Hiding in the kitchen

Sophie as a lap dog
She is doing so much better, but with
occasional worrisome moments.
Still, I am grateful.

A writer’s group I belong to has been tossing out ideas about spirituality and following your path and reaching toward the divine—and it all leaves me feeling sort of lost in the wilderness. To aspire to closeness to the divine would be, to me, audacious. Yes, I talk to the Lord every night about what’s gone on in my day, what’s going on in the world, and so forth. That is an entirely different subject, though I’ve talked a lot about the recent fatal shooting near our high school. As the story comes out, it grows more distressing. But that’s not my subject for tonight.

One woman wrote recently that she found calm, strength, whatever from dabbling with watercolors—and that triggered something in my mind. I may not meditate—I  have never been able to quiet my busy mind enough. And sometimes, at four in the morning, I find myself obsessively concerned with one thing or another. One night recently it was a puzzling communication from the IRS (any communication from them is at the least puzzling, at the worst frightening). Last night my thoughts kept circling back to my cardiologist’s office over the matter of a $45 reimbursement—sure I want the $45 back, but in the larger scheme of things it’s not that much money. But still, try as I might, I could not divert my thoughts to something else and surely not to sleep. But in all this it has dawned on me that when I find calm, when I come the closest to meditating, is in my tiny kitchen when I’m cooking. You knew I’d get around to cooking, didn’t you?

I’ve been doing some creative cooking recently. Saturday night Jean came for supper. I’d had such a week with Sophie that I wasn’t sure I could dredge up the energy or imagination for an experimental dinner, though Jean is always open to my experiments. I intended to make tuna pasties, but it was mid-day Saturday before I got puff pastry from my family-run grocery delivery service. So I opted for something easy. I know Jean loves lamb as much as I do, and I had a pound of ground lamb in the freezer. We would have burgers with a three-bean salad. Turned out great, and I have had lamb burgers for lunch for two days. Each time I thought I’d only eat half but that proved untrue.

Last night, Christian and I collaborated on a roast chicken with chimichurri sauce. Our deal was I’d make the sauce—chopping all those herbs—and he’d spatchcock the chicken and roast it. So in the morning I measured out two packed cups of cilantro and two more of parsley (do you know how much that is? A lot!). What made it less of a chore was that I got out the food processor (I usually use the hand mini version) and used it. And I followed directions, doing things a step at a time (as opposed to my usual method of thinking I know a shortcut). Not only was it easy, but minced herbs didn’t fly all over the kitchen. I coated the chicken with chimichurri, and we let it marinate for several hours, and then served the extra sauce with it. Delicious!

Later in the evening I discovered that in their zeal to get Sophie to eat, Jordan and Christian had hand fed her a whole lot of that chicken. Thank goodness they scraped the chimichurri off first—garlic is hard on dog’s stomachs, and it was just spicy enough she didn’t need it. I now have some chicken in my fridge, but I am uncertain if it is for me or the dog. She has been ravenously eating dog food all day, so I am hoping for chicken and bean salad for lunch tomorrow.

I seem to have mostly single women as friends, no surprise at my age and single status. But, blessedly, several of them are open to eating anything. So Mary (not my Tuesday night Mary but another) came for supper tonight. When she walked in the door I asked, “Do you eat sardines?” and she said of course. So we had a hodgepodge plate: baguette slices, toasted, rubbed with garlic and buttered, layered with sliced tomato, chopped sardines, sweet onion, and drizzled with olive oil and lemon. This was accompanied by an egg mayo each (known internationally as ouefs mayo—there’s even a society devoted to preservation of the dish). It’s a hard-boiled egg, sliced in half, set cut side down on the plate, and coated with mayonnaise (in this case thinned with a bit of buttermilk and garnished with minced basil). Finally I split an avocado, sliced it, and put half on each plate. 

The sardine/egg/avocado plate
for tonight's supper

Can you tell I have fun in the kitchen? In a week or so, Jordan is going to be gone for several days on a work trip, and I will feed Christian and Jacob—mostly Jacob, because Christian has some evening work responsibilities. Watch for a dramatic change in the menus. Pigs in a blanket, anyone?