The Mirror

The other day, I glanced at the mirror as I was passing by, and for a second, I saw my eighth grade self reflected back at me.  Later in the same day, I glanced in the mirror and saw my mother.

Why is it that a piece of glass reflecting our image back at us is so very changeable?

I have long believed that when we look in the mirror, we don't see a reflection, we see a projection of ourselves.

I think the image in the mirror is always layered with our feelings, our thoughts, and our emotions of the time.

Happy, hopeful optimistic thoughts project a youthful face in the mirror.

Tired, worn out, pessimistic thoughts project an aging face in the mirror.

It has always been remarkable to me that when I look at pictures of myself, I can see clearly that it is a good picture, or a bad picture, but it always is me.  A picture can influence me to change.  If I see something I don't like about myself in a picture, I know that for at least a split second in time, that was me.  And if I don't like that me, I can change something to be more the me I want to be.  The mirror, not so much.

I don't always see me in the mirror.  Sometimes I see only that which I do not like about myself.  I see every imperfection amplified.  I see all the things that steal my confidence.  I see all the reasons to fall into the bad habit of internal mean speak to myself.

On those days, all I can do is avoid the mirror.  Because on those days, I forget that it is a projection and not a reflection, and I undermine my efforts to be kind to myself.

I wish that I cared less about my physical appearance.  I wish that I could be content in the knowledge that I exercise, and eat healthy foods, and try to be a decent person.  I want to care more about being a nice person than I care about my looks.

But I care.  I don't want to look sloppy, or frumpy, or like I don't take care of myself.

I have terrible allergies, so have never been able to wear makeup without a skin reaction.  So, I reserve wearing makeup for very special occasions, like weddings.

I see actresses and models praised lavishly for the "courage" to post pictures of themselves without makeup.  My face in the mirror rarely has makeup.  My face in pictures rarely has makeup.

I should be proud that I have the "courage" to face the world every day without makeup.  But I think that is just plain silly.  I have no problem at all with people wearing makeup or not.  It's your face, do whatever.

But I have been judged as not caring about my appearance because I don't wear makeup.  So there are external voices added to the internal mean voices in my head.

But there is something very important for you to know.  I don't make decisions about any of you based on your appearance.  I try to see past the external manifestation to the person you are.  I care far more about who you are and how you feel than I will ever care about how you look.

So I need to learn how to see the mirror with the same open heart that I see all of you with.  Because I can't bring my best self to you when I don't like myself.

I'll keep working on it.  Because it is important to treat yourself with the same love and compassion you treat others with.

Inheriting Idiosyncracy

Every family has their own uniqueness.  Often, we find out about our families uniqueness when we go to school, and find out that other families don't do things the way we do.  Some of the things that make our families unique are cool, and some are not so cool, but they are what makes us and our families what we are.

My family had a lot of uniquity.  I'll start with house rules.  When we ate supper, we all waited until everyone was seated and grace (blessing before meals) was said.  If we wanted or needed to leave the supper table, we had to ask the head of the table to be excused.  (That would be Daddy or Mommy, or Mom-Mom if at her house.)  If you leaned over your plate, or shoveled your food in like a starving person, Mommy would ask you if someone was trying to steal your food.  It didn't take long to know that meant sit up and slow down.  She would actually take your plate away if you persisted.  (Don't worry, we always got the plate back.  No one starved, she was making a point.)

After dinner, we had tea, and discussed current events.  My dad had read that Joe Kennedy did that, and he raised a President, so what was good for those Irish Catholics was good for my Dad's kids.  Dad was totally in charge of what was watched on TV.

Dad hated odd socks, so always folded the top of the socks into a pair before putting his socks in the dirty laundry.  He wore a suit to work for many years, and the first thing he did when he got home from work was change out of his work clothes and hang them up.

Mom had a million food rules.  Kielbasa could only be served cooked with sauerkraut, and boiled potatoes.  If you had meatballs, the only pasta you could eat was long spaghetti.  Meatsauce?  You could have any shape pasta, except ravioli.  Ravioli was only eaten with marinara sauce.

Dad had food rules too.  The food on his plate couldn't touch other foods, unless the food was designed that way.  Casserole? Yes.  Vegetables touching potatoes, or potatoes touching meat?  NO.

