When I Grow Up

I want to be a tight t-shirt wearin', middle aged, daddy bear pastry chef, who writes cookbooks and teaches others to cook for themselves. There I said it. That's what I want to be when I grow up. You know, since the position of "quadruple threat"  Hugh Jackman is already taken, and demigod seems like an over-reach given my skill set. Seriously, is there anything Jackman can't do?

Don't be thrown off by my use of humor; I earnestly believe it's possible to be vital and active, eat healthfully - and deliciously - at any age. And I'm out to prove it. I believe too that people with dietary restrictions shouldn't have to forgo pleasure even though certain ingredients or whole food groups are off the menu. Of course you have to regulate your eating habits, and make choices. I call this mindful eating. But enjoyment should never be off the menu, especially when you're choosing to eat well. 

There is a catch, all the foods you eat must be cooked by you, or another human, meaning, a chef, a skilled (or not so skilled) cook that you can actually see doing the work of cooking. Yes, it takes time to cook for yourself, and workout/exercise, but it doesn't need to occupy all of your time. It's about living a good full life, in which work, friends, family, all take a balanced role. And yes, I'm willing to use my own body, mind, and life, to make my point. 

So, I have the gym membership, the t-shirts, and the paperwork to go to culinary school is in the works. I am officially moving this from my "maybe someday," dream list to the "next big adventure," category. It may not happen for another whole year, but it's going to happen.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of an oat bran muffin:

Why I lift weights...

Weightlifting has the same resonance, for me, as the ballet bar. Dancers spend literally years of their lives bending at the knee and standing back up again. It's a simple movement, but to do it proficiently, consistently, not to mention beautifully, takes years, and the practice really never stops. You're not really perfecting a series of repetitive movements, you're building a foundation, a core of muscle memory that will keep you going when your own will alone isn't strong enough. As a younger person, I didn't get this. I hated doing scales and arpeggios in music, or marching "basic block" in drum corps for what felt like hours: I couldn't see it's value. I just wanted to practice what I had to learn for the next performance, and get on with it.  

Now that I'm older, and I have acquired at least SOME patience, if not with myself then with repetitive tasks, I've come to realize that the basics, are where it's at. This is, in part, because I've learned the value of improvement through repetition, and in a less concrete way, nostalgia. When I look back at my time in dance, theater, music, or drum corps, there may be a handful of performances I remember in any detail, but it's being in rehearsal with my friends that is clearest in my mind. It isn't just the weirdos - an extreme compliment - that I met in dance classes, gymnasiums, or rehearsal halls that I miss, it's the feeling you get from having tried and failed over and over again, before you finally gett it. It's the feeling you get when you hear your instructor say, "well done, do it again." It's not the crowds or applause that carry you through your life, it's the confidence you build, bit by excruciating bit, by experiencing adversity and, finally, exceeding your own expectations. Over time, I've become extremely process oriented. I think this happens naturally as we mature.

These days I have to tell myself, well done, do it again, (sometimes just for getting through the day) but I've never stopped needing that rush of achievement you get when you finally "nail it." And yes, there is considerably more grunting involved in weight lifting, but the controlled strength, balance and flexibility are the same. There is a rhythm, a groove, a pocket - call it what you want - that your breathing and movement must slip into if your going to do your best set, and most of them are not going to be your "best set." This approach pays as much attention to how well your lifting, as it does how much you can lift. I am always happy to sacrifice the latter, to ensure good form. 

The other, not to be under estimated, similarity between working out and ballet, is it's power to over-ride our natural compulsion of comparison. Sure, Giselle over there might be able to effortlessly wrap her leg around her head, while holding an eternal releve, and reciting her favorite sonnet. You may never have her extension, endurance, or body line, all of which are determined by genetics. However; when the music starts, and you take your place at the bar, the only things that matter are you, your body, your physical limitations. That's it, that's all you've got time for, or you're going to end up on your ass. The same thing happens at the gym, you cannot focus your attention on others and successfully do the physical and mental work required to lift weights. You can't, for that matter, afford to focus on your own problems and stress outside the gym. You have to inhabit your body and pay attention to the movement, and the messages your muscles are sending back to you, in a loop. In that way, it is as much a mindfulness exercise, as it is a physical one.  

Bears, Fish, and Water

I've spent what feels like a lifetime trying not to think too much, worry too much, stress too much. I've tried exercise, yoga, meditation, mindfulness, anti-anxiety medications, and cognitive behavioral therapy, and still I have physiological symptoms of stress. 

As much as I HAVE to get a handle on this, I think the one thing I can immediately let go of, is being stressed out about how often, and how intensely, I am stressed out.  What if I'm just a person who worries? Is that so terrible? What if it is simply where I am in life right now? What if I just accepted it? No internal, or external, judgement required. That, is a change I can make today. 

Yes, of course I'm going to continue with the exercise, yoga, mindfulness meditation, and CBT techniques I've learned, but I can also just let those worried and anxious thoughts be there. I don't have to engage with them, I don't need to add to them, just let them be present: like water to a fish. 

