schlock

after returning home from a drunken evening of irresistable when actually japanese kareoke, my undomestic and normally choreless sister surprised me when she prepared a tasty, easy and healthful snack for us. i sat in her tokyo apartment eating from an earthy, warm yet dainty rice bowl, using chopsticks, and i thoroughly enjoyed couscous, topped with avacado, tomato, cuccumber and yogurt. i swear it felt like the first thing i could eat in that country. but my appreciation wasn't just of the soothing sustenance when starving. it was the true pleasure of savouring a luxury, a real treat. good textures and temperatures and it felt healthy too.

happy new year! when she stayed, along with our also surprise-visiting cousin, the tiny one room attic i was living in, in jerome with my then fella? we were all flu ridden. she prepared another of her standard dishes: schlock. chick peas, garlic, onions, sometimes ginger, cooked forever in oil with chopped tomatoes for liquid and lots and lots of cumin and tumeric and corriander and all. no worry about timing, just cook for ages and serve over rice. so nourishing and deeply filling. earthy grounding good. i even ate it cold the next morning, and schlock is STILL one of my staples.

* * *Woman to Woman:
the daughter of brilliant and complicated parents, an adoring and alcoholic artist for a father and a dazzling, funny, wildly frustrated mother driven to see her daughters achieve what had never been possible for herself...

bits from oprah:
joyce maynard wrote "like so many women i know i had a complicated relationship with my mother. i adored her and there was never any question in my mind how much she loved me back, but we argued about many things and kept uneasy silences about others... at the age of 66 she was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. i was living hundred of miles away at the time, raising my three young children, struggling with a failing marriage... but i flew to be with her and spent the summer in toronto. my mother died in early fall. five days later i moved out of the house my husband and i had shared for 12 years to a house in a different town 30 miles away...

one thing she kept was her mother's rolling pin
the magazine publishes the recipe from the author's website. www.joycemaynard.com
i went to hear her read in new york. for free at the bookstore. even in manhattan you can usually get a seat at readings...
Rona Maynard (an older sister) Chatelaine editor says
A cardiologically correct dessert is a lot like a cup of decaf – it tantalizes your senses but withholds the big buzz...
It runs in my family, this lust for things rich and sweet… my sister and I at 11 and 15 thought we’d escaped all the humdrum rules of suburban life along with the meat loaf and carrots... (on holiday with their mother they were allowed to have desert as dinner every night)
...We’ve had our disagreements since then, but when it comes to the role of desert in life we’re of a mind. My sister bakes world class pies and I love to eat them. Last summer after an uneasy silence of many years, I invited myself to her home in California. No sooner had we set a date and she got right to the heart of the matter: “What kind of pie would you like?”
… by eating my sister’s baking, I was allowing her to make me happy. We couldn’t have shared a more restorative experience.

* * *
Don't you even have A Dish?" is a great rant done at me by a funny far off fairbrother. i bet if you've ever come to my house, you'd enjoy it. i am NOT passionate about cooking, gourmet or otherwise is all i have to say on the matter.

however, tourtière is a really tasty treat that my mom (a good french canadian) makes and can teach people like me someday to make. or, if they're really lucky, like i am still, she gift delivers it to them, after creation. (or, my dad does. or nowadays they do it all together as a team tradition).

it is another one of the valuable HOLIDAY heritage things of my past that i want to retain in my future...

you can believe me when i tell you it has special magic powers!
so appealling it has been even known in some circles as, 'sorcière'

doesn't that sound yummy? i've long heard that the way to a man's heart is thru his stomach. and, since i can't cook, or bake i thought i would share at least one tasty tidbit of enticing encouragement...

so, my mom can cook and my sis can cook pretty good. and dad's sis can too and ma's sis has even started and SOLD restaurants so i figure the talent is in me somewhere (if latent) and waiting to explode. let's hope eh? perhaps i might shalt start with A Dish.

we have a deep psychological need to be accepted as we really are.
we conceal aspects of ourselves that we think invite rejection but ironically the very act of secrecy makes us inaccessible to love.

this emotional disconnection is so intolerable we often end up seeking comfort in destructive ways i.e. addicts
experience loving acceptance and ultimately heal
*
"Confession is risky. Some people really may reject you if you claim your whole identity and tell your whole story. But, explicityly losing those people is no more horrible than keeping them - sort of - at the cost of your integrity.

Besides, there are probably fewer of them than you think.

Love has sharp insight indeed a nd the people who love you aren't fooled by whatever masks you wear. They sense when you hide things and become frustrated by the inability to connect.

By giving the people that you care about the chance to love you as you are, everyone will benefit."

-- jun 02, martha beck, oprah mag