Will now be accepting "Boyfriend" applications*

Yesterday, I was in a cooking mood.


What can I say? Sometimes I just feel like chopping things with a large knife. Gramps was gone, and the thought of a nuked frozen dinner just failed to entice. Found some chicken breasts in the freezer and decided to invent from there.

I love inventing.

It is why I succeed as a cook, but generally struggle as a baker: you can't experiment with baking. Once, when my sister Heidi and I were trying to make scones, I suggested we add fruit. "Scones OUGHT to have fruit in them!" I insisted. The only fruit we had were apples, so we grated some up, and threw the apple in with the mix. It ruined the consistency, and we ended up with cakey-cookie-plops rather than neat triangular scones. Heidi got mad at me. Heidi's great at baking. She follows the rules.

You can experiment with cooking though.

I went to the store and looked for something balsamic-y. Found a dressing by "Stonewall Kitchen" called Balsamic Fig Dressing that had a chicken-related recipe on the side. Grabbed a brownie mix for fun as well, and headed home to play.

I found some almonds and chopped them.


And then I sliced some onions and began sauteing them.


Cut the chicken into cubes, and then threw it into the pan with the onions. Drizzled the whole thing with a tiny bit of olive oil, and the Fig Balsamic dressing.

It started to smell good.

I had this idea that apples might make a yummy accessory to the whole thing-- I know, again with the apples. But I thought it might provide a different texture, and taste, yes? It was an oddball idea but you CAN experiment with cooking, so I decided to try it. If I hated it, I just wouldn't eat the apples.


Threw the apples into the pan, and topped it all with the almonds.

The smell from the pan got a little too sweet at that point, so I went to the spice cupboard. Found: garlic salt: a favorite, and Rosemary: to cut the sweetness of the dressing and the apples.


Admittedly, felt a little skeptical about the combination. But DANG, it smelled good.


Finally, it was time for the moment of truth.


And I tell you it was GOOD. IT WAS INCREDIBLY GOOD. The rosemary was the perfect final touch-- the glazed onions with the chicken blended beautifully with the apples, but the rosemary kept it from being overwhelming-- and the nutty taste from the almonds added a roasted flavor and great texture. It was SUCCULENT. I tell you, I was pleased with myself.


Cheers to that then, yes?


Unfortunately, the brownies...


... Which I'd hoped would be a smashing success to greet friends with at movie night... turned out far too cakey. Realized later that I'd thrown in an extra egg. Whoops. So much for turning around my reputation as a cakey-cookie-plopper-baker.

You can't experiment with baking. You have to follow all the rules with baking. I don't like following all the rules. I like INVENTING.

Especially when it tastes this good...

Responding in Kind

Has everyone else heard about the earthquake in China? I saw the headlines in today’s paper when I sat down to breakfast this morning and felt floored, I felt almost ill. What is happening to our world? First Burma, and now 13,000+ deaths in China after this enormous earth quake? I thought of the war in Iraq, and how many needless deaths are taking place that were initiated by intention, or anger, and felt another wave of helpless frustration. Aren’t there enough deaths happening through famines and droughts and natural disasters? Do we really have to speed up the process with guns and bombs as well?

In the paper, I read that countries around the world were already responding with aid, and food. This made me feel a little better. It makes sense that the initial aid response would be providing food, because after all—that’s the first basic requisite for survival after water. But picturing Russia and England and Canada loading up their planes the way a concerned neighbor trots over to her sick friend’s house with a casserole provided some measure of goodness within this terrible situation. I’ve never been someone particularly enamored with food—I’m more of an “eat to live-er” than a “live to eat-er,” but I love the way food can bring people together. It’s one of our most basic common denominators—we may disagree on religion, and politics, and dress, and gender roles, but we all must eat. When disasters happen, it seems to be as basic an instinct to get food ready as it is for the victims to need it. You see this happen even when food is irrelevant, even when food exists in abundance. A family has a new baby, a neighbor is diagnosed with cancer. What do we do? We come over with cookies, with dinners that can be frozen and cooked easily at any time; we make cakes, and get gift-cards to grocery stores and restaurants. Out of our desire to help, we come up with aid that fulfils the most undeniable need we would encounter as humans. We help each other eat.

I wish we could all just be eaters. I wish global interactions transpired solely within this context—the international exchange of casseroles when one country just needed to put up its feet for a while and be taken care of, and we could all take turns providing in health, and accepting in distress. I wish the terrorism, the threats, the violence, and anger, and unrest could just subside in the face of these greater, tragic disasters. It’s hard enough to live and exist—why must we make it so much more difficult besides? Why not trade anger for concern? Why not violent disagreement for tolerance? I know it’s not that simple—it’s never been that simple. But hearing about Burma and China makes me wish we could lay the guns and disagreements aside… And just bring one another a few more ready-made dinners.