Three Beans

In the last 48 hours I've identified another bean in my salad: cooking! 

Of course, this is not really a surprise. My refrigerator is full of jars and containers with which on a spur I can concoct a unique meal when I have a guest to share it with. I save chicken bones and make broth with thyme and flat-leaf parsley I grow on the deck. I always have a supply of fresh lime, my most recent addictive additive. 

What is a surprise is that I have never verbalized how important cooking and eating are for me, and how "gourmet" cooking (I so hate this label!) is one of the activities that shall highlight this phase in my life (again, I hate to call this "retirement").

Spending Saturday afternoon and evening cooking the chicken-and-pepperoni stew (braising is the correct term, cooking meat, usually inexpensive cuts, in a small amount of liquid until it begins to fall off the bones) was one trigger for the insight. The fun I had with the outdoor picnic suggested by Minda and which was held yesterday afternoon triumphantly, even gloriously, under the big ash in front of Kelly's deck was another. My new neighbors were in the water with oxygen tanks and snorkels, an illegal activity in our lake but one that I hushed John, another neighbor, from commenting on as verboten. I never socialize with John but in my frame of mind  yesterday after Sunday meditation, I invited him to join us and his presence actually enhanced the "picnic" experience.

Tony came after excusing himself from the last "gathering" I had invited him to. I had suggested he make something for dessert. He came with exquisitely baked lemon bar that he told us he made with "European butter." He had bought it at Jungle Jim's, a huge food emporium in Fairfield, Ohio where he and his girl buddy, Cindy, have been taking pilgrimages to a couple of times a month. The pastry indeed tasted intensely of butter. I used to make my own pâte brissée back in the days when quiche was popular. I also baked fruit pies. Blueberry pie became my favorite because a favorite friend liked it. Tony's creation brought back memories of wonderful pastries that had come out of my kitchen in the past.

If you come into my house, immediately to your left is a French-style bureau with exotic-wood burls whose drawers are full of place mats, tablecloths, napkins, napkin rings, and other accoutrements of table service. In the last 15 years years I'd been using only two sets of napkins and have used a runner or two on occasion at one of my gatherings. I have a dozen sets of dishes and three services including a silver setting I have not used in 25 years! All of these stare me in the face and I have been oblivious to what they signified.

The final trigger was a visit to Sichuan for lunch last Saturday before embarking on my own kitchen adventure. Feng's food evoked paeans I was only able to conjure dimly on last Saturday's blog entry. But that experience brought back the indescribable pleasure of the palate, for me, surely a worthy object of what now appears to be my "retirement."

I have decided to apply for social security and hope to start receiving a government check before the year is out. I shall be limited in how much I can earn for the next four years when I can then earn as much as I can without risking penalty. Four years is perfect time for me to learn the new skills for my next career. Photography, still and moving, is certainly going to be one part of it. The others are writing and cooking, my three-bean salad!