El Explosivo.

Friday I made my favorite chili for dinner.  It’s an adaptation of this recipe from Damn Delicious—I LOVE Damn Delicious.  Her food is always amazing.  Apparently her recipe is adapted from a Cooking Classy recipe, so I guess I’m adapting an adaptation.

Whatever.

It’s freaking tasty.

I’ve made a separate post outlining my adaptation of this recipe for those who are interested.  It’s posted here.

Usually Yoshi and I have what we call “shit food night” on Friday, which is also our standing date night.

We’ll go for a drive, see a movie, stay home… Whatever.  Often that’s our night to eat shitty fast food because we don’t like to spend the money to go to restaurants much and even fast food can be expensive, but it used to be a vice for Yoshi and he still really enjoys getting to have that outlet.

This week I made chili and we had fast shit food on Saturday.

This was a bad idea.

Especially since the chili was served with fries and cheese.

Okay, I used 1/3 of it to make chili cheese fries, which we devoured straight from the casserole dish with forks while sitting on the floor and watching Supernatural.

It was amazing.  While we were doing it.

The next day Yoshi wanted to have a relaxing day and maybe adventure.  Since we now live on the coast in FarNorCal, we drove north for a bit into the redwood forest.  On the way out of town we got Taco Bell.

I’m sure someone out there has already surmised this was not a good idea.

Fast food when you're not accustomed to eating it is bad enough, but this was...  It was just not good.

About 45 minutes into our drive I started to feel some gurgles and as reality dawned on me I also started to wish I had stayed at home where it was safe and there was a clean bathroom that was easily accessible. 

Sadly, I was in the car near a town called Orick, which I’m sure jumps out as two things: a small “town” in the middle of nowhere and also the potential site for a mass murder/slasher film.  It is definitely at least one of those things.

I mentioned my worrisome predicament to Yoshi, fearless leader and pilot of our adventure.

He pulled off at beach parking lot with a bathroom.  You know the kind.  Something that looks like a toilet over a shit-filled hole in the ground in a small room with toilet paper but most definitely no sink.

Just what I wanted.

I mean, it’s better than digging a hole for myself.  I guess.

Luckily it was not very busy and there were for unisex bathroom units, so I picked one on the end that I thought was least likely to be disturbed and also probably the cleanest from disuse.

It was pretty clean, surprisingly.  There was even a little vent on the floor so the room didn’t smell like most beach bathrooms I’ve had the pleasure (I used the word pleasure very facetiously here) of using.  There was even a wall-mounted container of toilet seat covers and the toilet seat didn’t have the slightest smudge of feces.

What a lucky girl I am.

I prepared the “toilet.”  I sat.  I waited. 

Nothing happened.

My stomach continued to be unhappy. 

The toilet was very tall and didn’t lend to proper pooping posture, which made the situation even more difficult and frustrating.  Like, I just wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible and get on with my day adventuring in the woods.

I sat some more.

There was a breeze from below that did little to ease my discomfort.  What if something jumped up and bit me?  What if the breeze carried disease from whatever was below and my vagina rotted off from being exposed?

I could hear people in the parking lot through my little air vent and became self-conscious.  What if I exploded and could be heard halfway across the parking lot over the screaming children?

How embarrassing.

After what felt like an eternity I did some business and was able to leave, but something told me that the perfect storm, created by some bomb (poor word choice) chili cheese fries and a follow up of T. Bell, was not over. 

I felt better, but not…  Finished.

Yoshi has been with me long enough to understand this.

We went to the beach nearby.

He expressed concern because I had been gone long enough for him to worry not just about my stomach but also that I had been abducted from the bathroom.  “I was trying to memorize the license plates in the parking lot for when I had to call the cops.  I didn’t want to look like one of those dumbasses on Law & Order: SVU when they asked me if I saw anything suspicious.”

