The Great Unknowable Future

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Five

You may be wondering why you haven’t seen my annual Mooning Over the Passage of  Time or Cake–Related Therapy posts.

You know. The ones where I get all misty-eyed and sentimental about my child’s birthday and try to self-medicate with complicated baking projects.

Maybe you think I’ve gotten it over it! Outgrown it! Filled my life with better and more interesting things to think about!

Or, if you are a longtime reader of this blog, and/or A Realist, you may assume you just missed it.

Well, you haven’t missed it, per se. I’ve written it. Oh, I’ve written it. (I have, in fact, written – let me check here… —  2,349 words on the topic.) I just haven’t posted anything because… well, I am making my own eyes roll is really the best reason I can give you.

But I did have the annual mooning. And I did make some cakes.

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Unicorns in their carrying case at the party, waiting for eager five- and six-year-olds to gobble them down!

Carla wanted to have a unicorn birthday party, so I made unicorn cupcakes for the party. We invited fifteen of her friends. They played on an indoor playground. They ate pizza. They ate unicorn cupcakes. I turned one of her getting-sort-of-grubby dresses into a Unicorn Dress via the magic of iron-on unicorn and stars appliques.

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Baking Secret: I made so many cupcakes that I had… many left over. And I didn’t take this picture until many… weeks had passed. One can only think that the cupcakes would have photographed better had they been FRESHER. These have survived a birthday party, being in a hot car while the birthday girl ate a post-party lunch (she did not eat pizza AT her party), then being in my fridge for weeks. Of course, one might also choose to blame poor photography skills. One has many choices, is what one should know.

For her family birthday party, we went to Carla’s favorite restaurant for tacos. After dinner, we had cake. Carla had requested a purple cake with chocolate frosting. Last year, she wanted a purple cake with black  frosting, a concept I was more amenable to this year. But I went with chocolate.

(Disclaimer: I went with chocolate. But then I tried, briefly, to dye it black. But I only had regular black dye, which turned the chocolate frosting a disturbing shade of grey. [Apparently you need to use some sort of extra-dark cocoa powder AND extra-black black dye to get a truly black frosting.] [Do you think I didn’t check at our local Joann fabric and local baking stores to see if they had these items in stock? If you think I did not, you don’t know me at all.] So then I had to use ALL of the brown dye I own, which was a lot, to get the chocolate to be a nice, dark chocolatey color.)

My husband was very skeptical that that cake would be aesthetically pleasing. I was more optimistic, and plus I had A Plan. A Plan that involved gold and sparkles, which Carla loves.

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Baking secret: The only way I could get these sprinkles to stick to the frosting was by throwing handfuls of them at the cake. There are STILL tiny white sprinkles on my floor.

I think it turned out rather cute, right?

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Why yes, the cake IS a little crooked, thank you for noticing! I tried to compensate for the lean by taking an off-center photo which is, of course, my specialty.

I wish I had photos of it with the shiny gold candles in it, too. They were adorable. Oh well.

See? Chocolate on the outside, purple on the inside! (My mother-in-law noted that it seems more blue than purple. It is NOT BLUE. I applied the dye myself and it is most definitely PURPLE. Thank you for your comment.)

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Baking Secret: While I never thought I would do it, I DID end up using cake mix to make the cupcakes AND the cake alike. I doctored the mix before baking — butter and milk instead of oil and water, plus I added real vanilla bean and pure vanilla extract — but it was SO MUCH easier than making the batter from scratch. To make sure I wasn’t being TOO easy on myself, the filling between the layers is homemade chocolate ganache.

The cupcakes are gone. The cake is gone. The leftover ganache, which I just ate right now by the spoonful, is gone.

And now I have a five-year-old. An independent, brilliant, confident, creative, twirly, curious, still-sucks-her-thumb, sometimes-cuddly-sometimes-not, animal loving, imaginative, LEGO building, super fast running, fearless, charismatic, hilarious, beautiful five-year-old. She gets better and more fascinating and more complicated and more herevery day. I am so very lucky to have her in my life, so fortunate to be able to watch her and help her and enjoy her as she grows. (But I still have all the attendant Feelings™ that accompany my baby’s inexorable transition from infant to adult.)

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Why yes I DID color coordinate her wrapping paper with her cake, thankyouverymuch.

