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.

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.

Note to self: don't eat in the car.

Sometimes it even feels like too much of an intrusion into life even to stop somewhere to buy myself food...
it's almost like my own needs are an intrusion in my life...
of course I spend much of my life caring for other people's needs.

I am interested in the feminist perspective on this.
Also, of course beyond that...
the human, personal.

Taking care of one's self always seems out of proportion -- either people only take care of themselves or only take care of others...

I stopped at my favorite bakery for breakfast. I had the most perfect little sandwich.

I ate it in the car in under a minute.

Not Cooking for One

Ok... I've been dragging my feet on this new project.
I've been thinking about what kind of a construct would work
and if it would distract me from the writing I am supposed to be really focusing on right now...
how to begin, do I have the energy to begin, do I have anything good left to say...

I've been thinking of it like a writing project.
But that isn't how this thing started -- each year I really changed core things in my life... and each year I learned about something in my life that I wanted to understand better...

Over the last two days I have eaten frozen shumai from Trader Joe's (why I don't go there) 3 times and had crackers for dinner twice.

It's such a horrible feeling -- being hungry -- wanting something real -- settling for something unsatisfying and bad for myself.

Sometimes it actually feels like cooking for myself is a waste of time -- or self indulgent -- or too lonely.
Sometimes it is just laziness... just like oil, just like yoga -- it is so easy to be lazy about things. Good things. Things that make a difference.

Construct -- I'm going to make note every time I eat alone. Track it through the year.

Fitting now -- Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving, that will be the span of this year, give two days...  Feast. After Harvest -- we need food and light to get us through the winter...

What will I learn in every meal alone in a year...

Cooking For One

Well, a year of yoga was amazing. It taught me so much. And the practice has become part of my life. 

But it is time for the blog to grow and change. This is a project for me about my own writing -- my own creativity and exploration. With each year I learn about myself -- about my own writing -- and about the process of project.

This years' project is called 

Eating For One. See -- I'm advancing -- it has a title. I think it might be a book... shhhh... don't tell.

For a very long time, I said to myself, "I never want to be a person who cooks." Now, I suppose I will have to spend some time exploring that idea -- but in this moment I would rather just shake my head at the person I was... young and... young. 

I love to cook. I love to cook for a lot of people. Harder for me is cooking just for me. And I think this has a lot to do with how I am at being alone. I grew up alone -- a lot... on 17 acres of woods... surrounded by silence. I marvel sometimes that that experience didn't make being alone easy now...

but it didn't. It was hard then...

I would like to make friends with it now. 

That's what these years have been about! That's the thread! Making friends with things that are in my life that I want to understand better -- that I can't get away from -- that I feel the need to become intimate with... very different pursuits -- oil, yoga, cooking... but how I live in the world -- how we experience what surrounds us -- what we live inside of -- that's what I'm doing here... 

All the photos this year will be mine. 

My Rebellion

I didn't practice for a month.

It's interesting to me -- when something that you work to become committed to becomes something you need to rebel against...

My teacher went on retreat at the end of July and I simply could not make myself do hardly anything... I suppose I did some headstands -- and a few poses here and there -- but I just simply wanted no part of the mat. And I couldn't change it as hard as I tried.

I missed it horribly. I so often miss sweet teacher -- and as the months goes by, some of her voice stays, and some gets dimmer and dimmer and I wish I could hear her now...
My body began to rebel in all sorts of ways -- my knees won't work and things ache -- I don't sleep well. I forget to breathe...


So today I went back. And it is interesting to see -- what stays, what leaves, what fears are true, what remains within.

My strength was better than I thought.
But my stamina was weak. It was hot -- and I haven't been to a hot class in a very long time. I remember it used to feel like it melted my muscles and held me, the heat. Today it felt uncomfortable and stifling.

But still I am thinking about the rebellion...
I think I just got tired of working so hard. Summer vacation, I suppose -- but of course, there is no such thing. I need to find a way to bring myself restorative practice and space within life...

I find mid-life very long and hard -- and I think I sometimes rebel from it all.

on Interdependance and Dancer's Pose

I went to my first flow class today since I hurt my ankle. It was a gentle class -- it didn't feel gentle.

Healing is so slow.
I tried simply to listen and learn about my ankle...

I am amazed at how long it takes to heal.
I try to always use those times to learn compassion for people who are afflicted all the time... what if I spent my whole life in pain when I danced or ran...

I am amazed at the number of different parts that come into play with an injury...
the hardest thing was balance -- and trying to balance forced me to notice all the weakness -- the weakness surrounding the entire support system...
Dancer's pose -- one of my favorites -- was out of the question.

Holding oneself up and outstretched -- it's not an easy task.

Injury radiates through the body -- weakness is shared through proximity...

Each piece has to be strong enough to do its part to hold the weight of the body.

I am amazed at how frustrating it is to feel weak -- to be out of control of the time and the process...

It's one thing to be gentle with the namable pain -- but there are so many working parts which also become fragile -- also feel wounded -- also need to be cared for and built back slowly and with patience...
and the pieces that are seem so far away from each other -- on the other side of the foot -- in the other parts of my life -- they are unmistakable joined -- unmistakably interdependent...

and there is always so much to learn in the meantime -- who you become -- it's not who you were.