A happy birthday

09 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by wyndes in Food, Movies, Personal, Serenity

On my birthday morning, I woke up around 5AM and it was cold enough in the van that I decided I needed a comforter, so I pulled it out, unfolded it, snuggled down — and then Zelda came and snuggled under the covers with me, tucking her head into my shoulder and lying on her back so that I could rub her belly. I love it when she does that. Really, truly love it. And that’s pretty much how my birthday went.

Jumping back in time, R arrived Thursday night in time for dinner at the Bistro, the fancy restaurant in the retirement community where my parents live. We hadn’t planned on going but that day they won a gift certificate for it, and reservations were available that night, so away we went. When we got there, I was waiting to be seated when my dad said, “I think you can figure out which one is our table.” It was the one with balloons and presents. I was surprised, charmed, and pleased, which was fun. On Friday, of course, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all (although I still would have been charmed and pleased — I like balloons and presents!), but it was fun to have that surprise factor.

Dinner was terrific, as it always is there. It’s not just a good restaurant by retirement community standards, it’s a good restaurant by any standards. But the fact that it’s a small community and the waitstaff all know the patrons really does make it exceptional. Instead of helping me find a gluten-free option on the menu, the cook made a modified sauce for my meal. And they all sang Happy Birthday to me along with a candle in my ice cream, but it wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as it usually would be, because I’ve chatted with most of them before and they all know my parents. It was just nice. It felt very celebratory.

In the morning, I got to feed R breakfast — the third-best commonly-available yogurt (IMO), fresh blueberries, and my homemade granola. He approved. Since he’s the first person to try my granola except for me, I was pleased, although realistically, it’s not like he would have told me that my granola was terrible on my birthday. Or any day. But I think he really did like it, except maybe for the dried blueberries, which I’m not so excited about either.

Afterwards, we went off to a hardware store to buy a part to repair damage I inflicted on Serenity the day before by trying to go under a roof (yes, stupid! but we are not dwelling on that, it is what it is), and to Starbucks to collect my free birthday treat. And we stopped by Goodwill, too. It felt so cozy to be running errands with my dad and my son. Like snuggling with Zelda in the morning, it was the kind of everyday that I don’t get everyday and so appreciate all the more.

For lunch, R and I ate roast beef rolled with horseradish cheddar cheese, a little mayo, and arugula. It is a perfect taste combination, one that I just discovered recently, so am still enamored with.

After lunch, we went to Beauty & the Beast. I’d suggested a few different options to R for my birthday activity — a Segway tour of Mount Dora, kayaking, thrift-store shopping, or the movies — and the movie won. That movie is pretty close to a sure thing: enjoyable for all ages, impressive eye candy, fun and nostalgic, and we all liked it.

For dinner, we were intending to go to a pizza place with good gluten-free options with my sister and her kids but they were unfortunately all sick, so we went to Bonefish Grill instead. I had the special of Georges Bank scallops on parmesan risotto, which the waitress was told was gluten-free. Honestly, I don’t believe it on the gluten-free part — I asked, but I expected to be disappointed, and I was surprised when she said it wasn’t — but it was absolutely delicious. I don’t even care if I’m paying for it on Tuesday & Wednesday. I will tough it out, knowing that it’s a gluten-reaction, and it will have been worth it.

I had a little bit of a low point in the afternoon, when I was getting dressed for dinner. I’m not sure why, really. Maybe it was just low blood sugar. But I was really missing my mom. I adore my stepmother (and I know she reads my blog, but it’s true and I’d say it anyway!) and I’d had a really nice day, but… I don’t know, I just wanted my mom. I went into the kitchen to get a drink and my dad had picked up the mail and left a card for me on the table. It was from my aunt and uncle with a very generous gift, but an even nicer message. I had to go into the bathroom and cry, but not in a bad way at all — it just felt like my aunt gave me an immense long-distance hug at exactly the moment I needed it.

After dinner, I got a couple more presents — an induction cooktop and an immersion blender. Yep, the longer I live in Serenity, the more complicated I get with the cooking. But I’m looking forward to playing with both of those toys. I miss making soup and the induction cooktop means I can cook anything outside. It’ll be like setting up a little outdoor kitchen. Yes, there is bacon in my future. Also soup. Lots of soup, I hope!

On Saturday, R and I went off to a matinee of Your Name, an anime that I’d seen a review of somewhere. When I first mentioned it to him, he rejected it, thinking I was talking about some other movie, and I’m so glad I persisted, because it was amazing. Not in the popcorn movie sense of Beauty & the Beast, where the movie is perfectly straightforward and not likely to cause any tension (although I did shed a tear when Mrs. Potts was searching for Chip at the end). But it was captivating and interesting and… I think the review said something like “go see it and when you’re done, go see it again” and yeah, that was pretty much what I felt like doing. Instead I waved good-bye to R and went off to spend the next three hours cleaning out my storage unit.