Bear Funk

Day four of this low grade headache. All I want to do is eat and huddle under a blanket.  I don't really feel like cooking, which isn't me at all, and the tea cannot be strong enough. Very little has gotten done all week. Don't get me wrong, I made meals and cleaned up. I dithered around with the laundry, packed lunches, and went with hubby to work so I could have private writing time in the library, not that I did any writing. The cats got fed, email got checked, bills got paid, etc. But on a comparative scale, nothing got done. 

I know what this is, and it's more than just a January Funk, it's depression doing it's best to knock me to the floor, and I'm doing my best to fight it. Thing is, I like winter with it's stark beauty and cold temperatures. I like the way the seasons give shape to life, even if that means the sun is hard to find in the grey sky. I like sweaters, coats, and blankets. I like gloves, scarves, and long-underwear. So isn't the weather, but it could be the low levels of sunlight.

There are other factors and real stressors in play here. My extended family lost one member in early November, and a second is in hospice care. While the celebrity deaths that have occurred recently are in no way comparable, added to the loss of two mentor/parental figures from my drum corps days, they have been weighing heavily on my mind. We are here for such a short time and I, in equal proportion, don't want to do anything at all, and don't want to waste another second of my time. 

So, stage one of the prescription: take a double dose of my multivitamin, (B12/D complex) get dressed, and go for a walk - freezing cold or not. Stage two: eat as healthfully as possible and don't worry about how often. Stage three: celebrate every small accomplishment like it's a big victory. Stage four: add four minutes of tanning time to my gym routine to help with Vitamin D absorption, and a few minutes in the sauna couldn't hurt. 

And repeat.

Filial Rituals

As I was lining the baking pan for my fruit cake, the same way I do every year, it occurred to me that the process probably wasn't necessary.

The original recipe calls for you to line the pan with a paper grocery sack, however, try to find one that isn't covered in dye, wax, BPA plasticizers, or worse these days is next to impossible. So, I use parchment. The process of lining the tin with greased paper was intended to help release the cake, and wrapping the tin itself in a double or triple layer of paper helped to insulate the cake during a long, relatively low temperature bake. Fruitcake is sticky and dense stuff after all, and earlier household ovens had large swings in temperature, if in fact you were able to control the temperature at all. They were smaller, and less well insulated, and the walls tended to become very hot. Contemporary ovens are decidedly less temperamental and comparatively spacious, and contemporary bakeware is thicker walled and is available in a variety of non-stick coatings, but I keep with tradition anyway. 

The ritual, I'm convinced, creates the results I desire, though I have no evidence to back up my conviction. I do it, because it's the way my mother did it, and she does it, because that is how her grandmother did it. My observance of this ritual isn't slavish or thoughtless, to the contrary, I do it precisely because it conjures childhood memories, and in some intangible way connects me to members of my family tree that I was not fortunate enough to meet.  The method, no matter how arduous is may seem today, goes back further than my great grandmother to a shared tradition common to my ancestors as well as other descendants of the English and Scottish heritage. And as a self professed Anglophile, I'm all too happy to try to take a walk in those shoes, any way I can. 

Hail the List Makers

It's that time of year again: when everything is meant to be joyful and bright, but we're all filled with a mixture of exhaustion, and dread. I don't pretend to have any magical answers to a happier holiday. At it's very best it can be hectic and overwhelming, and most of us, lets be honest here, end up getting through it, rather than celebrating it. There is just so much to do, work or school events, deadlines, shopping, wrapping, and the kind of cooking and baking most of us only do once a year. With all the added socializing and what can feel like enforced merriment, it's only normal that we all feel a mixture of excitement, nostalgia, longing, and truckloads of anxiety. Did I get the right gift? How am I going to finish everything in time? Will little Johnny remember his lines? Are we going to hit our goals for this quarter? Will this be the ring that makes her/him say yes? Did I remember to move the freakin' elf on a shelf? It doesn't matter what holiday you celebrate, if you're and adult, this is not a stress free time of year. 

My strategy for not only getting through the holidays, but actually creating little pockets of enjoyment within them, is to focus on what is most important to me. That would be, naturally, the food. The holiday I celebrate at this time of year is more atavistic than commercial: it's Pagan really. The holidays, to me, are all about feasting, and lighting a fire in the middle of the darkest months of winter. In the absence of a fire place, or an inferno of candles, twinkling lights are essential to lift my mood, as are foods that are filled with the essential - for me - flavors of Christmas: warm spices, dried fruits, sweet orange, sharp apple, oaky whisky, and earthy nuts.

Mr. Dickens has much to answer for, but, to this day it's treats like Figgy Pudding, Mincemeat Pies, Sugar Plums, and Fruitcake, (at least for me) that most evoke the feelings of an authentic Christmas. As much as I'm a fan of rituals and tradition, I have to be able to live in the contemporary world. Many a household argument has been had about my need to do things the most traditional "drawn out," "hardest way possible," but, even I have agree there are times you just have to "get there" as quickly as possible. As someone more eloquent that I am once said, perfection is the enemy of progress.

