A deep held belief that I've had--and maybe this is a part of the mental illness, I don't know--is that my body, somehow, works differently than most. When I was purging six times a day, I truly believed that my body was invincible. When it was evident that I was bleeding internally and having heart problems, I really believed that my body wasn't sick because sickness would look different, more severe, more desperate. And when I was able to lose 30 pounds in six weeks, I believed those weren't real pounds--they were pounds with slices shaved off of either side, pounds for the less serious.
And I think I believed this to be true about Project 28--that either, it would work so well and I would achieve not just the 28 pound weight loss but the perfect balanced meditative life where mornings would seem so easy I wouldn't need coffee (I'm writing this blog on my second cup), where my arms would welcome a crow pose just for warm ups, where the chronic pain would prove itself just a symptom of my chakras needing to be realigned. Or that Project 28 wouldn't work at all. That my body would prove itself incapable to what "normal" bodies seem to be able to do.
My body, stagnating.
It's hard sometimes when I hear some folks, on the same track I am, talking about how smooth and steady their weight-loss has been, how they seem to be losing in even increments, predictable week-to-week weigh-ins.
Here's what has actually happened for me this year: I've written 54 blogs. I passed my exams and my prospectus (both major milestones en route to PhD), got two more articles out to peer review (one under publishing contract now), did the gritty work of letting some relationships go while working on optimism with others, in a city where I was convinced, a year ago, there was nothing left. I've moved. Twice. I've weathered a long-distance relationship with my partner and figured out more of what's important to our lifestyles. I feel privileged to see my partner working on her creativity and ideas again--maybe this has been my favorite part of the year. I've also seen more of Indiana's prairies and windmills than I've needed to. I started work at a journal and created two more of my own course syllabi. I've explored new ways to address chronic pain--I now look forward to acupuncture and have found that while I'll have painful days, they are less frequent, less severe, and don't last as long.
And here's what's happened with the actual weight-loss: I went up and down and up through my exam period, the last bit because I relied a bit too much on nightly glasses of wine to turn my brain off and my anxiety down. But I did get physically stronger. The hip pain gradually lessoned. I could do more physically. Since Spring Break, when I began this Weight Watchers, I've lost 17 pounds, ten of which are the original Project 28 goal. I have between 15-25 more to go. I'm four and half months into the 12 months of Weight Watchers I promised I would stick to. And it's true that I don't seem to be as successful as others in the program (for instance, despite hiking and biking and working out in the gym this week, I've still gained two pounds from Indian food and ice cream cake and one night of rummy-sangria that ended with a fence-hopping, midnight underwear dip in the pool) but if I wanted to count my success on pounds, I would be doing this weight loss in a completely different way.
I want to be clear. I have a mental illness that involves depression, anxiety, and eating disordered behavior that landed me the hospital for two years. I don't think I am recovered. But I do think I am becoming more patient, more willing to live with my brain's contradictions and idiosyncrasies, perhaps even a bit more balanced.
Crow pose aside.
This is a project about finding balance in my twenty-eighth year. And losing some weight. This in the midst of beginning a longer-distance relationship with my partner, taking my PhD Candidacy exams, and continuing my mental health recovery.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
"Generation Screwed": Thank You Newsweek
I had just gotten home from teaching, walking through 105 degrees of humid, heavy air and reaching my apartment mailbox to find the latest Newsweek, the title of one of their feature articles spread across the top heading, "18-34? You are a Generation Screwed."
I hobbled to the stairs, laden with lunch totes and computer backpack, thinking only of ice cream.
When I reached my door, my cats accosted me with dissatisfied meows as I turned the lock. Throwing my things onto the couch, I turned to address the kibble-growls of my felines, keeping them at arms length with my left hand, scooping their meals with my right. I pour them water, then myself.
