submission

Give in, to submit, does not mean giving up. Rumi has a poem about the chick pea and cooking which I have used as so much as a metaphor for life. The chick pea climbs to the top of the boiling pot, and the chef beats it down again and again with a spoon. Finally the chick pea's nature is revealed, its basic form is transformed into something edible and it thanks the chef for helping it reveal its mystery. This is life, this is the transforming power of love and even of anger, of sorrow. It transforms us into another form, an edible form, more palatable, more accessible. If love does not transform, and its cousin anger, does not activate, we lie there, a hard seed. And so this has been my challenge throughout life, to be strong, and to be willing to transform for love, for sorrow, and yes, for anger. I have and do, hold back out of fear. And yet, to grow, to be palatable, for my vegetable love to become edible to my lover, for my anger to transform it into the ashes of a fertile soil, for my sorrow to rain upon the future, I have to let go. And it is hard. Wine transforms, with a price. Music helps the transition, but lamaze like, I breathe through the hard times, and the transformation sometimes needs help. Yelling, loving, sighing, whispers of the past espressed help to move all of us forward into new love and yes, anger, and sorrow. You cannot only have one, it is a sacred trinity of emotion that I struggle with. In the confessional, in the last suppers and first mornings of our communion of souls I want to be that chick pea, expertly managed, submitted into my new self. And, I too, am a chef, I also have that transforming power for someone else. This is the great mystery, we all submit, we all give into the hope that, despite the fear, we can move ourself into the next realm.

chocolate

What the hell, chocolate melts at body temperature. And that, dear readers, is interesting in its possibilities. Put chocolate on your pulse points as a perfume. Put chocolate on parts of the body to lick off. Nope, too hard on the sheets. Why not a chocolate liqueur perfume? Not everyone likes chocolate, which is interesting, I do not consider it a part of the basic food groups, but it sure is nice when I want it. I would rather not do without onions, tomatoes and garlic, but they are not chocolate. Of course, there are so many tidbits, dweeby facts, about chocolate. The Aztecs drank it as a sacred drink, and over 30 cups a day would boost anyone's attenuated enhanced caffiene level, which may explain their penchant for ripping hearts out in sacrifice, too much chocolate. I find it interesting too, that the Catholic countries of Spain adopted this drink from the Americas, whereas the Protestant group, those dour Lutherans, the tight Anglicans, went for caffeine. Islam prohibited Caffeine for a time until the Sultan "got it" that the most productive folks drank coffee. So the Spaniards weren't productive? And the Swiss, with their regimented society, the clocks, the lack of women's rights, just might keep everyone in place with chocolate. Or the French with large soup bowls of chocolate for breakfast with croissants. For such a overtly formal society, I find it interesting that they feed kids bowls of chocolate for breakfast with a roll that representa Vienna crushing the Ottomans. I find it quite interesting, that an old bunny, made about October in a mold, wrapped in foil, is sold as an Easter spring confection. I eat the ears first and work down from there. I have a kilo of chcocolate beans from a producer to show my students. They think I am showing them Hershey bits, until they eat them and find, as the bits melt on their body temperature tongue, that it is bitter. Chocolate is love, so the candy czars say, and so, is love bitter? Is Valentine's a ruse, a bitter future balanced with lots of sugar and knee-jerk "I don't know what else to buy so so here is chocolate?" Who is driving who? chocolate nibs were sold once, and we bought them as mulch for the yard, wafting a Hershey smell over the blueberries. But it got wet, and stank, and revelaed it's swampy nature, much like love may when hidden in the dark to turn into a moldy mess when not appreciated. Chocolate is the new neutral to wear, it is overcoming black with its dark softness, it goes with bright colors and still breathes sophistication. The new chocolatiers are messing with chocolate, fancy-dancy bars mixed with lavender, sea salt, curry, chilies, all to mix up our enhanced palletes. Maybe someday the foil old chocolate Easter bunney would be a mix of chocolate and say, coconut. Heresy. Candies for holidays should be made a year ago, when you did not even know the man or woman, wait on the shelf until that holiday approaches and then are selected to show spontaneous love. I would rather have a basket of chilies and garlic and cook for the man. I won't turn down chocolate, I eat it all. But, bring me the herbs, the spices, and I may, with a mortar, grind them with chocolate to make a mole, the crowning glory of Aztec culture mixed with the Spanish Arabs, the sauce with nuance, spice, and chocolate to cook with. That is love, a mix, a blend, personalized, not old foil wrapped candy. Bring it on, let's get blending and grinding, and cooking.

