Real Food Pot Luck

Last week I organized a potluck and invited friends from two social circles. I wanted to share a time-lapse of the potluck.

Butternut Squash Overload.

Hello again, world wide web.

So three weeks ago, I made the mistake of buying a rather phallic, six pound butternut squash from the Farmer's Market. I planned on only getting a sweet pumpkin, but my favorite squash seller only had butternut. Of course, I was suspicious when he said that butternut was often used instead of butternut squash. I didn't commit to buying the squash until another consumer at the farmer's market asked if I would use the squash to make pie. Maybe they were working as a team. In any case, I ended up with two feet of awesome butternut squash.

It made a nice mantle piece for about a week, until I cut it in half, gutted the entrails, and baked it face down in the oven for about an hour. Then I scooped each half out with a spoon and stuffed it into two rather large tupperware. It took almost two weeks of cooking with butternut squash every other day to get rid of it.

Still, I'm not sick of it. Butternut squash is versatile and lean and delicious in dessert or main dish, and not that painful to prepare. I was able to use it in soup, muffins, pie, and risotto. I wish I had made some butternut squash bread.

I stopped writing over summer, but I haven't stopped cooking. I'll try to post more regularly.

Poor Herbivore

Scurvy, crabs (not for eating), and scoliosis are just some of the many risks associated with being an undergrad. But a more serious condition is afflicting a gross chunk of the student population: covert vegetarianism.

Yes, its true, many avoid meat by choice, claiming to be demonstrating against animal cruelty, methane emission, hormone abuse, or avoiding cholesterol, cancer, bad karma. It's crazy what sick rationalizations people come up with to avoid embarrassment of the true cause of vegetarianism: fiscal restriction.

Perhaps more disturbing, many students do not even realize they are affected. Indeed, I didn't even know I was a college vegetarian until , upon coming home and having dinner with the family, I realized I had forgotten what meat tasted like. The spectrum of taste cannot be filled by only meat or only vegetables.

Can I liken self-proclaimed vegetarians to supporters of abstinence-only sex-ed? Maybe that's going too far, but at least I will admit to being fiscally strained, instead of hiding behind a thinly veiled masquerade of so-called ethics.