I made Sunday dinner last night as it was obviously Sunday. I had intentions of taking pictures, but by the time I finish cooking, I am too tired to nicely plate the food and photograph it--I only want to feed the grumbling masses. I am a bit dismayed by my lack of follow through, but there you have it.
Each Sunday is an experiment trying all new recipes and more often than not the product is good, but time beats me up. In fact the average Sunday dinner takes 2-4 hours of cooking and I know that my time management, organization skills and my cooking knowledge & experience could be honed to shorten the time. I am still a relative novice though prone to mistakes...not soaking beans the night before for instance.
Last night's meal:
Cayenne rubbed chicken breasts with avocado-onion salsa (cover recipe of January/February 2008 Everyday Food)
Ultimate Black Beans (February 2008 Cuisine at Home)
Sweet Potatoes with Honey-Lime Glaze (February 2008 Cuisine at Home)
I did experience a headache most of the time I was cooking the beans (begun around 3:30 and served at 8:00) because of the strong onion and garlic smell, but they were very tasty especially topped with queso fresco and few extra shakes of Tabasco.
The glaze for the roasted sweet potatoes was especially wonderful and I wonder if I could use it on nuts with the addition of some cayenne pepper....
As for the chicken breasts, I added much more rubbing seasoning the recipe called for (I ended up practically tripling it)--perhaps because the chicken breasts were large or just because I have a much heavier hand, but regardless of whether I added too much seasoning (according to my sister the chicken was too salty to her taste, but then again she likes less salt than many) or not the avocado salsa tempered the heat and saltiness perfectly (even in my sister's opinion).
In the end, I would happily eat any of the dishes again, although I may need to vacate the kitchen for most of the simmering of the beans or take pills before hand.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Friday, January 04, 2008
Much Rambling and Many Questions
I have been thinking a lot about writing lately. For many years I have had the desire to write a novel. Most of my friends are aware that I have a love for historical romance and have been attempting to write a novel in that genre with questionable dedication.
I opened up some files containing bits of stories or even a decent start to one version of a story I have been rewriting for nearly half my life. I laughed at the ludicrous melodrama and nearly schoolgirl-like descriptions and interactions between characters. I found some interesting parts of each story, but again they are all wrong and obviously contrived. The voice isn't really mine, the plots unclear to me, the characters too flat and shallow and so on and so forth.
Last night I wrote a page of questions for myself in the hopes I could strip away all the crap and get to the truth of the matter. Perhaps most important of all questions is: Why do I write? All other questions stem from that simple, yet profound question. Sometimes I wonder at my motivation to write. I have encountered masterly storytellers who weave seductive, magical, glittering worlds and people with breathtaking capacity to evoke emotions, images and thoughts with words and I am neither the former nor latter. Still, I have been told I am a good writer at various points in my life.
Writing does require more than weaving a story or evoking emotions though...it requires the ability to convey mundane and jarring truths. Do I know enough of human nature? Do I know a place enough to share all it's charms, idiosyncrasies, the underbelly, how a person is shaped by the character of the land or city in which he or she lives? Have I been a keen observer or lost in my own delusions and fantasies? Do I actually listen? Do I really know anyone?
I am best at constructing questions for myself that are in all likelihood entirely unnecessary and a means to avoid doing, as I fear doing in many aspects. I fear not living up to the expectations of family and friends who believe in me. I fear not living up to my own dubious expectations. I actually fear writing a decent novel and the prospect of writing another and another with the expectation they will surpass the previous.
In the end, the fears and expectations are all meaningless and perhaps only doing is what matters. I have begun to see that any writing--here on this blog, in my personal journal, random notes, correspondence--is doing. I feel I am changing my perception of who I am, what my place is, where I wish to go, what I want to do, still I have a gnawing need to express myself. I write because I am freer and more assured in writing than in person. I am desperately uncertain and disjointed in person and will say things that boggle me in reflection for being so inaccurate, inarticulate and false. My body language is not fluid or natural because I feel my body is foreign—there is a disconnect from what I think and feel and what I do. I come off as aloof because I feel unable to express myself properly. In writing I am comfortable and I can in that moment be whole.
It is high time I integrate everything and be a bit less of an awkward, jittery marionette in person. I imagine that if I stopped detaching from and being ashamed of my body much would improve, even my writing. I can't even imagine the difference it would make, but it is well worth finding out....
I opened up some files containing bits of stories or even a decent start to one version of a story I have been rewriting for nearly half my life. I laughed at the ludicrous melodrama and nearly schoolgirl-like descriptions and interactions between characters. I found some interesting parts of each story, but again they are all wrong and obviously contrived. The voice isn't really mine, the plots unclear to me, the characters too flat and shallow and so on and so forth.
