I wonder...

It seems like lately I have been regressing... and not in a good way.  I've been running too hard, saying too much, neglecting my responsibilities, and just generally being a douche.  I'm not good at being alone.  I like the freedom of living alone, but I'm SO not good at it.  The brain starts rolling, the mind goes places it should never have returned to, and my soul is severely missing some peace.  Is it possible to stop a tailspin before it happens?  If I know I'm doing it, can I fix it?  Or is it who I am?  I certainly can't switch off my brain.  It just isn't possible.  I have been trying for the better part of my adult life to figure out how and all I can say is "EPIC FAIL".  Everything I think of reminds me of something else... usually something painful and usually of my own doing.  I am supposed to be learning how to improve myself and I can't stop living in the past.  Until that happens, I doubt there will be any peace.  Then comes the anxiety of knowing that all of this is happening and not being able to stop it - which only compounds the problem. 

But, if I go out and try to not spend time alone, I do stupid things that I know better than to do and then I feel bad about that.  I apparently have not one shred of self-control.  I think I need to go somewhere where there aren't any people... maybe for a month or so and just have it out with my head... have all the arguments, think all the thoughts, sit in silence and decide if I am going to win, or if this world is going to kick my ass.  As it stands right now, the score is The World 10, My Ass 0.

I'm usually very private about issues like this, but I have recently realized that being private means not talking, and not talking means it stays in my head.  If I know one thing for sure, there is no more fucking room in my head, so if you read this blog, you might want to get used to this... this stuff in my head is like a nose full of snot... if it doesn't come out, I think I'll suffocate.

Exposure
To hurt. To criticism. To rejection.
This is the fear that breaks me

I long to live beyond that
To become the body which
Lives within my soul

Such uncharted waters are these
Too long neglected
Too deeply buried in a sea of doubt

All the dreams have been crushed
Under an unyielding pressure
Placed upon my head

For just one moment,
I long to breathe again
Freely, as I once believed I could

I seem to feel a pulse returning
To my once shattered heart
Softly pounding as if to whisper, "hello?"

I wonder if anybody's home
To answer the faint call
Unafraid of opening that door again

Feeling the elements that surround
and breathing the fresh air
That the world outside so readily offers

To be exposed...

Pa Breier

I don't know how many of you still read this, but here is a link to Jess' blog.  It has current details about her dad.  All prayers being accepted at this time.

No More Ms. Fix It... Probably

As many of you who know me know, when it has come to times in my life of stress related to others' disagreements, I have always been the first one there to jump in, learn the story, and try to fix it. Sometimes it works... sometimes people move out.
It is almost beyond my control to have the overwhelming desire to try and make something work that is broken. I FIX STUFF. And by fix, I mean to my satisfaction... not necessarily to what is right.
Many an argument has been had over who is right and who is wrong in my presence. I think, for the most part, people trust my ability to rationalize a situation and come up with something that makes sense for the moment. That is a pretty sacred trust. One that weighs on a person and over time can break them down...
I have given a lot of my mental attitude and focus to a lot of people over the years. Some people, I truly believe that I have helped. Others, I am 99% sure I just prolonged some inevitable pain that they were going to have to deal with. My intentions weren't always honorable in those situations and those people, the people they were dealing with, and I ended up in worse shape for it. Fortunately, I found a way to come to peace with myself enough to stop doing things for dishonorable reasons... at least I don't have that guilt looming over my head anymore. However, there is still too much stress in dealing with my own life issues and still trying to 'fix' others.
So, I think I'm just going to be a friend from now on. I'm not going to try to fix you, your situation, or your life station. I won't butt in when I'm not wanted and I certainly won't be anything other than a good listener and a person you can trust not to stab you in the back (I haven't always been good at that either). If that is something you want and can handle from me, then I am all yours.

And yeah, I like pina coladas AND getting caught in the rain...

School, STXI, Snot, and Sunday

I know, I know. It has been entirely too long since I have posted anything. For that, I am sorry. I find it terribly difficult to come up with new things to say (I think way too much about trivial crap - shut up Jess).

