I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow...

At the end of the Downtown Mall in C'ville is an outdoor pavilion where concerts are held. The good thing about this is that, even if you don't have a ticket to the show, you can still stand pretty close and, although you might not be able to see anything you can definitely hear it. Alison Krauss was playing a benefit concert tonight, so some friends met up with me after I got off work at the other end of the Downtown Mall at nine, and we caught the tail end. Including this song:*

I love me some bluegrass and some fiddlin' and now I just want to go watch O Brother Where Art Thou.

Other highlights of the day include an iced Nutella latte and fro-yo with strawberries (aka dinner) and that The Help was finally returned to the library so I finally get to read it! Other than that it was just car inspections and work and humidity. You know, the usual.

Looking forward to a day off and a visit from the roommate tomorrow!

*I just looked up the lyrics...who knew it was THAT DEPRESSING? Not me, that's for sure.

Wild & Precious

Currently Reading: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Currently On My Mind: the GRE. And how I should start studying.

[image source, via Pinterest]

Banoffee Pie!

Currently Listening To: Femme Fatale, Britney Spears. No shame.

[image source*]

I now own TWO aprons, so I feel like this qualifies me to be a baker.

And there is this delicious thing British people eat on the reg, which Americans unfortunately know nothing about, called bannoffee pie. Now, I was reminded of the incredibleness of this dessert (excuse me, pudding) when I was in Kenya over Christmas and we had it at a British neighbor’s house, and I’ve been meaning to try and make it ever since. And on Sunday - six and a half months later - the day had finally come.

After scouring the internet for a recipe I chose this one (I tried to avoid pondering the impropriety of using an “Americanized” version…). And, really it's a very easy recipe – it just takes time.

I made two pies and found that doubling Greeblemonkey’s recipe was more ingredients than necessary. Here’s what I would recommend for ingredients for two pies:

• 2 graham cracker crusts
• 1 tub of whipped cream
• 4-5 bananas
• 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk 

 And here’s what you do:

• Take the cans of sweetened condensed milk, put them UNOPENED into a big pot of water (make sure the water covers the cans completely! You might have to refill a few times...) and let it boil for two hours. (Like I said, not so hard to do, you just have to allow for the time.)
• Two and a half hours later (after you’ve let the cans cool, obvi) you will open them to find not sweetened condensed milk, but a thick, delicious caramel sauce. It’s a baking miracle!**
• Put a layer of whipped cream in the bottom of each crust. Chop up the bananas and arrange a layer of banana slices on the whipped cream.
• Pour the caramel sauce over the banana layer. Add another layer of bananas and another layer of whipped cream on top of that.
• If you’re feeling particularly culinary, grate or drizzle some chocolate on top.

...And voila! Really, that is all. I’d say the hardest part is waiting two hours for that daggone sweetened condensed milk to turn into caramelized deliciousness. Other than that it’s just making layers.***

[image sources: 1 | 2]

And the result? STRAIGHT UP DECADENCE.

Although, be warned that 1. It is so gooey and wonderful that it is kind of difficult to cut it into actual slices (we may or may not have just taken forks straight to the pie…) and 2. It is SO RICH that you might only manage about four bites in any one sitting (Although this does mean that I still have half a pie in my fridge downstairs, calling my name riiiight nowwww…)

*mine was not this beautiful.
** Actually, we (aka my mom) used to do this in Ethiopia to make caramel sauce for ice cream and whatever, because that’s the kind of stuff you can’t get there.

*** My mom told me that the typical British version only has one layer of each ingredient. So, you know, do what you want...

What I Spend My Time Watching...

I may or may not have said the phrase "Wanna see a video of a cute kid dancing?" to Monique more than once in the past few days. (Should I be concerned?)

But really. Check out these skillz. (Or just straight-up adorableness...)

I think I'm a little bit jealous.

Still Here, Holding Sway

"Once every few years, even now, I catch the scent of Africa. It makes me want to keen, sing, clap up thunder...I find it impossible to bear. 

Ripe fruits, acrid sweat, urine, flowers, dark spices, and other things I've never even seen -- I can't say what goes into the composition, or why it rises up to confront me as I round some corner hastily, unsuspecting. It has found me here on this island, in our little town, in a back alley...The sensation rises up from inside me and I know you're still here, holding sway. You've played some trick on the dividing of my cells so my body can never be free of the small parts of Africa it consumed."

from The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

"If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?"

from Out of Africa

I am on a place across a distant sea

But I carry you in me

and the dust on, the dust on, the dust on my feet

from "Albertine," Brooke Fraser

Sometimes my life at college makes me compartmentalize the Ethiopia part of my life. 
It's so different, so far from what most people here can understand, so un-relatable to 
what's going on here that it is easy to just tuck it all away on a shelf in the back of my 
mind. And that makes me sad. So many thanks to Becky Long for posting these 
beautiful pictures on Facebook (and telling me I could share them with y'all) and 
reminding me of just how much I love and miss Ethiopia!

CUPcake!

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

(via Pinterest)

Dog Days

[image source]

It is HOT these days. Every time I step outside I can feel the air hot and heavy around me, and every time I step back inside the magnitude of temperature change throws me off. Unless, of course, I’m stepping inside my house, where we actually don’t have central a/c. Yesterday, I camped out in Madeline’s room for the majority of the day, as she is the only one with a window unit and she is also in Texas. Anywhere else in the house and I was sweating within about five minutes. Oh so fun.

I do have a nice little box fan in the window in my room (and, incidentally, no screens in the windows so the one right next to my window gapes open a little frighteningly while I sleep next to it) that has served me well thus far into the summer, but no more. I sweated through the night two nights ago, stole another box fan from Hope and Abby’s (currently empty) bedroom last night and propped it up so it blew directly towards me, but now have retreated to the safe, cool haven of my parents house in Crozet for tonight. Because there is supposed to be a heat index of 115 degrees tomorrow.

But that does make it the perfect kind of weather to trek out to Blue Hole with (new) friends in the evening and swing off the rope swing – higher than it looks, so high that you’re clinging to that rope, swung out in the air, dangling over that water and in that split second before you’re supposed to let go you think it’s so far down, I don’t want to let go but you have to and it’s worth it.

Ahh, summer.