jezebelstable – Page 3 – Jezebel’s Table

Life’s Layers and Quick Pickles

Life’s Layers and Quick Pickles

Isla Mujeres tests the limits of my writing and communication. Days pile up behind me. It hardly seems possible I’ve been here over a month.
Attempts to write about events coloring my days is like shading left-handed in an intricate coloring book with blunt-tipped neon markers.
It’s a taste of life I’ve always wanted. The woman I’ve always wanted to be.
Sometimes, I feel my younger self beside me, watching with fierce joy and
approval. She comes in many ages—representations of my former selves.
Insecurity, fear, anxiousness, hope, written on her face for a day in the
future she knows is coming: when she’ll fit fully into body, skin, and
heart. Know who she is. Know her purpose, worth, and hold her head—High.

A year ago, at almost this time, I wanted to disappear I was so anxious,
hopeless, and afraid.

I arrived on Isla Mujeres–a place I’ve visited since I was fifteen–just over two weeks ago. Every day I feel my confidence, strength, and experience grow. Sometimes it’s through positive experiences like learning how to navigate the taxi system with my meager Spanish.

Sometimes, it’s trial and error as I turn down the wrong street, run out of local money in the grocery store, or confront the blood splatter on our white front steps from the street brawl a couple weeks ago.
Whatever the lesson, I’m moving forward little by little. An evolution process—building myself in layers, like a Russian nesting doll.

***

Mariachi rock chased with beer buckets of perspective and hindsight for Christmas Eve.
Random thoughts trickle, like sand against my restless toes.
Scape of palm fronds contrasts soughing wind through northern
pines.
Wash of waves, tourist laughter, base beat thump juxtaposed in my
Memory to the quiet winter peace next to Michigan’s Laughing Whitefish River.
The new tattoos on my left hand wink black on white freckled skin.

Reminders of pain—fingernails in skin. Bleeding half moons etched into the new year. When everything changed.
Christmas Eve. A year ago. Thirteen hours to Mississippi. Headlights, dark blur. Hands clenched on door handle. Gas stations like mirages, flashing
by. Sanctuary, lost.
His knuckles stood out like bones on the steering wheel. Clenched.
His words a noose, drawing breath from lungs, leaving me limp. A
deflated, quivering flesh balloon. The spine I climbed into the car with
dissolved in self-hatred, and tears.
A year. One revolution of the earth around the sun. Choices. Change. Worn
as thin as an old white t-shirt. A ghost.

Isla Mujeres--Playa Norte Sunset — Isla Mujeres–Playa Norte Sunset

Here. I’m flesh, blood, skin and liquid pleasure. Otter rolls in ocean water and laughter curled tight in my tummy. A smile I’ve never seen on my lips. All those other Rachel’s, peering into the afternoon sun. Inhaling, deep breath. Planting my feet.

***
My kitchen in Michigan is comparably limited in amenities to my kitchen in Mexico. My pantry is better stocked in Michigan, and I have gas to cook on, as opposed to a rusty electric hot plate.
When invited to a potluck, I was given a moment of pause. It was really–Mexico-hot, my counter is the size of the cutting board, and I was craving vegetables.
Living in the middle of nowhere has taught me inventiveness and creativity. Living in Mexico is teaching me these things, in different ways. Teaching me my own lessons on the importance of multiple perspectives.
The grocery store, less than a block from my apartment as opposed to the half hour drive from my Michigan home, has interesting offers. I avoid the meat department and find that it has about half of what I usually need, but I also revel in sampling different cheeses I’ve never heard of and dodging laughing children zooming unattended down aisles as I shop.
The grocery shopping experience is both familiar and new in Mexico. It’s an interesting balance—attempting to appear as though I know what I’m doing without speaking much Spanish while also ogling the unfamiliar items on offer.

For the potluck I decide to combine flavors and fresh local produce with a familiar recipe I crafted in my Michigan home.

Quick pickles are one of my favorite recipes because they pair well with almost any meal, they’re healthy, beautiful, seasonal, and simple.

I walked the short block down to the SuperExpress and found purple cabbage, jalapeños, radishes, and carrots in the produce department. There was a time, when I first began visited Mexico, I was afraid of raw vegetables because I was scared of getting ill. After living here this long, I’ve realized what will and will not make me ill and vegetables are fine. Even washed in tap water.

Walking to the grocery store, picking out produce, coming back to my own kitchen and chopping, mixing, tasting, make me feel like a local. Make me feel like I’m home.
Home here. Home there.