Let us begin with school. I'm still in Baking. It is hard for me to get super excited about the baking... it is very formulaic. Once you get the method and formula, it is like mental masturbation... you just keep doing the same thing over and over. Like, this past Saturday, we made bread. Two weeks before, we made bread. Two weeks before that, we made bread. Some pies and cookies spread throughout, but it is all very cut and dry. I'm pretty sure, in a pinch, I could be a bread maker as my Clark Kent... but I'd have to be a chef as my Superman... I just love the rush of figuring out new flavors and just making stuff up on the fly and having it be just awesome. The breakfast casseroles that were made for STXI never had a recipe. The only 'formula' I had was for the custard.


Everything else, down to the nutmeg, came right out of my head. That's what gets me going... the thrill of the knowledge and the application coming together to make something that people go gaga over.

Speaking of STXI...
Wow! What an awesome time! You know it is a good time when someone has to show you video of the night because you remember cracking open the tequila bottle and that's about it... And waking up Sunday morning with a wad of 48 one-dollar bills in your pants pocket knowing that you must have kicked ass at LRC (again, even though you don't remember it).

The only unfortunate part was that I woke up Sunday morning with an awful sore throat and felt like poo. I have fought this crap for this whole past week. I'm pretty sure it was strep (can't be tonsillitis, don't have those) but here's the amazing part... about 2 months ago, I watched this documentary on PBS and they were talking about the power of vitamins. I'm sure there was some left-wing, Phil-type message in it, but there were some facts that I had no reason to refute. So, not long after, I started taking a multi-vitamin (to supplement any essential nutrients I might be missing in my diet), a 500mg Vitamin C tablet (anti-oxidant and immune booster), and a B-Complex tablet (helps in the conversion of food to energy and Niacin is a major mood enhancer). Back to the amazing part, with a little time (about 6 days) and these vitamins, my illness is disappearing. Now, I don't claim that the vitamins are curing illnesses, but I do find some merit in the fact that they are providing my body with the power it needs to fight it off itself without antibiotics or other drugs. I will say that I took Nyquil, but only to help me sleep and some naproxen to help ease the pain of the sore throat, but those are basically not going to do anything to cure an illness, they just help with the symptoms.

That brings us to today... Sunday. I love Sundays. It is the only day of the week where the only thing I really have to do is laundry. I can sit around in my underoos all day if I want too... and nobody gives me grief. I can blog, watch Food Network, pet my dogs, and burp...

I love Sundays.

Nothing is in season at this time...

So, I really think I want to get deeper into this 'slow food' movement... I mean, it makes total sense for us as human beings to eat things that are produced locally and that don't have to be dipped in some sort of preservative to get to our mouths... So, I added this little box at the bottom-right side of my blog (it's been there for a couple of months now) to tell me what produce is in season at any given time... buy it local, buy it in season, buy it cheap, and it WILL be good...

Alas, for the last two weeks, I have gotten the proverbial blue screen of death in that little box "Nothing is in Season at this Time."

I guess I'm just going to have to learn how to do my own home preserving so I can enjoy things and save them when they are meant to be saved and not when someone at Birds Eye tells me it it's time...

And I'm Halfway to 40...

So, I remember when I turned 25 and Amber (in all seriousness) told me that I was halfway to 30... of course, it only took a few seconds for all of us in the vicinity to bust out laughing (including Amber) at the silliness of what had just been said.
Twenty-five and the world is ahead of you. Not really a care in the world... except those damn debt collectors who wouldn't stop calling me. God, that really is the most annoying thing in the world (on a side note, I'd like to offer an apology to all those who had to endure those years of phone calls for me... yeah, I'm super sorry about that). But aside from that, not really much in the way of caring about anything.

Thirty-five and things are a little different. Hell, they're a LOT different. There are no more annoying phone calls (at least I got that part figured out), but there is also no more time. No more time to not care about anything. No more time to hang out and do nothing. No more time to find the kid in you. There are too many other things to worry about. There's a mortgage, the bills (that you pay to keep those assholes from calling you), there's work, there's school, there's yard work (which I have woefully neglected), there's trying to take time out to be a good friend, there's homework, there's the car payment, and there's stress... the stress of trying to figure out how to balance it all and still have enough time to just be me.

