Since I Met you Baby, My Whole Life has Changed

Slowpoke Rodriguez

September is Hispanic Heritage Month and I decided to honor one of my favorite cartoon characters, Slow poke Rodriguez.  Yes, he was a stereotype but with a twist.  He came to visit his cousin Speedy Gonzalez on occasion.  He was the opposite of Speedy, not running around but deemed the slowest mouse in all of Mexico. They hailed from Guadalajara. He had the lazy drawl accent, yet he always outsmarted the gringos in the end.  In Looney Tunes world, that meant the cats.   When I say always, apparently even though I have such a fond memory of this character, he only appeared in two episodes.  Thank goodness for reruns and poor memory.  However, I do recall watching the episode with my dad and him laughing so hard when Slowpoke pulled out a gun.  A hilarious unexpected ending, however we were far less triggered back then and realized this was a cartoon.  In honor of him, I bought a shirt that so far, no one seems to appreciate as much as me.  But in reality, these depictions were so very comforting to see in popular culture, especially way back in the 60's, when diversity was limited to say the least. 

Deer in my sister's yard now on the regular. Gorgeous!

Still riding solo in Brooklyn while my husband cats around on the road somewhere.  I'm nothing if not predictable, so I had to make myself a nice tomatoey pot of spaghetti.  

There's No Place That I Want To Be

Somewhere else

P takes trips and sends me odd pictures from the road.  Of course I want to resent him. I stay and work but secretly, I'm pretty happy.  I love to be together but I also love to spend time alone.  I'm a lone wolf by nature and need time to recoup, refresh and reboot.  My only problem has been, I tend to revert to my uncultivated core and live like a caveman when solo.  Or worse, stay in a state of anal anxiety, aware of any tiny mess I make and immediately clean up, unable to relax and enjoy the apartment.   But more recently, I've begun to understand we only have this one life to live.  There will not be another round.  This has lead to guiltless cooking, preparing slightly better meals that are satisfying and catered to my specific likes.  In the past, I've eaten my lonely feelings with mounds of pasta, or bad processed foods during these times.  But switching it up has been a game changer. 

Steak Ranchero with Eggs

This might be the ultimate Biggie girl breakfast, topping ham and eggs and omelets.  A thick juicy fried steak topped with a spicy pepper and tomato sauce and the delicate poached eggs there to add richness.  You need flour tortillas with this to sop up all the goodness.  The full meal would include beans and rice but that might just send me into orbit.

Fire breathing dragon in a cornfield

Bad weather always seems to hit when he's gone too but fortunately, this time everything fizzled out before it hit land. 

This Could Be the Last Time

Home Alone

When I'm all alone and can make any snack or meal just for me, I usually won't take the time to make it look appealing.  More often, I eat over the stove or even from the pot, like a drunken bachelor.  I'll eat bad food from back in the 60's when I was a latch key kid.  Ravioli from a can for example.  This behavior screams of all kinds of psychological trauma, so I ignore it. But occasionally I do make something just for me and just the way I like it.  Like these simple cheese and jalapeno nachos with homemade hot sauce.

and this fresh tomato skinny pasta below 

I think both things are good for a person.  Here and there we should eat as though we are the least important person on earth but once in a while, treat ourselves to something nice when alone because it could always be the last meal we enjoy.  We are made in God's image so we must be worth at least that little bit of effort. 

We Gon' Celebrate and Have a Good Time

Ham Sandwich with American Cheese on Toasted Rye for lunch

Roasted Accordion potatoes and green beans for dinner.  A dollop of sour cream and green onions post-picture brought these lackluster spuds to life. 

Pre-holiday Chipotle Glazed Ham

P was to be gone for Christmas this year. I was to stay and work through the holiday in retail because that is how I chose to live my life apparently.  Instead of feeling lonely or pathetic, I chose to observe the holiday in fits and starts, savoring the moments.  I made this pre-holiday ham to bring modest weeknight merriment to an otherwise uneventful week. An all day rainy day off was the perfect setting.  

In Heaven, Everything is Fine

When P goes away, I run straight to the lab, which is my kitchen to invent the next world-class pasta dish or at least a new one.  This time, taking liberties with the famous Carbonara recipe, that combines egg, Parmesan, Panchetta or Guanciale and lots of black pepper.  My idea used sweet Italian sausage, red pepper flakes, garlic and spinach, and the usual eggs and Parm. Simple perfection is not an easy feat.  This was good, but not spotless, like the original.  Maybe mushrooms could replace the spinach, which proved too slimy a texture after the egg mixture. Flavor-wise it was missing just one element that would give it that faultless cream-like silkiness. I will go back to the test kitchen and attempt again in hopes of finding the missing link.   

As we all follow the new crime waves in our towns, you have to wonder what exactly is the reason for all of these incredibly random, individual, specifically morbid acts of violence?  What are we missing in recognizing the possible cause of this sudden influx of social terrorism.  

If I was a better writer I might spin a tale of the government using our homeless, mentally ill and destitute population to breed fear into everyone. All these faceless nobodies that we can't trace and no one seems to ever do follow up stories on. Coupled with the pandemic, and our growing internet addiction, naturally we will feel less safe leaving our homes, nor will we want to.  Look how much changed in just two short years. 

I would write in an elite run psychological conspiracy plot to dumb us down to the point where all media becomes fake, the world wide web is replaced with propaganda and our incomes become so low that only the 1% can survive without complete reliance on the government, who is also a pawn for the aristocracy.  In the meantime those holding all the power will develop robots using black ops money to replace 99% of the workforce before they implement permanent Marshall law.  I'm still working out how they will eventually try to wipe us out entirely or if they'll need to harvest our organs first.  I bet this movie has been written.  

