Why I Love to Cook

Last night I had an urge for banana bread, and an hour later there was banana bread in my kitchen. Not instant gratification, no...but good enough, especially since I get it warm and soft right out of the oven...and bonus: my house smells like banana bread all night.

I had been perusing food blogs, as I tend to do...if it's not food blogs, it's sex blogs...but that's another story, and perhaps another blog. I came across a recipe for breakfast pizza that looked interesting, except that having breakfast pizza would involve me being up early in the morning, which I had no intentions of doing since it is, after all, the midget's spring break and I am going to take every opportunity to sleep in.

So, instead we had pizza for lunch, and the only thing it had in common with the recipe that inspired me was bacon. I ended up with this lovely pizza....



First, I sprinkled some drained diced tomatoes, followed that up with feta cheese and Parmesan cheese. Then I broke out the artichoke hearts (YUM) and broke up the bacon I had just fried up and sprinkled that on, threw some more tomatoes on and added a bit more Parmesan cheese. Oh. My. God. So good. The only thing I think I'd change if I did it again is to add some diced garlic, because garlic makes everything better.

I had some left over bacon and there were these two dogs...well, could you resist this?


It would take a stronger woman than I to resist those faces...and they were so sweet about it...but, then the bacon got the better of Ellwood and he completely forgot his manners...


Charlie, however, behaved like a complete gentleman...


My dogs love that I can cook, too...

Mmm...Fresh Baked Bread

I'm sitting in my living room enjoying our beautifully decorated tree and the smell of the bread I just took out of the oven. It's very cozy on this blustery day. It's been pouring down rain all day, but thankfully we haven't lost power. It's probably because we're prepared and actually could go somewhere if we need to do so.

I'm a baking queen these days. I even made english muffins last night, but they're kind of a pain to make and I think I'm doing something wrong because they didn't have all the nooks and crannies they were supposed to have. I might try them again, but today was all about the French bread. French bread is a bit more fussy than the challah I made last time. It requires regular kneading during the rising process, so while I was helping the midget decorate the tree, every ten minutes or so, I had to stop and punch down the dough. But it was well worth judging by the heavenly smell wafting through the house. I won't get a chance to sample it until tomorrow night as I baked it for the family dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. It looks as good as it smells though...


While it looks pretty, it doesn't look anywhere near as pretty as the challah.



I used the second loaf of challah to make French toast this morning. It was amazingly yummy stuff. We ate it so fast there was no time to take a picture.

Baking is fun stuff...I just wish I had a maid or an assistant to do all the cleaing up afterwards!!

Control Freak

Okay, guys....hold onto the edge of your seats, it's confession time. I am a huge control freak. I like things my way and feel that it would be best for everyone if they just did what I told them to do. My therapist says this stems from my inability to control my crazy life as a child. My exes say it's annoying. I say it's just part of my charm.

Anyway, the point of that startling revelation is that I have found a way to channel my need for control in a way that is neither self destructive or a nuisance to those around me. I'm baking. I've immersed myself in all kinds of baking projects. I'm waiting for challah dough to rise as I type this and yesterday I made my own bread sticks and a few days before that I made dinner rolls.

Previously, I avoided any recipe that required yeast, because it seemed like a job that is much too fussy for me. But what I've discovered is that there is no reason to be afraid of yeast. It as actually quite easy to work with and I've had fabulous results. And while my aching hands occasionally protest and I think longingly of the beautiful stand mixer in my mom's kitchen, I really enjoy getting my hands in the dough and taking out of my anger and aggression in a harmless and productive way. I tell you, it's saved me years in prison, because I hear that's where you go when you throw bricks through windows.

Thankful

I've spent my day doing what I love most...cooking. And cooking my favorite meal of the year, at that. There is something about traditional Thanksgiving fare that just lightens my soul. I love the simple flavors, the savoriness of it all. Not to mention that while it takes quite awhile, it is the simplest, most straightforward of cooking. And I'm damn good at it.

While I dislike the racial history behind Thanksgiving, it is my favorite holiday. I am hardly religious or even "spiritual," but the gathering together of the people I love so that we may feast and enjoy and simply be together, without all the consumerism that mars Christmas is lovely.

As I went about my tasks...boiling the yams and making stuffing, I realized how very different this Thanksgiving is from the last one. Last year seems so far away, perhaps because so very much has happened this year, and I am miles away from the life I was living last year at this time. All the joy had gone from my life and I was so numb, so anesthetized by my depression that I didn't even see it. I went through the motions, but took no joy in what has always been a joyful task for me.

I have so very much to be thankful for this year. I am thankful, as always, as I will forever be, for my beautiful, healthy, brilliant daughter. I am thankful for the task of being her mother, though it isn't easy and some days it is harder to see the joy, she, more than anything else in my life, gives me a reason every morning to be. If I accomplish nothing else in the world, being her mother will be enough. Though, to be brutally honest, I haven't always felt that way. I was not one of those mothers who looked at their infants the moment they were born and felt that indescribable feeling of coming home to oneself. I spent years struggling with the occasional resentment I felt that I was not living the life I had wanted, the fear of being "just a mother." I wish it had been easier, that I had felt the rightness of being her mother from the moment she was born, but then, those things that are the most important rarely come easily to me.

