"it is what it is---its an 'is-ism.'" This was the phrase of the season at my last restaurant job, the English version of one of the many German phrases I learned while working there: sha-be-don (that's how it sounds, not how it is spelled...though it looks like shaw-be-done (and sounds like it too), which I think many of us can relate to, and also quite perfectly fits its general meaning...)--which roughly translates as "same shit different pile" or "im tired of it, and know exactly how to fix it, but am too tired to do anything about it" or "im tired of it, and know exactly how to fix it but I would rather have a whiskey" or "FML"...the latter is my current phrase-of-the-moment (switching from "well that's neat"-- the transition of which is quite indicative of my current state.) and is translated as the universe has more control over me than I do, Fuck.
I swore a lot at my last kitchen job. I still swear a lot in my own kitchen. Sometimes I swear while teaching yoga, just to get the uplifting and inspirational point across. Right? FML.
So here is my point: there has been ALOT in the last couple of weeks. ALOT. I taught/took 54 yoga classes (47 of which were at a hot yoga temperature of 90+ degrees) in 14 days. I moved from my dream bachelorette suite to my dream bachelorette suite with dreams of my dream bachelorette suite in another country. I had the most significant, grounding, assuring visit of my life with my ma while we visited by sista and my brostar-in law over easter (and watched just enough hockey to transform me into an uber-competitive, fist-pumping, superfreak), only to end up super sick before immersing myself in a 40 day yoga commitment. Then I drove M to the airport for Mexico, for 55-100 days...or so. And so it is.
And so it is that I am left with some space. A physical space currently filled with boxes of mostly cookbooks because once upon a time they held some significance in my chefing abilities. And intimately physical space that is still fighting off the congested, fatigued cold that hit me when I finally slowed down a bit to cheer on (egg on/threaten to fight...) my brother in laws hockey team's tournament, while recovering from way too much yoga sweat. A mental space currently immersed for the next 30 ish days in analyzing who I am/want to be as a single unit, and who I am/want to be as someone very much in love with someone who is gone for 55-100 days ish.
And so it is that I am very much in love. Perhaps more so than I thought. FML.
Or perhaps more so than I was allowing myself the space to think. Absence makes the heart go fonder? Sure. But it has been three days. Perhaps absence kicks the heart...hard. Forces it to connect to something greater than itself. Greater than self love. Greater than accepting what is for what it is, and opening itself to something that is quite a bit more than the same shit, a pile of something quite new, and quite real, and quite vulnerable for a whole lot of observation with so much clear space.
Well that's neat. I feel my phrase changing again. Because I know my life is rad. That I have much to be thankful for: friends who will read this and get it, readers who will read this and find a friend because they get it, things that make me check in (like discovering a number of memberships continually charging my visa while I continue to ignorantly not take advantage of such renewals--ie Netflix which, side note, I am going to watch the movie that the quoted and attached song is a part of the soundtrack before my card expires and memberships ceases--p.s if anyone needs shoes, FML I have been paying into Just Fab for 5 too many months...I now have store credit. neat....), and things that help me check out of all that I try to control; things that keep me present with what is. Things like love. And whiskey...
kidding....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YXVMCHG-Nk
Monday, April 28, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
A man and a lady and a sweet sweet bread
About a month ago I went ahead and fell in love. whoops. didn't see that coming--and glad I didn't, because normally I would have ran like hell. but there is something about him that makes me want to stay perfectly still, with a lot of gratitude, and even more wonder.
(side note: he would tell you, first that it was more than a month ago, and second, that we are together because he is notoriously good at 'wooing': that he can sweep any gal off her feet and then, when she realizes what has happened, hesitates. bales. sad face. this time that is not happening. in this case--the 'wooing' is mutual...)
Staying still is the last thing we are doing. our first roadtrip together is tomorrow (god help him); and after much pondering about just what is wrong with my little bachelorette suite that makes him so restless, I have shifted and given away furniture to make room for a desk he can work at...and, more significantly, and long term, started looking for a new, more accommodating place. his toothbrush is here, as well as his own toothpaste because he doesn't like mine. and for the first time in about four years there is butter in my fridge. real butter, and real cream, and until he made an omelette the other day, there was bacon--well, house cured pigs face from the new Salted Brick, but still, it was pork--now I love all of those things and would have them in my fridge for life if I could eat them without feeling like dying after...so instead I will have them in my lactose-intolerant, vegetarian fridge for life for this unexpected love.
I am nervous, and excited, and as I said, grateful. I am also listening to his records in a home I am reconsidering staying as long as I can in, planning our trip and much more, and baking banana bread that I cant really eat without feeling like dying after. its a banana bread for him, because, as the charmer says, he is my man and I am his lady. because, suddenly, things have become less about me, and more about us.
gentlemen's banana bread
a banana bread for kids, to me, says chocolate chips; for foodies, black and white sesame seeds to replace the classic-grandmas-house-comfort of walnuts or pecans. a gentlemen's banana bread, though, now that requires something rich, dark, and whiskey laced...
