Last week, a team from SCP, including myself, visited three high-performing charter schools in the New Orleans area. Because of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has a huge charter school populations. More than half of their public schools are charters. We saw some downright awe-inspiring schools getting incredible results, and I left feeling really inspired and motivated about what’s to do to get ready to educate kids.

I have learned so much through this process, particularly during our visits to high-performing schools.  I’ve seen, over and over in our visits, programming implemented the right way, with all stakeholders intensely-committed to educating kids.  I’d seen bits and pieces tried elsewhere, never with the dramatic results these schools are getting. I’m completely rethinking how I think we educate teachers. Before, I knew that we were doing it wrong, but I didn’t know exactly how I would train teachers differently.  This is something I could expound on at length but I’ll still stand by what I’ve said before, which is that it should absolutely be harder to become a teacher. I’ll also say these schools weren’t perfect, but there’s a lot we can learn and play with when designing programming for our school.

While in New Orleans, also got to scout some eatin’, and I would highly recommend Cochon if you are in New Orleans. We had an outstanding meal that surpassed my expectations, and I would undoubtedly visit again when I return to the city. You should go there if you get the chance. It’s a great place for people really into food to take their less-adventurous friends and have a meal that satisfies everyone. Totally approachable food that was still exciting.

Unrelated to anything serious, I’m a finalist for the RFT’s Web Awards in the category of Best Personal Blog. I’m going to lose to up against my friend and fellow Church of Burger Priestess Stef Pollack of fantastic The Cupcake Project. So many of my friends are up for awards, which makes me a member of the cool nerds, I guess.

Thank you so much to whomever nominated me, unless this is some weird elaborate prank to humiliate me, like on Carrie. Because if it is, me and my dirty pillows will have no problem sourcing heritage-breed pig blood that I can and will telepathically hurl at my would-be humiliators. I also still have a pig head. So, basically, JUST TRY ME.

Check back next week to see if I “win” or not. I hope, like all situations I find myself in, it involves a giant check.

Yesterday morning, I felt the familiar creep of panic rising in my gut; the racing thoughts maniacally sifting through the many things I should be doing even though I can only do between one and three things at any given time. I was surrounded by askew furniture and floors that needed mopping and two wrestling dogs and a plethora of things I needed to read, people I needed to respond to, and errands I needed to run.  My mind is like shuffling cards slowly; I can get a glimpse, but I can’t focus.

Part of yesterday’s to-do list involved some cooking, and my mind latched onto that as soon as the panic set in about what I should be doing. Happily, we’ve still got tomatoes coming in as we flirt with the impending first frost, and so I set about prepping them for a slow roast to be used as a sauce in dinner. As I sliced and seasoned, I felt my tension ease. As those went into the oven, I followed by starting a challah dough: yeast, honey, egg, butter, flour, salt, and water. I’ve made this bread so many times I’ve got the recipe memorized. There is a familiar rhythm to the process of measuring and mixing and proofing and rising that is calming. I wiped down the counters while the bread settled into its first rise, I realized that I hadn’t had a proper dinner all week. I’d either been working or in meetings every evening. The only thing I’d cooked outside of work was beef jerky, which isn’t really cooking and certainly isn’t a meal. In any event, I’d not spent time in my own kitchen this week. I’d not spent time eating a home-cooked meal with Chris.

Preparing food to share with family or friends provides me with a constant, a ritual that centers that I can return to each morning and evening to give a day structure and balance. When I don’t do that, when our nourishment is an afterthought, chaos seeps in and envelopes everything, but when I take a golden brown braid of yeasty bread out of the oven, I feel as though I can manage.

1. The satisfaction that comes from checking everything off on one’s to-do list.

2. Our hardy little aloe plant, Malcolm, that survived Neko’s puppyhood with new growth all over.

3. The genius of this scene in Freaks and Geeks, from the episode where Bill’s (Martin Starr) mom (Claudia Christian) starts dating his gym teacher (Biff from Back to the Future).

4. My cast iron skillet, which is seasoned so well I’m proud every time it easily wipes clean.

5. A small chocolate flourless torte made by Kelly at work last night. Rich and velvety and slightly woody from rosemary ganache. Perfect late-night snack after work.