Alas, rats had gotten into the storage unit. Or is that yay, rats got into the storage unit? It was much, much easier to let go of some of the things that I’d been holding onto — linens, blankets, stuffed animals, even pictures — when they were covered in rodent droppings and/or chewed on. The woman at the storage place let me use the dumpster, probably grateful that I wasn’t yelling about the damage. I also let go of two boxes of books, a lamp, and most of the remaining kitchen items, although they were dropped off at Goodwill. I’ve got four bins, a cedar chest, a chair, and a small table left, and I’m hoping to move all of them up to my brother’s basement. Sometime this week I will see how the cedar chest fits into Serenity, because it’s the big issue. Beyond those things, I’ve got some pieces of luggage and a vacuum cleaner left to figure out. And three paintings. But I’m really close to having simplified as much as I ever hope to. And it only took me a year longer than I wanted it to! A year ago today, in fact, I was looking around the house debating whether I should try another garage sale and feeling pretty wiped out after the two previous days of selling. It’s amazing how there’s always more stuff to get rid of.

As a combined result of birthday presents and cleaning out the storage unit, I spent a big chunk of the evening and today reorganizing Serenity. I was prepared to let go of the kayak. Instead, I let go of some clothes, some dishes, some containers, and a blanket. And it doesn’t feel over-stuffed. I think I have it organized enough that all of things that I want are accessible to me. There’s still some stuff I’d like to do — I’d like to get bins for the medicine cabinet, so stuff doesn’t always fall out on me, and maybe the same for spices. And it’s funny to see how my use of space is evolving. With every passing month, the kitchen supplies take more room, clothes and entertainment get less. Although I guess the kayak counts as entertainment and it gets a lot of space. But I was thinking of the cupboards, not all the storage.

Anyway, this is a long, rambling post and probably not of interest to anyone but me. But ten years from now, I do want to look back on this birthday as it is right now, not as I will remember it then. We were talking about my fortieth birthday at dinner and it was a reasonably dramatic birthday as they go, so the stories were of C’s broken arm and T’s tears and who had the stomach flu. It was only later that I remembered the fireworks and the calm when it was just R and me, home with Zelda, and I was so glad to be just us again. This birthday was very nice, most excellent, and ten years from now, I really don’t want to remember it as the weekend when I crunched Serenity and rats invaded the storage unit. It was a weekend of many treats, much delicious food, cozy family time, and both nostalgia and joy. A happy birthday, indeed.

Edited to add: I can’t believe I forgot this already. I can see this will be a process…

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Gunter Hill, Alabama and Granola

27 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by wyndes in Campground, Food

≈ 6 Comments

The view from the window. More peaceful in reality, where I seem to look past the trees without seeing them to the water beyond.

From the van window, I see trees and river beyond them, in one of the loveliest, most peaceful views I’ve had in a while. It makes me wish that I regularly took pictures of the view out the window and put them in an album, dated, so that I could go back and figure out exactly when I had last had a nicer view. The one at Sanders Cove, the last Army Corps of Engineers campground I stayed at, was definitely close. Well, and that one had much, much better sunsets—my window faced directly west and the sun set over the lake—so I guess I’ll give it the win.

It makes me think that the ACOE are pretty good at laying out campgrounds. Obviously, not every site can be great, but this campground, like Sanders Cove, has the sites with a view positioned so that even though there are campers on either side of me, none of us are blocking the others’ views of the river. I should find out the name of the river, but it feels very Tom Sawyer — green and brown and still, a lazy, peaceful river that deserves to have rafts made out of wood floating down it. Haven’t seen any of those, but the fishing boats are small motor boats instead of big cruisers. (I’m not finding out the name of the river because my internet connections are abysmal: slower than molasses. I’m trying to find that peaceful, rather than annoying, with mixed success.)

I’m baking granola again: this time at 275, instead of 250, and with 30 minute stretches between stirring, rather than 20. This time I added sliced almonds, took out the dates, upped the cinnamon, and added some salt. I think I upped the coconut oil inadvertently, but I suspect that if I’m really going to start making my own granola, I’ll be playing with this recipe quite a lot. And I think I probably am going to start making my own granola. While I’m not sure there’s any economic advantage—the ingredients are still not cheap—I like the control. Every morning… hmm, this story requires more background.

So I have a theory about happiness. Actually, I have many theories about happiness. But this theory is relevant to granola. 🙂 I believe that happiness is woven from four threads: awareness, acceptance, appreciation, and anticipation, and that it’s something you can get better at with practice. When I eat breakfast in the morning, I like to practice. Yes, I practice happiness. I know it sounds ridiculous. Bear with me.

Breakfast these days is mostly yogurt with granola and fruit. I used to eat leftovers for breakfast but that doesn’t work as easily in the van—it’s hard to cook in quantities to create leftovers because I just don’t have the storage space. So for the past six months or so, most breakfasts have been the same thing. When you eat the same thing every day, it’s easy to stop noticing it. Who pauses to savor the cereal they eat every day, after all?

But that makes breakfast a really good chance to practice happiness. Before I take that first bite, I try to remember to anticipate: is this going to be good yogurt? Will it blend well with the granola? How are those blueberries going to taste? And as I take the first few bites, I really try to experience them. To notice if the yogurt is the perfect blend of tangy and sweet, or not. To feel the blueberries in my mouth and their burst of flavor. To acknowledge the crunch of the granola, its texture on my tongue and cheeks, its taste. And then I try to accept whatever the reality is, and appreciate it no matter what. Maybe the blueberries are not the best. They’re out of season and their flavor is bland, or they’re over-ripe and squishy instead of popping. But still, even not-very-good blueberries are a luxury, a fresh taste that I’m lucky to have. And then I get to anticipate tomorrow’s breakfast, when maybe I’ll have a different fruit, maybe banana or strawberries.

