Unemployment

I mentioned it yesterday.  Exactly two weeks ago today, I became unemployed.  Long story short. . .actually it's a short story. . .I was cut from the budget which was suffering pretty badly.  They decided to skin some from the 'top'.  And since I was the highest paid cook, responsibilities and seniority be damned, I got chucked.

Slightly bitter, but not really angry at all.  It's business.  It's the economy.  Whatever.  Surprise and fear are the more overwhelming.  Yes, I was surprised.  I'll be honest, I knew someone was going to lose their job in the kitchen.  I didn't see the hard numbers.  But being there day to day and doing the weekly ordering and inventory, I could see what was happening.  But I didn't think it was going to be me.  Mentally, I was preparing to have to adjust to doing even more work with less people.  And I've never been fired before.  I've always been retained while others have been sent away.  I'd always been considered valuable, well, by most.  At least valuable enough to take advantage of.  Haha.  It is an unexpected and grim reminder to always keep in mind that no matter how valuable you think you are, you can always be replaced.

I'm over the surprise.  What's left now is the fear.  This came at the most inopportune time because I have no money in my pocket.  What cushion I had disappeared this year in unexpected medical bills.  I was budgetting hard, saving small increments in order to buy a new computer which I really needed.  I had just managed to put that computer together for only $450 dollars, bought piece by piece taking advantage of sales and rebates over a two month period and built myself.  I was very proud of my DIY purchasing prowess.  Not having any other big expense plans, I was looking forward to slowly building a savings again, assuming no big surprises, knock on wood.  SURPRISE!  Should have knocked harder.  I got laid off.  Right after the unpaid holidays, halfway through a pay period.  My last check was less then half of a normal paycheck and all of it has gone to bills.  So right now, January rent and bills. . .I don't know.

I'm not sitting on my duff doing nothing but being depressed.  I am depressed, and suddenly having 40+ hours of free time a week, I do find myself sitting more.  But I'm trying not to stop.  I can't let myself do nothing.  I've filed for unemployment and foodstamps.  In a couple weeks if I'm still jobless we'll see about LIHEAP.  Looking at the numbers, it's extremely bare minimum, what I can get to cover my costs.  I've asked to defer those things that I can, but some bills just can't be.  I'm going to have to depend on money from my boyfriend's part-time and sporadic temp jobs to help manage the gaps.  And the longer this goes on I'll have to turn to *gulp* my mother.

I hate it.  It's depressing.  I don't want to have to depend on anyone to take care of me.  I despise the thought that I am now on welfare.  I've lived so many years being self-reliant.  It's hard on my ego.  I thank god, however, that my ego isn't so strong that it makes me stupid enough to not take up the necessary options to survive.

Everyday, I do the job search.  I send out emails and fill out applications on every possible line cook/sous chef job I see.  Next week, I plan on getting desperate and looking for things outside my line of work.  But, once again, I'm afraid.  I'm afraid the longer I stay unemployed, the harder it will be to find a kitchen job worth my salt.  I'm afraid if I stray from looking for cooking jobs and find something else, it too will make it hard to go back to cooking.  I want to cook.  I want to work in the restaurant/food industry.  Anything else is second best and I don't want that.  I'm afraid that the longer I'm not in a kitchen, the more my skills will fade.

And so I've made a decision.  I have more time.  I need to fill it and I need to fill it with productive things.  I can't look for jobs all day long because there just aren't enough job possibilities to fill all that time.  I've made the house a little cleaner, I've filled the dumspter alot fuller.  I've been purging.  And now I'm going to blog more.  It will give me something to do.  And more importantly, it will help me keep my focus on those skills I'm afraid to lose.  Because I'm going to focus on blogging about my daily meals.  I've found more time to cook at home and it's what I want to do when I got nothing else to do.  And the past two weeks, I've made some yummy things, I think.  I might as well blog about it and see what kind of meals I can make on such a little budget.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem . . . lamb bones

Fortune smiled upon me a few months ago.  There was this catered shindig at work and lamb loins were on the menu.  And for whatever reason the executive chef showed up with frenched racks of lamb.  He cut off the loins, used those for the menu and we were left with these.  Having nothing to do with this 'waste' there, I asked if I could take them home and then stuck them in the freezer until I could use them.  Two weeks ago, becoming suddenly unemployed and needing to try and ignore my depression by keeping myself busy, I found time to do what I wanted with them.


And what do you do with bones and meat scraps?  Why you roast them, of course.