And while this has, in many ways, been the hardest year of my life, I am thankful for the things that got me here. I am thankful to be feeling again. And, yeah, the pain has sucked. But, I've also found the capacity for joy again. I'm still a little rusty at all of this, and parts of my heart are so broken I wonder if it will ever again be whole. But, even if it isn't, at least I am present in my life once more, present as a mother and a sister and friend, and that is beautiful to me.

I am thankful for my family, without whom this year could have been the death of me. I never cease to be amazed at the good fortune that gave me a second family to give me what my first could not. I am thankful for all the people who love me despite my craziness, despite my irrationality. I'm not the easiest person to love, and my family and my best friend (who is half a world away from me tonight, but still the one of the biggest pieces of what makes my life beautiful) make it look simple. I thank you and I love you with all of my all too imperfect heart.

Winter Soon...

I live in California, so my next sentence makes no sense. I hate summer. I live for winter. The rain, the sweaters and extra blankets and stews and soups and even the quality of the light. California sunshine, especially by summer's end, is painfully brilliant. It washes out the sky, leeching it a pale baby blue that lacks depth or beauty.

As winter approaches and the leaves fall and the sun sinks lower in the sky, I want to curl up on the sofa with a good book and the beautiful quilt my mother made me. I start breaking out my winter recipes, soups and beans and biscuits and cornbread.

My kitchen is a disaster area. I made potato soup and biscuits and bread pudding yesterday. I know that other people can cook without using every dish and destroying every cooking surface. I'm not one of those people. I can't cook without the end resulting looking like the morning after a frat party.

Oh, but it was heavenly stuff. Lots of garlic and goodness. And months and months of my favorite season yet to come...I'm a happy, happy girl tonight...

I'm No Betty Crocker...

My poor little munchkin is sick. She's got the flu, and is absolutely miserable. So when she asked for my "really good potato soup." I was more than happy to oblige. I stole the recipe from Julie Powell's Julie and Julia. I feel no guilt about this because she stole it from Julia Child, and it's the best and easiest soup recipe I've ever encountered. My mini me adores it, and tell me that it's the best potato soup she's ever had.

So, I made a great big pot of soup and that's what we've been indulging in all weekend. We were supposed to be with family celebrating a cousin's birthday, but the she had to get sick and ruin that plan, so I've been shoving fluids down her throat, along with Ibuprofen. And when I'm not tending to her, I've been a busy little worker bee this weekend. I finally finished unpacking my bedroom, which is fantastic. I also cleaned rat cages and the kitchen and did some grocery shopping. I'm currently staring at the living room trying to muster up some strength to unpack the last of the boxes and hang the pictures. So far, no luck...

I never really imagined myself to be the soup-making kind of mom. In fact, I never really imagined myself as a mom. And no, I'm not the mom who gets up every morning and makes fabulous breakfasts and packs great lunches. She eats hot lunch at school and breakfast more often than not is cereal and juice. I don't greet her at the door when she comes home with fresh baked cookies. But, when I do cook for her, I feel good about it. I love it when she tells me how much she enjoys something that I've made. Currently, she's been begging for homemade egg rolls. I make the best egg rolls, if I do say so myself.

So, no...I don't wear pearls to do the vacuuming and it's not uncommon for me to spend the day in my pjs...but all that aside, I think I'm a pretty good mom...I'm just not June Cleaver or Betty Crocker, but really that's okay...because I'm pretty sure I'd be homicidal if I ever tried to fit that roll...

Killing Time Until True Blood

I'm having one crapfest of a weekend. Nothing really going on, other than that apparently while I sleep tiny, angry elves sneak into my bedroom and beat the living crap out of me. And also slip sedatives into everything I eat and drink. I think they're working for the "I Hate The Queen Of The Universe Club." Maybe that's where the dues money goes...

So, yeah...like the title says, I'm basically just killing time until I can watch another installment of True Blood. Mmmm...yummy vampires!! I could be doing laundry or unpacking the boxes in my bedroom..but no, that would require energy and I have none thanks the minions of the "I Hate The Queen of the Universe Club." (Man, I've got to find a shorter way to say that.) So, I guilt-tripped my sister into letting me use her laptop since mine has been sabotaged by the Club. For some reason, the ac plug isn't working which means, no charge to the battery, which means no laptop. Yeah, there were tears...I'm taking it in this week because my life is meaningless without it.

So, I spent Friday evening at my aunt and uncle's house making yummy, yummy food with my cousin. We had the world's best bruschetta, which I made, but I can't really take all the credit because the tomatoes were the uber yummy ones my aunt grows herself and then there was fresh basil from my cousin's basil plant...I'm telling you, it was better than sex. Okay, maybe not better than ALL sex, but certainly better than some of the sex I've had...after all there is a ton of sex I've had in my life that I'd never want to have again, but I really, really want some more of that bruschetta!

And then yesterday was a frenzy of activity...kind of. The munchkin and I made a compost bin and I bathed the dogs, much their dismay, but now they are soft and clean and smell good, which are all requirements for anything I let sleep in my bed. I also cooked moose for the first time in my life. We're at the end of the month, "Oh fuck, we have nothing but stew meat and crackers" stage. A coworker of my sister's gave her a bunch of moose meat because we live in Amador County and that's just how the Amador County folk roll. It was good, but kinda wierd. I kept reminding myself that there was no difference between moose and cow, but myself wasn't really buying it. It's been ages since I've had any kind of game meat...I mean, when I was a kid, we didn't eat anything but game meat, but that was because my step-father was a freak who liked to shoot stuff.