1. Having a knitting project on needles for the first time in a long time. It’s this apple tree blanket. I’m doing it in “pickle” with a “mediterranean” border. I love the rhythmic nature of knitting, the clacking of the needles, and the slow expansion of a project growing. When I get into a groove, hours go by as I voraciously try to finish projects, and it’s very therapeutic and focusing.

2. Dinner with friends at Blueberry Hill before a Drive By Truckers show at the Pageant followed by the debut Chill Dawgz show.

3. Dulce de leche cake.

4. Fall in St Louis and wearing scarves again.

5. Perfectly comfy gray heather sweatpants, thieved from high school track team.

LouFest is an unfortunately-named first-year music festival held in St Louis’s crown jewel, Forest Park, where Chris and I got married. The lineup was impressive (She&Him, Broken Social Scene, Lucero, Built to Spill, Jeff Tweedy), but not packed with bands we actively follow and love. Normally, we would have totally been down for going both days, but we ultimately decided not to spend the money on two-day passes for both of us. It seemed like my entire Twitter feed was going, though, and Friday I just decided to go for it and told my boy Mike D. that I was going to join him on Saturday.

I’m glad I did. I’ve been to festivals before, and this one had many small touches that made it truly enjoyable.

• First off, no fees for tickets. At all. I don’t care if they folded whatever fees they had into the costs, I appreciate the fact that if the one-day pass was listed at $38, that’s what it cost me. Fuck Ticketmaster and their “convenience” fee, because anyone who has ever dealt with Ticketmaster in the last ten years knows it is anything but convenient.
• The organizers purposely made the festival grounds larger than the expected attendance so the festival wouldn’t feel crowded. THANK JEEBUS. I hate crowds, and at festivals, I think you should absolutely be able to spread out a blanket on the perimeter and chill out without some dirty hippie hitting you with their devil sticks. My anxiety thanks you.
• Speaking of dirty hippies, this was far and away the cleanest festival I’ve ever been to. Long story, but I had blisters on my feet, so I decided to give it a go barefoot, and it was no big deal, at all. I stepped in beer once. That was it. The port-a-potties were new and clean and there were few, if any, lines. There were copious recycling booths, manned with staff, for both recycling and composting, and I’m pretty sure people actually used them.
• Also speaking of dirty hippies, I witnessed no tomfoolery of the obnoxious kind at all. I didn’t seen obnoxiously drunk people who were harshing others’ mellow. I saw no folks makin’ sexy time in public. There were no devil sticks or hacky sacks or meatheads or creepers. I didn’t see one security person have to swoop in and bust anyone. I don’t know that I noticed one security person, period. People acted like grown folks. In fact, there were many children there and they didn’t even annoy me once, mostly because I wish I was a cool enough seven-year-old to be rockin’ a Wilco shirt and giant noise-muting headphones while playing with dinosaurs at a music festival. Rock the cradle, bitches.
• The vendors were great. Food was from actual restaurants in St Louis, some I frequently patronize like Local Harvest. There were tons of vegetarian options, and much more than just fried monstrosities. Not that I don’t enjoy fried monstrosities, but not on hot days unless I’m at the Iowa State Fair or another place that offers deep-fried cheese curds. There were crepes and tacos and gazpacho and gyros and many other food items. And sushi, which I would never eat at a summertime music festival, but that’s me.  Beer was reasonable, too, at $5 for Schlafly, which is cheaper than the ballpark, for sure.

Basically, the organizers decided to make a music festival that eliminated all the things I hate about festivals. Epic win. The music was boss as hell. Lucero proved how hardcore they are and Broken Social Scene melted my face off. Same old, same old. I saw about a million people I knew, most from the innerwebs. Hey, everybody! I’m glad I saw you. Or, I’m sorry I didn’t see you. Next time!

I probably should have headed up there Sunday, too, but I hadn’t seen Chris in forever, so we, along with our friend Josh, went to the Festival of Nations in Tower Grove Park.

We went to the Festival of Nations to eat some food, period. But, holy shit, I could not believe how many people were at the park. It was insane. It was not a situation where you could eat and stroll comfortably. I was totally overwhelmed by the options for food. The various meats on a stick alone were enough to boggle the mind. We consumed plenty of that, as well as fruity beverages otherwise absent in our everyday lives. I won’t opine on the details of our culinary adventure other than to say this: Chris ate some Thai chicken satay (his first Thai ever) and said it was good and he would go eat Thai if he could have that.