I sit, put my feet up, turn the fan up a notch--all with whole fruit coconut bar in hand. Instead of going through my mail and being reminded of the bills (why are they still sending me paper ones? I check "paper-free" every single month) and credit card offers (didn't this industry collapse? what part of grad. student don't they understand?), I turn on my television and roku for an episode of Downton Abbey. Why yes, I think I would like to turn, however fleetingly, to the 19-teens, when women were still talking about suffrage, the flapper era was imminent with the post Great War rising hemlines and headbands, and the working class was still talking about Marx.
The taste of frozen, creamy coconut never tasted so good.
I wouldn't be reminded to read the Newsweek article for another few days. I circled around it. Wondering what it could tell me that I didn't already know. And I wondered if it was telling anyone else anything they didn't already know. Lowest earning power since the Great Depression. Ten years or war. Highest credit card debt ever. Highest student loan debt ever. First time ever that a college degree does nothing to give you leverage on the job market. Noted.
But I did read it, while waiting for my partner to find her sneakers before meeting our friends for dinner.
And here's the thing about being a proud member of the Screwed Generation: stability is going to look like nothing we've envisioned before. Now that, as I'm writing this, I'm experiencing a temporary bout of optimism, I realize that we have an opportunity to value, more than ever, the only thing we can count on having for the rest of our lives. Our bodies.
What does it mean that, instead of investing in property or business, we invest in our bodies? That we come to value experiences over things? That we dismantle a medical industrial complex that is interested in short-term fixes? That we tell our bosses (if we have them) that we won't bother with a workweek that doesn't accommodate exercise and growing our own food and long, luxurious meals with friends and family?
Thank you, Newsweek, for pointing out the obvious.
Bottoms up.
I hobbled to the stairs, laden with lunch totes and computer backpack, thinking only of ice cream.
When I reached my door, my cats accosted me with dissatisfied meows as I turned the lock. Throwing my things onto the couch, I turned to address the kibble-growls of my felines, keeping them at arms length with my left hand, scooping their meals with my right. I pour them water, then myself.
I sit, put my feet up, turn the fan up a notch--all with whole fruit coconut bar in hand. Instead of going through my mail and being reminded of the bills (why are they still sending me paper ones? I check "paper-free" every single month) and credit card offers (didn't this industry collapse? what part of grad. student don't they understand?), I turn on my television and roku for an episode of Downton Abbey. Why yes, I think I would like to turn, however fleetingly, to the 19-teens, when women were still talking about suffrage, the flapper era was imminent with the post Great War rising hemlines and headbands, and the working class was still talking about Marx.
The taste of frozen, creamy coconut never tasted so good.
I wouldn't be reminded to read the Newsweek article for another few days. I circled around it. Wondering what it could tell me that I didn't already know. And I wondered if it was telling anyone else anything they didn't already know. Lowest earning power since the Great Depression. Ten years or war. Highest credit card debt ever. Highest student loan debt ever. First time ever that a college degree does nothing to give you leverage on the job market. Noted.
But I did read it, while waiting for my partner to find her sneakers before meeting our friends for dinner.
And here's the thing about being a proud member of the Screwed Generation: stability is going to look like nothing we've envisioned before. Now that, as I'm writing this, I'm experiencing a temporary bout of optimism, I realize that we have an opportunity to value, more than ever, the only thing we can count on having for the rest of our lives. Our bodies.
What does it mean that, instead of investing in property or business, we invest in our bodies? That we come to value experiences over things? That we dismantle a medical industrial complex that is interested in short-term fixes? That we tell our bosses (if we have them) that we won't bother with a workweek that doesn't accommodate exercise and growing our own food and long, luxurious meals with friends and family?
Thank you, Newsweek, for pointing out the obvious.
Bottoms up.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
On the Messiness of a Mango
If it's not an apple or a banana, I don't know how to cut it.
My partner can do this thing with strawberries where she holds the peering knife and the strawberry in the same hand and thinly slices the fruit over our morning bowls of Cheerios. If I am preparing the fruit, her grandmother's german cutting board is out, stained pink in seconds, seeds dripped onto the floor where our boston terrier laps up the juice.
Because it seems like slicing fruit is always a production, I'm not particularly brave when it comes to the farmer's market or the summer produce section of the bourgie supermarket.
