Category Archives: relationships

Spain: Vacation Highs and Post Vacation Lows

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When you celebrate Thanksgiving in Spain you do not have turkey, you have paella. You go to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Museum and ooh and aah at a Cartier exhibit, scratch your head at a Picasso painting, and get lost in Chagall’s weird dreamy world, and eat lunch by Neptune’s Fountain before you enjoy your Thanksgiving feast.

You go hiking in the mountains instead of hunting for deals on Black Friday.

You drink wine every day for lunch and dinner.

You touch the 2,000-year-old stones of an aqueduct in Segovia, and then kiss your boyfriend in front of said aqueduct for good measure.

You eat pastries.

You smell the roses in Retiro Park.

You buy a new coat. You walk the streets of Madrid til your legs are sore.

You are reminded that you are, in fact, old as you shake your fist at those dang kids in the hostel who are being loud late at night. You hold your boyfriend’s hand, the hand you didn’t hold for three long months, and you laugh and fight and make up with him, because you haven’t done that in person in three months.

These are what are called vacation highs. These are the reasons why Madrid for Thanksgiving was perfect.

Why can’t vacations just be that? All highs, all perfection. Coming home means snuggles with a certain dog and cat, seeing my friends and family, and yes, even coming back to work (cause I have a pretty rad job). Coming home also means being lonely in my own house. It means the feeling of missing this guy is raw and fresh all over again.

I’m just going to squeeze my eyes shut and remember what it felt like to hold hands in Spain. Those vacations highs are going to be just enough to December 20!

Roast a Chicken for Me

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Hello from the Philadelphia airport! I am on my way to Madrid, Spain to meet up with Michael, his sister, and his mom and stepdad! It’s been three long months since Michael left for Sweden. The wi-fi here is atrocious. This is 2012, people! Get with the wireless world. So hopefully I can get this post finished. However, when you read this I’ll be in Madrid already. So technically, hello from Madrid?

Traveling stresses me out only a little bit. Let’s just say this has been a long week, and I won’t drink coffee at night when I’m anxious anymore. The only thing I’ve had planned out for weeks is my travel outfit. Does that sound dumb? Comfort is of the utmost importance when you spend a day and night traveling. Plus, if you want to bring anything extra bulky (like boots), you should probably work them into your travel outfit so as not to have to squash them into your suitcase. Plus, hair gets flat, greasy, and unfortunate after hours on a plane. Thank goodness for braids and head scarves.

Two weeks ago Michael and I had another cooking date—a whole roasted chicken. While this may sound slightly intimidating, trust me, it’s not. And a roasted chicken is just about the best thing you can put in your oven on a Sunday afternoon. Why? Well I’ll just tell you.

A roasted chicken is super hands off. Prep it the day before you plan to roast it by spicing it up a bit. Put it in the oven for an hour to an hour and  a half. That is it!

If you are one or two people a whole chicken will feed you for at least a week. This makes the cost worth it. Chicken on salads, chicken in enchiladas, chicken on pasta….endless possibilities. Get creative with your leftovers!

Chicken parts (bones, innards, the back) are great for homemade stock. Freeze that business and use it once you’ve gathered enough chicken parts and vegetables.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner (how in the world did that even happen already?!) and maybe you don’t celebrate with a large group of people. A chicken is a great smaller alternative to a turkey.

Now, where do you get a whole chicken? I suggest you get yourself to a local butcher or venture to a nearby farmers market and make friends with a chicken farmer. Either of these places will sell you a lovely local whole chicken. Whole Foods or Fresh Market are also excellent options.

Michael did a great job with this recipe as a beginner cook. He even proudly pulled legs and a breast off of the cooked chicken, and was amazed at how the breast looked just like a boneless chicken breast he’d buy at the store.

I roasted some seasonal vegetables (oh so frickin fancy, let me stick my nose in the air, lalala)—cauliflower and potatoes. Put them in the roasting pan with the chicken when there’s about half an hour of cooking time left. Just sprinkle some salt, pepper, and olive oil over them! I also happen to like a little curry on my cauliflower.

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Long-Distance Cooking Dates: Vegetable and Roasted Chickpea Fajitas

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I have this bad habit of talking to myself. It’s really noticeable at work, because there are people there to hear me and call me out. At home, no one knows. And in reality, I’m not talking to myself, I’m talking to Mira and Lola. Since Michael’s left, this habit has gotten worse, because most of the time I’m at home just me.