Today’s Recipe:

Isla Quick Pickle
• 5 large carrots julliened/cut into thin slices
• ¼ slices purple cabbage
• 7 thinly sliced radishes
• 1 or two sliced jalapenos
• Two cups white vinegar
• One teaspoon black peppercorns
• 6+ tablespoons salt
• 5 sliced garlic cloves

Mix all ingredients with ¾ cup water (or enough to cover) and let sit for
at least two hours before serving. Taste as you create the brine and add
more water/vinegar/salt accordingly.

Homemade Spicy Quick Pickles for Poker Night!

Days Like This & First World Problems

Days Like This & First World Problems

There are many days living in this old cabin where I question what the hell I’m doing with my life. Am I really capable of living in/sustaining a structure this high maintenance? Do I have what it takes—financially and otherwise?

Days like today, when, in the middle of my second load of laundry, the water stopped working. My finances are stretched to the max, dishes aren’t done, and after a late-long-night all I wanted was a hot shower.

I’ve lived without water before: when my ex-husband was renovating the bathroom himself I alternated between showering in the utility sink if it was available, standing in a rubber made and pouring hot water over myself when it was not, and if it was a nice day, utilizing the forest-facing back porch for my ablutions. My tent-dwelling days acclimated me to catching a wash where I could: lakes, streams, waterfalls, etc.

My current situation feels different. It’s up to me to figure out how to fix this and I feel woefully inadequate. Days spent scratching my head in good moments and near tears in bad leave me wondering why we don’t teach more practical, day-to-day things in schools. The U.S. educational system is woefully inadequate anyway (don’t get me started on modern education and the “teach-to-the-test” system that’s pumping out millions of uneducated students unable to think critically), but why don’t we teach skills people use regularly?:

Finances, basic auto mechanics, cooking, basic electricity, plumbing, carpentry, etc.

These are skills that most everyone needs a rudimentary understanding of at some point in their lives.

I need one now. I flipped the switches on the fuse box, tried to get the water pump going manually, called neighbors, solicited advice but I’ve run out of fixes to try on my own. I have to wait for help, which is grating.

The experience has led me to reflect and empathize with former inhabitants of my home who lived without running water. Children were raised here, families utilizing both river and old-fashioned stone well to obtain this necessary day-to-day resource. Hauling water up from the river makes me appreciate the simplicity of a small silver handle turning and almost-instantaneous clean, hot water at my fingertips.

It’s been the warmest early-November that I can remember. I debate washing-up in the bathtub and opt for a chillier but more adventurous frolic in the river.

Just as the sun’s rays dip below the tree-line I make my way down to the river, naked but for towel and rubber boots.

With a shiver, I drop the towel and wade into the pushing current. Leaves still clinging to reaching tree limbs flicker yellow, filtering evening light into golden shadows.

100 year old log cabin on the Laughing Whitefish

I’m tired, frustrated, and anxious about how much the water-fix will cost.

Dipping my hands into the cold water is unpleasant at first, but after a few curses, exclamations, and inarticulate noises of exasperation, I begin to enjoy my splashings, pondering how lucky I am: the water pump died on a warm evening; my neighbors can provide me with clean drinking water; I have a community offering advice, support, and fixes; I live on a stunning river that provides for all but my drinking water needs; I have electricity, propane, firewood, and food to eat—not to mention Wi-Fi. By so many people’s standards, this is living in luxury.

I’m also discovering new strength reserves. Several times I wanted to sit my vexed ass down on the wood floor and give myself up to the hot tears threatening to slide down my cheeks. However, I’ve done that before and it only delayed fixing the problem, so I sniff once or twice and square my shoulders.

You chose this life whispers through my mind in my father’s voice. Sell the house and move closer to town. Make things easier on yourself. Blinking away the tears, I reach for the five-gallon bucket and head for the river so I can at least flush the toilet.

Hell, at least I have an indoor toilet that flushes.

The water is ice-cream-headache cold as I dunk my hair into the current, turning fine strands from blond to red, swirling like seaweed.

My whimpers turn to yips of exhilaration. Unable to help myself, I laugh out loud.

If the water hadn’t gone out, I wouldn’t have had this moment in the river. And there it is—the shift in mood—the choice to spin my situation and find joy beneath the hardship.

It won’t always be this easy. The sun slips lower. I step from the river, grateful. So exhilarated from icy water’s tumble I no longer feel cold, just a matching rush of blood in my veins a broken water pump enabled.

