Something more like normal

This is the start of my last 2 weeks in Arizona. We're in the "winding down" phase of the experiment, finally.

I have that "I feel like I should have gotten more writing done" feeling.

I did manage to squeeze in time on one time-sensitive writing project, at least. And I'm expecting to have a bit more headspace after the students leave at the end of this week. We really did need to get data collected during ant season, anyway.

It's funny - I thought we'd be able to set up some sort of cooking schedule for the month the students are in town, but it really hasn't worked out that way, at all. For one thing, I'm on a different schedule from them because as it turns out I'm a morning person and they are all night owls. For another thing, we have wound up needing to stay late at the lab on the days immediately after we've been traveling, so there hasn't been a good way to plan ahead and bring in food for dinners. They're all a little less reluctant than I am to eat out, so the net effect has been that I've done most of the cooking.

And I can't say that I mind, really, because it's really not that much more work to cook for multiple people compared to just cooking for myself. And I do enjoy culinary challenges, like:

Make stir fry with only limited marinade ingredients and to feed someone who can't do aliums (garlic and onions). (marinade: lime juice, Louisiana hot sauce, soy sauce, vegetable oil, cumin, honey, a bit of water. Not half bad!).

Make guacamole under similar constraints (added tomatoes, lime juice, salt, cumin, hot sauce).

I've also been experimenting with vegan ingredients because the non-alium eater also has to be careful about legumes and has been vegan except for fish for religious reasons.

Last night's pasta salad unfortunately came out rather bland, but at least that's an outcome that can be doctored, right?