And then after doing that you put it together with what you see here - onions, carrot, celery, herbs and tomato paste - and stick it all in a very big pot with alot of water.  Toss in several hours of time on the stove slowly simmering away and you end up with a very humid apartment and some delicious flavorful gelatinous stock.  Stock which helped make a delicious italian sausage soup, a fabulous risotto with mushrooms and spinach, and a nice portion to put back into the freezer for later use.

Brussel Sprouts Gratin

My contribution to Thanksgiving this year.

Brussel Sprouts.

Oh, yes.  And the apples.  Those went into the apple pie.  But the brussel sprouts were the demanded for request.  And that request came from my sister, who says she doesn't like brussel sprouts.  But when I decided to make a brussel sprout gratin last year on a whim (thanks to a sale flyer from Trader Joe's that pointed me to the idea in the first place) she was open enough to try it and she fell totally in love.  Everyone did, and so it was asked for again this year and my sister further proclaimed it a necessary dish for Thanksgiving from that day forward.

I think she just needs to try brussel sprouts alone and see if she still doesn't like them.  Tastes CAN change over time!  Though admittedly, unless you're allergic to milk, it's hard to say no to something creamy, bubbly and oven browned on top.  I warn you, however, the sprouts and the cheese will stink up the house good.  But it's so very much worth it.  And like any gratin, it's easy to make.

You can gratin anything.  It can be potatoes, brussel sprouts, broccoli, leeks, pasta, ham.  Doesn't matter what it is.  If it's in a casserole dish, smothered with cheese and/or bread crumbs and baked until goldern brown and delicious, it's a gratin.  But I'm writing today to tell you there are only three ingredients you need to make a delicious gratin.  Only three.  Put them with anything and you'll have an instant hit of a side dish.  The first is heavy cream.  The second is garlic.  And the third is gruyere cheese.  Not just any cheese.  Not just swiss cheese.  Gruyere cheese!  Put all three of those ingredients in a baking dish with your seasoned veggies and/or meat of choice, making sure to top it off with more of the cheese. (And buttered bread crumbs if you want.  But it's definately not necessary).  Then toss it in the oven and bake until golden.  That's it, that's all.  It's delicious!

This here, by the way, is the gratin before I put it in the oven, and lacking the extra cheese on top.  I don't have a picture of the finished product because we ate it all before I remembered I had the camera in my jacket pocket.

From Apples to Sliders

This is a post about how my brain works. I don’t know how other people’s brains work but mine is like a rabbit. It jumps. From one idea to another, from one focus to another. If I don’t fence it in, I don’t get anything done.

And it’s a smart rabbit. It can figure out how to chew through or jump over the fence, so I need to constantly move or add fences. It’s always been a rabbit and has gotten me in trouble many a time in the past and will probably do so on occasion in the future. A seeming tendency towards procrastination being the biggest thing to get me into trouble. When most of the time it isn’t procrastination, it’s just that the rabbit of a brain kept moving. For example, it has taken me half an hour to write even these few sentences because I started chatting with a friend about building a computer and a car, checked my bank account, looked at the amount of tokens I have in my Pogo.com account, started running another episode of BSG through Netflix and read about the antics of the Chicago mayoral candidates. (Yeah, I know, easy access to the internet doesn’t help fence in the rabbit. Heh)

I’ve learned for the most part how to deal with it. Never take your eye off the rabbit, pretty much. I’m constantly asking myself, “What are you suppose to be doing right now?” and “Which one of these things that you’re dealing with takes priority?” I’m just constantly prioritizing and constantly reminding myself. I make lots of little notes. You’ll find me surrounded with scraps of paper and little notebooks scribbled with words and not necessarily in any uniform pattern. But I know what they mean and where to go looking for most things I write down. I’ve learned to focus on little goals. Get this done before the rabbit thinks it’s time to jump. Now get this done before the rabbit wants to jump again. And so on.

But every once in awhile I do let the rabbit roam wherever it wants to go. When I find myself doing one of my ‘zen’ tasks and not having any immediate priorities. And I get surprising results and ideas, most of which never fully come to fruition because the rabbit starts moving again. But sometimes they do become something. And when they do, I get really excited about it.

Recipe ideas are one of those things that gets me REALLY excited. Because a lot of times it starts out in an odd place. Every once in awhile I come up with ideas and use them for weekly specials at work. One of my recently best ideas, meaning it sold well and tastes awesome, was a pork and cheddar slider with jalepeno jam. That idea started with an apple. Yep, an apple.

How does one come up with pork and cheddar sliders when they see an apple? This is how.

