"mmm tastes like my thesis!" -or- Lenten Lentils

"How's your coffee?"
"mmm, it tastes like my thesis!"
"WHAT?"

-Matthias and I, around 10pm last night

It's almost time for me to go make dinner, so I'm thinking about food. The dining halls are closed during break, so my roommate and I have been alternating cooking dinner and tonight's my turn.

Both of us stayed around here to work on our theses. Needless to day our topics have begun seeping into our lives in unexpected ways - especially in our food.

The Roommate is writing her thesis for Medieval Studies on some Eastern Monks. Last night was her turn to cook, so we got Lentil Soup - inspired by those monks! Some account she was reading (in Greek, mind you) told the story of some monk eating lentils who then went nuts when some rich man came. The monk took the rich man to be a devil tempting him to leave his austerity. So we ate lentils.

Another such story:
On Sunday Matthias and I were at Subway for lunch and The Roommate walked in. Being so studious, she was reading one of her sources while standing in line. I began to explain to Matthias what she was thinking as she approached the counter. One of these monastic characters, my favorite, was a stylite who lived in a tree; so, since she was reading her source, I took her thought process to go something like this:

"hmm trees, trees, stylite in a tree, leaves, lots of leaves around the stylite - oh! what do I want? - leaves, trees, leaves - oh! I'll have lettuce!"

"Lettuce? Is that all?" asked Matthias.
"I don't know," I replied still attempting to read The Roommate's mind. "I don't know if she got anything else, just lettuce."

(Neither of us could actually see what was being put on the sub since we were too far away and my back was to the counter.)

I asked her later what kind of sub she got - it was veggie!

Ha! I win! I can read my roommate's mind!


As for my coffee, as I explained to the confused Matthias who surely thought I'd finally lost all sanity, the coffee I had just made was the same type we make at work over the summer. And my summer job has a direct connection to my thesis and features in it - so drinking the coffee I drink there reminds me of that place and thus tastes like my thesis.

Time to go cook dinner.