Quick Habanero-Garlic Hot Sauce...

Notwithstanding The Great Soapy Tabasco Fiasco, I do love the distinctly vinegary flavor of Tabasco.

But sometimes, I want that vinegary hot sauce flavor with a little more punch and heat. And I don't want to have to age it in top secret oak barrels for eons before I eat it, either.

Enter this Quick Habanero-Garlic Hot Sauce that's ready to eat in just a few hours. True, the flavor is a little brighter and cleaner and not as developed as the fermented and aged  Tabasco. The texture is of course a little thinner, too.

But it hits those vinegary hot sauce notes, and has the added zip and flavor of garlic and onion. AND you can make it as hot as you like. The great thing about habaneros is that they provide lots of good heat with a delicate and bright chili flavor that isn't muddy or overpowering in the least.

Spoon it in/on anything you'd normally eat with Tabasco, add it to your ketchup, or to your noodle soups, and enjoy! :)

QUICK HABANERO-GARLIC HOT SAUCE

- 1 1/3 cups distilled white vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 Tablespoon sugar
- 2 cloves garlic, cut into 4 or 5 slices each
- 1/4 of a white or yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 2 or more habaneros, depending on your heat tolerance, sliced into 4 or 5 slices (I used 7 today, but we're chili heads.)

In a clean mason jar or repurposed pickle or jam jar, combine the vinegar, salt, and sugar and stir until the salt and sugar are thoroughly dissolved. Add in the garlic, onion, and chilies, give it a few more stirs, put the lid on, wait a couple of hours, and it's ready to eat.

Store it in the fridge if you like the brighter flavor, or age it in the cupboard for a couple of weeks, giving it a good shake a couple of times a day if you like that more aged flavor.

Happy Hotsaucing!

shinae

Full post and album HERE.

Something About How Family Is Just Like Cooking (oh, and expletives)...

As you might already know, I share a lot about my family. And if it happens that you only see the good, easy and positive aspects, it might be the timing of my posts in your stream or that you're just an overwhelmingly positive person. But I really do try to present my life and relationships in a balanced way.

And I hope it comes across that while I am absolutely grateful that we are a mostly happy and blessed family, our relationships are not without their ups and downs, conflicts, struggles, plateaus and frustrations.

I also hope that people understand that this life you see in my posts and pictures, while genuine, was not always this way for me - not as a mother, not as a wife, and not as a daughter - or for us as a family. It took years, decades in some cases, for the people involved to live with, create, perpetuate, suffer from, deny, then finally recognize and work through lots of difficult and complicated issues, sometimes in textbook "healthy" ways, many times not, to get to this place. Sometimes it's too much *me*, not enough *them*. Other times too much them, not enough me. And finally juggling and rebalancing, we hit a healthy combination of *us*.

And the issues, while fewer, still exist, and we still have to keep cycling through them the same way, but hopefully more efficiently and less painfully with each turn.

But what's resulted is pretty much what you see - many moments of happiness, gratitude, warmth, fulfillment and contentment peppered with fewer and fewer - but still very real - moments of unhappiness, ingratitude, frustation, confusion and general unpeacefulness within ourselves and with one another.

How we got to this mostly happy point in our lives is that at some point we each and together determined that it's not an option not to keep trying, even through those moments when we're convinced we don't want to. 

And since I find myself so rarely blogging here about food anymore, I'm going to stretch this noodle a bit to say that in this way, and in so many ways, cooking is a lot like family.

It's a basic reality, necessity, and obligation of life, even if our modern way of living has progressively led us to believe it's not. We start out thinking it should be easy and intuitive to nourish ourselves in a balanced and enjoyable way, but we hit some snags - burn a pancake, oversalt a stew, overhandle our dough, or neglect our risotto - and taste the acrid, salty, chewy, gummy mess we've made and decide it's just easier to walk away from the mess in the kitchen and let a bunch of disinterested others - restaurants, fast food places, frozen dinners, protein shakes, power bars, junk food - be the primary caretaker of our bodily nutrition.

And every once in a while - maybe Valentine's Day or Hot Date Night - we figure we'll conveniently saunter back into that neglected kitchen and whip us up something perfect and delicious only to find we end up creating the same nasty mess we made that LAST time we were in the kitchen forever ago. Because we didn't put in the practice, patience, diligence, dedication and heart it requires to get to that point where we'll know with a fair amount of certainty that we can walk into that kitchen and whip up something perfectly delicious and fortifying without destroying things.

But that means doing 

- a lot of mundane things (boiling water), 

- a lot of boring and repetitive things (peeling tons of potatoes), 

- a lot of things that will make you cry (chopping garlic and onions),

- a lot of things that are a little tricky (poaching eggs)

- a lot of things that are really disappointing (deflating a souffle)

- a lot of things that are extremely painful (hacking a finger, sticking said finger into a pot of melted sugar because you are a fucking idiot, you really are), and

- a lot of things that are downright maddening (mistaking salt for sugar, stuff like that...)

