I'm loving spaghetti squash.

 

(C) HEAB.

This vegetarian recipe for faux Mac N Cheese can be found over at Heather Eats Almond Butter.

Pumpkin penne: A firm yes vote.

To Pumpkin Pasta, I say yes.


Creamy Pumpkin Pasta
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsp olive oil

1 pound package of Sweet Italian Turkey Sausage (removed from its casing)
2/3 cup to 2 cups pumpkin puree (depending on your personal taste)

1 can chicken broth
¼ cup half & half
½ cup sour cream (low-fat or fat free)

¼ tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp white pepper

1 tsp sage
2 tbsp fresh parsley, minced
¼ cup Romano Cheese, shredded
1 pound penne or rotini pasta

In a large skillet sauté the garlic in the olive oil on medium heat. Add the turkey sausage and cook until no longer pink, breaking the meat up with your spoon as you cook it. Remove turkey sausage and garlic from the skillet.

Pour the chicken broth into the skillet and deglaze the pan using a wire whisk, to bring up all of the flavors stuck to the pan. Whisk in the half and half, sour cream, pumpkin, and seasonings. Simmer for ten minutes.

Meanwhile, boil the pasta in salted water until al dente. Drain pasta and stir into the pumpkin mixture along with the turkey sausage, simmering for another three minutes or until the sauce thickens and hugs the pasta.

Stir in parsley and garnish with Romano and more parsley.





Note:  If the sauce is too thick, thin it with a little addition of chicken broth until you get it to the right consistency.

Who else rocked it?  Modite.

Name your price: how much is too much to pay for a baccalaureate?

 

Put your money where your mouth is by Bex Finch.

How much is too much to pay for a year of college?

When I first applied to college as a meddling senior in high school circa 2001, there were roughly four prices:

$36,000+: Private schools.
$20,000+: Public universities (at out-of-state tuition cost)
$12,000+: Public universities (in-state tuition cost)
$cheap: Community colleges

The New York Times reports that 58 private colleges charged more than $50,000 this year for tuition, fees, room and board, compared with only five last year [Source].

Granted, elite institutions also tend to offer some of the most comprehensive financial aid packages due to their wealthy (and generous) alumni and internal financing diversification. However, even the best financial aid offerings often don't approach the $50,000 mark in grants or scholarships.  The difference is generally always made up in loans.

How long can these costs continue to rise?

(And is it total poppycock to imagine a world where private colleges charge $75,000 a year?  $100,000 per year?)

The bloated price tag gives way to bloated expectations from students and their financial backers (often times including their families, scholarship foundations, student loan lenders, and communities at large).

Although an over-simplification, classic supply and demand theory suggests that so long as students continue to pay exorbitant amounts of money for the privilege of attending these schools, the institutions will continue to raise tuition. 

And provided the high hopes and expectations of their student body-- these schools are, in some ways, bound to continually provide outstanding service, resources, and access.

Question:  in an increasingly global higher education market, where are the limits?

A changing landscape: the 24-hour university?

 (T-shirt design, above, available at Threadless.)

Would you sign up for English Composition 200 held Wednesday nights from 10:00pm-11:45pm?

How about Psychology 101, beginning at midnight and stretching until 2:00am? 

Access for students in higher education has been extended in very real ways: community colleges around the country are offering courses that start as late as midnight, and end as late as 2am.

No surprise here: Community colleges around the country are experiencing booms in enrollment during these tough economic times, according to a recent article in the New York Times.  An emerging coping method with these bloated enrollment figures is to offer courses outside standard times, including both late-night and early morning courses (some beginning around 6am!)

What do these late-night courses present as considerations for our higher educational climate?

• They provide access to courses for students who work atypical hours, live alternative lifestyles, or plainly prefer nighttime hours,
  
  
• They accommodate instructors who fall in the same categories,
  
  
• They make a call for late-hour student services (tutoring services, parking monitors, safety officers, academic advisors, finance advisors, veterans' services, resource centers, libraries, etc.) on campuses,
  
  
• They make a case for additional support around key student health issues (like over-taxing it, developing harmful drug dependencies, or getting inadequate sleep),
  
  
• A furthering of our climate of open access and convenience,
  
  
• Additional commodification of formal education.
  

The question that invariably comes up is, when, if ever, do we learn best? And, do we all learn around the same times? There's something to be said for circadian rhythms, and wakefulness, but I'm no neuroscientist and I'm not going to delve into that debate just yet.

One thing I do know, however, is that adult students (and arguably all learners) learn best when their stress levels are low.

I hypothesize: for students who experience above average stress in a later night course (for whatever reason), a late-night course offering can be detrimental to overall learning regardless of perceived convenience.

However, for students who actually experience lower levels of stress in a later night course, these midnight showings may very well be an optimal choice.

Take stock of what's in front of you, said she.

Things I've done so far this week:

• Gone to bed early  (It's only Tuesday! Yesss)
  
• Visited the Portland Art Museum (and caught a little one-on-one action with the visiting Raphael)
• Finished two mixed CDs for my best friend ("So Far Gone"-- an ode to moving, and "Take On The World")
• Woke up early and cooked myself breakfast
• Ran a 5k race
• Ate two different kinds of lasagna (at a friend's dinner party)
• Watched the first two episodes of True Blood on DVD
• Survived a torrential downpour on the way into work
• Mailed a bill

Because Teddy R says go for it!

Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.   --Theodore Roosevelt.

How I cope with the changing of seasons

It is Autumn in Portland and this week I'm dealing with it by rocking bright red sneakers for my commute.  Unashamed.

On the value of dancing solo

Sometimes you just gotta dance it out all by your lonesome.

Because being that guy feels so good.

A quote that struck me today

Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.
- John le Carre, "The Chancellor Who Agreed To Play Spy", The New York Times, May 8, 1974

On the value of going for it

Sometimes, we just gotta pick somewhere to start and go for it.

My grandfather captures this with CAVU: Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited (this from the man who built his own airplane in his late 60s and then flew it).

It means, between the lines, go the fuck for it.