pie than bread. You find that good things finally happen to good people.

random foodie finds.

The commencement of my final undergraduate year of college has changed me, I think. I have this incessant desire to always be changing things up. This could mean going apple picking (and also eating the freshest, most plush, heavenly cider doughnuts to exist on this earth) on a gorgeous sunny Saturday, whiling away three hours at Brother Jimmy's BBQ with frozen margaritas and nachos on hump day, staying up till 5am unexpectedly, or establishing a weekly routine of getting lunch with the best friend before starting a long week.

I just noticed that most of my best days involve food in some capacity. I don't think I'd have a food blog if I weren't super into it .. right?

Today was another such day. Some of the random foodie finds in this post are from today, others are from early September when I spent too much time in visited a Fairway Market.

open-faced garden sandwich.

I'm a fan of the "super healthy meals, indulgent desserts" lifestyle (at least until my metabolism completely breaks down). Lately, actually, I've been pretty on top of cooking almost all my meals or eating salads when I do go to the dining hall. Desserts are at a minimum. And I've exercised three mornings in a row!

But there's always that one day that trips you up. The week leading up to that day could have been long. You might have been stuck in a 3-hr lab killing live fish with scalpels and smashing snails with rusty wrenches before massacring their bodies in search of teeny tiny parasites (and disappointingly not finding any :( ) An odd allergy season may have descended.

On these days, you eat a sandwich like this one. And then you go out to Brother Jimmy's with the girls to share a swamp water and the best pulled chicken nachos you've had in a long time. It's okay. It happens.