Then, last week, I bought a mango. For a few days, it softened in my fruit bowl as I glanced at it, occasionally poking it with the round end of a spoon. I was intimidated. I wondered if I even had the right kind of knife. I wondered why its skin felt so tough. I wondered how that oval fruit became the earthy lassi that goes so well with paneer.
I worked around the mango each morning, circling it in my morning coffee routine.
Then the time came. As I poked the mango with my spoon, I felt a reverberated squish (do squishes reverberate????) I readied my cutting board, the weathered wood in need of a new coat of vegetable oil, my dependable cerated knife freshly rinsed of yesterday's peanutbutter.
As I cut into the skin, attempting to peel, juice welled into my palm. The skin, like leather, a sticky, solid pile of debris. I shoo the cat away.
Skinless, I cut slices of fruit into a mixing bowl.
The pit is larger than I anticipated. I think there must be more fruti I can get off.
I lift the pit and bite, juice streaming down my chin.
As I wipe my face with the kitchen cloth and reach for my coffee, I think, this messiness is exactly what summer is about.
My partner can do this thing with strawberries where she holds the peering knife and the strawberry in the same hand and thinly slices the fruit over our morning bowls of Cheerios. If I am preparing the fruit, her grandmother's german cutting board is out, stained pink in seconds, seeds dripped onto the floor where our boston terrier laps up the juice.
Because it seems like slicing fruit is always a production, I'm not particularly brave when it comes to the farmer's market or the summer produce section of the bourgie supermarket.
Then, last week, I bought a mango. For a few days, it softened in my fruit bowl as I glanced at it, occasionally poking it with the round end of a spoon. I was intimidated. I wondered if I even had the right kind of knife. I wondered why its skin felt so tough. I wondered how that oval fruit became the earthy lassi that goes so well with paneer.
I worked around the mango each morning, circling it in my morning coffee routine.
Then the time came. As I poked the mango with my spoon, I felt a reverberated squish (do squishes reverberate????) I readied my cutting board, the weathered wood in need of a new coat of vegetable oil, my dependable cerated knife freshly rinsed of yesterday's peanutbutter.
As I cut into the skin, attempting to peel, juice welled into my palm. The skin, like leather, a sticky, solid pile of debris. I shoo the cat away.
Skinless, I cut slices of fruit into a mixing bowl.
The pit is larger than I anticipated. I think there must be more fruti I can get off.
I lift the pit and bite, juice streaming down my chin.
As I wipe my face with the kitchen cloth and reach for my coffee, I think, this messiness is exactly what summer is about.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
"Fork over Knife" and the Neoliberal Agenda
I've been taking a break from the blog, frustrated with myself that I seem to be hovering at the 10 lb weight loss mark. Since I told myself I would stick with the WW program for a year, I'm trying not to obsess about the week I spent in Chicago, eating carnitas tacos, ethiopian shiro, Red Mango. But now that I'm back, I've decided to take the time this week to assess some of my food and lifestyle values.
So, on the encouragement of my two C-Bus besties (after the encouragement they received from another mentor), I watched the documentary "Fork over Knife" the other night. The documentary espouses a "whole foods plant-based diet" and the screen time consists of mostly-white able-bodied male athletes, an important move for the film's agenda, which is de-bunking the myth that you will never get enough protein from plant-based foods. Now, I actually mostly agree with the film on this count: I believe that whole foods are both more filling and better for long-term health. In high school I met a peer-turned-good-friend who actually lived on a working family farm (I was a Massachusetts city kid transplanted to Maine in my mid-teens) and her attitudes toward vegetables actually transformed my food-values world. Carolyn taught me how her family, particularly during the growing season, shapes all of their meals around their vegetable dishes, often having two or three at a meal, the animal-based foods functioning as a cursory. I grew up in a world where a tablespoon of soggy, frozen peas served as my vegetable for the day. As someone turned vegetarian at 12, I struggled to get enough food (eating disorder aside) until I met Carolyn. (As you may have noticed by my Chicago exploits above, I am no longer a vegetarian, mostly because I got lazy after discovering a processed-soy food allergy). So I get it.
