monday perhaps

I feel strangely obligated to complain that it’s Monday. Perhaps it’s a leftover impulse from my working 9 – 5 days, although being in floral design and event planning that kind of stricture never really applied. It truth, the work of a home cook and caregiver is perpetual, which is to say, I “work” everyday. Perhaps it’s just a ploy for validation and solidarity with the working world outside my home, and those around me who must plod off to their weekday jobs.  

The worst think about Monday, perhaps, is the weight my own expectations for the week: the list making and note writing; and the wondering how it’s all going to get done. This isn’t Eastern philosophy, but perhaps Monday’s often suck because I am predisposed to thinking they will, and therefore they do. In reality, today is a cold and bright winter day, the snow from this weekend is still clinging to the trees which will make for a beautiful drive to campus this afternoon. I am, for example, far more upset that the charge point on my iPhone is dying, which is an ongoing stressor than I am about it being Monday. Perhaps, like the Grinch, how I feel about Monday is completely about my own attitude and nothing else, it is, after-all, an opportunity to mark a new beginning every single week.  

Per my iPhone 4 - yes you read that right I’m two generations behind on my technology - the charge point is part of the main circuit board and cannot be repaired. At this point there is a fairly complicated ritual involved that includes the right facial expression, the cord wrapped around the phone at the correct angle, and the correct combination of curse words, to get it to charge. I fear, every single day, that today will be the day it does not work. As for replacing the unit, I know I will have to, but I really am hoping to continue this dangerous dance until our tax returns come in. One final word before I leave the subject, I really think it’s an irresponsible kind of built in obsolescence to put the interface point directly on the main circuit board. I am sure for design purposes it makes perfect sense, however, how many iPhones go into the landfill and recycling* each year because of this flaw? The rest of the technology was perfectly serviceable, is that kind of waste really necessary?  I don’t usually get on my green soap box, but if we’re going to have any kind of a future on this planet we really need to think about how we’re making personal technologies – like the cell phone – now! 

*A great deal of the recycled tech in this country is sitting around in vast warehouses with no one buying and using it to manufacture a new product. Many of the companies end up closing down and the phone you took the time and care to recycle ends up dumped into a landfill, or worse. 

Finally, in an attempt to bring this journal entry back to the main topic of my blog, I talked to the family about my food plan. I don’t expect to impose my ideas on them, I have tried and failed, but since I feed them three or more days per week, I thought it fair to at least give them a head up. In response to that conversation, my mother-in-law came home with half a dozen paczki. OK, it wasn’t in direct response to the conversation about us needing to loose weight, but it was suspicious. My husband had mentioned that we both liked paczki, and that he was looking forward to Paczki Day. She saw the paczki at the grocery store, and bought them: not exactly diabolical behavior! Accept, that I’m the one with no self control who will be lying in bed at night bathed in my own cold sweat, as the paczki call to me from the kitchen upstairs in a creepy, come hither, “I see dead people,” kind of way, until I finally break down and eat one!   

Paczki Day, (punch-key) for those of you unfamiliar with the treat, and the event, is a means of celebrating Shrove Tuesday - the last Tuesday before the Lenten fast. In Canada and the UK it is also known as Pancake Tuesday. This year, it falls on March 4^th, but paczki have already begun appearing everywhere here in Michigan, and will be on grocery store shelves until Easter. The fact that they appear so soon, and are kept around throughout Lent, kind of cheapens them. They are meant to be one final splurge before a time of deprivation, not something to dunk in your morning coffee.  

Oatmeal for breakfast; leftover veggie pizza for lunch; and a sweet potato, and green bean salad with yogurt and lentils for dinner. 

good kitchen day

Yesterday was a really good kitchen day; I was listening to music on my iPhone (John Mayer) and didn’t let anyone pull me out of what I was doing. Everything flowed together and even though I spent ten hours on my feet, I wasn’t tired. This is not idle bragging, in my version of an ideal world every day in the kitchen would go that way: but his is not an ideal world. Some days are futile drudgery, unremarkable at best, and others, everything you attempt goes wrong and even the simplest tasks seem overwhelming.