I know the school thing is adding to that stress and it is only temporary... but when that's done, then what? There's going to be new jobs and new adventures that will pull away from all the other things that make this already delicate balance even more tenuous.

I used to think that people who had 'mid-life' crises were just being self-absorbed babies. They were just selfish and narcissistic jerks who bought sports cars and spent their time ditching everything that was important to them. I thought I was above ever going through any kind of emotion about getting older... I think I was wrong...

I'm not sure when it hit me... maybe it was last week when I realized that I was about to be 35 and I was sitting at my desk peeling stickers off of bottles... probably wouldn't have been so bad if it were a rare occasion, but it's not. I do the most menial tasks every day in the hopes that I can keep a job I don't even really like anymore. Thirty-five years old, workin' for the man, trying to make a living that is barely that and hating every minute of it. It's not that I hate working... It's just that I hate what I do, I hate that I'm really damn good at it, and I hate that I'm smart enough to know that I should never have been here to start with.

That's the thing, see... I know that I'm smart... too smart for this crap anyway. But with my 'intelligence' comes a level of stupidity that is unsurpassed my most. I wasted a lot of it... hell, up until the time I made the decision to go back to school, I damn near wasted all of it. I wish I had been smart enough to not waste my smarts.

That's my big regret. My only one really... all that other stuff that I've screwed up was just a learning experience. And I think it's all made me a pretty awesome person... and let's face it, I'm pretty freakin' awesome.

I just wish I could get past that whole wasting my talent thing. I told my mom last weekend that I'm pretty sure that if I had gone to culinary school when I originally wanted to and knowing what I know now about it, I probably would have screwed that up too... I wasn't mentally ready for it... I wasn't mature enough to handle the pressure... so in that sense, I guess that wasn't so bad, but still, it doesn't change the fact that I'm 35 years old now with an IQ of 141 and it took me 34 years to figure out that I'm an idiot.

How's that for irony?

Chapter 7, Day 37

Peas with Fennel and Bacon (Or Soy Bacon if you so prefer)

You will need:
Half a bulb of fennel, diced
1 small or half of a large onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/4 to 1/2 lb of bacon (depending on on how much you dig the swine) or soy bacon (if there is such a thing) chopped up
1 lb of frozen peas (thawed)
1/2 cup of chicken stock or broth
1/2 stick of butter (cubed and COLD)
1/4 cup of the fennel fronds and parsley, finely chopped, divided into two piles

Take the bacon and saute it on medium heat until the fat is rendered and the bacon is done (just shy of crispy). Remove the bacon from the pan and add onions, fennel, and garlic to the pan (you will probably need to add some oil if you're using the soy stuff). Sweat, don't brown, the mixture until the fennel is soft. When the vegetables are soft, add 2/3 of the bacon back to the pan and saute for 2-3 more minutes. Then add the chicken stock and fold in the peas and cook over medium heat until the chicken stock is almost evaporated. Remove from the heat and add the cubed butter and half of your parsley/fennel frond mixture to the pan and swirl in the pan or fold with a spatula until the butter is melted. Pour onto a serving dish and sprinkle the remaining bacon and parsley/fennel mixture over the top and serve.

It's like a little bite of heaven in your mouth... I promise

Chapter 7, Day 30

Two words: Chocolate Mousse
Yum!
Okay, that's three but it is that good.

Chapter 7, Day 24

Wow, what a difference a few weeks makes. When I first started this endeavor, Saturdays really killed me. I am just not used to being on my feet all day and having to stand in one spot or even run around like a controlled-chaos idiot. Not to mention the fact that my shoes are most likely a half-size too small (but it's too late now). I would get to the end of class and look for any reason I could to sit down... usually it was after we ate and I would go outside to smoke and sit down (bearing in mind that this is the only allowable break in our day). But really that only made it worse. Go sit for 7 minutes and every joint and muscle in your lower body just seizes up and it makes walking just that much more painful.
Today, I didn't succumb to the temptation... today was actually the first time I didn't feel like I needed to. Don't get me wrong, my feet still hurt like a... ahem... well, they hurt really bad, but it's getting better. It's getting more tolerable. It's becoming ok.
Honestly, that was my only doubt about being able to do this... the physical part... but I've since realized that I'm doing way better than some people who are 10 years younger than me and in much better shape... I'm gonna be ok. It's really going to happen.

