Yellow Tail: taste the rainbow

Maybe you've seen this, if you're in the habit of wandering around wine stores: Yellow Tail wines are color-coded. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it sure does make the specific wine I want easier to find. For example, it is much easier to spot RED far away than it is to read the words "Cabernet Sauvignon." On the other hand, color-coded things are generally marketed to people who are...well...perhaps less than gifted, intellectually speaking. So, it kind of feels like Wine For Complete Idiots, but it's also really convenient.

In any case, I thought I was being quite clever tonight, while ruminating aloud to my dear husband about the color-coded wine and its implications for my intelligence. I made a comment about wanting to "taste the rainbow" a la Skittles candy.

So far, I've tasted Yellow (Shiraz), Red (Cabernet), Fuschia (Shiraz-Grenache), and Blue (Cabernet-Merlot). I also had a glass of their Sparkling White at Greek Christmas this year and I was completely impressed with it. I've been a huge fan of Moet Chandon for years and though not exactly classy, Martini & Rossi Asti is fun to drink on St Patty's day with a drop of green food coloring. Honestly, though, Yellow Tail's sparkler may have unseated them for both class and affordability.

Rainbows left to taste include Orange (Merlot), Purple (Shiraz-Cabernet), Magenta (Pinot Noir), and though I'm not all that into whites (actually, I don't like them much at all), I may have to try their Riesling (Yellow) and possibly Green (Pinot Grigio).

The reason I want to "taste the rainbow" is two-fold. For one, they have some really unique wine blends, but more importantly, Yellow Tail makes vegan wine and I want to support them. Vegan wine, you say? It comes from grapes, what wouldn't be vegan, you say? Alarming, but true - most wines/alcohols are filtered using animal products - I'm going to share an excerpt from The Vegan Table that will probably make even meat-eating readers' stomachs turn, but it's easier to give it to you verbatim than to try to paraphrase:

Examples include gelatin (the boiled bones and tissue of slaughterhouse animals), isinglass (obtained from the swim bladders of fish), chitosan (derived from the exoskeleton of crustaceans such as crabs and shrimp), casein (from cow's milk), and egg albumen (from chickens).

Now, with those lovely thoughts and pictures floating around your brain, let's move on to dinner! I have to work tomorrow, and the restaurant I want to go to is closed for dinner on Sundays anyway, so we were going to go out for Valentines Day tonight. Unfortunately, the rust-colored drops of water suspended from our bedroom ceiling put a nix on those plans. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing we [or apparently our maintenance men] can do about the slow leak threatening my piano and Mister's side of the bed, other than wait for Monday when the roofer is coming to fix the hole in the roof. In case time-travel isn't your thing, Monday is about 36 hours away and at least two nights in aforementioned threatened bed. Mister and I are somewhat convinced that the roofer will find the hole close to the site where the inept maintenance men fixed our air conditioning this summer... What held us back was waiting for the maintenance guy to return our phone call until it was too late to go out, so we'll be headed out for our Valentine dinner on Monday, as long as I make it through the day at work...I'm sure I'll be full of fun stories that night.

I changed my mind a few times tonight, trying to decide what to make [besides reservations]. At first, I thought I'd make the Two-Tofu Shepherd's Pie, but I decided it was actually too late to start something that labor-intensive, and most of the ingredients are pantry stuff anyway. Then I thought I would make Curried Udon Noodle Stir-Fry since it is the most fresh-vegetable-intense meal on the menu. What made me choose Garlic and Greens Soup was the simple fact that Mister finally made it down to the amazing Sarcone's before they ran out of bread (no later than 3 PM, but normally earlier) and we wanted to eat it up before it went stale. What to do with day-old crusty bread? Dip it in a brothy soup, of course!
I used kale as my green and there are actually three Yukon gold potatoes hiding in there with the whole head of garlic.