1/2 cup each butter and coconut butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar (the darker the better; I used coconut sugar, which tastes like demerrara)
1/2 cup raw sugar
4 whole eggs
4 egg yolks
1/3 c spiced whiskey (alternatively, if you were low on spicebox like I surprisingly was, you can use regular whiskey, plus 1/2 tsp each cardamom and cinnamon, and 2tsp vanilla--or a sprinkle of vanilla bean powder)
2 cups mashed banana (approx. 6 bananas)
1 cup sourcream
1 1/2 cups each whole wheat and spelt flour
2tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1tsp salt
Preheat oven to 350; grease two loaf pans.
beat the heck out of the butters and sugars until light and fluffy. incorporate one egg at a time, then all 4 yolks. beat in whiskey, bananas, and sourcream until smooth and frothy. combine dry ingredients separately, and then mix the whole lot together. pour into prepared pans and bake for a really long time, 75-90 minutes. this is especially masculine when served not in the morning, fresh out the oven, but later in the evening, toasted, with a whiskey, neat, and cigar. maybe some cream. and a fireplace. in a leather chair. enjoy.
(side note: he would tell you, first that it was more than a month ago, and second, that we are together because he is notoriously good at 'wooing': that he can sweep any gal off her feet and then, when she realizes what has happened, hesitates. bales. sad face. this time that is not happening. in this case--the 'wooing' is mutual...)
Staying still is the last thing we are doing. our first roadtrip together is tomorrow (god help him); and after much pondering about just what is wrong with my little bachelorette suite that makes him so restless, I have shifted and given away furniture to make room for a desk he can work at...and, more significantly, and long term, started looking for a new, more accommodating place. his toothbrush is here, as well as his own toothpaste because he doesn't like mine. and for the first time in about four years there is butter in my fridge. real butter, and real cream, and until he made an omelette the other day, there was bacon--well, house cured pigs face from the new Salted Brick, but still, it was pork--now I love all of those things and would have them in my fridge for life if I could eat them without feeling like dying after...so instead I will have them in my lactose-intolerant, vegetarian fridge for life for this unexpected love.
I am nervous, and excited, and as I said, grateful. I am also listening to his records in a home I am reconsidering staying as long as I can in, planning our trip and much more, and baking banana bread that I cant really eat without feeling like dying after. its a banana bread for him, because, as the charmer says, he is my man and I am his lady. because, suddenly, things have become less about me, and more about us.
gentlemen's banana bread
a banana bread for kids, to me, says chocolate chips; for foodies, black and white sesame seeds to replace the classic-grandmas-house-comfort of walnuts or pecans. a gentlemen's banana bread, though, now that requires something rich, dark, and whiskey laced...
1/2 cup each butter and coconut butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar (the darker the better; I used coconut sugar, which tastes like demerrara)
1/2 cup raw sugar
4 whole eggs
4 egg yolks
1/3 c spiced whiskey (alternatively, if you were low on spicebox like I surprisingly was, you can use regular whiskey, plus 1/2 tsp each cardamom and cinnamon, and 2tsp vanilla--or a sprinkle of vanilla bean powder)
2 cups mashed banana (approx. 6 bananas)
1 cup sourcream
1 1/2 cups each whole wheat and spelt flour
2tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1tsp salt
Preheat oven to 350; grease two loaf pans.
beat the heck out of the butters and sugars until light and fluffy. incorporate one egg at a time, then all 4 yolks. beat in whiskey, bananas, and sourcream until smooth and frothy. combine dry ingredients separately, and then mix the whole lot together. pour into prepared pans and bake for a really long time, 75-90 minutes. this is especially masculine when served not in the morning, fresh out the oven, but later in the evening, toasted, with a whiskey, neat, and cigar. maybe some cream. and a fireplace. in a leather chair. enjoy.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Rolling with it
We all know about "balance": the basic concept of yin and yang. Work and play. Pride and humility. Strength and softness. A balanced diet. Balancing on ones hands, or feet for that matter. When we have balance we are healthy and steady, sure, capable, but open to learning. And we are not stressed. So basically, I am completely out of balance.....
Which is to say I am completely stressed. Ironically, I find balance to this by being relatively unproductive towards relieving that stress--in other words, I am uber relaxed about being stressed. Full circle: I am completely balanced.
Look. I could go on writing in this very confusing fashion, or I could be straight up with you: I am holding steady at completely uprooting myself from the life I have created here, seek out a new and not-entirely random adventure in a country that I do not speak the language but long for the food and sun, and settling here for time enough to start my own business and agree to a relationship on more than one level. Ok, so that was still relatively vague. Balance.
Let me try again. With salad rolls.