I would like to somehow include an alien presence but instead of a doomsday ending, I would create a mass consciousness shift of all the most repressed, where despite having nothing they realize they are already everything and lack absolutely nothing to live free in a new way, in a new dimension.  The evil ones who chose to remain in the material world will find not one morsel of joy to feast upon or buy, yet will be unable to die, as they developed endless life by artificial means to their own detriment.  Doomed to remain sentient robots basically until the end of time.   This will become hell on earth.  Did I mention there will be heavenly food in the new dimension.  Real tasty stuff! 

My Own Little Nasty World

Lantern flies all over the dang pier in back of work. They only look cool when they spread their wings and you see their polka dots along with the brilliant red colors. But the government says to squash them on site.  I took some time and stomped on about 6 before I felt sick in my gut.  Aren't they killing all the trees or spreading disease or something?  I couldn't even remember why they're so awful.  Rats are germ spreaders but I would never kill one in the wild.  I went inside and reasoned with myself as to why I just felt it necessary to take 6 innocent lives. 

Another renovation project along the Gowanus Canal

A quick Ground Turkey Puttanesca Sauce over linguine noodles.  Puttanesca, meaning, in the style of the prostitute.  If that translates to pungent, spicy and bold, then hand your money to the pimp and give this gal a whirl, because she's worth it.  Any excuse to use anchovies, garlic, red pepper flakes, olives and capers, I am down for it.  It's my dream sauce but I add ground turkey for the texture it brings.  And turkey doesn't impart it's own flavors, only absorbs the sauce, which makes it a great meat for this.  Try this recipe for this slutty pantry pasta! 

There Was A Time You Could Put it Out of Your Mind

My husband goes running off on the road when he can, which seems to be a lot.  But there is something to be said of alone time.  Time to just be still.  I can take ridiculously long showers and eat bad food that he doesn't enjoy.  I can watch stupid girlie movies.  I can clean the apartment and rest knowing there will not be peanuts on the floor or unwiped spills.  The bedding will be void of popcorn kernels, just cotton pureness on my legs.  I can light candles and pretend I don't suck.  

Because he gets to go gallivanting everywhere, I convince myself I deserve, the best chips made, like these ham flavored numbers, and they were! I got Dave's Killer Bread after seeing countless late night commercials on YouTube. And it was a cut above in taste and texture, actually.  I carefully made myself a stacked retro BLT with chips and sour cream and onion dip.  I watched a whole season of Alone and it helped me to feel less so, as well as grateful I wasn't eating a dead squirrel in a stinky tent somewhere in Siberia.  

Restlessness makes sense to me.  Who isn't feeling agitated, anxious and disturbed? I don't trust people who are complacent, especially during these last two years.  There was a time you could put all this chaos around us out of your mind but that time is gone.  I don't know what we're supposed to do with it but I do respect those who are searching for their own answers. 

Sometimes It's Hard to Be a Woman

There was a point in my teen years when I started finding Harlequin Romance novels in the bathroom that my mom would buy at the grocery store and read on her short breaks from work.  Stealing small moments to herself, a full time worker and co-owner of a restaurant, a mother of a tribe and taking on an adopted son of her brother's.  She went full smarmy, the covers featured torn peasant blouses and couples embraced in some lame forbidden passion.  First of all I was a snotty teenager that wanted to race in and confront her on her choice of reading material.  But I never did because I truly loved and respected my mom so much as a person.  She was incredibly special but I was so shocked at discovering this side of her. Surely, she knew this was pure silliness.  We all knew my dad wasn't exactly the most romantic guy just by his choice of gifts.  His efforts were pathetic and he was pretty cheap bless his heart.  I remember he once bought her a nightgown set right out of the 50s that he must have bought at the five and dime for a big anniversary present.  He didn't wrap it and presented it on the plastic hanger that adjoined the pieces.  We just shook our heads, poor mom.  She never let on that it mattered.  Then when she seemed to drop much of her primping and feminine details, I figured that was just her getting older.  But I was curious to understand what prompted the abrupt change and hoped she didn't just give up on feeling attractive.  These books made me realize she had needs and desires just like the rest of us. 

I think it had something to do with our friend menopause because I'm going through some similar strange goofiness that I hope goes aways soon.  Hormones are powerful and admittedly, I've fallen prey to a few too many romantic comedies of late for my tastes.  No one prepares you for this time when your body, mind and spirit all feel like they're taking different roads and life becomes so out of sync.

While P was gone we had us a heat wave, so there was not a lot of cooking happening.  I did however, manage to pamper my stomach, at least with this beef ragu sauce over fresh spinach pasta and on top, I mixed in a little dollop of pesto.  I mixed the noodles with the sauce and added some pasta water, then drizzled with a good tasting Olive Oil.  Other then the fake Parmesan this was delicious and reminded me of a fresh Pappardelle dish I had in the Village some years ago.

Keep Me From Sinking Down

Once in a blue moon I will eat real pasta.  When I do I try to make the full on homemade sauce and really make it worth the pounding headache I'll probably get as punishment for the indulgence in white pasta products.  I had high goals for this dinner but in the last hours I recoiled and found myself running to the corner for store bought marina sauce and pre-shredded cheese.

 But the next night I raced to Williamsburg after work in time to catch Son Volt at Rough Trade. This album did not disappoint.  I feel Jay hit a higher peak with this record with songs like Cherokee Street, Cairo and Southern, Lost Souls.

 Once in a blue moon you get to see a show from an artist who means so much to you.  Whatever it is that you get from those shows defies definition but it is so replenishing and packs just as much wallop as any vitamin or edible nutrient.

Late Shift Quinoa pasta with Vodka Sauce