So, I've been busy this January and February. Not cooking a lot but instead focusing on books and writing and reading. I have time at the tips of my fingers and it is fleeting. All time is fleeting but when you have a large chunk granted to you, here, take this time, and do with it what you will, then you get a little neurotic about it. You cherish it. Hold it close. Get protectionist about it. Suddenly the days become weeks and all of them tied together is time that must not be tampered with. A social request is out of the question. A night off? To do what? Talk? Forget it. I'm knee deep in memory and trying to write it. That's all I can do right now.
I am also carless these days. And it is cold. I am carless and it is cold and I live in a small town on the south shore of Georgian Bay in the snow belt. I feel like an Eskimo. I walk the dog for several hours a day in deep snow, in blinding blizzards, and in winds that stab at your face. But I don't seem to notice. The walks, the step outside, the fresh air, it's a break from thought, and in that break, if you're dressed properly, then it's a step into the sublime natural world. And again, it becomes about time.
Interestingly, the past several years when I worked in an office were not about time. They were about schedules. And deadlines. And being someplace whether you needed to be there or not, whether there was work to be done or not, and suddenly your life is carved in the spaces between those necessary trips into work. Time flew by. Time had no meaning. Time was meant to pass quickly so I could get to the next place which hopefully had more time. Ah, the struggle.
Onto food. Once a week, I borrow a car and take the dog somewhere we can't walk to on foot for a new vista and then grocery shop to get enough supplies for a week and then drop by the LCBO to stock up on wine to last until the next visit. It works well but I seem to always run out of fresh produce before I get a car again. I buy frozen vegetables and bags of herbs in case I get to last resort mode which is rice with chopped cilantro and frozen corn. At least there's something green and alive in the meal.
This is a typical salad lunch. It's a blend of lettuces - mache, frisee, red leaf, arugula and topped with grated beets (these are such a good buy and last such a very long time), half a can of mixed beans (including lima, garbanzo, fava, red kidney), sprinkled with feta, and topped with some sort of nut or seed - sesame, sunflower or pumpkin. Then it's all tossed in a generous dressing of olive oil and rice vinegar and seasoned with sea salt and ground pepper. I sit at my computer and pick at it for hours.