Lots of times I wish Michael was here or accessible every hour by phone. I wish someone had given us a guidebook to the longlong-distance relationship. In the last two months we’ve figured out some pretty good tips and ways to stay close. For one we have a new motto (brought about because for the first month I always looked sad or cried when we video chatted):

I don’t like saying I miss you every day. I like saying I love you every day.

We also have cooking dates via video chat (we use Gchat). You would think that I’d come up with this idea, what with my love of chopping, mixing, the oven, stove, and Kitchen Aid mixer. But no. My boyfriend, the one who considers cooking putting an unseasoned chicken breast in the oven for 20 minutes cooking, suggested the idea. Here’s how it works.

We come up with a recipe. It can be a savory meal or a dessert. Last weekend we made vegetable and roasted chickpea fajitas.

The one requirement is that the recipe doesn’t have a long list of ingredients (Michael has to translate them all into Swedish and then find them in the Swedish grocery store). The recipe also can’t be incredibly complicated, because he is still learning. So I send Michael the ingredient list. We gather ingredients.

We set up a time, mostly on the weekends, we turn on the video chat, and we cook a meal or a batch of cookies together.

Our cooking dates are amazing, and I know this is something we probably wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t for the long distance. Normally I come home from work, and take the time in the kitchen to fix dinner as time to myself to unwind. Now we share kitchen time. I get to teach Michael how to brown butter and juice a lime and slice an avocado and infuse olive oil with garlic, all of which he has done successfully, f.y.i.

It’s been a learning experience for me, too, that’s for certain. I have to be patient, as it takes him twice as long to chop a pepper. Things that come as second nature to me I have to explain to him. Making a simple pasta dish takes 45 minutes, when I could have been eating in front of the t.v. in 15 minutes. But it’s totally worth it. And best of all? I have someone to talk to! We cook, we chat about our days….it’s almost like we’re in the same house.

So last week’s recipe…vegetable and roasted chickpea fajitas. It’s one I’ve made many times before. It’s not that hard. Not that many ingredients. Filling. Quick enough to make on a weeknight. Leftovers? If you’re just a one person eating machine like me, you’ll have at least lunch for the next day. And, of course, you can make this tasty dinner with no pre-packaged foods, no bad-for-you spice mixes. It’s all real food.

Combine chickpeas with spices and roast them. They get all crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside. This alone makes a phenomenal snack.

Chop up vegetables (I forgot mushrooms this time, whoops!).

Saute them up with some spices.

Assemble in a tortilla with some greek yogurt (or turkish as, I think, was the nationality of Michael’s yogurt).

And dig in!

Recipe for chickpea goodness follows!

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That Really Deep Hole That’s Filled With Apple Crisp

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Yesterday was hard. The first week Michael was gone was hard. I cried a lot. It was kind of like going through a break up all over again, but this time I had a kind and wonderful supportive boy to comfort me, instead of one to feed me crap lines like “this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” (What’s up with that anyway? I heard someone say that on TV, ahem Dawson’s Creek, today, and thought why do people say that? If this was really the hardest thing you’d ever done, would you be doing it?) So I sat around feeling sad for a week.

Then things got better. They just…did. Nothing in my life changed. Mike is still in another country. I’m still here, my life sort of on hold, sharing my bed with two girls (sexy, no?).But things got better.

Then yesterday hit. Like a fucking bag of bricks.

Yesterday the Jew in me welcomed the new year. Shana Tova! This year for the first time the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah were filled with anticipation, the kind you feel before Christmas. I think this has to do with the fact that I work at a Jewish organization now. The office was filled with people wishing each other Shana Tova, discussing holiday plans and meals, and talking about what they would do with their two days off. That’s right, I didn’t work yesterday or today. I couldn’t wait to spend the days contemplating the last year and looking forward to the new one. But then I spent Monday alone. Which would have been fine, but alone means lonely these days, too. And what with the holiday and all and the condescending little prick of a college “super senior” who sat down next to me at services, I just couldn’t handle the aloneness.

Now, I am not even here to complain. Guys, I’ve got it damn good. I don’t have to hide my religion, I get to celebrate it freely. I have a loving and loyal boyfriend who, despite living far away, gives me confidence in our relationship every day. I just. Fell. Into one of those huge holes, the kind where the bottom is really far away from the top, even though you can see the top, the bright blue sky, clearly. You just cannot climb out of that damn hole.