Take for instance my Figgy Puddy: it may be a more contemporary "cheaters" boiled version that eliminates the need for months of curing and basting in brandy, but the lemon sauce I serve with it is wholly my Great Grandmother's recipe. I DO make my own mincemeat, but the recipe I use is more akin to a quick jam or chutney, and it must be said, you can buy perfectly respectable - preservative free - mincemeat in the grocery stores and add your own touches at home, and no one need be the wiser.

To make Christmas pleasurable, my way, involves planning. I could not possibly do everything I like to do, and feel I ought to do, if I left myself with only a day or two to accomplish it. I also have to set limits. While making 12 different baked goods over the course of the holidays may seem like too much, it's a drastic reduction in labor to me. I think this already stressful time of year is made more stressful because well intentioned people don't take the time to really think about what they want to do, and how they are going to achieve it. And, it must be said, I am the King of procrastinators, but after so may years of collapsing next the the tree shortly after dinner on Christmas day -  because I'd been up all night the night before - I have finally learned my lesson.

I start my list making, and meal planning, with the things I know are best after they've aged. Fruit Cake can be made months in advance but, as I've mentioned, it doesn't have to be to be enjoyable. A true short bread, however, needs to cure, and Christmas Pudding really should sit and ripen for at least a week or two, so I start with these, and leave the desserts I'm making for events, say the snowman cake I'm bringing to the extended family celebration, until last. 

On top of the planning strategy, at this time of year, I utilize every moment of my time. That means stealing time at the beginning and end of the day, and everywhere I can. For example, the fruits for my fruit cake are boiled in brandy the night before I make the cake, but this takes less than an hour and can be done days in advance, and stored in an airtight container in the fridge until I'M ready. Baking potatoes can be tucked into the oven any time it's on, ready to be dressed up for a last minute meal, and quart containers of soup made and frozen in the fall are even better reheated with a fresh salad, or warmed crusty bread. One of my favorite holiday staples, icebox butter cookies, can be made more than a month in advance. Making the dough takes minutes, and they can then be thawed quickly, and baked whenever they're needed. And since thawing and baking mostly involve waiting, I can do other projects in the gaps. Best of all, if I run short on time, they'll hold into the new year.  

There was a time when I could cocoon myself in my own kitchen, but I live with three other adults (all family) who also need meals and a certain amount of space to themselves. Whenever possible, I try to leave more involved and fiddly projects, say rolling out pastry, or cutting and decorating sugar cookies, until everyone else is out of the house, or out cold in bed. 

I know this all sounds like I'm preparing to go into battle, perhaps I am, but I am perfectly happy in the kitchen, doing things, and these pockets of quiet and productivity are, for me, the best cure for all the stressors of the world that exist beyond my kitchen door. And the best antidote to being overwhelmed by everything I have to do, is being able to look at a list of everything I've already accomplished. There is nothing so bolstering to my confidence than seeing that thick black line dawn through a completed task. 

Letting Go

Without placing a value judgement on it, I am, it has to be said, a rather controlling and impatient person. These traits have served me well in the kitchen, writing, design, soap making, and in my work in the event and floral industry. Again, it just is, what it is. I'm a creative and intelligent person, and I have mild ADHD. I NEED order, structure, deadlines, and a distraction free environment to function at my best. And, the work must be engaging enough, mentally and physically, to keep me on task, which coincidentally tends to foster a certain level of attention to detail. Like many ADHD sufferers, I tend to do things full tilt, or not at all. I am also a rather dichotomous person, and as much as I can seem to thrive in chaos, I also require long periods of quiet, and solitude. Thinking on my feet is only possible because there is a mountain of order, structure, and deadlines, running through my head like the scrolling digital readouts at the stock exchange...and, it never stops. 

All that being said, I think I may be finally beginning to accept that I cannot control everything!

As much as the intent is to be helpful and make everything easier for everyone - most of all me -  I don't think it is truly helpful anymore. I end up feeling overwhelmed and resentful, and everyone else ends up feeling uncomfortable, left out, or guilty, when I am busy pretending everything is O.K. and they can plainly see my hair is on fire! Not having had the experience of being a parent, it's difficult for me to allow others to struggle when I know I can do better, or at least I think I can. I even know that for my own sanity and their self esteem, I should let them do it, especially if they have to struggle and overcome adversity. But, then impatience rears it head, and there I am stepping in, and taking over again. 

The painful truth is, I just can't do it all, and I've been making myself unhappy, for years, by trying. The struggle, at least for me, is being able to tell when it is better for me to do it myself, and when I should delegate, and then let go of whatever it is I've given away.  The letting go part is, I probably don't need to say this, where the difficulty lies. I AM a perfectionist after all. But, there are things in life that don't require perfection or precision - or so I'm told - and it's probably time that I learned to let those things go.