Eating Really, Really Well

It's been a while since I talked extensively about food, and me, and us over here. And since it crossed my mind the other day that some of you may be eating bland, unwholesome, or expensive food, I want to share my current meal plan. And yes, I'm making meal plans now, and our grocery bill and our diet is much better for it.

I started following the cookforgood.com plan, and while I love the idea and the woman has some great recipes, I'm not enthused about following it exactly. Okay, I'm not enthused about following it exactly at all. I don't want to eat three dishes based on black beans in one week, once for dinner and the next day for lunch. I don't want to eat pasta every other day. And I hate making side dishes. I like eating them, but I run out of drive when it comes to making them. I just end up looking at the head of broccoli and thinking, Why am I cooking you again? I don't want to. I just want to eat my bowl of vegetable-filled legumes and whole grains.

What follows is a list of 17 vegetarian meals I wrote down off the top of my head, with this week's meal plan at the end. I'd be happy to share recipes; just ask. They come from many sources, so I won't bother listing them. They're roughly sorted by shared ingredients.

Thai peanut noodles with cabbage, carrots, and broccoli
Pasta with tomatoes and kale

White beans with cabbage and parmesan
White bean stew with tomatoes and garlic

Pizza with parsley pesto and mozzarella

Black bean chili
Black bean soup with corn
Cuban black beans
Black bean and vegetable soup
Black beans with salsa, rice or tortillas

Garbanzos in curry (chana masala)
Garbanzos with quinoa, green something, and garlic-tahini dressing
Hummus

Lentils with kale and roasted tomatoes (really good with polenta)

Hoppin' John
Baked BBQ black-eyed peas

Green soup with ginger

... and for dinner/lunch next day this week:

Black beans with salsa, brown rice
Black bean soup with corn, brown rice
Pasta with tomatoes and kale
White beans with cabbage, roasted potato wedges
Thai peanut noodles
Butternut squash soup, garlicky greens, something bready
Pizza with parsley pesto and mozz.

What are you eating these days? Hmmm? Is it as bad as I imagine?

My Grandmother is Not Dead

She lives! We spoke on the phone once, she didn't return my call after that, she did return my brother's call, and somehow, we don't know how for sure, she went to a doctor's appointment despite snow and winter, which were previous excuses for not going to the doctor, and is apparently kind of stable. Stable for her condition? Stable really? Not sure on that one.

Folks, we are playing it by ear. And I am back in Seattle.

Land of Noah, land of humidity, land of green moss everywhere, and even sunshine greeting me on this fine V-Day. There are roses (I think) blooming in my yard. BLOOMING. Because I live in a temperate rainforest. The more I remind myself of that, the easier it is to accept that I've traded snow (which I had today, in St. Louis) for green things. Not a terrible trade.

But there was lots of excellent family visiting, lots of cooking good food, lots of throwing things out of my parents' pantry and fridge that have expired. Examples: dried black beans from 2002. But the worst: just-add-water cocoa mix from 2000.

All this death watch business comes down to ... improvement in her condition, more time, a chance to let her know I do care about her, and let her do with that what she will. So far, that means not returning my calls. It feels like my evil grandmother has either decided she is a) totally done with me and most of my family, b) pushing us away to see if we stay away, or if we run in to save her and prove our love, or c) resolved to die alone, not in a sinister way, but in a kind of surrender. All of this is uncertain.

One certain thing: I went to the Fremont farmer's market today and bought maple syrup from a guy who is a grad student at UW, whose family makes it in Vermont, who takes off spring quarter to go make syrup, then brings it back and sells it to ... me. A delicious certainty. On waffles.

Reminder: Keep Breathing

Sunshine, sunshine, snow, days of fires in the old stone fireplace that nearly fell on the neighbor's house and had to be mudjacked back into place. Days of babysitting Amelia, helping her in and out of her new pink princess dress with the flower crown and wand and a choice of either a pink sash or a silver sequin sash. I've watched Mulan and the Lady and the Tramp so many times that I think I could sing them all to you. I keep humming "A Girl Worth Fighting For," and since my mom teared up once at the end of Mulan, where the emperor bows to her, I keep tearing up no matter how many times we've watched it that day, and my brother said that he does, too, that it's the kind of movie that can take your emotions and run with them, if you let them.

My grandmother received 5 units of blood and 4 of platelets in her 9-day hospital stay, then was discharged home. Her doctor said he'd never written the order for "placement" and that he didn't think she'd comply if he did write it. My brother and I tried to reason/argue with her that she needed to move into assisted living (Zak, serious: "Nancy, you're straight f*cked." Nancy: giggles), and she tried convincing us that since she won't receive any more chemo (because she has permanent kidney damage from losing so much blood a month ago), she would feel "better," be able to organize her hoarder's hellhole of an apartment (literally boxes to the walls, covering all the floor, with a cot and one chair in the kitchen and some room on the floor to lay down and watch TV), and then, "I can't think of anything better than to lay down on my bed at home one day, go to sleep, and never wake up."

