The Domestic Goddess Comes Out

It's so hot in here I have to step outside to cool off.  Not that I should complain, heard on the news it's possible parts of South Australia will make 50 Celcius this week.  That's 122 Fahreinheit.  That means dead birds falling from the skies, dead pets, wildlife and livestock, possibly dead people if they don't heed the warnings and find someplace cool. 

Yet the governments still play fast and loose with climate change.  But I won't go there.  Perhaps this is the place, but it isn't the time to have a rant.

I spend more time cruising cooking sites than I do anything else.  My current favourite is 101 Cookbooks (http://www.101cookbooks.com).  It's vegetarian but not vegan.  I find if I scroll through the comments following a particular recipe using a non vegan ingredient someone will usually ask what could be substituted.    Either that or they will suggest one.  The one I just copied is for a tempeh curry recipe.  She uses cream but I'm going to use coconut milk (as suggested by one of her followers). 

I wasn't going to use tempeh again.  I made the tempeh and orange juice recipe which was fine but it was the messiest dish.  The tempeh threw oil everywhere and I had to mop the floor of oily spatters before I could continue.  Richard, forgetting my anti-tempeh pronouncement, bought it again hence my cruising the cooking sites. 

Still have trouble recognizing myself.  I spent fifty years staunchly refusing to cook anything other than the half dozen recipes I could make without much trouble and with little thought.  Remember timing how long it took to make a salad (10 minutes) because I didn't want to spend any more time than I had to in the kitchen.  Now I daydream recipes.  I start planning what I'll make for dinner about lunch time and rehearse it while walking the 6km with the whippets.  Richard wonders who took his wife and substituted me.  Wonders but doesn't grieve.  He likes the new Domestic Goddess version better.  

As do I.  I understand the lure of cooking now.  It's the creativity.  Even though I'm following recipes there's still room to improvise.  I rarely have every ingredient and even if I do, I'm still anxious to try the dish at the end to see how it turned out.  No wonder cooking is the most popular category on Pinterest.  I've got a binder full of recipes I've copied.  Haven't tried them all but I will.  I've copied three recipes today.  The last one is the tempeh curry.  We'll see how it goes.  One nice side effect of me doing almost all the cooking is Richard doing the dishes. 

Have run out of puff after dong the weekly BIG CLEAN  of the bird verandah.  Good excuse to come in here and sit.  Didn't realise I hadn't blogged for so long.  I've been writing about Balthazar on the Parelli Connect so that has itched my writing bump.  Creative juices have been flowing despite lack of writing.  Have a pencil sketch almost finished.  Unfortunately there is wax bloom especially on the central crow so that from certain angles, as the photo has shown, it appears pale although it is as dark as the other two birds.  Will spray with fixative to see if that makes a difference. 

My creative juices have been flowing.  I've joined pinterest and have spent hours pouring over their art pages.  So much so that when I close my eyes at night colours and shapes play complicated fandangoes behind my eyes.   Have yet to do anything about it but saw this fantastic vision of apple green and candy apple red on a black background I am looking forward to trying. 

And then there's cooking.  Now I understand why people like to cook.  It's a creative act.  I am living proof that people do change. 

Lazy Sunday

May not have much time as R is on his way with malaysian takeaway.  Was thinking today about just enjoying the moment without the usual accompanying guilt.  Today is Sunday.  It has been quite cold and unpleasant outside although the sun has shown in a cloudless blue sky.  Even so R and I stayed indoors most of the time (save for chores and the 6km dog walk) and watched old movies on telly.  Watched for the second time, Now, Voyager with Bette Davis and Claude Rains.  Why don't they make movies like that anymore?  Class and beauty and feeling all the way.  Anyway, so it was a low key non-doing sort of day but nevertheless very pleasant.  I enjoyed the movies.  I enjoyed the dog walking in the afternoon.  I enjoyed fixing the nose on that last painting (R, although not artistic in the classical sense, can pick up things I don't see through 'stable blindness').  And now, I am enjoying the early evening with a glass of red, waiting for an indulgent dinner that someone else has cooked.  The simple things.    That's enough, at least in my present mood of not being so hard on myself.  Appreciating the gifts so freely given.  The companionship of my darling best friend husband, the sunny blue sky, the old classic movies, the yoga (done again in part with R), the opportunity to write of these things in this blog (thank God for technology - out of hand in many ways and a real boon in others). 

Overheard R talking to his eldest son, Anthony about my prowess in the kitchen.  That's the real miracle in his eyes.  It's true.  I've been cooking and thinking about cooking which breaks the habit of 40 years.  I don't like to cook but yet I'm enjoying it in a strange sort of way.  Perhaps the bread-making (with the help of a breadmaker) has broken the mold of a lifetime.  I've put together vegetarian dishes found on the internet.  Never seem to have the ingredients required but scumble others togegether in a way that has worked, despite history to the contrary.  And I like it.

Ah, he's back.  Must go.  What a lovely day.  What a lovely life - and oh, I'm starting to fool around with an old box of oil pastels.  Am I daring to be brave and attack colour again?