Amazing. I could drink Lake Tahoe.

been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding

Okay, that isn't completely accurate. I've been to a few states in the USA, I visited Canada briefly 20 years ago, and I went to Cancun (Mexico) with my sister-in-law 9 years ago. So I haven't been around the world, and I don't think my in-laws, AKA parents-of-my-nephews-and-nieces, are stupid, but sometimes it seems like the stupider people are the louder they speak, doesn't it?

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but it has been bugging me for a few days and I need to share my inane discovery with someone. That Someone is You, lucky reader.

I was trying to get through the last of the Great Pile of Magazines that had gradually taken over a music stand I used to use as a cookbook holder. The majority of magazines living there were Health magazine. It was one of those "since you already subscribe to this magazine, we're going to give you an incredible deal to subscribe to this other magazine" kind of situations, and since there are two faces to my foodie nature, it filled the space left by the other publication. Those two faces, in case you were wondering, are the creative (and piggly) part of me that loves making (and eating) new dishes with a twist of something a little bizarre, and the nurturing side of me that shows love for myself and my husband (and anyone else I have the opportunity to cook for) by serving food that is not only tasty and attractive, but also full of nutrients and the things a body needs for fuel.

Anyway, I was reading through the News You Need feature in one of the editions, I came to this article: Orthorexia: The New Eating Disorder. The short article is both intriguing and utterly disgusting in its displayed ignorance of food lifestyles that are built around ethics and health. It is intriguing because only a few sentences in, I thought to myself, "they could be talking about me!" Primarily appearing in women over the age of 30 (ahem), orthorexia is an obsession with eating only healthy food and can be manifested in a vegan or raw food diet. I don't know if I would call myself obsessed and I certainly do not adhere to a vegan or raw food diet as strictly as I might prefer, but it is very important to me that I fuel my body with primarily good food. I prefer organic, but sometimes buy conventionally grown produce. I prefer seedy whole-grained breads, but I have been known to buy a loaf of finely-milled wheat bread. I yearn for salads, raw vegetable crudites, and fruit salads throughout the winter months, but I have no issue with making a meal completely from pantry items. I don't eat crap: no Twinkies, no Smuckers (read the label and be appalled), a rare Dorito or kettle-cooked potato chip, but no Little Debbie danishes or honeybuns for me and keep those Fritos where I can't smell them. I'm not perfect, but I try not to pollute my body. I'd rather get fat from protein and omega-rich peanut butter than a Snickers bar.

Regardless, the implication in this article or at least what I took away, is that people who restrict their diets as severely as a vegan or raw foodist would have an eating disorder. I think it's ludicrous that there would even be an eating disorder that starts with someone being committed to eating healthy food. It demonstrates to me just how off-kilter the paradigm of this country, in which 66% of the adult population is overweight, is. Ironically, people who follow a macrobiotic diet (which does include meat consumption, ordinarily) are not listed, yet I have a hard time thinking of a more restrictive diet.

You should know by now that when I say "I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this," it means I have been obsessing over the subject for days and need to babble until everything falls out of my brain. Which usually means I will spend more time on it than I intend. I just think it's straight-up retarded to label someone as having an eating disorder because they are vegan or a raw foodist. Rant done.

Today began The Great Dig-Out. I must give Philadelphia some props for their serious stance on snow removal - they had construction plows and dump trucks today! I don't know where they took the snow, but it's not on the/some streets anymore. It is still very much on the sidewalks - I think it's cute how some merchants figure that as long as there is a path through the snow, it doesn't necessarily have to be all the way down to the pavement. Apparently, there is nothing hazardous about carving a path of about 3 inches of compacted snow and ice that you will need a metal hoe and/or chisel to break through, because it's not melting until June. I slipped and slid my way to and from Whole Foods and Superfresh today because there was nothing else to turn into a meal here, unless you take me up on my offer to make a gourmet meal from kitty kibble.

First, I'll give you the menu, then a short and sweet dinner story:

1. Two-Tofu Shepherd's Pie

2. French Lentil Soup with Tarragon and Thyme from Veganomicon, because I can never get enough of this soup. Judging from the two and a half pounds of French lentils I got at WF today, apparently I also cannot get enough French lentils... oh, the shame of self-serve bulk containers.