Of course, someone else in her position might say "hospice" at this point, but no, she is too deep in her manipulation games of controlling people to do that. I am pretty certain that right now, what she wants more than anything is for both 1) everyone to leave her alone and let her die in peace and 2) for all of us to rush in and save her somehow. I suspect she's waiting for things to get bad enough that my mom demands she move in with my mom--which would be an emotional disaster and a physical disaster, since my mom couldn't take care of her needs at all, as my mom can't cook, clean much, or help someone else move around. So, these goals are incompatible, and I have a feeling the dying will happen first.

The lesson? Crazy people are always crazy. They die crazy. It is ugly for everyone.

I called her yesterday and didn't hear back; she had a doctor's appointment today that she rescheduled for Wednesday. I'm sure she rescheduled because she feels bad, which would be a good reason to see a doctor, especially if you spent the last nine days in the hospital receiving a unit or two of blood and platelets every other day. So, will my grandmother (Nancy, I don't call her grandmother, per her request when I was an infant and she said, "I'm too young to be a grandmother" even though my mom was 30) die at home in the next two days? Will she call us? Will she call an ambulance? Will my deeply embedded feelings of hyperresponsibility take over, guide me to drive to her apartment and drag her back to the hospital? Or will I let her be responsible for her own bizarre, deluded, totally crazy decisions?

I have no idea. I have a feeling the end of her life is right here, that we are all staring at it, and that she is still playing games to ensure that people do what she wants. I have a feeling that I was right to pack funeral clothes.

A nice thing: being with my family. My dad's mom (who is Grandma) is coming to visit next week, mostly because I'm here and our timing lined up nicely. She is so wonderful to be around, lots of reading, sleeping, talking, coffee-drinking. We had a big family dinner last night with my brother, his wife Lucy, and their girl Amelia--pulled pork, baked bbq black-eyed peas, and the best collards ever: collards with garlic, raisins, and orange juice. Amazing. And cornbread. Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Kitchen is wonderful; the collards and peas recipes are his.

I read The Road in two nights. I, um, I'm working on my post-apocalypse skills. I'm glad the boy made it through. And I learned that even after the apocalypse, one must be concerned about the safety of consuming home-canned vegetables. Good lord, Cormac McCarthy can write a lyric. Can't believe I hadn't read him before. The plot would get so bleak and terrifying that I only kept reading for the lyric. And the subplot of "is this boy a god or not."

So, keep breathing, little girl. Your skin and hair are drying out in this familiar Midwest winter air, so drink more water and less coffee. Be wary of old canned goods.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

When you were young, you were the king of carrot flowers ... No idea why this album is the one to listen to right now. But there it is.

I am flying to Saint Louis on Tuesday to be with my family. The impetus is my grandmother's illness, dying, hospital stay, stage four cancer in July, remission in December, five units of blood in the hospital in December, three units of blood and two of platelets now, in a reverse isolation room, with an order for "discharge with placement" which means assisted living or custodial or something. Not that she's at all ready for discharge yet.

She's 72? 73? Her mother lived to 98.

This woman ... I told my dad this summer that she is the most evil person I know, and I am sticking by it. Loads of abuse, alcoholism, irresponsibility, denial, crazymaking, paranoia, and, to top it off, she really hates people. She was close to one of her cousins for decades and broke off their friendship because her cousin talked about her grandson a lot, and it annoyed my grandmother. Also the most bizarre person I know.

So, sadness, well. Let's not address that. I've written poems and essays about this woman because she is that kind of negative muse, you know?

But I want to be with my family, with my mom, and right now I can be. So I will be.

Of course, I'm just settling into Seattle, into my apartment with the working heater and bathroom light, into baking bread at home, cooking the best pizza I've ever made (whole-wheat crust with an overnight rise, parsley pesto for sauce, whole-milk mozzarella shredded on top), being with Noah. Waltz lessons. Ice cream at Molly Moon's afterward.

I'll come back, though. Sometime. Maybe in a week or two. I didn't buy a return ticket.

Sunny, and a Petition for Comments

Where are you, people? Here I am talking into the ether, and you refuse to comment. A right I also enjoy, I occasionally refuse to comment on your blogs, your links, reddit.com's links, Facebook status updates, et al. But you could at least say hello.

So shall I say, hello.

Our bathroom's ceiling light fixture stopped working (at midnight, of course--headlamp to the rescue); now it works again. Thank you, Dave the handyman. Thank you for working hard and sighing and asking to borrow my laptop so you could look up what the hell was going on. Apparently, the wiring comes from the main box to the light switch with an outlet which is seated outside the bathroom, then to the light fixture and exhaust fan in the ceiling, then back down to an outlet with no switch by the sink inside the bathroom. No power leaves the outlet in the hall. And when something is plugged into the outlet by the sink, A SERIES CIRCUIT IS COMPLETED, and, without turning the hall switch for the light/fan on, the light and fan come on dimly. Because the bathroom is wired like old Christmas lights. And it is obviously a code violation.

