Meg's Mac and Cheese Recipe!

You will need:
•1 lb cooked noodles (= 8 cups cooked noodles)
•2 cups milk (any % works fine)
•3-4 eggs (do 3 if their massive, super jumbo eggs, 4 otherwise)
•2 cups grated cheddar... I really just grate up a whole normal sized block of cheddar
•Chopped onion (one giant onion, or 2 reasonable sized onions)
•Paprika, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper

•Bread crumbs
 

Preheat oven to 350F!

What to do:

1. Cook your noodles! While they cook...

2. Beat eggs, milk, some salt, pepper, paprika (gives nice color) and a little cayenne together

3. Grate your cheese

4. Chop your onion

5. When noodles are cooked, drain and return to the pot. Stir in chopped onion, salt and pepper. 

6. In a BIG pyrex baking dish (or really any oven safe container big enough to hold all this stuff), pour half of the noodle/onion mixture. Then top with half the grated cheese. Then top that with remaining noodles. And guess what's next? Sprinkle over the remaining cheese. 

7. Then gently pour milk/egg mixture all over everything. 

8. Sprinkle bread crumbs all over the top.

9. And more sprinkling: this time with paprika (nice color!), and a little more salt and pepper for good measure

Then...
Bake for 45 min @ 350! Et voila! Mac and cheese

Variations

So, I haven't done a whole lot of mac and cheese variations, except once I stirred pesto into the noodles before all the layering. DELICIOUS! If you're inspired to get wild with your mac and cheese, check out this menu! TONS of fancy and interesting mac and cheese recipes... http://www.smacnyc.com/what.html

news from b-town (I really don't like saying belchertown...)

Hi friends! I am currently sitting in front of a computer in my new house in B-town, chowing down on some homemade cheesecake (made from mostly dumpster-ed ingredients!). We just had a meeting here at Stone Soup Farm (my new employer and place of residence!) with our fellow CRAFT apprentices (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) and it was a success, despite very cold rain. So many bearded beauties at that meeting! I've already got my eye on a hottie from a farm in Northampton... heheh. ;) The CRAFT apprentices meet weekly at a different farm to talk about various topics. Today's topic was "Small Scale/Starting up", and my boss Jarrett (Hampshire College alum, 27 year old farm genius in my opinion) facilitated a great discussion.

Anyway! So my dad and I made our way up to western Mass slowly over the course of the past week. We left Miami on Monday and stopped at the Hostel in the Forest for the night (most magical treehouse hostel in southern Georgia - I definitely suggest this as a stopover anytime you're in that area). Tuesday we continued northward towards my former garden manager's mentor's homestead outside of Asheville, NC. I had been hearing about them nonstop last summer so I was so glad to meet the famed homesteaders and partake in their delicious all-farm harvested meal (even the beans!). I think the experiences both nights was really good for my dad, being in calming and peaceful places with very grounded and loving people... Both the hostel and the homestead are places that I would love to stop at for a longer period of time on my way back down south in the fall/winter. I'm going to try to finagle an apprenticeship at both if I can!

Wednesday, we left the woods and fairy hippies to hang out with some urban hippies in DC. Scott and Sara were most lovely accommodating hosts and it was so awesome to hang out with them; it had been a while! Sara and I always connect on so many levels about all sorts of crazy things, and sharing ideas with her in real time is a real treat for me. Who knows, we might end up being business partners someday in the near future.... !!

The drive on Thursday from DC to the Valley was a bit overwhelming, but we made it in one piece and I was happy to throw all of my stuff into my new barn room and begin my new life here! It feels so good to be settling down... and of course, my fellow farmers are fabulous, interesting, artsy, resourceful (dumpster diving is a frequent activity amongst my housemates), funny - all that and more! It's a bit colder than it was in South Florida, but hopefully I'll acclimatize soon... (I have no choice! Starting Monday,I'll be working outside for about 8 hours everyday regardless of whether I like it or not.)

