I Need a Fix Cause I'm Going Down

Queso Dip

Strange thing about words, like if you never called cheese, queso, it's a weird time to start at this particular time in life.  But calling this cheese dip doesn't quite convey the depth of flavors that include green chiles, onions, garlic, jalapenos, etc.  This as an easy, no roux base or evaporated milk recipe.  I missed out on this delicacy for much of my adult life somehow.  Sometimes you make dishes more mystical in your mind, so never bother to try them, like eggplant or plantains.  It wasn't until recent years that I attempted to make a queso dip.  I remember getting queso fundito at Mezcal's on Atlantic Ave here in Brooklyn years ago and it blew my little socks off.  That was less a sauce then a true cheese and chorizo melt served piping hot out of the oven, in a cast iron dish and my preferred preparation.  

One time I tried duplicating the restaurant's way for a party, and the cheese seized up on me.  The taste was out of this world, but the hardened cheese made it impossible to serve. I secretely ate ginormous bites out of in the privacy of my kitchen that night and refused to give up on saving it for too long before finally throwing the brick in the garbage.  Today, I would have saved it and chunked it out for eggs or shaved it only salads.  Although I love the silkiness of a creamy dip, I don't want odd thickeners to taint the taste of the cheese.  This was really good for a quickie but for authentic cheese lovers, I would go with this recipe that invites cheese's only true pal, beer, to soften and just one tablespoon of flour mixed with the cheese to thicken. 

This was one of those nights after a long run of multiple retail shifts, surviving in a world void of anything too interesting for too long and just needing a break from that reality before I began believing that's who I really am. 

Don't Let Me Down

Loaded Baked Potatoes Two Ways

Two ways and neither was just right. Your hands don't do what your mind tell them to always.  Like in this case, I only wanted to top one potato with pesto, the other with a Ranched up yogurt and then before I knew it I'd nervously snowed green onions on the whole lot.  The look of a finished dish is as important as the taste.  I get nervous to plate when I haven't worked it all out in my head beforehand.  But a bigger sin is to allow food to grow cold, so I hustle to serve it.  This is when mistakes are made.  

Ground turkey, tomatoes, Feta, Brussels sprouts and sweet onions baked on a tray beforehand for one potato.  The other I topped with mushrooms and spinach sauteed in good olive oil and a ton of garlic cloves.  If nothing else, hopefully this inspires you to get topping your potato with desired choices.  

Preparing baked potatoes is ritualistic.  Splitting it down the middle, then fluffing it's soft white innards before swirling in a pat of butter, then seasoning with salt and pepper like powdering a baby's behind. It was right then, I knew I should have mixed in the yogurt but I didn't, and that got me flustered.  Another example of not being capable in the instant it is required.  Ensuring all the party-goers on top were properly rationed became the priority.  Its always helpful to serve a tiny bar of extra garnishes, lest ye be left alone with the sprawling spud's remains.  None of this matters all that much in the end, but it is still surprising how despite best intentions, you can still get it all wrong. 

It's Been a Long, Cold Lonely Winter

Morning Impossible Omelette

Morning's are impossible, like this fake meat in my eggs.  We fall asleep every night, (another equally freakish, alien wonder that we just accept) and then suddenly, we pop out of this temporary hibernation, whilst the sun is also rising. Just as the coffee maker starts dripping at the click of a switch, we also begin talking and moving around seconds after this miracle occurs.  Soon we're doing, like reading or dressing with no self awareness of how strange the process looks.  If there were cameras in the bedroom, it might be fascinating to watch this rising, the moments right before our eyes open, as a reminder that science as amazing as it is, doesn't hold a candle to this incredible daily happening, that we can perform, simply by being born.   It's poetic and magical, a phenomenal occurrence.  

Granted, some days, it doesn't feel so amazing.  Your mind fills with dread and negativity, upon awaking or your body feels lifeless and sickly.  You don't welcome the light into the room, but think to close the curtains and stay in the safeness of darkness.  My mom passed on this day 4 years ago and I won't know what she was thinking before her last breath because she struggled so long with dementia, but my nieces made sure she was surrounded by love and music, so I like to think she felt content.  It's a cosmic handout that we never know when it's over.  It will just end as miraculously as it began.  But death should remind us all to be grateful even for the bad days, because they were spent above ground, giving us more time to figure out what the hell we're doing here.   

Breaking the food fast, helps with any reluctance to enter a new day.  Most of the time we eat cereal or a bar but on those days when you awake ravenous, it's great to eat a 3-egg omelet with mushrooms and spinach, pesto and cheese,  In this case, some impossible meat was added, with fried potatoes on the side.