Hmm, two apples sitting on the spice shelf. What can I do with these apple?  It’s only a couple apples, can’t really make a meal out of two apples. I could make a jam. But that’s not a lot of jam, two apples. And what would I put apple jam on anyway? What else we got? Well, we got those ten dozen mini buns that accidently got sent to us. We also have brie. Hmm, brie and apples. Always good. But, meh, been there, done that. And too mushy. Not the right kinda mushy. And still, it’s only two apples. Not a lot. Okay, so what can I put these apples in? Jam, jam, jam, jam. Hmm, what do we have in house. . . . jalepenos? OOH, jalepeno jam! That sounds neat! And the apples can be put in to provide the pectin gooey! Yeeeahh. . .jalepeno apple jam. Sugar and spice, everything nice.  On what? Buns, you got the buns. Need to use all those buns. Too many buns. Mini buns equals sliders. Sliders with jalepeno jam. Pork with jalepeno jam. And cheddar. Creamy. Savory pork, sweet and spicy jam, creamy cheesy. WIN! He won’t go for it. (‘He’ being the chef.) How are we cooking the pork? Our typical BBQ braised? Blah. no. He won’t go for it. And I want different. And I want it to be really shredded and soft and nomnom flavorful. I want it to be like in good tacos. After all, it’s jalepeno jam. Going Hispanic with the chilis. Yeah, like tacos. Like carnitas. CARNITAS! That’ll be the word that sells it to him. CARNITAS! Pork and cheddar sliders with jalepeno jam. That would so sell!  What time is it?

This is your brain on rabbits.

Backyard Garden!

Okay, so really it's not my backyard.  I live in a multi-unit apartment building with no yard.  And my bedroom and kitchen windows face the alley.  And because of the way the streets are situated around the area in which I live, there's this huge triangular vacant lot bordered by those alleys.

See, big plot of land.  Being in a quiet out of the way place surrounded by alleys behind a bunch of residences and businesses, it's pretty useless, right? WRONG!  For one thing, there's this mechanic shop across the way.  Every summer, they voluntarily keep it mowed find junk like old stumps to use as goal posts and play soccer for about half an hour or so every afternoon.  I've always thought it utterly delightful, giving the mechanics a little bit of a break and getting some fun and exercise.  But also ever since I moved from my old apartment down the hall to this one and had a full view of that vacant lot out my window the thought has also always crossed my mind, "That would be a great place for an urban garden."

I've played around in my head about how I could possibly find out to make such a thing happen.  But at the same time have also been hesitant to take a lead on something like that, because, first off, I'm a renter and who knows how long I'll actually stay in the area and secondly, the idea just seems like a huge prospect for one lone person with really no previous involvement with the community and really no huge large knowledge or experience with gardening to begin with.  I have had small gardens in the past and grown my own vegetables, but I wouldn't call myself an expert.  Dig in dirt, plant seeds and seedlings, watch them grow.  Pick and eat!  So a bit intimidating, to say the least.

About a week ago, I look out my window and see three people in casual business attire standing in the middle of the lot chatting, taking notes, making hand gestures referring to the area.  I couldn't hear a thing but it was obvious they were talking development of the lot.  I won't lie, seeing them brought out a bit of the protectiveness in me since the awesomeness of a community garden idea had fully implanted itself in my brain.  So I got suspicious and worried.

Worried for no reason!  Today, I found yellow flyers by the mailbox saying they were putting a community garden on the lot!  Meeting next week to discuss the plans and to sign up for plots!  Sending Dan to the meeting (because I have to work that night) to sign us up.  Counting my chickens before they hatch but. . . . GLEE!  I'm gonna have a garden!

Farmer's Markets

Farmer’s markets in the city. I love them. I wish I could go to them more often. But let’s face it. The products are pricier and so they aren’t the best place to go for a person on a budget. But since I love them I do try to go a few times every summer, knowing full well it’s going to bite the pocketbook a little.


I enjoy the other benefits, which is why I go to them. One, assuming you shop to the right markets, most of the products are local and mostly organic and you’re getting it as fresh as possible. So I know the food hasn’t travelled far, is better environmentally in that respect, I’m getting hit with less strange chemicals, I sometimes get to meet the people that actually produce the food and I know my money is going directly to them and their efforts. And the variety of produce we can get at the market is sometimes much better then what you can get at the local grocery store. Sometimes we discover something new. And, frankly, it’s just a great reason to go out for a walk.