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Comfort Foods

Thank you all for your kind words on my last post. It’s so easy for that feeling of discomfort and awkwardness to spread until it’s stained every bit of me with self-loathing. I seriously never thought to consider my attempts to be friendly as… progress. I will try to do so from now on.

In the month since I wrote it, well. Life has gone on. Some of it good, some of it bad, some of it heartbreaking, the regular amalgam of living. And, listen, I don’t really want to talk about any of the reasons I might have needed comfort during that time period. (It’s nothing serious, although it felt like it was. In any event, everything is fine.) Today, I just want to talk about the comfort part.

What I turn to, when I need comfort, are distractions (reading, writing, TV) and comforting food. And the food is what I’m most interested in today, because I find it fascinating (and soothing, in itself) to learn what kinds of food people turn to in times of stress or grief.

Sure, food is primarily for sustenance. But it can also carry so much emotional weight. (No moral weight, though; I feel strongly about that.) (Unless you are killing endangered species because their XYZ is a delicacy. Then I’d have a moral objection.)  For instance, my first helping instinct is often related to food. When a neighbor lost her husband earlier this year, I immediately wanted to give her a meal. That just seemed the most useful, reasonable thing I could do, to provide some modicum of comfort to a person I know but don’t know well, a person who was likely reeling with shock and heartache and visitors and logistics and grief.

I looked online, as one does, and was surprised – probably naively so – to see what a wide variety of options people recommended. I always thought a casserole was the appropriate thing to give. A nice, hearty macaroni casserole. Or a lasagna. Something like that: easy to heat, carb-heavy. But the recommendations spanned everything from veggies and dip to cookies to fried chicken to stew.

(I ended up making a stew. It was delicious, and hearty. The death happened in the winter, and I thought it would be good for freezing or ladling out to visitors.)

Lately, after needing some comfort myself, and then remembering that stew, I got to thinking about Food As Comfort in general, and how my idea of Comfort Food might be totally different from yours.

When I am in need of comfort, I turn to the carb-heavy stuff. Chicken paprikas is my go-to favorite. It’s creamy and noodle-y and spicy, and it just makes me feel warm and cared for. It’s kind of weird that it should be my top favorite comfort food, I think, because I didn’t grow up eating it. Instead, it’s something my husband and I started making together back when I was in grad school. Well, maybe that’s the reason: I associate it with him, with cozy dinners at home together with the one person who comforts me more than anyone else.

Sometimes, though, the comfort I need is more primal – a bear returning to its cave to weather the icy winds, a newborn nuzzling up to its mother to nurse, a caterpillar spinning itself a chrysalis. I want to retreat to childhood, which was safe and loving, during which I was free from the horrors of the world. And there are many foods from my childhood that surround me with that kind of basic, fundamental warmth.

One comforting favorite is spaghetti with meat sauce. That’s the first meal I learned to make for my family, back when I was a kid. It reminds me of my childhood and of my own self-sufficiency.

Most recently, I turned to bagels. Another longterm favorite, my mom used to toast Lender’s bagels for me when I was a kid. Dripping with butter, they taste both decadent and simple, life’s complications reduced to its elemental truth: Warm bread. Melted butter. Sometimes honey, making its way in sticky rivulets down my wrist. When I was pregnant with Carla – and horribly sick for twenty-five weeks (I first typed “months” and yes, that’s how it felt) – I subsisted on bagels and pizza. The bagels would stay in my stomach when nothing else would.

Grilled cheese holds a special place in my heart. It was my mother’s go-to Miserable Wintry Day food. A crust of butter on each slice of bread. A thick molten heart of Velveeta. A glass of classic Coke on the side. The unbeatable combination of gooeyness and crunch.

And I’ll always have fond memories of Lipton noodle soup. My mom swears by chicken noodle soup; Lipton did the job just fine, and (a plus for me), has no unappealing chunks of white Styrofoam masquerading as chicken. I tore open many a paper packet and watched the tiny freeze-dried noodles plump up in a swirl of boiling water.

The comfort may not be permanent. But it does help.

What are your go-to comfort foods?

 

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This is a ridiculous photo, but it’s the only one I have. I never eat this little. I eat a FULL BOWL, primarily full of sauce, which is the best part of any meal. 

