Down and Up and over again we go

 Maybe optimism/pessimism is influenced by the moon cycle.  When you experience these two opposing perspectives in a back-and-forth manner, they're often referred to as mood swings.  Maybe they're triggered by something someone says or the weather.  Maybe you've been able to see your mood swings as cyclical.  In my case, It's a question that's still open to discussion because I'm not sure  perspectives are dominated by moods, but whatever the cause and whatever the circumstances, I am always amazed by the complete change that occurs in me when I go from optimism to pessimism and vice/verse.

Yesterday was Sunday.  I was in one of those funks where you just can't get yourself moving in any direction, so you watch videos, take walks, putter around and make half-hearted attempts to do something constructive, then watch more videos and willfully ignore everything else.  I thought it might be because it was Sunday, but deep down I knew it was because some important trips are coming up and I didn't want to deal with the preparations, which brought on guilt feelings that I could only deal with by shutting out everything connected with my real life.  So I gave myself permission to just escape into fantasy and deal with the consequences on Monday.  That night, in the family chat, questions and more questions were being bounced around about what exactly our plan for the coming weekend was going to be.  The family at this time is split into three sectors - those in Europe who are coming in for this, those in Mexico City, who are hosting the reunion and those here in the Hoyo, who are bringing the food for the reunion.  Those of us in the Hoyo had not been able to come to an agreement on our plan (I know I was holding the others back) and the other two sectors were on our backs.  So I remained silent in the chat except to say, we'd get back to them the next day.

This morning, I woke up completely willing to look at everything and come to some decisions.  I managed to get both my sons to talk to me - and listen to my ideas about it and then contribute to the chat until the final plan was formulated.  It was such a relief.  And the plan itself - solid enough to believe in - brought all sorts of other ideas to adorn it.  I went for a walk in the sun, thinking about things I needed to do - the things I was trying so hard not to see just yesterday - , but now, with the dragging unwillingness behind me, my mind exploded with ideas that I poured out on a new To-Do list.  

I love it when I'm up!  Who doesn't like to feel full of energy and ideas?  And of course I hate it when I'm down, but even hating it, I feel compelled to experience it all the way through.  I think my mind believes that I'll only be able to understand something important about the circle of optimism and pessimism if I stay the course of the down side.  Whether or not that's true, I've always felt thankful for this:  when I know I'm down and I give myself a deadline to return from stagnation, I come up shining with exhilaration, feeling the energy and purpose that goes with loving and being thankful for my life.  

The other day, when I was in my usual, pretty much optimistic mode, I was doing my walkaround, singing to myself as I sometimes do just to entertain myself as I walked.  I recorded it, saved it in my phone and forgot about it, as it was just some spontaneous lyrics that I put to the music I heard in my head at the time.  This morning I remembered it and played it.  

A part of me must have known even then that pessimism was coming for me because it was like a message and it's just what I'm talking about.  

Disregard the out-of-breath-ness of it... was walking pretty fast at the time.

  

   

The Rock.

With so much time on my hands, as we are about to enter the 9th month of the pandemic, I have taken to climbing up and down the hills around here, oftentimes pausing to stare at, sit on, or simply feel the texture of the various kinds of rocks that are all around.  They inspire me; what can I say?  So one day, I decided to bring some home to make a rock border around a garden patch in the front.  I'm not talking about pebbles or small or even medium-sized stones.  I'm talking about big heavy rocks that the rains of many years have shoved deep into the ground.  The biggest ones are usually too deeply entrenched to be pried loose, but there are many that can be;  you need to wrestle with them - sometimes you can do it with your bare hands, sometimes with the help of a stout stick - and you need some stamina, but eventually you can pull them out of their holes.  Then it's just a matter of getting them back to your house.  I chose about 10 pretty big rocks and lugged them about 100 meters down the path one by one.  Then I went for the wheelbarrow and brought it up to where I'd left the rocks, filled it, and started home.  It was a precarious journey, and luckily one of my sons saw me struggling and came to help me when it got to the hard part of the path.  

I formed the border of the garden patch and felt good about it.  I love my relationship with rocks.  I had a truly wonderful time sitting in the quiet shade with the rocks all around me as I pondered their shapes and sizes and then experimented with different ways of fitting them together to form the border.  It was very uplifting.   

