Well. It's been looking like spring here and I've relishing it while steeling myself against the eventuality that winter will jump back down our throats and the tops of our boots, soaking our socks. In the midst of all this melting I've been coooooking. You see, I've discovered the truth in the proverb "He who eats alone grows bigger outside and colder inside." Yup, what wisdom. Meaning, I corral people into joining me for meals. "Hey Alicia, come over and we'll do yoga....then we'll eat edamame while I bake banana bread and zappetizer." "Hey Grace, wanna eat 30 Rock while I eat dinner?" "Can I make you waffles?"
I love food. It's great. And food should be homemade with natural ingredients, this I firmly believe. But here's the reverse. Maybe you've heard, I have some type of acid problems with my stomach. I take a prescription pill every day (and occasionally a weird concoction of apple cider vinegar) and I'm only supposed to eat small amounts when I'm hungry. Lot's of yogurt and vegetables. Let me point out where I have a problem: when I'm hungry. I'd like to get something off my chest and if I'm lucky maybe someone can provide me with some of their own proverbs. Rewind ten years and you'd find a Marge struggling with –ahem, I can get this out– well, some eating disorder stuff. Did you know that completely confuses your understanding of when you're hungry/full? I still haven't quite relearned it all. I've struggled to come to a place where I'm mostly delighted by eating healthily and taking care of my body and suddenly in one year it's become terribly complicated and discouraging again. It's important for me that I don't backslide into a quagmire of crying over meal times. What to do? People delight me, take my mind off things, remind me of the many ways food is nourishing.... So can I make you waffles?
I've also received MY DIPLOMA!!!! Which means I'm going through accordian files stacking 90% of old tests in the recycle pile (so much weight from my shoulders!) and a few things in the "to scan" pile. And setting letters in another pile entirely. They keep their paper form until they relinquish their lines to decay. I can't shred Seven-page-letter-S with his Norwegian fisherman who remind him of me. And there's an old C moving into my letter box with his too-much-coffee-scrawl. I can't lose a single page of Jbottoms or Karonius or Dad or post-it notes on newspaper articles from my Mom. You know, I'm certain, my family could win awards for our multi-media, strange correspondence.
Email is lovely and speedy. But I wish email were more like a page of paper, ready to be manipulated by photocopies, the quirks of handwriting, and creases of an envelope. And I wish email showed up in the mail box outside my front door. That never loses its romance. Nor do waffles.
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
22 January 2011
09 May 2010
i cheat at mini golf
I've been burning things on the stove all week.
Today I discovered that we do have a fire alarm and it works.
Been reading a Jane Hirshfield book of poetry and I'm struck by the precise order in which her poems lay. Particularly Mathematics.
You see today what I burned on the stove was pasta. The rotini kind because I feel the corkscrew whole wheat curls pocket in all the sauce or pesto or whatever I season to taste them with. And that made me think of a few summers ago when I would make that pasta with that olive oil, chopped walnuts, garlic, s & p, and parmesan and serve it up to whomever was around. And that cream colored table where J.E. and I sat one afternoon staring at each other as my dear roommate was getting in another fight with her ex. It was good to have someone with me that afternoon. Other nights I would leave and lay on the grass outside, staring at the tree branches blooming above. I'd listen to Navigator's Throwing Tongues album over and over. (I never told you that, did I?)
There's only so much you can do for people. They've got to take care of themselves.
And you know, eventually she did.
And I stabbed the book Twilight and burned it with E and her sister.
Because I'd hurt too much to see and hear all that to read that even for a laugh.
Anyway, it was a good thing I had already decided I would eat some Indian food for lunch today.
PS. I saw Babies and How to Train Your Dragon. I liked them both very much, I did.
Today I discovered that we do have a fire alarm and it works.
Been reading a Jane Hirshfield book of poetry and I'm struck by the precise order in which her poems lay. Particularly Mathematics.
You see today what I burned on the stove was pasta. The rotini kind because I feel the corkscrew whole wheat curls pocket in all the sauce or pesto or whatever I season to taste them with. And that made me think of a few summers ago when I would make that pasta with that olive oil, chopped walnuts, garlic, s & p, and parmesan and serve it up to whomever was around. And that cream colored table where J.E. and I sat one afternoon staring at each other as my dear roommate was getting in another fight with her ex. It was good to have someone with me that afternoon. Other nights I would leave and lay on the grass outside, staring at the tree branches blooming above. I'd listen to Navigator's Throwing Tongues album over and over. (I never told you that, did I?)
There's only so much you can do for people. They've got to take care of themselves.
And you know, eventually she did.
And I stabbed the book Twilight and burned it with E and her sister.
Because I'd hurt too much to see and hear all that to read that even for a laugh.
Anyway, it was a good thing I had already decided I would eat some Indian food for lunch today.
PS. I saw Babies and How to Train Your Dragon. I liked them both very much, I did.
28 March 2010
march comes in like a hermit, out like a human
These long days of March are getting wearying. I keep trying to tote about healthy food since I wake up and go and don't come home til long past time for a bedtime snack. But that's not enough. I thoroughly enjoy the mental engagement of classes, but I keep dreaming of a life where I wake up and eat breakfast sitting down at home. Eat lunch, not snacks, sitting down somewhere. And eat dinner. I've forgotten what dinner is like. Maybe in a month when I've rediscovered this third meal of the day I can have a small dinner partay.
I've got a taste in my mouth for spring and summer evenings enjoying our back patio.