I think vegetables can be a center-piece--if you can afford them.
The film rarely addressed cost, though. Not on the day-to-day grocery bill cost. There was a health official in Chicago who spent two minutes talking about food deserts and economic inequalities more generally but I guess this wasn't as sexy as watching the vegan doctor's son-turned-fireman climb the fire pole. Besides the fact that the film itself was kind of an editing hack-job (they alternated a bit of nutritional science history with poorly integrated, contemporary lifestyle transformation stories) with ableist masculine rhetoric, I actually had a more serious problem with the film: it's neoliberal agenda.
If you're in the academy, you know that neoliberal is kind of the sexy, critical framework to justify the importance of all sorts of academic critiques for everything from pop culture to the prison industrial complex (or, if your my brilliant partner, you're integrating the two). And despite the fact that we might be a little bit bored by the buzz-word of it, it's actually a useful framework for understanding the increasingly-privatized and individual-based agenda of the U.S. expansionist project. Blahblahblah.
Here's where it showed up in the film. The other main objective of the film, besides debunking the protein-myth, was to discuss how a whole foods, plant-based diet can serve as treatment for a myriad of diseases, from obesity and diabetes (no surprise) to cancer and hepatitis. The mantra was "get off the meds, take control of your health" and "look at how much money we can save the healthcare system if you stop taking your meds". Now, I'm no fan of Big Pharma. I spend months in my Women's Health class asking my students to interrogate Big Pharma and diagnostic models they produce. And while I fully support eating whole foods as much as possible (insert major asterisk here with footnote caveat), I also don't think chronic health problems and diseases can or should be completely in the hands of "individual responsibility". It's not a surprise that everyone in the film is middle class or wealthier, with the kinds of jobs that afford them vacation and flex time, expendable income for massage, acupuncture, and yoga classes, and the comforts of more than just food. Plant based, whole food diets are expensive and until we transform our industrial agriculture system, work day length and unemployment crisis, child care networks, housing and green space development, and address the chronic stress that comes from daily interactions with sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, and ableism--not mention addressing our actual healthcare model-- we can't expect folks to fix their diseases. My suggestion: a whole foods, plant-based diet, a complete cultural and political revolution, and some compassion.
All of this said, I did re-think last week's carnitas and bought some fresh, spicy arugula and a daikon radish to jazz up my salads this week.
So, on the encouragement of my two C-Bus besties (after the encouragement they received from another mentor), I watched the documentary "Fork over Knife" the other night. The documentary espouses a "whole foods plant-based diet" and the screen time consists of mostly-white able-bodied male athletes, an important move for the film's agenda, which is de-bunking the myth that you will never get enough protein from plant-based foods. Now, I actually mostly agree with the film on this count: I believe that whole foods are both more filling and better for long-term health. In high school I met a peer-turned-good-friend who actually lived on a working family farm (I was a Massachusetts city kid transplanted to Maine in my mid-teens) and her attitudes toward vegetables actually transformed my food-values world. Carolyn taught me how her family, particularly during the growing season, shapes all of their meals around their vegetable dishes, often having two or three at a meal, the animal-based foods functioning as a cursory. I grew up in a world where a tablespoon of soggy, frozen peas served as my vegetable for the day. As someone turned vegetarian at 12, I struggled to get enough food (eating disorder aside) until I met Carolyn. (As you may have noticed by my Chicago exploits above, I am no longer a vegetarian, mostly because I got lazy after discovering a processed-soy food allergy). So I get it.
I think vegetables can be a center-piece--if you can afford them.
The film rarely addressed cost, though. Not on the day-to-day grocery bill cost. There was a health official in Chicago who spent two minutes talking about food deserts and economic inequalities more generally but I guess this wasn't as sexy as watching the vegan doctor's son-turned-fireman climb the fire pole. Besides the fact that the film itself was kind of an editing hack-job (they alternated a bit of nutritional science history with poorly integrated, contemporary lifestyle transformation stories) with ableist masculine rhetoric, I actually had a more serious problem with the film: it's neoliberal agenda.
