On Love, Luxury & Lobster Tails on Sale...

In another life, I had twice the money, owned three times the number of houses, and shopped ten times more than I do today, yet I feel infinitely richer now than I did then.

And though the journey to this place was rocky, winding, complex, complicated and downright dangerous at times, if I had to distill the difference between then and now down to one thing, it would be LOVE.

My Love and I, we love the lobster... :P

That I came to love myself enough to live a life that was right for my soul and my conscience, even if it meant painfully extracting myself from a life that others thought was right for them and in which I played a big part.

And that in so doing, I found true love with someone who loved all the things about me that I love about myself, including my children. Who was capable of loving me fully when it looked like I had absolutely nothing in the world to offer but love.

Who supported and enabled me to spend my days doing what I love without promise of anything returned but my love and respect for him.

And I don't mean that pacifistic, feel good, all you need is love kind of love.

A life and identity that took decades to build and almost all of the relationships that came with it had to die for this love. Assets and net worth and credit ratings and legal rights and even maternal rights for a time, had to die for this love.

We also love a good lager to wash down the lobster...

The path to this love was a battlefield, and war was Hell.

But when you can sit down at the end of the day to a lovely little lobster roll with the love of your life having spent your day doing what you love, even if that lobster was only $5.99 per tail on sale, it is an absolute privilege and luxury afforded you at that point in your life when you're willing to pay with all the things you think you possess that don't really matter for the one thing that really does.

shinae

Full album HERE.

Something About Just Desserts...

Last night, our friends Jay and Marcy came over for dinner.

4 adults, 7 kids, 1 baby, and 1 wiener dog between us.

We started out with some veg and Mad's Fave Ranch Dip...

And after the evening ended too soon and the house was quiet once again, I realized that was the first time in 6 years, almost half of Joey's and Maddi's lifetimes ago, that I was able to open up my own home - to our friends and their family, with my entire family intact, happy and healthy, and in place - and enjoy it the way a home was meant to be enjoyed - with the sharing of laughter, fun, space, stories, things to eat and things to drink in the company of people we not only love, but whom we like and whose company truly enriches us and lifts our spirits.

...and really sweet blueberries that tasted like candy.

Five years after I signed those papers in which I chose to relinquish two houses and my right to freely access all of the material things I earned over thirteen years housed within them, my rights to support undeniably earned and deserved - specially in my incapacitated state at the time, and most painfully, the legal say so over my children, for whom I was the primary caretaker until the events that precipitated my divorce. Five years after I'd learned that I squandered my friendship on people who were all too eagerly waiting, and for a LONG fucking time, to first patronize, then kick me when I was down.

Some said it was too much to give up. That I was crazy not to fight harder for more.

Then we moved on to some Hoisin Roast Chicken...

But even in my mentally diminished state, or maybe to some degree because of it, I realized that I had to release myself from all my opponent would attach to in order to be free from the control he'd try to exert over me, the control legally afforded him by my temporary mental illness, through those attachments.

Because maybe that mental "illness" made me just crazy enough to believe that what was truly mine, Karma and Cosmos would return to me without me having to surrender my dignity in addition to everything else I'd given up in order to reclaim it, provided I kept my head, heart and hand in the right place.

...and assorted grilled meats in tubular form.

And what was mine to have, if I was willing to earn it, was a happy, healthy, whole family in a happy, healthy, loving home, with a meaningful network of good friends with whom to share our lives.

And one of the Monsters' favorite salads...

The ongoing work? Honest knowledge of self, constant vigilance over intentions, doing what I know is right for me and my family regardless of how others might perceive it, and the frequent balancing of my needs and wants to the needs and wants of those around me, the hardest task being the one in which you acknowledge and accept your own hand in your own misery. In which you recognize those things about who you are and the choices you've made that brought those people and events you'd rather not take credit for, into your life. In which you truly determine that you are not, and will not be, a victim.

Love it when all the food gets eaten, all the drinks
get drunk, and everyone goes (or stays) home
HAPPY. :)

I earned that perfect moment with my family and friends last night. But you know what? I earned that other thing too. The good news is that if it took me 13 years to earn, and learn from, that other thing, it took me less than half that time to get it (much, MUCH) righter. ;)

shinae

On Hatched Pods & Other Beginnings...

Today is May 2nd. The Pod is due July 17th. That's two and a half months from now.

And I have decided that when she springs forth as the fruit of my loins, I too will emerge from this five year cocoon I've managed to spin around myself, only allowing for the presence within it of those who were necessary to my metamorphosis, if you will - The Man, The Monsters, and to some degree, The Parents - together, my air, food, and water.

And I needed that.

