I haven't spent my entire day dealing with the computer. I took a good walk in the beautiful weather, then working outside some, cleaning the henhouse nests, picking up some fallen branches. There is so much to be done in the yard and in a way, that makes me happy because I do so love to be out in it. And the potatoes and peas need to be put into the ground and maybe we'll get to that this weekend.
Tonight I'm making some stuffed peppers. I haven't made stuffed peppers in forever and I'm thinking about when I was a vegetarian and missed the stuffing you put in turkeys so much that I'd make that stuffing and put it in peppers and bake it and it was good. But tonight, I've got brown rice and lentils that I cooked slowly, slowly this afternoon on a simmer mat and ground venison and mushrooms and tomatoes and onions and garlic to go in the pretty red and yellow and orange peppers.
I don't know why I haven't thought of making them lately. At Costco I can get gorgeous peppers for not so much money and it's a good thing to make and to eat.
Besides the stuffing-stuffed peppers, I am also thinking about the restaurant I've talked about before where I used to eat when I was a student at University of Denver.
The Lost Days, as we may call that time.
But the restaurant- it was so fine. My first exposure to vegetarian cooking. Hanuman's Conscious Cookery, and the menu was always handwritten (of course) and besides the regular offerings, there would always be a daily special "according to the cook's consciousness."
I have one of my very oldest and dearest friends coming to spend the night on Saturday and I want to make him something delicious and special. My consciousness tells me that I want to make him something from the garden and from the woods. I am not sure what that will be yet. I asked him what he wanted to eat and he said anything, except for perhaps the Rotel dip and I chided him, telling him that the Rotel dip is freaking awesome.
But I probably won't make that. He is something of a gourmand although I remember so many years ago when he gave me a cookbook and inscribed it to me as "the best maker of a peanut butter and honey and raisin sandwich on earth."
Or something like that.
I still feel very unanchored, floundering and foundering, as it were, in the deep, great sea of life. But I am moving forward, or at least I am moving.
And surprisingly, listening to Burt Reynolds read his memoir, "But Enough About Me" is incredibly soothing and peaceful and comforting.
He knew and was friends with everyone from Betty Davis to Roy Rogers and speaks of them so lovingly. He talks about the filming of "Deliverance" and about falling in love with Dinah Shore. His voice, as I have said, is very weak and at times, hesitant. You can hear the shuffling of pages in the background as Burt reads and I am sure that in a production with a stronger-voiced narrator, those sounds could be edited out, but here they are heard and it only adds to the integrity of it all somehow. And at the beginning of new tracks, you can hear him, rested and in fuller voice and then, as the chapter progresses, you can hear him tire, the voice growing weaker, the words harder to come out.
I know that feeling. And I love and respect him for sitting down with a real writer and getting these stories set down on paper and then, sitting down in front of a microphone and reading what has been written about his life.
As I age, so many different things catch and keep me, inspire and sustain me.
The cook's consciousness. The woman's and mother's and grandmother's and wife's awareness.
My husband is hungry. I need to go feed him.
Love...Ms. Moon
I love me some stuffed peppers, but hubby has an aversion to pepper burping, so I don't make them often. I grow green peppers in our garden but I prefer the red. So I'll make them (with ground meat, rice and spices), then cook several meatballs in the sauce. Hubby loves the meatballs, and I live with my pepper burps.
ReplyDeleteWhy have I never thought of stuffing peppers with turkey stuffing? Awesome idea! Thank you so so so much. Enjoy your company to the fullest.
ReplyDeleteI'm so moved by the way you describe the voice and the experience of this book. I haven't read many audio books but you make me want to listen to this one. A beautiful post.
ReplyDeleteThe peppers sound delicious. I am certain you will make something fabulous for your dear friend. Everything you make seems to be made with such love!
ReplyDeleteWe make peppers with turkey stuffing - but turkey stuffing here is mainly pork sausage meat. I do wonder what you stuff in turkeys that is vegetarian? Also because it might give me a good idea to do peppers differently.
ReplyDeleteOh and I want to hear the story of Mr Moon playing basketball in Belgium! I'm curious now I've been over at ShadowSteve's.
ReplyDeleteooo, stuffed peppers. I love them and we don't have them very often. could be why I like them so much. I'm going to be alone all next week as the husband is leaving tomorrow to spend a week with my brother in Aspen. maybe I'll make stuffed peppers.
ReplyDeleteCatrina- Some things are just worth it.
ReplyDeletejenny_o- Not sure how I came up with that idea but I think it must have been a craving for Pepperidge Farm.
Ha!
Angella- Not sure why but I have thought of you so much while I've been listening to this book. I would think that you would enjoy it. It seems very authentic, somehow. Especially read in his voice.
Elizabeth- I just love to cook. Especially for people I love.
Mwa- Well, I make a bread stuffing with celery and onions for my turkey. Yep! Mr. Moon lived in Belgium back in the seventies for awhile. He loved it and I am sure that the experience helped shape him into someone I love even more if he had not lived there. It opened his world up.
Ellen Abbott- You should!
ReplyDeleteI love stuffed peppers and never make them. You made me hungry for them. I bet you have so many stories to tell from all the lives you've lived. You made me remember eating vegan with the Hari Krishna's in West Virginia, during my lost days. :)
ReplyDeleteI envy your books on tape, and maybe I'll just have to pay to join a library or start downloading them on my kindle. I'd like to hear Burt read his story.
I hope your Conscious Cookery is wonderful and you have a nice visit and your tech woes and smell of smoke vanish into thin air.
xo
Mel- Oh, I do have some stories that I've yet to tell. This is true. We all do, don't we?
ReplyDeleteI think you would love audio books. I mean- a way to read while doing housework and exercise and gardening? Such fucking genius!
Yum, stuffed peppers! With lentils! I loves me some lentils.
ReplyDeleteLord, Dinah Shore. I haven't thought of her in a while. We used to watch her variety show on Channel 44 in Tampa!