Life Is Your Experience

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. 

Abraham Lincoln

While this blog was intended to be a daily glass of lemonade, I have found lately that I've had the time to write here closer to weekly, at best. This all boils down to a very simple fact-- I'm super busy. Who isn't, you ask? We all work hard, manage our lives and households through cooking, cleaning and organizing, sleep, and try to maybe relax for a minute or two. Where in there is the time for extracurricular stuff like pondering the meaning of life?

This got me thinking to my recent experiences in searching for a new job. Oh, job hunting is such an amazing experience. Nowhere in life do we have such an excuse to talk about ourselves with reckless abandon. Nowhere do we smile more or laugh at more bad jokes. We enter the interview room with hope and excitement, answer their questions the best we can, and leave, wondering if we answered the questions they way we should have. Job hunting is a roller coaster full of excited ups as we find the job that we just have to have and downs as we receive that letter telling us it has already been filled. Cramped fingers from typing up individualized cover letters, tired necks from holding the phone to our shoulders as we make follow up calls, achy feet as we wear those ludicrous high heels we never wear otherwise.

As I pieced my resume together for this journey, I thought about something my father once said. You're never as perfect as you are on your resume. I'm sure he did not make this quote up, but he reworded it well enough that I can't seem to find the original source. The closest I can find is Bo Bennett's definition of a resume: "Resume: a written exaggeration of only the good things a person has done in the past, as well as a wish list of the qualities a person would like to have."

Yes, the resume is where we put all of our wonderful achievements, hoping that future employers will look at this one or two page summary of our life and say, "I must hire this person. Now. And offer her a very large salary, to boot." Mason Cooley once said, "If you call failures experiments, you can put them in your resume and claim them as achievements." Yes, we put it all on, and then twist it, tweak it, and maneuver it so that it looks like we're amazing, perhaps even more amazing that we really are.

But we don't really have the chance to put everything on our resumes, do we? Employers don't really care about the experiences that we get from places other than school or work. Herein lies my big gripe. What about those hard working folk who stay home with their kids for years on end, and then enter the grueling job search with "nothing" on their resumes? What about the lessons we learned from the bullies on the playground (or, sadly, the bullies from our adult life)? What about our age, gender, religious background, sexual orientation, and other things that make us who we are and help to create our work ethic, but are too taboo to mention? What about the broken hearts, the things said that we wish we could take back, the feet placed in our mouths and crows eaten, all which makes us stronger, smarter, and more able to correctly make good decisions in the future?

My son, at his first skateboarding lesson, AFTER he fell, cried, and got back on again...

These are the things that make us who we are, and who we are is as important, if not more, than what we have done in life. Who we are is based not only on achievements but also on failures, the times that we fell off the proverbial horse and got back on. Our traditional resume would say, "Successfully rode horse," but our life's resume would add, "after hours of trying and failing and a significantly bruised gluteus maximus." It is how we handle our failures that make us truly successful; for lack of a more appropriate pun, it is how we make lemonade out of those lemons. Be proud of your failures in life, because it is the through those failures that you have reached your greatest achievements!

Cold Dishes

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold. I've been thinking about the concept of crime and punishment a lot lately, as I've run across some plain old mean folks in the last few months. That is a story to share for another day, but the aftermath, the "what do I do now?" remains to be pondered.

My grandmother was famous in our family for holding a grudge. She once refused to talk to my Aunt Jean for thirteen years- yes, YEARS- because of something Aunt Jean said that none of us can remember, not even my grandmother. She was a hot-blooded Italian woman who knew what made her mad, and she was not afraid to let it be known. Hot-blooded, according to Webster's dictionary, means passionate, and who has ever been faulted for a little passion now and then. But, the traditional meaning behind revenge as a "cold" dish implies cold-blooded action- heartless, mean spirited, even cruel. Cold-blooded revenge is that which we enact before we have the time to think it through, because most likely our judgment would take over and stop us. And we certainly couldn't let that happen.

Revenge is something as old as humankind, as far reaching as Cain and Abel. We have revenge as the basis for some of literature's most famous pieces of work- The Count of Monte Cristo, Moby Dick- and in some of film world's more famous outputs- think, Revenge of the Nerds or The Empire Strikes Back. The concept of avenging the death of a family member or some perceived wrong done, the famous gentleman's duels of history, all lead me to wonder if we all don't eat off of this icy platter once in a while.