Because it wasn't until I'd distanced myself that far and that completely from the life I lead for thirteen years that I was able to truly realize how ONE big decision undertaken in reaction, in escape, and without knowledge of self, can be the gateway to a long and winding series of more of the same kinds of decisions made in affirmation of the first, for dread of admitting the mistake it was.

It wasn't until then that I was able to realize that all the good intentions used to justify the furtherance of a bad idea don't make that bad idea any better.

The bad idea?

Marrying someone who was so wrong for me, and I for him, so I could leave the chaos of my parents' marriage in what I believed at the time to be good conscience. That may not make much sense to some, but as a 21 year old Asian woman (when I'd just met the ex), I thought at the time that my only two legitimate options were to leave for marriage or a scholarship to an Ivy League school. Slacker that I am, we all know the latter wasn't an option for me. ;)

The good intentions?

To make that marriage work, to give it the old college try, to suck it up and convince myself time and time again that it was a better idea than it really was.

The biggest problem with that whole scenario?

That convincing yourself that a bad decision is indeed a good one, and for thirteen years at that, requires delusion, after delusion, after delusion. A heaping pile of delusion, actually. Big and little lies you tell yourself over and over again so you won't have to hate or kick yourself for the wrong kind of life you chose while you're unready or unwilling to accept the consequences of leaving it behind.

And yet I can't regret any of it.

Because of two awesome and amazing kids who still love, and want to love, me - despite what the marriage that taxed my mental and emotional resources at my core cost them in time, patience, presence, and affection from their mother. And despite what my eventual separation from that marriage cost them in more of the same.

Because although the decision in hindsight is foolish in my eyes, when I was living it, all the good intentions, all the thoughtful and careful rationalizations, all the learned selflessness it took to maintain that marriage without complaining or feeling sorry for myself when a lot of people thought I should, taught me a stoicism and resolve that will serve a worthwhile purpose on another day now that I know better.

Because I learned in the worst moments of the process of separation that I'm a stronger human being than I could have imagined before I had to live, and ultimately survive, them.

And because, eighteen years after it all began, I find myself returning to, or perhaps arriving at, a better version of me:

- more comfortable with my conscience, even when it seems at odds with the expectations of others

- more grateful - for everything, really

- more content with a life cluttered by fewer things

- more convicted that I can choose to assign growth and meaning to those things in life that can seem random and unfortunate

- more confident in owning the gifts and strengths that I've been bestowed, but perhaps more importantly,

- more humble and accepting of the flaws and weaknesses gifted me so that I could come to realize how the people I allow into my life can either magnify those weaknesses, or complement them and strengthen me despite them.

And as evolved and peaceful as all that may sound, I have also learned that all the womanly and personal quirks - the snarkiness, the bitchiness, the really strong opinions about really trivial things - that emanate from my personality don't have to be subsumed by a little earned wisdom.

I find my cooking mirroring my life quite a lot these days:

- The execution of techniques is more confident and refined.
- The processes are more efficient.
- My tastes are better defined, albeit still eclectic.
- The selection of ingredients is much more important.

And given what I've learned, I think I'm ready to re-open the kitchen, but I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. :P

Off to make lunch now. :)

shinae

Cutting Losses...

Reading a thread about rosewater and cardamom rice pudding on one of my favorite food sites got me thinking...

It got me thinking that no matter how adventurous and open-minded I like to think myself, no matter how much weird shit I've eaten in my life and would eat again, no matter how much I believe in the ability of my mind and palate to frame aromas and flavors in their proper context, there is just some food in this life that I am probably never going to find a way to like. Tolerate? Certainly. Dispassionately appreciate? Probably. But like? Not really.

See that knife? It's a 5 dollar Kiwi knife,
and it's my favorite knife everrrr...

There was a time I would have hated to admit that I couldn't learn to like something because I felt doing so would diminish my food cred in some way. But life has a way of checking your priorities for you if you're not going to do it on your own. And if 

- living a year of near suicidal hell that *clinical depression* doesn't even begin to describe, 

- losing almost all the worldly possessions you worked for all of your adult life, 

- having your name and reputation dragged through the mud by a man who would legally ban you from your own home only to ask you to return the very next day to dig out investment statements that he wouldn't even have had were it not for the fact that you saved that money for him,

- spending a hellatious weekend in county jail due to the aforementioned legal order (having been about as upstanding a citizen as a person can be), and 

- losing the ability to live with your own children in that home because that same man, whom you put through law school, decided he was going to ruin your life if he couldn't have you around to put up with his nonsense

doesn't teach you that life is too short and too precious to spend too much time pretending you're something you're not or that you like something you don't, nothing will.