Chicken Paprikas (adapted from Joy of Cooking)

Ingredients:

Approximately 6 servings

1 to 1½ pounds of boneless skinless chicken breast, chopped into bite sized pieces (pre-cooked is ideal; I’ve included a modification below in case you want to use raw chicken breast)

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 white onion, chopped roughly

1 Idaho potato, chopped roughly

1 to 3 Tbsp paprika

1 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

½ to 1 tsp salt

4 cups low-sodium chicken stock

1 8-oz container sour cream (I use the fat free sour cream from Trader Joe’s)

3 to 4 Tbsp flour or cornstarch

1 package egg noodles

Directions:

  1. Heat vegetable oil in a stock pan over medium-high heat.
  2. Add onion and paprika (and optional cayenne) to vegetable oil, stirring occasionally, until dark red and glossy.
  3. Add salt, chopped chicken breast, and chicken stock. When the mixture comes to a boil, add the chopped potato. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until you can stick a fork into the potato chunks and they slide off easily. I don’t know how to say this a better way; make sure the potato is cooked.

* If you have raw chicken breast pieces, you can do this step slightly differently. Add the raw chicken together with the salt and stock. Then, once it comes to a boil, simmer everything for 15 minutes until cooked through. Then add the potato and cook for another 15 minutes.

  1. Whisk flour/cornstarch and sour cream together in a small bowl.
  2. Add a ladle full of the stock mixture to the sour cream mixture and whisk until incorporated. Do this three times.
  3. Add the tempered sour cream mixture to the pot. Stir.
  4. Serve over egg noodles.
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2017 Round-Up-a-Rama

Welcome to the yearly recap! Which I am doing purely because Tradition and not because I want to!

Okay, and also for completeness. And also out of a sense of reciprocity, because I want to read YOUR recap. Link me to it in the comments, pretty please? I need some early 2018 reading.

(This yearly recap originated with Linda of All & Sundry. If you’re so inclined, you can read past versions of my responses: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009.) (Holy moly, I’ve been doing this nonsense a long time.)

  • What did you do in 2017 that you’d never done before?

This is one of the questions I am beginning to find tiresome about this recap. (You may recall that last year I began throwing out questions that irritated me. This hasn’t made the reject list… yet.) Perhaps if my life were full of Once In A Lifetime Events, it would be less so. Well. I shall keep it if ONLY because next year I will have something to add. (Don’t get too excited.)

Anyway. The thing I did this year that I’d never done before was attending a weeklong writers’ conference. It was amazing, packed full of valuable information, exhausting, and 100% worthwhile.

  • Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year, I said:

This year, I am going to finish the novel. That’s my primary goal. It’s taking so much longer than I anticipated just to eke out a first draft. I need to find some way to speed up the process. Because the first draft is only the beginning.

Well shit.

I did NOT finish the novel. I did NOT find a way to speed up the process. In fact, I became mired deeply in the realization that this part of it is Slow Going. But it’s a good one to put back on the list.

Also, I want to work on my patience, especially when it comes to my husband and my daughter. I want to work on exercising more regularly, because it greatly improves my mental health. I want to work on eating better. I want to read more.

Oh look, I left on some of the questions that I refused to answer last year! Just so we can give them a smug glance and move on!

  • Did anyone close to you give birth?
  • Did anyone close to you die?
  • What countries did you visit?

Same as last every year: Not really a big year for travel.

This year, I visited five states besides my own: California, Florida, New York, Virginia, and my home state out west.

I can’t really imagine the answers changing in a big way anytime soon. I mean, I have some trips coming up… but nothing out of the country until 2019.

  • What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017?

What I said last year:

Better ability to prioritize my time. A fully drafted novel. Making my time with Carla richer, somehow, rather than making a bunch of slipshod and ultimately frustrating attempts at “activities.”

Yes, let’s go with the first two once again for 2018. I think I succeeded, a lot, with the third. Carla and I spent a lot more time together in 2017 than we ever have before, and much of it was really  GREAT. We do a lot of activities – games and art projects and baking projects and walks and bike rides – together, we go to museums and playgrounds, we snuggle together, we read together. If only I could get the PATIENCE thing down, I think it would be about perfect.

