Tag: food

Salad, Experimentation, and Clouds

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I finally cracked open one of my jars of pickled Sun Gold tomatoes. They are definitely not nice to touch or eat on their own. I’m specifically reporting this to Lila and Sean who both would really like pickled ripe cherry tomatoes. I’m sorry to say that the skin is loose and the insides are slimy. I took a chance making the recipe because the book that inspired it makes a dressing out of their pickled ripe cherry tomatoes and I thought it sounded great.

I did NOT add the sugar their recipe called for. I hate sweet pickles and I also really hate sweet dressings. Balsamic dressing being the exception – balsamic vinegar has a sweetness to it I don’t mind. Anyway – I put all of the tomatoes and about half the pickling liquid, and the clove of pickled garlic into a container. I added about a third of a cup of olive oil and then spritzed the whole thing until it got as creamy as possible.

I put it on this salad pictured above (iceberg lettuce, roasted cauliflower, croutons, and kalamata olives). It was really wonderful! Since being laid off of work we’ve been eating so much better now that I have the energy and time to cook.

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While waiting for Philip to get the new labels designed I’m working on making new products to add to my line. I did a batch of cardamom vanilla lip balm that turned out really nice. Last night I worked on doing a grapefruit ginger lip balm. This did not go as well. Citrus essential oil flavor/scent seems to disappear when it hits the warm oils and wax blend. I had to add 4 times as much ginger and citrus oil as the other blends just to get the same super subtle flavor my other lip balms have. This has altered the balance of ingredients so that the balm is now too slick on the lips. I’m going to have to do it over once again and add more coconut oil and wax (the coconut oil is solid at room temp and diff than the others)

Hopefully re-batching one more time won’t weaken the flavor. Hopefully I’ll get it right the third time. It’s kind of annoying having to redo this same batch but at the same time I know I won’t be satisfied until I get it right.

That, my friends, is why you want me as your apothecary.

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I’m really happy right now.

I know that my business is going to take a lot of time and a ton of work to turn it into a paying gig, so money might get stressfully tight in a month or two when our surprise cushion from getting some taxes back is gone, but I choose to believe it’s temporary. My old friends here also know that suffering from serious chronic depression means I will still struggle with that in cycles no matter how good things are. That’s just been a fact of life for as long as I know it. My medication makes these inevitable cycles so much milder than they would otherwise be for which I’m deeply thankful.

But right now, this week, the last three weeks, today, I’m simply happy.

All this week I’ve been rereading my manuscript for book 2 of Cricket and Grey and it’s appalling. First drafts are so appallingly bad. I’m forcing myself not to edit. Technically the stuff I’m rereading is all second draft and just as appalling as the first. But I stopped writing the first first draft in the middle of the book. So when I pick up the thread and start writing it again it will be first draft material tacked onto a second draft first half of the book. Don’t worry if that was crazy-convoluted and you don’t follow. The main point here is that I’m  preparing to work on my book again and it feels fan-fucking-tastic!

To be honest, the first draft reads like I’m coddling Cricket and Grey apologetically for making them go through all the horrible shit they went through in book one. Coddling your main characters doesn’t always do them the favors you think it does and it certainly does nothing for readers. I think I needed to get it out of my system.  If you live in a dystopian future in which you can’t afford basic medical care, the government only intervenes with self interest but lets you hang otherwise, and you can’t find a packet of Haribo gummies anywhere – there have to be some comforts like love and friendship, right? A little down time by a late winter fire and a feeling of safety…

Perhaps I’ve been hard on myself with this second book because I know I want it to be even better than the first. I’m proud of my first novel but I see SO MUCH room for tightening up my writing style, for tightening up plot, for enriching the reader’s experience of scent and sound and sight. I think that’s a separate post just on writing.

I’m off to read a little more manuscript and work on that lip balm. I hope you all have a great Thursday!

