...and time to change it up in fivenineteen land in here a little! How do you like what I've done with the place? :-)
So it's that still, grippy grey outside again. So silent this morning it woke me up. No wind, no rain, no cars on the road. Damn, did everyone leave town except me?
And I've just about finished up the last of that wonderful Bolognese sauce I made last week. It keeps beautifully in a Tupperware in the fridge. This batch went quickly so I won't likely need to freeze any.
Now, in last week's post I made some comment about how I don't mind the chopping and prep work that you could do in a food processor in a fraction of the time. Maybe I stirred the sleeping beast way deep in the back, top shelf of my pantry.
I must have been craving something completely different for this weekend's cooking adventure. I have a pretty decent kitchen, but it's nowhere near the size or with the open feel that more modern kitchens have today. Nope, it's 1980 here in our townhouse complex, and while one of my neighbors did a glorious remodel to open up her kitchen area into a nice great-room flow, the rest of us have not yet pulled the trigger. I'm glad I at least have a good-sized, open bar counter area on one side which looks into the dining room and a nice bay window and slider which plops out onto my back deck. So no claustrophobia. It's just a small-ish kitchen with not a whole lot of spare countertop space.
And part of that countertop space is a mini-showcase of my beloved cookbooks. The rest are in the pantry...and that pantry is a hodgepodge of well, stuff you normally put in a pantry, my spices, and some cooking gadgets I don't use super often. And my hand mixer, a wonderful toaster oven with a mini pizza stone, waffle iron, plastic wrap, tin foil...hmmm, I think this baby is due for a major cleanout.
I took a good, hard look at those cookbooks. How much have I REALLY used them recently? The slow cooker recipes, raw "cooking," vegan, Primal, Italian food, American Southwest...time to pull one off the display and try something different, I told myself.
So I reached for Caprial's Bistro-Style Cuisine, by Caprial Pence. (That's "kuh PREEL" on the first name, by the way.) I have one of her other cookbooks, and way back in the day (late 1990s) she had a cooking show on our local public TV station, which is how I first found out about her, channel surfing on some lazy weekend afternoon. Caprial's signature are recipes that are simple but super chock-full of flavor and come together very quickly, with a big nod to the flavors of Pacific Northwest cooking.
Here's what I whipped up - it's chicken with a wonderful, spicy peanut sauce which you can also use on grilled prawns or fish. The sauce has a good kick but not in a blow-your-head-off way. Head to the Asian foods section of your grocery store! And when she says to mix ingredients in a food processor, she means it. I dug out my 11-cup Cuisinart, blew the dust off and took her for a spin.
Hot-as-Hell Chicken on Noodles with Peanut Sauce
Serves 4
Peanut Sauce
2 tsp peeled, chopped fresh ginger
2 tsp chopped cilantro
2 cloves garlic
2 fresh jalapeno peppers (whole, stems removed)
1/2 C red wine vinegar
1/2 C soy sauce
1 heaping C creamy peanut butter
2 tsp curry powder
1/4 C honey
2 tsp dark sesame oil
Chicken
1 tsp olive oil
4 (6 oz) chicken breast halves
1/2 C dry sherry
1 C sweet hot chile sauce
1/2 lb dried Chinese egg noodles, cooked al dente and tossed with a dash of vegetable oil
1/2 C dry roasted peanuts or cashews (I used cashews)
3-4 green onions, minced
To prepare the peanut sauce, combine the ginger, cilantro, garlic, jalapenos, vinegar, soy sauce and peanut butter in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the curry powder, honey and sesame oil and process until smooth. Set aside.
In a very large saute pan, heat the olive oil over high heat until smoking hot. Put the chicken breasts in the pan and brown them well, about 2 minutes on each side. Decrease the heat to medium and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the sherry, increase the heat to high and cook until about half the sherry remains, 2-3 minutes. Add the chile sauce and turn the breasts to coat them well. Decrease the heat to low and slowly simmer while you prepare the noodles.
Put the noodles in the pasta insert and set in a pot of boiling water or in the stock pot and cook for about 2 minutes to heat them through. Strain the cooked noodles and place in a large bowl. Toss them with 1/2 cup of the peanut sauce and place on a serving platter. Remove the chicken breasts from the sauce and slice. Place the chicken slices on the noodles and pour some of the remaining sauce over the top. Sprinkle with the peanuts or cashews and scallions. Serve hot.