So you sit in there at the bottom and you wallow. Oh man, does wallowing feel good sometimes, right? And you wonder how you are a functioning adult and how you manage to get out of bed in the morning. And then you move to the wallowing part where you wonder why you don’t have kids yet. And just because you haven’t been having unprotected sex and pumping small humans out of your vagina doesn’t mean you haven’t been busy. And then you imagine what you’ll say next time someone asks you, “So what’s new? How’s it going” You’ll say, “well, i got out of bed today, and i’m much more self-aware, and i haven’t cried yet today,” or something equally brutally honest like that.

So whatever. I had the world’s saddest wallow-fest at the bottom of a big hole. The end only came after I had sat in the bathroom and cried, big hysterical ridiculous gaspy cries, for 15 minutes. Then I was suddenly near the top of the hole. Sometimes it just takes a good cry, right?

Sometimes it takes a good cry and a good apple crisp.

I haven’t indulged in making baked goods in awhile. Trying to, you know, keep that cholesterol down by avoiding butter. But suddenly I just had to. I turned to my Joy the Baker Cookbook, the chapter called “i need a hug, or a brownie. maybe both.”  I have this bowl overflowing with apples from the farmer’s market. Lola Kitty was suspicious at first. Then I turned the apples into an amazing crisp. Lola Kitty approved.

This crisp is more or less like an apple pie without the slightly time-consuming crust. (Even I will admit that a crust can be a hassle when all you want is some buttery comfort.) It bakes up nice and cinnamon and sugary with a crispy, slightly oaty topping. And it’s called “man bait” apple crisp. And as I stood in my kitchen blending butter, flour, and sugars together with my hands, I sighed. This is right. This feels so good. Thank God for butter and sugar.

So, maybe you’re in a hole. Maybe you need to catch yourself a man. Maybe you have too many apples from the farmer’s market. Make this dang apple crisp. And watch Joy make it in St. Louis in this video JTB apple crisp.

Things get a little weird. Obvs. We’re talking about Joy. Though she does have the talk show host “sewn up” …. and there’s even a Ghost reenactment. This is why I love Joy. She’s hilarious and weird and normal and lovely, and that’s how she is in real life. I met her.

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Love.

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I’m certainly no expert on love. Who is, really? I do know what not love is, the platonic variety and the passionate lustful variety. Maybe you don’t know what love is until you thought you had it and then you realize you were wrong wrong wrong. Love does not betray you.

It sets you free!

Those Mumford and Sons, they know, I think. Their music sets me free, so I suppose I love them, right? Yes.

They totes inspire me, and as such, I like their new single. “I Will Wait.” I sure will wait, I’ll wait for you. Hey, that’s what love is!

 

Song of the Week

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This has been a very long, brain-mushing week for me. Has it been for you? Here’s something that may make you laugh.

My mom just got an iPhone. This is her first fancy phone, so it’s a big deal. She’s getting the hang of it slowly. Yesterday I told her she should download Words With Friends. She successfully did that, but then got thrown off when the phone asked if it could send her push notifications for Words With Friends. She im’d me this:

Mom: it asks if i want it to send me push notifications
wtf is that
that sounds like a woman in labor
me: oh my god mom! that is all hilarious what you just said :)
Mom: yeah i’m funny

I am not sure where she learned the term “wtf.” And I think she’s absolutely correct—push notifications sound like what the doctor tells a lady in labor when it’s time to push.

Part of the longness of this week I contribute to the fact that Michael is in Sweden. He left last Saturday and will be back next Sunday. Turns out when you live with someone, he becomes a big part of your daily routines without you even realizing it. Just in little ways. So this past week my every day things have been just slightly off-balance without Michael just…here. The getting up, the making dinner, the walking the dog, the going to bed, you know. The things you take for granted until they’re just slightly different, and suddenly you’re searching for familiarity to knock things back into place.

So I’ve turned to music. One night I listened to three Beatles albums. And one morning on my way into work I put on the Indigo Girls. We sing “Closer to Fine” at camp and there’s nothing more familiar and comforting to me than a camp song. They take me to my happy place. Sitting in my car with this song blaring, I was in Middler Lodge at camp, a group of counselors standing in front of us campers during assembly leading us in song, doing all these hand movements with certain lyrics.

One summer I came home from camp and found the Indigo Girls album they had. It happened to have “Closer to Fine” on it. I sat in my room listening to that song over and over and over again on my little boom box.

So here’s my familiar song. What’s yours?

Happily Ever After

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I found this in my drafts. I wrote it back in March and I’m not sure why I never posted it.