Let me know if you can make it out to the Valley at any time in the next 6 months - I'll be here waiting! I have lotsa sleeping room in my barn and there's plenty of random space for crashers. Also, everyone is really into farm parties here, so I'll keep you all in the loop about that! :) AND, we have chickens!!!

lots of love to you, my loves!

carmella

springtimes and new blog

Hi friends,

I'm still in Boston, studying for my quals and riding my bike around in the new and exciting sunshine. I wanted to let you know (not to abandon PostChap) that I've started a blog, basically 10 minutes ago, in order to procrastinate and vent about my qualifying exams. http://rosebudgoes.blogspot.com/ Here is the link. And yeah....maybe I'll give up on it after 2 seconds, but maybe I'll love it forever. I've always struggled with what should be public and private in my life (everybody does right?) and I've decided that I can maintain a blog about public I-would-tell-this-to-anybody kind of issues that matter to me, and save the juicy bits for you, my special bunch. Nothing juicy as of yet...

Lots of love,
Rosie

Going through old pictures

Fun Advice

I feel bad posting this right after Megan's post, but setting that aside...I'm going to be in San Francisco the first weekend in May, and I need suggestions for fun things to do! I'm actually going to be there from May 1-10th, but during most of that time I'll be at the Organizing for Social Change training which I'm hoping isn't a total waste of time. Then Sam (for those that don't know, I'm dating a guy named Sam now) is going to fly out on the 6th, and we are going to have a fun weekend! My work pays for my flight and all but 2nights in the hotel so it shouldn't be too expensive although I've heard SanFran is almost as costly as NYC.

So tips? Suggestions of where to go and not go?

Love!
Sam

Orion's Neurological Adventure

Hi Friends,

So remember Steve Sauter? The Natural History Museum guy?

Well, I emailed him recently to see if he would be a reference for me when I was applying to a couple of places to be a camp nurse for the summer... but he wasn't at Amherst! We're friends on facebook, which is a little weird, but I sent him a message there instead...

Anyways, turns out his son was diagnosed with a brain tumor on Christmas Eve, and so he's been with his son. Amazingly, everything is going really really well with it, but they have been doing this blog from day 1 that is super worth reading.

A very touching story in a cute, super intellectual family kind of way.

http://orionsneurologicaladventure.blogspot.com/2010/12/first-day-thursday-december-23-2010.html

Enjoy.

Megan

Back on the blog! i swear!

Hi Friends --

As usual, I am delinquent about the blog... but I am back! and will attempt to contribute more regularly.

This semester has been nuts.

Between my usual life in three locations -- New Haven, NYC and my parents -- and loads of school work (5 demanding classes) and two clinical sites -- prenatal and BIRTH -- it has been difficult to catch my breath!!

I am feeling super excited about changes and shifts in my life!

1. Moving in with Milo! (It's temporary, we say. 1 year trial. If we don't have fun, we're breaking up. I say this is unlikely, but I also say we've been together for four years, so if this isn't fun, it's time to move on!) Super excited about our apartment -- we move in tomorrow -- in the Lower East Side... lots of lovely cafes, drinking establishments and restaurants... we'll see how much of a bullshit nyc experience it is -- I love new york, but sometimes its dwellers are so damn entitled and irritating. ha!

2. ALMOST A MIDWIFE! I really really love it. I have been doing a lot (and some extra) prenatal clinical lately and it's super fun. I finally feel like I'm getting the content of it better, which let's me relax a little and just have a good time with clients. Now that I actually get what I am supposed to do in prenatal visits I've been able to branch out a little more and talk about other stuff women think and/or I think is important to discuss prenatally. Expectations for birth? Any fears? (it's crazy that talking about fears isn't standard, but it isn't. No time! they say. but I'm a student and I get to take all the time I want. :) ) Baby catching is also awesome!! Haven't caught one for a while now... but I will have an opportunity next week if someone's in labor when I'm there... It is a little scary though -- they come out all slippery! (afraid of dropping)

3. I've been getting pretty good at not getting stressed out. It's not worth it, generally. My strategies: exercise, eat good food, sleep enough, drink water, do one thing at a time, take deep breaths... it will all get done! :)

LOVE LOVE LOVE :)

megan

SXSW

I think it's up to Selena and Carmella to upload some more photos, but here's a taste of what I have (images courtesy of my phone's Hipstamatic app...apropos for this crowd), and a list of bands that we saw, all for free:

Future Birds
Mother Falcon
The Dodos
Twin Shadow
Cass Mccombs
Matt & Kim
The Strokes
The Horde and the Harem
The Guards
Grandchild

These are all fab and deserve a download. Also something I've been liking lately are KEXP Music that Matters podcasts.