other god damn people

Ok, I have been busy, happily so, with friends, activities, new life, travel, and many, many people I love. But this is a rant. I will get it off my bosom, breasts, chest, and forceable, shaky anger before I can write about the good stuff. condos suck. I have no yard work, just negligent weedeaters, true. I have no water bill, but share a laundry, ok, I can get that, and quarters are worth more than gold. But what really pisses me off is neighbors, and having to worry about them as I live my life. I know, I know, they need to live their life, and are entitled to not worry about mine, my space, my noise, and my dogs. But, God Damn it, when a neighbor comes to the window to check if I put the noise collar on my dog, I am glad my dog barks. I have Russells, two of them and they bark.I know it, in my old home, the wicked witch of the west next door would dictate that we put them inside when she had a garden party. Never mind her steonorian voice, hearing every syllable on her cel phone as she tanned, she hated our dogs. And, so, in this place, I have them about every other week, the doggy dad and I have reached a state of friendship, where I take them, or drop them off when I leave at 5 am for the restaurant, great. Great arrangement, I help with them when dog dad is out of town. But for god's sake, today I left for 4 hours, I forgot to put on the collar or close the blinds, I raced out, Home 30 seconds and the call the threat, and I realize that not all is good in condo-town. I have to behave, to be neighborly, and realize in this high grade ant hill I am nothing. Americans are independent so it figures that she calls me when upset, and I am upset that I cannot be me, or have my dog kids in this cooperative setting. And, this rams home the many many changes I have made this year, what I have gained, so much of myself back, and what I have lost, some independence, some quality of privacy by moving here. I couldn't afford a house, this is a good place, but there is some accommodation: I don't need more stuff, the size is right. Translate, it is small. I save money I won't put in a laundry. Translate: 30 steps outside in the rain is still outside in the rain. I don't have yardwork. Translate: I have to put up with other's sense of yard, and I miss my flowers. And, the god damn noise of dogs I love, I hug in bed at night, my pals, my kids, are in jeopardy. I am too independent for this, but this is what I have, this is what I must accommodate to, it is not about food, friends, loves, not any of the reasons I started this blog. And it sucks. But it in my face again how much I have tried to make it work, to go forward this year, and here it is, someone is challenging my trying to move forward with pets I love. I may have to give up more of them to survive here, on the good graces, not a problem, with their dad. He has been great letting me drop them off way early for him. And for that, I am lucky. But I am well and truly pissed, and mad, and don't know what to do to calm down. Yeah yeah, I know, the world is at war, and there are many many more things than a barking dog, but that is my point, why does she upstairs get so upset? Because she can. That's all I have to say, life is good, it is fun this summer, and many, many happy things on the horizon. They come with a shock collar, and I don't mean on the dogs.