I think you should listen to this and be captured by the beautiful voice of Bonnie Beecher. She's rumored to be Bob Dylan's girl from the north country. I wouldn't doubt it, she's almost as comforting as my mom singing lullabies. I'm also going through another Vashti Bunyan phase.
This week the final Hot Chocolate Club event of the season was held. Sometimes for some reason I forget what it's like to mingle among people. Conversations that fill you up. Talk about everything from the art history of crazy quilts to Jerusalem travels to styrofoam cups. And fascinating hypothetical situations: If you were an electrical engineer and you were being tortured by terrorists, would you understand what was going on more? Like when they electrocuted you?
That's a thought to ponder anyway.
My March freeze is thawing.
I've got a taste in my mouth for spring and summer evenings enjoying our back patio.
I think you should listen to this and be captured by the beautiful voice of Bonnie Beecher. She's rumored to be Bob Dylan's girl from the north country. I wouldn't doubt it, she's almost as comforting as my mom singing lullabies. I'm also going through another Vashti Bunyan phase.
This week the final Hot Chocolate Club event of the season was held. Sometimes for some reason I forget what it's like to mingle among people. Conversations that fill you up. Talk about everything from the art history of crazy quilts to Jerusalem travels to styrofoam cups. And fascinating hypothetical situations: If you were an electrical engineer and you were being tortured by terrorists, would you understand what was going on more? Like when they electrocuted you?
That's a thought to ponder anyway.
My March freeze is thawing.
20 September 2009
what do you want to be when you grow up?
I would like to be a poltergeist. It might be more fun than being Kim Jong-il.
Yesterday I walked on salt. It was white, it was grey, it was pink (or more Milly mauve), it was shimmery, soft, and crystalled hard. My feet came away with a better than sugar shine.
An amazing thing has happened. With the advent of this house with clean roommates and lovely rooms, I have rediscovered my interest in cooking. I am repicking up the New York Times on Wednesdays so I can savor their dining section. I am redevouring all of my cook books and thinking of the fun twists to tie and tweaking this pretzel recipe to a practice bagel recipe and substituting this flour for that flour etceteras.
I've found a new waffle recipe I've been playing with, it's supposed to be a sour cream thing and while I'm sure that's delightful, I never actually buy sour cream. I cannot recall if I have ever bought it before in my life. So I made something up.
My friend also taught me a neat trick with a final dashing of cheese. One of the tragedies of moving from home is no longer having access to our fine, large, cast iron waffler. The surest way to have great waffles is to have a magically fantastic waffler. In university, we seem to only have mini-weaklings. Read on if you care about the life-saving trick.
My Yogurt Waffles
1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 TBsp sugar (though next time I'm trying it without)
1 TBsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup canola oil (at most) (note here: I'm a very loose measurer)
1 cup milk
1/2 cup fat free plain yogurt
3 large eggs
a squeeze or so of a lemon
THE SECRET INGREDIENT (well the lemon is key as well): shredded cheese
CAVEAT: If you have a mini-weakster waffler, you MUST start heating your iron well before, at least 15 minutes, otherwise you're sunk in my book.
Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. In a larger bowl mix the wet ingredients. Combine, and start pouring into the waffler. But WAIT! Before you shut the waffler, generously cover the top of batter with shredded cheese. The fine grate is better and I've been using Swiss. The cheese creates a great crispy outer shell and adds a little rich flavorish twang.
The syrup I've been making recently is a lemon simple syrup. It's especially delightful to balance the cheese flavor. Simple syrups are two cups sugar dissolved in once cup boiling water, then with a half teaspoon of whatever flavoring you want.
There, I have divulged some of my waffle magic for you.
Yesterday I walked on salt. It was white, it was grey, it was pink (or more Milly mauve), it was shimmery, soft, and crystalled hard. My feet came away with a better than sugar shine.
An amazing thing has happened. With the advent of this house with clean roommates and lovely rooms, I have rediscovered my interest in cooking. I am repicking up the New York Times on Wednesdays so I can savor their dining section. I am redevouring all of my cook books and thinking of the fun twists to tie and tweaking this pretzel recipe to a practice bagel recipe and substituting this flour for that flour etceteras.
I've found a new waffle recipe I've been playing with, it's supposed to be a sour cream thing and while I'm sure that's delightful, I never actually buy sour cream. I cannot recall if I have ever bought it before in my life. So I made something up.
My friend also taught me a neat trick with a final dashing of cheese. One of the tragedies of moving from home is no longer having access to our fine, large, cast iron waffler. The surest way to have great waffles is to have a magically fantastic waffler. In university, we seem to only have mini-weaklings. Read on if you care about the life-saving trick.
My Yogurt Waffles
1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 TBsp sugar (though next time I'm trying it without)
1 TBsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup canola oil (at most) (note here: I'm a very loose measurer)
1 cup milk
1/2 cup fat free plain yogurt
3 large eggs
a squeeze or so of a lemon
THE SECRET INGREDIENT (well the lemon is key as well): shredded cheese
CAVEAT: If you have a mini-weakster waffler, you MUST start heating your iron well before, at least 15 minutes, otherwise you're sunk in my book.
Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. In a larger bowl mix the wet ingredients. Combine, and start pouring into the waffler. But WAIT! Before you shut the waffler, generously cover the top of batter with shredded cheese. The fine grate is better and I've been using Swiss. The cheese creates a great crispy outer shell and adds a little rich flavorish twang.
The syrup I've been making recently is a lemon simple syrup. It's especially delightful to balance the cheese flavor. Simple syrups are two cups sugar dissolved in once cup boiling water, then with a half teaspoon of whatever flavoring you want.
There, I have divulged some of my waffle magic for you.
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