That's not to say that you should't give your mind a 2nd, or even 3rd, chance to wrap its tongue around the cardamom and rosewater. But eat it a 4th, 5th, 6th, 100th time and keep telling yourself it doesn't taste all that bad and before you know it, they've been taking up real estate in your pantry for 13 years, talking crap about you to the sea salt and peppercorns and demanding full custody of your Berndes.

Sometimes it's good to chop your losses (with a big, fat Kiwi cleaver).

shinae

Sometimes Food Is Not Like Life...

The words have been blocked for the last month or so, my mental and emotional resources having been delegated to the task of achieving peace about a situation over which I have less control and more anxiety than I’d like…

This post has *NOTHING* to do with spaghetti,
but that's what I made for dinner last night.

One unintended blessing in divorced parenting is the release of liability over the ex’s personality or character by way of their parenting style, among other things. No more having to edit, defend, explain, soften, justify or repackage the ideas of someone who, as it turns out, doesn’t share your values about the things that really matter.

The flip side curse is the loss of influence over the environment in which your children live and the messages they receive while they’re not with you. This is not to say that I don’t recognize my flaws as a parent. But hopefully by this age, I have made some conscious and thoughtful choices about the legacy I want to leave my children, naturally believing those things and ideas I consciously choose are better than the ones I don’t.  And it’s not to say that the ex doesn’t also believe that his conscious choices, often at odds with my own, are superior to their alternatives.  If the tween could have met, I suppose we’d still be together.

But all choices in life are made to the exclusion of others.  And the most important ones seem, without fail, to come with a healthy serving of the kind of pain that comes with growth and good change. True, it’s painful in moments when I miss my kids. But the choice to seek a better and truer life, for myself, and ultimately a better and truer example of living, for my children, had to be made at the expense of being an everyday presence in their lives. 

And when I do feel that pang that comes with the realization of their absence, I remind myself that worthwhile decisions often come with a heavy and constant price, almost as if to remind us how precious the outcome. While I can no longer live under the same roof with my children every day, they can now witness a much more healthy relationship than the one that would have been their reality, and ultimately the model for their future relationships, had I gone back.

WTF does this have to do with food??? Nothing, really.  I could make some overwrought analogy between food and life in this instance, but it feels lower than cheap to trivialize the heartache that visits everyone, particularly the children, when a marriage of 11 years falls apart irreparably. But I write to let it pass through me, so I can look, think and move forward and get back to the business of not writing so much about my personal drama.

Soooo… Let’s just call this entry one of those odd little rosemary-lemon palate cleansing sorbets that comes in the middle of your six course meal so you, rather, * I *, can let go of the flavors of the last three courses and refresh myself for the next.

(And you doubted my ability to squeeze a feeble food analogy into this post…)


shinae

Tsunami To Salad...

This is my kids' favorite salad.  Baby spinach and fresh strawberries with a rather uniquely sweet, tangy and zippy Worcestershire laced dressing that almost seems to have been designed to appeal to a kid's palate.

Monster Food

Soy-Worcestershire Dressing

Dresses 6-8 salads (using 2 cups greens)

- 1/4 cup light soy sauce

- 1/8 cup Worcestershire sauce

- 1/8 cup distilled white vinegar

- 3-1/2  Tablespoons sugar

- 2 Tablespoons minced bulb onions (red, brown, white all ok)

- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

- 1/8 cup oil (canola, vegetable, grapeseed or light olive)

1)  Combine all ingredients except oil and stir or whisk until sugar is completely dissolved.

2) Taste and adjust seasoning before whisking in oil. If too salty, try adding a teaspoon of water. Too sweet? Try adding a dash more soy sauce. As a general rule, I always adjust seasoning BEFORE adding the oil because the oil coats the tongue and makes it hard to taste the underlying flavors.

3)  Whisk in oil. DONE. :)

It's on my brain because I woke up this morning to news of an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan and because I am away from my children Monday morning through Friday afternoon while they are with their father in the house I made a home for almost a decade. 'Tis a long and hairy story why, but suffice it to say that it was not my wish, that truth is stranger than fiction, and that as a 23 year old, I was a much better cook than judge of character.

Lucky

In that tangential way we parents leap from a natural disaster on the other side of Earth to our children, wherever they are, I am reminded that life is full of surprises - some of them the worst kind, that I am away from my children should some sort of disaster strike their lives between Sunday at 8pm and Friday at 3pm, and that this salad they both love, the ebi sushi my daughter always asks for, and the beef tataki my son craves often, are all good and lovely moments, memories and indulgences tucked into short weekends between long weekdays of DiGiorno and Maruchan.

While I wait patiently for circumstances to change, food - in the planning, anticipating, preparing and sharing of it - finds a way to calm and comfort us, and to nourish and sustain me for another fight, another day.

shinae