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Posts tagged ‘cornmeal’

Jul 11

Peach upside-down cornmeal skillet cake (bye bye, CA!)

So. It doesn’t really feel any different, really. We loaded up our stuff, we drove away, we unloaded our stuff, we set up our bed in a completely new room in a new city in a new state, and soon we’ll even leave that. We drank beer at lunch today (on a Wednesday!), and if I didn’t check my email for another five days there’s not really anything that could happen to me.

But nothing feels significantly different. It’s kind of like when we got married, and I took the fact that absolutely nothing felt different as a good sign (a very good sign – but we’ll save more on that for some future installation of Bowen’s Thoughts on Marriage). And this time, as we went through the motions of leaving, I kept telling myself to feel something BIG – like when we ate at our favorite bakery for the last time, and when we spent our last evening on campus, and when we handed over the keys to our house. (Funny story about that, below.) But everything just felt kind of … normal, and I’m taking that as a good sign that all of this is happening at the right time. When I’ve tried to force myself to see the significance of everything, I just see this sort of satiny, infinite ribbon spreading out ahead of me – I think it represents time, maybe? Or freedom? Something like that. I’m not really sure why I picture the next year as a ribbon, but in any case I have this really strong visual that I don’t understand but that I associate with positive feelings, certainly. (Or maybe it’s guilt at all that perfectly good leftover double-sided satin wedding ribbon I threw out as we cleaned out our house.)

So since I apparently don’t need to spend any time “transitioning,” I just get to focus on doing everything that catches my eye as worthwhile or fun or interesting (as long as it doesn’t cost too much money).  Which at the moment means enjoying summer, especially a summer a little more temperate than our Previous Place of Living. We’re in Eugene for the next 10 days or so, including a few days working at the Oregon Country Fair, plenty of time in the backyard, some exploring of what we’re hearing is a pretty fantastic new “Brewery District” in town (more on that next week, I’m hoping), and lots of summer fruit.

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Jun 28

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Lime cornmeal cookies (emotional distraction)

This quickly approaching life transition (11 days. 11 days!) means a lot of goodbyes. Goodbyes to favorite restaurants, goodbyes to old routines, goodbyes to most of our belongings (either stored or sold or donated), goodbye to Pomona, and – most significantly – goodbyes to all of our friends, colleagues, and mentors in the area. Most of the time it hasn’t really sunk in that anything big is happening, but every once in a while I catch myself realizing that it’ll be the last time I’m seeing someone or going somewhere, or that I won’t have another chance to do something before I go.

I spent this last weekend gathered in Palm Springs with six of my closest college girlfriends, which coincidentally ended up being the last time we’ll all be together before two of us move away this summer. We lounged by the pool, we sipped cocktails, we laughed, and we had the sort of serious conversations that come from our shared liberal arts college background – as we generally do when we’re together. We managed to spend all three lovely days together without any sort of big teary goodbye, and I’m glad we spent the time laughing and acting like it was just another weekend, instead of something more intense. It was all left on a positive note, and I’m trying to focus on that memory as Brett and I speed through the next 10 days full of goodbye dinners and happy hours and brunches.

These might help.

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Feb 6

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Easy cornmeal Parmesan crackers

I love those moments when I realize that something I had previously stashed away in the “too difficult” or “too complex” box should really have always been stored somewhere else, somewhere far more accessible. And not for lack of experience or training, but just because I had completely misconceived it as something more difficult or complex than it actually is. I’ve been trying to put quite a few of those on my Food Lists, and crackers is now another.  For some reason I thought crackers would complicated, with complex equations of ingredients and technique to get just the right crunch, just the right flavor. I’m sure there are some complicated crackers out there, and certainly there are many varieties, but I can tell you right now that I’ve found a pretty awesomely simple basic cracker.

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