The Bubble of Truth

So I've decided to shake off the blues - was that even what I had? That pessimistic, why try?, dissatisfied-with-everything restlessness that doesn't get you anywhere but down. It started with seeing myself in pictures and just went on and on... an entire week of moaning and begroaning what I can't change.

It just don't getcha nowhere to bicker on about it!

So I'm saying Basta! - Enough is Enough! - Genug!

or whatever...

The coming up with this realization - that I'm blue - happened when I was stirring the beans. That's right. I had decided to make Frijol con Puerco - an absolutely outstanding dish from Yucatan (?) that sounds so blah until you dish yourself up a bowl - with all the toppings!

Because what starts as just your basic black beans (Jamapa of course) and pork (though I use beef and pork 50-50), boiled together with epazote and some garlic fried with chorizo thrown in, becomes the most colorful, zesty dish you can imagine when you top it with chopped radishes, purple onion, cilantro, chile habanero, chunks of avocado (for avocado freaks like me)and fresh-squeezed lemon. It's fortifying and satisfying, exquisitely different from anything you've ever eaten. And the next day, it tastes even better!

So, back to the story; I had pressure-cooked the beans and was about to open the pot, after cooling it under running water till the pressure valve went down, when Anto came into the kitchen and warned me that it might still open with a pop. I shook my head, knowing the beans were cooled down to opening level, and opened the pot, which did not blast open. Turning to give him a simpering "see, you were wrong" kind of smile, I picked up the spoon and started stirring the beans and suddenly, BAAALOOOOP! The spoon brought up a huge popping bubble of beans and meat! I guess the meat had gotten suctioned to the bottom or something. Luckily, none of the splatterning bubble went out of the pot, so my face was saved, but what a scare! No sooner had I recovered my cool and begun stirring again when another BALOOP! bubbled forth. This one was weaker in force, though not in sound, and, coming so soon after the first one, it gave me pause.

And that's when I realized that I had been suffering from a case of woe-is-me-ness. That's when I knew that all my cantankerous insistence about doing all this getting-away-from-it-all was mainly an attempt at escaping from the blues!
Stay tuned!