Apple cobbler, revisited

Today graduates holding bouquets of flowers, stuffed animals and cameras invaded campus. They also filled the canteen, which mixed up several lunch orders in response. Fried noodles with pork became fried rice with chicken. BBQ pork with sausage became BBQ pork with duck. Coca-Cola became lemon tea. And some dish with tomatoes became some dish with tofu, peaches, pineapples, rice, and mysterious green vegetables. Only the friends who ordered club sandwiches weren't disappointed.

After lunch we bought the missing apple cobbler ingredients (not many, with all the leftovers from International Day): flour, apples, and ice cream. Dreyer's vanilla, which I would have been highly suspicious of if I hadn't already known that it's legitimate and not some bizarre Breyer's-Edy's copy-cat. The similarity to Breyer's is unfortunate, but its logo is allowed to look like Edy's because it is Edy's. Or rather, Edy's is Dreyer's wherever Breyer's is sold.

Anyway, the flour came in a nifty box.

No peeling or slicing or measuring or stirring for me!
This time I only needed to press buttons on the microwave.

I also needed to knock on half the doors in my hall because I'd forgotten the room number of my friend from fencing (I only knew she lived on the right side). After International Day I'd promised to show her how to make apple cobbler and last night she'd jumped up and down with joy when I told her we'd be making some today. She said before International Day she'd never eaten a dessert with real apples (in contrast to apple flavoring, not in contrast to fake apples). The first time around she wasn't in her room, but 1/2 hour later, yay! I found her.

Mmm...hot apple cobbler (fresh from the microwave) with ice cream on top...

Of course, the complete experience would have included some New England autumn foliage and maybe some sweaters. Or at least long pants. Actually, I only miss the idea of cold weather (even though I used to love cold weather above all else--I don't understand!). I don't miss jackets, sleeves, mittens, scarves. Okay, maybe I miss my scarf. A little. But only because it's bright red.

And for dinner some friends made salad: lettuce, corn (near disaster until we found a can opener), avocado, tuna, cheese, and Thousand Island dressing. And someone brought persimmons, which I'd never tried before. Yum! They don't taste like tomatoes (anymore than cream soda tastes like ginger ale; I really need to stop predicting flavors based on outward appearances). They're sweet and sloppy and would probably qualify as a top ten favorite fruit, but as I've never calculated such a list I can't say so with complete certainty. Pomegranates, pears, peaches, plums, (no this isn't a list of fruits beginning with "p." it's a coincidence I never noticed before), raspberries (they belong earlier in the list), fresh blueberries, kiwis...yes, I'd say persimmons fit in after kiwis.

For dessert: more cobbler.