Salad rolls are a spring/summer meal, right? Served cold, with crisp, watery vegetables like cucumber and soft lettuces, they are picnic portable and fun to dip as most summery things are: bagna cauda (fancy Italian veggies and dip), chips and salsa, toes and more in the lake...but not very winter friendly. In the winter we crave digging in not dipping in. Hearty, rich, starchy, and--most importantly--hot meals. Hot rice noodles in hot laksa. Not cold rice noodles wrapped in cold rice paper. That is an imbalance. But it is about all I want to eat these days.
Winter weather, summer meal. There is the balance. That, and what you put in them. While currently obsessed with these Vietnamese finger foods (cant pronounce them in Vietnamese, but long for them as much as I do the sun on my skin...), I have experimented with all sorts of wintery fixings: pickled pumpkin (sneaky hint of kaffir lime, blows your mind every time), lemongrass roasted beets, sweet potato shaved and tossed in sesame oil and warm spices, heartier greens like lacinato kale, even toasted sprouted buckwheat groats. Carmelizing peanuts in a bit of honey and dried thai chilis with shallot and rice vinegar is money: sweet salty fatty nutty bits of crunchy business bite by bite. And toasting dressed Yuba skins until they are crispy is pretty much the ultimate contrast to soft rice paper and cabbage. I made my own Yuba today. That's another story. Its a good one. Its about patience. But this is (still) a story about balance.
And here is the conclusion of this seemingly random tale. My ma has always said that I am black or white--no grey. High or low. Happy or sad. I like to think that I have found my grey area by trusting that my black will lead to a white. By rooting down to rise up. By rolling with it in any direction as much as you focus on a path. By rolling up some root vegetables in an out of season dinner.
Do you see the connection? Between salad rolls and my life? Maybe it would have helped to have pictures. Sorry about that. But you see, the more random and silly this story seems, the more perfectly it balances my calculated, seriously stressed state. I feel better already.
Which is to say I am completely stressed. Ironically, I find balance to this by being relatively unproductive towards relieving that stress--in other words, I am uber relaxed about being stressed. Full circle: I am completely balanced.
Look. I could go on writing in this very confusing fashion, or I could be straight up with you: I am holding steady at completely uprooting myself from the life I have created here, seek out a new and not-entirely random adventure in a country that I do not speak the language but long for the food and sun, and settling here for time enough to start my own business and agree to a relationship on more than one level. Ok, so that was still relatively vague. Balance.
Let me try again. With salad rolls.
Salad rolls are a spring/summer meal, right? Served cold, with crisp, watery vegetables like cucumber and soft lettuces, they are picnic portable and fun to dip as most summery things are: bagna cauda (fancy Italian veggies and dip), chips and salsa, toes and more in the lake...but not very winter friendly. In the winter we crave digging in not dipping in. Hearty, rich, starchy, and--most importantly--hot meals. Hot rice noodles in hot laksa. Not cold rice noodles wrapped in cold rice paper. That is an imbalance. But it is about all I want to eat these days.
Winter weather, summer meal. There is the balance. That, and what you put in them. While currently obsessed with these Vietnamese finger foods (cant pronounce them in Vietnamese, but long for them as much as I do the sun on my skin...), I have experimented with all sorts of wintery fixings: pickled pumpkin (sneaky hint of kaffir lime, blows your mind every time), lemongrass roasted beets, sweet potato shaved and tossed in sesame oil and warm spices, heartier greens like lacinato kale, even toasted sprouted buckwheat groats. Carmelizing peanuts in a bit of honey and dried thai chilis with shallot and rice vinegar is money: sweet salty fatty nutty bits of crunchy business bite by bite. And toasting dressed Yuba skins until they are crispy is pretty much the ultimate contrast to soft rice paper and cabbage. I made my own Yuba today. That's another story. Its a good one. Its about patience. But this is (still) a story about balance.
And here is the conclusion of this seemingly random tale. My ma has always said that I am black or white--no grey. High or low. Happy or sad. I like to think that I have found my grey area by trusting that my black will lead to a white. By rooting down to rise up. By rolling with it in any direction as much as you focus on a path. By rolling up some root vegetables in an out of season dinner.
Do you see the connection? Between salad rolls and my life? Maybe it would have helped to have pictures. Sorry about that. But you see, the more random and silly this story seems, the more perfectly it balances my calculated, seriously stressed state. I feel better already.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Sum- thing special
I m not a big fan of Christmas. Or pants. Hence, my ideal Christmas is spent in a long-ish shirt (in case the neighbors can see in the windows), with no midnight mass, red/white lights, carols, candy canes, no tree/garland/boughs/holly/anything pine scented other than my wintry backyard, or st nic, but with plenty of dim sum and old school hip hop.
A photo journal:
...I did get gifted some new leggings. They are perfect in every way...except when you don't want to wear pants...
love
also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCvr8sevyLk
A photo journal:
love
also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCvr8sevyLk
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