And yes, the cynic in me finds this entirely silly. But the me that’s living my life (the me that’s choosing happy over right) has discovered that starting the day by practicing happiness over breakfast makes for good days. I like beginning my day with a buzz of contentment flowing through me, a reminder of pleasure and joy. And honestly, I like it a lot better when the three pieces of my breakfast are actually really, really good. When my thoughts go something more like “Oh, yum, I love this yogurt, this is so GOOD,” rather than “Huh, I wonder how much sugar is in this, I should have read the label, but I will appreciate it nonetheless.” It’s all well and good to practice happiness, but it’s so much easier to do a good job at it when the ingredients are all positioning me for success.

And so, back to granola: I’m not sure how many different gluten-free granolas I’ve tried over the past six months. Ten? Twelve? I almost never buy the same one twice, because they’ve all got good parts and bad parts. There are some that I’ve actively disliked and I’ve mostly eaten them anyway. Getting good at happiness isn’t about finding perfection in life, it’s about being able to appreciate what I have. I did throw away one that I really disliked because being smart about happiness also does mean changing the things that really don’t work for me. But mostly the granola is neutral in my breakfast savoring, there because I need the calories to keep me going through the morning.

But the granola I made became something I could think about. My appreciation was… eh, lukewarm. The oats were sort of flaky, somehow. They had a texture that wasn’t quite finished. But they improved as they got a little stale, so maybe I just needed to bake them a little longer. And the dates were terrible, so solid that they crunched instead of being chewy. And it was missing something, which I finally realized was a sprinkle of salt. By the time I finished the granola, this morning, it had gotten really good, maybe not the best granola I’d eaten in the past six months, but pretty darn close. (I picked out the dates and added a little salt, as well as the aforementioned staleness.)

So yeah, wasn’t that a long-winded way of saying that I think I’ll keep making granola? In my practice of happiness, it really tilts the odds in my favor to be able to love my breakfast, to start the day thinking, “Wow, that was excellent,” and to have my appreciation all be about the greatness of the experience, rather than how fortunate I am to have the first-world problem of not quite loving my fresh fruit.

In other news, I can’t believe that I just spent so much time writing about granola and happiness. Writing on Grace went well yesterday. Actual progress, I think. I’ve got one more day at this campground with its inspiringly peaceful view, so I should be working on Grace right now, seeing how much farther I can get.

Happy Monday!

Edited to change Cedar Lake to Sanders Cove — got my campgrounds mixed up!

Yogurt and mushrooms

09 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by wyndes in Food, Recipes, Serenity

≈ 7 Comments

I bought a new brand of yogurt at the grocery store the other day — I always like trying new things — but when I ate it with my breakfast granola, I didn’t like it nearly as much as the incredibly good Greek yogurt I’ve been eating. It was really good yogurt, though, just not what I wanted for breakfast. So yesterday I made up yogurt recipes.

Early in the day, I made salad dressing: some yogurt, some olive oil, some finely chopped garlic, the juice of half a lime, a teaspoon or so of honey, and several chopped-up mint leaves. I let it sit in the fridge for a few hours so the flavors would mix, then had it on a salad of green leaf lettuce, thinly sliced cucumbers, radish and red onion. I was expecting it to feel Greek — because of the mint and cucumber, I expect — but I think the lime and the honey made it different. It was delicious, though.

Then for dinner, I made a mushroom sauce to go over steak. I used to hate mushrooms — really, full-bore hatred. I thought they were disgusting slimy things and the feel of them in my mouth made me gag. Even now, I can get a visceral reaction of disgust when I think about them. But I discovered about ten years ago that I liked the flavor, just not the feel, and when I started AIP, my diet was so limited that I really started experimenting with any food that I was allowed to eat. Including mushrooms.

Eventually–maybe about six months ago–they became something I liked playing with. First, I mostly hid them — a tiny bit of finely chopped, sautéed mushroom in scrambled eggs, for example, or a few of them thrown into a stew. Just for the flavor, with no danger of encountering their texture. Then I started trying them raw, in salads. Or in my sandwich substitutes. For example, a thick slice of turkey, spread with pesto, topped with chopped mushrooms, and rolled up. Yum. And finally I graduated to eating them cooked and alone. Earlier this week, I chopped some in half and grilled them with a hamburger. With a little blue cheese dressing, they were very tasty.

Which brings me back to yesterday’s sauce. I sautéed a mix of mushrooms and some chopped up garlic in butter, then added room temperature yogurt, green onion, a little dijon mustard, some dried green herbs (a mix that I think includes parsley and oregano), and a sprinkle of salt, and let it simmer. I let it simmer for too long — as you can see in the picture, it wound up not quite a sauce anymore. But it was crazy delicious. I wanted to lick the pan when I was done. I ate every bite and I wished I had a lot more of them.

