Please Don't Bother Trying to Find Her

Accordion Chicken over Polenta

Chicken breasts with slits, also called Hasselback, filled with tomato, zucchini, red pepper, basil, onion then topped with mozzarella cheese baked on 350 for 30 minutes.  A 15 minute pre-soak in salt water and allowed to come to room temperature helps this white meat absorb flavors while baking and stay most tender.  Make sure to give that breast  a good rub down of seasoning.  The bonus of this recipe is the variety of options, as you could stuff with any vegetable and herb you have on hand and top with any cheese (or none at all).  Spinach, feta, and tomato would be grand.  

Cooking makes me feel like I'm living in the world and we need to stay living in this world. I've noticed, since the pandemic, people seem different.  It's as if they've started floating on individual i-clouds. On the busy subway, no one seems present, their eyes are so far away, like if you could zoom in you'd see them inside there, busy as bees, getting things done, happily living their lives, somewhere that is not here.  People have packed up and moved inside their own minds and no longer come out unless absolutely necessary.  They are choosing not to interact.  And part of that could be all the rules and fears in the world.  There is major distrust in almost everything.  Plus we've been shown, at least here in the city, how anyone could haul off and stab us at random, so I too, stay quiet and mind my business for the most part.  But I'm right here when you look at me.  You'd see two big eyes staring back at you if you took the time.  I can't help but feel many folks are just completely disinterested now in the physical world having been tricked into thinking it's not rewarding to communicate in live time.  Perhaps interest is only formed cyberly now.   

This isn't some old lady complaining about all the kids being on their phones either, I've noticed a major shift since the pandemic, that its gone to another level entirely.  A sea change to use a term that seemed to trend months ago and then died out.

I believe peace resides within, but this is not that.  Some things are inevitable, so perhaps living in some metaverse is our future.  But for someone caught outside of all the new technology, I notice how it's already affecting the energy in the air, how it's casting a lonely, dark, emptiness, a void where life used to be.  I just hope that it doesn't suck this busy city dry and leave it barren of it's life's blood.