And the other handyman is coming by tomorrow morning to take down the leaky bathroom ceiling, which maybe will help the wiring situation.

And he's going to look at the heater which should be working--not the boat heater, the house heater.

After all this apartment drama, this code-violation-tragicomedy, Noah and I look at each other and say, You know, there are lots of things I don't like about this apartment ... but I hate moving. And it is cheap. And it is in a great neighborhood, and there are chickens, and gardens, and basement storage, and it is painted in colors we like, and it's big enough ... So we might be here a while.

Yarn, right? And writing? And this editing? And on and on. Whatever. It is sunny out. You have no idea how rare that is.

On Marriage

Oh, and I've been married for five years now. To Noah. He was 16 when we started dating; I was 17.

And it is awesome. Don't want to go on and on, but it is. Could not do life without you, Noah. Could not do it. Would not want to try.

To celebrate, we walked down the street to Sutra, a vegan supper club kind of place, which starts each seating by ringing a gong and thanking the farmers who grew the meal's ingredients. (Neither of us are vegan; I'm still vegetarian (a year now! longest ever so far!) but Noah loves steak and bacon.) We sat at the bar, facing our dreadlocked sous chef, talking about the kombucha we were having with the first course (they offer a n/a pairing along with a wine pairing, and we both were feeling the n/a--an option I'm really pleased they had). Kombucha, or, as we proceeded to call it, the Booch.

I wanted to share the menu with you. There are few menus these days that I read and say, I don't know how to cook that. This menu, I read and thought, I don't want to try. I just want them to feed me. How often does someone else feed me top-notch vegan food? Dream away:

First Course

Celery Root, Leek, Tarragon Soup served with a Sorrel-Cara Cara Orange-Black Radish Salad and finished with a Sesame Seed Crisp

Second Course

Sunchoke, Smoked Beluga Lentil Cake, with a Honey Crisp Apple-D’anjou Pear–Yellow Beet–Chile Compote Finished with a Balsamic Reduction and Truffle Oil

Third Course

Hedgehog-Trumpet Mushroom, Roasted Cauliflower, Tonnemaker Pumpkin and Basil Mung Been Crepes served with a Roasted White Carrots, Steamed Lacinato Kale, and a Porcini-Almond-Marjoram Sauce

Fourth Course

Chocolate Ganache Torte with a Crystallized Ginger, Raw Cacao, Pistachio Crust with a Wild Foraged Blackberry Glaze

The torte was INCREDIBLE. I will be trying to recreate it for sure. Giant vegan ganache on top of all that, with a blackberry glaze? Amazing.

And then we listened to the mix CD we made for our wedding guests, as a favor, and danced in our living room.

Or, The Lack of a Christmas Miracle (in Regards to Heat)

No heat yet. So that is that. Of course, it is 49 degrees out, right now, so the need for heat is not the same as it was. Still, it is cold inside. I'm wearing two hoodies right now. No joke: a microfleece hoodie of mine and a giant cotton sweatshirt hoodie of Noah's.

Also I have worn through the sole of one of my down booties, and broken up the elastic tie that closes them at the ankles, and so I am contemplating getting new booties. I'm on pair 3; that would make new ones pair 4. Of the last nine years. I wore through pair 1 quickly, but they were more decorative than hard-working; pair 2 was lost, at the same time that I lost a knee-length wool coat; and here we are with pair 3.

I recently asked some folks via Facebook for book recommendations; you all delivered. I thank and thank you.

I am editing; I am editing in a blitz of editing. I took on two clients each with a 200-page manuscript due at approximately the same time, though the times have staggered a bit now. Then I had no usable computer for editing with Dragon. Then I had another solution with no internet access. Then I had a final solution, a new PC, but no Windows 7 (for a few days). Then I had them all but was quite ill with the Winter Cold of Aught Nine, as it will go down; the cold I had then the cold Noah brought back then the cold we shared between us for two weeks.

Now I am better and editing, editing. I feel smarter, having not done any editing for a while (since May for freelance and August for the job)--like my brain is turned back on. And though I am good at it, I keep thinking, man, I don't love doing this. I do not love it. I don't hate it, really, but ... fixing citations, converting citation styles, weighing in on others' arguments, looking up whether "at risk youth" or "at-risk youth" is more commonly used (go with the hyphen, btw) ... fixing someone else's writing tics ... part of the frustration definitely comes with needing to do a lot of editing quickly, but well. Doing a lot slowly is better, since my brain just falls out of my head at some point and I end up having trouble using keyboard shortcuts for italics (this happened last night: I ended up highlighting text and aiming for ctrl+I, but hitting shift+I instead, and wondering, where did my text go and why is a capital I here instead?).

However, I am a great editor. A GREAT editor. But I was a good teacher too. And I'm a good artist. And, for the record, I was all right as a violist. A good baker and cook too. But what do I love to do? What would I choose to do? Here in the free world of near-limitless choices, here in Seattle, the land of rain?

I'll think it over as I finish a chapter today.