I think next time I will skip the steak. Well, and not simmer the mushrooms for quite so long. It would have been absolutely delicious as a creamy sauce over pasta or, since I have yet to find a gluten-free pasta that I appreciate, brown rice.

If you had told me as little as a year ago that I was going to consider eating mushroom sauce over brown rice… well, I suspect I would have laughed at you. I certainly wouldn’t have believed you.

I’ve decided that three nights, four max, is the right amount of time to stay in one place. That gives me two days to enjoy my campsite without needing to think about moving. When I go longer than that, I wind up with a situation like the one I’m in today: lots of cooking => lots of washing dishes => a full gray tank that needs to be dumped. I need to pack up today so that I can go dump the tank, and then come right back here for one more night. It’s not a big deal, really, but it’s a hassle.

And less time than that is really disruptive. In my fantasies of this life, I spent less time planning where I was going to spend the night and more time planning what I was writing. Finding the balance between those two things has been so much harder than I anticipated.

And given that today is going to be disrupted by needing to dump the tanks and tomorrow is going to be a relocation day — possibly with a trip to Trader Joe’s along the way — I should get back to the real writing. So far my grand fantasies of making it through Akira’s return have not worked out, but who knows, today might be the day that it all falls into place.

Palmetto State Park

02 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by wyndes in Food, Grace, House, Personal, Serenity

≈ 8 Comments

Wildflowers at sunrise

At the Onion River Campground in Vermont, I walked Zelda through fields of high, dry weeds with scattered faded flowers, surrounded by deep green grass and trees with leaves that were just starting to hint at autumn, and felt like we were in the essence of late summer. I think it’s why I remember that place with so much pleasure.

At Palmetto State Park in Texas, we are in the essence of spring. It is pure spring, all around us. Trees with soft green leaves unfurling, growing so fast that it feels like if you look away for an instant they will have changed when you look back. Wildflowers — yellow and white and purple and pink — some tiny, hiding in the grass, others standing tall and proud. A robin sitting on the branch outside my window as I write. White-tailed deer leaping through the trees at sunrise. Sweet olive trees covered in white flowers, their fragrance drifting on the breeze. One of the sweet olive trees — the biggest one I have ever seen — hummed as I approached it, mysterious until I realized it was the hum of a thousand happy bees. (I then cautiously moved away because, okay, humming tree, fascinating and cool; hundreds upon hundreds of bees, totally scary.)

My day here yesterday was… I want to say spectacular, but it was spectacular in a really quiet way. Zelda and I walked the San Marcos River Trail a little after sunrise. It was beautiful and lovely. We saw the site of the old mud boils, quiet now, but still noted with a sign. (Otherwise I wouldn’t have known what I was looking at). The trail was smooth, well-maintained, shockingly litter-free, and starts about twenty steps away from our campsite. It was a perfect morning walk, chilly enough to need a jacket, overcast, but not raining, a good length, interesting things to look at.

I did some work, including updating my work blog, texted with some friends, did some knitting, made myself a delicious lunch — scrambled eggs with chorizo, brown rice, goat Gouda, avocado, mushroom, and green onion (as posted on Instagram), and ate it sitting outside looking at the view. The sky was clearing, and the air was warming.

Then Z and I went for another walk, in a different direction. We crossed the river at a low point, which for her meant wading and for me meant hopping along the stones at the edges of the paved walkway, the rest of which had water flowing across it. I felt slightly ridiculous and yet also had that little kid thrill of knowing that if I fell, I would splash.

Back at the camper, I wrote. Good words. On Grace! First time in a long while that I didn’t feel like I was trying to fix something broken, but just letting the characters be who they were. We went for another walk. I sat outside on my new camp chair ($6 at Walmart and so much more comfortable than the $50 backpacking chair that I started out with) in the sunshine, warm enough to not need my jacket, and tried to write some more. Then Z wanted to be on my lap, so instead I snuggled her and felt so grateful to be in that moment, in that chair, with my dog licking my face. At sunset, we went for another walk. We ate dinner. I wrote some more.

Then I heard a rustling and caught a mouse in my trash can. Yes! A mouse. Serenity has mice. I can’t even…* I realized Tuesday that I had a mouse problem and it really ruined that day for me. Yesterday I let it go–nothing to do about it until I get on the road again–until one of them fell into the trash can. I carried it outside and released it, telling it to watch out for owls. Unfortunately, it was either not the only mouse or it came right back inside, because there was one after my granola this morning. Gah. So today I will be buying traps and repellent while I’m on my way to my next park.

But I didn’t let the mice stress me out yesterday. Yesterday, I enjoyed a perfect spring day. And not just a perfect spring day. My day, the day that I wanted.

A year ago, I was just starting to think about this adventure. I hadn’t decided to do it yet. I could still look around my house and think, wait, this is the home that I worked so hard for, the place where I wanted to live forever, my fantasy house. The window seat with its cushion made from material my mom and I found at a garage sale, the French doors, the bougainvillea, the neighborhood with its ponds and birds, the kitchen that is exactly right… was I really going to let it all go?

Yesterday was the day for which I let it go.

This sunset is worth a mouse or two.

*”I can’t even…” feels like a complete statement to me, but it sure looks odd when written down. So, you know, envision it with the head shake and wince of pain and hands spread wide that it needs in order to make sense.

