Kate in the Kitchen — NaBloPoMo 2010

magnetic poetry

November 6th, 2010 | Comments Off

Remember Magnetic Poetry? Those kits with all the tiny magnetic words that you could put on your fridge and get creative with?

Well I had a book- a magnetic poetry book with a pouch and a magnet board. I used to like to keep it in the car when Griffin was younger, and sometimes he would play with it and try to make words, but really, he wasn’t much of a poet at 5 or 6.

I was though. Sort of. I enjoy poetry and have written some pretty decent words, some that date back to 1987. I guess that ability to paint pictures with words flows from that into this writing here, hmm?

But recently, I pulled that old magnetic poetry book out of the bookshelf. I swear I haven’t looked at it in a decade. I opened the cover and found this inside:

Not bad, huh?

appreciation

November 5th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

It doesn’t take much to change your perspective, the view from our eyes. A moment, a turn of the head, a glance in the other direction, a good night’s sleep, a loved one’s calming words. We rarely see our life’s moments in the same light as others, and it helps for us to step outside our heads when challenged with the bumps of everyday life.

These photos were from the sunset Wednesday night, taken one right after the other with separate settings on my camera. They’re the same, but they’re completely different. Like perspectives. Both are beautiful regardless.

the after effects

November 4th, 2010 | 5 Comments »

Remember this?

Yeah, no big deal, right? A little fender bender, yep. At least on the 22nd, that’s what it appeared to be.

Well it’s not. Not at all in any way.

That’s an Audi. An import. They are awesome vehicles but we’re finding that they don’t come cheap. We knew this, really. Yet this minor fender bender racked up enough damage to this car to make the insurance company want to write it off as a total loss.

But we love the car. It’s a 2003 and it’s worth fixing to us so we’re going to keep it and pray that when they take it apart to do the repairs that they don’t find anything else wrong. We’re pretty sure they won’t. Hopefully, anyway.

Then there’s me. Because I’m damaged too from that 20mph fender bender, the accident that put barely a noticeable dent in the other person’s car. The first symptoms started to show up the Sunday following the Friday accident. On Monday the 25th I was in the chiropractor’s office starting treatment. The left shoulder and left side of my neck are out of whack. When I saw the fact that the car had stopped in front of me, I yanked the wheel to the right, and reflexively cringed when I missed. You can’t help it. Then of course, in the aftermath your body floods with cortisol, the stress hormone and your muscles fill with lactic acid. It’s normal and what happened to my neck and shoulder is not that big of a deal.

It’s what happened to my head that’s starting to be an issue. Apparently, I am unbalanced.

Well now….. we sort of knew that, didn’t we?! 😉

This past week I’ve been dealing with increasing motion sickness symptoms- and not just when I’m driving. I get motion sick just going through my normal daily activities. And it gets worse in the car. I can be 5 minutes from home and I start to feel nauseated, my head begins to throb and my eyes get all buggy. If I drive too much, it gets way worse. Yesterday I tried to go grocery shopping and once I got all the bags in the car, after weaving through the market for an hour, I sat in the parking lot and forced myself to focus so I could drive the short way home. Once home and organized, I had to lay down. This is how my days have gone. By early afternoon the headache and nausea can be bad enough to plop me on the sofa until dinnertime.

So tomorrow, Friday I am having an MRI. And I’m glad. I need to know what the heck is wrong with my head.

feet first into november….. and NaBloPoMo

November 3rd, 2010 | 2 Comments »

I probably should let you in a on some information, lest you wonder why I’ve suddenly gotten a tad more verbose these days; I’m participating in National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo. Every November, bloggers are challenged to post daily to their sites, and I last jumped into this fray in 2008. My NaBloPoMo then had a theme; daily food holidays. It was fun, challenging and a wonderful learning experience as I gained knowledge of new foods and kitchen experiences through that exercise.

This year, I don’t have a theme, but I do have a desire to not bore you to death and I hope I succeed. So there will be photos, some stories, likely a sharing of ideas and things that inspire me and probably recipes, of course. Some will be new and some likely will be resurrected from my Archives. I’ve been writing this blog for 4-1/2 years and my recipe index is pretty huge. There’s a lot of gems in there, including this one for Curried Chickpeas.

Interestingly enough, when I went searching for some inspiration to help me out today, I spotted this photo and then went scanning for the actual recipe on my blog, only to find that I posted it exactly a year ago. Weird. But in a good way. This recipe is super-fast, and incredibly flavorful, with warming spices for the chilly November days ahead.

Curried Chickpeas
From The Los Angeles Times, 10/21/09

1 medium onion, diced
1 t. turmeric
1 t. coriander seed
1 t. cumin seed
1/2 t. cayenne pepper
2 15-oz cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 T. chopped cilantro (more to taste)
1 T. each fresh squeezed lemon juice and zest (lime would work fine, in fact I think it might be better)

With a mortar and pestle, or a spice grinder, crush the coriander and cumin seed into coarse powder.

In a saute pan, heat oil of choice and add onions over medium-high heat. Saute onion until deep golden brown and crispy, about 8-10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the turmeric, coriander, cumin and cayenne. Cook, stirring frequently until aromatic and toasted, about 2-3 minutes. Stir in the chickpeas, cilantro and lemon juice. Cook, stirring occasionally for about 10 minutes to allow the flavors to develop. Remove from heat and taste. Season with salt if desired. Allow to cool, transfer to a container and chill prior to serving. Adjust lemon juice and seasoning if you wish.

KATE’S NOTES:
I like the fresh flavors of using whole coriander and cumin seed in recipes. If you don’t keep a mortar and pestle, or spice grinder on hand, use pre-ground spices in the same quantity.