If you're in the academy, you know that neoliberal is kind of the sexy, critical framework to justify the importance of all sorts of academic critiques for everything from pop culture to the prison industrial complex (or, if your my brilliant partner, you're integrating the two). And despite the fact that we might be a little bit bored by the buzz-word of it, it's actually a useful framework for understanding the increasingly-privatized and individual-based agenda of the U.S. expansionist project. Blahblahblah.
Here's where it showed up in the film. The other main objective of the film, besides debunking the protein-myth, was to discuss how a whole foods, plant-based diet can serve as treatment for a myriad of diseases, from obesity and diabetes (no surprise) to cancer and hepatitis. The mantra was "get off the meds, take control of your health" and "look at how much money we can save the healthcare system if you stop taking your meds". Now, I'm no fan of Big Pharma. I spend months in my Women's Health class asking my students to interrogate Big Pharma and diagnostic models they produce. And while I fully support eating whole foods as much as possible (insert major asterisk here with footnote caveat), I also don't think chronic health problems and diseases can or should be completely in the hands of "individual responsibility". It's not a surprise that everyone in the film is middle class or wealthier, with the kinds of jobs that afford them vacation and flex time, expendable income for massage, acupuncture, and yoga classes, and the comforts of more than just food. Plant based, whole food diets are expensive and until we transform our industrial agriculture system, work day length and unemployment crisis, child care networks, housing and green space development, and address the chronic stress that comes from daily interactions with sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, and ableism--not mention addressing our actual healthcare model-- we can't expect folks to fix their diseases. My suggestion: a whole foods, plant-based diet, a complete cultural and political revolution, and some compassion.
All of this said, I did re-think last week's carnitas and bought some fresh, spicy arugula and a daikon radish to jazz up my salads this week.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Short Term Body Project, Long Term Body
It's been a little tedious trying to get myself to write lately. I've had a weekend traveling for a journal editing training, followed by a weekend where a year on a planning committee culminated in a successful/exciting/overwhelming/joyful two-day conference, followed by a weekend (now) answering student frantic emails around final paper thesis/outlines. All of this is somewhat usual end of the year academic stuff--a burst of hectic before the doldrums of July and August. But it's also made me worry that I will never get any of my own work done. That the prospectus, since it was passed last week, is as far as I will get. Forever ABD.
And I think these feelings are what leads to the advice I recently received from a colleague, passed on to her from a fellow PhD: "The difference between those who finish and those who don't are about those who just keep going."
And I know for me, it's the smaller projects (planning a conference, working on a journal issue, publishing an article, planning a course syllabus) that make the larger projects seem relevant.
It's this realization that led me to make a decision about Project 28 and the new Weight Watchers Chapter. Combine the short term with the long term. Entertain self with somewhat narcissistic projects--growing my nails out (I am a life long biter), growing my hair long (I made a decision not to cut my hair short again until I have passed the dissertation), complete Jackie Warner's 40 minute power workout without dying. Enroll in yoga class, ten sessions.
I've lost my first 12 pounds on Weight Watchers. But here's the problem that I've noticed with myself: I keep thinking of how I can do this faster, how I can reach my "goal" by my 29th birthday. And I've realized that if I don't just make a long-term time commitment, a full year, I will continue to think in terms of the numbers in the program and not the habits. I will continue to think that it's the week to week that matters. And I'm pretty sure that thinking is a piece of what ended me in the clinic ten years ago.
"The difference between those who finish and those who don't are those who just keep going."
And I think these feelings are what leads to the advice I recently received from a colleague, passed on to her from a fellow PhD: "The difference between those who finish and those who don't are about those who just keep going."
And I know for me, it's the smaller projects (planning a conference, working on a journal issue, publishing an article, planning a course syllabus) that make the larger projects seem relevant.