Edited to add: OMG, the showers–so much water pressure, so hot! Not new and fancy, your basic rundown campground shower, but the best shower I’ve had in months.

January 2017

31 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by wyndes in Alabama, Food, Randomness, Travel, Zelda

≈ 4 Comments

Sunrise on Dauphin Island

A month ago, I wanted to write an end-of-2016 post: a reflection back on my year, calling out the high points, and maybe acknowledging a couple of the lows, too. I started it, then scrapped the whole idea. The year was too long. It included too much. I would have had to write for days and even then, I’d miss things. I decided, though, that in 2017, I’d write a post at the end of every month, reflecting back on the high points, on the moments I wanted to remember. I even put it into my calendar.

The alarm went off a few minutes ago: Write a best of the month post now. Okay, self, following orders: The best of the month is right now, right here.

I like that in a month. 🙂 I like that in a life, actually, to have the very best moment be the moment that you’re in.

I did have a lot of other nice moments in January, all of which can be summed up as “spent time with friends and family, mostly eating.” I’ve blogged about a lot of that already–sushi with R, new foods with my brother–but interesting pizza with C, grilled pork chops with J, and then E & A, & dinner with my writer’s group (where the food was utterly forgettable but the companions were wonderful) all fall into that category, too. All of the rest of January has fallen under the shadow of the Audubon Bird Sanctuary, though.

Today is my fifth day here and every day I’ve roamed through more of the sanctuary, exploring new and different trails. The birds are incredible. It reminds me of the aviaries in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, birds everywhere, flitting back and forth across the path in front of me, sitting in trees, standing or floating in the water, lined up on the rocks, swooping across the sky…

And the noises! Dozens of different sounds, tweets and chirps and trills and taps. Honestly, it feels like living inside a video game. Some of their calls sound like words to me — there’s one that says, “Secrets, Se-crets,” and another that says, “Here! Here, here, here!”

I could see the Disney connection and the video game as a sad commentary on my life. Why do the real sounds of nature make me think of unreal things? But yesterday I found the front entrance to the sanctuary and it turns out that this is recognized as one of the top four locations in the entire United States for bird viewing. So yes, the number of birds here is sort of unreal, if spectacular. And this isn’t even the season for them! Their peaks are during spring and fall migrations, not mid-winter.

I’ve mostly abandoned my attempts to photograph them, though. Yesterday, I was on the beach at sunrise, trying to take a photo of one of the birds lifting off from the water. The birds were dark against the rising sun, so graceful, so magical, and there were so many of them. The sound of the waves was like the heartbeat of the world, punctuated by the cries of the birds. It was still, barely a breeze, and cold enough that I was bundled up, wearing my scarf and gloves and coat, but not so cold that I was uncomfortable. And Zelda was bouncing around like a puppy.

But I couldn’t get a bird in a photo at all — they were too far away to be anything more than dark spots — and Zelda’s tugging at her leash kept bumping my phone so my photos were blurry, anyway. Fortunately, I realized I was feeling frustrated and annoyed, and that trying to save the memory was getting in the way of enjoying the sunrise and appreciating being on the beach with my dog. Not a good plan, so I stopped trying. I did take a few shots, today, though — more in the “lift the phone, click, see what you get later” mode, while I kept walking — which is where the top image comes from. My new photography plan is to not put any effort into getting the perfect shot, just take a bunch and hope to get lucky.

Unrelated (except in that I want to remember this) I made a gluten-free meatloaf using finely-chopped sauteed mushrooms instead of bread crumbs, but otherwise following a typical meatloaf recipe (egg, mustard, salt, herbs, onion, garlic) and it was delicious. I ate it once with roasted cauliflower and once with mashed white sweet potatoes, and will definitely be making it again.

I also made rice noodles, mixed with green onion, cilantro, mushroom, chopped-up hard-boiled egg, lime juice, and a little hot sauce, and it was not bad for a meal using the dregs of the cupboard. I meant to stop at a grocery store on my way here last Friday and I didn’t get around to it. I haven’t left the campground since, so it’s a good thing I’m headed out tomorrow. The freezer is empty and the protein sources are getting… oh, wait, I’ve got canned chicken and canned fish. Eh, I’m good for a few more days. But I’m still heading out tomorrow. Alabama has been spectacular, but I am looking forward to discovering Mississippi, as more than just a drive-through state.

Grayton Beach State Park

25 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by wyndes in Campground, Florida, Food, Serenity, Travel, WIP

≈ 3 Comments

Beautiful beyond words.

I used my grill twice, once for a hamburger that I ate with baked white sweet potatoes, and the second time for bacon. Bacon on a grill was… fiery. That feels like the wrong word, but I can’t find a better one. I had to throw some away after it turned into charcoal, and while I didn’t burn myself, I honestly don’t know how I managed not to burn myself. Seriously, the flames were leaping high. So that was an interesting experiment, and I will not be repeating it. I guess bacon is just not a food I get to eat while I live in a camper. But if yesterday was my last bacon, at least it was delicious: I mixed it in with scrambled eggs with cilantro, rice, and hot sauce, and it was very yum.