I remembered to snap a couple pictures of my homemade granola, and the Coca Cola Cake, and will post those, along with the recipes as fast as I can write them up and edit the photos. I also snapped a couple pictures of all the snow we've had this past month. I may not have been tired after the hours in the kitchen, but I was knocked flat after I finished shoveling the 6+ inches of very wet snow off the driveway. 

Today, I slept until 11:30am. Somehow it took me an hour to make a pot of tea and get myself a bowl of yogurt with honey, fresh apple and granola. I then decided I would make a large veggie pizza* for dinner. Lunch is to be determined, or rather, swapped for a late night snack which will likely be more pizza, and even more likely, toast. 

*Veggie Pizza – sauce - mozzarella, provolone, parmesan cheese – roasted red pepper – onion – mushroom – marinated artichokes – fresh tomato. I browned off the mushrooms and pre-cooked the onions. The artichokes and red pepper were from a jar (Trader Joe’s) but I cut the artichokes in half and sautéed them as well. I sliced the tomatoes very thin and laid them out on a couple layers of paper towel, then I seasoned them with salt and pepper. Just before placing them on the unbaked pizza, I blotted them with another layer of paper towel pressing firmly to extract even more water, but not hard enough to mash the tomatoes. This technique did two things, provided flavor for some out of season tomatoes, (not my purchase) and drew enough water off that they weren’t soggy sad versions of themselves after baking in the oven. 

Tonight, between the trip to the gym, the cooking, and the shoveling, I am looking forward to taking more than the recommended dose of Ibuprofen and going to bed.

granola and clean underwear

I have another ambitious Saturday planned. I’ve run out of my favorite home made granola, and need to make bread for the coming week. I need to perform the weekly kitchen cleaning rituals, and I am quickly running out of clean underwear. I also cannot forget – yet again – to soak the beans for tomorrow’s cooking adventures, and then there is the matter of the ongoing snow problem, and my hubby has put in a request for chocolate cake as a weekend treat.  

One of the benefits of having a partner who is a college professor is that I never have to worry about having left-over desserts in the house. I can always pack them up, and send them to an appreciative audience. This way I can have my treat, and I don’t need to worry about it hanging around tempting me to eat more than I should.  

On the menu for today:  

Breakfast

Oatmeal with cinnamon, apples, and maple syrup 

Lunch

Michigan Salad

- mixed spring greens with chicken, apples, dried cherries, and an apple cider vinaigrette 

Dinner

Potage Noire

-casserole of venison, mushrooms, celery and carrots, in a sauce covered with mashed potatoes

Plus, tea: lots and lots of tea.  

before the snow flies again...

So…yesterday’s big plans: still good. I am working on a menu plan and grocery list to follow it through. There is a little under an inch of snow outside the window, but I am already sore from last night’s inaugural visit to the gym. What to do? Suck it up and shovel the driveway. There is yet another snow storm expected tomorrow!

I was feeling dreadfully depressed two days ago, thus no journal entry for that day, but I am feeling much better just having done something about the problems I COULD do something about. I am still in need of a “buck up old thing,” pep talk but I’m getting there. 

Very short entry today, I must get back to meal and menu planning. There is much to be done before the snow flies again. 

die with a "t"

I don’t believe in diets. I don’t deny that they perform the function they’re designed to perform, only that the results are, at best transient, and at worst, detrimental to your over all physical and mental health. Despite what every celebrity doctor would have you think, our bodies are designed to derive pleasure from eating food. If they were not, our offspring would starve! Pleasure is an absolute necessity of life: otherwise, why bother remaining alive? Thinking of food as fuel and nothing else is not corrective thinking, it is WRONG thinking! 