Last night I wrote a page of questions for myself in the hopes I could strip away all the crap and get to the truth of the matter. Perhaps most important of all questions is: Why do I write? All other questions stem from that simple, yet profound question. Sometimes I wonder at my motivation to write. I have encountered masterly storytellers who weave seductive, magical, glittering worlds and people with breathtaking capacity to evoke emotions, images and thoughts with words and I am neither the former nor latter. Still, I have been told I am a good writer at various points in my life.
Writing does require more than weaving a story or evoking emotions though...it requires the ability to convey mundane and jarring truths. Do I know enough of human nature? Do I know a place enough to share all it's charms, idiosyncrasies, the underbelly, how a person is shaped by the character of the land or city in which he or she lives? Have I been a keen observer or lost in my own delusions and fantasies? Do I actually listen? Do I really know anyone?
I am best at constructing questions for myself that are in all likelihood entirely unnecessary and a means to avoid doing, as I fear doing in many aspects. I fear not living up to the expectations of family and friends who believe in me. I fear not living up to my own dubious expectations. I actually fear writing a decent novel and the prospect of writing another and another with the expectation they will surpass the previous.
In the end, the fears and expectations are all meaningless and perhaps only doing is what matters. I have begun to see that any writing--here on this blog, in my personal journal, random notes, correspondence--is doing. I feel I am changing my perception of who I am, what my place is, where I wish to go, what I want to do, still I have a gnawing need to express myself. I write because I am freer and more assured in writing than in person. I am desperately uncertain and disjointed in person and will say things that boggle me in reflection for being so inaccurate, inarticulate and false. My body language is not fluid or natural because I feel my body is foreign—there is a disconnect from what I think and feel and what I do. I come off as aloof because I feel unable to express myself properly. In writing I am comfortable and I can in that moment be whole.
It is high time I integrate everything and be a bit less of an awkward, jittery marionette in person. I imagine that if I stopped detaching from and being ashamed of my body much would improve, even my writing. I can't even imagine the difference it would make, but it is well worth finding out....
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Holiday Catch-Up
I mentioned holiday cards quite often in my blog and I actually made a very few, carefully deciding on which friends (poor family are always the first to be shortchanged). I had already made invitations and invited my local friends to a holiday party so they were quite easy to cut from the list. Then I decided there were a few I had promised (and wanted to make, plus when I promise someone it helps to motivate me to actually do it) a handmade card. My creativity was limited this past year and stuck in tag form it seemed. They are an easy form to add to and embelish and yet you can use the end product as a bookmark, hang it on a door or even a tree (although it is rather large). As I thought they are very similar to the holiday invitations, but a bit different too. For each person I chose a word for them...sort of a hope or prayer for them and then I wrote something truly sappy on the reverse side. I do hope by this time they all received their card!
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Happy New Year!
Perhaps you thought I had abandoned you, but that is not true. I tried to write posts in the month of December as things had happened and yet they were tepid attempts at best. As 2008 begins I wanted to make sure I ended the unintended silence.
I am not sure I believe in resolutions (probably because I don't follow through), but I do believe in having dreams and aspirations for the future. New Year's is a convenient time to begin anew. It's a lovely even date to begin charting the rest of your life. Still what it doesn't address is that each day you need to wake up and see it as a new start, a new beginning. A friend told me he sees New Year's as any other day and I think it is because he tries everyday to make it matter--he has no need to make resolutions...to have a wake up call to examine his life because he does it all the time. It is difficult to remain aware of your life, to be present for the mundane as well as the extraordinary, to listen to someone even as they wander into topics which bore you (say break fluid), to not want to rush through the slow parts to get to the more interesting ones....
Something wonderful occurred in 2007. I believe people come into your life for a purpose or rather that each person who enters your life can teach you something. There was someone who taught me (unbenownst to them!) that no matter how low I felt I still had hope and there was still something redeeming in me. This person also taught me to look at others and see that they too may hurt and need some simple kindness. I learned that rather than protecting oneself from pain to feel, reach out and try because I could heal from rejection. I began to like a strength in me I had scoffed at and feared for far too long. I began to forgive myself for my mistakes and errors. I felt I had done enough penance and even the injured party had forgiven me years before. I stopped looking back at my life full of recrimination, guilt and regret. My actions in the past made sense. When I did not like how I may have acted in the past I still saw the reasoning behind it and realized how I may be able to change it in the future.
I did not do all this entirely alone. Always I had friends and my family (and dogs). In 2007 I finally could not only recognize how blessed I was...I felt it. I encountered some wonderful new friends who helped to illuminate a potential future completely of my own making and who made me laugh at the silly and the grave parts of life. I tried to reconnect with old friends who meant a great deal to me. I have only been partially successful with the reconnection, but I have begun and that is enough for now. I realize that life is not in the results, but in the process no matter how messy, confusing and frustrating.