I met some fellow Travato owners and had a very pleasant hour or so chatting with them and seeing their camper. They’ve got the other model, the G, and they’re about two years ahead of me in traveling. It was so fun to hear their adventures — their favorite ghost town in Arizona, the restaurant parking lot where they spent the night in Malibu, the tram parking lot with the view of the mountains, the Walmarts & the beaches. They love their Travato for the flexibility, for the ability to just stay anywhere, and they’re very forthright about asking if they can park for the night. When they got here last night, the campground was full, but the ranger let them stay in the overflow lot — they were right on the water this morning, with a view that must have been amazing.

The writing is not going well, much to my frustration, and I’m starting to strongly suspect that I’ve caught a cold. But it is wonderful to be on the road again and going places.

Today is six months since I started this journey, an anniversary I very nearly missed until I was about to post, and blinking at the calendar wondering what was significant about January 25th to me. I meant to write about the highs and lows of my first six months when this day rolled around, but… well, I wasn’t thinking about it. And I actually feel like I’m kind of too busy living in one of the highs right now to write about the lows. I don’t even have words to express how beautiful this campground is, how perfect the weather, and how content and serenely happy I am to be here. I’m moving on today, though — the next campground is beckoning to me! — and that makes me serenely happy and also sort of bubbly with adventure excitement. Life is good. I guess that’s pretty my summary of my first six months on the road, too: life is good!

Unexpected restaurants

09 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by wyndes in Food, Randomness, Restaurants, Reviews

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My weekend took an unexpected turn, but turned out really quite nice. Because of flight problems, I wound up bringing my brother up to my dad’s place, so that he could fly out of a central Florida airport instead of Fort Lauderdale. Even though he flew out a day later, he probably wound up getting home earlier and he definitely wound up getting home with a lot less hassle than he would have otherwise. And it was really nice to get to spend time with my dad and my brother and — although way too short — my son! Yay! R came home from his adventures and came out to breakfast with us on Sunday and it was so nice to share a meal with my favorite people.

On our last night in Fort Lauderdale, I got my brother to take me to an Argentinian steakhouse, Las Pampas Grill. I had the arugula, endive and blue cheese salad, which was terrific. Not at all the fancy restaurant type salad where you get six leaves of arugula and a sprinkle of blue cheese, it was a solid salad with a scoop of a soft blue cheese, very yummy. And then we shared the meat platter, which included blood sausage and sweetbreads. My brother gave me a look when I suggested it — the look that said, “What have you done with the sister I grew up with, the one who ate nothing but white foods?” — but joined in agreeably. I liked the blood sausage a lot, definitely a different taste, but a good taste and a good texture. And that makes a week with three new foods!

The next evening, up in Mount Dora, I was off doing things — checking my email or turning my laundry — and returned to the kitchen to discover that I had been nominated to figure out dinner for us. I was surprised. I’m by far the most adventurous eater in my family (with the possible exception of my son), and I would have thought dragging my brother to two different restaurants in two days would have had him making sure I wasn’t in control of his food on the third day, but no, he was up for it.

I wound up picking a Japanese hibachi restaurant right near the house that my dad and stepmom had never tried. It was great — I had sushi and they had the rice, noodles, vegetables and meat cooked on the grill — and the cook put on a terrific show. I wanted to ask him if he’d sharpened the edges of his spatula, but then I decided that it was a dumb question, because obviously he had — he could slice an onion without hesitation using it. He could also break an egg, by balancing it on the spatula, tossing it up and catching it on the edge — I was extremely impressed. We needed a kid with us to be more awed, but for a little neighborhood strip mall place, very unprepossessing from the outside, it was a good show. And I should find the name again so I can give them a Trip Advisor review, but I’ll have to do that later, because today is a packed day and I need to get to it.

It’s a busy, busy week for me — I think it’ll be my last full week in Central Florida, so I am definitely trying to pack a lot into it. But I have to keep reminding myself that getting stressed out about my choices is silly. I’ve got plenty of time to do all the things. Starting right now! Happy Monday!!

Simplicity

31 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by wyndes in Food, Serenity

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Last Monday, I was waiting for my friend to get home, so I could go into her house and start cooking dinner. For a variety of reasons, we were eating really late — it was already around 7:30 — and I was starving, so while I waited I put together some side salads for us. On a base of mixed greens, I added red onion, red pear, radish, and cucumber, topped with balsamic vinegar. She still hadn’t arrived and like I said, I was hungry, so to distract myself I put together a little appetizer plate, too: dates wrapped in prosciutto and some mixed olives. When she got home, I topped some salmon with lemon preserves and put it under the broiler. About fifteen minutes later, we were eating. The salmon needed some salt, but it was fast, efficient, and delicious.

On Saturday, I showed up at the same friend’s house, and we had no plans. But we were both tired. Around six, we finally decided — well, I think I finally decided — that we should just cook something. I had boneless chicken thighs, so I sprinkled an herb mix (coriander, chili, cumin, parsley) over them, tossed in some dried apricots, and stuck them in the oven. While they baked, I made some brown rice, and salads of mixed greens, chopped dried apricot, pecans, avocado, radish, green onions, tomatoes… I think that was it. Again, it was delicious, but it’s not like there’s a way to go wrong with baked chicken thighs.

