How is it even possible that I have purchased another cookbook? I do not know. But it is here at home with me.

Ok. Actually, I do know. It was $5 at a Goodwill and was in perfect condition. And I cannot say 'no' to a cookbook that I can afford and which will definitely be used. In the last year, I have taken to reading cookbooks cover-to-cover, literally reading every page with a scrupulousness I definitely did not apply to college. I must have scoured over 3,000 pages in the last year.

And so, they are all bookmarked with sticky-notes for recipes that I found inspiring and helpful. They all sit waiting eagerly on the shelf. The more informative ones I refer to by their author. I will be talking to Tyler and say something like, "Deborah has a salad dressing that I think you would like" or "Nigel cooks chard in a way that makes it actually look tasty."

In my long unemployment, there is a huge chunk of time that I must fill in the early mornings when prospective employers do not want to talk to the unemployed for a few more hours (if at all), friends are at work, and Tyler is in class. This is a dangerous time because it can easily lead to laziness or food depression or all manner of other evil. This is the time I spend with the likes of Deborah and Nigel. They are good teachers who love food for its own sake, for the textures, colors, flavors, aromas, and a thousand other subtleties whose discernment is born from obsession and lots of practice. I have learned a lot from them and I have benefitted from their passion.

So I have come home with another book by another author. It is the William-Sanoma book on "Entertaining". Tyler wanted it because he loves the details of hosting. I am all messy kitchen, hoping my guests don't mind that I licked the spoon, and just barely on time. Tyler is all folded napkins and garnish. (I am sure that someday we will achieve hospitality in a truly unique way.) This book is as much for him as it is for me.

And so, I feel at the same time compelled to open it and read it through...and to go back to my old friends and pick a new thing that I have meant to try but haven't gotten around to. Either way, food and cookbooks are the only constant in my day to day life these days.

I think there is a part of me that reads cookbooks by authors who do a lot of explanation and teaching with their recipes because it is this giant reminder that life is still happening. I feel so much like I have been put into this holding position until God gets around to giving me clearance to land. I sit up in the sky making circles in my airplane and trying not to watch the fuel gauge because, you know, faith and stuff.

Mondays are paralyzing. Other people wake up on Monday and think, "I have a whole week of my life that has been planned for me to get through until I can do what I want." I wake up on Monday with the weight of feeling that last week did not have any word from God or his prophets and now I have a whole blank week ahead of me in which I hope to be able to muster something that looks like confidence (which I have none of) so I can organize my time, convince somebody that I have skills worth paying money for, and try to spend as little money as possible. And all of this I feel pressure to do well enough to ward off the nagging feeling that I am doing everything wrong. Try as I might, I have swallowed just enough of that American value that says that you are master of your destiny and, if you don't like your circumstances, you have only yourself to blame.

But I remember how I got here. With much prayer and tears and hope and trust. With much trying my absolute best and hardest. All of that climaxed first in getting fired. The prayers I offered Tuesday night at small group for direction and help with my job were still on their way to heaven the Wednesday I got fired. Thursday, I woke up with so much relief. And then the sweatshop. And seeking more direction and stepping out in more faith to leave that and walk into the longest free fall. Being raised a good moderately good pentecostal, I grew up with the idea that you can't live on yesterday's word from God or yesterday's promises. But this is what I have been doing because God has offered no further word.

I am just a woman, infinitely small. Who am I to counsel God? Who am I to tell him to speak?

I know a host of people who would tell me to pray more, to read more Bible, to be better at going to church every week. It is not that I do not do any of those. Rather, those take on different appearances as I get older and find myself in stranger seasons of life. (Except for going to church more often. That has just been the terrible failing of trying to travel, spend time with family, remember when daylight daving is etc.) Food is my spiritual dischipline. Reading cookbooks is my prayer that I can someday be a skilled individual with a meaningful life. Eating and cooking is my demonstration of faith that it is worthwhile to keep myself healthy, that I will wait this out with the expecation that something will change eventually. It is a conversation with God. It is thanksgiving and petition. It is all the faith I can manage.