I wanted to thank everyone for their support and well wishes concerning the death of little Leia. It was difficult and yet a lesson I take to heart. I am still saddened by her death, but I have faith and I have hope which I may not have had only a few short months ago and when my faith and hope was not enough I had my friends and family. Life is good.
In the end I wish to live my life in a manner that honors who I am and my beliefs. I believe that 2008, like 2007, will be a monumental year. I hope you too are as fortunate as I am! Happy New Year (and day!).
I am not sure I believe in resolutions (probably because I don't follow through), but I do believe in having dreams and aspirations for the future. New Year's is a convenient time to begin anew. It's a lovely even date to begin charting the rest of your life. Still what it doesn't address is that each day you need to wake up and see it as a new start, a new beginning. A friend told me he sees New Year's as any other day and I think it is because he tries everyday to make it matter--he has no need to make resolutions...to have a wake up call to examine his life because he does it all the time. It is difficult to remain aware of your life, to be present for the mundane as well as the extraordinary, to listen to someone even as they wander into topics which bore you (say break fluid), to not want to rush through the slow parts to get to the more interesting ones....
Something wonderful occurred in 2007. I believe people come into your life for a purpose or rather that each person who enters your life can teach you something. There was someone who taught me (unbenownst to them!) that no matter how low I felt I still had hope and there was still something redeeming in me. This person also taught me to look at others and see that they too may hurt and need some simple kindness. I learned that rather than protecting oneself from pain to feel, reach out and try because I could heal from rejection. I began to like a strength in me I had scoffed at and feared for far too long. I began to forgive myself for my mistakes and errors. I felt I had done enough penance and even the injured party had forgiven me years before. I stopped looking back at my life full of recrimination, guilt and regret. My actions in the past made sense. When I did not like how I may have acted in the past I still saw the reasoning behind it and realized how I may be able to change it in the future.
I did not do all this entirely alone. Always I had friends and my family (and dogs). In 2007 I finally could not only recognize how blessed I was...I felt it. I encountered some wonderful new friends who helped to illuminate a potential future completely of my own making and who made me laugh at the silly and the grave parts of life. I tried to reconnect with old friends who meant a great deal to me. I have only been partially successful with the reconnection, but I have begun and that is enough for now. I realize that life is not in the results, but in the process no matter how messy, confusing and frustrating.
I wanted to thank everyone for their support and well wishes concerning the death of little Leia. It was difficult and yet a lesson I take to heart. I am still saddened by her death, but I have faith and I have hope which I may not have had only a few short months ago and when my faith and hope was not enough I had my friends and family. Life is good.
In the end I wish to live my life in a manner that honors who I am and my beliefs. I believe that 2008, like 2007, will be a monumental year. I hope you too are as fortunate as I am! Happy New Year (and day!).
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Our Princess
Amongst the merriment of holiday parties, baking (and eating) cookies, decorating our house like candyland, the joyous noice of friends laughing and talking came an event that reminded me that there is a reason we savor the chances we have to be with our loved ones.
This past Sunday night in a most unexpected way during the second party we hosted at our house this weekend our 2 1/2 year old yorkshire terrier--whose full name is Leia Amadala Elizabeth with the title of princess--died (her name as a puppy was Princess and although she certainly thought herself as royalty, I wanted to give her a more formal name).
My mother climbed the stairs cradling our poor Pookie (a silly nickname for Leia) in her arms, her eyes already swollen and streaming with tears telling us the bizarre way she literally dropped dead. Less than an hour earlier I remembered Leia's little nails clicking against the floor as she paced in her flittery way and the next she was gone. I cried off and on Sunday night, but cried most the next morning as I got ready for work and at the office.
Leia blossomed when she was allowed to go to work and could be the only dog for several hours a week. She was so well behaved and a delight to clients who came into appointments only to be greeted by an adorable 4 pound silver and tan ball of energy. As I looked at the almonds my eyes teared up because Leia also helped me eat whenever she was around. She would dance and anxiously sit to gain pieces of almond, biscuit, cracker or whatever else I happened to be eating. When someone left the office to run an errand, she would sit or lay at the door awaiting their return. I used to also throw a bone or stuffed dog for her to chase. She made us all smile and made the office a happier place to be.
This holiday season even as you are drowning in shopping lists, wrapping gifts, rushing to one party after another take a moment and appreciate the most important thing about the holidays and life: the relationship with people you love and care about and the animals that grace us with their unceasing love and profound joy.
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