When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Cooking

It’s been a slightly harried few weeks. More work than I’m used to (but still less than I ought to be used to), a few big disapointments and frustrations and general life madness. Not to mention, the freezing ass cold. I know, I know – I live in Boston, its cold here. But not like this. At least, not in mid-November. Factor in the wind chill and the temperatures this past week have been hovering in the low teens. Not cool. In fact, truly frigid. This weekend I finally gave up my resistance to premature holiday celebration (decorated the house, caved into the Christmas music already on the radio). Because the truth is, it is beginning to look (and feel) a lot like Christmas.

Life has felt really hard lately. But I am not complaining – really, I am not. The main thing I have figured out during recent ups and downs (mostly downs, though) is that I am fine. Totally, more than fine. The good things in my life (husband, dog, home, health, etc.), far outweigh the bad. And even when it doesn’t feel that way, when the bad seems so much bigger than I can deal with and I am so damn tired of looking on the bright side, I have been trying to be more faithful about turning it all over to God and letting go. Part of what has made the tough feel tougher is that I keep demanding answers (right now, this second, my way or the highway), and then being frustrated that I'm not able to “fix it”. Throwing my hands up in the air and saying “I can’t do this, I don’t know what to do - take this, Lord, and You show me the way” has actually taken a lot of the (pride-filled) pressure off of myself. I don’t feel like as much of a failure if I accept that its not up to me in the first place. What is up to me is to always do my best (with a good attitude!), no matter what, and to diligently seek solutions (and accept what I have already been given) without placing demands on what is not within my control. God gives. God takes. God’s name ever be blessed. -- Job 1:21

Even Flutie has had a rough time lately. The week before last, after what had already been a really rotten, crummy, no-good, very bad day, I arrived home, let him out of his crate and discovered a bloody gash on his ear (and promptly burst into tears). The dog-walker takes him to the dog park every day for an hour or so, and Flutie is a rowdy fellow – he himself is not aggressive (at all – he’s actually very submissive) but is extraordinarily extroverted and playful, often not taking the hint when a much bigger dog (or a mean little guy) isn’t playing by the rules. He gets in over his head very quickly, so he has to be watched super closely at the dog park. But even under a watchful eye, I know things can happen. He’s a dog; they play, they get rough, sometimes they get hurt. My anger and sadness over his injury wasn’t simply that it had happened (although, it did make me wonder how closely they are, in fact, paying attention) but that no one had bothered to tell us about it. The walker leaves us a note everyday with what time they came by, how Flutie did that day, etc. but no mention at all of the injury that day. Instead, I was left to wonder the what the heck happened to my poor little baby. And it made it seem like they really were not paying attention, because maybe they didn’t even see the cut? It was pretty hard to miss, what with the blood and such. At this point, the gash has scabbed over and his fur has fallen out in that area (about the size of a nickel on his floppy ol’ Beagle ears) – it looks pretty foul. The vet said I could rub Neosporin on it and that seems to be helping it heal.

On top of that, we had to have a puppy wart (a tragic consequence of dog-park germ sharing) surgically removed from his mouth last week. It probably would have gone away on its own, but not for weeks (or even months) during which he’d be contagious and unable to be around other dogs (i.e. no dog park and no boarding him over the holidays). That is simply not conducive to Flutie’s social lifestyle, so we asked the vet to pro-actively remove it, leaving behind a couple of stitches on his lip. Between that and the nasty ear gash, he’s looking like sort of a junk yard Puggle these days. Dan says it makes him look tough, while I bemoan the loss of his promising modeling career.

My response to stress is usually the same: get into the kitchen and whip up a frenzy. The night I discovered Flutie’s injury (and, as I said, a really bad day overall), I collapsed into tears but pulled myself together to make dinner - homemade pumpkin ravioli in a sage brown-butter sauce with crisped proscuitto. It was, if I do say so myself, divine (and Dan said it was perhaps the best dinner I’d ever made…).

And it truly did make me feel better. Not only the eating part (which, obviously, I love), but the act of cooking itself has a therapeutic effect on me. It requires a lot of focus, to really pay attention to all the details of each step and forces me think about something else for awhile. The resulting sense of accomplishment (assuming whatever-it-is turns out okay, which it often does not) makes me feel like, well, at least I did something right, even if other things in life are a mess. In just the past two weeks, I have baked three dozen Reese’s Pieces cookies, a pumpkin pie, a three layer chocolate cake, a whole roast chicken and vegetables, chicken noodle soup from scratch, appetizers for a cocktail party (brie & champagne fondue and spanikopita), meatloaf and potatoes, homemade treats for the dog, and the aforementioned pumpkin ravioli. Despite having to work into several weeknight evenings and over the past weekend. The second I have free time, I start thinking what can I make? It’s not always the most inexpensive therapy (dang it, Whole Foods!), or the best for my waistline, but my husband sure appreciates my “coping mechanism”, as do my co-workers who receive the spill over excess baked goods.

Here are a few pictures of the roast chicken "experiment" – the first time I’d cooked a whole bird, had been meaning to for awhile. It turned out pretty well (stuffed with lemons, onions, rosemary and garlic and basted with olive oil, salt & pepper and onions) but I need to work on the timing of the vegetables in the roasting pan – the carrots don’t take as long to cook and got a bit overdone.

Ready to go into the oven...

Dinner is served

Sleepy Flutie is less than impressed.

The next night: fresh pot of chicken noodle soup made from the leftover scraps of chicken and vegetables