November 4th Laughing Whitefish River play time.

Helpful Cooking Tips

Helpful Cooking Tips

Too often when planning a meal, we limit ourselves to specific “ethnicities” (Mexican, Thai, Italian), and specific meals (breakfast food vs. dinner), etc.

Flavors, are what’s important. Use your senses, and recipes to guide your cooking. If you have an idea something might be good–try it. If it doesn’t turn out, you’ve also learned something: what doesn’t work–and that’s just as valuable as learning what does. (Also true in life sometimes, I’ve found…)

Rather than reading a recipe and going out to buy ingredients, research recipes containing ingredients you have on hand. What you don’t have on hand, find similar flavors.

Climbing picnic--Energy Food! Scoop it all up together: black bean/corn salsa; sliced meats and cheeses; cayenne-garlic toum — Climbing picnic–Energy Food! Scoop it all up together: black bean/corn salsa; sliced meats and cheeses; cayenne-garlic toum

When mistakes happen, remember: Salty (soy sauce, black bean paste, Braggs Liquid Aminos), Spicy (hot peppers, sriracha,), Sweet (honey, maple syrup), Sour (lemon/lime, vinegars–a little goes a long way–balance flavors of vinegar according to other ingredients; balsamic and apple cider are two essentials in my kitchen), help balance each other. Sometimes, all a recipe needs is balance.

Make connections between flavors based on other tasty dishes you’ve had that combined successful ingredients and tastes.

Example: Creamy Potato Soup with a Fried Egg–For Breakfast! (or any meal)

Think breakfast flavors: Eggs and Potatoes are delicious together—why not in this form?

Creamy potato soup topped with over easy egg and a dollop of Greek yogurt/garlic toum

Lazy Apple Crisp Recipe

Slice 9+apples into a saucepan. Add:

*Honey (or maple syrup), Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Ginger (fresh or ground), vanilla, a squeeze of lemon or a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. Cook until apples are soft, stirring occasionally. Top with granola and vanilla ice cream (or Greek Yogurt mixed with honey/maple syrup).

Laughing Whitefish Cabin Observations:

Fear

I walk the property in deep dusk, with Bea a tiggered, bouncing shadow at my side. Mist hangs, ethereal—a gauzy veil—over apple orchard and south lawn. We enter the tree line—mostly cedar, scrubby pine, and the occasional towering old growth. The world goes from dim to black. The familiar trail becomes a new entity—roots and dips to discover. Trees are twisted silhouettes. Bea disappears, but I can hear the faint “ching” of her collar rise and fall against the river’s chuckling backdrop. Other than that, it’s silent.

I stand still, contemplating the old me that wouldn’t have stepped away from yard-light-safety-halo, let alone out of the yard entirely and into the dark woods. I’m aware, my senses heightened, but I’m not afraid. The absence of fear so recent I search it like tongue to pulled tooth. There’s a freedom here—freedom tickling against my breastbone like moth wings.

“Aren’t you afraid to be all the way out there, on that big property, in that old house, all by yourself?” Friends, family, students, ask me.

The lack of fear was hard earned. Born bloody, out of pain, anxiety, and fear of a different kind. These experiences teach us the real things to fear, rather than the imaginary that so captivate us and keep us out of the woods at night.

22 Target Practice also helps lose fear.

Cycles

I’ve never seen so many mushrooms.

Humans continually speculate as to the reasons reactions occur in nature. For better or worse, we’re a meddling species, always poking and prodding; always postulating. I’ve heard many speculations about everything from the winter ahead: “It’s going to be an average winter.” To the prevalence of mice indoors this fall: “They’re cyclical.” To the sudden and varied explosion of mushrooms across the region. “Perfect ratio of heat to rainfall.” I like these hypothesis, empirically science and observation based—as much as I like the mythological explanations for such events: Poseidon’s wrath at fault for stormy seas. Coyote’s trickery for things going awry. Pele for erupting volcanoes.

Humans are meaning-makers. We seek answers. This aspect of our nature has led to both positives and negatives for both our species, other species, and the planet as a whole. Watching the Trump ascendency and listening to the rhetoric of his supporters, I cannot help but wish for more of this questioning nature across our population, and while I’m at it, the world. Perhaps we’ve become so inundated by our advertising/media/capitalist centered society, we’ve forgotten the importance of questioning, observation, careful analysis before reaching conclusions. On the other hand—and I’m debating with myself at this point—studying mythology shows that, despite scientific advances across thousands of years, humans haven’t changed at all. We still love, lust, grieve. We’re jealous, angry, and start wars. We’re fascinated with one another’s drama. We don’t know what exists before we’re born, and we don’t know where we go when we die. We still don’t know our purpose any more than did the ancient Greeks, Aborigines, Mayans staring up at the stars and making meaning out of constellations.