As I think about the idea of revenge served cold, I think about dishes that are best served cold. Now, I'm not talking about dishes that MUST be served cold- who wants hot ice cream for example? I'm talking about where you have a choice, and the cold is the better option. Gazpacho... Salad... Ceviche... Sushi... All of these are good tasting, but in my humble opinion, aren't the most satisfying of dishes. I've never made a meal of just soup without raiding the fridge later on, and even with sushi, I end up eating way too much of it to give my stomach that comfy feeling a good meal should leave. While a cold dish is good as a side or a snack, I would argue that it's the warm dishes that truly leave us feeling good and cozy. When we think "comfort food", it's the mashed potatoes, the meat loaf, the bread and butter with gravy that come to mind.

So, I would argue that if it's best served cold, I'll leave it for another day. I would rather serve up something warm and satisfying, something that makes those I feed feel happy and comforted. And, by loving my enemy with kindness, I probably am exacting the best kind of revenge after all.

Warm and Comforting Pasta

1 bulb fennel, coarsely chopped
1 red onion, chopped
2 russet potatoes, peeled and diced into quarter inch cubes
1 lb orecchiette pasta
5 or 6 ounces of smoked Fontina cheese, shredded
olive oil
crushed red pepper
chopped garlic- as much as you like since garlic is so good

Heat oil until ready for the onion and garlic, then toss those in. Cook for a minute or two and then add the fennel and potatoes. Saute until soft and brown and crispy in some bits- yum! Add crushed pepper to taste (only a little if you're cooking for my husband). Cook a little longer til all the flavors mix and taste yummy when you sample it.

Meanwhile, cook paste til al dente. Drain and set aside in a big ol' bowl.

Add potato mixture to pasta and stir it up. Throw in the Fontina and stir again. Eat with Parmesan cheese and feel cozy.

Comfort Food Isn't Always Southern

My husband grew up on comfort food, though not the Southern cooking kind. His parents were British, and so he grew up on roasts and boiled veggies, casseroles, potatoes, and the like. If it could be boiled, it was. To this day, his mother's pork roast is something he asks for when we go to visit.

I had to do something about this.

One of the first things that I did when we got married was introduce him to proper Italian cooking, though again, not the Southern kind. My family is from a town about two hours east of Rome (albeit they left 103 years ago) and we are decidedly northern. I did not realize that pasta with a pesto sauce was not a traditional Thanksgiving dish until I was married and had my first Thanksgiving with my husband's family.

And so it is with pesto that I made my husband a "foodie." And it is with pride that I say that today, his birthday, when he could ask for anything in the world to eat, he specifically asked me to make Salmon Pesto Pasta.

Yes, pesto is the new comfort food. My grandmother made pesto by the bucket and would freeze it in ice cube trays, pulling out a cube or two when we would show up unexpectedly for dinner. If I could turn basil into a perfume, I would do so and wear it daily. The smell of the basil and garlic grinding together in my Cuisinart is one of the happiest smells I can think of. It is spring, summer, fall and winter. It is refreshing when hot, and comforting when cold. It is quite possibly the perfect food.

All ye naysayers, do not balk at me about the quantity of cheese and oil in a perfect pesto sauce. Let's not mention my grandmother's secret ingredient of cream. Moderation is the key to life, and a little pesto once in a while will not kill any one of us (except possibly those allergic to pine nuts). So, I am happily about to head to my kitchen to make my husband his special birthday dinner, so that he can find comfort in both my cooking and in me.

Just sittin' on the porch swing...

I have never considered myself a hot weather person, which is why my obsession with lemonade is so surprising. I've been to the South, in the summer even, and the combination of hot and humid just doesn't sit well with me. Curly hair goes to frizz, powdered face to shiny. While this look suits many women, in my mind, I'm not one of them.

And yet, whenever I go to the library or video store, I find myself migrating towards those stores of Southern comfort- To Kill a Mockingbird, Cold Sassy Tree, Steel Magnolias, Fried Green Tomatoes. The people of the South just seem so strong and able. The women don't take guff off of anyone, and I wish deep down to be that confident. I want Maya Angelou to be my next door neighbor, the Designing Women to decorate my home, and Emeril Lagasse to cook me dinner.

I began toying with lemonade recipes several years ago, and now it's become kind of an obsession. I've tried lavender, mint, chili peppers, and cinnamon. I've made it plain and with milk- yes, milk. I am always on the lookout for amazing lemonade recipes and delicious treats that go with a nice cold glass of it.

So, I sit here in the middle of May with my sweater on, because outside where I live it is blustery and cold despite the bright blue skies. I don't have a porch and I don't have a swing. I dream about those warm summer nights after a hot summer day, sitting on a porch swing with a glass of lemonade, and I write this, my first blog post ever.

Here is to all things cozy and relaxed and to a good glass of lemonade.