Fan Mail and a Supper for a Single Gal

I'm single. I live alone. I love to cook, I love to eat, I like simple earthy in-season flavours and sometimes I like to fill up on simplicity rather than extravagance. I cook relatively straight forward food and leave the escargots and filet mignons for the restaurants (last New Years Eve I had my then-boyfriend over for dinner and I cooked steak, I mean I COOKED the steak, I cooked it until we had to saw into it on our plates, it was gray and curled, I was a new carnivore, I was afraid of raw, bloody insides, and I had no idea that meat cooked in less than 5 minutes!). Instead I prepare inventive and creative salads and meals with vegetables, and sauces, and nuts and seeds, and try to glorify the strength of flavour.

It's Wednesday night in November. I'm in the thick of shit at work right now. I feel like we're in the middle of a coup d'etat, like we're extinquishing Communism or some other 'evil' that lurks out there, that's the draining weird energy I'm feeling. How to get rid of it? Wine, a hot bath, and warm, colourful, sweet food.

A butternut or spaghetti squash baked until tender. Flaked apart with a fork. Butter or pesto spread over top. Salt and pepper added to taste.

A blend of thinly sliced cabbage, broccoli, zucchini and green beans chopped and added to a saucepan with garlic and ginger and oil. Sauteed. Cubed tofu added. Once cooked and slightly wilted/slightly charred, add lemon juice and tamari juice.

Dinner.

And if you're still hungry, eat the other half of the butternut squash.

*I got a really nice letter today from Matt in Columbus, Ohio who wrote: "Yeah, I really really like it [the website]. Just wanted to say that. Im not sure why it resonates so well with me, but the pictures and the text you've written make me want to curl up by a fireplace and read lots more." Anything I do that makes folks want to curl up in front of a fireplace is alright with me...