I don’t know why the mushrooms have appeared in such vast quantities this year, but I’m captivated by their shapes, sizes, colors, and prolific-stemmed-capped-cragged-horned-tilting presence. I’ve seen purple mushrooms, six-inch-tall table-topped Aminitas, brown and white puffballs like blown-bubbles on the lawn, and various eye-popping orange and red fungi that screams “poisonous” in all their fluorescent vibrancy.

They’re delightful, turning the woods and lawn into a there-and-gone fairy world overnight.

The Ancient Britons believed that stumbling into a fairy ring of mushrooms, one risked being taken to the land of faery, where you might never emerge, or, worse yet, emerge after only “one night” to find you’d been gone 200 years in real time. Many cultures have and continue to use certain mushrooms for their hallucinogenic qualities and ability to alter consciousness. Proponents across the centuries believe these characteristics reveal deeper meanings and truths than humans are able to see on a day to day basis.

I suggest a healthy dose for most modern politicians.

Cold Weather’s Coming

The change in season happens so gradually, I hardly notice. Subtle shifts in day-to-day routine are always the first clues.

Less skirts, dresses, shorts and more leggings and jeans.

The windows, always open at night, get lowered bit by bit until cracked just enough to hear the river as I fall asleep.

I’m hungrier than I was, as though, bear-like, my body’s preparing for cold.

Birds fly in chittering flocks, foraging together in preparation for a flight south I’m eager to imitate in December.

Fields turn green to gold, catching late-day sunlight in haloed reflections.

Days get shorter.

I hauled and stacked three face cords of wood yesterday. It felt like a lot, but I’ll need much more. “Wood warms you twice.” I hear my father’s voice as I bend, lift, stack, repeat. Sweat trickles between my breasts. Thunder rumbles and wind whips errant blond hairs into my eyes and across my lips.

Leaves swirl in colored tornadoes.

The cherry tree, first to acquiesce to coming cold, stands, a leafless profile against a gathering-storm-sky.

Tastes Like Fall

As the seasons change, my culinary fantasies shift from blueberry bursts, sweet corn and BLT bliss, and sugar snap pea sweetness to daydreams of bacon-wrapped-duck breast, apples melted with honey and cinnamon, and buttery-orange mounds of butternut squash.

Ideas and Recent Recipe Concept-Photos to Follow:

*Email rachelmills906@gmail.com for Recipes and Ideas

Mustard Greens, lettuce, shaved pecorino romano cheese, carrot, purple cabbage

Gazpacho, sauteed salmon, roasted potatoes

Butternut Squash, Leeks, Fresh/Sundried Tomatoes, Coconut Milk, Wild Rice

Brat with beet sauerkraut, turmeric/garlic roast potatoes, Asian cucumber salad with peanuts

Sweet Corn Season

Sweet Corn Season

Something elemental in me knows fall is coming on, without looking at a calendar. A flock of robins hurried, heavy-breasted above me this evening. The ditch-side weeds are fluffy and dry—going to seed and taking to the winds, switching directions like winging dragonflies. I crave corn—sweet and salty.

Sweet corn season catches me up every year. I wait all eleven or so months for a handful of tantalizingly-temporary meals containing fresh sweet corn.

I eat popcorn multiple nights a week at all times of year, but there’s nothing like the summer’s first shut-eyed, yellow-crunch, sweet-buttery bite of corn on the cob.

Fresh Sweet Corn, Garden-veggie Panzanella Salad, Herbed Rice

Corn in many incarnations comes our way on a daily basis, but in forms far removed from the yellow maize harvested by early Americans hundreds of years ago. We don’t recognize it any more, it comes in so many shapes and varietals—yet our idea of “corn” is still deeply entrenched in an image of a yellow, husked and tasseled ear.

Corn has developed a negative reputation in our culture—and rightfully so. Its large-scale farming destroys ecosystems; its processing is harmful to both environment and individual consumer; its production exists in a precariously balanced government subsidy program in which, ultimately, the farmers who risk their livelihoods to cultivate the ancient grain, lose—often sacrificing a lifetime’s health and finances.