Tonight I had dinner with my mom and grandfather. First let me tell you about the restaurant, Taste. If you’re in Indianapolis, you really have to eat there. I’ve been a fan of their brunch for awhile (who are we kidding, I’m a fan of brunch in general), but just last week had the pleasure of eating dinner there for the first time. My mom and grandfather are apparently somewhat of regulars there and have a favorite waitress named Anna. She’s great. And so is the food. Last week I had an amazing salad with shrimp and greens and asparagus and green beens. This week we shared a beet salad with blood oranges, feta cheese, and greens, and I had a braised short rib that literally fell of the bone and melted in my mouth. The best part though might have been the beer experience. Some background. My grandfather, who is almost 94 years old, loves beer, but stopped drinking it about three years ago on doctor’s orders. Tonight I ordered a Goose Island Pere Jacques, this wonderful, syrupy, carmel-like beer. He watched me drink it and gush for a few minutes and then promptly ordered his own. His first beer in awhile. Mom and I were somewhat nervous, but he downed the glass in 15 minutes, clinking glasses with me and saying “l’chayim” on the first sip. Not a whole lot can beat having a magical beer with your grandfather.

One of my favorite parts of hanging out with Papa is listening to him talk about my grandmother, Mimi, who died when I was in 7th grade. She was this beautiful, opinionated, somewhat intimidating I think, woman, who absolutely loved to spoil those she loved. Papa adored, and adores, her. You can hear it in his voice each time he says her name. Tonight he, and Mom, reminded me of the kind of relationship I aspire to have. You know, the one where you’re spending your life with your best friend. He says he’d always loved Mimi, that I knew. The last six months they knew she wasn’t going to make it much longer. They would get in bed every night at 7:30 and watch Seinfeld. And those, he says, were the happiest six months of their life together for him. Just laying there, enjoying each other’s presence, and being each other’s best friends. My mom said the same thing about my dad. That as she says good night to him each night, she thinks how lucky she is to, well have me and my brother, but also to have my dad, to have her best friend right there beside her. And honestly, I know that my mom and dad balance each other out and fill in each other’s gaps in this really stupidly corny and great way.

And that’s just it. That’s my relationship standard. It’s a really high and awesome one. Let the search begin.

Oatmeal Pancakes

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OK, I’ll just put it out there. I’ve had a  hard month, the culmination of which, after three years of couples cooking, has me cooking for just one. There’s no hate, no anger, just a lot of sadness, and hopefully a friendship again in the future somewhere. Thank goodness I have amazing friends and family both here in Indianapolis and over the phone. I also have these sweet girls.

And Matt Nathanson, whose music has an uncanny ability to fit the lovey-dovey beginning of relationships and the heartbreaking end of them, too. And then there’s food. Saturday afternoon I stood over a mixing bowl, beating together butter and brown sugar for cookies, crying, and I literally muttered through those tears, “At least no matter how little sense everything else makes right now, butter and sugar will always make something delicious and magical.” It’s nice to know that I can combine ingredients in a certain way and know that they’ll be tasty. It is not nice to know that every time my cat visits the litter box, she’ll emerge stinking and desperately wanting to cuddle. These things are certainties.

OK, so enough about me and my wah wah wah life. THIS WEEK IS THANKSGIVING WEEK! I love this holiday. It’s the Pie Holiday. It’s the Food Holiday. It’s the Hang Out with Family and Just Eat and Be Happy Holiday. I’m sure you’re all planning menus, grocery shopping, and getting ready to start cooking up a storm. I’m going to try to document all the wonderful things my family and I cook and eat. I am not going to give you the few sweets recipes I have in my queue right now. Instead I give you: breakfast. Because you will need a good breakfast to prepare you for a day of cooking and family time.

Breakfast is my absolute favorite meal of the day. I love brunching with my lady friends. I love, love eggs with runny yolks that ooze in a buttery fashion all over toast and potatoes and greens. And I love fluffy, sweet pancakes and waffles. My dad makes the best waffles, but alas I have no waffle maker. My mom always made the best pancakes growing up, these quick and tasty ones from Betty Crocker I believe. I have sweet memories of standing on a chair by the counter, helping to mix ingredients for waffles or pancakes on weekend mornings.

So these pancakes are not the ones my mom made for us growing up. They’re full of oatmeal goodness that fills you up properly. I’ve been making them since the summer, when I topped them with strawberries, powdered sugar, and syrup, and I have no idea why it’s taken me so long to share them with you. Seriously, these are the best pancakes ever. I’ve been mixing cut up apples into them lately and smothering them in honey. Or mixing in some pumpkin puree.