While we were eating, E gave me the loveliest compliment on my cooking. I wish I remembered her exact words, but alas, I don’t. But I know it was something about simplicity. I think, actually, she first told me I was an incredible cook and I pointed out that baked chicken thighs and salad are pretty much lowest common denominator — it’s not like it’s even possible to ruin a salad and it would be pretty challenging to mess up baked chicken thighs. Well, I guess they could be overcooked. Or undercooked. Or flavorless. But they were none of the above: they were very yum. But it wasn’t like it was a planned meal: I was literally just pulling stuff out of my cabinets and fridge to make us something to eat because we were hungry and feeling lazy. I guess, though, that was her point, because that was when she said… oh, I do wish I remembered her exact words! But something about while she was sure I could cook intricate meals, it was my ability to make simplicity wonderful that she admired. Something like that. And it’s funny that I can’t remember the exact words, but I still feel the glow of pleasure they gave me.

When I got to her house on Saturday, I was feeling stressed and over-tired and drawn back into a world of responsibility and worry. But we took the dogs for a long walk, then sat in her back yard and admired the trees and the birds. While I cooked dinner I felt the internal hum of satisfaction of being in a kitchen creating something and while we ate, I was almost purring with the delight of delicious food. By the time I fell asleep in Serenity that night, I was calm and mellow and happy again.

I wish I could get to a place where those things were instinctive — where I knew intuitively that what I need when I’m feeling off is outside, exercise, healthy food, creation, and companionship. Because earlier on Saturday I seriously wanted computer time and junk food and solitude. But it’s just not intuitive. Still, every time I learn that lesson maybe it sinks in a little more and I definitely learned it this weekend. The switch in my mood from Saturday morning to Sunday morning wasn’t dark to light — I’d had a really good week, so I wasn’t starting off from a bleak place — but it was definitely from heavy to light, if that makes any sense to anyone besides me.

Today is going to be a day of adventure — I’m headed to a haunted plantation to explore. And it’s Halloween! And then a new campground tonight, up in St. Augustine.

I should note, though, that I seriously love the state park I’m camped at — Tomoka State Park. It was an impulse stop when I didn’t know where I wanted to be yesterday, but it’s beautiful. I’m definitely putting it on my mental list of places to come back to and stay much, much longer.

I should write more about it — I hope I remember writing this blog post outside Serenity, in my little (not very comfortable) camp chair, with the white sand, palm trees and palmettos and live oaks, and the dogs peacefully snoring on either side of me. It also looks like a perfect place to pull out the kayak. But I’ve already spent over an hour writing this blog post — it was a lot of thinking, and a lot of words that went in circles and wound up getting deleted — and it’s time to get going.

Happy Halloween!

Spicy sweet potato hash

12 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by wyndes in Food, Randomness, Spicy

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Gettysburg Farm RV Park, Pennsylvania

The dogs couldn’t believe I didn’t share. I always share sweet potatoes with them. But it was so good, I just kept eating and then… it was gone.

So, in the insta-pot (surprise!), cook one chopped up sweet potato on a rack with a cup of water at high pressure for 2 minutes. When it chimes, use the quick release to let the steam out.

Take the sweet potato out and dump the water, then turn the insta-pot to saute. When the screen says Hot, saute some chopped up bacon and 1/2 cup of onion until they’re cooked to your liking. I like my bacon crispy and my onions carmelized, but you could stop when the onions were translucent if you like them better that way.

Return the sweet potato to the pot, and add some chopped up fresh cilantro, and something to make it deliciously spicy. I used about a teaspoon of a spice mix from Trader Joe’s called Pilpelchuma, a blend of chili, garlic, cayenne pepper, paprika, cumin, and caraway. I considered using chili garlic sauce, but you could also use a jalapeño pepper or some sriracha, whatever suits your spiciness needs.

Mix the ingredients together and make a little nest in the pile. Carefully crack two eggs into the nest. Turn the insta-pot back on high-pressure and set the time for 1 minute. It will take a lot more than a minute for the insta-pot to reach the pressure level because there’s not a lot of water in there to create the steam, but eventually it will chime. Use the quick release button to let the steam out and then carefully lift it out, trying not to break the eggs.

Say yum.

Don’t share with your dogs, even if they give you pleading looks. Although come to think of it, if you made more, you might have leftovers and they’d be good, too. Honestly, if I had another sweet potato, I might make myself some more right now. It was that good.

It’s been incredibly hot. I don’t mind so much, but it’s impossible to go anywhere, because I’m not willing to leave the dogs alone in the van. Plugged in, with the AC on, we’re fine, but if I was relying on the generator… well, I’m just not that confident. I bought an alert system to let me know when the temp in the van gets too high, but I’m not so convinced of its reliability that I want to test it out in life-or-death weather. So we’re hanging out at the campground, I’m fiddling with Grace, and listening to a lot of country music. Life is good. And so is spicy sweet potato hash with poached eggs!

Insta-pot debate

10 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by wyndes in Chicken, Food, Personal

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Gettysburg Farm RV Park, Pennsylvania

I bought an Insta-Pot during the Amazon Prime summer sale days. It seemed like a good idea — I’d wanted one for a while and I figured it could replace my slow cooker and give me some additional functionality for life on the road. But when it came and I tried to fit it into Serenity, it started looking like an expensive mistake.