3. Curried Udon Noodle Stir-Fry also from Veganomicon. I can't remember if I made this before or if the recipe just looked familiar because I know I should have made it before if I haven't.

4. Garlic and Greens Soup from The Vegan Table. After a week that was split 50/50 with soup and "solid" dinners, I tried to stay away from soup, but when I saw this recipe I just couldn't resist it. I mean, seriously - it calls for an entire head of garlic!

5. Red Lentil Artichoke Stew also from The Vegan Table. I have definitely not made this before and it looks both fun and different. Plus, we haven't had anything with red lentils for a while.

6. Orzo Pilaf with Roasted Red Peppers and Peas also from The Vegan Table. I intended to make this from the minute I pulled the book off the shelf. It's tasty and fast and you need that sometimes...like tonight.


So, I practiced my balance and grace by wandering around the frozen and barely salted tundra this afternoon/evening while Mister got some cardio in by digging out my car. Needless to say, we were both kind of starving, so rather than saving the fastest dinner on the menu for some night after work and cooking one of the longer and more labor-intensive meals on my day off, I made the Orzo Pilaf tonight. Don't you love my strategic menu-planning?

It is very photogenic and I think it is very tasty. It very much resembles risotto because orzo is rice-shaped pasta and I sauteed it with garlic before adding the full quart of broth. It lengthened the cooking time a bit, but the fully plumped orzo and creamy texture of the reduced stock was well worth it.

Mister wasn't as excited as I was. He agreed with me that it was very pretty and looks like Christmas, but I guess it was actually a little too close to real risotto for his liking. I love how he is starving before dinner and then pushes his food around and kind of picks at the peas until I ask him if he doesn't like dinner, to which he smiles and responds, "It's not my favorite." My answer to that is, "Pizza is your favorite." We pout at each other, then laugh and move on.


My hope, though, is that someday he will learn to tell me the first time I make something that he doesn't care for it.

my brain: use it or lose it

It is Still snowing in Philadelphia. This is now officially the snowiest winter on record - all we needed from this snowfall (which started around 7 pm yesterday and is STILL going strong at 10 minutes to midnight today) was 9.5 inches, but current estimates put total accumulation at 14 inches in Philadelphia, more in outlying suburbs. That's 14 inches on top of the 28.5 we got over the weekend. I haven't seen a plow yet and while that is fortunate for my poor little snow-covered car and what remains of its paint, it doesn't exactly fill me with optimism about the condition of the streets I am supposed to drive on tomorrow to go to work. Even when the streets were plowed on Saturday night/Sunday morning, it was still a slippery mess.

Since there was already an inch of super-fast accumulation when I got home from work last night, it seemed appropriate that the last dinner on my menu was a soup dinner. I made the mistake of changing into warmer, comfier clothes and then sitting down before strapping on my apron and could barely muster the energy to make Turkish Spinach and Lentil Soup. Fortunately, I knew the majority of effort I needed to expend was on peeling garlic cloves, so I managed to convince myself to put about 5 minutes of work into what ended up being a very tasty and satisfying dinner.


One of the reasons I wasn't too enthused about it was because I had forgotten just how tasty this soup is! I think I owe a lot of the flavor to the new bouillon cubes I picked up at Whole Foods last week. I used to use Rapunzel bouillon cubes all the time - they are far more cost-effective and compact than boxed quarts of premade broth - but after I had two boxes of gross, rancid-looking, melty cubes, I ditched them in favor of the Swanson broth I've been using for at least six months. I picked up the vegan bouillon cubes with sea salt and they have the most amazing savory taste!

Now, I'll admit - I really did not think the snow was going to come down as heavily as it did. Granted, the National Weather Service had issued a Blizzard Warning and more or less implied that you would be risking life and limb to leave your home today, but I guess I just didn't believe them. I spent all day today looking out the windows and laughing because the snow was still coming down and it really did look like a blizzard. This seriously interfered with my plans to go food shopping, though, so I comforted myself with the knowledge that the crazy Chinese people who have a restaurant that is literally a 10 second walk from our front door were open today. However, by the time "dinner time" came around, neither Mister or I wanted to leave the comfort of our warm, snowless home.

