first day of school

... actually, the first day of no-school. It was a bit weird watching Sean pack up his school things again - he's a third year now! - and Angus dealing with the wide new world of university. Sean has almost $500 of books this semester, thanks to his enormous amount of math, and Angus discovered that professors are weirder than normal folk.

And what did I do? In addition to the laundry list I wrote yesterday, I had post-interview coffee with Ellis, which turned into a house tour here and then at her house (only a block away). She has some gorgeous rooms - I'm so jealous on the painting front. I'm so tempted to paint... speaking of Belize alumni, Will also landed last night, and we went over to introduce Angus, meet Will's parents, and catch up for a while. He's all aflame with ideas for D&D this year, so I'm looking forward to getting to know 4th edition D&D back to front over the next week or so.

When I came home from Ellis', Sean was making Snobby Joes. If you have ever tried to cook for a vegan, you may already know that vegan food is generally kind of bland, and often contains ingredients that no non-vegan would eat (vegetable protein?) or that most people don't keep around (quinoa? seitan?). Snobby Joes are one of only two recipes I've ever tried that actually don't taste vegan, yet don't contain things pretending to be meat, and still manages to taste like food. Instead of the hamburger of Sloppy Joes, you get lentils, which have a similar sort of texture, and the end product is thick and spicy and just like Sloppy Joes, but without the greasy feeling of bloat afterward. I highly recommend it. It's definitely going into high rotation around here.

Snobby Joes (from the Veganomicon)

Equipment:
Just a pot or two

Ingredients
1 cup uncooked lentils (we used two cans of lentils and skipped the cooking)
4 cups water

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced small
1 green pepper, diced small
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 Tablespoons chili powder (not cayenne!)
2 teaspoons oregano (we used basil instead)
1 teaspoon salt (skipped this, as we have no salt)
8 oz can tomato sauce
1/4 cup tomato paste
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon yellow mustard (wet mustard)

4 to 6 kaiser rolls or sesame buns

Directions
Put the lentils in a small sauce pot and pour in 4 cups water. Cover and bring to a boil. Once boiling, lower heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, until lentils are soft. Drain and set aside.
About 10 minutes before the lentils are done boiling, preheat a medium soup pot over medium heat. Saute the onion and pepper in the oil for about 7 minutes, until softened. Add the garlic and saute a minute more.
Add the cooked lentils, the chili powder, oregano and salt and mix. Add the tomato sauce and tomato paste. Cook for about 10 minutes. Add the maple syrup and mustard and heat through.
Turn the heat off and let sit for about 10 minutes, so that the flavors can meld, or go ahead and eat immediately if you can't wait. I like to serve these open faced, with a scoop of snobby joe on each slice of the bun.

Alright, enough of school and Snobbies, what about the interview? I faced five interviewers around a table, and we chatted about me, myself, and I for about half an hour. As usual I was a bit nervewracked at the beginning, but towards the end I was pretty relaxed, and to wrap up the interview they had me do a short written proposal about improving their newsletter. It should come as a surprise to no one that I come across much better on paper than in an interview, and I think I did a particularly good job on this one.
What did I learn? The Executive Director is the only employee, and the office is a single room in the Barracks downtown; it's actually inside Archaeological Services, which is a weird coincidence. Right now the Federation is fairly limited. The Nova Scotia Choral Federation has a provincial choir, three flavours of choir camp, all sorts of workshops, outreach to schools - New Brunswick has only one workshop per year, and will be starting its first provincial honour choir next year. They would very much like to be able to offer the sort of programs Nova Scotia does, however. Lots of potential for growth, I think. Also, the Executive Director is the provincial representative on the national council; if I get this job, I'll be flying to Montreal in October for the meeting.
I do love a challenge, and I think that I want this job. I have a good feeling about this one.

PS: I'm trying to maintain the twitter feed to the right with some frequency. Last night's breaking news: chair arson across the street! We called it in and watched the firefighters douse and chop the smoldering ruin. V. exciting.