The days went by and I kept walking round and round in the hills, and on one walk I discovered a great sitting rock that I was sure I could take back to the house by myself.  This one was really big though and I wouldn't be able to carry it at all.  I went back for the wheelbarrow, pushed it up the hill till I came to the rock and laid the wheelbarrow on its side next to the rock.  Getting down on my knees, I heaved the rock until it turned over and fell with a crash onto the metal of the wheelbarrow.  The tricky part was then turning the wheelbarrow right-side-up.  It was extremely heavy and at first, the only way I could do it was to get it partially up, and then let go and let it fall into place.  But the rock then slid to the other side and tumped the wheelbarrow over on its other side.  With great patience, I went around and did the same thing as before and this time, I turned it upright without letting go, which was no easy feat.  The rock stayed in the middle of the wheelbarrow and I started down.  It was a harrowing journey, but no one was home to get help from this time.  It was me and the rock.  Twice the wheelbarrow went over on its side, and I had to get that rock back in, but I refused to give up.  When I finally got it inside the gate, I left the wheelbarrow - rock and all - in the middle of the patio and went inside to get something to drink.

Hours later, when my sons got home they asked why the wheelbarrow was sitting in the middle of the patio with a gigantic rock inside.  They couldn't believe what I had done and neither wanted to take on the task of getting it out of there.  So there it sat.  A few days went by and finally I decided to do it myself.  I wheeled the wheelbarrow over to where I wanted the rock to sit - it would get the morning sun and I could go out and sit on it and bask in the sun for a little while.  But I could not get the wheelbarrow to fit in the right angle to be able to turn it over and get the rock out.  After some struggling, I decided to give up for the day, and try again the next day.  But the wheelbarrow was off-balance.  The rock had rolled to one of the extremes and as I tried to move the wheelbarrow to a spot that wouldn't be in anyone's way until the next day, it fell over and the rock spilled out to the patio, rolled over and came to rest against the wall, exactly where I had wanted to put it in the first place.  I stared at it in awe, and promptly sat down to try it out.  It was perfect!

When I tried to tell others about the experience, they found it extremely funny.  "It's a rock, mom.  It's just a rock," said my daughter.  But the incredible thing was how the rock ended up being exactly in the perfect spot.  When I replayed the events in my mind, everything fit together in a harmonious pattern and I saw the meaning of it in my life.  

Maybe it is just a rock.  But it has the feel of eternity to it.  And I'm glad it found its place on my patio.

When cooking lunch becomes a moment of truth

 A couple of weeks ago, after being severely criticized at breakfast for not holding up my end of things by spending more time in the kitchen - I do lots of clean-up but not so much cooking - I said ENOUGH!  I'll cook! In all fairness, it's true that the others in my house like to have proper meals served at the table at a regular time while I am happy just pulling things out of the fridge and pantry to make something edible at any time.  This means that when I am in writing mode, or have other work, they have to cook or starve, since they do not share my eating habits.  So of course, there comes a time when they start bickering about it.  They start saying that I should change my habits and become the main cook because I'm the mother - but it's not like they're little kids anymore.  They're big 30-somethings and they have their other halves over all the time and they all like to cook, so why the fuss?

Well, that's an ongoing argument that I won't go into here, but suffice it to say that they did have a point that day because they were all extremely busy doing hard physical work, the fridge was pretty empty, and I was relatively free.  So I put on my walking shoes, got my shopping bag and trudged down to the edge of town where dirt road meets pavement and stores of all sorts dot both sides of the street.  I bought meat, veggies, a little fruit and a broom (we've been needing one for a while).  Then I headed back home, commenced to wash all the produce and do the prep work.

I had a neat idea for how I was going to cook the meat - strips of beef that I'd asked the butcher to cut for me.  It was going to be in a sort of stir-fry with the carrots, squash, green pepper and mushrooms I'd bought, so I put the meat on to brown while I chopped the veggies.  Meanwhile, I soaked and fried some rice and then added water.  While it came to a boil and cooked, I sliced and fried two plantain bananas.  This would give the rice definite pizzazz and who doesn't like fried bananas on white rice?  With the kitchen to myself, and accompanied by Joy of Cooking, I worked happily in my own rhythm, harmonizing my efforts to produce a succulent meal in about 40 minutes.

