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Wednesday, Jan. 05, 2005 / 7:40 p.m. ~My Specialty/Still Thinking~ It's just occurred to me... I'm not a boring cook, I simply have a specialty. Sausage/Veggie Pasta. The sausages vary, but sausages are my favorite way to eat meat, and the farmer's market slash Whole Foods sells these amazing chicken sausages flavored with all sorts of intense flavors. Pork is good too, but I do try to stay away from pork and beef, and yet I try to stay away from chicken too, unless it's ranch raised, organic, free range stuff. Basically, I'd like to stay away from all semblance of factory farming, and I do what I can, short of my fast food lapses. But what can I say? It's fast, it's cheap, it's tasty. No excuse, I know. Alas, I digress. Tonight it was some lamb/mint sausages I bought at the aforementioned market a while ago, and froze, and subsequently defrosted. Pan seared/fried, as I do not 'grill', and I find the results are very similar anyway. Fantastic aroma, even better flavor, just amazingly good. Added to the pan a bit of really old Pinot Grigio to deglaze, and then some 'shrooms, some coarsely chopped yellow squash and zucchini, some orange bell pepper, and tossed it in with some angel hair pasta, sausage added back to pan, natch. I realized I'd omitted any seasonings, not even salt and pepper, so I added some fresh ground multi peppercorns and a dash of salt to my serving, and oh my god, I ate two bowls. I was thinking I am a boring cook because it always seems that when I'm not following a recipe I just make the same things, eggs with shiitakes, or a big salad, or pasta with sausages and veggies, but it's all very good, and I love to throw different combinations together, season it differently, when I remember. Surely there are some recipes I've followed so many times I know them by heart, like my egg-sausage casserole, which I label my 'cholesterol casserole', but it's been so long since I really pored through my hundreds and hundreds of cookbooks for just the right recipe. Saturday I go to my old friends' house for a dinner, and to see them, and to meet their children (!!), and I'm reminded of the dinners we used to cook for each other, our Full Moon Dinner Parties, and how much fun that was, how I loved the planning and the preparation, cleaning my apartment, lighting my candles, putting just the right CDs in the stereo, having them here in my home, sitting and talking over a bottle or two of wine, and whatever experiment I'd cooked up. And then to their apartment for the same, and always envying their dynamic, their relationship, their love, wishing I had that too. Often, I left there full, but came home sad. I was happy and satisfied, but empty in the long run. I vow not to feel that way this time, because I'm happy we're getting together after so many years apart. Ah, my belly is full now, and my tastebuds are sated. Did I mention garlic? Yes, only one clove, but there was more in the sausage, I smelled and tasted it. I may need something sweet soon, to balance all this savory surge of flavor. I've been thinking more of Oregon, of course, and it's funny that on my way home I got behind a pickup truck with a big sticker on the back window, OREGON. That's all it said. Just OREGON. I thought, no, no, that's not what I want. If there were a good reason to go, like if I'd always wanted to, or if I'd known my cousin all my life and wanted to be close to her, which I'm not sure I don't want to be close, but I barely know her, really, her daughter even less. Sure, sure, family, but I have family here, and it's proven to me that it's not the concept, it's what composes it. My brother is useless, or he has been, we do nothing but argue and he makes me feel small, so forget it (we stopped talking years ago). My cousin? I'm sure she'd support me, and act as big sister/surrogate mother, and that would be nice, but Oregon? There is no pull. There is no drive, nothing waiting for me there. I am going to stay here, and maybe even right here in this apartment. The intense urge to move, the feeling of necessity, is gone now, and if I gave notice it would have to be very soon, and I'm not sure I'm ready. I once told myself I'd not move again unless it were to move 'in' with someone. Or to be with someone, and not a cousin, but a partner. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening, though I'd love for it to, I'm at a point in my life where all this independence is not getting me anywhere, and it has made me lonely, perhaps even bitter. I'd like to get away from that. I do still have my dream of a bungalow intown, a job working for my favorite entertainment media mogul's dynasty of a multi-tiered company, and a passel of good friends, a lightweight bicycle with big fat tires to ride around potholes to the park and back, and maybe even a dog. That dream is me, on my own, but that dream costs money, and I can't seem to win the lottery. I'm still waiting. I have the dreams, a few of them, but there are puzzle pieces to fit in, I've mentioned them before. I wait. And the dreaming is planning as well. Don't think it's not, but Oregon is not a part of that. That's someone else's life, it's not mine. If I were going to pick up and change my life completely it would need to be for a goal, not just to drift somewhere else. There would have to be something there, something I want, something to focus on and dream of, a place I'd longed to go, always, or a person who would want me there, and not just a relative I barely know. It's not enough, I'm sorry, it just can't be enough to make me uproot myself to that extreme. This could change, I know, but this is how I feel now, and all day today. Besides, if I were to contemplate such a drastic change, New Mexico has drawn me in for years now. Since I was there, but briefly, back in '86, and since I saw photos of Georgia O'Keefe in the desert, painting, her hair in braids wrapped around her head. I wanted to be her, painting the clouds, there, in that place. Big sky all around, cold in winter, snow, warm in spring, hot in summer, colors in fall. Lizards and cacti, and succulents, a hard rain every so often, but crisp and dry and spectacular all the rest of the time. Still thinking, as I always do. I suppose I'll figure it out soon enough. Cost of the War in Iraq
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