It’s strange, how human intervention so drastically changed the corn plant—how, as Michael Pollan illustrates in his book The Botany of Desire our desire for certain traits from the corn plant irrevocably transformed corn’s evolutionary trajectory.

Corn was and is a staple diet of many segments of ancient and modern America. U.S. culture visualizes corn as the yellow and white symmetrical rows with green husk and frilled tassel. In reality, there are dozens of strains, in various shapes and sizes. Corn was sacred to many early American societies, particularly in the South Americas. Each variety and function corn represented was respected and even worshiped.

Its significance as a staple crop was recognized and celebrated.

We’ve deviated far from understanding our mutualistic relationship, and that lack of consideration has compromised our health, ecosystems, and connection to a symbiotic plant-human relationship that is crucial to human well being and survival.

I find it odd to ponder that the corn syrup found in soft drinks and candy is produced from the same plant that formed the well-salted, butter-dripping ear of corn clasped between my thumbs and forefingers. It truly is a wonder how humans invented ways to manipulate the natural world. Whether many of these manipulations are bad or good remains to be seen—we’re human experiments.

What concerns me is how often we stop to ask, “Why.” It seems an important question, that’s too often overlooked.

Corn on the cob is delightfully messy to eat. It’s a sensual experience, sweet and salty, butter dripping between fingers and across lips and chin. It’s a meal that requires full physical involvement—chewing, picking teeth, licking fingers, wiping chin, sucking sweet juice and butter soaked cob, and then having just one more.

My favorite summer meal is a BLT and corn on the cob. I’m blessed to have had this meal every summer I can remember because my parents raised my sister and I in a dreamy, hard-work-harvest, food landscape. Food and food production plays in most good memories I have.

The corn crop is a passion-project for my father. He puts up electric fences and works tirelessly to keep birds, chipmunks, squirrels, deer, and raccoons from destroying the tempting plants.

The summer I was fourteen, we worked as a family propping up corn stalks after a flattening wind and rain storm almost destroyed the harvest. We crawled on our hands and knees in the black, rain-wet dirt—my mother, father, sister, and me. The sun was hot, and it was humid beneath the tasseled corn-tree-trunks that towered above my bent back. Dirt crawled up my fingernails, and slugs slumped away from my patting hands, as I propped and packed, propped and packed. It was boiling and hard work, but a camaraderie developed between siblings and parents. When the rows stood straight again, we swam, the four of us, washing away dirt, laughing, brushing corn pollen from our hair.

I’ve had a lot of delicious BLTs, but those made in the Mills household will always be the best: my mother’s homemade bread, bacon, fresh-picked tomato, crisp garden-lettuce, and tangy organic mayo. My sister and I were usually given the task of shucking the corn, which we did with gusto, enjoying the squeak and pull as husks loosened and tore. We brought the glowing ears to mama, who lowered them, careful not to splash, into waiting boiling water.

She always knew exactly when to remove them (3-5 minutes).

As soon as the corn was ready, it was time to eat. We rolled steaming, golden-rowed, summer-incarnate ears in butter; salted, peppered, and ate.

It all comes together in flavors that, for me, hold the essence of summer and family. It’s a connection to the ancient grain that binds peoples and generations across this giant American continent, and now, in our global world, across the planet.

Roasted Sweet Corn, Chicken thighs, broccoli slaw, tomato salsa

Sweet Corn, Cantaloupe, Roasted Jalapeno, Sungold Salsa:

Diced Sungold Tomatoes

Lime Juice

Diced Cantaloupe

Minced Roasted Jalapeno

Boil or Roast Sweet corn then slice from the cob

Minced Garlic

Salt/Pepper to Taste

Minced Fresh Oregano

Replace Cantaloupe with other fresh berries such as strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, or blackberries.

Sweet Corn, Sungold, Cantaloupe Salsa

Roasted Sweet Corn and Chicken Thigh Tacos

Boil or Roast Sweet corn then slice from the cob

Quality corn tortillas

Sautéed Chicken thighs—chipotle seasoning

Broccoli Slaw

Diced Sungold Tomatoes mixed with diced garlic

Roasted Sweet Corn

Roasted Sweet Corn Tacos

Sungold Tomatoes

The Mechanics

The Mechanics

I mow approximately an acre. With a push-mower. I understand the lawn isn’t, technically, necessary. However, it helps keep the bugs down, or so I tell myself. In Deerton, bugs are a constant battle. I will also argue the lawn was mowed this way before, and it’s easy to follow the yard line. I also love how it looks. Untamed wilderness at the lawn’s edges makes a startling contrast to thick, impenetrable brush and trees forming a border around the yard line.