I never noticed my dad's no food touching rule.  I guess he knew it was weird.  When my daughter was about four, and stopped eating in her divided Sesame Street dish, I found out she had a thing about her food touching.  I tried to convince her it wasn't a problem.  No way she was going with that.  I told my mom about it, and she told me that Dad couldn't stand for his food to touch.  How did that get passed down from my dad to my daughter and skip me?

Dad also couldn't stand for anyone to touch his hair.  My mother loved to have her hair brushed.  I can't stand for anyone to touch my hair.

When Dad was cooking, if you wanted to help, you had to follow orders.  You could help how he asked you to help.  If you started doing stuff he hadn't asked you to do, he'd ask you if you wanted to take over and he would go sit down.  I get wildly aggravated if anyone messes with what I am cooking without asking permission.

What is learned and what is genetic?  I'll mix about any foods, and try bizarre combinations, so that trait of my mother's skipped me.  But my sister has it.  Certain foods with certain foods, certain foods on certain days.

What is the point of all this?  There is no normal.  We're all incredibly weirdly wonderful.  Some is learned, some is innate.  The more we think about our family's and our idiosyncrasies, the easier it is to accept others.  One of the ways I celebrate those I love that have left this plane of existence is to remember their weirdness, their specialness, their uniqueness.  And in celebrating that specialness of those that I no longer can interact with, I bring them back in a very real way.

Never forget the wonderful unique gift that is you.  Bring yourself fully to your relationships.  We will all be grateful for it.

Body Shaming

When did body shaming become such a thing?  I mean, there has always been the covert body shaming, presenting us with perfect looking air-brushed people that normal humans can never look like.  Models and celebrities with perfect hair and perfect skin and perfect bodies wearing amazing clothes and shoes.  So that all of us would look at a magazine, or at a TV show or movie and feel bad when we looked in the mirror because we knew we could never look like that.

But this body shaming thing has gotten very overt now.  And it is ridiculous.  I read the other day about a plus size model who lost some weight, and her fans are body shaming her for losing weight.  Really?  Amy Schumer is adorable, and regularly gets body shamed for her size.  Really?

This puzzles me in multiple ways.  One, why are we so obsessed with physical appearance?  Two, why are we so obsessed with weight and size? Three, why do we feel like we have the need and the right to comment on someone else's body?

Here is my take on it.  God made us all different.  Some bigger, some smaller.  Some shorter, some taller.  We each have our own normal.  Trying to look like someone else's normal is depressing.

There are thin people who are very unhealthy, there are fat people who are very unhealthy.  But there are healthy people in all sizes.  And commenting on body size and appearance under the guise of worrying about someone's health is disingenuous.  Because body size and health don't have a direct correlation.  And mental health is important too, and you can damage someone's mental health with your comments.

I know that we have an obesity problem in America, and that obesity is linked to many illnesses and diseases.   But really, we're all dying on the installment plan, and you have to be in a very intimate relationship with someone before their particular installment plan is your business.

If you feel the need to comment on appearance, things like "You look fabulous!"  "Love that color on you!"  "Great haircut!"  "Your makeup is flawless, love that smoky eye thing!"  "Your smile makes me happy every time I see it!" are all fine.

"You look like you've lost/gained weight?" Not a great thing.  If someone is proud of losing or gaining weight, when you say "You look fabulous!"  They will provide the information that they lost or gained weight, and then you can say something supportive based on what they have said.

Because what is important is what we can't see, and that is who the person is.  Kind and funny, snarky and witty, mean as a snake or sweet as a puppy, we're all different on the inside too.  And we all are attracted to different types of personalities.   There will be people you meet that become close friends, and others that will only ever be acquaintances.  That is all good.  But all the people you meet, you can build up, or you can tear down.  Why take a chance that you could be the one tearing them down?

Appearance is just not that important.  Look for the person inside.  Treasure the unique personality.  Celebrate your commonality with the people closest to you, and celebrate your differences with those you meet at random.

Life is too short for shaming or being shamed.  Love the body you're in.  It is the only one you have.

Accidentally celebrating Culinarians Day

This will be my third in a series of food blogs, tomorrow, I'll go back to other stuff.  This has helped me get my head back in a good place, so thanks for letting me share that with you.

On Sunday, while we walk, my husband and I often do our meal planning for the week.  This week is a short one for meal planning, as we are taking a little mini-vacation to the Gulf Coast on Thursday and Friday, so there wasn't as many days to plan for.