It was definitely less than 70 degrees out and the chilly breeze necessitated a sweatshirt for me since I still was feeling sub-par.  I felt uncomfortable sitting, so I lay beside him in the sand and closed my eyes.  The sun was warm and helped ease the tension I was feeling.

Particularly the tension in my stomach.

Particularly my lower stomach.

It began to dawn on me that I was going to have an emergency situation. 

Trying to run through sand to get to a toilet that is just out of reach while in an emergency shitting situation is not really on my list of favorite things.

My hands were shaking.  Yoshi was trying to help me but I was ready to cry.  In my mind I was processing which places in the nearby sad I would be least likely to be seen taking an emergency shit from the freeway or small children.

That’s when you know it’s really an emergency situation.  When you start mentally calculating how many people are likely to see you take a public dump.

I made it, if you’re curious. 

I was very fortunate.

After I was feeling better we drove to a trail head we hadn’t visited before and wandered around in the woods by a creek bed for a while.  It was amazingly beautiful.  There were banana slugs of every shape and size.

We talked about what we missed about Santa Rosa and what we like about living here and I realized something important.

As much as Santa Rosa had come to feel like home, one of the reasons we liked it is that where we lived it was easier to escape the city and go into the country.  We never loved the city as much as we loved being able to escape it.  Being here has been a big adjustment, but there is more escape and less city.

I think it’s going to work out.  Eventually.

Hopefully I’ll manage to keep from shitting my pants along the way.

Regardless, I will not be having chili cheese fries or Taco Bell for a while.  Maybe ever again.  I think I'm done with shit food Friday for a bit, too.

You'll Love Me For My Chili.

This post is regarding an adaptation I make of the Quinoa Chili recipe by Damn Delicious.

I don’t really measure things when I make food, so it’s a little hard for me to put recipes on my blog for people.  For this chili I might at some point, because it’s one of those really great heavy heartwarming dishes perfect for cold winter nights.  It’s hearty enough that it’s really easy to forget it’s vegetarian.

I’ve always been a picky eater and my dad makes the BEST chili, but I don’t like meat that much.  I’m not vegan or vegetarian, though I’ve considered it, but I hate having to fight my way around the bits of hamburger when all I really want is the beans and sauce. 

The quinoa chili is perfect for me because I don’t have to pick my way around it at all.  I just throw a little cheese on top and go to town. 

If you’re interested in the changes I make I’ll explain the way I cook a bit.  Generally, I just throw things together by instinct; I cook like my mom and my grandma, I guess.  New recipes I’ll measure most things unless I know I can eyeball.  I just don’t see the point in dirtying measuring cups if I don’t have to.  Recipes I’ve made more than twice I don’t often measure unless it’s something like a cake.

In regards to the chili, I don’t always use onion or garlic, though I do love the flavor when I brown them in olive oil and then mix them into the chili.  Sometimes I’m just lazy.  I don’t always cook the quinoa beforehand; it depends on quickly I want the chili to pull together.  More often than not I just add a little extra water to the broth and throw the rinsed uncooked chili in.  Sometimes I use canned beans, sometimes dry.  It depends on what I have on hand and whether I remember to soak the beans or not.  I prefer using dry if possible because I don’t like being restricted to the canned portions.  I like to add about a half a can extra of black beans in particular.

I store my dry goods like rice and beans in large Mason jars for ease of access and also because I like Mason jars.  They’re easy to clean, glass, and you can put just about anything in them.  Just ask Pinterest.

So I usually end up using about 2/3 a jar of black beans for the chili.  I use about a packet to a packet and a half of packaged chili seasoning because I am lazy and can’t remember to buy chili powder.  And, most importantly, I use brown sugar in my chili.

Friday night I cooked the quinoa and just tossed all the other ingredients in the pot at the same time.  I generally like to use more than one packet of chili seasoning, so I improvised and used some Tapatio.  Then I added probably 2-3 tablespoons of brown sugar.  This time it was organic because that’s what I had on hand.

