Pie!

Last Thursday after dinner a couple of us were sitting and chatting and someone suggested that ice cream would be delicious. It was observed that the nearest ice cream place that is open later than 5pm is about a 40 min walk away. After considering this for a little while, we decided to go anyway :-). It was a very pleasant walk and since it was just getting dark the fireflies (incidentally, I have realized that I alternate randomly between calling them fireflies and lightning bugs... I wonder where I picked up which name...) were all out. I had forgotten how pretty they are! It is really too bad that we don't have them at Mudd... The ice cream was tasty (I had German chocolate with pecans and coconut) . We took a different route back to the dorms - I have to admit that I find residential neighborhoods rather more interesting than walking past used car lot after used car lot, but it was still a reasonably nice walk.

It was observed that yesterday (6/28) could be considered 2pi day and as such was determined that there needed to be pie. We made three pies - apple, strawberry rhubarb, and cherry. Making pie crust when it is extremely humid is quite the adventure (made even more so by the fact that the closest thing we had to a rolling pin was a coffee mug...), but we managed. It was relatively late in the day when we finally got around to baking and one of our professors (Jorge) had invited us all over for lunch today( Sunday) so we decided to save the pies to take with us to lunch.

Jorge and his wife are from Peru, so lunch included ceviche, yucca root and Peruvian corn (in addition to some of the sorts of food you would be more likely to expect at a barbecue). I had heard of ceviche, but never had it, and from what I had heard I was rather skeptical - fish "cooked" by leaving it in lime juice overnight rather than using heat just did not sound terribly appealing, especially as I am not generally a huge fan of seafood. However, I try to make a point out of trying everything at least once - and today reminded me why. It was absolutely delicious, especially with the yucca!

The pies went over well. It is always interesting to note which pies get finished first... Today the strawberry rhubarb was finished and the apple was down to one piece before anyone took the cherry. I had never had strawberry rhubarb before but friends have been telling me for some time that I needed to learn to make it, and I had happened to notice rhubarb at the grocery store, so I figured I might as well try. I was somewhat surprised at how excited people got at the prospect of rhubarb pie - prior to going to college I had never even encountered the idea (or at least had not taken note of the idea)- but it really is quite good.

We then spent the afternoon playing Scattergories and chatting with the professors and their wives (or at least I did, some people watched the soccer Euro 2008 final game and some movie). Overall, it was a very pleasant afternoon. :-)

Math is going well. I'm working on planning out a series of "higher level math for the non-mathematician" posts that will work toward giving you an idea of what it is I am working on this summer.

I have finished Bleak House and will be starting in on Great Expectations (also by Dickens) next. It is really interesting to be reading several of Dickens's novels in succession. I am noticing recurring character types and situations between the novels that I almost certainly would not have noticed if the other novels we not so current in my mind.