We decided to experiment, and make jambalaya stuffed peppers, with a creole tomato sauce.  I went and did my grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon.

When we woke up Monday morning, I heard on the radio that Monday, July 25 was Culinarians Day, a special day for anyone who cooks.  And boy, did I cook.

It started with making the creole tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes, bell peppers, celery, onions, and garlic.  I used a recipe from a website called Deep South Dish.  Here is a link to the recipe:  Creole Tomato Sauce.

I made a couple of changes, I used Splenda instead of sugar, minced garlic (the refrigerated kind in a jar) instead of fresh garlic, and I used cayenne pepper instead of black pepper.

I blanched my peppers in the same water I had done the tomatoes in, for about 3 minutes.

I made the jambalaya with rotisserie chicken, cajun smoked sausage, and Jambalaya Girl jambalaya mix.  Being from New Jersey, I have never developed any confidence to cook Louisiana foods without mixes.  Until Jambalaya Girl, I had never found a jambalaya mix that I really liked.  This one is fabulous.  The Jambalaya Girl brings her jambalaya to local road races so that is where we learned about it.  And the Jambalaya Girl is incredibly charming and fun, so we have added this jambalaya to our rotation of meals.  The box the mix came in has a stuffed pepper recipe on the side, which gave me the idea, but we didn't follow the recipe.

So, I stuffed the peppers with the chicken and sausage jambalaya, and surrounded them with the creole tomato sauce.  This is what it looked like going into the oven:

I baked them for a half hour at 350 degrees fahrenheit. This is what it looked like when it came out:

They were really good, but the peppers were still a little crisp for my taste.  We had them again last night.  I baked the remaining two peppers for an hour, and they were perfect.  I will definitely make this dish again and again.

I started this week wondering if I would ever feel inspired to write another blog post.  Taking a break from contemplation of bigger things, and sharing my cooking adventures gave me the boost I needed to get back to being myself.

I have a list of ideas for future blog posts now.  I am back to seeing the world through my usual optimistic viewpoint.

Thanks for indulging my need to deviate from the usual.  I hope you, like me, can find a way to shift your focus for a few days when you need to so that you can find your inner happy place.

It feels good to feel like me again!

Pot Roast Soup

Second of my culinary blogs - cooking is a safe and happy place for me - so hopefully it will provide a safe and happy place for some of those reading this.

I love pot roast.  Always have.  It is a dish I never learned to cook small though, so whenever I make a pot roast it is at least twelve servings, so usually six meals for my husband and I.

I use a three pound sirloin tip roast, and after the first cooking, we eat for two nights, and then I freeze the leftovers in two containers, so that we have two more two night meals.

Here is the basic pot roast recipe:

3 pound sirloin tip roast
2 medium onions, peeled left whole
8 ounces sliced baby bella mushrooms
8 ounces sliced button mushrooms
12 ounces peeled baby carrots
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 package italian salad dressing mix
1 package ranch dressing mix
Olive oil

Brown roast in olive oil on all sides, place in crock pot.  Sprinkle roast with italian dressing mix, turn over.  Put garlic on roast, then sprinkle with ranch dressing mix.  Add all vegetables, and then enough water to cover.  Cook on low for 6 hours.

Take meat out and separate into three large pieces.  Then keep one large piece out and separate into four servings.  Serve meat with carrots and mushrooms, and a piece of onion if you like it.

You'll notice there are no potatoes.  Watching the carb thing.  I used to always put potatoes for my husband, but this time he decided to go low carb too.

So, we ate twice the first week, and I partitioned up the rest and put it in the freezer in two separate containers.  It seemed like I had an awful lot of broth, and very little vegetables, so I decided I would need to add more vegetables for the next round.

So, last week, we had round two.  I added another 8 ounces of baby bella mushrooms, and another 12 ounces of baby carrots.  We ate two more nights.  I had about a quarter of an onion, and some beef, and some carrots and very little mushrooms left in a lot of broth.

So, I made pot roast soup.  I strained the mixture into a pan, then I put the onion in the pan and used a stick blender to puree the onion.  If you like onion soup, you would love this broth.  If you don't like onion soup, I guess you could throw away the onion.  Then I chopped up all the rest of the stuff, and added some leftover Jazz Man rice I had in the refrigerator.  And then I added a generous squirt of ketchup.  (Sounds crazy - I know - but trust me).

