The. Move.

Mega, mega writer's block on the food front. Apologies. We're moving to California next month, and I think that the 'cleaning out the pantry' mentality is having devastating effects on the quality of our dinners. It's hard to work up enthusiasm for cooking or eating when the mentality revolves around cans, leftovers, minimum purchases, and just making do.

It's going to be epic, the move I mean. We both start graduate school in Berkeley in August, but what happens between now and then is less regimented. Do, as our resident scientist, is to report for duty at a Berkeley lab as soon as humanly possible. My program has no such expectations and I absolutely refuse to lift a pinkie finger this summer: it'll be my first summer without a job or internship or scholastic requirement since pre-high school. So we've cut a deal: Do moves out in early June and gets to find us a place to live, my family and I pack up all our stuff and load it in a pod, and then my Dad and I drive the car across the country. Don't even talk to me about gas prices.

The father-daughter cross-country drive is going to be a ball. My Dad, characteristically, has gone a head and planned out every day, every stop, every motel. Phase 1 will snake us through the South-East, visiting much of my paternal side of the family (free bed!), a civil war battlefield, a renowned Bar-B-Q joint, and an ice cream factory, before landing us in Austin for a week plus. [My folks have retired to Austin, and I haven't gotten a chance to spend more than a long weekend there]. Then phase 2 will be new territory to me: El Paso, Tucson, Pasadena, Fresno, and finally, the Bay Area. We should roll in to Berkeley in mid-July.

Needless to say, suggestions about places to hit up on the way, food-related or otherwise, are more than welcome!

We haven't yet figured out how/how often we'll be able to stay in touch with you all. We don't even know if you'd be interested in my adventures from the road (mmm, truck stop food. Again.), or in Do's photoless cooking attempts while he crashes in Oakland with a bachelor buddy from college.

I'll definitely at least try to do something. Even this mini-break from blogging has left me really missing you guys.

Finally, tonight, we have a free evening and several dishes on the backburner. Expect some real, food blogging very soon!