Also. Deep breath. Listen, I have tried really hard over the past few years to be okay with my body. It is what it is. For the most part, I have been okay with it. But with the ever compounding effects of aging coupled with some recent weight gain, I now find myself in a not-so-great place with regards to my physical appearance. So I would like to find a way to balance the work I need to do to achieve (a semblance of) what I WANT against the sometimes-impossible-to-achieve desire to just be Zen about the state of my physical being and accept it for what it is.

  • What dates from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

This is kind of cheating, because it just happened, but December 29 because that’s when I learned that Sue Grafton passed away. She is an author whose work I have read for decades. And I admire her writing deeply, and love her primary character and her body of work. So I was really saddened when I found out she’d died.

  • What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Applying and being accepted to the writers’ conference.

  • What was your biggest failure?

Once again, what I said last year applies:

Not getting enough words on the page each day! I can trot out a 7,000-word blog post of a morning, but I seem to spend hours and hours coming up with a measly 200 for my manuscript! What gives? If I can do it elsewhere, why can’t I blather and drivel my way through a first draft?

Other failures abound!

As I mentioned before, attending the writing conference was hugely valuable… but I let it intimidate me. And that was a huge failure. Instead of digging in and doing the work, I shrank away from it and didn’t write for… many weeks. Once I got back into it, I think my writing has been stronger and more purposeful. But I am ashamed of myself for being so naïve about the process and then letting the revelation that This Isn’t Easy throw me for such a loop.

As if THAT wasn’t enough of a failure… I even blogged less than I did in 2016. So I don’t really know what’s going on. I am kicking the writing into HIGH GEAR in 2018, that’s for damn sure.

  • Did you suffer illness or injury?

In early September, I caught a cold. And it stuck around through all of September and then morphed into an atypical pneumonia in October. I finally kicked it in early November, but man. Being tired and unable to exercise for nearly two months was ROUGH. So, nothing serious (thank goodness) but it was annoying enough to be really memorable.

  • What was the best thing you bought?

I have no idea. My husband and I got each other a new mattress for Christmas, but the jury is still out on whether it’s better than our old mattress. I got a new coat that I like, and a new hat and scarf that I think are adorable.

  • Whose behavior merited celebration?

Every year I think it’s the same, so maybe this question should go on the reject list:

This goes 100% to my husband. He is a rockstar. I can’t even express all the ways he’s shown up this year without drowning my keyboard in tears, so let’s move on. 

  • Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

As I said last year:

I mean do you really have to ask, non-sentient Survey created years ago with no knowledge of our current times? I think I’m going to cross this one out because it makes me sad and bewildered and fearful and shaky.

  • Where did most of your money go?
  • What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The past couple of years, my answer has been about Carla and the holidays. And it just keeps getting better and better! She gets SO excited about everything! But she is also getting old enough to really think about the holidays and look forward to them. She was interested in Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and we went to Temple together. She was excited about Hanukkah and even lit the menorah all by herself (with close parental supervision, of course). She was excited about Christmas and had a blast picking out presents for her family and wrapping them herself, making Christmas cookies and chocolates, decorating the tree, and everything before, after, and in between. So much fun!

I also got really excited about the writing conference. It was a huge step outside my comfort zone, and I’m really glad I did it.

  • What song(s) will always remind you of 2017?

Carla has become OBSESSED with Taylor Swift. We listen to 1989 all the time in the car and she can sing most of the songs word for word. Her favorite is “Wildest Dreams.” I also think of “Despacito” when I think of this year, because it was on the radio a lot and because Carla really enjoyed it. There are others that I am not remembering because I am tired.

  • Compared to this time last year, are you:
  1. a) happier or sadder?
  2. b) thinner or fatter?
  3. c) richer or poorer?

This is a question I don’t care to answer anymore, I think. Are these really the benchmarks by which I want to measure the year? No, no I don’t think so. IRRITATED SCOWLING.

  • What do you wish you’d done more of?

Writing. (Always.) Reading. Prioritizing my time better. Exercising.

  • What do you wish you’d done less of?

Yelling. Looking at my phone. Looking at headlines and freaking out. Stressing about things I have no control over.

  • How did you spend Christmas?