It's this realization that led me to make a decision about Project 28 and the new Weight Watchers Chapter. Combine the short term with the long term. Entertain self with somewhat narcissistic projects--growing my nails out (I am a life long biter), growing my hair long (I made a decision not to cut my hair short again until I have passed the dissertation), complete Jackie Warner's 40 minute power workout without dying. Enroll in yoga class, ten sessions.
I've lost my first 12 pounds on Weight Watchers. But here's the problem that I've noticed with myself: I keep thinking of how I can do this faster, how I can reach my "goal" by my 29th birthday. And I've realized that if I don't just make a long-term time commitment, a full year, I will continue to think in terms of the numbers in the program and not the habits. I will continue to think that it's the week to week that matters. And I'm pretty sure that thinking is a piece of what ended me in the clinic ten years ago.
"The difference between those who finish and those who don't are those who just keep going."
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
What to do when Mental Illness Kicks your Ass
Well, apparently, the answer to this is to get teary in an unsuspecting feminist professor's office.
I'm not sure if its the moodiness of weight-loss, the ebbs and flows of my ssri's (the "prozac poopout") or the stress of the past year where, encountering several PhD benchmarks (exams, prospectus, IRB approval), I'm left with news that my advisor is leaving--my second one to leave in a 15 month period. Likely, it's a combination of all of this.
And I have to say, this isn't a blog so much as just a note. To let you know I'm out here and struggling to stay optimistic about this process of finding balance. Trying to focus on little successes (delicious mint pea soup made, weekly groceries bought within budget, students' thoughtful writing assignment on connections between racism and homophobia half-graded) and trying to remember that support can come in the simplest of phrases.
"I, for one, am glad you're here."
I'm not sure if its the moodiness of weight-loss, the ebbs and flows of my ssri's (the "prozac poopout") or the stress of the past year where, encountering several PhD benchmarks (exams, prospectus, IRB approval), I'm left with news that my advisor is leaving--my second one to leave in a 15 month period. Likely, it's a combination of all of this.
And I have to say, this isn't a blog so much as just a note. To let you know I'm out here and struggling to stay optimistic about this process of finding balance. Trying to focus on little successes (delicious mint pea soup made, weekly groceries bought within budget, students' thoughtful writing assignment on connections between racism and homophobia half-graded) and trying to remember that support can come in the simplest of phrases.
"I, for one, am glad you're here."
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Ode to the Egg: Part II
As it was coming down in sheets-- one of those early May showers (bring June flowers??? I guess global warming will have us revising that particular rhyme) that thunders lightly in the distance, soaking you in your quick dash home from your evening workout-- I wanted eggs. The comfort food that has always been around in my house, in the form scrambled at the tail-end of a flu, fried in between white bread with ketchup on days my mom had off from work. But to call this blog an "ode to the egg" would be incomplete, because it is also an ode to steamed spring-fresh green beans, boiled red potatoes, olives, capers, and tuna, between bites of crisp cool lettuce. I'm writing now about the tuna nicoise.
As an aside, this is actually the only dish I like boiled potatoes in. I recoiled from potato as a child, which is pretty much betrayal to my french canadian and irish genetics (though I proselytize with poutine and can drink my weight in guinness to make up for it).
I actually just had to google that to make sure I spelled nicoise right (and as my partner would complain, I evidently need to check my spelling on here a lot more often). I don't know how to pronounce it either. I started ordering it in restaurants in my early days of coming out as a meat-eater. My partner, in her quest to eat all things fancy-brunch, brought me to classic americana-goes-locavore restaurants and I tried various pronunciations. Vish-ee-wah. Vish-wah. No one ever corrected me. I'm relieved I never tried to pronounce the S.
What's fun about ordering tuna nicoise in restaurants is that it always looks different. Because there are so many components, the plating is hard to predict: delicate bites of tuna and capers cupped in lettuce leaves or a pile of potato and green bean mixed with flaked tuna and boiled egg yolk. I think it depends on the politics of the restaurant. Are you with the 99 percent? More union = bigger pile.
