Tag Archive | oxygen is the real drug

Mon Dieu!

Jul14
Speculoos breakfast cake for dessert

I fell asleep watching Drag Race France, even after a nap this afternoon. This oxygen thing is taking a toll. I’ll be grateful when it’s resolved and I have more energy in a day. Meanwhile, I’m grateful for Drag Race France, and for Boyz Lunch, and for all the fun I had in the kitchen this morning. Mon Dieu! It was 95 degrees outside and I slaved over a hot oven all morning, baking first that Speculoos breakfast cake at last, and then homemade hot dog buns. Both were delicious.

Lunch underway, a kitchen whirlwind this morning
I’m grateful for these herb scissors: boy, do I love having the right tool for the job! The Herby 3 Bean Salad recipe calls for ¾ cup fresh herbs, and this tool made short work of chopping the dill, fennel leaf, parsley, basil, and rosemary from the garden.
Herby Three Bean Salad, with garden fennel, last summer’s green beans, and fresh herbs, plus some canned beans, store-bought red onions, oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.
I’m grateful, as always, for the technology to find the right recipe for the job. I found hotdogs in the freezer this morning and decided that’s what’s for lunch, but had no buns. I searched ‘quick hotdog bun recipe,’ and pretty quickly found Bonnie’s 30-minute bun recipe. Amazing!
The last of the Homestead all-beef hotdogs from the freezer, saved after they weren’t needed at Michael’s memorial party almost exactly a year ago. I’m grateful for a chest freezer filled with wholesome local meats and garden produce, and also for this new Staub grill pan/lid that just happened to arrive yesterday with its cocotte bottom.
A perfect July luncheon.
And a restful nap afterwards for the chef and the tiny sous-chef.

The Joy of Each Breath

Feb9
I’m grateful for being able to breathe fresh, clean mountain air.

I’m grateful for every single breath, whether or not I’m aware of it, and I try to be aware of my breath many times during the day. Sometimes just a single breath, sometimes a few, sometimes for five minutes, or twenty-five, I focus on the sensation of the breath.

My friend Kim and I try to meditate spontaneously together once a day. One of us will text an invitation, and usually within a few minutes we’ve both settled somewhere quiet with a guided meditation, or just a silent timer set for five or ten minutes. “The joy of each breath” comes from a meditation we did this evening, led by Peter Harper, The Drunken Monk, on Insight Timer. The joy of each breath. It really is a joy when you can breathe fully, and take a moment to pause, notice, and really feel a single inhalation-exhalation cycle. Or give yourself ten minutes to truly allow yourself to relax, release, let go. Relaxation is a skill not well known nor practiced in this predominant culture. It’s so much more than kicking back on the couch with a beer watching TV, or sitting on the deck with a martini savoring sunset, or having a great time pursuing any kind of sensory stimulation. It’s letting go of all that, resting in the stillness of nowhere to go, nothing to do. Each breath really is a miracle.

I’m grateful I had shells and homemade sauce in the pantry, ricotta and kale in the fridge. It was a good day to make stuffed shells, sprinkled with a little mozzarella because everything is better with cheese. The recipe came from a Level 4 Vegan cookbook, Skinny Bitch in the Kitch. I fried the onions in bacon grease and used real cheese, but technically a vegan could make this delicious meal, which proportionizes readily for freezing.
Three for lunch (these are gigantic shells), and two fives for later.

Because several people asked for the Cheesos recipe, here are the sources of inspiration for both Cheesos and the Shells. I’m not entirely digital – I still love actual cookbooks, and have a few reliable go-tos besides my own 3×5 card file, a folder of printed recipes, my mother’s lifetime recipe notebook, and two staples that forged my appetite: mom relied on The Joy of Cooking, and the Colonel swore by Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School bible. I’m also grateful for cookbooks!

Cheesos recipe from the 21-Day Ketogenic Weight Loss Challenge book.
The “NEW” Fannie Farmer, ©1951 — it’s older than I am!

Sometimes during the day, after I notice something like these cookbooks, and pay attention, and take stock of the luxuries in my life, I take a deep breath – a big sigh – and am suddenly aware of this breath – and then this breath – and I recognize the astonishing chain of events that led to my being here, in this moment, holding this cookbook that is older than I am. Each breath is a miracle. Oxygen is the real drug; breathing, the ultimate high.