So, OK, you should make these during your holiday weekend. In your robe. Lazily. With a cup of coffee.

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Ocean Make Out Sesh

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No, I did not make out with someone in the ocean. I would never. I did however almost vomit up everything I’d eaten yesterday while watching Ali and Roberto make out in the ocean on the Bachelorette.

Yep, I’ve gotten sucked into watching the Bachelorette. Mostly because  one Monday night during last season’s the Bachelor, I got bored. I flipped on ABC and there was Jake. Suddenly I found myself inexplicably drawn to the T.V. every Monday night. Why I don’t know. Jake wasn’t that cute or interesting. Maybe it was simply the fact that the season was called “On the Wings of Love.” Gag me.

So of course I fell for sweet, freckled Ali, who had the chance to find love snatched so rudely away from her thanks to her job. When ABC announced that she would be the next bachelorette, I knew I was in for trouble. I’ve been watching off and on all season. I’ve wondered a few things.

1. How do you fall in love with someone and know you want to marry him within, what, two months? Especially when you’re surrounded by not just The One, but 25 other “The Ones.”

2. How do you fall in love while traveling the world? These people go on dates in Iceland, Portugal, and Tahiti. They dine in castles, they travel in helicopters, they ride horses in the mountains. Maybe it’s just me, but I think the real falling in love happens while you’re cooking dinner together, walking the dog, crying hysterically over the phone, taking naps together, sharing “how was your day” stories, and hanging out with each other’s families. Just the regular, every day stuff.

3. This show is obviously incredibly put on. It’s a wonder any of the couples have survived into a real relationship and marriage.

4. Frank is a creepy douchebag. Frank cries like a little girl on national T.V. Frank breaks someone’s heart. Ew Frank. I’m glad Frank has found happiness with his lady in Chicago. Couldn’t Frank have found his happiness before he was in the final three? Frank just wanted a free trip to Tahiti.

5. Why do the producers of this show think that all we want to see is Ali and her date making out in the ocean?! I would say we got at least ten minutes of footage of Ali and Roberto lying or standing in the water while kissing. Did they do anything else on this date? We’ll never know.

6. If I ever mention wanting to watch another season of the Bachelor/Bachelorette, please shake me.

Til Death Do Us Part

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I think I have finally figured out why I dislike The Notebook.  I know, GASP!  Don’t kill me, K?  Most of my friends love it because it’s a story of true love, standing strong until the end.  The husband falls in love with his wife and fights for her, despite the fact that she’s marrying another man, and they live this love story.  Even at the end, when she cannot remember who he is, he still comes and reads to her and reminds her of their life together.  Yes, I agree wholeheartedly that this is true love at it’s finest.  It’s the kind of love I hope to have when I grow old.  But this story, the tragic present that the old Noah and Allie live in, is not romantic.  Yet somehow that’s what the movie has become.  Some epically romantic movie of prevailing love.

Earlier this week my mother’s uncle Herman died very suddenly of a heart attack.  He left his wife, Willy, who is nine years older than he was and is in very poor health.  She can hardly see anymore and in recent years he had done everything for her.  Grocery shopping, cleaning, all paperwork, money, everything.  My grandparents, my mom, and I visited them a few years ago when I was in Holland, and I remember him even carefully helping her carry coffee into the living room, guiding her around furniture.  Yes, it was overwhelmingly kind and touching that he was doing all this for her, that he was there for her through it all, but at the same time it was so incredibly sad and horrible.  
The night Herman died, Willy sisters and brothers told my mother of a scene that I can’t quite shake.  Willy sat in her chair in the living room, maybe the light was muted and dust floated in the air, much like it did the day we visited.  Over and over she said, “how could he leave me?  How could he?”  She seemed utterly lost without him.  Her brothers and sisters offered their houses, begged to stay and help her through the night, but she refused.  She just wanted to sit in that chair, “I probably won’t even go to bed, I can’t sleep.”  
If this was The Notebook, Willy’s story would be spun to look romantic.  She spent her entire life loving him, he took care of her, now she’s pining away for his lost love.  I just can’t see it that way.  I just see an old woman, lost without her other half, who can’t even bring herself to move from her chair and go to bed, so she sits there, helplessly all through the night.  How is there even a shred of romance in that?  I know my grandparents and great aunts and uncles will take care of her.  They’ll stay with her, they’ll eventually insist that she comes to stay with them, but right now I’m only sad for her.
That was quite a depressing post.