I try to heed the words written on the cover of Omnivore’s Dilemma: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” However; it isn’t always possible to live by those three sentences. I do, however think that they absolutely represent better health advice than anything that has ever been uttered by any diet guru. My evidence may be considered circumstantial and my research merely associative but I know this: when I stick to those three sentences I feel better, and when I do not, I feel unwell.   

True, I have gained ten pounds since the beginning of the holidays on top of the extra weight I am currently carrying, but this is not about ten pounds. I need to make some changes to be more in line with the way I want to eat, and the way I want to live, than falling back into old bad habits and allowing convenience to sway my actions or thinking. 

Here’s the plan: 

In addition to making more meals which are predominantly comprised of vegetables, I’ll be having two vegetarian days a week. And since my husbands schedule means I don’t have to worry about accommodating my in-laws for part of the week, I’m going to work on a "four days on, three days off" principal. It means, I can have the treats, and heavier braised, or stewed meals that I crave on the weekends. 

The remainder of the plan is simple and even harder to achieve. I have to get to the gym, walk whenever I can, and generally make more active choices with my time. I already pay for the gym, and I’m going to start using it today.  

So, there is one addendum I would add to Mr. Poland’s elegantly simple statements: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Move. 

managing time

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” - Douglas Adams 

Time management is something I struggle with, I am making no attempts to deny that, but sometimes I wonder if all I really need are less interruptions. There are folks who get a heck of a lot more done in a day than I do, but then; how much control do I want to assert over others in my household so that I can achieve my own goals? And, as my mother succinctly put it; does anyone really want to live with someone like that? 

I’m not terribly good at multitasking, in fact, I don’t even believe in it. Many things in life simply deserve your complete attention, and there is plenty of research to suggest that while you may be doing five things simultaneously, you are not doing any of them well. Yes, I’m very capable when it comes to stirring multiple pots and getting multiple elements of meal to the table at the same time. However; making dinner, tending laundry, talking on the phone, caulking the tub, and answering an email message, while simultaneously balancing my check book, is just not in the cards. For this reason, I also don’t believe I’d make a very good line cook or chef. Or mother. 

I am, however, a firm believer in the French idea of mise en place: best translated as everything in its place. This is not just about gathering all of your ingredients, preparing, measuring, and weighing items in advance, everything in its place includes your mind. Before you begin any meal or recipe, you need to make sure your head is in the game. Mise en place means that you’ve thought about the shape of a dish, how it will come together, and even - if applicable - how it will go onto the plate. It means that you have read and understand all the steps of a recipe before you begin. You know where the gaps are, and ideally use this time to work clean (clean as you go) but also where you can allow for interruptions and even enjoyable distractions like a glass of wine or a cup of tea. Applying the principal of mise en place may not prevent you from burning the rice, but it will reduce stress in the kitchen and it will make you a better more consistent cook. Finally, when attempting any type of Asian cuisine, from Thai to Indian, having all of the ingredients ready to go before you begin isn’t just recommended, it is essential.

long-johns and breakfast for lunch

Monday, January 27, 2014, 07:30.

Last night’s snow needs to be shoveled, we are under yet another wind chill advisory, and it is getting colder by the minute. Breakfast is going to consist of a few sips of tea as I pull on my long-johns and gather all my snow removal gear. There are certainly times when it is a good idea to huddle inside and wait for the worst of the weather to pass, but I am particularly susceptible to the winter blues so it is especially important I don’t loose forward momentum. I say: dress appropriately and keep moving. 

We’re having bacon, eggs, and toast for lunch, and, unless something unforeseen prevents it, pasta with chicken and peas for dinner. I was severely tempted to eat a very large piece of fruitcake for breakfast, but did break down and have a bowl of cold cereal instead. I think the box would have been tastier.  

Now, since focus is a word in the dictionary, and not something I posses, I think I’m going to head back to bed for an hour. It is a luxury, I know. Hubby teaches tonight, and I’ll be working on getting more recipes written up and ready to post.