Here at home, with my husband and Carla, and my parents. It was lovely and fun. We had snow. We had delicious food – my dad made a roast, my mom made a pie. We made chocolates – including three batches of caramel (two of which became caramel sauce rather than candies – very happy mistakes indeed). We played lots of games. We drank lots of wine. We watched lots of movies (Elf still makes me cry. Which makes me feel stupid. But man, there’s just something so TOUCHING about all those people singing Christmas carols together and believing in Santa!) It was relaxing and warm and delightful.

  • Did you fall in love in 2017?

Ugh. REJECT. Every year this one makes me gag a little. Let’s just say for the foreseeable future it will always be my husband, my daughter, or both of them.

  • What was your favorite (new) TV program?

Oh, how I love television!!! Mindhunter was good. So was Ozark. I enjoyed The Fall, even though it wasn’t my husband’s favorite. Big Little Lies was amazing and I wish I could watch it again for the first time. Dark was pretty excellent. Major Crimes is in its last season, and I am sad about that, because I have loved the cast and the format since the early days of The Closer. I also loved the latest seasons of The Americans, Fargo, Game of Thrones, The Great British Baking Competition, Shark Tank, Black-ish, Fresh Off the Boat, The Middle, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Master of None and Catastrophe. God, I love TV.

  • Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

I can’t even. This question has got to go.

  • What was the best book you read?

Last November I fell into a Sue Grafton wormhole and started reading my way through her Kinsey Millhone series (again). In February – Q Is for Quarry, to be exact – I grew weary of the project. But after reading her newest (and final) book Y Is for Yesterday this past October, I had a renewed desire to finish. So I have V and W left to go. And now I own the entire series.

Okay, that entire paragraph had nothing to do with the question. The best book, I think, is a three-way tie between Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, Joe Ide’s IQ, and Justin Cronin’s The Passage. All were excellent, and I still think about them. They were high points in an otherwise dreary year, reading-wise. I don’t know what my problem is. It’s not lack of good reading material, that’s for sure. I just have been in a Reading Funk. Oh well. It happens, I guess.

  • What did you want and get?

For Christmas: Some survivalist tools. A new painting by my mother. A white Christmas. A new mattress. A cozy sweater that I kept seeing on every gift guide ever. Books: a new one I’ve been eyeing and another I haven’t. Cozy socks.

In general: Acceptance to the writing conference. Lots of really great quality time with my husband and Carla. More confidence as a (part-time) stay-at-home-mom.

  • What did you want and not get?

Second verse, same as the first:

A finished first draft of my manuscript because I am SLOW.

  • What was your favorite film of this year?

I don’t watch many movies, so I am squinting really hard trying to remember ANY besides Moana. Which was, hands down, the best movie I’ve seen all year. So. Good. Carla and I both cried in the theater when watching it for the first time, and again when we watched it at home many weeks later.

  • What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
  • What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Same as every year (don’t I ever PROGRESS as a person?!?!):

Being able to just LET GO and not freak out about EVERYTHING.

  • How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2017?

Um, trying to stay on trend enough to not feel like a Total Loser around the other moms at dropoff without giving in to Being Trendy or spending a million bucks? Does that count as a personal fashion concept?

  • What kept you sane?

My husband. Exercise. Mom friends. Being able to write every day most days.

  • Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I have big writer crushes on Louise Erdrich, Celeste Ng, and the late Sue Grafton.

  • What political issue stirred you the most?
  • Who did you miss?

I have had a lot of serious loneliness for some of my good friends who don’t live in my state. My best friend from forever, who lives two time zones away. My dear friend from medical school (not that she or I actually went to medical school; our husbands did) who has two beautiful daughters and a wonderful husband and who is, herself, fantastic. I wish they lived nearer. Some college friends I miss.

  • Who was the best new person you met?

I have made a few new friends through Carla! Some are still in the very early stages, others are moving right along. I haven’t found a Best Friend yet, but that’s okay.

  • Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017.

Same as last year because I find myself amusing:

Write it down, don’t write it right, for the love of all that is holey.

  • Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

(I don’t know if the following makes sense as a lyric or as the answer to this question, but it’s in my head, so I’m going with it.)

Will you remember me / standing in a nice dress / staring at the sunset babe.

Red lips and rosy cheeks / Say you’ll see me again / even if it’s just in your

Wildest dreams.

Happy New Year, Internet! I hope 2018 goes a hell of a lot better than 2017!