And then one day you look up to find that you've put in enough practice, patience, diligence, dedication and heart to know that 8 or 9 times out of 10, you can reliably produce for yourself and your family - as we all should - something delicious, nutritious, nourishing and fulfilling. 

And just like family, there will be lots of expletives along the way...

¡Shit! ¡Fuckfuckingfuckety! and ¡Goddammit!-ly yours,

shinae :)

P.S. We're doing an African Food Cookalong this month, if you care to join us. Because what is a blog for if not shameless self promotion??? :D

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 Sheryl Sandberg and Sitting at that Other Kind of Table...

I started out writing about how the child has not let me write for the past two weeks and how frustrated that was making me, but then I realized what a poor use that was of the very precious time I am being given at this very moment at 4:30 in the AM to scrape a few words off my tongue...

And what I really want to talk about is Sheryl Sandberg. Or at least the buzz phrases and concepts that have been swirling about her for the past couple of months.

To be clear, I don't want to be Sheryl Sandberg. She occupies a kind of space in the business world in which I've been able to partially participate but bear fairly full witness to over the years  - a high powered and aggressively driven kind of space where people, still mostly male, endeavor to move and shake things while wearing expensive suits and coordinating projects and "managing" people and creating deadlines (some of them legitimate) and power lunching and posturing and maneuvering and constantly seeking ways to be more productive, more efficient, more effective and sometimes doing really great things that benefit humanity in the process, sometimes not...

But if you handed me Sandberg's job and salary on a platter along with a chip that held the knowledge to do that job effectively that I could implant in the back of my neck at will, I'd probably go to facebook to see if anyone would be willing to trade me that platter for an all expense paid three month visit to certain parts of Europe (France and Spain mostly) for me and my family.

(Well, actually, if I really wanted to get the job done, I'd post it on G+, but I digress...)

Because my goals are very different from hers in so many ways. For one, she knows what hers are. She's the kind of gal who's got a very impressive bucket list and actually checks things off on it. I can tell by her hairdo. Me, I'm still wondering if I even need a bucket to contain my list once I've actually made it this time around. I'm thinking a shot glass will probably do.

For two, she likes leaning in to a testosterone dominated environment to balance it out with her brand of estrogen. Me, I'm happy to cheer for her on the sidelines because I have walked into enough meetings attended mostly by very serious East Coast corporate types in suits and ties that at some point start literally smelling of dudes sweating to outdo their competition, make more money, and WORLD DOMINATION MUAHAHAHAHAAA and I am powerless not to be knocked into a dead nap by the scent of all that manbition.

I was given many opportunities to lean in, albeit in a different industry and at a lower level, by the very type of progressive male mentor Sandberg says we need so many more of (Roger, you are dearly missed), and I learned over the course of a decade that I really didn't want to and that that wasn't the sphere of influence I was meant to influence.

But I also learned over the course of that decade that there are lots of women who really could have benefited those meetings and by extension the men in those meetings and of course their organizations at large if they had been presented with the same opportunities to lean in and make their contributions freely rather than to have to spend their energy and resources pushing and clawing just to have a chance to sit at the table. Women who by their nature were simply more efficient, more productive, more effective, more nurturing, more encouraging, more supporting, and more inspiring without having to read books about Chinese military tactics and disappearing cheese.

And while I have wondered in the past if Roger squandered that mentorship on me, I'm more inclined to think today that the sphere I choose to influence going forward will benefit from all I learned in that decade - about business, about how men and women function in business, about human nature at large, and about myself. I might also dare to think that the people who crossed my career path in that decade also benefited from my unique energy, thought process, and communication and work styles that I didn't have to suppress my true self or struggle to be able to express.

Not all of us women should be, or even desire to be, in Sandberg's position. And not everything she has to share with us applies to our chosen career paths, whether those paths be at home or office, salaried or not. But her message of balance and equality - in the home, in the work place, in the world at large - is one we can all benefit from leaning into a lot more.

shinae

Something About Doors Opening & Closing...

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

~ Alexander Graham Bell

Patch o' dirt in our new back yard. :)

This morning's usual food programming was interrupted by a visit to the OB/GYN to confirm our suspicion regarding certain events of earlier this week.

And indeed it is confirmed: I miscarried. And I am otherwise perfectly fine and healthy.