I had been thinking the other day about my culinary adventures. I'm addicted to recipes, and even when I do something on my own, I approach it in the same manner I was taught to compose music: I write it out first, then "play" it. However, having spent the past several years learning how to cook, and at least the past year really paying attention to how ingredients work together to create certain tastes and/or textures, I had a revelation. Theoretically, I should be able to just grab some random ingredients and put them together in a way that results in something tasty (or at least edible). In culinary schools, this is known as the Basket Test. Students are given a "basket" of seemingly unconnected ingredients and must find a way to create something edible (and amazing) from them. Mister inadvertently presented me with that challenge tonight and I am thrilled with the results!

My "basket" was made up of a few half-empty bags of frozen vegetables, a couple of cans in the cupboard nearing their expiration date, and a few half-empty bags of various grains. I always take comfort in my extremely well-stocked herbs-n-spices collection, though, and I figure I could probably make a gourmet meal out of Angst's Meow Mix with their help, if I had to. Lucky for you, I was so excited with how tasty my invention was that I wrote it down and will share my first recipe of 2010 with you!
Naked Burritos
2 cups broth
1 cup Basmati rice
1 Tbsp canola oil
3 cloves garlic, pressed
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp sea salt, or to taste
1 cup chopped carrot
1 cup frozen corn
2 cups frozen whole leaf spinach
14 oz vegetarian refried beans

Cook rice in broth on very low heat (covered) for 20-25 minutes, until all broth has been absorbed.
Meanwhile, heat oil on medium heat in a large saute pan. Saute garlic and carrots, covered, for about 5 minutes, stirring often. Lower heat to medium-low, stir in cumin, chili powder, and salt. Add corn and spinach, cover and cook 7-10 minutes, until heated through, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, in a smaller skillet, warm the refried beans with 1-2 Tbsp water. Stir and heat until steaming and smooth, adding another Tbsp of water if necessary.
To serve, lay a bed of rice at the bottom of a wide, shallow bowl. Spoon on 1/4 of the refried beans and top with the vegetable mixture.

You could use brown rice if you wanted, but you would need to increase your cooking time to about 45 minutes. Since I ran out of brown rice and since Mister was threatening to have more junkfood as an appetizer, I went with quicker-cooking white Basmati.

Of course, an all-day snowfest is a great excuse to make cookies, even if no one found and unearthed your car for you... so I whipped up a batch of Chocolate Agave Trailmixers from VCIYCJ. They are so good and SO rich. I like soymilk with cereal and as an ingredient in something, but I've never been able to just drink it plain. If you can, or if you drink another kind of milk, nondairy or straight from the cow's udder, you'll want a tall glass to go along with these chunky treasures. One of the add-ins are sweet-tart dried cherries and it never fails to astonish me how well the tartness of the fruit brings out the sweetness of the chocolate.

Enjoy! I know Mister and I did!

harissa: the ultimate in snow removal

Okay, harissa may not be quite hot enough to melt the snow piled all over the sidewalks, street corners, and parking spots in my neighborhood, but it can make me sweat when it's only 20 degrees outside! I read somewhere that in North Africa (not exactly a cold climate), locals employ harissa the way Americans [over]use ketchup. It took me years to put ketchup on my fries, much to Mister's confusion and horror. I cannot even fathom dipping fries or vegetables or ANYTHING in a little pot of harissa - bad things happened when it didn't blend all the way into the broth tonight and I ended up with a significant amount in my mouth. Significant = Barely Visible Speck.