NOTE: I had some bowtie pasta lying around and used that instead of egg noodles. I bet this would be great over rice too.
As I fire up the keyboard here I'm realizing this post will likely be in two parts - some rambling on how I'm doing and then more about the post title. But hey, it's my blog and my rocks rolling around in my head so there we are.
My physical and emotional health both took a nosedive this month. But I think I can say that my cough is pretty much gone. Just some hacking in the morning and a little in the evening when I'm tired. After 3 weeks of this, you bet I'm sick of being sick!
Emotionally...well...overall I'm feeling good and putting the whole breakup thing behind me. Every day it's farther in the rear view mirror and more of a capsule of really great memories rather than anything to feel sad about.
Are he and I in contact, you may wonder? No, and we won't be. When he called that night to break up I was in shock. But somewhere at the end of our conversation I think we'd agreed to speak again in a few days. I was going to call him, yep, we agreed to that. But since then I got removed off Facebook...un-friended. Wow, the quirky world of Facebook. Whatever...OK. And couple of my friends called his breaking up over the phone cowardly. Perhaps...but it doesn't matter in the end. It's still over and wasn't my choice. I don't feel a need to label it. So no, I didn't call him.
Does he read this blog? He sure did at first. And loved it. Even shared it with some good friends of his on his trip to Australia last month. Perhaps it was my first post-breakup post that he didn't like so much. I'd bet money he's read it. If he has great; if not, great. It's my words and my feelings and isn't intended for anyone in particular. There are a fair amount who tune in here regularly (thank you!) and a few who stumble in here on accident (another thank you!).
If you haven't seen that first post-breakup post yet, it's a couple weeks back, "Misled and Broken." And it's not a bashfest on him. I don't operate that way...and as angry as I am (OK, was as we're moving past this) about having my head and heart fucked with, I can't be angry at HIM. Does that make any sense? That's a hard one to articulate.
There are a few last dangly things I want to share in here about how I'm feeling post-breakup. I did feel a little down yesterday as the 26th was supposed to be a special night for he and I. First, the plan was to go to a fundraiser/auction of some sort. I remember when he sent the email with the scoop...I thought WOW. He's already thinking ahead and wants me to do more stuff aways out! What can I say - that may not be a big deal for some, but that's HUGE for me. Makes me feel really happy, included and wanted. Loved.
But the plans for that night later changed into going out with a large group to celebrate his birthday - something he does every year. Sounds even better! In fact, if I remember correctly, he told me about this change of plans just a few days before we split. Now, how can you already be thinking about pulling away from someone but tell them hey, instead of going to the auction we're going out with a bunch of people for my (his) birthday? I don't get it. Maybe his decision to break up was a super spontaneous one. Or maybe the chat we had at my place the week prior was my warning shot over the bow. It doesn't matter now. I just felt a little wistful last night knowing we'd had plans to be out celebrating. Plans that he moved forward with and that no longer included me. And with these words I close the door and move on.
A couple weeks ago I was changing the sheets on my bed and stubbed my toe on something just under the dust cover. Oh yeah...some, um, props for the boudoir. Specifically, hand restraints. Am I blushing as I type this? What can I tell you - don't knock it till you try it, people. Tangent warning: I have never had any issues or hangups with sex. And with very, very few exceptions, I've never had what anyone would call 'bad' sex. Meaning, chemistry's usually not an issue. But props/accessories...well, I've never really ever felt they were necessary nor have any of the men in my life ever suggested using them - till now.
And now they were sitting in a heap under my bed. What to do?
I then realized I still had a book he'd loaned me: The Primal Blueprint, by Mark Sisson. It promotes the primal (or paleo) way of eating - meaning, to eat like our ancestors did in the hunter/gatherer years, the way our bodies are genetically programmed! Lots of lean meats, vegetables and fruits. Hold off on the grains, dairy and processed foods. G raved about this book and I'd browsed through it on a couple occasions in his kitchen when he was cooking us dinner. It really is a fascinating book. There are 9809824 diet and nutrition books and theories out there. What really works? I don't read a lot of diet books, but this one literally jumped out at me...the same way the Carbohydrate Addicts book did about 15 years ago. I liked it so much I recently purchased the accompanying cookbook. Yum.