As the meat dish finished simmering and bubbling in the sauce I had added, which actually was bottled but watered down to reduce its exaggerated spiciness,  I seasoned the rice, pulled the salad from the day before out of the refrigerator, gave it a bit of tossing, and voilà, we had a meal!  I asked the others to do things like set the table and serve glasses of beer for all (in Mexico, our main meal is in the late afternoon, so beer is a nice beverage to have on a hot day when you've been working outside).  Then we sat down, and it really was a nice meal, although the rice was on the bland side, even with all the fried bananas I heaped on it, and the sauce in the main dish didn't do anything for the meat, perhaps because it was too thin.

I reflected on the paradox as we ate.  On the one hand, we were together for a meal I had cooked, something I don't manage often enough, but the meal itself left something to be desired - at least in my opinion.  The others seemed happy enough with it, however, and I must admit, the good vibes all around really opened my eyes to the fact that I need to participate more often in this way with my family.   

So the meal was a success simply because we were together and everyone was hungry and there was plenty of food to fill our stomachs and make us feel satisfied.  But on the technical side - the concoction of that meal - it wasn't the masterpiece I'd hoped it would be.

The next day, I heated up the leftovers and did what I should have done in the first place:  I mixed a couple of teaspoons of cornstarch in about a cup of cold  water, stirred it around and poured it into the pan where the meat was simmering in its sauce.  I've read recipes that call for corn starch to make gravy, but I've always considered it an optional ingredient and just never resorted to using it myself.  I keep corn starch on hand, though, because my mother-in-law always had some in her kitchen and she said every kitchen should have it.  

While the meat was building to a simmer after the addition of the corn starch, I jazzed up the rice with more condiments and heated it up in a bit of butter.

This time, when I served up lunch - leftovers though they were - the reaction was just what I wanted to see.  Everything was really delicious!  The rice held its own, this time with sliced avocado on top (the bananas were long gone).  The sauce in the main dish - thick, hot and spicy - gave every bite of meet a velvety texture.  In short, a savory delight! 

I'm not saying this will become a habit - luckily there are great cooks among us, so I don't have to be the one who does it every day - but it does feel good to prepare and serve up a nice meal and sit together at the table and talk.  And even if the meal doesn't come out perfect, you can learn from your mistakes and produce a better meal the next time.  I'm always glad when things come together like that, and in this case, it meant that we had a nice meal together - cooked by me! - two days in a row!

P.S. Corn starch!  Great ally to have in the kitchen when you want your watery sauce to thicken to the right consistency.  I can't believe it was the first time I actually tried it, and it worked!    

Muffin Madness or Better, Butter!

 This is going to seem trivial to some bakers I know... but it was a revelation to me, so I'm going to share it, because you never know; there might be others who can benefit from my experience!

After umpteen years of making muffins periodically throughout the seasons, it would seem there'd be nothing new to learn there, right?  

Wrong!  

This morning, I saw we had nothing sweet to go with our coffee, so I decided to whip up some muffins.  They're so easy to make, only need a few ingredients, the minimum of time and effort to stir everything together and if you have those silicon muffin holders for the oven, you're on Easy Street when it comes time to free them from their molds, as well as in the cleaning up department.  

Now I have a multitude of muffin recipes.  It's a curious thing, but all of them stipulate oil; not butter, but oil.  I've always made mine that way too - with oil.  I remember one year, my sister and I held a bake-off at my parents' house.  We each made our own special recipe of muffins.  I saw how she used butter and how she claimed it was much better than oil.  Well, I also saw all the prep she had to do, what with melting the butter and blending it more carefully with the egg, etc. I scoffed at all the extra work.  I had the idea that muffins taste exactly the same whether you use oil or butter.  (My grandmother once told me that, and all her recipes stipulate oil; of course she baked a lot during the great depression and maybe then butter was hard to come by).  

In the end, of course my sister won the bake-off.  I didn't attribute the finer flavor to the butter however, but rather to the delicious things she put into her muffins, while mine were more of the heavy but nutritious quality.  They tasted good but hers certainly looked a lot better!

