New Year
It's a week into 2006 already. It's amazing to me how fast time slips away these days. I'll be in my grave quite literally before I know it. But while I await that brief passage to the end, I'm resolving to eat better this year. As a single person living alone, I find I've developed bad habits. Instead of supper, I'll make a batch of buttered popcorn and wash it down with a beer, good beer mind you, but hardly a nutritious meal. Part of what discourages me is how fast fresh food can spoil. I find I hesitate to buy it because I fear it spoiling before I can get to it while junk food will stay on the shelf indefinitely. Of course it does; it's dead food.
Good food should have at least a little bit of life left in it. So last night I made a fresh spinach salad with chopped scallions and slices of tangerines a friend gave me for Christmas. I made a balsamic vinaigrette with olive oil, sea salt, fresh ground pepper, bit of dry mustard, tsp. of sugar and a sliced garlic clove. The salad accompanied a hunk of roast chicken (one of these pre-prepared ones from the grocery) and some roasted turnips/rutabagas/carrots that I wish I could say I grew myself, but didn't. I drizzled them with olive oil, kosher salt, fresh ground pepper and herbs de provence that I literally purchased in Provence on my one big trip before 9/11 and my bad hip discouraged me.from going again, or if I do, it'll be to stay there forever in the sunshine eating the best tomatoes I've ever eaten.
So, what will I prepare tonight? I have more spinach and oranges (see, this is another problem, quantities -- how many days can a single person eat the same thing? The solution, of course, is to invite someone over to share. I'll have to break out of my winter doldrums and do just that. I worry about myself when I find I'm watching Law and Order reruns on TV instead of visiting with friends.
The days are geting longer, the moon is getting more full each night, and garden diagrams are blooming at my desk. This year I want to find a 10-12 year old kid to help me in the yard and garden. I'm putting that request out into the universe. I'll feed him/her nutritious lunches and teach the lore and lure of the soil.