Without a little brown sugar chili tastes a little too sharp to me, a little too tomato-y.  It really makes a difference.  The seasoning and the brown sugar I usually just add to taste as the chili cooks.

That’s pretty much it. 

It’s a very simple recipe to begin with and I’m not going to go out of my way to make it any harder.  

It's also pretty hard to screw up.  And it is so delicious.

Day Two.

When I was a little girl I was always very tiny.  At times short, at times tall, but always a pretty skinny kid.

I think I started learning to eat my feelings at 11.

Really, when left to my own devices my diet was never great.  I'd come home from school and have marshmallows or mix powdered sugar into butter (not even realizing I was making frosting; I was a young genius, I tell you) and that would be my snack.

The biggest problem was that the summer before I entered 6th grade I was bored.  It was too hot to go outside and play.  It was too hot to even let the dog outside because I lived in hell.  And I don't mean that in the playful "I hated the place where I grew up" sort of way.  I mean I lived in the part of Northern California the temperature rivals summers in Arizona from late June through early September.  We had a container of chocolate from Harry & David once and when the air conditioner went out all of the chocolate melted.

All of it.

And it looked like diarrhea.

Diarrhea in a plastic tub.

Another other part of the problem was that I had been a pretty active child until 5th grade when two important things happened.  1)  That year I began presenting signs of the (sometimes) crippling phobic anxiety I would experience later in life.  2)  That year my school began implementing P.E. programs for some of the younger classes (at that point the only grades at my elementary school that had an actual P.E. class were 7th and 8th).  I found that even though I loved running when I was at home, I hated doing P.E. at school.

I imagine someone will read this and think, "but why?  Running is running, right?"

No.

No, it is not.

The problem wasn't the running.  The problem was that I fucking hate being told what to do.  So if you tell me I have to run...  I won't.  And I will have an attitude about how I'm not going to.

I went from happily being active to being bitter and sedentary.  Bored, bitter, and sedentary.

I'm pretty positive this is the opposite of the effect intended by the school administrators, but hey, I was a contrary kid.

Now I'm a contrary adult.  Kinda.

All summer I watched Saved by the Bell reruns and ate nachos.  Because I was bored I would just keep eating.  That was when I started getting a tummy.

Then I moved on to 6th grade, arguably the worst year ever.  That was the first time I ever pretended to be sick so I could stay home from school.  Why would I do that?  Because all of my cool friends from the year before were suddenly bitches.

I was already pretty hard on myself, but that year I felt judged for breathing.

So I hid inside myself.  And I ate.

This sounds like the sob story of some chronically obese woman trying to justify herself.

It's not.

I didn't gain a ton of weight.  Just enough to make my belly soft.  It's really the lack of exercise I regret more than what I ate and how much of it I ate.

Once I started getting boobs it was like they just didn't stop.  Until I was probably 18.  Which is fine, I guess.I mean, I don't like fitted or strapless tops, anyway.  And I really enjoy having to show bra straps if I want to wear spaghetti straps because it's 112 degrees outside.

But then when I was 17 I gained about 30 pounds from eating fried chicken strips everyday.  I would buy lunch in the cafeteria and that was the cheapest thing I actually liked.

I've mentioned before that I lost it all during the strenuous breakup from my last long-term relationship, which was great...  I guess it gave me something to aspire to.

My first year in college I wasn't so great at feeding myself, either.  Unless it was pasta covered in cheese.  And I drank far too much champagne, so I gained almost everything back.

My worst fear, realized.

And it happened so fast that I didn't notice at first.  Then I was in denial and didn't do anything about it until it was too late.

So here I am, two years later, with reflux still acting up like crazy because I keep thinking I can get away with shit I can't and with pants that don't fit because I'm lazy and a procrastinator.

I would give anything to run a mile again...  But I haven't done that since I was probably 10.  I've spent more of my life being lazy and inactive than I did actually exercising.

Yesterday was the first day of something really difficult for me:  eating well.  Not just the right foods, but the right portions and at the right times.  Instead of eating candy all afternoon to tide me over to dinner when I got home -- or even snack before dinner when I got home -- I ate apple slices.