Not my first — I bought an Amazon Tap on impulse when I meant to buy a Dot and purchased a very expensive tire-pressure monitoring system before reading the manual and discovering that tire-pressure monitoring was built-in to the Dodge system. Oops.

Fortunately, those were easily returned, but the insta-pot decision wasn’t so clear. After all, I had wanted one and I do feel like I need a slow cooker. But it’s big. Really big. It doesn’t fit in the over-cab space (not that I would put something that potentially dangerous there anyway – death by Insta-Pot during a fast stop is not how I want to go.) It doesn’t fit in any of the cabinets or in the limited under-the-bed space. In fact, the only place I can store it is inside the wardrobe. Apart from that, it would have to sit out on the floor and that’s sort of the same problem as the overhead space — leaving heavy objects out to fly around the van while you’re driving is not the greatest idea. It probably wouldn’t kill me from the floor, but in a 50mph collision with B and the Insta-Pot, B would lose. Squashed dog would be heartbreaking.

So the question was: do I want to give up my precious wardrobe space to a pressure cooker? I decided to answer by trying the insta-pot out as quickly as possible.

The first thing I made was a lemon chicken recipe using chicken thighs. It was… eh. Acceptable, but I could bake chicken thighs in the convection oven just as easily and they would taste just as good, maybe better because they get crispy. Admittedly, they would take a lot longer and heat up the van a lot more, but still, the chicken thighs were not a selling point.

Next I tried hard-boiled eggs. Wow. It is incredibly easy to make absolutely perfect hard-boiled eggs using an Insta-Pot. Five minutes, no mess, no heating a pan over the propane stove, and the eggs were truly perfect, exactly the way I like them.

However, have I mentioned the preciousness of my wardrobe space? I need shoes, ones with toes, and a winter coat, and maybe some rain gear. All of those things, once I get them, are going to need to be stored somewhere. I’d like to try going to the occasional writer’s conference: that would require professional(-ish) attire, which again, would have to be stored somewhere. Cleaning supplies, the screen door for the back, towels, the shower curtain, dog food, tools… there is a lot of stuff competing for that precious, precious storage space. Perfect hard-boiled eggs are not good enough to warrant giving it up to a pot. A big pot.

Today, I decided to try again. I bought two bone-in chicken breasts at the store, figuring I could cook them, then use the bones to make a small amount of stock. But when I tried to find a recipe that made sense, I failed. I should have looked for the recipe before going to the store instead of after. Alas. But I’m used to having a lot of staple ingredients, including a fully stocked spice cabinet, on hand.

Of course, not having a recipe never deters me. I decided to improvise. I did wonder, while I was mixing up a marinade of Marie Sharp’s Exotic Sauce (which I brought from the house and need to use up), balsamic vinegar, a generous handful of cilantro, and several chopped shallots, whether I was setting up the Insta-Pot to fail. Talk about a random marinade! But I marinated the chicken in the above for an hour, then sautéed it for a few minutes on the saute setting, then added a little bit of chicken broth, probably 1/4 cup, and used the poultry setting to cook it. When it was done, I took it out, measured the liquid — about a cup — and cooked a cup of jasmine rice in a 1:1 ratio with the liquid.

But I couldn’t wait for the rice. The chicken smelled so good! I kept stealing tiny bites of it, trying to figure out why/how it was so delicious. Was it the exotic sauce? The cilantro? The chicken wasn’t overwhelmed by the marinade, but it was infused with the flavors of the other ingredients. I could taste them — a little bit of a tang, that green bitterness of cilantro, the subtle kick of shallots — in each bite of moist, falling apart, yet fully-cooked chicken. It was ridiculously good.

When the rice finished, I added some dried cranberries — which probably would have been even better if I’d added them during the cooking — and a sprinkle of salt and ate. And ate. And ate. I had to force myself to stop when I was past full because I kept wanting just one more bite. I can’t remember the last time I over-ate. Which is not a particularly good selling point in the insta-pot’s favor, really, but I don’t suppose I should blame it too much for that.

The debate’s not over for me: my fridge is not big enough to store lots of leftovers and I can’t freeze extra ingredients. I may eventually decide that a diet of mostly salads and cold foods just makes the most sense for life in a van. But oh, I do regret the time I spent wondering if an Insta-Pot was really worth $120. If you have the room to store it, the answer is yes, yes, yes. And if you follow that link above, the price (at the time I write this, anyway) is only $70. Totally worth it! (It’s not an affiliate link — I don’t get any money if you buy it — so if you know anyone who uses affiliate links on their site, go visit their site, find an Amazon link, follow the link and then search on Insta-Pot, so they’ll get a few dollars from the sale. Yes, I have been learning about affiliate links recently!)

In other news, I’m hanging out in Gettysburg. I failed to go to a museum of agriculture and industry today. I felt like I should, since I was close and I’m traveling and museums are worthwhile… and then I remembered that my goal with this life is not to be a tourist, but to live simply. And to write. So far the writing is not going well, but maybe being very well-fed will be inspirational. 🙂

Wynded Words

~ Home of author Sarah Wynde

Category Archives: Food