Anyway, let's back up to last night. After a snowy, frosty weekend and a slippery trek to my car, I managed to make it to work yesterday. It wasn't until I was putting a present for Angst (also known as food) in the backseat that I noticed the new beauty mark on my car. Remember how I was worried about the Dueling Backhoes crashing into my car or otherwise harming it? I'm trying to think of the perfect thank you gift for the City of Philadelphia right now - what's the best way to express this sentiment? "thank you for finally clearing the streets in my neighborhood. It's much easier to navigate my car through the half-plowed icy death since you helped me lighten it. I never realized how much the paint on the left side of my car weighed it down until you helped me get rid of it. Here's some flowers." Yes, the Abominable Snow Removers left me a scar in the form of a scratch from the middle of my back driver's side door, across my gas cap, up to my brake light, and it's all the way to the metal - no paint left at all. In fact, it's even indented.

So, I celebrated my great fortune by making The Mariners' Pepperpot Soup. It involved a great deal of chopping, which always helps when you are speechless with excitement about the new detail work on your car. It's a fun soup to make, although I always panic that it doesn't look chunky enough to satisfy Mister. It's fine, though, because what I can't see is that all the rice and a great many of the vegetables are hovering just below the shiny, spiced surface of the broth. It made for some fun picture-taking, though:
When I made the Chickpea Apple Curry the other night, I made extra rice and scooped out one cup to add to this soup. It held the shape of the measuring cup and when I added it to the pot, it just plopped into the center. I found the Rice Meatball pretty funny, so I snapped a picture.

look at how excited Angst is for pepper soup!

not really.

a rainbow of savory goodness

Keeping with my trend of alternating soup dinners with solid food, tonight I made Winter Vegetable Curry despite my strong desire to avoid chopping the head of cauliflower in my fridge. It had to happen sooner or later, though, so tonight was the night. Besides, in an obvious attempt to steal my affections from my husband, Old Man Winter is sending me another Imminent Death Snowstorm tomorrow night. According to The National Weather Service, we're expecting another 10-18 inches between tomorrow afternoon and then throughout the day Wednesday. Sounds like perfect weather for our final soup dinner!
I think it has actually been since last winter that I've made this tasty little curry. It is so good I spent at least half the time I was eating it thinking "you stupid - why don't you make this more often?" Then I remember how much it sucks to chop the whole head of cauliflower. There has to be an easier way to do this that I just don't know. If anyone out there has any ideas, I would love for you to leave me a comment with detailed instructions!
I've been intending to add harissa to about half of the dinners I made this past week, so I'm quite pleased that I actually remembered to stir it in to replace some of the curry paste in this recipe. The recipe calls for 3 Tablespoons of curry paste and 3 Tablespoons of mango chutney. I have discovered that neither Mister nor myself are big fans of mango chutney, so I substituted apricot preserves and that added a nice, surprising sweet bite here and there. In place of the curry paste, I did 2 heaping teaspoons of my now-beloved Frontier brand curry powder and 1 conservative Tablespoon of harissa. It was much hotter than it has been with just the curry powder (I'll admit, I'm a little afraid of curry paste), especially when I got an unmixed chunk of it in my mouth by way of a caulifloret.

The recipe, by Rachael Ray, is one of her [few] vegetarian 30-minute meals and once you've made a mess of the cauliflower...well, chopped it, it comes together very quickly. I'd say there's a total cooking time of almost 20 minutes. I cannot recommend this recipe enough - it tastes great, it's relatively easy to assemble, especially if you cheat and use frozen cauliflower or pre-cut cauliflower. If you go the pre-cut route, be sure to use the cauliflower the same day you buy it or buy it the day you intend to use it - it doesn't keep well. Happy chopping!

curry, cookies, and cataclysm, oh my!

So.... 12-18 inches of snow ended up being 28.5 inches of snow when it finally stopped, sometime this afternoon. When I woke up today, the city was covered with snow up to your knees and it was still snowing and hard! Big, fluffy flakes danced chaotically outside the window, eventually descending to take their place with their peers along the streets and sidewalks of Philadelphia. To give you an idea of the accumulation plus drifts from the intense wind sweeping the snow hither and yon throughout the day, my car is black and my husband could not find it without using the key-fob to make it make noise.

