brunchin' it up for the summer...

Meet my girls, Yu-Chen and Yi-Ting. We have been on this doctoral journey together for what is going on our third year. I can personally testify that I would not still be here if it were not for these strong and courageous women. We have aged. We have laughed. We have cried (quite a bit actually...). We have raged in anger (ok, it is usually I raging in anger) and we have listened patiently (ok, it is usually them listening patiently). Our conversation has ranged from men in our lives (good and bad) to the workings of God in our lives (understood and not understood) to the point of this doctorate in our lives (the jury's still out on that one), and that is just a blink of what it is we find to talk about. Basically, we are living life together, and our lives (or mine at least) are better for it.

This summer Yi-Ting initiated a weekly brunch, and we took turns hosting. Let me tell you, we are talented in areas beyond music and teaching: we know how to eat. (Actually, it may be more appropriate to say that we know how to cook, because, man, we were cookin' and eatin' well over these past few months...)

Some of our brunches were not captured on film (but imagine waffles heaped with pecans, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs), and some were lost when Yu-Chen's camera was lost (the ones capturing Yu-Chen's various variations on French Toast--you had no idea french toast could be so sinfully delicious.) Every week we outdid the last.

Yi-Ting at one point decided we needed to have an authentic Asian brunch, so she made
some Asian dishes that I do not know the name of. One looked like an eggroll (and can be seen in the picture at the beginning--I'm holding it because she gave us the freedom to make our own, and I couldn't put mine down or it would fall apart. :-/), and the other was this bowl of sausage goodness.

These pecan sticky buns went with the hash and eggs pictured above at my first hosting, and today we finished off our summer at my house with cheddar cheese omelettes, bacon, and country bread. Included also was a delightful fruit salad, since our tradition has become that every week the visiting (non-hosting) members of the trio brought some kind of fruit. We are so health-conscious.


We were hoping that the three of us would be sharing an office this year, which would have been very beneficial toward our mental and emotional health, but sadly Yu-Chen will be only next door to Yi-Ting and I. I don't know if we will have the time to continue our brunching, or if we will even see poor Yu-Chen (Yi-Ting is stuck with me, so she has no choice poor thing...) once the semester gets under way but I am grateful for a good summer of good friends and good eating.

I think I'm going to go forage for some food now--I'm hungry! ;-)