DUDE. THIS IS MONUMENTAL. I love my husband and he generally humors my monumentally more-adventurous palate to make me happy. But this is an entire new cuisine he will eat! We can go eat on South Grand! It’s a gateway drug into Vietnamese and then PHO VIETNAMESE COFFEE BANH FUCKING MI. Happy day, indeed.

So, yeah, braving the crowds, along with seeing some old guy in a KU hat scream and berate his wife in front of 10,000 people, was worth it if it means that my husband and I can eat Basil Spice together. And, yes, I almost kicked a dude in the junk when he yelled at his wife, with his finger in her face, “GO GET YOUR FOOD AND MAKE IT SNAPPY”. He actually said that exact thing. Fucking piece of shit asshole. Instead, I kicked myself for not having any of the little Safe Connections cards I have for this very situation to give this lady so she would have a place to get help if she was ready to leave. I had to settle instead for loudly talking about the guy as we stood two feet from him. I doubt it did much good. Any dude that would talk to his lady like that anywhere, let alone in public, is probably pretty oblivious to reality.

Other than that incident, I will say that the Festival of Nations was a fine example of how large, diverse, crowds composed of people of all ages and from all walks of live, can act responsibly and respectfully. I didn’t see any hooliganish behavior, only people eating and smiling and sweating. This weekend was a nice counterpoint to the comments section of any Post-Dispatch article, which is usually made up solely of people like the guy who yelled at his wife. It’s also an example of how food can bring people together. You know, it’s a lot harder to dehumanize and label people as “illegal” or “aliens” or “foreigners” when they openly and happily share their culture with you, particularly if said culture is tasty food. There’s room on the rock for everyone, people, and I, for one, welcome anyone to our particular corner. Except you, Glenn Beck. Please stay in your hole far away from me.

1. The work is straightforward. There is a list of things to do. I do them. While wearing Crocs.
2. I get to be around food and kitchen supplies. It’s hard not to ogle various pieces of Le Creuset and other tools I desperately NEED to achieve culinary greatness in my own home.
3. This is complicated by the fact that I get a nice discount. This is further complicated by the fact that Chris is adamant that I quit accumulating tools in the kitchen until we have more space.
4. I get to eat food. Generally, we get to eat whatever is being cooked in either kitchen classroom. During my first shift, I ate cheddar soup, stuffed peppers, cauliflower, shrimp and crab, apple pie, and four different pastas. I anticipate gaining back all the weight I lost in the last six months. We also get to take home leftovers.
5. We can take classes we’re not working for free. Which, um, AWESOME. Yes, I would like to learn how to butcher a pig.
6. I get to meet awesome chefs. Many chefs in St Louis teach classes here, and I will get to learn from them while helping them, as well as work with my many friends who teach classes here.

Yeah, I KNOW. It’s a pretty sweet deal, until someone my friends and I have offended comes in and uses every dish in both kitchens just to teach me a lesson about destroying businesses by tweeting about subpar food. The only downside is that most classes are on nights and weekends, which means less time with Chris, since he’s got work and school and it feels like he’s never home. I’m working tonight, he’s got his fake football draft all day tomorrow, I work Monday night, he’s got class Tuesday night, etc, etc. We’re like two ships passing in the night. <tear> I’m also waiting to hear back about another gig, so I might just be a working machine.

Anyway, I hope y’all get to enjoy gorgeous weather over the weekend. I’ll be heading to the Festival of Nations to get me some more tasty vittles. Because I love to eat.

We started by taking in a Jucy Lucy from Matt’s Bar, the Minneapolis regional specialty of a burger filled with molten American cheese. You can read my thoughts on the Lucy at my pal Andrew Mark Veety‘s blog at some point in the next few days. Let’s just say it was the perfect stomach-liner for the pub crawl on which we were about to embark and the Jucy Lucy looked like this:

From there, we hit up Moto-I, a Japanese restaurant that brews their own sake and feature Japanese street food, including steamed pork belly buns like this. We were playing with our food, and it was delicious.

They also have a gorgeous rooftop patio that was filled with hipsters cloaked in irony. Nice teal skinny jeans, guy. The weather ruled.