Peace

Chapter 7, Day 17

Today... shoo... today was rough. Not only did I wake up with a headache that I thought was going to kill me, but today was our first lab where we started making actual recipes. We practiced some knife cuts for the first hour or so and then our groups (3 people each) began working on our menu. Each group was given three recipes to do and 3 hours to do it in. See, what we do, is all the stuff we cook feeds all three lab classes for the day, so when we say service is at 1... well, we better damn well be ready. There's nothing more intimidating than two other classes full of students who are ahead of you and who have been through what you're going through drooling on the glass of the doors waiting. My group was responsible for a garden salad with homemade croutons and vinaigrette, tuna salad, and corn chowder. All of these recipes seem relatively easy, except you're making enough for 30-40 servings each. There is A LOT of prep work... so, let me back up.
When we were practicing knife cuts, this kid in my group (and I say kid because I believe he's about 20) kept leaving his thumb out when he was chopping where it was only a matter of time before he chopped it off... and I told him that. I said, "man, if you keep that thumb out, you're going to lose it." He was good until we got done with knife cuts. But then, when we started in prepping our ingredients for our menu, he started doing it again. At this point, I told him in my "I'm your boss tone" (thinking that might scare him a little bit) that he was, in fact, going to cut his thumb... maybe cut it off if he didn't stop it. So, thinking that I'd scared him a little, I went back on my merry little way prepping all the veg we were going to need for these big ol' dishes... not 10 minutes later I hear "uh oh" and I knew without looking what had happened. He had sliced his thumb and he had done it well. There was blood everywhere. It looked really bad. So, Chef sent him down to 'Public Safety' to get looked at... Great, we're down a man with all this stuff to do.
So finally, he came back and decided that it wasn't bad enough to leave and go to the hospital. So I'm thinking, "Well, at least he can mix stuff and be a gopher if he can't cut stuff (because they had his thumb wrapped up like he was a cartoon character that had just hammered his thumb)." But it wasn't to be... he just kinda moped around for the first 30 minutes he was back until something snapped in me... I told him if he was going to be here, he had to do something. So, I just started barking orders at him... go get this, do this, stir that. I didn't give that kid a chance to breathe... I have to tell you, that felt pretty good... It felt natural... I'm over here working my ass off and still having the wherewithal to see the big picture and get other people moving... In case you weren't sure, that is exactly what a chef does. I've worked in a couple of kitchens in my life, and that is just what they do. It's their name on the line and they expect that you know it.
It was really satisfying... I must say, in my normal life, I give orders all the time, but I have never been as comfortable doing it as I was today.
These are the little affirmations that let me know that I am making the right decisions with my life... it doesn't happen all that often, so, I'm going to relish it while I can.

Peace

Chapter 7, Day 16

So, tonight in my theory class, we have our first test. It's over the general 500 YEAR HISTORY of restaurants and the folks that began creating them, food sanitation, cooking methods, heat transfer methods, and recipe conversions... I am pretty sure there could not be a more random mix of things for a class to have one single test over. The history part would be so bad if they weren't all french and all of the words they used... well, they're french too. I suppose I'm fortunate to have had 3 years of french in high school and 2 semesters of it at UK (but I think we all know how well I performed there and ALL of the things that I've done since then to destroy brain cells). The food sanitation part is cool because it's just review from the other classroom-class I have this semester. Cooking methods (which also include equipment ID) is tough but it's doable. Heat transfer methods, well, that's just basic physics that I've somehow managed to actually retain all these years. And that leaves us with recipe conversions--breaking down recipes that make 100 servings into smaller portions... simple math, right??? Do you know how many ounces a Grade A Large Egg is? Do you know how many teaspoons are in a gallon?

I'm pretty sure if I stick one more number in my head right now, my frontal lobe will fall right out... right on to the floor in front of me, do a little dance, roll over and laugh at me, and then proceed to steam and melt away a la the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz.

What a world...

Ah well, this is what I signed on for so, suck it up Harris!