Today, it does not quite feel like enough.

Jessie J Pie and Tracy Chapman Chocolate Mousse.

I made blackberry pie and listened to this song. Then I made chocolate mousse while I listened to this song. My food always tastes how I feel and how I feel is directly connected to what I'm listening to. Also, I am reading Unclean by Richard Beck because Tyler left in my room thinking I would like it. Take the time to read the introduction on Amazon. I find it fascinating.

writing your own story

I have been following Stephanie's blog for a couple of months now. She is an excellent photographer and an incredibly impressive baker/chef. She has a gift with food. She makes it art. However, the post I am sharing today is not one of her recipes but one of her musings on purpose in life, choices, and building the life you want. It is excellent. She has words that so many need to hear. Even though many people make up that "many who needs this", everyone thinks they are totally alone.

I discovered today that my favorite part of cooking is this moment when I put the taste test spoon down and begin washing my knives and stowing the excess spices. There is nothing quite like that exact moment. It's when I have either finally found the flavor I was looking for or else submitted that what I have is about as good as it is going to get this time around. I look forward to the clean up because it signifies a close of the search. I am not looking for something I cannot quite put into words, something I know I will only recognize when it is right in front of me. No. Instead, I have either found it or lost it and I am packing up my tools to try again tomorrow.

Intermission Over.

chili oil. not related to pie.

Today is a very important day.

Today is the first day I have made a gluten free pie crust that actually did exactly what it was supposed to.

Today is the first day I follow all the directions on the recipe because I do not have to 'get creative' to make it work.

Today is not the first day I have made excellent crust.

strawberries for pie

all the flours for gluten free crust

It is however the first day which I find myself actually wanting to use a rolling pin. And that, that is worth celebrating.








I wrote the above words and took these photos *last* Saturday...and it was an important day. But I really do not know what I was building up to with them. I had an idea of giving reasons for why I don't have a food blog and I probably was thinking about how all of my creativity goes into food these days. This morning's invention in my not awake but not asleep state being chocolate chip pie crust. In the shower, I contemplated putting berries into banana bread. Raspberry banana bread. That's where it's at. With chocolate. Or Nutella. Or just with butter.

However, I am not the sort that should start a food blog on my own. I am easily distracted. To take photos AND write AND cook is asking too much. You will notice that I have no photo of my finished pie. I forgot. In the birthday-ing and the eating, I forgot. Some processes should not be interrupted for photos. Sometimes photography is the natural outcome of the way you live and watching the world around you. But sometimes, sometimes photography gets in the way of the living. You begin seeing so much, begin saving so much seeing for later...that you hardly have any at the time. I don't like that.

Anyway, I've lost myself again. I will be found in the pages of my newest endeavor: Radical Hospitality. It is a book which is both validating so much of what I have always wished I could express and challenging me to be a bigger and better person than I am right now. Why can't healthy things feel only exciting and wonderful? I have growing pains already which only mildly encroach upon the excitement.

It is a new time of life for sure. And soon, very soon, I will be heading home...except, everything is different. Therefore, there will likely be the requisite musing about home and place and people about ... two or three weeks from now. For now, I leave this virtual page with two quotes. One which has followed me from a poet I heard earlier today: "Becoming a person who does not do things just because I can."

I do not yet know its significance in my life and ponderings but for now, it has gentle muse-shaped claws which are hanging on until I have the space to think about it. I think it is related to becoming someone who is free, who thinks enough about what they do and who knows themself well enough with honesty that they are not subject everything and anything which makes a demand of them. Life is so much more than keeping other people happy.

And the second, from Ray Bradbury since he passed away this week and there are few people who I would  love to spend a day, or a lifetime, trying to see the world in the eyes and the shoes that he did. I love the way he looked at and described life.


“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?” 
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Ok, and a third:

“If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

8 of 10 "Rooms"

The kitchen and the bathroom are my two favorite rooms. 

If I could only have a house of two rooms, 

those would be them. 

The kitchen for loving. 

And the shower for forgiving. 

