Reasonably So

The ice cream is Peach Cobbler. Diced canned peaches and shortbread cookie chunks in a sweet cream base (with a little bit of the syrup from the can). It’s also just supposed to whet your appetite for more to come. My hard drive died, so my computer was on vacation for a few days. This means good and bad news.

The good news is I have twice as big a hard drive than I did before.

The bad news is I’m a little behind in blog posts. This is also a busy week, but I’ve got lots of ideas rolling around, so stay tuned.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I am practicing my grilling skills as often as possible. Why?

1) It’s summertime. Grilling season!

2) WHY NOT?

Last night’s grilling adventures involved a re-do of the Basil Mint Lemon marinade I used for the Father’s Day swordfish. As I mentioned in that entry, I wanted to try putting all the sauce ingredients in the food processor. So I did, and it worked out beautifully! I changed things around a little bit… First and foremost, I used chicken (marinaded in the pesto-like sauce for about an hour and a half). For the sauce itself, I added salt (to taste), pepper (to taste), and sugar (1 tsp.) to the mint/basil/lemon juice/olive oil combo. Delicious!

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MMM! For the 4th, I took another spin at grilled pizza. This time, I had a helpful assistant to help take some pictures while we prepped and cooked. We accompanied the pizza with grilled asparagus and corn. Another lousy meal…. HA. Yeah right. Hopefully the following pictures will help you in your own grilled pizza making adventures.

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I think I’ve earned it.

My dad and stepmom are heading for Africa today. I’ve been living with them for a few weeks and now will continue to enjoy the 6-burner professional stove, propane grill, and the non-stickiest pots and pans in their absence (I will also be feeding the cat, watering the plants, and bringing in the mail/papers). Last night I really wanted to cook something for them so they wouldn’t have to worry about dinner but would sleep with full bellies, readied for their long flights.

And, OH, how full our bellies were!

Ladies and gents, I present to you: Grilled Pesto Pizza with Spinach, Tomato, Orange Bell Pepper, and Prosciutto.

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SCENE: Last night, in the kitchen.

STEPMOM (watching me sautée mushrooms, tomatoes and onions with sweet basil chicken sausages): You are your father’s daughter! I never could grasp the concept of cooking for one.

SELF (sautéing): When I know I can cook a delicious meal and have the time for it, why would I do anything else?

Yes, I am confident in my cooking skills. When people ask me if I am a good cook, I affirm wholeheartedly. How do I know? Because when I eat the things I have made, they taste wonderful. I’ll be the first to admit that I am most certainly not an expert chef, but I have learned enough about the subtleties of flavor that I can walk around a grocery store and formulate a meal.

In that passing conversation with my stepmom, I realized that those one-person-meals I’ve always made for myself are exactly how I learned to cook well. The risks aren’t quite as high (i.e. only you will know it is too salty/undercooked/overcooked/bland), so the stress of cooking for yourself is way lower. Sure it can be tough to scale down big recipes (easy fix: learn how to use the freezer and love leftovers–some sauces, soups, and stews taste better with time) or intimidating because you don’t want to ruin expensive ingredients, but you’ll never learn unless you try, RIGHT?

My point is that it is NOT hard to be a good cook. Really, it isn’t.

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I’ve been working hard to take good care of my body, lately: eating as best I can, drinking lots of water, getting good exercise, and sleeping as well as I can.

Water is the one that I’m most pumped about today. I’ve been looking into water bottles for a few months (I try to be an informed consumer), because I’d heard so much about regular plastic and even Nalgenes being unhealthy in the long-run. I’d been a Nalgene fan for years (I had four different bottles by them), but didn’t want to drink toxic water anymore.

The first alternative I learned about was Sigg- made of aluminum, cool designs on the bottles, eco-friendly… good! Not so good: the coating on the inside has been targeted as a potential hazard (I don’t know the specifics, really, but a coating on the inside of a water bottle seems counter-intuitive). Then I learned about Klean Kanteen, made of stainless steel with no coating–simple bottle design, but I dig simple. Priced about the same as the Sigg, I was confident I had found my bottle-to-be.

My stepmom has a Klean Kanteen, so I asked her where in the area I could find one. As she was telling me, my dad jumped in and said “Oh! I have a water bottle you could have!”

