Category: Food & Nutrition

May 25, 2019

!Azucar! My Sweetest Indulgences in Havana

When I’m traveling, I’m not much of an adventurous eater unless it comes to dessert food.  In Thailand, it was mango sticky rice, in Ghana it was kelewele, Paris it was crepes and gelato….I could go on.  With that said, Havana is no different and maybe a bit worse because sugarcane is such a major crop, and I’m here doing...

Categories fieldwork/Food & Nutrition

March 11, 2019

Grocery Haul: March 2019

Grand total: $36.38 You might notice that my total this month is about a third of what it usually is. That’s because my goal right now is to use up whatever food I have since I’m leaving for fieldwork later this month (insert ugly tears). I have a bunch of random things left like tuna, string beans and lentils.  Thus,...

Categories Food & Nutrition/Saving Money/Uncategorized

February 18, 2019

A.M. Recipe: Cabbage Kielbasa Soup

My undergrad bestie, Krystal, is an amazing cook and blogger at DC Brown Sugar Bakery.  She has agreed to curate a few quick, healthy and student-friendly recipes to “fit” (pun intended) the Academic Muscle audience.  Enjoy! It’s halfway through February 2019, which means that by now, resolutions  made a month ago unfortunately might be broken by now.  In 2018, 45%...

Categories Food & Nutrition/Uncategorized

January 21, 2019

A des(s)erted library

It’s officially 32 days until my qualifying exam, and this has been a week of completely eating my feelings. It’s not that I’m feeling particularly sweet, rather salty. The fact is that when I’m stressed, I crave carbs and especially sugary baked goods. I wouldn’t call myself an emotional eater, but I don’t believe in denying myself. If anything, my...

Categories Food & Nutrition/The Academy

January 7, 2019

Grocery Haul: January 2019

Grand Total: $80.77 Quite honestly, with finals, grading and vacation, my grocery shopping got all out of wack.  I did a lot of eating out, snacking, making multiple random trips to the grocery story but not coming out with anything I could turn into a meal etc…… Somehow, I managed to make it to Winter Break.  Now that it’s January,...

Categories Food & Nutrition/Saving Money

October 25, 2018

I tried it: Açaí Bowls

I’m leaving for fieldwork in approximately 5 months.  I’m EXTREMELY grateful (and still genuinely surprised, blessed, mystified, etc) to have received the very first dissertation grant that I applied for typos and all.  No matter how many people try to tell me that my nervousness is just excitement in disguise, I beg to differ.  I’m going to miss NYC, the people, the...

Categories Food & Nutrition/The Academy

October 16, 2018

Grocery Haul: October 2018

Grand Total: $101.63 Happy fall!  This month I’m really trying to be intentional about eating more, hence why my TJ’s bill keeps creeping higher and higher (FYI I don’t just shop at TJ’s–I’ll explain my strategy in a later post).  My desire to eat more isn’t just about preparing for winter hibernation.  Because of my under eating, I often wake...

Categories Food & Nutrition/Saving Money

August 27, 2018

When good decisions go bland

More and more I find myself dissecting the nutrition facts on the back of foods before I purchase them.  I’m becoming that person; however, it’s sort of a necessity because ensuring that I get enough protein in my diet is a daily struggle.  This is on top of the fact that there’s often hidden sugars and other ingredients that manufacturers ...

Categories Food & Nutrition/Saving Money

August 8, 2018

Date balls anyone?

In this month’s grocery haul, I talked about making use of the cashews I bought from TJ’s by incorporating them into this tasty and easy to make snack.  This may be one of few cooking post I ever write, so that’s how you know these date balls are special. A year ago, I didn’t know what a dates were.  I...

Categories Food & Nutrition

August 5, 2018

Grocery Haul: August 2018

Grand total: $92.29 This month’s total was slightly higher primarily because I went nuts for nuts and other dried fruits.  I bought cashews, two bags of almonds, trail mix, golden raisins, normal (brown?) raisins, and coconut flakes. I knew that I would be spending a lot of time sitting down in front of a computer, so it was important to...

Categories Food & Nutrition