The kitchen to remember, 

the bathroom to forget. 

Bedrooms are dangerous if you leave your dreaming 

always and only for night. 

They just might swallow your ambition.

Hallways are passages just long enough to get lost in. 

Stairs are easy enough 

to push or be pushed down 

in the rush for fulfillment, success, 

and getting what’s yours to be had. 

But kitchens, 

they are for giving, for sharing. 

And the shower is that requisite don’t-forget-to-breathe 

and permission to be. 

Kitchens are for the mess of life 

with all of the wonder which that should bring. 

Showers are for getting clean, 

for letting go, and for moving on; 

because, when you are done, all you have left is you.

So take a bottle of soap.

Cry as mush as you like while you scrub.

No one else will be bothering you for awhile.

It is the bathroom after all.

Send all of the bad days down the drain

into that mysterious plumbing.

Living rooms are deceitful.

They would have you think that life

is only what you have when you are not working.

But living does not happen only in those particular four walls,

I would hope.

Dining rooms are liars as well.

They make you think family

is who sits around your table

and hospitality is what happens

at a quarter to 7:00.

Keep the sharp things in your kitchen,

knives, scissors, cheese graters and other divisive objects

which require discretion.

And keep the soft things always nearby:

towels, tissues, and a clean set of clothes.

If I could have a house of only two rooms,

these would be them.

A kitchen for loving,

a bathroom for forgiving.

Not just for loving and forgiving others,

but also to forgive and love yourself.

Brain: In Pictures. [Translation Accompanied]

I have exploded.

This morning, this afternoon, my brain has finally erupted, unclenched, and given me hell.

I, I am trying to pack. 

I am more than a little excited to go home for a spell, even if it will be a cold one.

But my brain, my poor brain. It wants to leave nothing unfinished. I had to give the old man a face lift...

He's not done yet . I need to teach him to smile with old man mischief.
Oh, and eyelashes would be a kindness.

And I had to go through my class notes and keep what I liked...

oh, composites class

Then I had to take pictures of the remaining art that I have been ignoring...

edge of the world

and projects that have [temporarily] failed:

And food art...can't leave that out.

So there you go. Eventually, I plan to assemble poetry and stories which have hitherto been under wraps and stuffed into whatever void is willing to hold them and hide them from my restless mind. As it is, I am due to be on a train in 3 hours and have a bit of progress to make between now and then.

Descent.

Two days into break. Failed waffles stuck to the iron. (Blame the lack of gluten not the maker.) Birds all excited about something... or everything. They seem to understand something more about living than most of us.

No food related pains for almost a week. Stress knots rolling, trying to self-medicate, not quite understanding how life's rhythm has changed. And myself.

I am adjusting quite well to this respite. Except... my mind is turning against me. I think. Maybe. Having enjoyed my health for some consecutive days now, I hear dangerous thoughts circulating round the tables in my mind:

I overreacted.

I was just being dramatic.

I wanted attention.

I did not want to do my work.

It was not as bad as I said it was.

I imagined it.

I am just making life difficult for no reason other than I do not know what to do if it's not.

I can eat what I want.

It is perplexing to me how easy it is to distrust my own experience. The mind and the imagination are endlessly fascinating not to mention bewildering. And the power contained therein is often amazing and frequently frightening. Moreover, this is where I find myself less than a week removed from my last food related pain and about two or three weeks from my last... immobilisation. Each day forward leaves those memories a little more wane, a little more transparent, a little less real.

I should be able to hold onto them. I should know the truth that they contain. And, today, I do.

Today that is enough.

But my grip on reality is not as strong as I would claim. And knowing what is about to happen does not change its likelihood. I will forget. I will convince myself otherwise. Call it curiosity. Dub it denial. Regard it as a lack of responsibility. Whatever sanity I have will slip and I will try again. Why?

Because the answers I have been given are not persuasive. There are still too many uncertainties. So I will keep asking questions. Not exactly the same one and not posed exactly the same way and not to anyone in particular because everyone else knows even less than I do for the most part. It is a long road to discovery, but I have the rest of my life. More than any immediate pain I may have, however acute, I loathe the thought of living with false caution and unnecessary sacrifice.