I love the seasonal aspect as well. Depending when you go, only certain things are available. Once again, it’s that getting food you know is as fresh and as ripe as possible. It hasn’t been something picked too early and sitting in a crate travelling thousands of miles while it hopefully ripens by the time it gets to where it’s going, losing nutrients while it’s slowly ‘dying’. I love that I can only get squash blossoms at certain times of the year. That heirloom tomato varieties explode in late summer. That I only have a small window of time to get fresh local cherries. That I have to wait until the end of the summer and into fall to get some of the best ‘unpastuerized’ apple cider I’ve ever had. And, if you shop smart at these markets, and purchase things that are at the peak of their season then the price difference compared to the local store is really not as big of a deal.

We never buy a lot. Always go with a set amount of cash and that’s all we can spend there. We always buy a cheese. I love the cheese. You can’t get it anywhere else. If I can, I try to go to the farmer’s market before going off for actual grocery shopping for the week. Then we see what’s there, buy what we like the best and get to plan the rest of the shopping list around it. This particular trip we got squash blossoms (I was thrilled to see those. Only one vendor had them, it was late in the year for them) which were used in a tart, cucumbers for Dan to pickle, blueberries which got thrown into pancakes and oatmeals, and the goat cheese, well that was used in a little bit of everything. Including the squash blossom tart.

I kind of wish I’d been in the mood for tomatoes. They were all over the place and so many varieties. Was that time of year. But if I’m not in the mood, I’m not going to eat them. So maybe next year. I’m also considering participating in some CSA as well next year. Will depend upon whether I can find one that will fit our needs.

My Little Brother, the Playwright

Recently my brother came into town on business. He’s a playwright. And I admit I love saying that because he is my brother and he’s actually writing plays and getting them read or produced and being recognized for it. It is a tough thing to do being recognized among the sea of artists that exist in the world. So I’m very proud of him and the work he’s put into it. I admit to also being oddly perplexed by the awe this recognition garners from other people when I mention my brother is the playwright because again, he’s my brother and I used to bloody his nose and babysit him.


This visit to Chicago is actually probably the first time I’ve gotten to experience that odd juxtaposition. My little brother, the recognized playwright. Edith Can Shoot and Hit Things is one of his newest works. It was chosen out of many plays from up and coming minority playwrights to be read at the Victory Gardens Ignition Festival this year. I was very excited about this as I’ve not had a chance to see much of his work since he’s based in New York, I actually had suspicions when reading the synopsis of the play that it referenced our lives, and it was just great to be able to see him.

Distance keeps us from seeing each other much. And Lord knows I’m not the best at keeping in touch through phone calls and other connections. So I’m not the best at communicating that I love and care for my siblings. But they are most definitely a part of me. And when I do manage to see them or speak with them, I am more than happy that they are part of my life. And I’m glad that when we get together we get along so well. I do think a good part of that attachment is because we share a unique bond because of our experiences growing up. Which is not to say we’re the only people who have been through what we’ve been through, just that we were there together and it has had a profound effect upon our lives.

A good portion of the plot in Edith Can Shoot touched very much on that part of our lives. My brother literally pulled out some of the essence of what were his, my sister’s and my teenage/pre-teen years and squished it into a two hour play. They say the best writings you do are based on what you know and this proves it without a doubt. It’s a work in progress, needs a few tweaks and some of the actors could have been better, but overall the writing did very much express the emotions and drive of the characters. And I definitely felt for the brother and sister. I understood where their words and actions came from. I knew exactly what these kids were feeling. Because I was there. I had felt those same emotions, said and heard those same words. And it was weird. Good! But still weird. I was seeing our lives being played out on stage.

And I had to constantly remind myself while watching it and during the Q&A afterwards that the rest of the audience had no idea how personal this was to me. There were definitely distinct differences between our lives and that of the characters. For example, our mom isn’t dead. And there are other things, but I hesitate to mention them because it would be giving away plot. But the emotional base of our childhood was there. I found myself rolling my eyes and laughing quietly listening to the people’s responses of pity and worry for these kids and kept thinking “We turned out just fine.” At the same time the empathy was strong. There was one specific moment in the beginning of act two that really hit me and then by the end of it I did want to cry. So even though the audience’s responses made me chuckle, I also had to resist walking out because the emotions were too overwhelming.

I did cry, by the way. When the Q&A was over, my boyfriend came to me asked me if I was alright because I’m fairly sure the look on my face was expressing something not normal. I said yes I was fine and no, I want to cry and leaned on his shoulder and did.

I know. I’m biased. But it was a profoundly good play.