And it's just as fun to eat. Boiled potato, caper, tuna. Tuna, lettuce, olive. Lettuce, potato, green bean. You get the picture.
So earlier this week, when I found that this dish could be made a. cheaply and b. with relatively few ww points, I planned for it. The weather made me gravitate to egg. I put on a pot to boil water as I showered. I thought that this dish would be relatively easy and simple. But in a kitchen with only 12 by 6 inches of counter space, it was a bit of a juggle.
Out of shower. Water boiling over. Frantic rummage in fridge for potatoes and eggs.
Pull out directions. Forgot the part about making the dressing.
Dressing calls for chicken broth.
I only have veggie bouillon and not another pot to boil the water to make it.
I use just water.
I don't have red vinegar.
I remember a woman on my last bus trip to chicago talking about the chinese medicine philosophy of joint health and apple cider vinegar. I use that instead.
My partner's horse radish mayonnaise (how old is that???) falls out of the fridge as I reach for the dijon. Cats run as if that was a beckoning fog horn.
I whisk.
Cats on table. I have learned the art of the one-handed cat-toss.
Cats re-emerge with tuna can.
Shit. How long have the eggs been on?
Shit. I have to cut the stems off the green beans.
Shit. The cheap produce I bought last weekend gave me have-rotted green beans. Cut the rot off too.
Toss in dressing.
Rinse lettuce.
Capers. Olives.
Peel egg.
I'm too exhausted to find a fancy way to plate.
But this plate of textures is exactly perfect.
As an aside, this is actually the only dish I like boiled potatoes in. I recoiled from potato as a child, which is pretty much betrayal to my french canadian and irish genetics (though I proselytize with poutine and can drink my weight in guinness to make up for it).
I actually just had to google that to make sure I spelled nicoise right (and as my partner would complain, I evidently need to check my spelling on here a lot more often). I don't know how to pronounce it either. I started ordering it in restaurants in my early days of coming out as a meat-eater. My partner, in her quest to eat all things fancy-brunch, brought me to classic americana-goes-locavore restaurants and I tried various pronunciations. Vish-ee-wah. Vish-wah. No one ever corrected me. I'm relieved I never tried to pronounce the S.
What's fun about ordering tuna nicoise in restaurants is that it always looks different. Because there are so many components, the plating is hard to predict: delicate bites of tuna and capers cupped in lettuce leaves or a pile of potato and green bean mixed with flaked tuna and boiled egg yolk. I think it depends on the politics of the restaurant. Are you with the 99 percent? More union = bigger pile.
And it's just as fun to eat. Boiled potato, caper, tuna. Tuna, lettuce, olive. Lettuce, potato, green bean. You get the picture.
So earlier this week, when I found that this dish could be made a. cheaply and b. with relatively few ww points, I planned for it. The weather made me gravitate to egg. I put on a pot to boil water as I showered. I thought that this dish would be relatively easy and simple. But in a kitchen with only 12 by 6 inches of counter space, it was a bit of a juggle.
Out of shower. Water boiling over. Frantic rummage in fridge for potatoes and eggs.
Pull out directions. Forgot the part about making the dressing.
Dressing calls for chicken broth.
I only have veggie bouillon and not another pot to boil the water to make it.
I use just water.
I don't have red vinegar.
I remember a woman on my last bus trip to chicago talking about the chinese medicine philosophy of joint health and apple cider vinegar. I use that instead.
My partner's horse radish mayonnaise (how old is that???) falls out of the fridge as I reach for the dijon. Cats run as if that was a beckoning fog horn.
I whisk.
Cats on table. I have learned the art of the one-handed cat-toss.
Cats re-emerge with tuna can.
Shit. How long have the eggs been on?
Shit. I have to cut the stems off the green beans.
Shit. The cheap produce I bought last weekend gave me have-rotted green beans. Cut the rot off too.
Toss in dressing.
Rinse lettuce.
Capers. Olives.
Peel egg.
I'm too exhausted to find a fancy way to plate.
But this plate of textures is exactly perfect.
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