Welcome back, me

Who knows why I ever started this blog. I'm glad I abandoned it for so long, because now I'm ensured complete privacy by lack of readership.

Hurrah for privacy!

First rule of publishing - alienate your audience.

I'm a closet Mennonite

There is a poultry farm, a dairy farm, a stone mason, a garden nursery and three farmer's stands less than a mile's radius from my house. A horse pasture backs up to my neighborhood. Behind my house is a pond, and beyond that is a farm with goats and sheep.

My office is in the campus of the Mennonite Heritage Center and down the street from a Mennonite Meetinghouse. One of my best friends graduated from a Mennonite high school and sometimes we drive slowly to pass tractors and avoid globs of roadside horse droppings.

Frick, Potshop, Schwenkfelder, Franconia, Wartman, Perkiomen, Groff, Lederach, Wambold, Fretz, Orvilla, Koffel, Weikel, Bustard, Derstine, Limekiln, Skippack, Applebutter, Cheese Factory.....


 .....All names of roads, not lung diseases.

Welcome to Mennonite territory.

Home sweet home.

Speechless (or, Part B)

Does the right word always exist? Does any adjective convey enough power to describe what a life has become, to illustrate its complete transformation? Maybe we need to invent new phrases for a dream that suddenly leaps into reality.

Because, for once, I have no words.

All I know is that my heart's desires are blooming into reality before my eyes, shifting out of tightly furled, half-hoped-for achings and suddenly blossoming to life, huge and vibrant, breathtaking as a leap into sheer air.

I can't tell you how I felt when I shook hands with my new boss as he welcomed me into the company for a position far above my level of experience or knowledge.

I can't tell you how I felt when my mother called me, sobbing, saying that my grandfather was in the hospital - yet again - for cancer. I am equally inarticulate about the day my big sister announced that a baby was on the way. Elation, coupled with fear of the unknown. Has every new baby been welcomed with such a mixture of joy and terror? Indescribable joy and unfathomable pain, sharing the same heartspace.

There are no words for the October evening when my best friend knelt in front of me with a ring for my left hand, voice shaking and eyes shining, but with a full heart fit to burst with love.

That was the moment my heart stopped talking and it began to sing instead.

Sometimes, there are no words left. And that's where the music begins.

Life called just when I lost signal.

I've missed my life calling.

As I stood at the kitchen counter, chopping zucchini with one hand, sauteing bacon and onions in butter with the other and checking on the homemade stuffing with my free hand (yes, I have three hands. Doesn't that explain a lot now?), I realized that this was what I've always, always loved to do. Perhaps it was the smell of fresh bacon that did it, or maybe catching myself narrating each step of my original recipe aloud was the clincher, but suddenly, it hit me.

I've missed my life calling as a TV chef.

Yes, the Food Network is my true home. After years of studying the English language and nearly blinding myself with pouring over its treasured tomes of literature, my passion rears its creative head, not in writing, but in cooking. I take great pride in flipping the perfect omelette, in minced onion blended with mashed garlic and spread over a toasted, buttered baguette just so. I narrate to myself constantly, inventing sometimes-bizarre meals out of basic ingredients (ergo, the advent of the Muen-dog Omelette), or testing a made-up a recipe for baked stuffed zucchini because I was bored and hungry (recipe soon to follow!). And yeah, I did just whip out homemade ice cream. Oh, you don't like ice cream? That's ok--I got more concoctions up my sleeve that you can even guess. I'm a kitchen fiend. Throwing seven different kinds of smoke over the stove here. Oh wait...sorry, no, that's the steam from MY HOMEMADE LONDON BROIL. If I wasn't me, I would totally marry myself.

Four years of college misdirected. Twenty-two years' energy wasted. Thousands of appetites left empty, possibly millions of empty stomachs, all starving, because I never taught them how to make my special holiday version of snickerdoodle cookies.

There's my plans put to shame. Oh wait...I don't have any plans anymore.

Looks like I'm setting up a videocamera in my kitchen and finally putting my YouTube account to good use.

