May 31

WELL it was a very short lived break between semesters, but I did this to myself, so I can not complain. These are my last two classes. My new French teacher has an African French accent and I could listen to her speak all day. Online classes are socially tricky; she does not have her camera on and she does not expect us to have ours on, but she does expect participation- it’s 25% of the grade. It can be difficult and intimidating to speak up, so I always try to bite the bullet early on and embarrass myself so the other students feel less pressure to be perfect. And it worked! I laugh it off when I make mistakes (which I do be making, trust me), and the teacher laughs with me. The whole class feels more comfortable to make mistakes, and teacher knows my name for participation. Easy Peasy. Oh, did I mention her name is Princess? Her NAME is Princess. Amazing.

My grades were great this semester, with the exception of my French class, which honestly- a C+ was generous. I completely dropped the ball in French but you know what? I am not super woman. I had to focus on philosophy, and I was rewarded for that with varying degrees of As across the board. Not too shabby, and my GPA didn’t budge. Six classes was hard. I do not recommend.

I have been otherwise hitting the books at full speed. I am establishing a base for my research and deciding what exactly I want to hone in on for the thesis paper. My professor seems interested in exploring intentionality in regards to conscious and unconscious decision making, but I am still lingering on the overall argument for property dualism, and wondering why so many philosophers decide on physicalism instead. So far, I think it is because it’s easier, and also it fits better into modern science/physics. That’s all well and good, but science and physics thought the earth was flat until someone discovered it was otherwise (and many people still think it is flat, so that says something else entirely.)

While the class is supposed to be about ONE philosopher, David Chalmers, I can not help but have other philosophers seep through the cracks. David Rosenthal is a pretty crucial piece of my thesis paper and he is also my professor’s preferred philosopher of the mind, and Kieth Frankish wrote the text book I am using, so, really, we are cheating the system a little bit, and I am getting credit for a course that doesnt exactly fit the requirement. BUT ultimately, Chalmers is the main focus. Let’s see if I can say something smart about him, come August.

There were lots of social events in May. The weather is finally nice enough to spend some time outside, I have already shaved my legs twice! Nico’s cousins Monica and Claudia, their mom, and Claudia’s husband Ricardo came to visit and we had a very lovely time. They stayed in a hotel that was once artists housing back before old DJ Trump made living in New York City impossibly unaffordable, and it was pretty cool to read up on the history and imagine all of the beautiful writing and art works that were created there. We had a picnic at central park, and I got to share my favorite underrated breakfast sandwich- the steak, egg, and cheese from grand central market, in the food court of grand central station. After the picnic we walked forever in the park, something Claus was not prepared to do, but he managed. He has never really seen a horse before, so the horse and buggies were a new experience for him.

We took Monica to Roberta’s, which is a locally famous pizza joint that does really nice food in edition to great brick oven pizza. The salad we ordered was so good that I have been trying to recreate it since we left. I am pretty sure it is just a lemony Caesar dressing with mint and dill. I am historically not an herby gal, I stick to fresh basil and oregano, and I would never use mint or dill by themselves; but together??? Blew my mind. I will be taking my chef friend Shaun over some time this summer to see if he picks up anything I didn’t the first time around. My friend Jules travels constantly for work, but I got to spend some time with her and her roommate, an old friend of mine, Sophie and Sophie’s dog Petunia. There was also a nice little Philosophy picnic with some of my classmates. Claus took an extra special liking to Julien, and Julien took an extra special liking to the tortellini pasta salad I made.