That's it. Nothing major, and nothing minor - a fact of life as sure as pregnancy itself, specially the older we get. And I did turn 40 this year, after all. :)

So while we thought it would be nice for Izzy to have a peer sibling, I also promised myself long ago that my child bearing era would end when I turned 40. And I've learned not to have too many hard and fast rules about Life, but I've also learned that determination and decision are sometimes necessary to achieve certain good things.

Dean and I together have determined and decided that we are done making babies, that we are perfectly happy and grateful that we have three beautiful children between us, that we are going to raise them to be a family even when we're long gone, and that there are lots of things to grow in this here patch of dirt behind our new home, both literal and metaphorical: fruits, vegetables, flowers, travel, goals, and other good dreams.

Thanks always for your support, encouragement and good juju in all we experience and endeavor, peeps.

Looking forward to continuing to share it with you. :)

shinae

Filling In The Gap & Streamlining...

Quick housekeeping note: If you don't know about my other blog, it might appear that I've neglected to blog for the past month and half, but other than my usual daily food (and other) posts, I actually have been blogging the month leading up to my 40th birthday (among other things), just over there. 

I started that other blog in order to compartmentalize my writing a bit - more food here, more personal stuff over there - and to spare those interested in my food content but not so much my other jibber jabber the tedium of having to read my cheap therapy posts. 

But since that inaugural compost pile post written over a year and half ago, I've come to realize that one of the things I most enjoy about this new career path I'm carving out for myself as one who relates food to life is the blending of personal and professional perspectives. The lack of that non-clinical schizophrenia we've all experienced when trying to divorce our work selves from our deeply personal selves. I am hopeful and optimistic that I won't have to.

So while I won't be shutting the compost pile down anytime soon (because Goddess knows how long it'll take me to migrate those posts over here if ever), I'll just be shoving my extraculinary scraps into a mini compost pile in this here blog because it just feels more efficient, more right, and more me.

Signing off for the morning from my new kitchen office (yes, we've finally moved from the teeny tiny bungalow),

The newly minted 40 year old and once again preggo,

shinae

(There. I'm pretty sure you're all filled in now! :D)

Back In Black - Day 139 (Monday) & Something About Knowing When To Cut Bait...

I'm on the 25th post and 139th day (that's almost 5 months! :/) of (what was supposed to be) this 30 post series, and I think it's a very real possibility, due to all the detours I've taken - holidays, house hunting and all that entails, other more interesting life - that this post probably finds me roughly the same size I was on post #1.

Bibim Bahp

And if this process has taught me anything, it is that I am a very different woman today than I was when I had the 2 older kids in my late 20s. Back then, I would probably have met or exceeded this goal and 10 others in 60 days (or less).

Vietnamese "BBQ" Pork

When I look back at how much more driven I was back then, in all aspects of life, I can see what was driving me: a quest for fulfillment, contentment, satisfaction, and ultimately justification for the big, life altering, and ultimately wrong life decisions I'd made. I achieved lots of things and kept hoping, almost subconsciously, that one of those things would make me feel like I had finally arrived in the right place. None of them did.

Fridge Cleanout Cold Noodle Salad
With Salmon & Spicy Peanut Dressing

But as I'm sitting here, in the right place, clearly unmotivated at this juncture to do what it takes to get back into the LBD (albeit plenty motivated to continue to cook, photograph, write, teach, and reasonably pepper that into family life), I don't miss the other kind of motivation one bit. I don't miss the blinding hunger and emptiness that propels you toward a destination that can't possibly be reached on the road you've taken.

Humba (Visayan Style Pork Adobo)

I guess I'm just too happy, fulfilled, satisfied, and content doing exactly what I'm doing now (which includes occasionally writing about somewhat kinda sorta wanting to lose weight but not really doing anything about it) to change it up just yet. 

Kalabasa at Sitaw sa Gata
(Filipino Squash & Green Beans in Coconut Milk)

That doesn't mean I'm going to scrap what I consider to be my generally healthy and balanced way of eating or my return to moderation after the chaos of the holidays and the stress of house hunting. That doesn't mean I'm not going to go running or do some yoga if/when life/time/spirit permit. I'm just deciding not to stress about doing much more than that for the time being where this issue is concerned. I am releasing liability and accountability for this one thing for now so I can free myself to achieve other things that really matter to me FOR NOW.

Atchara Inspired Salad

So while the old me would have chalked this up as a failure, the wiser me has decided to scrap this blog series 5 posts short of what I originally planned so I can refocus the scattered energy I've been wasting on this momentarily untimely pursuit to better uses.

Lofthouse Iced Sugar Cookie - Valentine's Edition ^^

Because sometimes you have to cut the heat to the pot on the back burner so you can focus on making something really delicious out of what's on the front one. :)

shinae

P.S. The pics on this post are some of the fairly yummy and mostly healthy and balanced things I've eaten since the last post. I haven't been that bad...  ;)