I should note that transportation for this pub crawl was provided by Eric and his minivan, which he drove with the windows down blaring Hold Steady, the Jayhawks, and the Big Lebowski soundtrack.  It, too, ruled.

We saw this awesomeness across the road from Psycho Suzi’s. It’s called Pedal Pub, and you can rent it for parties. It’s a pedal-powered bicycle bar that you drive around while swilling beers.  I want one.

It should be noted that our host Eric dressed specially for this occasion. Behold the Canadian Tuxedo:

That’s also a Lebowski t-shirt under there, just so you know what we’re dealing with here.

From there, we went to the best bar I’ve ever been to. Period. Nye’s Polonaise (yep, a Polish bar) is basically the Minneapolis version of St Louis’s Hideaway Lounge, except instead of a blind elderly piano player (Hideaway), you’ve got both a sighted elderly piano player, Sweet Lou, with whom you can sing along, karaoke-style, and a whole separate “lounge” where the World’s Most Dangerous Polka Band plays.

Other than pricier-than-I’m-used-to drinks, this place was pretty much the most amazing conglomeration of quirk and awesomeness that I’ve ever encountered. If I could situate Nye’s inside the Iowa State Fair, I would move in and never leave. You must go there if you are in Minneapolis.

We ended up drinking for about eight hours and the next morning I got on a plane and few home.  Chris met me at the airport with a surprise, a manila envelope. I was worried that the surprise was either divorce papers or some other kind of lawsuit, but to my great, great surprise, it was a picture of this:

Who needs diamonds when your husband buys you a convection double oven? Our oven only has two working burners, knobs with the temperature worn off, and an oven that’s heat fluctuates, so I’ve been dying for a new range for a while now. I literally squeed out loud on the escalator when I opened the envelope. It’s being delivered tomorrow. Not only that, but Chris cleaned the entire house and ran or took care of about a thousand errands. Best. Husband. Ever.

So, yeah, life’s pretty good. The weekend reminded me just how lucky (and happy) my life is.

Recently I joined the new Young Professionals board for Safe Connections. If you aren’t familiar with Safe Connections:

As the oldest and largest locally-founded agency serving abused women and teens in the St. Louis region, Safe Connections is essential core of resources and support for survivors of violence. Safe Connections is the only agency providing integrated services for women who have been victimized by domestic violence, sexual assault, rape and/or childhood sexual abuse. (from Safe Connections’ About Us)

Safe Connections provides vital services for women and teens in the area who are survivors of violence, and their work is an area where the need for help is almost always greater than what they can provide. The Young Professionals is a new group formed by Safe Connections to gain volunteers and supporters in the 21-40 age group who can help Safe Connections expand their mission and services.

We’re hosting a happy hour to raise awareness about and gain membership for Safe Connections and our Young Professionals group.  This event will be held at Pi in the Central West End on Wednesday, March 3, from 5-7. Chris Sommers, who owns Pi, is also a member of the Young Professionals group, and Pi will be offering half-price appetizers and drink specials for those in attendance. You should come.  You need no reason to go to Pi and have a cocktail on a Wednesday, and this gives you free reign to claim it as your good deed for the day or week should you see fit.

Domestic violence is an issue that does not discriminate based on race, socioeconomic status, political affiliation, or religion. I’d love to see you guys come out, particularly my lady-blogger friends.

When I left my job helping unqualified people become underwhelming teachers (I KID, at least five of them were competent. Ashley, you’re one of them), I went to work with a friend, helping her with the small business she owned. When I started working with her, we set a three-month trial period, at the end of which either of us could withdraw from the arrangement, no hard feelings.  Unfortunately, due to a really crappy economy, she really couldn’t afford to keep me after three and a half months, which I expected. Therefore, as of Friday, I have no substantive incoming coming in regularly.

Which kind of sucks.

The Good News:

I have a fallback: I can teach. However, one generally doesn’t find teaching jobs in February, at least not for current employment. If I decide to go back into the classroom, overwhelming odds are it won’t be until August.

I was reading about this new film Lemonade, about advertising professionals out of work due to the shiteous economy, and how many viewed unemployment as an opportunity to pursue real creative projects. And I thought to myself, I’ve many times dreamt about various aspirations that I continually postponed to “when I have time”.

