nina turns 60

Not So Instant

My dad got me an Instant Pot for Christmas, and I confess I do not understand it. You cannot put ingredients in it, start it up, and go to work leaving it to cook all day like a crock pot, arriving home to a delicious ready-to-go meal. Instead, in order to cook anything, you must first let it build pressure for 10, 20, 30 minutes. Then it cooks said thing anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours. Then you must de-pressurize it, which is supposedly better to do naturally. Who knows how long that might take because I have never been patient enough to wait, because by this time I am HUNGRY. But it takes at least a couple of minutes to do that even with the vent while violent bursts of steam blast the undersides of your kitchen cabinet and possibly burn the shit out of you if you are not careful. Then the food inside is exactly the same as what I could have made on my stove in far less time.

Take this recipe, for example. It brags about being an easy weeknight meal that only takes 20 minutes, yet there are no fewer than SIX different vegetables that you must chop up, PLUS an entire bunch of lacinato kale that you must SHRED, resulting in at least 45 minutes of prep time. AT LEAST. True, once you have finished the endless chopping you simply toss everything into the pot and you only need to heat it on high for five minutes. Except it will take at least 20 minutes to get the pot up to pressure and then the recommended natural de-pressurizing after, which will take some mysterious amount of time that nobody knows or talks about EVER.

I can see that the pot will be great, and actually faster, for cooking dried legumes, and probably makes a good stew, but I'm not convinced about anything else. If you have a favorite recipe, or technique, help a girl out. I want to believe. 

 

 

my fat body

I want to write about being fat. About how people bristle when I describe myself as fat. Well, not bristle, but rush to assure me that no, I am not fat, because fat is bad and I am not bad. I want write that I did not stop eating sugar to lose weight. I have not tried to lose weight for decades. I have defiantly not tried to lose weight. But then, when I stopped eating sugar for a few months I did lose weight. People noticed. People commented on how good I looked. People assumed I'd been trying to accomplish this thing they were praising me for. It was both weird and satisfying. I thrive on praise—for good or ill. I glowed under this positive scrutiny. But I am also disturbed by it. I'm endlessly outraged that women's bodies are always considered an appropriate subject for public commentary. That my body, the shape of it, how it is or isn't pleasing to others is something that my family, my colleagues*, etc. think is fair game for scrutiny and discussion not initiated by me, the owner of said body. If I were fatter and/or lived in a more populous place, strangers would also have their say. 

It's been this way since I was a tween and there was much speculation around the neighborhood on what my boobs would look like when they came in, this transformation of my body into something public, something that was for others.

I just want my body to be mine. Who would have thought that would be such a radical notion?

 

*My family and colleagues are lovely. They are just doing what's expected. I don't blame them. Too much. 

 

small steps

This Christmas I did not make (or eat) fudge. I did not make (or eat) sugar cookies decorated in frosting, I did not make salted caramel to fill chocolate thumbprint cookies with. This Christmas was the first Christmas I can remember that I did not have a stocking full of chocolate. 

It started, like so many things in my life, with a book. The Sugar Addict’s Total Recovery Program by Kathleen Desmaisons was first published in 2000 and likely acquired by me shortly thereafter. Which is to say, I’ve been working on getting off of sugar for a very long time. 

It taught me the value of small steps that you can do every day. Of not needing to go cold turkey. Of being more aware of my body’s chemistry, my mood, and how food affected it. Her tone was kind and understanding. She had not only personal experience with sugar addiction, but lots of research backing her up. 

The only thing she asked of us in order to start was to eat protein for breakfast, and do it within an hour of getting up. And so I did. For years.

not small

I thought a lot about addiction in 2019. My own, mostly. I embrace caffeine and am grateful it is cheap, accessible, and socially acceptable. My relationship with sugar has been much more fraught, the damage it was doing to me more readily apparent, the likelihood of bingeing always present, the shame around food and appetite for women—especially fat women—settling over my head like a cloud. Sugar was my first addiction, and one of my greatest pleasures. I have always known that I should stop, but I didn't imagine that I could.

So, when Eve Ewing invited her followers on twitter to "tell us about a way in which you pleasantly surprised yourself this year. something you didn't feel like you could or would do, but did anyway." I responded by saying that I'd been off sugar since March.

It looks so small when I write it down. Nine months. But it is not small at all. 

 

soup

The fall cavalcade of soup continues. This afternoon it's black bean, peppers, and pork. Yesterday it was pureed delicata squash and carrot with diced apple garnish. Both of these made from the crock pot chicken stock that's been brewing away on my counter the last couple of days.

I've had my hand-me-down crock pot for a couple of years and finally started using it. I confess it's being poor that got me started with it; wanting to cook more frugally. But it makes me happy, too. 

It's good to know that the answer to the most relentless and exhausing question of parenthood* is now, quite often: soup!

 

*What's for dinner?