Anyway, the moral of the story is: E's parents are picky eaters and his mom doesn't like salad (what?) so I get a lot of greens (awesome) and I also get obscure vegetables like kohlrabi, rutabaga and chinese cabbage. I will take anything on. So a couple nights ago, I took on the kohlrabi and rutabaga. I've never made these before, but it was supes hot so I wanted to grill it. I have a gas grill with a side burner, so I peeled, sliced in 1/2 inch rounds and par-boiled them for about 10 minutes. If you ever give these vegetables a try you need a very sharp knife. They are hearty. After boiling, I brushed them with olive oil, sprinkled salt, chili powder, paprika and garlic powder on both sides and then through them on a hot grill. I let them cook for about 20 minutes and got a nice char. After I took them off the grill I tossed the kohlrabi in balsamic vinegar. It was very good. Kohlrabi looks like this:
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| kohlrabi |
The flavor is reminiscent of sweeter broccoli with a texture like an artichoke heart.
Wednesday night I made grilled Sockeye Salmon. I only buy fish if it looks awesome, and yesterday the sockeye was gorgeous and only $9.99 lb so I picked up a pound. E said it's the best salmon I have ever made (which I believe is due to its freshness). I like to cook salmon a couple of ways. Either on the grill or in the oven. Both ways I start by seasoning with S&P, on the grill I put it on a piece of foil big enough to wrap it, in the open I use a casserole dish, then I use whatever vinaigrette I'm into. Wednesday I used a pear gorgonzola vinaigrette from Trader Joe's, but I've also used Balsamic, Italian and raspberry. When I'm feeling decadent I will use Vegennaise (or mayonnaise) lemon slices, dill and S&P. But whether it's on the grill or in the oven, I like a high temperature, 400º and it only needs to cook for about 10-15 minutes, depending on how thick it is.
What I'm getting at here, is the leftovers of these dinners made a dank salad.
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| grilled veggie and salmon salad |
Last night my friend Rachel (remember the purple ombré?) to get her hair colored completely purple. It turned out super awesome as did the pulled pork and peach cobbler I made for dinner and dessert. It was a little difficult to say no to the bun and the dessert, but I did it. I can't seem to shake the nagging "your fat" track that's playing in my head. I have gained about 4 lbs, hard to say that it's bloat at this point and I really need to watch my nutrition if I want to see that number going down again.
This is the battle. I don't care about the number, but I really care about the number. I shouldn't weigh myself (which I have only done once this month) because it makes me depressed. Why does something so silly affect me so negatively? In reality, to any of you, 4 lbs won't show. To me, It feels like I've turned into my old self. 4lbs feels like 35lbs.
I did quite a bit of social binge eating with my friends over the last two weeks. I haven't done that in quite a while. I still attempted my veggies and fruits, but I felt like I just couldn't stop myself from the fried food and the cheese. I slipped back into some old habits and it snowballed. Now that I'm cleaning up my act, I realize, that's not who I am anymore. Not who I want to be. Not the direction I want to go. I only started feeling like myself again yesterday. My energy levels were coming back, I was able to get chores done (despite my VERY sore body, from the 2.5 hr work out on Wednesday), cook, bake and enjoy it. It's absolute madness what crappy preservative laden food does to your body and mind on a biochemical level. It's also crazy how once you have McDonald's once, you crave it again. People say marijuana is the gateway drug, I think it's food. No joke.
I am a foodie, so it's difficult to not have an emotional response to food, but it's not how I want to live my life! PLAIN AND SIMPLE. I want to live by the philosophy, "Eat to live, not live to eat." I definitely want to enjoy everything that I put in my mouth (get your mind out of the gutter), but I don't want to put things in my mouth in order to enjoy life (not a prostitute). This is a hard corner for me to turn, but I refuse to go back to the place where food is my master, fueled by my insecurity.
In other news, I stopped listening to soulful music about... mm 5 years ago. You know, Gavin DeGraw, Amos lee, Ray Lamontagne, Tyronne Wells. Yesterday, I had some time to relax before our guests got here. The table on the deck was set, all of the food was ready and I had poured a glass of wine. I decided to turn on the Gavin DeGraw Pandora station on. I sat there, in the beautiful evening weather alone and thought about how much it sucks that my parents weren't there.
That's why I stopped listening to soulful music, because my mom and I share the same soul. When I hear those songs, I am forced to think about being separated from the people that made me. On the porch last night, I could visualize Mom and Dad sitting there with me, her having wine, him a beer, listening to the music, laughing, loving each other, loving me and being so proud of who I've become. I could feel their love in that moment. I thought about this all night and into this morning, how I wasn't ready to be without them. I'm still not, but I don't have any choice in the matter. I miss them both terribly some days, but other days, everything is just fine. Today, my mom would be 53 and my dad 55 (54?). We didn't have enough time with them. That's a fact. We didn't have enough time with Jesse, or Bethie, or my Grandmother Shirley, or Jeff. We didn't have enough time. I wouldn't be who I am without these losses, so in a way I'm grateful. In other ways, it still hurts a little (sometimes a lot).
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| Mom & Dad on their wedding day |
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| the gorgeous Jesse Bogue |
Little less than half of my life has been spent trying to find peace, or just solid ground to stand on. I know that some of you are believers and would say that I could "find that in Jesus." I have to tell you, with utmost respect, that's not how it worked for me. It's not that simple. I found divinity in all things, that God is all around me and in all the people that I love and love me, in the trees, in my pup, in the oceans, rivers and wind. I have no peace in a church. Frankly, when I'm in a church, I see more manipulation, falseness, brokenness and confusion than I see in the local bar. I understand, full well, that the modern church is not at all what Christ had in mind and that we're only people and you can't define faith by the people that soldier on with a mission of being like Christ. Trust me, I know. I don't have it all figured out (hence the name of the blog) but what I do have figured out, is that Jesus Christ is a fantastic figure/divine being/son of God (whichever suits you) to model after. If all of us did our very best to be like him, this would be a very different world. I also know that my way of believing is judged and worried over. Honestly, I have no idea how my parents would respond. I curse like a sailor, live with a man that I am not married to, respect Gandhi, drink too much wine and smoke cigarettes when I feel like it. And you know what? I'm soooooooo ok with that. I have found peace. When the next storm hits, I will weather it just as messily as I have in the past, with the wisdom that it too will pass.
This is a bit of a messy post. My mind is a little messy at the moment. Not in a bad way. Messy in a kind of beautiful way. I'm ok with missing the people we've lost, because it reminds me of how much love I have for them, how significant they are to me and my life. The qualities they possessed that I strive for, laugh at, love or learned from.
That soulful music opened the door and I have no desire to close it. Hope you don't mind.
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