I was pretty sure I was going to pass out and in case you're wondering, my stomach was upset most of the day because it's so used to being overloaded with delicious carbs and sweets that it didn't know what to do.  But as a result today was the first day in a while that I felt energized when I got up. I actually felt GOOD this morning.

Then I came to work and my coworkers invited me to join them for nachos for lunch today... which I am currently smelling while dying a little bit inside.

But I brought a salad and salad I will eat.

I'm tired of the way my butt looks when I see it before getting in the shower.  I'm tired of constantly feeling my belly sit on my thigh when I cross my legs at work -- and sometimes when I don't.  I'm tired of not feeling well.  I'm tired of feeling like the largest woman in my office (which shouldn't matter, but in my heart does).  And I'm tired of imagining myself in the pants I wore at 22.  I want to WEAR in the pants I wore at 22...  Because I refused to get rid of all of them in the depressed hopes that I could wear them again one day.

So today is day two of twenty thousand.

Today is another success.

Belly of Fire.

In the last month or so I've been having a lot more problems with acid reflux than I have for the last two years or so.  I think it's mainly stress-induced because I've been thinking a lot about what I have to do before graduation and also about what I need to do before moving this summer.  And how much moving this summer is going to suck.

I'm pretty sure the stress is exacerbated by the fact that I often will wait until later than I should to eat, mostly because Yoshi is getting home late and I want to eat with him but sometimes also because I don't like sharing the kitchen during prime cooking times so I'll just hide in my room.

Friday night was pretty much the end of me being able to eat whatever I want whenever I want.

I didn't eat for too long and the first thing I had after a four-ish hour gap between snack and meal was some In-N-Out french fries that I stole from Yoshi's pre-work meal.  Then I had some quinoa guacamole and didn't eat for several more hours.

The rest of the night was mildly unpleasant, to say the least, and I, once again, had to sleep sitting up in bed.

Yesterday I didn't eat much; crackers, some pretzel bites, and a bean and cheese burrito from Dos Coyotes.  But of course it was the day that I had planned to go recital dress shopping in Sacrameto, so I got to look forward to that car ride for a little bit.  But I made it through with minimal trauma.

I've been scouring Pinterest for ideas on what I should do about my stomach problems for about 24 hours and I've reached the definitive conclusion that I don't get to eat anything delicious ever again.  All the reflux articles agreed on cutting out the same foods, and since I'm already working on exercising more often I think the food changes will benefit me the more than anything else I saw.

No fatty foods, especially those fried in batter and delicious oil.  Or no batter.  Apparently that's just as bad.  I guess it's a good thing I am now an expert on oven fries because I'm not sure how to live without a variety of potatoes, especially crispy slices of potato.  If I couldn't make oven fries I'd probably just lay down and die right now.

No sweets.  Especially chocolate.  No.  Chocolate.  What.  The.  Fuck.  How am I supposed to live like this?  No cake.  No cheesecake.  I don't really eat much candy, anyway.  But no chocolate.  Just kill me.  I don't need to be alive.

No coffee.  Eh.  I mean, it's delicious.  But I've been stuck drinking decaf for like five years and now I just don't let myself drink this sweet nectar of the gods because I know how my stomach is going to react already and it's not going to be well.  It's going to be painful.

No soda.  I mean...  I don't really drink soda anymore anyway.  Occasionally I have a Sprite or carbonated water, and more often than not it's because I don't know where I last left the Alka Seltzer so I'm drinking carbonated water instead for a temporary fix.  Any soda that's not clear sets me off.  Anything with caffeine sets me off.  But if it didn't hurt my tummy so much I would probably still love to have a Coke every now and then.  I used to love Coke.

No spicy food.  Seriously, just kill me.  I haven't been able to consume raw jalapeños since I was 20 and I hate it because they are so completely delicious.  Now I can't even eat bell peppers half the time.