Either way, it feels like something between falling down Alice's rabbit hole and a slow but steady descent into darkness. I am not quite being hurled into the unknown, I am choosing it; but it lacks all the comforts of control all the same.

collage

This is my favorite place to watch sunsets within easy walking distance of my Portland home. Sunsets here are different then they are in Kalispell...mostly in that they last longer and don't mix and mingle with the mountains. Mostly, I'm sharing this picture because I fell out of the tree on my way down after taking it...and I don't want that to be in vain. It's not a great shot strictly speaking, but I didn't take it because of its visual aesthetics.

Anyway, I am realizing more and more that I cannot remove creativity and art from my habits. With all of my mechanics classes and trying to train my brain to think in new patterns, I have not made the time I promised myself I would for art...consciously at least.

Art is so much a part of my lifeblood that it finds me. It is beginning to feel a bit inevitable--not that I mind. It just fascinates me. Between this inevitability and my celiac disease/gluten allergy adventure, food has taken the brunt of my excess artistic energy. I keep inventing, mixing, marinating, frying, baking, boiling and so on. It starts with a flavor or a texture I want...or a color or a shape. I do not always understand and I do not always succeed, but it keeps me sane. It keeps away the food depression of what I miss eating and it becomes an outlet. And it kind of took over my life, not in a bad way. It is just surprising how quickly and deeply adaptations can be made.

The photo is of my chicken marinade today. It has honey, vanilla, red wine vinegar, olive oil, cumin, paprika, red pepper, chili flakes, white vinegar, mustard, lemon juice, black pepper, and salt. It is special because I think I may have successfully made a meal just for me. I don't really know how to cook for one. Too much cooking for my sisters, for restaurants, for soup kitchen etc. Not that those are really bad...but when you realize that you can just as easily cook for twelve as for one... and then that cooking for 80 really isn't THAT much more difficult than twelve... cooking for one just does not make sense. It is expensive and inefficient. And it is easier to take care of others than just me.

But hey, I am learning discipline and a rearrangement of priorities. I am accepting that not eating gluten makes things more complicated. I am going to be the person who makes people feel uncomfortable and who makes group decisions a bit more cumbersome. It is counter intuitive and not at all what I ever would have chosen, especially for who knows how long. But that does not change anything. I need to take care of myself rather than make things easier or simpler and martyr myself. This is surprisingly difficult to persuade myself of on a daily basis.

butter and honey...on rice cakes

For two weeks now I have been gluten free. It's a test run, you see, to find out if I am secretly allergic. Since wandering down this road and finding that there is more truth along it than I would like, I have been told by several people that I am handling this way better than they ever would. Truth is, I am not handing it better because, well, I'm not handling it. I'm terrified. I hate restrictions to my freedom and I can remember specific instances in my life where I thanked God in pride that I had no food allergies and could eat what I want. And now, that is threatened.

See what I did there?

I left that thought at just 'threatened'. It still has not penetrated as actual fact that gluten really is the cause of at least half my head and back pain. I still act as if this is a temporary change. I am fasting, dieting, playing an endurance game. I am not eating wheat because I do not want to. I am so deep in denial, it is all I can see.

Food is a love language. It brings people together and provides commonality and proof of humanity on a basic level. And it is best left uncomplicated. It is a unique meeting place between need and luxury.

I am not ready for it to be complicated. And I am not ready to relinquish that freedom. Truth be told, I never would be given more days or years. But time is not my privilege and I am here. Already. Now. My own body against me in this. I am not fool enough to rage against anyone else. No one and nothing has done this... except I guess God... and I wont turn my anger or my panic or whatever emotional beast this is on Him. He is the only one I could accept this from and I hate that He knows that. But I know that He will be there when I am done and spent.

I am not sure why I am posting this...I like to leave this space for art and adventures and interesting people... I suppose this is the start of some kind of adventure. Here we go.