Chapter 7, Day 10

Not much going on in theory class last night but Saturday in lab, I must say, I kicked ass. I rocked at chiffonade, concasse, blanching, pasting garlic, and poaching. Minus the hiccups with battonier and brunoise (that are still beating me up) it was a really good day. I'm feeling a lot more confident after the second lab for sure. I just needed to absorb the first week and remember to relax. This is going to be fun...

Chapter 7, Day 8

Pardon my missing a few days, but I didn't really think you guys would want to know what I did on my non-school days because it wasn't much but work and study...
So, last night... Last night was good. We started in on parasitic infections and shellfish contamination and all I can say is, people need to stop pooping. Every infectious, food-borne illness that I have learned about in the last 2 weeks has something to do with poo. People don't wash their hands and have poo on them, they make you sick. People poo a lot and the water isn't treated correctly, the plants and animals get sick and then YOU get sick. All the way down to shellfish... they have toxins that stem from contaminated water that can make you sweat, then puke, then twitch, and then forget that the whole thing even happened (which, if I were going to get sick, I suppose that is how I'd want it to happen). Like I said before, the odds are in your favor that you won't get sick, but jeez.
Well, that's what I learned last night... people and animals poo too much. Oh yeah, and I got a 97 on my first test :)

Chapter 7, Day 3

Today... well, today was brutal. Don't get me wrong. This isn't a discouraged moment. This is just the truth. Six hours of standing in one spot trying to make perfect julienne carrots and potatoes is a gut-wrenching experience. I fully understand that chefs are on their feet for very long hours and work for very long stretches without stopping for anything. I know that this will be me in a short amount of time. But let me tell you, when you have a mainly desk-type job for 8 years and don't do a large amount of strenuous activity because you're a lazy slob like myself, 6 hours of standing in one spot with new shoes bent over a table with a knife in your hand is like asking a drunk for directions... it's just painful.
But like all things that are worthwhile, there is pain to be had and lessons to be learned. Today I got a really good lesson in "This is what happens when you are a lazy son-of-a-bitch"

No more, my friends... no more.
:)

Chapter 7, Day 2

So, phew... got the first day under my belt and it's all good. However, since the class I go to on Thursday nights only meets one day a week for three hours and forty minutes, we took the obligatory 30 minute "this is who I am and this is the syllabus" time and then we dove right in to the wonderful world of Food Sanitation... let me tell you that it is safer not to eat and starve to death than it is to actually put food in your mouth... well, not statistically speaking, but who really likes any situation where the odds are one to anything that you'll get intestinal infections, vomiting, bloody stool, and severe abdominal cramps (or maybe even dead)? And it doesn't matter if it is flora or fauna... everything can be contaminated. Luckily though, I'm not one of those people who tend to worry about stuff like that (obviously) so it doesn't really bother me all that much. I'm pretty sure I've survived a few food 'taintings' in my day.
So, anyway, I hope to keep this blog rolling with all kinds of pathogen-induced, food-borne illness stories to keep the general population in a frenetic state for as long as I can. Why? Because I can :)

Chapter 7, Day 1

Well, today is the day... Today I start the next chapter in my life. My 'first' day of school. It's weird... I went to bed last night with the same butterflies and restlessness that I remember having on the night before the first day of school when I was a kid. It was kinda cool though because I never really had that feeling when I started at UK, or back at LCC to try and make some sort of effort to not waste my life. I was excited and nervous just like a kid again.
I have to say that this is the most satisfying decision I have ever made for myself. I'm certainly not discounting other decisions that I have made that were awesome, but this is by far makes me feel... what's the word... ah yes, content... like I'm comfortable in my own skin for one of the very few times in my life.
So, at 6 o'clock tonight, I start Chapter 7. When I write the book, this one my not be the longest chapter, but I know it will have the happiest ending. I hope it rubs off on Chapters 8, 9, and 10
:)

Because I Think Too Much...

So, it has been quite some time since my last post, and for that, I apologize. Seems like life gets in the way sometimes, and other times, my apparent apathy toward life takes command. The last few months have been a time of soul searching for me... DEEP soul searching. To put it in perspective, the last time I went this deep, I quit my job of 7 years at Toys 'R Us and became a bum for about 8 months... so... yeah, it's that deep.

