BIG OL’ NOTE: I am writing these entries from the far, far distant future of two weeks ahead of the day I’m writing about. Democracy is currently in flames, justice is not just blind but also lost, people still want to argue against Black Lives Matter, Black Panther just left us, we’re trying to reframe pain as a teaching moment while also teaching our kids, we are STILL in a pandemic, and an appeals court just stripped journalists and legal observers of their protection from police violence. So a FOOD CHALLENGE is really…REALLY not important right now. I know this. You know. this. I’m writing these entires as an exercise to get myself into regular writing again. I’m doing this challenge to get my joints in some functioning state again. I’m finishing a thing because I said I would again. This is not an excuse to get out of talking about more important things - far from it. This is simply a note to say I am writing in the present about the past and I’m trying to make it work.
Also, it takes me three days to write one mediocre entry because quarantine means my child has more questions for me at the exact moment I am doing something than she has ever in her entire lifetime.
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I’ve met someone.
I know, I know. You’ve seen me like this before. I was so obsessed with “meuslove” during Whole30, and I thought we’d be together forever. Turns out, when you can have actual oatmeal or cereal again, you don’t want to spend an hour chopping up apples and nuts to make breakfast. Our torrid affair was doomed by my laziness and its total unwillingness to be bread. Alas. Besides, I can’t even have apples on this damn plan. I’M OVER HIM.
But now, I’ve met someone else. Don’t worry, this one is even MORE complicated!
My newest love demands more of me, for she is intricate and sophisticated. She asks that I imagine sweet potatoes…as toast. I know! It’s ridiculous! But wait…then we add smoked salmon and poached eggs to it, and everyone needs to stop talking and look at it. Her. Look at her.
(whispers) I love yooooouuuuuu…
See, my husband prefers his eggs scrambled because he obviously hates the joy that is a runny egg making everything around it better with its yolky sauce goodness. Fine. He will live his life in sadness and despair, and I cannot help him. There’s only so much I can do in our time together.
Meanwhile, let’s look at my new lover up close with the poached egg. Yes Lord.
WARNING: SEXUAL CONTENT
You put an egg on something, I’m going to eat it. This is just the science of me. But even I was dubious when I read sweet potato “toast,” because any food in quotes scares me, and it should scare you too. Food shouldn’t be an idea. It should be…ya know…food. This lady actually talked about putting a slice of sweet potato in the toaster over and over again until it was done, and then suggested the oven as an alternative.
Like…you could smash each little coffee bean with the back of your spoon until it’s a pound of ground coffee, OR I can suggest you can put the beans in a grinder. My God.
So we’re two days in, and I’m feeling like everything is now going to be delicious. Whew.
I recorded my Not A Robot VO voice for a bit, blinked, and realized I had to make lunch.
I decided on a salad with a cauliflower rice base, because I used to make a salad with a farro base back when grains weren’t a Thing Which Must Not Be Named (RIP Harry Potter jokes and thinking JK was a decent human).
I also still had those motherfucking egg bite fails left over, and I had to get rid of them. They would ruin my delicious streak! I had to counteract them!
Thankfully, I had ordered some tinned fish.
That is a sentence I just typed. And I meant it. I am just as frightened as you are.
See, I love Samantha Irby more than most people, and if you aren’t subscribing to her Judge Mathis newsletter, your life is not as good as you think it is. She recently suggested this adorable site for tinned fish, and I, being a lemming, went right to it. I have a friend who works as a personal trainer for very wealthy people, and he suggested I start getting into what he calls, “that old lady fish” because I have such old lady joints. HE didn’t say that last part, but my knees did right before they said, “A STORM’S A COMIN! BETTER GO BRING IN THE CAT.”
I didn’t buy anything from that site, and instead went on a deep exploration of articles about what I should buy and what it tastes like. Once I learned about conservas and Martha Stewart told me which brands to buy and how to eat them, I settled on two cans of mussels and one of cockles in brine. Cause…cockles. That’s funny shit.
Turns out, smoked mussels in esabeche from Spain are THE BUSINESS and I am VERY late to this. Do not be late. Go get them. Here or learn about other brands here.
So I got to have my salad with these beauties and used the Egg Dome of Failure as a pretty topper. It couldn’t ruin this.
We can have olive oil so long as it isn’t cooked with, so the oil from this? Instant delicious dressing.
I proceeded to break my arm patting myself on the back for the rest of the day until I realized I also spent that day telling an 8 year old to be quiet and not letting her go outside because I had to work. No no, I don’t need a mug, I can’t lift it. Broken arm.
To make myself feel more incompetent, I started the arduous process of transferring my entire life over from one glass brick to another, shinier, glass brick. I got a new phone, because I am far too conditioned as a consumer to ignore the siren song of, “You just paid off your old phone!” I just couldn’t wait to be in NEW debt. On the bright side, it did take me all night to back everything up and transfer it. Financial and technical genius. Right here. Ah, to be in the BeforeTimes, where the Verizon employee was transferring our precious texts, appointments, Venmo history, and nudes over for us while we looked at the Otter cases for the 9th time because we had no phone to distract us from not having a phone.
At home, the employee is me, and I still have to make dinner. That counts as a distraction. Fine.
So I looked at the calendar I put together (listen. if I don’t plan the shit, I will fail. I can whip up whatever in normal times, but this right here? This requires planning or I’m ordering 15 pizzas and calling it a week), and saw that we were having vegan curry. Great. I made the sauce ahead of time. Planning.
To plan: 1. place vegetables in front of you with no discernible reasoning or order, and drink soup right from the pot with a ladle so you feel like a very wealthy giant. 2. Enjoy sweater.
The entire recipe was simple, and all I had to do was roast some veggies, put the sauce on it, pretend I was full, and go to sleep.
Taste this very incomplete rainbow.
Also, my food photography
I swear it was more delicious than this looks.
Here’s the thing: it was actually delicious and I WAS full after we ate. Sure, it didn’t last or give me that “I might be sick” feeling or give me guilt for eating too much…but….I guess it still counts as dinner? It’s hard to tell.