This, That, and The Other

The road to hell is paved with....

Thank you to anyone and everyone who looked at and/or commented on my last post. It received over 2000 views and responses, giving this old woman a surprising lift. I am deeply honored and humbled that you found that profoundly challenging subject interesting enough to read, share, and post your thoughts. Keep fighting the good fight.

And now, for the much-belated post.

If you were a fly on the wall, scratching your legs and cleaning your wings as I try to write this at my kitchen table, you would see me flit from giggles to despair to eye-rubbing weariness. Like my drawer of seasonings I use to jazz up my cooking, my words seem to just sit in the dark waiting for me to slide the drawer open and—for the love of god—unscrew their damn tops and use them. It’s a form of hoarding, and some kind person might say I’m waiting for a rainy day. Kind as that statement is, they’d be wrong.

Plain and simple, I am suffering from writer’s block. I’ve been cooking, hosting the Cookbook Club, walking my dog, fostering, and socializing, but the idea of collecting everything and sitting to write it all down seems…torturous.

When I was very young, dragging my feet, whining, and generally being stubborn, my mother would sit me down and say, “Janet, get on with it.” So, this morning, I’ve sat myself down and heard the echoes of my mother’s voice within the chambers of my brain say, “Get on with it.” It’s time to open that spice drawer.

Below is a collection of various meals I was working on. Some of the photos are good, and some are really ugly.

For about a month, I decided exploring raw food cookery would be interesting because I’m a big believer in getting more vegetables into one’s daily diet. Since I already own a spiralizer, cold-extraction juicer, nut milk bags, and turbo blender, it was pretty easy to journey through this cooking approach. Praise the lord, I stopped myself before dropping a load of money on the Excalibur dehydrator, but I am tempted….

Dabbling in some raw food cookery.

Next came an atrociously hot summer day where even thinking about expending energy was making me break out in a sweat. I turned to my mother’s wisdom again and prepared something she always made when it was so hot, an egg could be scrambled on the front walk. That was a good day for the dog.

NOTE: Some of these recipes were inspired by the cookbook club’s review of Stanley Tucci’s cookbooks. The Cookbook Club’s review will be in another post.

My mother's Oklahoma Farmhouse Dinner

Of course, tomato season hit hard, and my cravings kicked in as hard. That meant a loaf of sourdough bread leading to a de rigueur BLT.

Extreme fermented sourdough and BLT

For some wild-hair of a reason, I decided that I HAD to make a boiled egg look sexy.

A boiled egg on a white plate.

Lastly, below is the photo of the day I thought celery was underused and that it might make a really great faux pasta. I cannot accurately express to you how terribly misguided I was in thinking this.

Peanut noodle salad made with celery instead of pasta.

All I can say is that I think this summer’s heat baked my brain. Thankfully, it’s getting cooler now, and along with the cooler weather, I am making plans. Oh, shit. As the tag said above, the road to hell is paved with…. Let’s make it food and drink, so at least we wanderers will have something to chew and slurp on as we stroll down that particular lane.

The Cookbook Club’s reviews for the past six months will be posted soon. Thank you, and keep cooking!