Sunday, January 20, 2013

Cauliflower Soup

So -- I have been thinking a lot about how this shift of diet is going to work. Whenever I embark on something new, it seems that I completely shut down -- as if to curl myself into a proverbial fetal position and refuse to adapt. The other day I am pretty sure I had coconut flakes for dinner. I am determined to change this. I pulled out all sorts of cook books -- and what I realized is that the whole canvas of food I am accustomed to has got to change.

In the meantime, I am in a cabin in the woods for the weekend. Writing.

When I left, my first thought was to stop at the store and pick up a bunch of prepared food, simply so that I wouldn't have to think about food at all for a few days.

I'm so tired of thinking about food.

But I didn't! I grabbed, instead, a few eggs, some fruit, a head of cauliflower, an onion, some rice and a jar of applesauce. In retrospect, I could have have used a jar of peanut butter... but I actually cooked everything I brought! I'm ridiculously proud of this.

I did have a rather large take-out fail last night for dinner -- while I stuck with everything and ordered the grilled salmon, even feeding the legendary breadsticks remorsefully to the dog -- I neglected to inform them of the dairy issue, and the container was swimming in butter... sigh.

It interests me how variable tastes are...
how they shift so that the butter last night, which would have tasted ordinary a month ago -- and luxurious two weeks ago -- felt too rich to me last night.

I wonder if simplicity breeds contentment, in a way...
I wonder if the converse is also true.

Anyway --

you take an onion -- diced -- sauté in olive oil -- stir in the cauliflower and a cup or two of water and broth... salt... I think it could have used some time and lemon -- pepper -- cover the whole thing and cook until smooshable. this is a soup I think I learned from Epicurious... usually I puree it and the original recipe is fabulous with a really good parmesan cheese -- but I left it sort of smashed. The next day I added rice and an egg. It was really good.

Adaptation is such a funny thing.
It takes so much work and then seems so simple all of a sudden.





Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Begin at the beginning...

I end things very slowly. I drag my feet -- I resist -- I complain A lot.
Things have always changed all the time for me -- and so it baffles me that I am so very bad at it...
None the less, it always has to be done.
There have been a lot of endings in the last six months --
and so beginnings get slowed too...

But here it is, 2013 -- and I'm ready to start on this new project -- Cooking For One.

This is the third year-long project I've done on this blog.
Each one has been designed to help me think about some aspect of my life I want to understand better...

This year I want to learn about eating and cooking -- not the cooking I do for my kids -- but the cooking I do for myself. And other things...

As it happens, just this year (all two weeks of it) I have given up gluten and dairy. I did this in response to a number of nagging health issues were hanging around -- in a hanging heavily onto my skirt so as to weigh me down as I walked around the room every day kind of way.

I think that part of my resistance to sinking into this blog has been how personal it feels. This is different than learning about oil -- or even practicing yoga -- this is my eating... and all of the flaws and hang ups an issues that live in there...

To start with, I don't want to be a person who doesn't eat dairy or gluten. I don't.
I am extremely low-mainanence. On purpose... things were always changing for me and so I needed to be able to fit in anywhere at any time... I hate to be noticed... I would rather disappear.

It is not easy to disappear on a strange diet.
It is not easy to eat out...

Maybe that's part of our culture... food, more and more, is supposed to be easy. We have filled so much of our time and our lives and our three different screens at a time that our food has to be ready made and homogenous...

Tonight I'm cooking for two and for one -- because I want to make their kids one of their favorites -- because I want them to like it and not complain -- because I want to make something easy that I know they will like...

So tonight I have to find something to make for myself at the same time...

Nothing seems easy these days.
The earth, the body, the rules... everything sometimes seems to be breaking down around me and I feel like I am simply looking for something to hold on to...

I did, however, find these amazing vegan cookies. I'm sure they will be pretty easy to make, but today, sometimes a little easy helps in the beginning, and other things.