The free life

Now that I have successfully leapt across the comps hurdle, I can be at peace, or atleast I should be. I am handling my free time pretty poorly, I have almost no interest in anything other than cooking and traveling, but when I do these two I feel pretty great. Mike and I made a day trip to Ithaca. The place has a gazillion waterfalls and we checked out one called Buttermilk waterfalls. We practically had the place to ourselves. Then we drove through Cornell university (it must be a dream to live there, they have these perfectly delightful coy but comfortable and splendid looking houses, and the lake and all those well maintained lawns and greenery and a botanical garden, fuck), and then along the Cayuga lake (note: plan ahead for winery tours) and finally plonked our asses on a secluded bench in the state park.

Syracuse itself is looking all the sweeter for summer. One day, when it was nice and sunny, we decided to just get out and bathe in the sun. We were aimlessly driving to some park or the other, when we discovered that the rose garden near school was in full bloom. I feel like an old woman saying this, but I am definitely keeping a garden when I have my own house. When I die I would like to leave behind a garden for a legacy.

As for cooking, it was a success for most part. I really wish there were more people around, achaamma, someone to feed the stuff I cook. I tried out this caramel cake (highly recommended, minus the vanilla in the caramel sauce), which I've been wanting to make for a long time now, some snickerdoodle cookies, appam (proudest cooking moment ever), chilly beef and lemon and garlic chicken, which was okay but nothing great. Below I present some of these. They look lame cos I took them from my Samsung galaxy no S phone.