And as I was rearranging things in my pantry I found a small, round tupperware container of flour. The first time I cooked for us I made my signature corn chowder with potatoes, fennel and bacon - using the bacon he'd made himself. I needed just a tablespoon of flour for the roux and was totally out. And I was in that mode where I'd done all the chopping and prep work and was not in a position to run to the store to get flour. When you need flour, you really can't substitute anything else! So, G to the rescue bringing some by at the last minute!
So we've got flour, a book, and bedroom hand restraints. I've had a few episodes after breakups where we each needed to return stuff we had at eachother's houses - clothes, makeup, shoes or other things. Never those 3 things, much less all at once! Random!! And normally it's done in person, meeting up. This time it just didn't feel right to do it that way.
So I thought hmm, what to do with these 3 things? I ended up putting them in a brown grocery bag and drove up to his place late one night and put it in the back entry area near his car. Some of my friends said I was too nice to do this - should have just tossed everything in the trash. But that's not how I roll. Again, I can't label behavior like that as "too nice" or whatever the hell it is. It was something I needed to do and it felt good. And there was nothing of any significance of mine that was still at his place. Just a toothbrush. And now closing another door with these words.
Those 3 random things DO have significance...they point to 3 areas that are so important to me in relationships, and things he and I had no issues with period. Cooking, food and sex...basic needs we all have as humans.
So now, I think about Passion. Passion for cooking a great meal, sharing it with friends, and then passion later that night (and morning) with your special someone. Doesn't get much better than that. When I look back on my short time with G, I am inspired (re-inspired) to cook and cherish my love of food. I was reminded that you don't need a huge, gourmet kitchen to cook incredible meals for your family and friends. G's post-divorce apartment has a great floor plan. The kitchen is, well, your basic apartment kitchen - perhaps a "2 butt" size - enough for two people to cook together, and very basic appliances. But the cooking that came out of that kitchen - for just the two of us or a group of 12 - phenomenal.
And, transitioning topics here and onto what was more the point of this post (see, I DO always come back after longass tangents), "passion by participation" popped into my head one day. I think it was a crappy and stressed day at work that did it. We're on the brink of a large launch in the next few weeks, and our team's pretty beat down and stressed. No matter how hard we plan, we discover stuff that still needs to be done last minute. And we panic, freak out...but get it done. But we need to do a better job of collaborating under stress. Rather, we scurry into our silos and shut eachother out. Given my job is to provide planning and scheduling among other things, our actual way of executing on tasks flies in the face of my basic principles. But, our group and what we're working on is new, so the opportunities are incredible and boundless. There's a lot of "we don't know what we don't know." Myself included. And to survive in this group, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
I am a pretty good multi-tasker, but when I get stressed and overwhelmed I spin out and clue out. I even had an astrologer once tell me, during a natal chart reading, that I'm prone to "clue-ing out" more than others. Darn you, Neptune! [Just kidding - I can't remember which planetary alignment is to blame, ha ha]. Combine that with a therapist about a decade ago who introduced me to the word "negating." Brushing things off, nullyfying...oh dear this could be a whole 'nother post down the road. Lots of issues there. I'm fighting back - HARD.
I DO get my clue-ing out-ness quirk and how it gets worse when I'm under stress. Throw in a little PMS (typically I have one bad day a month) and I'm pretty much an inarticulate, blubbery mess for 24 hours.
What do I do about it? How do I stretch myself to improve? I decided I'm going to try very, very hard, no matter what I'm doing, to focus only on that one particular thing and not let other buzz distract me. When my world at work is a sea of emailing flying around, interruptions and back to back meetings, that's pretty damn hard to do! But can I do it better? And if so, will that improve the quality of my work? Or perhaps my relationships? How about my Silpada jewelry business? Or my hockey?
Passion starts with participation. Showing up! Being present mentally and physically! Ignoring other noise and distractions! YES! THIS is what I'm going to focus on for the next week, month, year...however long it takes till it becomes a habit.
I've got a lot of work to do. And I'm ready.
