Tag Archives: cooking

The Agony Of Defeat

31 Friday Jan 2020

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What defeat am I talking about?

I fixed a curry tonight with chicken, celery, carrot, mushrooms, garlic, leeks, and fresh pineapple. I used a tikka masala powder, along with some cardamom, fennel seed and turmeric. I cooked it on the stove top then garnished with raisins, hearts of palm, cocoanut, and pine nuts. I served over rice.

Well I guess it was a little too spicy and J was not that happy with it. I liked the basic idea behind the curry, but the spicing was too hot for J’s palette. I am crushed. I know it’s just one meal. Still cooking is one of the ways I feel validated by J as a human being and a husband.

I knew I was taking a risk with the tikka masala. Still I wanted her to sing my praises to the Highest Heaven.

There will be a next time.  Pity Party over.

Tikka Masala Powder Used.

Expectations. The Update

07 Tuesday Jan 2020

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I watched a video about a mobile home for sale on a lot somewhere in Alabama or Mississippi or some other el primo mobile home state. For almost an hour I tbought about buying a mobile home. An hour. Almost. It would mean I (we) would have to move out to the country, out there in an area where tornadoes go prowling for innocent trailers. Forget that. Maybe I could write lyrics for country music songs if I lived in one.

I did not swim.

I did take a nap.

I fixed my Waldorf chicken salad for J’s lunch tomorrow.

I did two loads of laundry.

So I feel better. I did stuff that needed to be done that wasn’t particularly grandiose. There is hope.

In an unrelated observation, England’s Ben Stokes is a great batsman.

Done

31 Tuesday Dec 2019

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I started the day with back pain. I did some kitchen tidying, then lay down for a couple of hours, showered and lay down some more.

Then after dinner, I started preparation on chicken salad for J’s lunch. I went swimming, did a mile, came home. I did some laundry, finished the chicken salad and the other parts of J’s lunch.

Now I am tired and a little out of sorts. I’m going to bed .

3. XII. 2019

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

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I am screamingly tired right now. I have been on my feet, more or less continuously for eight hours, doing food prep mostly. I fixed chicken cacciatore for dinner, slicing shallots, garlic, onions, green pepper and mushrooms. Then I sautéd the chicken breast before putting the whole shebang in the slow cooker with some store bought red sauce for five hours. Meanwhile I roasted two chicken breasts for my roasted chicken Waldorf salad . After dinner I made the chicken salad and sliced J’s fruit for her fruit cup.

Add to the mix, a call from C around grocery shopping. I think he just wanted to talk while he walked up and down the aisles. Hey, I’m his Dad and retired. Why not call me. Truth is, it’s perfectly fine with me.

J finally gets home, around 4:00 PM. says she has to be at the store at 4:00 AM tomorrow, and has been in bed ever since, mostly sleeping, except to eat dinner. Cannot much blame her.

That is life around my stretch of Dystopia.

Where Have I Been?

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

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It’s been six days since I last posted. Too long.  There are things I want to say, activities I want to recount, dreams I would like to reveal. I need privacy.  I can’t write when my wife, partner, spousal unit is around. I don’t know why.

I have been consistently exercising again, as in 35 days out of the last 49.  Good old discipline. Good old nonkinky discipline. My swimming workout is now 2500 meters free style per day. If I don’t swim, I will walk four miles in my townhouse circuit, resting 2 days per week. It feels great.  Sometimes, while swimming or walking, I let my mind wander.  I fantasize about being in a sort of BDSM “fat camp”, where Trainer/ Dominatrices push out-of-shape males into top physical condition.  Lurid. Silly. But all fantasies are absurd,lurid, and silly to some degree.  Maybe the silly fantasies will find their way here as blogposts.

My cooking has been uninspired,  treading water in the culinary sense.  I imagine fixing a gumbo with chicken, Andouille sausage, red beans and gumbo (aka okra). Okra is verboten around Das alte Haus, but I think within the context of soup I may be able to pull such a daring venture off.

The Verizon door-to-door solicitors came by this afternoon. It is colder here than a well-digger’s toe. These intrepid lads out canvassing deserved some reinforcement. So I finally scheduled a FIOS installation. This means I have to take the lead in sprucing up the old  mini-storage unit we call home in order that the Verizon guys can do their job. MrsCorC? may not like this, but she will get over it. Or she won’t. Worse things can happen.