Love ya'll, back to school,
Rose

south by south MISSIN YOUSSS

hey y'all from TEXAS! rosie, selens and i have been enjoying the music festival SXSW (south by southwest) here in austin for the past couple of days and it's been complete craziness - in a good way, of course! we have lotsa stories and made tons of fun memories, some maybe involving selena vomiting out the car window?! (but still managing to give me driving directions in between hurls!) don't worry, we have pictures AND video! we came, we saw a trillion bands, we conquered.

other activities included: hipster-watching, eating from fancy food trucks (or "trailers" as the austin-ites like to call them), biking in dresses, marveling at selena's hipster outfits and hipster friends, trying to understand the complex inner workings of selena's social circles, eating chips and salsa at every meal, trying to understand the need for ridiculous hipster facial hair, bumping into celebrities (conan obrien and michael cera are on our list!), and more!

austin, you're pretty awesome. we love you!

chapman folks, you're super awesome and we wish you had been here to party with us!

anyhow, i head back to miami tomorrow and then i'm roadtripping back to new england the first week of april. we're trying to organize a little reunion in or around amherst the weekend of april 9-10 so i hope lotsa y'all can join us (and help me move into my barn!). also, i'm planning on being in nyc and boston in the days before that weekend, and i think i'm going to catch a production of Rent (the musical) at BU that rosie choreographed the dancing for on friday the 8th. also, megan's bday is april 7th = more reason for reunion that weekend?!

hearts, carmella

back from the rainforest

Hello friends! I'm glad that we've been hearing from a few of you silent beauties. Thanks for the updates, pretties! And as always, a big thanks to Selena for getting the ball rolling on the 2012 new years reunion! It's going to be epic, friends. Epic. The world (as we know it) might be ending, but at least Chapman will be UNITED.

In other news, I've returned from Ecuador. My time in the tropics was lovely, and I was sad to leave. But! I left the country with an interesting offer: to be the co-director of this biological reserve which also happens to be my favorite place on the planet (seriously). A dream job, right?
Well, my brain was a jumbled mess for a few days trying to make sense of my life, and in the end, I decided that the job in the jungle wasn't the right next move for me. For one thing, I already have a job (working on a farm in Belchertown starting in April) and also, they wanted me to start asap meaning I would have to drop everything and fly back down to Ecuador (on my own dime) for an extended period of time (at LEAST 2 years. The woman I'd be replacing was in the position for 9 years and was a fixture in the community - tough shoes to fill). As appealing as that all is in theory, I decided to take the "responsible" route and stick to my original plan. Also, the pay was truly a pittance, even for me, and I'm used to being underpaid! (I just found this handy dandy flow chart that would have been helpful last week when I was grappling with this decision. I know you guys and gals will appreciate it - http://www.shouldiworkforfree.com/)
Hopefully, I will get the opportunity to do something like that at some point in my life because I really do think that it's super important work. I just can't make that commitment right now and the responsibility of running a remote biological reserve is a bit scary to me right now...

Otherwise, being back in the rainforest was so wonderful, and I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to return to a place that I've been dreaming about for nearly four years. Each afternoon, after a hard day of hiking and planting in the jungle, I would go down to the river and just soak it all in - the beauty, the sounds, the serenity, the life force that exists there is simply astounding - and every day I would internalize it all and bottle it up inside me to carry with me always. Pictures will never do this place justice, but I will damn well try.

and for more videos from Ecuador, go to my youtube channel. love!!