I promised I'd make them scones!

ever peacefully does the granola drift through the calm sea of whole milk yogurt

I'm a "professor"!

It's a little bit absurd - I'm really only about 1/3 of the way, give or take, toward the proper credentials one needs to be a real professor (and with no real plans on the horizon for that remaining 2/3). Luckily, my clever boss can convince anyone of anything - including, "Of course our [then] development associate who's never taught a day in her life should teach a graduate-level seminar!", and that's how I ended up teaching an awesome course on practical approaches to interfaith work for seminary students. And my students loved me and learned so much, so take that raised-eyebrows-of-a-certain-"on my way to the AAR, of course"-faculty-member-of-a-certain-elite-institution-who-may-or-may- not-have-questioned-my-right-to-teach. In fact, my students were shocked that I had never taught before, I was that good. Ha!

Naturally, I baked breakfast goodies for my students for our last day of class. Because one thing people of all faiths share is eating. Even those nutty ascetics eat, even if it is just locusts and honey.

(I'd like to note that this is the second time in less than a week that I've managed to wrangle myself an opportunity to cook "for work". It tricks me into thinking that I'm a chef for a living, sigh.)

While filling their bellies with lavender-scented banana bread, homemade granola with whole milk yogurt, and cheddar dill scones, a certain student said, "Over the last year, I've eaten a lot. A lot. And I am pretty sure this banana bread is the best thing I've eaten in all of 2006."

Chef Yum Yum know who's getting an A!

(There are just too many recipes for plain old banana bread out there for me to think it's a good idea to make up my own. I was going to link to one on Epicurious that I like a lot, but their server is down and I'm feeling impatient. Look for the one with the whole stick of butter and the lemon-curdled milk. To make my Lavender-Scented Banana Bread, I just add about 3 tablespoons dried lavender blossoms, crushed a bit with a mortar and pestle to the batter right at the end. Megan told me it tastes like yoga; I think it tastes like a garden - most likely victorian - just about to burst forth after a long cold winter. A nice little mid-december dream.)