Summer of My Sloth

Pneumonia can be dangerous. This I knew. But I never knew how dangerous. Oh, not necessarily to lung and life. I've pretty much recovered with only an occasional annoyance in the pulmonary department. And the on-hand elecampagne tincture has kept that nicely under control. No. It is in other ways that pneumonia has proved dangerous. You see, after that memorable bout at Christmas, pneumonia revealed to me that life can go on quite oblivious to the fact that there are dust mice under the bed. Stacks of games teetering ominously and with sometimes disastrous outcomes in the closet. Piles of books unattended. Light feebly poking through grimy, neglected windows. Cobwebs left to be co-opted by successive generations of spiders. Lawns left unmowed for extended periods of time, much to the chagrin of the neighbors, but somehow unmoving me. Prior to being ill, I'd pushed myself through my self-assigned work with uncharacteristic discipline, as if I could make everything in life right as long as I kept to my tasks and did "what needed to be done." It was almost compulsive and I could be rather rigid about it. I remember wondering what I'd done with my days before all of this had come to be. I'm starting to remember what I did.

I read mountains of novels.

I played computer games. Compulsively. Just like I do everything else.

I slept late.

I watched videos.

I stared off into space.

Oh, yeah. That's what it felt like...

It's become rather hard to snap myself out of it. To resume the traces and re-discipline myself to those hard habits. Even in gardening I've become quite slack. When it became clear that my garden wasn't going to be performing up to previous years, I decided to live and let live with whatever decided to poke up. Ironically or perhaps to the point, what volunteered actually performed better than what I'd so carefully planned, started, and cultivated. There's probably a lesson to be learned here. I'm meditating on that possibility.

I don't know where this volunteer came from. A friend of mine gave me a couple of yellow zucchini squash from her abundance last year--I'd never heard of yellow zucchini before--but I thought we'd eaten it all. I have no recollection of having any seed of which I'd disposed. And somehow...the largest profile that dominates my garden is the volunteer yellow zucchini squash, producing in characteristic zucchini fashion.

Squash is, along with beans, one of those foods that never seemed to come up on the "crave" list among the Hobbits. No winsome appeals for "just some more squash, Mom!" Philistines. But they do like crispy, crunchy stuff. Salty stuff. Potato chips. That sort of thing. Having recently joined a foodie list on preserving foods, I sit and observe the conversations and technical discussions on the vicissitudes of dehydrating zucchini. Now I'm rolling up my sleeves to try my hand. A lot, it seems depends on the width of the slice, the length and temperature of the dehydrating process and the storage of the end product. Zucchini has humectant qualities, which will attract moisture from the environment to rehydrate itself. to this end, I've found it helpful to insert a dessicate pack, usually scavanged from an empty bottle of supplements, into the jar before vacuum sealing it.

Dehydrating these is one of those endless variables, kinds of things. I generally dehydrate between 100-150* depending on what I'm drying and how quickly I want it done. This time around, in a bit of a hurry, I dried on 150* for 3-4 hours after sprinkling salt over the very thin chips. Having opted for a thinner chip, the end product was a bit difficult to peel off of the drying trays. I learned to pull them up while they were still a bit leathery. Tedious, perhaps, but less tedious than trying to pull fully dried chips off that stuck and cracked like parchment. Individual taste and projected use can dictate how thick or how crispy one wants the final product to be.

I called the Hobbits around for a test drive. Dog and Tool Guy thought they were great, while the other two--unable to surmount the "but it's squash" obstacle--didn't care for them. Tool Guy remarked that this left more for him and left fewer people to fight with over them. Heh. Some you win, some you lose.

Summer draws to a close. My to-do list calls to me reproachfully and I gird my loins to do what must needs be done. Time to slough the sloth.

The Hurrier I Go

I'm repenting myself. I'm beginning to think that making to-do lists isn't such a good idea. To-do things on a page together are like rabbits...they reproduce more little to-do things. It's almost like when you start fixing up the house and more things start unraveling than what you planned on renovating. This to-do begets that to-do and we all know how long the begets begot before they were done.

Delusionally, I keep thinking that at some point, I'm going to get caught up on housework, caught up on food chores, and caught up on homeschooling to the point of being able to sit down and relax without it all hanging over my head. I just googled up my personalized homepage and realized that the items on the to-do pad there hold things that still are undone. Oh, and I haven't looked at that page in over six months. Sigh. Well, in all fairness, there hasn't been a lot of demand lately for that snow suit needing the zipper replaced, so I cry "mercy!" there. And you know things are starting to approach pathological when the door greeter at Sam's says, "Oh, I have your book!" And turns to bring you your to-do diary. The one that was weeks ago abandoned in the seat of the shopping cart when you were distracted by having to settle the seat spat in the van, while you were off-loading groceries.

This whole attitude reminds me of when we first started our food journey. Oh, I knew that the gluten thing was going to be for life. And I was okay with that. Making gluten free foods didn't daunt me...armed with a pile of Bette Hagman cookbooks and a catalog from United Buying Clubs, I was loaded for bear. It wasn't until after we had to go everything free that things started to get a bit more stressful. In fact, going gluten free felt positively halcyon by comparison. But I didn't think it would last that long. The literature said that IgG's would heal up and we could reintroduce the forbidden foods in four to six months. I remember using that to encourage my father..."Hey, Dad, it's only for four months...six at the most!" It was probably a good thing that I didn't know.

When, at four and then six months, we weren't gaining foods, but still losing even more foods than had originally shown up on the tests, I realized that this wasn't a sprint. It was a marathon. And now, as we're approaching the six year mark and the six month window is a vague memory in the past. I'm having to remind myself again...not a sprint...marathon...think marathon.

With that in mind--and remembering how I hate my own cooking right now--I decided to take a page out of my gardening partner's book and resort to stir fries. Oh! That reminds me! I have to tell tales out of school. My gardening partner will just have to forgive me. In addition to sharing gardening passions, we also share co-op responsibilities. She has the herculean task of juggling the produce order without benefit of purchasing software, as well as gambling on whether or not enough members will make impulse purchases sufficient to sell off any unencumbered produce before we close out our monthly pick up session. It's no mean feat and she does it every month. This past month, there was an unusual amount of bok choy unsold by the time the truck arrived and she came, loaded up and with a plan in mind. Whipping out her wok, she chopped up one of the heads of bok choy and tossed up a quick stir fry, adding just a dash of wheat-free tamari sauce and some onions. Setting it on the check out table, next to our accountant--where people have to stand to pay for their order--she waved it under everyone's noses and pointed out the fresh heads of bok choy on our surplus table. Heh. I guess I don't have to tell you that all of the bok choy sold...

With a surfeit of squash out--and me continually threatening the Hobbits with more vegetables--I decided to shamelessly rip off her cooking technique. And her measuring technique. The end result was this.

Scorched Squash

A couple of zucchini and summer squash, chopped up
A couple of dashes of San-J tamari sauce (not corn-free, despite their declaration on their website)
A couple of teaspoons of minced garlic
A couple of spritzes of olive oil

In a very hot wok (I put this under my "blow torch" burner on my stove), spritz with olive oil, just enough to keep the squash from sticking. In small amounts, stir fry squash until seared and browned, but still offering resistance when forked. Add minced garlic and tamari sauce and stir fry a moment or so longer to incorporate flavors. Serve hot.

This past week, I genuinely took the week off. I spent one hurly-burly day cooking ahead and spent the rest of the week with my feet up, listening to mp3's supplied to me by my mom. Thanks, Mom! Amazingly, I'm not any further behind than I usually am and I'm significantly more rested. Marathon...marathon...marathon...