I heated up some leftover "Spicy" Peanut Soup for lunch and tried to find it sufficient fuel to be productive on my snow day. I did call my students, just to be sure common sense had not eluded any of them and they weren't planning to hitch up the sled-dogs and come to their lessons. One mother answered the phone with, "You know you didn't have to call, right?" Then I began the process of eliminating the new pile of months-old magazines that built up, while doing two loads of laundry that desperately needed doing.

Ordinarily, my streets would never see a plow, but apparently the city made an exception considering the apocalyptic conditions outside. I'll tell you - they don't mess around when it comes to snow removal. I had the privilege of watching Dueling Backhoes dividing and conquering my neighborhood streets, all the while wondering how likely they were to inadvertently damage my car or make the digging out process even more difficult. Fortunately for me, Mister couldn't bear the thought of me breaking my poor twisted back trying to unearth my car, so he went out after dinner and did his best. I'm not sure how I feel about him coming back and saying "well, that's as dug out as it's going to get," but I'm glad I didn't have to do it.


So, dinner was Chickpea Apple Curry from my dear Martha Stewart. I always mess up the cayenne and render it almost impossible for me to eat so I thought this time I would substitute harissa for the cayenne. Unfortunately, I forgot that I thought that until after the whole melange was already simmering away, with its stingy pinch of cayenne. It came out alright though. Actually, since I didn't have any cumin, I substituted a teaspoon of curry powder and it really made a difference in the savory character of the curry - I may have to always make it this way! Mister was good-natured about the soygurt I mixed in. He compensated by adding hot sauce.
Since I was so very grateful to my dear hubby for finding and unearthing my car and since it was such fantastic baking weather, I decided to make Mexican Chocolate Snickerdoodles from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.
I have been obsessed with making these cookies since they did a few preview recipes on The Post Punk Kitchen blog. I love snickerdoodles. I love chocolate. What could be better than chocolate snickerdoodles?

Mister and I would probably disagree on the answer to that. I think he's pretty happy about the cayenne pepper that makes up the Mexican part of the title. I, on the other hand, could definitely do without it. The recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon and I said to myself, "oh HELL no." I cut the amount in half, and when I had gingerly sprinkled half of that 1/4 teaspoon into the batter, I couldn't make myself put the rest in. As I sit here typing, munching on my cookies, I am really glad I had the foresight and self-knowledge to cut the cayenne by 75% - I wouldn't have been able to eat them. With 1/8 of a teaspoon of cayenne in the entire batter, which made almost 2 dozen generously-sized cookies, my face is actually starting to color and I can feel the heat in my cheeks.

Aside from my mouth being all on fire, though, they're really good cookies!

oh the weather outside's delightful

And since we've no place to go (because it's midnight), let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

I love snow. I have loved snow all my life and people keep telling me I'll hate it when I'm older, but I'm still waiting and I'm still loving it. It's so magical to look out of the window and it feels like you're inside of a giant snowglobe!

It's been snowing for hours and the streets, sidewalks, newspaper stands, and cars are all covered with inches of happy white snow. According to weather forecasts, in which we all know I have a ton of faith, when I wake up tomorrow, it will have eaten the entire city - twelve to eighteen inches!

What's funny about the amount of substantial snow we've gotten so far this winter is that the weather has been just frightful enough to prevent me from renewing my driver's license. The reason that's funny is because I had the exact same problem exactly sixteen years ago, when I was trying to GET my license. So now you know how old I am, if you are even mildly proficient in arithmetic. Anyway, hopefully it won't take me until May to renew my license like it did when I got it to begin with, exactly half my lifetime ago (that really weirds me out).

So, since it was really nice out yesterday and all cold and snowy today, it seems natural that I made Spicy Peanut Soup last night. As soon as I had the first broth-soaked crumb of bread in my mouth, I remembered the first time (only time) I made this soup. It is not even remotely spicy - and remember, I think black pepper packs some heat. I really don't know why it's called "Spicy" unless I'm using the wrong kind of chili powder and/or I didn't read the part that calls for massive amounts of cayenne or harissa. Actually, I had intended to stir in about a tablespoon of harissa but I forgot to.