Life is pretty mundane. No blizzard. It’s been a fairly mild winter with just one decent size snowstorm. But that’s OK. Other than needing roads safe for emergency vehicles to operate, snow removal is waste of time.  It usually melts within a week here in Richmond.  The daffodils, croci, Bradford pear are all blooming or have bloomed.

“Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone”- John Mellencamp

The Present

14 Wednesday Dec 2016

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“Each new day is a gift. That’s why they call it The Present.”  So states a bit of 12-Step folk wisdom that is annoyingly accurate.

It’s been kind of painful around here, physical pain. I have some back pain that will not seem to abate. A trip to the orthopedic surgeon revealed no changes at the surgical site. Ergo, what I am experiencing is muscle pain.  That’s nice.  I guess.  So I’m back to swimming and walking and doing all the stuff I normally do, with no expectation that the pain is going to go away. Fair enough. As long as I know nothing is getting worse, I can live with the pain.

We don’t do any decorating for Christmas.  Being married to a person who has no commitment to organizing or cleaning means that the clutter  is the Decor.  Throwing a marriage away for slovenliness of the dwelling seems like a crappy reason to walk though.

Cooking is the general activity  for me around here. I fix dinner every night and groove on being a House Husband.  I did turnips Monday, for the first time in eons. I just peeled them, cut them up, boiled and mashed them with some dill weed and poppy seed.  Yummy.  I made salmon cakes with canned red salmon,  the kind they call “Sockeye”. I just added cracker meal, celery, dill weed and an egg and formed them in patties.  I fried them in my Scanpan nonstick skillet until golden brown.  The pan requires no added fat and they browned beautifully  Again Yummy.

I had a cooked sweet potato in the fridge and resolved to make a sweet potato pie with a Graham cracker crust.  Pulling out the trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook, going to page 331 were the directions. Simple and delicious.  I mean that.

I shared all this bounty with my stepmother.  That was the most satisfying aspect of the whole experience.

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Lurking, Substitutions, Sleep

04 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by in Exercise/ Fitness, food, Gender Roles, Sexual Identity, Sobriety

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If you follow my blog, you might have learned a few things about me.

  1. I had a spinal fusion in November, 2015 that effectively ended my working career. The fusion was preceded by a rotator cuff repair in May, 2015.
  2. I am a practicing Roman Catholic, having converted in 2010 at age 59, from The Episcopal Church USA.  “Practicing ” means I go to both Mass and Reconciliation (Confession) regularly, pray The Rosary, abstain from meat on Friday as a penance. Most importantly, I take Church teaching on love and compassion very seriously.  My faith is like  a “hard limit” with me. I realize a lot of you have had some truly crappy experiences with the Church. I understand. I’m sorry it was so bad for you. Part of converting meant I had to get two previous marriages that ended in divorce annulled under Canon (Church) Law.  I totally get the annulment ordeal.
  3. I am a recovering alcoholic, 22 years sober, AA attending. Along with The Church, I use the 12 Steps of AA in ordering and directing my life . Patience and tolerance are among the gifts I take from them.
  4. Partly from AA, partly from family history, and partly from my own personal experiences around sex and gender identity,  I am very accepting around LGBT issues.  If you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, that’s OK by me. To that end I am curious about your lives and how you view the world.
  5. On the lighter side, I like to cook.  I also like to exercise, swimming and power walking mostly.

This takes us to the first topic in the title, Lurking. All you Butch Lesbians and Bisexuals out there should know I read your blogs. Occasionally I will “like” a post.  I realize most Butches are OK with my reading. Some aren’t.  To those who aren’t OK with people of my demographic reading your blogs, I’m sorry. But I’m not quitting, unless you bore me to death.

Topic #2.  Substitutions. Since I like to cook and am in Recovery, I find substitutions for wine, beer and spirits in food challenging. Most times I simply not use a recipe with alcohol.  I know how alcohol cooks off in a lot of cases.  But the “esters”, those wonderful compounds that give different wines their unique and characteristic flavor, give me a headache. Any tips on substitutes for alcohol would be appreciated.

Topic #3  Sleep.  Between not having a job and chronic, albeit moderate, pain. I don’t sleep well.  Throw in the Cubs winning the Series, and my circadian rhythm has no rhythm. I’m like Ward Cleaver dancing.

That’s it. I’m done for now.