Anyway today for some reason I decided to make mine with butter.  Recently I've been making lots of cookies and other pastries and I've gotten good at melting butter without burning it.  So I made the muffins with butter and no extras, save some chocolate chips I had on hand.  The first thing I noticed was that the batter was lighter than usual.  I was making these heavy motions with my arm to stir what is usually a heavy mass, and it simply wasn't necessary!  The spoon glided around the bowl in a delightfully playful manner.  Then, as they were baking, I noticed they fluffed up nicely in their cups, which doesn't always happen to my muffins.  When the time came to take them out of the oven and get them out of their molds, they popped out cheerily before I finished doing the twirl-around with a butter knife.  

And then I tasted one.

Unbelievable! Fabulous texture!  So fluffy and springy with a soft but crunchy top.  And absolutely delicious!  A mouthwatering delight!  It must be the butter.  No, no doubt about it - it was the butter.  The evidence was undeniable.  The fact that they needed no butter to make them tasty (I usually put butter or cream cheese on my muffins when I eat them).  The fact that the inside of the muffin was so light and fluffy, yet did not crumble all over the place.  The way the crust had a sweet satisfying crunch in my mouth as it blended with the rest of the bite.  In short, I was flabbergasted that butter could turn a mere muffin into such a delicacy!  

I can't believe I never found this out before, considering the fact that I make muffins so often and have been making them for so many years!  Now I know that as long as there is a bar of butter in my fridge when I start to make a batch of muffins - and, believe me, I'll make sure there always is - I'll never go back to using oil again!

Rule of thumb: Between oil and butter - better, butter!   

Making Granola - or - An Adventure in Self-Discovery

 It's been a while since the last post.  That's for sure!  But I had one of those revealing moments this morning and the only place I felt I could write about it is here, so here I am!  

The setting was my kitchen; I was intent on making granola.  I'd been wanting to make some for over a week, but only this morning - this windy, sunny solitary morning - did I feel ready to actually make it.  It was going along fine, and I had loaded up three cookie sheets with the yummy blend of oats, nuts, coconut oil, brown sugar, honey and even a bit of maple syrup.  While I cut up fruit, washed up dishes and put a pot of coffee on, I stirred the concoction periodically, breathing in the delicious scent each time I opened the oven door.  

When it was ready, I pulled out the cookie sheets and tasted it with relish - only to find that the taste was boringly oat-y.  There wasn't even a hint of sweetness in there, and you do need a bit of sweetness if you want to enjoy the crunch of your granola... otherwise you might as well be a horse.

In desperation, I looked around and spied a jar of cinnamon and sugar I had mixed up one day to use on French toast.  I dusted my three batches of granola sparingly and then not so sparingly with that mixture and stirred it around.  Then I poured a bit in a small dish to taste, and NO!  I had overdone it!  Now it was too sweet.  I hate too-sweet granola - especially when the sweetness is sugar-based as opposed to honey or molasses.  Now what could I do?  

For a moment I considered throwing it all out, but I knew I couldn't do that.  As I contemplated my options, I noticed that the sugar, since I'd put it on after the granola was roasted, had not really mixed in completely with the other ingredients.  Quickly I pulled out a fine-holed colander and began to sift the granola over the cookie sheets, and sure enough, a fine rain of sugar began to fall.  It took a while, but I finally got most of the excess out, and then I tasted the result and - Ecstasy!  It was delicious!

As I looked at all the sugary remnants of oats, nuts and sesame seeds that had also made it through the holes of the colander and were now lying on the cookie sheets, I realized I would have to do something with all of that - it was at least a cup and a half worth of sweet grain debris.  I got out a nice little jar, poured the mixture into it and thought to myself, I'll use this in my next batch of muffins.

Then it really hit me!  I was my grandmother!  I was using her brain to get myself out of the mess I'd made by improvising with the quantities of ingredients I'd thrown into my granola.  

I washed up all the cookie sheets, the several bowls I'd used to sift, stir, re-sift and pour the granola, feeling like my other grandmother as I chided myself over the extra work I was now having to do for not having done things right the first time.  

And finally, as I hung up my towels and the potholders, I felt my mother in me, the one who always puts things back in the place they should be.  

So I realized that I carry them all with me - my two grandmothers, my mother, Car, my kids, good friends and family... and when I stop to think about it, I'm kind of like my own granola - the finished product of all the ingredients they've put into me to make me who I am!  The blend might change, sometimes sweeter, sometimes nuttier, but the ingredients are all there mixed in with love.

Remember how in the 60s and 70s (I'm a product of the latter decade), we were all out trying to find ourselves?  Well guess what?  I've finally found myself!