I learned how to use both a push and riding lawnmower when I lived with my husband. I liked the rider, as I could have a beer or glass of wine and enjoy my yard one, ever-smaller, concentric circle at a time.

My cabin didn’t come with a mower, so I went down to a dealer in Skandia and looked for something used, aka in my teensy-tiny budget. When I walked into the show-room a gentleman was in the process of buying the only used one available, but changed his mind at the last minute, and for $150 the mower was mine.

I arrived home, unloaded the mower, and surveyed the waving grass blades and bobbing daisy heads. I had just purchased my first lawnmower. Before me were hundreds of laps around the rocky yard, a lot of bug bites, and moments of deep satisfaction, sipping wine and surveying the results of my efforts.

The work is hard–the yard dips and plunges. It’s full of rocks, and unexpected tree stumps popping out of tall grass to quickly stop a mower blade. The bugs are horrendous: black flies, mosquitoes, horse flies, deer flies. I’ve often eaten as many as five mosquitoes in a couple hours just opening my mouth for a deep breath.

But somehow, I don’t mind that much. Perhaps it’s doing it myself; a sense of accomplishment; stubborn pride; single woman goal achievement; forced exercise; a chance to touch each inch of the land I own and inhabit.

The lawnmower wasn’t my first triumphant act, and it certainly won’t be the last.

I learned how to use a weed wacker, switch the propane tank for the two-burner stove, change the water filter, build stone walk-ways, swap my brakes (with assistance), and carpentry work will soon be an addition to the list.

My education came out of necessity–I don’t have money to hire someone to do these things, and I’m perfectly capable of learning. But the honest truth is: I probably wouldn’t have learned if I didn’t have to.

My mother asks: “How can you stay alone there, night after night?”

Because I have to. Because it’s my home. Necessity.

New brake pads and a cautionary brake image.

I lost my fear of the dark. I lost my fear of being alone. Because I had to–either that or leave my home–give it up to fear.

Many times, I’ve thought of my dear friend Dorothy who lived alone in a cabin in the Canadian woods after her husband passed away. Children grown, she stuck it out there for several years before moving closer to town. She lived rustic, created a garden, hauled water, and enjoyed her space–her solitude.

It becomes something you wrap around yourself. Something you own. Out of what is, sometimes, the agony of necessity, comes strength to walk across the pitch-dark yard without a flashlight, and never consider needing one.

Breakfast

Breakfast can be greatly improved by a bit of inspiration. Oatmeal, granola, eggs–they don’t have to be boring. The addition of/pairing with nontraditional ingredients makes this meal more delicious and interesting.

I love to make a big breakfast for a room full of people–scrambled eggs with everything from the fridge–everyone crunching on toast and bacon. Coffee steaming. I also love to make oatmeal from the odd grains at the back of my cupboard, dab on Fage Greek Yogurt (full fat please) and mix and match fruits (frozen, dried and/or fresh), nuts, granola, seeds, milk, honey/maple syrup. Sometimes jelly or jam. Nutmeg or cinnamon.

Many of my tastiest ideas are inspired by photos. I hope this gallery will help provide inspiration. I will keep posting as inspiration occurs!

Fresh Raspberries, dried cranberries, fresh blueberries over Greek yogurt and mixed grain (whatever was in the cupboard) Oatmeal

Blueberry, Granola, Greek Yogurt, Coconut Milk, Black Chia Seeds

Veggie Scramble, Bacon, Toast–Blue Stem Farms CSA

Raspberries and Honey on Mixed Grain Oatmeal

Eggs N' Greens with Brie Toast — Eggs N’ Greens with Brie Toast

Sunny-side up local eggs with smoked sea salt and polenta

What are You Hungry For?

What are You Hungry For?

Pear Galette, made by my beautiful and talented sister, Laurel.

When you trace the days back, skip over calendar squares like spaces on a game board, reversing: events, choices, moments, does it overwhelm you? Do you look back to a month, three months, seven, a year ago and pause for a moment, wondering what the hell happened?

It’s a dizzying spiral that can, too often, lead down a rabbit hole, rehashing events we can’t do anything to change, but somehow find the need to comb through endlessly.