I have been practicing on my roller skates, and it turns out- like a bike, you never really forget how to do the thing- but your muscles for sure forget. I am still getting my muscles back, so I only skate at night, on the street next to our house that was recently paved, where nobody can see my wobbly legs. Claus really likes running with me, and there is a short clip of that in the TikTok I made for these past few weeks. You learn a lot about your neighborhood when you are trying a new sporty activity. For example, a lot of our streets really needed the new pavement I was complaining about not two weeks ago. Also, I live on a hill? Did not realize. In retrospect, maybe that is why the neighborhood is called Ocean Hill. Should have seen that coming. The stopper on roller skates looks like the first draft for breaks that the creator just sort of settled for. No need to improve.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTL7VVvxK/

There are a lot of sweet pictures of Clausy this time, and also a lot of pasta pics. I was a pasta making machine these past few weeks! I had to make a lovely pasta for Nico’s family, of course, and after they left, I made those tortellini for the pasta salad. I realized I was out of dried pasta this week, which was a bummer until I realized- I can literally just make some. Why leave the house when you can spend two hours listening to a book and making new shapes? Imagine being ME and being bummed out that there was NO PASTA. stupid. So there are several pictures. The ravioli I made for the fam was a goat cheese and ricotta honey filling, in a creamy sun dried tomato sauce. The tortellini was also goat cheese and honey. I made some Malloreddus, which is a Sardinian shape that looks like a tiny Gnocchi, and some orecchiette. Regular potato gnocchi are my mortal enemy, but I tried once again to make them from scratch, and they were not chewy! They were perhaps a little soft, but that’s great because now I am one step closer to figuring out just how much kneading I need to do for the dough to be right. The NEXT gnocchi will be perfect. Also, Nico made a KILLER focaccia with onion, tomato, and zucchini on it.

I made probably the best breakfast sandwich I have ever made last week so I want to tell you how to do that one. The Italian markets in the Bronx have excellent prices, and last time I was there I managed to get a crap ton of dried porccini mushrooms, and I am STILL working through that bag. We also had regular mushrooms, so I soaked the porcini, and caramelized some onions in the porcini water. If you don’t have porcini water (because, lets face it, who really does besides me?) use some sort of broth instead. You can of course do water, but it’s so much more flavorful to use broth AND the end result tastes so much like French onion soup, which is what we are going for. I added the mushrooms at the very end, fried some eggs what I topped with Swiss cheese, and threw it all on a deli roll. Delish.

I could talk about pasta salad varieties for days. I used to never touch the stuff. Many things I thought I did not care for ended up just being bad recipes. I have gotten into the habit of cooking these meals for myself and deciding if I still hate them, and more often than not, I like it if I made it. Deviled Eggs were my epiphany here, but pasta salad followed shortly after. My Italian grandma has been feeding me pasta salad without the pasta for many, many years and I had not put two and two together until recently. She always did tomatoes and cucumbers in oil and vinegar, or a caprese salad. She does this salad with tuna that I crave maybe once a year, and it is the only time I will eat raw onion- chopped up impossibly thin. When my dad was here, we make a nice one with tomatoes and potatoes, chick peas and a few other ingredients; it really is a free for all, as long as there are some staples in there. Let me share my wisdom with you.

You want a fat. ONE FAT. Don’t get me started on mayo- I am always using extra virgin olive oil and this is something I will never be swayed on- I am 100% committed. Sesame oil is also a lovely flavor, and I will allow it if I must, but that is all of the leway I am going to give you. Next you want sour- red wine vinegar, or balsamic if you like it sweet. Salt you can add in a variety of ways, but my favorite way is adding capers. The rest is up to you! My staples are cherry tomatoes, tiny motzerella balls, and if I can get some tortellini done in time, I will absolutely do so. It is never anything more clever than cheese inside, so absolutely just buy them from the store. I will always do an olive, and this time I did a roasted red pepper because I had some left over from the ravioli I made the previous week. Be liberal with the juices from some of these cans, when I have artichokes I will add some of that juice, but this time I just threw in some of the roasted red pepper juice and it was awesome. Basil and oregano, as long as they’re fresh, and some white bean like a chick pea or a great northern white bean and you’re basically done. Make it the night before and let it marinate for the best flavor, but if you do that, leave out the pasta and make that last minute.

Graduation is fast approaching, and that is where I will pick up next time. How surreal!