Best Beans

Tomorrow I take the GRE. While I’m definitely nervous, I’m reassuring myself that I’ve been studying to decent effect, so far – if I can do as well on the real thing as I have been on my practice tests, I’ll be pleased. (Of course, the one thing that’s been hardest to practice has been the essay writing, which is arguably the most important section for someone applying to journalism schools… but having done several practice runs to get a feel for the time constraints, I’m guardedly optimistic about it.)

Regardless, in 16 hours, I’ll be through it and faced with the decision about where and whether to send my scores. (They tell you you’re not allowed to use a mechanical pencil on the Paper-based test, but don’t specify any restrictions for the computer-based test. I’ve got both old-style and mechanical pencils in my arsenal; I’ll be curious which ones they’ll let me use, and why.)

In other news, made awesome green beans tonight, along with a kind of Vietnamese-ish broth with lemongrass and mushrooms and dumplings. The soup was straight from “Vegetarian Planet,” but the beans I tossed with a little spicy black bean sauce and a small dollop of honey before putting them into the Best Toaster Oven Ever for about 20 minutes until they were all wrinkled and spicy and oily, with a faint sweetness behind the spice. Utterly awesome, and a nice variation on plain steamed beans. (Which are pretty good in their own right to begin with.)