kitchen sub cultures

The mark of a kitchen is what type of music is played at 6 am while you 're prepping. Bakers play loud rock, at least the ones I know, at 4 am to stay awake. Four is their midnight. Over the lase few years I have dropped in, for financial and entertainment gain, to work in kitchens. Usually I am the oldest one there, unless the owner is there or the full on chef. I have discovered a new culture, the kitchen groupies, those who work from kitchen to kitchen, migratory cooks within the city. Morning folks tend to be young women, thinking of going into the profession, and full of light and happiness. The evening shift varies with the restaurant. For the upscale, they tend to be culinary students, with an eye on the prize, the skillet, the future restaurant. For the upscale vegetarian one I worked at last year, it was a whole new set of values. Talk was of the discordant political view, the sideways slant of militant vegetarians who were convinced the government is out to screw us with pesticides, and bunnies in cages. Militant vegetarians seems an oxymoron, you would think if you were not ripping meat with your canines you might be a happy muncher of greens and smooth out. However, not to be, I learned a whole lot about anarchists, the dope scene among cooks from midnight to four to come down from being amped up after cooking, the floater bands they followed, and the incestous sexcapades between all their casual trading-dating. I just hung in there with the conversations, kept my mouth shut about being a teacher which felt like I was a narc-o-plant, or I would not have learned a thing. And, I had fun. I morphed back to my college days with my own sexcapades, harley riding boyfriend and vegetation. As we chopped, diced, pureed and whipped, so did the stories, coming out in bursts like: "Hey, remember the band last week that...wait, is the sauce done, no thicken it, anyway, the band was really radical about their...is that your timer?" Somehow I followed it all. Now the breakfast girls are something else instead, they all are about 20.5, and keep telling me I do not look 55. Yeah right, but gotta love them. Their talk instead is always what they are going to do when off, and how they catch up on their sleep. One is engaged, and truly has saved herself until marriage, so we talk about this in quiet voices to not carry out into the dining room. These young women are experienced in ways I never was at 20, I had other experiences, I had lived abroad, knew Leningrad, London, Frankfurt. These women have live in boyfriends, are taking snorkling classes, maintaining their gardens, one left school at 17 to travel South America with her guy. They set up, I cook, we nibble the food and lift over and over, heavy racks of hot dishes to put away. It is physical work. At ten the housekeepers come in with cigarettes, stories of hard lives with men, the bikers, the landlords, the kids, the stepkids. They grab some cookies and go into the basement to fold and stack heavy loads of linens. They take a smoke break at 11 and I realize I have bene full on working since 6 without a break so step outside for 5 minutes in the cool air. I haven't sat down, I have gone up and down the basement steps to the pantry many times, I have lifted racks of dishes, fielded three cups of cold coffee and chatted with the gals. And yet I have been more myself, turning out food that is a tangible product compared to education where you don't know if anything takes, than I am in my English classroom. I like the anarchists, the road weary cleaners, the young women with their lovers, the rock music, and the chatter. I am a voyeur, and I am only passing through.

Asking for directions

The joke goes that men don't ask for directions because they don't want to admit they are lost. Following that vein, I have taken, in the last several years, to trying to do it on my own fix things on my own, asking for help when it absolutely was no other way. Feminism, do it on your own, don't need men, had mutated into don't ask for help in any way. But that construct's old &outmoded and I began, and now realize, that asking help is a gift. It is a gift to ask someone else about their area of knowledge, to receive it. In fact, receiving is a big part of the lesson. Gracefully. In the last few weeks I have had to ask for advice on small appliances, where to get things, and computers which were beginning to develop a mind of their own, cyborg wise. My Pinocchio life, wanting to be a "real girl" was changing into knowing when to ask for help and accepting it. So, I fixed the dishwasher, with e mail discussions about it, and finally on line with a help it site complete with pictures. If only we could solve all our problems on line, the on line shrink, the on line whatever; in fact it is probably more true than not that most questions can be solved on line. But I am not on a desert island or under the pole in a submarine, where all contact is through cyber space. So, some help is face to face, or actual voice on the phone. How far to drive my over heating car? Should I call AAA? Offerc to come up and follow to the garage, check ins it I got there, offers to pick up the dogs since they couldn't ride in my rental car, all this is help. And I try to help back, again checking on the dogs, offering to buy my daughter lunch on her break, offering to go across town to save driving to an event..help. We all need each other, there is no room for animosity or distance except if someone wants you to continue so they can be vicariously part of an argument. Not me, I am learning to ask for directions, from the dishwasher, to the car, to my big big one, finances. I don't know it all, and I am tired of pretending that I do. Most of the people I ask are men, because in a wierd way, when I talk to women and they to me, we don't really ask for help, we chat and learn by comparison. Men don't do that, they get in and get out with how tos, and move on. It is not Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, it is Men are from the Hardward Store, and Women are from the self-help section. That's ok. I was proud to fix some of my own things, I want to be resourceful, but no longer so damned independent. I like being treated like a worthwhile woman, and accepting offers to help, or grace is a way to pay it forward for the many kindnesses I have received.