My partner and I went to the Green Markets in NYC yesterday. Spent the morning roaming around. Originally, we were going to get the ingredients for ratatouille, but there was no zucchini to be had. So, I had a thought, why not make a vegetable stew? Better, let's cook it in a small pumpkin. Thus this recipe was born.
My partner is vegan and is also on something called Dr. Fuhrman's Diet, so there is no salt or oils added to this recipe. You can, as with any recipe, adjust to your taste.
Reticent Blatherer's Vegan Pumpkin Stew.
5 pound sugar pumpkin
1 small eggplant
1 large piece of garlic
1/2 pound of fingerling potatoes
1 small winesap apple
1 medium small onion
1 tomato
1 teaspoon each of ground cumin, ground allspice and ground black pepper
Open the pumpkin and remove the seeds. Remove about a half of the meat inside the pumpkin and set aside. Cut all the ingredients up and mix them together with the spices and pumpkin meat. Place it all back into the pumpkin and put the top on (probably won't go). Wrap it up in foil and bake in a 250 degree oven for 3 hours.
-Reticent Blatherer
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Riding the storm out
Two weeks ago, the promised "superstorm" finally hit the New York Metro area. Much of the Jersey shore is damaged, some of it is gone. A week after that, a nor'easter hit the same coastline. Many people who had gotten their power back after Sandy were again plunged into cold and darkness. While my house did fine, it's on a hill and no big trees around, I lost power for four days after the hurricane and another two or three after the snowstorm.
There are many kinds of storms that interrupt our lives. There are the physical ones, of course, then there are the more subtle ones that people observing you may not even know are happening to you. People looking at you from the outside may see you as happy and outgoing. They may see you smiling. They may see you laughing. They never, ever, see the shadow over your shoulder. Bankruptcy. Insolvency. Thoughts of suicide. Crippling depression and anxiety. Fear of failure. Failing others and much worse, to fail yourself.
This has been brought home to me again and again in my life. There is a thin, almost porcelain veneer that most of us have over the inner us. A barrier that others are rarely allowed into. A barrier that shatters if it is examined to closely. A barrier that shatters if the wearer moves too quickly. In that shattering, all the pain and angst inside are laid bare to a psychic barrage of lemon juice and salt: fear and self loathing.
So how does the person inside the porcelain mask deal with this kind of life? As best as you can. You take better life through chemistry. That is limited, of course, and the finding of the right cocktail is it's own form of hell. The short answer is that you "Do the things that you know you have to do". You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to bathe. You force yourself to look like you give a flying fuck. Maybe you can convince yourself, too. You have to convince others.
You look to the others. The ones that have glimpsed behind that veneer and not been disgusted by what is seen there and run shrieking into the night. You hold onto them like a drunk holds onto a light pole, staggering home after a bender. You care for them, because they care for you. You dig yourself out.
Depression is an illness of management. Depression is insidious. I won't lie to you, it is a curse. A curse that not many understand. A curse that has brought us some of our greatest literature. A curse that has brought us some of our greatest tragedies.
-Reticent Blatherer
There are many kinds of storms that interrupt our lives. There are the physical ones, of course, then there are the more subtle ones that people observing you may not even know are happening to you. People looking at you from the outside may see you as happy and outgoing. They may see you smiling. They may see you laughing. They never, ever, see the shadow over your shoulder. Bankruptcy. Insolvency. Thoughts of suicide. Crippling depression and anxiety. Fear of failure. Failing others and much worse, to fail yourself.
This has been brought home to me again and again in my life. There is a thin, almost porcelain veneer that most of us have over the inner us. A barrier that others are rarely allowed into. A barrier that shatters if it is examined to closely. A barrier that shatters if the wearer moves too quickly. In that shattering, all the pain and angst inside are laid bare to a psychic barrage of lemon juice and salt: fear and self loathing.
So how does the person inside the porcelain mask deal with this kind of life? As best as you can. You take better life through chemistry. That is limited, of course, and the finding of the right cocktail is it's own form of hell. The short answer is that you "Do the things that you know you have to do". You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to bathe. You force yourself to look like you give a flying fuck. Maybe you can convince yourself, too. You have to convince others.
You look to the others. The ones that have glimpsed behind that veneer and not been disgusted by what is seen there and run shrieking into the night. You hold onto them like a drunk holds onto a light pole, staggering home after a bender. You care for them, because they care for you. You dig yourself out.
Depression is an illness of management. Depression is insidious. I won't lie to you, it is a curse. A curse that not many understand. A curse that has brought us some of our greatest literature. A curse that has brought us some of our greatest tragedies.
-Reticent Blatherer
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)