Biscuits & history.

Today I made biscuits and looked for a dead man in the 1910 census. I found him in the voter registration records. Not in that order though - the biscuits came later, with creamed beef.




...Because I'm a research librarian/docent at our local museum, and people come looking for information about their ancestors just about daily. Then I got a craving for biscuits and gravy but didn't have any stock, so I made creamed beef instead.

The biscuits turned out fine, but I am not using that recipe for creamed beef again. It was bland at best and gross at worst. I'll let you know when I find something better. 

Trust me.

I love Wednesdays. They're basically my Saturdays, because they're my first day off work every week. The restaurant is closed, so I can't even be called in (or at least it's extremely unlikely), and I don't schedule things on Wednesdays if I can help it. And my kiddo is in school, so as soon as I drop him off I'm free for hours.

Which means that as soon as I drop him off, I head over to the riding academy.

Now, every time I've been there, I've ridden with Dash's owner, who rides one of her other horses (usually Dash's bff/almost twin, Santana). Today was different. The owner, M, wanted to see how Dash would do if he couldn't see her. He has given other riders problems in those scenarios in the past. So I tacked him up, got him into the arena, and hopped on.

Dash was obviously uncertain of the situation. He was tense and a little spooky, but he came back to me every time I gave him an instruction. After what might have been fifteen or twenty minutes, he started to calm down. As soon as I felt like he was calm, he was listening to me and not looking for M or spooking, I ended our ride, gave him extra treats and a hose-down (which he loves, especially on hot days like today).

Progress.

Dash and I are learning to communicate with each other. He's learning to trust me, and I'm learning to earn his trust - and to trust him in return. We're going slow, for his sake and for mine, but every time I ride it seems like we do one thing better than the time before.

It's so damn exciting I can hardly stand myself.


~
That's what I thought of as I was scrolling through my blog feed and came across this prompt.

Chunky Artichoke Mushroom Soup

I totally should have taken a picture.

I realize this now.

But now I'm home, it's dark out, and all the soup has been eaten already.
So it's too late for pictures.

You'll just have to take my word for it. I made an awesome soup today:

Here’s what you’ll want to have on hand:

1. Potatoes – I used 3 medium russets.

2. Olive oil – IDK, how much is a splash?

3. Onion – I like yellow or white for this soup, but I bet leeks would be good too.

4. Garlic – I like the pre-minced kind because I go through garlic like Sherman through Georgia (as my boss would say).

5. Thyme – maybe a tablespoon?

6. Salt & pepper – I sprinkle enough to give the bottom of the pan a sparse but even layer.

7. Veggie base – this is optional. I just added a large spoonful.

8. Water – lots. Preferably preheated, but not necessarily.

9. Mushrooms – I used 2-3 cups’ worth.

10. Artichokes – I use canned (there I said it). It’s a really big can. We’re talking like gallon-of-milk sized.

11. A blender. No really.

12. A lemon, but only for its juice so you could also just get about a quarter cup of lemon juice, but not the processed kind because that’s gross.

13. Spinach. There’s no such thing as too much. I threw in 3 overflowing handfuls. You could also use kale. It’s surprisingly good – dareIsay: kale is even better than spinach in this particular soup.

Here’s the process:

Peel and slice some potatoes. You can cut them however you want. I just slice them because it’s fast to do and they cook faster if they’re thin. They’re going to get liquefied anyway.

Sauté some onions and garlic in olive oil.

Throw in some thyme, along with a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Toss in the potatoes and immediately add just enough water to cover them.

You can add some base if you want it, too.

Cover. Turn that sucker up and let it boil.

Meanwhile, slice up some mushrooms and prep your artichokes.
In my case, prepping the artichokes involved opening the can and casually draining it.

When the potatoes are soft, add just a few of your artichokes.

Cook all that for a few more minutes, then puree your soup in that blender (or I suppose you could use an immersion blender).

Put your puree right back in the same pot (unless you used an immersion blender, then nevermind).

Add the rest of your artichokes, all those sliced mushrooms, and a lemon’s worth of lemon juice.

Cover all the new veggies with more water and let it all simmer til tasty, maybe 15 minutes or so.

You can boil some water in a teapot while you’re waiting.

Turn the heat off when your veggies are cooked, then stir your spinach or kale in, dump some of that boiling water from your teapot in there and cover that pot back up. (This is where I just put in enough water to get the juice-to-stuff ratio where I like for soups.) Give it a couple minutes, then eat. 

As written, this recipe happens to be gluten-free and vegan, but if you wanted it meatier you could totally add cooked chicken to it and it would be amazing. You could also replace the veggie base with chicken base.

*"Base" is basically just condensed stock. If you don't have veggie or chicken base, just use stock in place of both the base and the water. You won't want to add water if you use stock! Or you could just leave it out entirely.

Now, keep in mind that I'm making food for a lunch service at a restaurant. This'll make a big batch. I don't know how many servings exactly, but it's a big ol' pot. You should probably scale this down if you're not trying to serve half the town or have leftovers for weeks.

Coming home.

I've been trying to get home for a long time.
The thing is, I seem to have lost track of where 'home' is... or do I mean where it was?
Home wasn't where I'd left it. I even went back and looked at the last place I remember seeing it - it wasn't there, either.