I was sitting at my desk about 4 months ago in one of my 'repetitive, redundant tasks make me drool and daydream' modes and I flashed forward 10 years to see myself sitting at my desk in another one of my 'repetitive, redundant tasks make me drool and daydream' modes only this time I was older and more pathetic. It was almost enough to make me a) cry for still doing the same mind numbing job all those years, b) bang my head against the wall because I let all my dreams die for a job, and c) kick myself in the face because I know I'm wasting my life here. Luckily for me, it takes a Proctor and Gamble commercial at the Olympics to make me cry, I had a headache already that day, and well, I think we all know I'm physically incapable of kicking myself anywhere except my other shin.

That's when I decided... I didn't know just yet what I was deciding except I was making a decision to change my life. I, for lack of a better description, completely wasted the rest of the day sitting and thinking about what the hell I really wanted to do with my life... my heart kept going back to culinary school but my brain kept rejecting the idea like I was still 18 years old, scared to go against the demands of my parents because they were paying for my school, and still servile to their wishes. I kept saying to myself, "it's too expensive" or "there's no future in it" or "you're too old now to do something like that... that world is for the youth"... and then I found myself becoming increasingly angry.

I was getting angry at myself because, for whatever childhood reason that keeps kicking me down, I was tired of telling myself 'NO'. The worst part was is that I do that with lots of things and never realize it until it's too late. So I told myself that I wasn't going to do that to myself anymore... I wasn't going to be my own best whipping post... I'm not going to be afraid to fail anymore... That the fear of failure over the short term was way less intimidating than the fear of regret for the rest of my life.

So I did it... I got online, requested information, actually answered the phone when they called me back, took the campus tour, filled out the paperwork, signed my student loan Master Promissory Note, got fitted for my chef coat and chef pants and chef shoes, went in and set up my schedule and got it all squared away.

I'm going to be a chef. I am going to do what my parents were afraid to do... what they made me afraid to do for all those years...

I AM GOING TO BE A CHEF!

Suck on that Harris!

I want to talk about pain...

So, a friend of mine posted a video (Rain by Patty Griffin) on her Facebook page and it is a song that I had really forgotten about. It's about 7 years old now and I remember hearing it for the first time just sampling some stuff at Joseph Beth on one of the few occasions that Jess and I went to Joseph-Beth... that's pretty much my favorite thing to do there is go and sample all the new music that you really never get to hear anywhere else unless you listen to WUKY for 80 hours straight... In fact, that was how I was introduced to Patty Griffin way back in 1996 when Living with Ghosts first came out... it was early spring... maybe May... anyway, I'm getting off topic.
I remember that song so vividly and thinking how purely painful it was... it is a song that hangs on pain... 'Strange how hard it rains now'... like you didn't notice until you'd been hurt so bad. Pain has caused a wound so deep in you that now it is filling with rain that you never noticed was there before and you feel like you're going to drown.
The essence of the song is basically 'I can't give you what you want and you can't give me what I want and it really fuckin' hurts'... but it is done so beautifully that you know that instead of drowing you, the rain is working to wash the pain away... you know you're going to be at the brink of suffocating under all this water but then the water will release and you're going to be cleansed.
"When I'm still alive underneath this shroud"... it's almost like if you gave it one more verse, the sun would come out... but you're not quite ready for that yet, so it ends... just like that...
It's beautiful.

Random thoughts while mowing the yard

• Sometimes riding around on a lawnmower crying makes me feel stupid...
• It is pretty cathartic to ride around in circles with no where to go or no where to be...
• You get to think up great one-liners that would be awesome in a song like "It's like the world suddenly stopped turning and my heart popped out of my chest and slammed against a concrete wall... not because it wanted to but because inertia told it to"
• Tears down your cheek + dirt and grass blowing back in your face = one hell of a mess
• If you get the lawnmower going fast enough down a hill it kinda feels like you're on a really shitty roller coaster.
• You realize how stupid you look with your hands in the air while you are riding down said hill.
  
• You get enough time with yourself to figure out that your head and your heart apparently speak to one another only when necessary... and by necessary, I mean never

I feel most sure that there will be more to come kids... just stay tuned...