Duck curry (not) in a duck!

I hope there are people out there on the internet who still read my blog. I haven't been very good at updating it. And some big things have happened since my last post. (BTW, in case the internet is wondering, I didn't get the job I interviewed for that I talked about in the last post. Oh well.) One of these days I'll blog about some of that other stuff.

Now for something completely different.

Last Thanksgiving, I took this really great trip to Chicago. I hadn't been to Chicago before. (Well...technically not true; I once spent about 3-4 hours walking around downtown about 10 years ago, and ate the best pizza ever; but I'm not sure the trip really counts.) So I planned this random trip. One really great thing about it was that I secretly met up with Scott (who was living in SLC at the time), back when we were in this kind-of-sort-of-I-don't-really-know-what's-going-on phase. (Well, I was anyway. Clearly he was past that phase, since he flew to Chicago to spend a few days with me.) This trip was actually pivotal in helping me move out of that phase. And all I was looking for was some good pizza. Then we got married in August. (See? I told you some major stuff has happened.) Anyway, that's another story.

The point of this post is that while we were in Chicago, we ate at this fantastic Thai restaurant and Scott ordered this:

It's duck curry! In a duck! Duck curry in a duck. This dish was so exciting and tasty, we still talk about it regularly.

Tonight we recreated the dish in our own kitchen. We followed a recipe for duck curry from the Pioneer Woman, including making our own Thai red curry paste. It didn't take as long to get it together as one may suspect. The result:

This was amazing. It was very flavorful and spicy, and although the fire in my mouth felt contained, I soon realized I was sweating through all of dinner. (I'm not even kidding. And it wasn't because we didn't have the AC on.) Scott was not sweating. He can take the heat better than I can. But we already knew that.

Duck curry in a duck!

Job Interview in New York

You won't believe this, but I'm blogging and it's not because I saw a bear.

I had a job interview about 2 weeks ago. I'm applying for tenure-track faculty jobs at primarily undergraduate institutions. Finding such academic jobs can be a rough, long process. This is the third year in a row that I've applied for jobs. Ugh. Anyway, the good news is, since I do have at least one more year at JMU if needed, this year job applications were somewhat less stressful. But still stressful.

Anyway, my job interview was at at SUNY-Geneseo. (State University of New York, the campus located in Geneseo, NY, south of Rochester about 30 minutes.) I had a skype interview with them a couple months ago, felt good about it, and was excited when I got invited back for a campus interview. The interview was 1.5 days, I met with a bunch of people, including all the physics department faculty, some of the department and university staff (provosts, deans, etc.), and students. It's a great department! I think I'd be happy there (aside from the weather....brr!!). We'll see what happens. I should know in a couple more weeks.

I flew into Rochester and rented a car. My interview ended on a Friday afternoon around 2 or 3, and my flight wasn't until the next day at noon. So I took advantage of free time and tried to see some of the area. Turns out I was only an hour and a half from Niagara Falls, so I drove there. That place is so, so, so cool. Go see it if you haven't!

Though it was so cold!!
 

I have been to Niagara once before, when I was driving from Albany to Austin. But we saw it from the Canada side, which is much better. But I didn't bring my passport on this trip (why would I have??), so I couldn't cross the border this time. :( But I was sorely tempted.

But I was glad that I got to see the New York side. I went over to Goat Island to get a better view of the main Horseshoe Falls (which was tricky, since it was getting dark) and found the statue of Nikola Tesla! Totally worth it.

The arch behind him is entryway to the first hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls. Go Tesla! Way to bring the world electricity!

And yeah, it started getting a little dark. You can't tell, but that's Horseshoe Falls.

And then my camera (aka, phone) died.

I was starting to get really, really cold, so I left and went to dinner at a local diner I found called "Mom's Restaurant." It was amazing! I ate two mugs of hot chocolate, tomato and macaroni soup, freshly baked bread, home fries, and grilled chicken with grilled peppers. Oh yeah, and a piece of chocolate cream pie. Wow, now that I've typed that out, it sounds a little excessive. But I did take leftovers out!

I drove back to Geneseo, packed up my stuff. I left early the next morning and drove over to Palmyra, NY. I had made an appointment to go to the temple that morning at 7:30. It's a little under an hour drive from Geneseo. It's a super small temple, but really beautiful. Enjoyed the morning!

I found a local diner for breakfast just outside Palmyra. Sadly, the food was not particularly good, despite good reviews on Google. (Who knew it was possible to really mess up home fries?) Alas.

From there I had to hurry straight to the airport and catch my flight to Utah for spring break. I had a great trip to New York, if there is any news to share on the job front in the next few weeks, I will keep you all updated!

That thing they say about Virginia

I went to Utah for the holidays. I flew back to Virginia on a red eye flight from SLC. When I went through security around 11:30pm, there was almost no one in line. As I handed the TSA agent my boarding pass and drivers license, he looked at it and said, "Virginia, eh? So, is it true what they say about Virginia?" In this sort of awkward moment he created, I responded by being equally awkward, sort of bumbling and saying, "Oh, uh, well, yeah, I mean, I guess, I mean...." He then said, "You know? That thing they say about Virginia? That Virginia has produced more presidents of the United States than any other state." Oh. Yeah, that is true. Definitely not where I thought that conversation was going. I got a good laugh out of it. (And at the time acted like I knew that was exactly what the agent was talking about the whole time.)