“A Klean Kanteen?”

“No, but it’s stainless steel.”

So I checked it out… boy oh BOY did I check it out. I took this thinksport bottle for a spin over the past two days:

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I am floored about this water bottle. Never have I met a water bottle so successful at being a water bottle.

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My dears, I have a few things to report on. Food related things! I love food.

1) I just finished reading Heat by Bill Buford.

It was a graduation gift, and a great one, at that. It is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it if you like to cook, even a little bit. It reminded me that I can do whatever I want in the world as long as I have a good reason, forced me to realize that restaurant cooking is NOT my dream job, and inspired me to reach for more in my own kitchen–I can be an even better cook than I already am. This last point leads me to item 2…

2) I finished reading Heat on the morning of Father’s Day. Last year for Father’s Day, my sister and I cooked/grilled up a feast for my dad, and especially after being inspired to be a better cook, I was so ready to take that on again. This time my stepmom helped me. One of the things I’m trying to focus on lately is more seasonally-geared eating. I found a few recipes that seemed mid-June friendly and seemed like they would work well together. I didn’t take pictures (sorry), but I found some on the net so you can drool as you think about how good they probably tasted.

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Graduating from college is a really de-humanizing experience (hey Mom, did you catch that? Graduating FROM college!). It just sucks the contentment right out of a 22-year-old.

Sure, it has its highlights (a Bachelor’s Degree would be one of them… freedom would be another), But the lowlights are the things that really slapped me in the ass as I walked out the revolving door of my education: the future of LOAN PAYMENTS. That’ll do it! Also, the prospect that I have to figure it out. I have to figure out life and myself and employment and insurance and habitat and relationships and fun: IT.

For weeks now, I have been wrestling with it. The last post I wrote was an indication of that, perhaps, but for the first time since mid-April(ish), I have felt good for a whole week. Part of it is probably that I started exercising again. I started focusing more on eating a little more consciously- lots of fruit and vegetables (today I had fresh cherries, celery with chunky peanut butter, and a salad with tomatoes and craisins and mushrooms and green peppers and chives for lunch). I will soon start to sleep better, once I have a routine up here in Amherst. I am getting a haircut tomorrow that will be more summer-manageable, and I have some new things to wear that I love (thanks, Mom!).

The point is, I am feeling like myself. I captured back some of the humanity that graduation burgled from me. Even though things are no less complicated than they were weeks ago, they are not weighing so heavily on me as to paralyze me with fear.

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Note to readers: Now that I’m back in a happier place, I will move away from personal testimony and back towards fun things I’m making or pictures or food or whatever else I think might interest you. Feel free to leave suggestions!

For the first time since maybe September, I just went for a run. I’m visiting my mom right now, so I brought the dog with me. We’re now both reclining on my bed after cooling down and stretching–she’s panting like a maniac and my body is shaking because it forgot what exercise was. It felt so good to get out in the sun and get some exercise.

The past month and a half has been turbulent and challenging, and I should’ve been doing more things (like running) that made me feel good. I have graduated from college. That means thousands of different things, but the most clear is that I am now solely responsible for myself. Yes, I do have a support network of people that care about me, but things are different now. I am operating solo and it is an alarming experience.

All of my plans have changed. Boston and Cambridge, I’m not returning to you in the near future. You’ve been a wonderful place for me, but I need some open land and tall trees whose roots aren’t surrounded by cement. Amherst is offering me some physical space to think, think, think. I am going to take it. I am going to fix up the bike I just got, find your running trails, and take care of your children for a few months.

After those months… who knows? Maybe I’ll be ready for Boston again. Or maybe it’ll be Tahiti, London, or Bolivia. More likely, I’ll stay in Amherst for a little bit longer. Maybe I’ll just pace myself–that’s the most important thing I learned about distance running back when I was on the team in high school. You must be able to pace yourself well enough that you can do your entire workout at the same speed. Even if you’re going a little slower than you’d like, you should be able to maintain that same speed for the best possible gain of endurance.

I’ll pace myself, stretch diligently, and have nice, long cool downs. Maybe I’ll work a few sprint workouts in, here and there, but I’m going to run for the enjoyment of it.

This one is for my momma, especially. She loves window pictures–something about the frame being inside the picture is very appealing to her. I liked this little window very much.