Lying in bed, mowing the giant lawn, working around the house, my thoughts slip easily into this well-worn groove, like tires into a rut. The past whispers, and soon I feel the tight, familiar ache in my jaw, as I begin to clench. Sadness, anxiety, twist in my chest.

Re-set.

I take a deep breath. Work to close the lid over my Pandora’s Box of worries I can’t change right now, or ever.

I’m used to cooking for another human every day. I find inspiration in their tastes, the mood, and what we’re craving.

“What are you hungry for?” Is, it seems, a much more interesting question to ask other people, but not so much yourself. These days, my answer to myself is usually, “rice pudding.” I go to the container in the fridge, dump on some nutmeg and cinnamon and plop/lean, eating wherever I am in the house. When I’m sufficiently shocked at how much rice pudding I’ve consumed, again, in one sitting, I return container to fridge.

I’ve analyzed my reliance on the side-food group “Pudding” and I think it hearkens back to comfort food of my childhood.

Grandma Betty Harkness made my sister and me the most delicious rice/vanilla puddings. We got to eat them from her company-special, cut green glass goblets. Our spoons clinked against emerald glass, creamy pudding swirled along fluted edges, and the morsel lingering in stemmed bottom had to be reached with our pinky fingers when no one was looking. The sweet, velvety pudding was both a treat and a comfort. Special glasses, cream and sugar, Grandma’s cozy kitchen.

While the pudding from the food co-op is delicious, it imparts little of the comfort I crave.

Impulsively, I invite various friends and groups of friends for dinner. Before confirmations, I begin planning and cooking. The energy focused on holding down the box lid on my trunk of worries, I divide, to focus on meal planning. In the morning, as I finish the lawn, instead of running the hamster wheel of apprehensions, I categorize ingredients in cupboards, shelves, fridge, and freezer. My mind adds and subtracts ingredients—grouping, arranging, rearranging.

Venison: the protein. Simple buttery polenta: the base. Fresh herbs: the green note. Frozen cauliflower from my father’s garden: the creamy, garlicky sauce. Roses are blooming on the cabin’s south-side, and a long-ago gardener’s rhubarb legacy peeks elephantine-ear leaves through tall grass. Roses, Honey, and Rhubarb: the sweet.

Wild Strawberries and Rhubarb from the yard.

The sun moves through its longest days’ orbit and apologetic cancellations and rain checks for “dinner next time” trickle in.

It doesn’t matter. The meal’s underway in my mind. I have something else to focus on, and I leap from hamster wheel to kitchen counter with desperate relief.

The meal comes together throughout the day. I give myself up to familiar rhythms: chopping, mixing, spicing, stirring, seasoning—decisions weighty enough to satisfy and calm my anxious mind.

One person to cook for would be enough, and dear friend Ryan arrives. He doesn’t simply arrive, but walks through the door bearing a bag of fresh clams, mussels, and conch from Maine.

We steam the seafood, filling the cabin with a briny, tide pool aroma unfamiliar to Laughing Whitefish River shores.

We eat shelled delicacies in the screen tent, near the river. Maple leaf shadows stipple the tabletop. River water chuckles over stones, nearby. Finches, robins, and meadowlarks fill the insect-humming air with melody.

Maine seafood by the Laughing Whitefish River

I can’t help myself, and chuckle aloud, as garlic-herb butter drips down my fingers.

It’s all still here—the worries, fears, anxieties—but distant now. Like the far-away whine of a mosquito you know you’ll have to deal with eventually, but for the moment, you’re safe.

Eating Alone

Eating Alone

I’ve been in two, serious, back-to-back, long-term relationships since I was 19. I’m 32 and six months single.

I came of age as a cook, and as a writer, with a partner. Cooking for someone else at least five nights a week sincerely influenced my culinary decisions. It challenged me to find ways to make two very different men like vegetables more. It pushed me to impress, both my men and extended friends and family, with my culinary prowess. It was a way I attempted to show two very differently, indifferent men, that I loved them. Every meal I put in front of them, I handed a little piece of myself to be taken inside them. Love, infusing food I’d made with these hands, now, a part of my love.

Venison Tenderloin, homemade sauerkraut, Brie, fresh herbs, garlic toum — Venison Tenderloin Sandwich, homemade sauerkraut, Brie, fresh herbs, garlic toum

Unfortunately, good food and love need more, to keep a forever-relationship, forever.

For the first time in my adult life, I’m really alone. One room cabin, 40 acres. Middle-of-nowhere-Deerton-Upper Peninsula wilderness-alone.