My goodness!  It was absolutely fabulous!  I had lunch two days on my pot roast soup.  I can't really describe how good this soup was.  I will make it every time I make pot roast now.

And I almost just fished out the rest of the debris and threw the broth away.  But I hate waste.  So I experimented, and found a new favorite food.

Here's to experiments that turn out well and the excitement it brings when they do.

Diminished Output

I haven't been posting as much lately.  It seems that there is too much darkness, too much bad news, and I don't want this blog to be a dark place, yet I seem unable to find light to shine into the world.

I've been exploring the creative side of myself in cooking and crochet instead of in print.

I've been reading for a couple of years about making pizza crust using cauliflower, but every recipe I see has just too many steps and too much work.

Week before last, I had some leftover spaghetti sauce, leftover spaghetti squash, and some egg whites in the fridge.  I decided to try a spaghetti squash pizza crust.

Here's the recipe:

1.5 cups cooked spaghetti squash
1/8 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup egg whites

First I mixed the squash with the cheese.  Then I sprayed an ovenproof skillet with cooking spray.  I put the squash/cheese mixture in the pan, and then poured in the egg whites to just cover the squash.  I baked that for 10 minutes at 400 degrees fahrenheit.

When I took the skillet out of the oven, I loosened the edges of the crust, and turned it out onto a greased cookie sheet, so that what was on top in the skillet was now resting on the cookie sheet.  I added spaghetti sauce, and fresh mozzarella cheese.  I baked for 15 minutes at 400.  Here is what it looked like:

The good news is the crust was good, not too eggy, not too squashy, and held up well to hold and eat like a slice of pizza.  The bad news?  The meaty spaghetti sauce was too chunky, and the fresh mozzarella too wet.  So I think I will do this again, but use a thicker, smoother sauce, and a low moisture mozzarella.  But it was so easy, and worked as a pizza substitute with low-carbs.  And it really did taste good.

Next I'll tell you about my pot roast soup, and then today's adventure, Jambalaya stuffed bell peppers with Creole Tomato Sauce.

Just writing is therapeutic for me.  I hope you all don't mind this detour into my culinary adventures.  I need to write, but I need to lighten up.  I think this will take me through this little dark spot.

Opening up to new things

I'm trying a little experiment today.  Usually, I listen to country music, or classic rock, or classic pop, or 40's, 50's and 60's music.  I like what I like, and music is a comfort.  But today, I decided that I would pick the Top Pop station on Amazon Prime to listen to while I work on this blog and on my book.  I'm giving up the comfort of the familiar to find out if there is music out there that I like that I haven't discovered yet.

And isn't that just life in a nutshell.  In order to discover new things that we like, we have to leave the comfort of the familiar and try them.  And it is way too easy to stay comfortable in the things we like.

This is a relatively painless experiment.  I'm not losing anything.  And I have plenty of time to listen to familiar music on another day.

But choosing to leave the familiar and grow can be a very painful experiment.  A new job may not work out.  A new place to live may never feel like home.  And sometimes the familiar is snatched away from us, without our consent.  And then it is no experiment, it is a painful experience.

I'm discovering through this experience that familiar music is background, and new music forces me to listen.  It forces me to feel more.  More joy, more wonder, more pain, more sorrow.

And I think new experiences force more feeling as well.  And in the same way the music is opening up both positive and negative pathways, so do the new experiences.

I think that we can participate in the color leaching away from our world by staying stuck and safe in the familiar.  And as the color fades, so does our hunger for bright colors.  So in this drab world we allow to evolve, our brains lose familiarity with the pathways to brightness.

I'm realizing I need to make myself seek out new experiences and new stimuli, just to keep my brain familiar with how to respond to it.

When I was working there was constant change and new stimuli.  Since I have retired, I pick the stimuli.  And when I allow the news cycle to be my stimuli for new, most of the pathways in my brain are reinforced towards darkness.

Choosing new music has my brain reinforcing pathways to pleasure.  I'm chair dancing as I type.  I'm finding new joy in new music.

It is so easy to get lost in the dark.  There are so many unavoidable influences that push us toward the dark.  It takes a conscious choice to find the light.  Find a way to reinforce the pathways in your brain to the light.

Choose something new, and through that newness, experience creating new pathways in your brain towards the light.

Keep the pathways in your brain that find the joy well traveled and easy to get on.  There will always be sadness and darkness, we all need brains well trained to find the pathway to joy.