BOOM. ROASTED.
__________________________

Baked Stuffed Zucchini

Ingredients:
1 large (or 2 medium) zucchini
1 box Stouffer's Whole Wheat Stuffing
1/4 cup onion, minced
4 strips cooked bacon, minced
1 1/3 cups water (for stuffing)
1 1/2 tbs butter (for stuffing)

Prep time: 15 minutes
Bake time: 20-25 minutes

Prepare stuffing as directed on box. Boil zuccini whole for 8 minutes, turning at 4 minutes to evenly cook. When done, cut zucchini into quarters, and scoop out the pulp, chopping it finely. Place the zucchini quarters in greased baking pan. Saute the bacon and onion together, and add to the stuffing. Combine stuffing mixture and chopped pulp. Spoon mixture into zucchini quarters and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

This is Part A, because I'm convinced Part B will follow.

I didn't think it would be like this.

Frustrating, sure. Moneyless, absolutely. Only a lucky few college graduates walk off the platform and into a full-time, permanent job. The rest of us press into the workforce, fired up and ready to hand out resumes to whomever will take them.

But not deadening. Not suffocating. Didn't see that one coming.

I get that some level of disillusionment is normal. I understand that, after such an adrenaline-drenched experience as college, the process of coming down off that high is often an emotionally brittle time. I also realize that trying to reason this with your heart only goes so far.

In all honesty, I'm not worried about the job search itself; there will always be jobs for people willing to work. No, it's that I think I've burned the candle at both ends so long that I've burnt myself out, long before I even got started on what really matters. I feel like I've used up all my energy and talents, so that there is very little left to work with. That's not exactly a comforting realization at the onset of a job search meant to propel the searcher into a fulfilling and decently well-paying career of...well, we'll get to that.

The only thing I know these days is this: Deus providebit.

Then again...isn't that all we ever need to know?

Philosophia

I'm home.

I love Kansas City. I love the back roads and the barbecue shacks and the Spanish-style plaza downtown. I love how the early morning sun hits the skyline right where 23rd Street crests between Independence and downtown. I love the barely-tamed Wild West feel of the River City Market and the steep hills throughout the city blocks leading to the library, where the outside steps are painted as book spines and the soaring columns are obscured by the trees. I love the jazz music floating down 18th and Vine, where dark, shabby men carry upright basses and trombone cases to the Blue Room for an improv jam session. The bright blue Royals Stadium looked luminous from the highway, a massive half-spere in the floodlights of a twilight game. Some evenings were s'mores over the fire pit, some were nights out on the Plaza or swimming in a friend's pool, and other nights were storytelling on Skype, intent on weaving the thread of daily life into another's day. 

Those two months in Kansas City became a lifetime and a lifeline, both linking me to this new home and keeping me away from those I loved before, itself a bridge and a wall. 

So now, I am home, and another chapter of my life is about to begin. I'm glad I went, so glad I stayed out there, but it's good to rest where the homes of those I love correspond with the location of all my stuff :) 

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, especially now that I'm back to job searching. And keep on reading--maybe one day soon you'll find that I have something interesting to say!

Cheapskate Innovation

Muen-dog Omelette
- 1 egg
- 1 slice of Muenster cheese
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 grilled, cold hotdog

Using a cheese grater, shred the hotdog and saute it in a small frying pan on medium for five minutes with the olive oil. Whip the egg and pour it into the pan to create an even layer of egg and shredded hot dog. When the egg mixture is ready, place the slice of cheese on one half of the pan and fold, making an omelette. Voila!

Beautiful Blueberry Breakfast
- 1 Bagel Thin
- 1/2 cup blueberries
- cream cheese

Toast the bagel, spread with cream cheese, and arrange blueberries on one half of the bagel. Place other half of bagel on top, prepare yourself for deliciousness.

Peanut Butter Fried Rice (recipe courtesy of Jennifer Jacquet)
- 1 large takeout container of white rice
- 1/3 cup peanut butter
- 3 teaspoons soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Mix peanut butter, soy sauce and oil in a frying pan to melt. Add rice and stir until all is coated. Could also add in chopped peanuts, green onions and cooked chicken!