In the past, when single people have talked to me about challenges cooking for themselves, I fear I’ve been a bit flippant in my response. “I love cooking for myself,” I’d say with just a hint of disbelief and a total lack of context. “I cook something delicious just for myself, and it’s a treat. I’m glad to give you some recipe ideas,” I would finish with what I fear might have been a hint of bothersome self-assuredness. I couldn’t fully understand their perspective, because I’d never been in that position.

I get it now. It’s damn hard to cook a nice meal for yourself when you live alone. By nice, I mean put the time and energy to buy groceries and create something delicious and soul-satisfying, just for yourself. When we cook for others, we’re aware of many things: the need to impress, nourish, sustain, and nurture those we’re feeding. We put all of that into the food, and the flavors, etc. answer. But there isn’t always incentive, to do that for ourselves. Food becomes fuel when you’re alone. You eat standing, perching, laying down, but not sitting around a table. At the moment, I don’t even have a table.

I try. I’m a food writer. I love food and flavor is really important to me. Every aspect of good eating is important to me. But somehow, other things take precedence. I don’t eat as regularly. I read or watch a movie, trying to remember mindfulness with each bite. Trying.

Why are we less likely to nourish ourselves, than others?

In a rural setting, it becomes an interesting challenge. The closest grocery store is a solid 25 minute drive away. When I’m hungry at home, I’m also all the way home, and not likely to jump in the car just to get myself a meal. So I end up with interesting concoctions and combinations of snacks and half-meals that I often consume standing, then sitting, then walking around as other agenda items momentarily take precedence over eating. It’s not like that, when you eat with others. You focus more, on the meal, atmosphere, conversation, their reactions, the play of light across food, wine, faces.

Mindfulness. Mindfulness. Mindfulness. I chant, a mantra. But before I know it my eggs are getting cold, and the buttered toast, chill. However, I’ve managed to sweep, play with the puppy, and hang clothes on the line, so there’s always a tradeoff.

Sit down and eat your damn eggs. I remind myself in something approximating a mental-stern-mommy-voice. They’re still good, even cold.

I’ve learned that eggs are a single person’s best friend. They’re a simple-to-cook, locally sourceable, healthy, versatile protein option. They’re adaptable to any cuisine theme. They’re comfort food.

***All recipes are adaptable to adding many more people to your meal!

Soft-Boiled Eggs and Toast—Arguably, the Ultimate Comfort Food (Shailah, I know how you feel about yolks)

2 local eggs
Good bread for toasting
Butter
Cheese (optional)
Salt/Pepper to taste (I also like to use garlic salts, dill, tarragon, turmeric, etc. depending on what flavor mood I’m in)

Bring a small pot of water to boil. Slowly lower in eggs, one at a time, careful not to jar. Let boil for approximately 4 minutes, depending on how runny you like the yolk.

Run eggs under cold water and carefully remove shell. Sprinkle eggs with desired flavors.

Toast bread, and then butter. Cut into dippable/scoopable slices.

Eggs and Greens

2 local eggs
Good bread for toasting
Butter
Large handful of greens (chard, kale, spinach, micro greens, mustard greens, arugula, wilted lettuce, etc.) –The greens melt down into next to nothing, so use a generous handful.
Minced Garlic (Add garlic towards the end of cooking process for a more full flavor)
Salt/pepper/spices to taste
Olive oil
Braggs Liquid Aminos/ Soy Sauce
Water—not always needed, but might be necessary to keep greens from sticking. Sometimes, I also just add butter.

Melt greens in oil with spices and Braggs/Soy Sauce. When greens are melty, make a well in the center and add eggs and garlic. Cover, making sure to keep a bit of liquid in the bottom, and cook until eggs are sunnyside up (whites are cook and there’s a film over the yolk, but yolk’s still runny). Scoop eggs, greens, and pan juices into a bowl.

Other Egg Meal Ideas:

Sometimes, I cheat and use packets of Indian curries our food coop carries. The ingredients are good and healthy, and they don’t have a bunch of preservatives. There’s different options, and you can add to them. Ditto with the organic ramen/noodle packets. I add cabbage, peppers, zucchini, seafood, leftover sausage/chicken/venison/beef/pork, chopped nuts, etc. And of course, eggs. They can be cooked however you’re craving eggs, and added to the curry/noodle dish.
Hard-boiled, or even soft-boiled (using the yolk as part of the dressing) eggs are delicious on most salads.
Plain old eggs, bacon, and toast is a perfect comfort food.