This is basically just a list of everything I love to eat most.  But now am unable to consume because my stomach is failing to do it's job properly.

I actually started this blog intending to talk about how my cat got on my bed this morning with poop stuck to his leg and I had to cut it out, but then I got very caught up in how completely pissed off I am that I no longer can eat funnel cake or french fries without my stomach tossing up a middle finger of molten lava.

Just kill me now.

Food for Thought. And Also Some Stuff About Drugs.

Fun fact about me: I love stand up comedy.

I'm glad that Yoshi and my roommate enjoy it, as well, because I used to watch it by myself when no one else was home and I appreciate that I can share it with them now instead of holing up in my room like an addict waiting for everyone else to disappear so they can shoot up and watch some internet porn.

Actually, I don't know if that would be a normal thing for an addict to do.

Everything I know about cocaine I learned from Pulp Fiction, Scarface, and a story someone told me about Mexico once.

I saw a heroine addict once outside an Oakland A's baseball game (which I'm glad my dad also remembers and brought up last year because I was starting to think maybe that didn't happen) and he just wanted people to give him their $20 instead of buying a hot dog.  I was also pretty sure that if he touched me or coughed/sneezed in my general direction my skin would melt off, though, so I let my dad walk on that side.

Not because I was younger and figured it was better than the older member of the herd had less skin than me, but because my dad is from the bay area and also a badass, so I thought if the homeless heroine guy coughed on him my dad would Chuck Norris that shit and the air the guy breathed toward him would bounce off his skin and change into some kind of Native American knockout gas.  Or, like, regular air.

I don't think my dad knows this (which makes sense because I was always kind of a huge asshole to him), but for most of my life I was pretty sure he was some kind of magician or superhero.  Freewayman, the truck driving magician who could fix anything, make awesome food, and also made almost everything possible for his little girl.

But that's another post.

I know stuff about meth addicts and alcoholics, but that's because I grew up in Shasta County and I know what it means when someone looks a little tweaky and has no teeth.

I have a lot of guy friends, though, so I do know what someone who is hiding internet porn looks like.

Anyway, so I've been watching this Iliza Schlesinger special and it is amazing.

It's on Netflix.  If you like stand-up you should watch it.  Especially if you are a woman.

There is a section on things women do while drinking and on dates.  And one of the bits is about how women don't really eat on dates until they're actually in a relationship.  Which I know must be a thing because of how often it's referenced in popular culture, but I don't understand it because I've never done that.

Granted, I'm not the smallest person right now.  But even when I was much skinnier I don't remember going on a date with a guy and getting a salad just because I didn't want him to see me eat or because I thought he'd think I was disgusting if I actually consumed food.

I always figured that I like to eat and if a guy doesn't like it when a girl eats he should probably go to Macy's and date one of the mannequins there that looks like a prepubescent teenage boy with blue hair.

Even super skinny girls have to eat more than a stick of gum in a day and if you're willing to invite me to come to a restaurant with you where you will buy me whatever I want to eat, then I am getting more than a side salad and water.

The only reason I don't order steak is that I don't like steak.  But if you're buying my dinner and I want to eat chicken for three days I will order a whole chicken and you will pay for it.

I don't do this anymore, but it's only because with my boyfriend it's more like I'm spending "our" money so I feel bad if I order a $26 dinner.  I don't want to buy that for myself when I can make it at home for less.

Anyway, the moral of this post is that girls should eat on dates if they're not.  Hypoglycemia leads to crankiness and trying to bring up your blood sugar with the drop of cranberry juice in a cosmo could be more embarrassing/destructive than him seeing you with pepper in your teeth.

Also, if you fill up on chicken instead of liquor you won't accidentally have sloppy mistake drunk sex with your date and potentially get pregnant.

Eat on dates so you don't get pregnant, ladies.

So, You Thought You Had Some Weird Habits?

I hate it when people try to predict what I’m going to do or say.  I don’t like the feeling of being trapped in that box of predictability.

