Skip to main content

I don't want to cook or write

 Depression has as many symptoms and causes as the people who suffer from it. For me, it doesn't present as lying in bed and crying (usually), but more so a sometimes overwhelming combination of apathy and lethargy, a general sense of hopelessness, a nice little bit of paranoia, and a heavy touch of loneliness. One of the downsides is that I almost can not cook at all. I find no enjoyment in cooking, I have no energy or drive for it. I pressure myself to eat so I can keep living and make the hungry feelings go away, but I have no passion for it.

But tonight I had to cook. I hadn't turned on the stove since Sunday, either eating out at night or eating leftover rabbit for lunch. I had thawed a lamb chop and a chicken breast because I needed to cook lunch for tomorrow and dinners for tonight and tomorrow. I had to make food, so I forced myself to do it. I also had some veggies: carrot, wood ear mushrooms, radish, garlic, red bell pepper, spinach, and radicchio.

The lamb was seasoned with salt and pepper, then pan fried in butter and olive oil. The garnish for the lamb was a simple veggie medley. I deglazed the lamb pan with some cognac, added in some butter, and dumped in three diced radishes and some sliced carrot. Once the radish and carrot were mostly done sautéing, I dumped in my chopped radicchio and let it all cook together.

The chicken was seasoned with salt, pepper, and paprika, and also pan fried in butter and olive oil. I deglazed with white wine, added in some butter, and dumped in some slivered garlic and red chili flakes. I late that cook for a couple of minutes, then dumped in diced red bell pepper, waited a few minutes, and added in the wood ear mushrooms. I mixed it all around to get the mushrooms well coated, then let the liquid reduce while I sliced the lamb and chicken. Once the meat cutting was done, I dumped in the spinach with some sliced garlic and let it cook until wilted. While the lamb and chicken were cooking, I filled a pot with water, seasoned it with salt, got it boiling, and dumped in some fettucine. After it finished cooking, I drained it, and set the pasta aside for a few minutes. One the liquid in the chicken pan had reduced a bit, I dumped the noodles in and tossed it with the veggies, getting everything nice and coated with the thing sauce.

Fuck me, it tasted so damn good. I fully expected no enjoyment from dinner tonight, and I disappointed myself. I guess that sometimes, no matter how useless I feel, no matter how little enthusiasm I can put into what I'm doing, it's still got that heart, still got that flavor. Sometimes it still just fucking works, and that's why, sometimes, I just have to push through the haze as best I can.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I don't understand food

Part 1 the morning after, while eating a sausage, egg, and cheese everything bagel from Bergen Bagels Last night, I had the pleasure, privilege, and audacity to eat at a Brooklyn restaurant named Aska . I know it's cliche to refer to a fancy restaurant meal as a life-changing experience, but this was straight up paradigm-shattering. I've written before about food being a medium of communication, about how I strive to reduce food waste as much as I can, about sharing our cultures and stories with each other through the meals we create, but seeing how Chef Fredrik Berselius is able to do this at such an intricate, elegant, and elevated level is both humbling and inspiring. The experience started before the first bite. I walked into the 10 table restaurant, and they knew me by name. I was shown to my table (right in the middle of the place, looking directly into the open kitchen), and they even pulled my chair out for me and pushed it up under me. I was a little uncomfortable with...
Post a Comment
Read more

Restaurant week: My new Mexican restaurant

 As I mentioned the other day, my Mexican restaurant closed down. Luckily, they opened up in a new space a couple of months later. Great new look, new name ("Lopez Grill"), they've got a bar, staff is expanded, and the place is always packed. Business seems to be going great. Now, this isn't just a rehash of my post about the 'Dolo. While the menu is largely the same, there have been a few changes, plus I'm going to share a few things I've learned eating there. On my first visit to the new location (which was opening day, right when the doors opened; yes, I was standing in line outside with the other faithful), Señor Lopez brought me a bowl of their new salsa. He called it "guacamole salsa," but it's a jalapeño-based sauce. It's got an almost creamy texture, but is dairy-free (I asked for my vegan friend). Being a jalapeño salsa, it's got some heat, but not nearly as overbearing as some capsaicin-phobes may fear. It is perfectly bala...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trying a new idea

I decided to try out a new concept: plain seasoning on my food with a bold sauce to kick it up a few notches. I was thinking that a pretty boring salmon fillet with a super flavorful sauce would be a fun way to put food on the plate. Sort of a "oh, this isn't that great, but wait! There's more!" kind of deal. I just salted the salmon and poached it in olive oil. Meanwhile, I also made some mashed potatoes with some sautéed green onion and orange bell pepper mixed in. A little butter, a little cream, yada yada. The potatoes were great. The salmon was boring. So how about that sauce? I made myself a roux (butter mixed with flour), then added in some white wine, and I let that simmer while I cooked the fish and potatoes. Unfortunately, it thickened up a bit much, so I added some more wine. With the extra wine, it was too watery, so I dropped in some creme fraiche, all while repeating my Randy Marsh impersonation of saying, "creme fraiche!" That gave it a great ...
Post a Comment
Read more