En route to New Orleans, I found myself in my haunting grounds for just under a week. Reflecting on my time in Durham, all I can say is that catching up with academic advisers and friends alike was a real treat. I love the community I am a part of at Duke and was happy to realize, once again, how important Durham is to me.
On Thursday morning, I headed to Guglhupf, a German bakery that my friend Lin and I used to frequent on our weekly (and sometimes bi-weekly) study sessions. Lin and I met up there to reminisce and bring a little bit of my past Durham life back into the present. I had to chuckle when one of the waiters clearly recognized me as an old regular who fell off the radar for an entire summer.
The scrambled eggs on fresh baguette bread was as delicious as I remembered and the coffee was o-so-satisfying. More importantly, Lin and I fell back into our normal routines of catching up on each other's lives and updating each other on our most recent culinary and cultural adventures in the Raleigh-Durham area.
After several hours at G-hupf and a meeting with the Director of our department, I headed home to do a bit of baking. This baking session actually had an academic-ish purpose. I was baking my grandmother Jean's pineapple upsidedown cake and some traditional Creole cornbread for a photo shoot at Perkins Libary the next morning. You may have seen on facebook that I recently won second prize in the National Collegiate Book Collectors Competition for my historic Creole cookbook collection. Upon heading about the win, Duke Libraries decided to feature me in their Alumni Magazine and needed to get a few shots of me with my cookbooks. How cool!
So, I spent the afternoon putting my grandma Jean's cast iron skillets to good use and was happy to make a double batch to share with Meggan and our good friend Valerie:
Later that night, Meggan and I met up with another fabulous friend of our, Kshama. We headed for Prohibition-style cocktails at a fabulous bar called Whiskey. They used to have live jazz on Thursday nights. To our great disappointment, they had suspended those performances in the summer because they were not lucrative for the bar.
The next morning, I headed to my photo shoot for the Duke Libraries' Crazy Smart advertisement campaign. I had a blast! I felt special because I was given permission to park right in front of the Duke Chapel (during Homecoming weekend at that)! The advertisement will come out in January or February. Until then, I have to keep the shots under lock and key.
After an extremely helpful Duke Digital History Working Group meeting about Database creation and a wonderful meeting with my adviser at Foster's Market in Chapel Hill, I headed to the History Department party (which, lucky for me, fell during my short trip to Durham). It was so nice to catch up with so many old friends (and make some new friends in the first year cohort too). The food was delicious, the drinks were strong, and I think everyone was happy to indulge in the study break.
On Thursday morning, I headed to Guglhupf, a German bakery that my friend Lin and I used to frequent on our weekly (and sometimes bi-weekly) study sessions. Lin and I met up there to reminisce and bring a little bit of my past Durham life back into the present. I had to chuckle when one of the waiters clearly recognized me as an old regular who fell off the radar for an entire summer.
The scrambled eggs on fresh baguette bread was as delicious as I remembered and the coffee was o-so-satisfying. More importantly, Lin and I fell back into our normal routines of catching up on each other's lives and updating each other on our most recent culinary and cultural adventures in the Raleigh-Durham area.
After several hours at G-hupf and a meeting with the Director of our department, I headed home to do a bit of baking. This baking session actually had an academic-ish purpose. I was baking my grandmother Jean's pineapple upsidedown cake and some traditional Creole cornbread for a photo shoot at Perkins Libary the next morning. You may have seen on facebook that I recently won second prize in the National Collegiate Book Collectors Competition for my historic Creole cookbook collection. Upon heading about the win, Duke Libraries decided to feature me in their Alumni Magazine and needed to get a few shots of me with my cookbooks. How cool!
So, I spent the afternoon putting my grandma Jean's cast iron skillets to good use and was happy to make a double batch to share with Meggan and our good friend Valerie:
Later that night, Meggan and I met up with another fabulous friend of our, Kshama. We headed for Prohibition-style cocktails at a fabulous bar called Whiskey. They used to have live jazz on Thursday nights. To our great disappointment, they had suspended those performances in the summer because they were not lucrative for the bar.
The next morning, I headed to my photo shoot for the Duke Libraries' Crazy Smart advertisement campaign. I had a blast! I felt special because I was given permission to park right in front of the Duke Chapel (during Homecoming weekend at that)! The advertisement will come out in January or February. Until then, I have to keep the shots under lock and key.
After an extremely helpful Duke Digital History Working Group meeting about Database creation and a wonderful meeting with my adviser at Foster's Market in Chapel Hill, I headed to the History Department party (which, lucky for me, fell during my short trip to Durham). It was so nice to catch up with so many old friends (and make some new friends in the first year cohort too). The food was delicious, the drinks were strong, and I think everyone was happy to indulge in the study break.
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