Don't get me wrong - this is a very tasty soup and it is substantial enough to count as food in Mister's eyes. The finished product didn't take very pretty pictures, but the rainbow of finely chopped vegetables that went into it was too beautiful to neglect. You see there red peppers, orange carrots, yellow potatoes, and green celery, sauteed with garlic and chili powder. The quart of broth I added just barely covered that delicious pot of veggies. It was a chunky, satisfying, but definitely NOT spicy soup.

Tonight, we had my old favorite Mediterranean Pasta with Artichoke Hearts, Olives, and Tomatoes. I can't tell if I did something wrong, since I haven't made it in many, many moons or if I've just gotten spoiled by the recipes I've indulged in for the past six months (can you believe that's how old my little blog is?), but I remembered it being much better than it was. It could be that tomatoes are completely out of season and that the large part of the dish's sweetness comes from those little grape tomatoes. It could be that I didn't let the artichokes soak up enough of the white wine vinegar. It could be that I neglected to sprinkle the sizzling veggies with kosher salt, since I felt the Kalamatas should provide enough umami. Whatever it is, this was not as exciting as I'd hoped it would be. It was fast, though, and that's what Mister and me and our exploding heads needed.

I think tomorrow will probably involve another soup recipe, but I have to see if I want to trudge many blocks through the snow back to Whole Foods/Italian Market (Spice Corner) because I never did get my cumin and paprika, and I'm not paying Superfresh $5 for two tablespoons of cumin. Thieves.

there are two of us talking in circles and one of us who wants to leave

Truth be told, I've tried my best, but somewhere 'long the way I got caught up in all there was to offer, and the cost was so much more than I could bear.

It's a Sarah McLachlan kind of day. It feels like everything I want to say, she has already said and so much better than I could. If you are not presently acquainted with her wordsmithing, you will be much more so soon, but I would encourage you to buy/download (legally) an album or two so you can hear her passionate, angelic voice.

I realized recently that Sarah has been singing my heart for the better part of my life - I found her, with my sister's help, when I was a Junior in high school and it was the perfect time for me to meet her (figuratively speaking, of course, though by a still unbelievable coincidence, I actually dated her cousin briefly a few months before I met my husband). Looking back, I think I had a much better adolescence than many, but when I was stuck inside of it, it felt pretty dark at times.

There have been times in my life I have had to avoid her, lest she pull me further beneath the waves of my own self-pity. There have also been times that I have sought her out, finding solace in the knowledge that someone else could give perfect wording to my deepest sorrows. There have also been times, rare though they be, where I have been able to just listen to her and hear her eloquent lyrics and perfectly guided voice. The thing that kills me is that although I have used her voice as an example of various techniques when teaching my vocal students, as well as helping to hone my own technique in certain areas, I absolutely cannot tell just by listening to her whether she has been trained or is just naturally gifted and intelligent enough to develop her own skills.

Before I move on to more uplifting (or at least entertaining) subjects, like tonight's dinner or the menu I will shop for tomorrow, I want to share some of my favorite lyrics:

The ice is thin - come on, dive in. Underneath my lucid skin, the cold is lost, forgotten. (Ice from Fumbling Towards Ecstasy)

I feel just like I'm sinking and I claw for solid ground. I'm pulled down by the undertow. I never thought I could feel so low, and Oh, Darkness, I feel like letting go. (Full of Grace from Surfacing)

But we carry on our backs the burden time always reveals in the lonely light of morning, in the the wound that would not heal - it's the bitter taste of losing everything that I've held so dear (Fallen from Afterglow - also the lyrics that started this post)

The lyrics that make up the title of this post are from Circle on the Fumbling Towards Ecstasy album. They more or less sum up the two wretched interactions I had yesterday with a colleague who is apparently so insecure about her own position that my confidence in myself intimidates her. It has been well over 24 hours, 4 glasses of wine, and several bitch sessions since this happened and I am still upset about it. Unless the stars align against me (which has been known to happen), I won't see her again until Monday and I am genuinely hoping that by that time we are able to interact with each other in a positive and constructive way. I spent a lot of energy today trying to avoid her, only to find out that, like spiders (allegedly), she is just as frightened of me as I am of her, or more so. That's too bad - I don't want to be scary, but I've spent too much of my life letting people step on me to back down again. I should not be punished for believing in myself and my abilities.

