And It Shouldn't Surprise You at All

Last Minute Beef Stew

Do you ever wonder what people think of you?  It's not a good idea to spend time wondering.  We often have meetings with those silly icebreakers at work that force us to share one thing about ourselves that people might be surprised to hear.  I don't imagine anything would surprise them because I can't imagine they've considered me for more than 2 seconds in their lives.  

One thing I'm known for that only I know, and surprises me, is my habit of bringing frozen meat out of the freezer to thaw without having a clear idea of how it will be used.  Something I never do is buy pre-cut meat for stew, but this time I did and it seemed that my dinner decisions had been made easy for me already but I needed to make it happen that night.  After work I quickly cut the chunks into a smaller dice in order to speed up the cooking process.  I browned them in flour and salt and tons of black pepper and then added broth, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaves covered and simmered for an hour before adding potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and when it was almost done, frozen peas.  And no surprise, this was much better the next day for lunch. 

Well You Can Tell By the Way I Use My Walk

Pink Peonies, always in my mom's garden growing up. We used to remake them inside with colored tissue paper.

While walking this week I realized our recent battle with the COVID-19 may have added a slight deviation to my normal walk.  And I remember pondering this thought after my bike flip accident as well.  Hopefully yoga, walking and biking will set things back in place but I'm willing to accept that your walk ends up telling your life story in many ways.  Just as some people are leg men or into chests, I always loved a person's walk, it tells me a lot about them.  Now, a little later in life it usually says my back hurts like hell, which is a real problem for lots of folks for many reasons.  COVID was able to create feelings of broken bones or severe injury that would just suddenly appear but seem so real.  As far as we know, it wasn't. So, now that I'm all better, I can't let it take control of my strut.  I think it's important to keep an optimistic stride although I've always enjoyed a good humble stroll as well.   A raised head, a good pace, tells people you're open, alert and awake and that's promising, although here and there it could also mean I'm a big asshole that's going to try to control everything, so you have to be careful.   The body and mind clearly affect each other, always.  I don't want to get that old lady walk anytime soon so I try to fake it until I can make it true in my mind.  

I won't let myself believe this ice cream cone negates the hour walk that I did or that adding frozen corn and peas to yesterday's stew doesn't make it a new dish.

That's The Way It's Gonna Stay

A couple weeks later my husband will make a beef stew in the slow cooker that surpasses the flavor profiles that I achieved here with my stove top method.  I used carrots, potatoes, peas and corn in my stew.  That's the way I like it but it serves two purposes.  You see my mate will fish out all the meat when alone in the apartment and leave me with just the broth.  So at least I have a hearty vegetable stew with beef flavor in the case that happens, which it will.