I don’t like the feeling of being trapped.

I hate it when people try to tell me what to do even more.  If you try to tell me to do something, there’s a 50/50 shot I will choose to do the exact opposite thing just to piss you off.  If I am asked to do something (kind of politely), I totally don’t mind. 

I also forget what someone may have asked me to do almost constantly.  In these cases it’s not that I don’t want or care to do it, it’s that I was already thinking about what I’m going to do after what I was just asked to do.

I listen to the music you and your friends do.  But I also listen to the same music as your parents.  And sometimes, the same music as your grandparents.

Actually, I might sing the music your grandparents like.

I can’t focus easily on things unless I find them fascinating or important to me. 

A conversation between you and me?  Totally important to me.  My Biology lecture?  Kind of important, but I still fell asleep every time.  My Biology reading homework?  I bet the dog would really like to go for a walk right now.  Maybe I should take him.  Then I’ll make seven batches of cookies.  I guess I don’t have time to finish reading this before I go to bed…

The only way I can get through doing homework that I can’t concentrate on is to listen to music.  Not “modern” music, because I’ll sing along.  Not opera, because I’ll sing along.  Not Mozart, because it’s fucking predictable and even though there are no words, it’s just violins, I’ll sing along.

To do homework, I have to listen to “The Rite of Spring” by Igor Stravinsky.

You know this.  It’s the dinosaur thing from Fantasia.  NOT Fantasia 2000.  The original.  From the 1930’s.

Now you know why I get along so well with the elderly.  I am one of them.

I don’t like to mix my foods prior to putting them in my mouth.  This is probably the chief reason I don’t like gravy (other than maybe just a taste).  Dipping sauces are okay.  Stirring the cheese from the top of the refried beans into the beans at a Mexican restaurant?  NOT OKAY.  Unless they are solely yours and you don't have to share.

Mixing happens during food preparation or after the food has left the plate.  For instance, I love macaroni and cheese with peas.  Seriously.  It’s amazing.  But the peas either get mixed in the pot with the mac and cheese or I put a forkful of peas in my mouth with a forkful of pasta.  There is no mixing on the plate. 

I haven’t run a mile since I was probably ten.  I used to love running.  I’d do it all the time.  Now, running a mile again is my exercise goal.

I sweat like a whore in church when it’s hot outside (since the sun is shining, I think NorCal is finally gearing up for its regular 1 billion degree summer).  This doesn’t work out well for me because I also prefer opening the windows in my car to running the air conditioner. 

As a result of this unfortunate side effect of my random German genetics (why could I not get all the Cherokee genes?  Seriously.  I’m just stuck with the straight hair and high cheek bones while my brother gets to have the brown hairless skin that only sweats when he’s outside, doing something manly*), I hate sweating. 

I’m learning to be okay with it.  But only in very specific situations.  And only if I get to take a shower afterward.

I have a love/hate relationship with spicy food.  I love it.  And it hates me.  More specifically, spicy food hates my tummy.  Jalapenos, which used to be one of my favorite foods on the planet, are murder on my gut.  Sometimes I still eat them.  Those are the nights I have to sleep sitting up and gripping a bottle of Tums. 

It’s only worth it while I’m actually consuming them.

I’ve wanted to write a book practically since I could read.  I just have a really hard time sticking with a project that long.  Even big crochet projects I wander away from for a few months.  Then it takes me a little while to figure out where I left off.  And what hook I was using, since (obviously) I needed the hook I had been using for something else during my break from the project.

I also really like green grapes and sharp cheddar cheese.  Together. 

This doesn’t even come close to being a list of all my strange little habits.  This is more like a spoonful of them.

But I did realize one thing while writing this.

I am so eccentric, I have to be rich by the time I get old.  Or I’ll be the crazy 75 year-old woman walking her cats through the McDonald’s drive-through in a stroller to get them a filet-o-fish.


*My brother felt the need to point out that he sweats when he's not doing manly things, too.