So, there's my [confusing to everyone who isn't me] pep talk. On to dinner!

It's Wednesday, so no big dinner for me and Mister. I decided to do another "use it or lose it" dinner. I took one of the two leftover Tofurky Kielbasas, quartered it lengthwise, then pretty much cubed it. I sauteed it briefly in canola oil before adding the leftover Five-Spice Roasted potatoes from dinner the other night, and then I threw in a few handfuls of frozen whole leaf spinach. Protein, starch, and greens...Seems a pretty nutritionally balanced dinner for just grabbing random [dying] leftovers from the fridge, and it went well with the Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon I picked up on my way home from what was obviously a stellar day at work.

Tomorrow, I am off from work, so we get to play the fun game of trying to balance fun and productivity. I must go grocery shopping and do some laundry. I really ought to renew my drivers license. I really want to play my piano and do nothing. We'll see how much I get done. At any rate, to construct this "week's" menu, I raided a tiny tin treasure chest that I have neglected at least since the summer. I can't believe it's been that long, but I have just been so blissfully in love with my newest cookbooks, I haven't thought to look in my recipe box, despite the knowledge that it is where I store my favorite recipes.

1. Spicy Peanut Soup from a cookbook that does not seem to actually have a name...or at least not one that I bothered to record on the recipe card. It looks like fun and I'm on a serious (and probably waist-threatening) peanut butter kick right now. I know I've made it before, else it wouldn't have earned a spot in The Box, but it's been at least 6 months, probably more and I absolutely cannot remember it right now.

2. Winter Vegetable Curry by Rachael Ray. I love this recipe and I'm so mad at myself for tucking it away and forgetting about it so far this winter. This is one of the few RR recipes I can make, since it seems like most of her recipes include gratuitous amounts of fat and dead animals. Anyway, it's a really neat combination of hot and sweet and I may experiment a little and add some of my Big Tube of Harissa in place of the curry paste.

3. Mediterranean Pasta with Artichokes, Olives, and Tomatoes from my beloved Martha Stewart. This recipe is amazing - I could use up all of my A adjectives on this one (awesome, astonishing, etc). The artichoke hearts and cherry tomatoes lend a sweetness that is tempered by the intense saltiness of the kalamata olives. This is absolutely one of my favorite pasta dishes ever.

4. Chickpea Apple Curry also from Martha dear. Every single time I make this, I forget how eager apples are to absorb spices and broth and I overdo the cayenne and render dinner almost beyond my ability to eat. This amuses Mister greatly, but I would rather turn up the thermostat than sweat through dinner because my mouth is flaming. It's even funnier when I think it's a good idea to make this in the summer. I think the last time I made this my lips actually swelled. By now, you are surely wondering why I think it's a good idea to make this again. I'm planning to swap out the cayenne for my Big Tube of Harissa - I've already shown I can handle that heat. I'm also planning to veganize the recipe by subbing Silk Yogurt - don't tell Mister; I don't plan to :)

5. The Mariner's Pepperpot Soup from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. I love this soup - it is so savory. I love the whole cookbook and am forever indebted to my mother-in-law. This was one of the cookbooks that led to my awakening knowledge that I could actually cook.

6. Turkish Spinach and Lentil Soup also from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. This soup is seriously substantial, and the leftovers grow as the lentils absorb more broth. It's really quite monstrous, but so hearty and tasty. There's also an irony in feeding my Greek husband Turkish food that amuses me beyond words.