Current mood:	pleased
Entry tags:	cooking, school, vegan

Graduation! Bread! How to fill up on vegan food!
First off, I graduated with honors in Feminist Studies. Whoo! I'm in consideration for all those types of honors (Magna Cum Laude, etc.) that depend on class standing, too. I got back my grades for the quarter, as well: A, A-, and B+, which is quite good, especially since I had senioritis and procrastinated rather more than I should have. I'm still looking for something for the fall, but I feel good about the one interview I had. I also need to start studying for the GRE, since I haven't taken a class that required any math skills whatsoever for a year and a half or so. I've heard that it's generally like the SAT though, so I'm not really worried.

In other news, I've started making bread. I had previously made pizza dough and sort of cinnamon-y buns (they were supposed to be pan dulce, but I fiddled with them) with pretty good results, but that's it for my previous yeasted bread experience. But for a potluck at the end of the quarter, I made vegan challah, and when my parents and grandparents came up for graduation weekend I made it again. Some people were astonished that it was vegan, and everyone who tried it liked it.

For the potluck. I wrapped a dish towel around it and stuck it in a paper bag, hugging it to my chest so it wouldn't be damaged, since I had another class beforehand. It was really hard not to just eat it!


The second one. Photo taken by my lovely mother. :)

Friday of graduation weekend I spoke at my department's 'senior celebration'. I presented a paper I had written for my senior seminar, entitled "Okinawa: health and militarization in historical context". Afterwards there was a carrot cake with marzipan slugs on top and slug trails made of jam (banana slugs are our mascot) and my advisor came to tell me and my family how well I'd done and that she thought I would make a great librarian, because of my dedication to in-depth research and my curiosity, picking different subjects for the final paper in each class. I was touched, and also surprised - I hadn't realized that most students write their papers on one or several themes rather than using them to explore new things.

That night I made the bread, and served it with a root vegetable bake and a kale-white bean dish. It was really filling, which surprised me a bit. I had the same experience with the tempeh tacos with spicy slaw I made tonight. This leads me to conclude that the ideal mix for a filling vegan or vegetarian dinner (both of these were vegan) is tons of veggies with a decent serving of protein, moderate amounts of starch, and some healthy fat. This is exciting, because one of my main problems as a vegan was that I felt hungry most of the time, perhaps due to not much veggies and too little good fat. If I can fill up this well on vegan stuff, I can reduce my dairy and egg consumption no problem (I have been doing so lately, especially since I decided I didn't want to buy milk so often after a bunch went bad).