And now I have time. It’s about all the currency I have right now.

I’m still in school; two classes this semester, as well as snail-like inching towards the start of my dissertation process. This will be my Project #1, my main focus. But in the last two months or so, several opportunities have kind of floated my way that are leading to me inevitably taking tangible steps to make some of my  until-now only hypothetical plans come to fruition.

First, my friends introduced me to their neighbor, who is also in education and was in the beginning stages of starting a charter school here in St Louis.  He and I met for coffee, talked shop, and I decided to join his small team of individuals committed to founding a college preparatory middle/high charter school here in South City. We’ve been busy thinking, planning, and writing applications for both grants and various steps of the approval process. In just a few weeks of work, I’ve already learned so much about how the charter school process works and exactly what goes into each aspect of starting an institution.

I have ideological issues with charter schools, namely that they take resources away from public schools and also allow public officials to ignore the desperate need for public school improvement in cities just like St Louis. Unfortunately, there seems to be no end in sight to the problems plaguing the SLPS, not to mention the fact that their elected board has no power, and kids need good schools now, so this is why I decided to become involved in the project. So, yeah, project #2: I’m starting a school.

I was also asked to join a young professionals (snort…see introductory paragraph where I lose main source of income) board for Safe Connections, an amazing, well-established non-profit here in St Louis that provides various programs and services about and for victims of domestic violence.  We’ll be having a few happy hour-type events here in St Louis and I’ll be blogging about those events, as well as the work Safe Connections does, in the near future. Project #3.

Finally, I recently became friends with a couple our age who’ve turned their modest home into a working farmstead, complete with crops, livestock, and bees, all less than three miles from our house. Because of our shared interest, Justin from Yellow Tree Farm and I have been plotting and scheming, and we’re collaborating on a new venture. We will be putting in kitchen gardens at a few restaurants around town. We’ve got a few people we’re already working with, and we’re in the midst of planting and planning. Truth be told, Justin knows so much more than me about growing food, so I’m over the moon about how much I can learn from working with him and being around what he and Danielle have already done. Chris is excited because I won’t try to get him to talk about seeds and garden planning all the time. Win for everyone. Project #4.

And, of course, I’ll still be working on the blogs and Novice Foodie.

So while I’ll be incredibly broke, I’ll be incredibly busy doing things I’m passionate about. I’m feeling pretty lucky.

We spent most of Saturday bumming around Asheville and surrounding parts. I really loved this town. I’d move there.  There’s tons of weirdos and progressives nestled in the mountains. Downtown was walkable and the weather was sunny and warm. We ate a late breakfast at Early Girl Cafe. You can read about it in my Novice Foodie column today yesterday. I drank some decaf coffee and the food made me happy.

We ducked into several little shops, including a head shop where a young couple with their three small children were sharing a lovely Saturday morning buying a bong. I thought I had accidentally ingested whatever was sold from the back room, because, pardon me, KIDS in HEAD SHOPS are not something I typically encounter; I had to do a double-take and hope none of the kids knocked over the flavored rolling papers display. I guess head shops in the South are more family-friendly, but if I was a head shop owner (I’ve considered it) I don’t know that I’d be down. I was freaked out by this occurrence, so we dipped and went to the head shop next door. Asheville is the type of place where, instead of two Starbucks across the street from each other, you get two head shops next door to each other. I can live with this.

We decided the best thing we could possibly do was aim for a mountain and try to get lost. We did so, easily. We found ourselves in picturesque mountain community at the bottom of Graybeard Mountain named Montreat, which consisted only of homes nestled among the Montreat Conference Center and Montreat College.

This place was so incredibly beautiful, I immediately felt like I was in the movies and that I was not allowed to be there because I might break something.  I kept thinking a stern-faced nun was going to demand to know why I was taking dozens of pictures of swans with my phone and then shoo us out for being too flawed to visit their pristinely-perfect community.

Then we ended up meandering towards Charlotte on the backroads.  We went through Lake Lure, which I wish I had known was where they filmed Dirty Dancing, because I would have gotten out and poured one out for P. Sway and probably done a bunch of shit that the locals rolls their eyes at because tourists do it ALL THE TIME and think they are being clever.

Maybe, in hindsight, it was okay that I didn’t know Lake Lure was where Dirty Dancing was filmed.