 

Sunday Chatter

In four days I’m going to get on an airplane and have a solo adventure.  If we get to keep our house, this may be the last time I go on a vacation until two or three years into my novel writing career when some royalty checks make their way to me.  (Like how I am visualizing the life I want rather than cowering under the weight of a parade of “if”s?)  So, no pressure to self, but I sure as hell better enjoy myself.  I have a plan: I’m going to eat only Mexican, Middle-eastern, and Chinese food while I’m down there.  Maybe some Greek thrown in.  I don’t eat Chinese food in Oregon.  There is no Greek food here in McMinnville nor is there a Middle-eastern restaurant in sight.  I know Portland is said to have some great Chinese and Mexican restaurants but the Mexican ones have been (at best) just decent.  I had a good burrito there with a friend but not what I’m used to.  NOT what I crave.  To offset the horrible commitment to caloric hell I will eat yogurt and fresh fruit for breakfast every day and WALK WALK WALK.

I did not lose weight.  I mean, I lost 7 lbs and then I’m pretty sure I gained it back.  I’m not even willing to check.  My stress management has been crap this summer.  I was exercising a lot but then my back went out and I ate a lot of fattening food.  Dammit.  When I come back we will be in a two and a half week count down to the beginning of the school year and my plan is to kick off with a brand fresh effort at cleaning up my health all over again.  Max has decided to quit taking Kung Fu and so for now we have a little extra available money and I’m going to rejoin the regular Kung Fu classes while still taking forms.  If push comes to shove (and when doesn’t it in my life?) I will drop the classes again and stick with forms for the long term.  But for as long as I can I’m going to do both.  That’s three and a half hour’s worth of Kung Fu classes a week and I get PUSHED in those classes more than I can ever push myself at home so that will be an incredible boost of exercise.  Then I’ll have to practice.  I am NOT going to worry about practicing the material from the regular classes as much as the forms.

I just hope I won’t hurt myself much.  That constantly sends me backwards.  I know I will get where I want and need to get but I also know it isn’t going to happen even remotely as fast as I’d like it too.  I think it’s important for me to remember that I’ve kept off the top 15 pounds of my heaviest ever weight for over a year.  That’s definitely something.

Meanwhile… my ten year old has been letting loose with the teenage attitude lately and it’s been beyond annoying and tiring what with having to constantly reaffirm his boundaries.  Nine was such a sweeter year for him.  He’s so contrary and combative I really want to duct tape his mouth shut most of the day.  The only problem with that is that then I’d miss the really funny things he says in between making me want to head butt him.  It’s also a little weird that just when he’s becoming so horrid with the button pushing he also starts being more routinely helpful.  We don’t ask much of him.  This isn’t because I don’t believe children should be lazy asses.  It’s because trying to get a kid like him to help out is nearly always twice as much work for me as when I just do it myself.  He has to be closely supervised.  Usually.  Suddenly though he’s volunteering to feed the dog.  I mean he’s randomly piping up with “Has Chick been fed yet?” I say no and he goes and does it.  I say yes and he expresses disappointment.  I don’t get it.  I asked him if he’d get me more coffee yesterday morning and he did.  I ask him to go get something from the freezer outside and he does it.  So I’m wondering if this is a self defense mechanism in him- an instinctual counterpoint to the attitude so that just when I want to lock him in his room he does something completely helpful without the least bit of argument making me happy.  I don’t know.  I do know that this year has been one of the most challenging of them all as a parent.

I also can’t wait for the school year to begin again.  I have only one month to wait.  Once again I will have to say that it isn’t my goal to get rid of my child but he is so much healthier with all the structure of the school year.  Something I can’t give him in the summer.  I WORK quite a few hours of the day and don’t have time to go adventuring or managing his activities.  He loathes summer camp so we didn’t make him go this year.  His attitude is usually much better when his activities are directed all day long.

Time to go get another cup of coffee and find something to watch while sewing.  I don’t listen to music while sewing, as most people who know me know.  I like to watch familiar movies and programs.  I need the visual relief, something to rest my eyes on that isn’t my project.  Not sure what I’ll watch but I must figure it out before the heat paralyzes all of my grey cells.