Have you ever gotten lost in the woods? My home used to be a place with woods. When I was a kid I used to go out to "the woodlot" and leave the trail behind. I always thought I'd be able to find my way back using landmarks - this tree that had that funny looking branch, or the rock that was sticking out from under those particular two tufts of ...whatever that plant was. That never worked. What did work was picking a direction and sticking to it. Eventually I would come to the fence that wrapped around two sides of the woods, or the road that bordered another side, or our front pasture on the last side. From there I could find my way back.

That's where I left home: in western New York, on 155 acres of pastures, streams, and woods; with a small herd of horses, some cattle, and a colony of barn cats. I was 17. I was too disillusioned and too self-centered to stay, and the woodlot wasn't enough to distract me anymore.

I led a lot of lives, followed a hundred rabbit trails and noted the passing of at least a dozen landmarks that I'll never see again. Then, when the sun sank and the skies rumbled, I started to look for home. For the last few years, I've been sticking to one direction: up.

I don't know exactly what home will look like when I get there, but I know I've seen the borders. There's my husband and my son wrapping around two sides; there's the road lined with gardens, recipes, paintbrushes, and books; there's the pasture in front, with the horse, saddled and waiting to race me home. 

a book review: The Hermit, by Monica Friedman

I don't have many words for how deeply this story touched me, but I can tell you how it did so:

The characters are people first; they are individuals, not the named trait-collections one finds in some books. These characters have their own voices that are not dictated by the stereotypes attached to them. Men experience sadness; women experience anger; children can be calm; adults can be playful. There is no watering down of a smart character's vocabulary, no fluffing up of the simpler characters' vocabulary. There is never a time when the characters experience only one emotion. They're all too human for that.

It is also true that these characters are archetypes in the fairy tale Friedman weaves. It's a fairy tale about humanity, despite the greater number of animals than humans in the cast. I felt connected to the characters as people, no matter their species.

I could hear the author's voice in this story. It was strong, consistent, and clear. I could also hear the voices of the characters, for the reasons I've already mentioned. And, I could hear my own story in their voices. I cried when I saw my voice in a character's pain; when I saw, finally, how that pain came to be; when I saw how much of our pain is our own creation. I cried again when I was reminded that there's still hope - there will always be hope, and a choice.

This story is everything a fairy tale should be: it reflects us with almost obscene clarity at our best, and at our worst, and it shows us a path through the dark.

I will read this many times, whenever I need to hear it again.

on Depression

I know why I like music so much: It makes me feel something.

Depression sucks all the color out of experiences. Depression is apathy, it is lethargic, it is inertia. In the grip of depression, I feel nothing. I feel no hate, no anger, no love, no pleasure. Nothing.

Music lends me emotions. I borrow them until I can feel my own. 

Depression has led me to allow a lot of abuse in my life. It kept me from leaving an emotionally abusive ex-husband. Eventually he left me. I filed for divorce two years after he said goodbye. Depression kept me from fighting that rapist; I was emotionally paralyzed, mentally separated from my body; nothing mattered. 

Depression has prohibited me from expressing emotion, because I had none to express.

Is emotion the primary source of human motivation? You'd think so if you could watch the reel of my life. I never accomplished much that I wanted to accomplish. My ambitions have been stymied by involuntary inertia.

Depression has kept me from laughing at my son's jokes. It has kept me from hugging my husband back when he comforts me. Later, these memories fuel the guilt-laden loneliness that precedes a new cycle of apathy. 

I understand the appeal of masochism: when your emotions are blank, physical pain is a blessing because it's reassuring to know you can still feel something. 

Depression is mental paralysis. 

in which my entire life changes

Been a while, eh?
A lot has happened.
As you might imagine.
But it has all happened within the past few days.

Turns out, I'm not as good a student as I've always thought I was.
I blame my mother.
She always told me I was a good student. I wasn't.
In grade school I was more interested in other things.
I did well in art class. My high school art teacher told me I was the only student to develop their own personal style. It was reminiscent of Edvard Munch, he said.
I liked band, too, and did well there, though I never practiced my instrument enough to excel. The excuse was that I couldn't take it home (I played mallet percussion) but really that wouldn't have mattered. I wasn't a practicer.
I aced most tests but I almost never did my homework.

I learned to do homework in college.

And now I'm back in college - grad school - which is why I haven't been here on the blog much. My brain has been filled with nuances of American History (those Pinkertons - whew!) and teasing out the valid data from an uninvolved psychology professor. It hasn't left much room for contemplation.

I still thought I was a good student until my Mom mailed me my old report cards. I don't know why she did that, but she did. Maybe she was cleaning out the attic. Anyway, now I remember all the "She could do better" and "doesn't turn in homework" comments.

And lately I've been leaning more toward creating (anything really) than writing reports.
It made me seriously reconsider grad school.

Something else has been happening. It's been in the works a good long time.

It's big:
I got my disability rating from the VA.

This changes everything. EVERY. THING.

I have medical care for life now.
Medical care for life.

And I have a retirement now.

I have a retirement.

I mean, holy shit.

I hadn't even realized I was concerned about that until the concern was resolved. Suddenly, I can do things with my life that don't involve a struggle. There will still be struggles. Like getting out of bed in the morning - that rating ain't for nothing, after all - but there will be at least some things that won't be a struggle.

I can stop trying to fit my broke ass into some sort of corporate-leads-to-retirement-income position and just fucking live.

...I don't even know what that would look like.

I have to think about this.