My summer semester is finally over. I literally went brain dead the minute I handed in my last paper. I have been zombified in front of the TV ever since, baking to death in my apartment. Trying to finish up my final projects during that heatwave was a total nightmare. I literally had a few moments when I thought I was going to fail due to my brain cooking itself.

Now I have an entire precious month off before I start my thesis. So far it's consisted of lots of gym time and yoga classes, cooking, "Project Runway," "Workout," anything on VH1, and The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pepin. What a cool guy! He was the private chef for Charles De Gaulle, and he designed menus for Howard Johnson's! HoJo's! I love it. Who knew that Jacques Pepin is to thank for improving HoJo's clam chowder? (Well, probably a lot of people but I had no idea):

One of Howard Johnson's most popular standbys was clam chowder. People loved it. Most restauranteurs would have told us not to try and fix what was not broken. But Mr. Johnson gave us carte blanche to tinker. Out went the chowder's dehydrated onion flakes, and in went fresh onions. Real potatoes replaced frozen ones. We put in garlic instead of garlic powder, butter rather than margarine. The texture became lighter and livelier with the addition of real stock.

They needed Jacques Pepin for this? Scary. I wonder if he had anything to do with the delicious ice cream sodas I used to get when I was little when our family traveled down to Rhode Island to spend a few weeks at the beach. Yum...