I love you

I have a friend who always says I love you before ending our phone conversations. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. I went to a very artsy college and there were a bunch of girls who practiced this free love verbal diarrhea. One in particular also faked being a lesbian for a while and to be honest I was scarred. I grew so jaded about the whole "I love you" situation I began reserving the term only for boyfriends and family. 

Of course I have a great group of friends and I do "love" them but there aren't many occasions that warrant saying it and simply ending a mundane conversation certainly isn't one of them. When you over use a word like love it begins to loose it's meaning. Now my friend is a very sincere person and I would like to believe that they reserve using it for only their closest friends; nevertheless, when I'm out with friends and someone gets a phone call that ends with an I love you I almost always assume that they're talking to their respective love interests. Conversely, it's very strange when I'm out with a friend and I get a call and answer and it ends with an "I love you" and they ask "oh how's he doing?" rightfully assuming I'm talking to my boyfriend and instead I have to explain it's just a girlfriend who's confused about appropriate times to use the "L" word.  

I recently watched Beauty and the Beast and a beast almost died because someone wasn't quick with the "I love you." I have a friend who's been in a very long-term relationship and sadly her boyfriend won't say he loves her. Although I believe he does it's created a number of problems for them both. The bottom-line is I love you means a lot of different things to different people but to me it should not be a substitute for a simple good bye. 

Belated Mothers Day Dinner

The original focus of this blog was to share my easy cooking tips. Although now I intend to include some assorted anecdotes I still want to feature some of my favorite recipes. I’m obsessed with food, cooking, eating out and talking about what I’ve eaten and would like to eat in the future. All that eating has resulted in lots of cooking and I’ve started to learn a couple of signature dishes that are easy to make and sure to impress. For my Belated Mother’s Day dinner I made one of my favorites, which is chicken stuffed with prosciutto, mozzarella and sage. I topped the chicken with an easy white wine sauce and served pureed cauliflower and sautéed spinach on the side.

Here's what you'll need:

For the chicken: Boneless skinless chicken breasts trimmed of fat and pounded, Prosciutto one slice per chicken cutlet, Deli Sliced Mozzarella one slice per chicken cutlet, Fresh Sage, Flour seasoned with salt and pepper, Olive Oil for the pan

For the Sauce: White wine, Butter, Flour for thickening

For the Cauliflower Puree: 1 Head Cauliflower, 1 Yellow potato, Butter, Cream or Milk, Salt and Pepper to taste

For the Spinach: 1 container of baby spinach, 2 or 3 cloves of garlic, Olive oil for the pan

The chicken is easy to make since the deli does half the work. To make simply pound out chicken breasts, the thinner they are the faster they will cook. Eyeball it; somewhere around a half an inch is ideal. On top of each cutlet place a slice of prosciutto, a slice of the deli mozzarella and a couple sage leaves. Fold the cutlet in half. I've never had trouble with the breasts staying together but you can always use a toothpick to keep them tight. Dredge the cutlets in seasoned flour and pan fry. The chicken should be a nice golden color when you flip it over. If mozzarella gets stuck in the pan don't sweat it that will only add flavor to your sauce. Once the chicken is finished reduce the pan with white wine scrapping the bottom to get all the flavors of the prosciutto and the cheese off the pan and into your sauce. Add butter to taste and flour to thicken. 

Both of the side dishes are super easy to make. The first is the cauliflower. All you need to do is steam or boil a head of cauliflower with one yellow potato. I've made this recipe without adding the potato and the taste was good but the texture was very thin. Adding the potato you get the same feeling as eating mashed potatoes but with only a fraction of the carbs. Once the potato and cauliflower are tender mash adding butter and milk or cream to taste. You can really make this recipe healthy if you go with low fat milk and skip out on the potato. Either way it's a quick and easy side dish. The sautéed spinach is just that. I threw some garlic in a pan with some olive oil added baby spinach and let it wilt. 

I served the meal with the same white wine I used to make the sauce. Mom and Dad loved it! The chicken is so easy you can swap out the sides to change up the dish. Either way it's sure to impress. Anytime you add prosciutto to a dish it's instantly more delicious. Feel free to try it and please let me know your thoughts.

HOME

I've recently left New York for summer. Coming home is always a weird adventure. For those of you who don't already know me I'm from Stonington Ct. a beautiful and historic coastal town in the South East corner of the state. It's most famous for tourist attractions like the New England Aquarium and Mystic Seaport as well as the nearby Casinos. Not to mention it's the setting of the 80's Julia Robert's flix Mystic Pizza. I've never actually seen the movie and don't care to, but I have eaten at the restaurant and even though I was completed stoned I could still tell it was probably the most disgusting pizza I will ever taste.

In any case, I'm home and I find myself constantly moving about like a shifty opossum slightly confused and always trying to avoid people's parents. It's easy to avoid high school classmates or acquaintances because they're young and insecure. It's easier to look down for two minutes while someone walks by or pretend you're really interested in the calorie count on a box of cookies than to have an awkward meet and greet. However people's parents have no shame. They're old so they have no qualms about walking right up to you as if you were still 14 and ask you all kinds of questions as to what you're doing with your life. I want to look at them and say if I had the answer do you think we'd be talking right now? 

The one nice thing about going home is well most things are free. Rent, Free. Food, Free. Books seemingly free but there was a price to pay. One of my friends suggested I join the library. I've grown accustomed to buying books. During my time in New York I dared not step foot in the library it was far too big to actually be useful. I couldn't even master the Boston public library and that was a third the size. However here in Stonington the library is quaint and charming. I can vaguely recall spending a couple of summer in the children's section making crafts and pretending to read. I figured how bad could it be? I love to read, so I will join the library. 

Not two steps into my visit and I'm greeted by a high school classmates overwhelming mother. She of course asked a number of questions about why I was home and what happened to my job. This was clearly an interrogation where she was trying to put together mental facts to prove her son was better than I was. Nevertheless, I answered her questions to the best of my ability trying to explain I was working as a contractor in the city and when my contract ended I decided to get out of the city for the summer. Although she never seemed to grasp what I was saying I tried to keep it breezy in an effort to move the conversation along. When she told me her own son had recently been laid off I couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction.  After the initial interrogation she made some off putting comments about how parents think it's nice to have their children move home until they are actually there at which point they realize the whole thing was some horrible mistake. I was at a loss in trying to respond to these comments but things didn't stop there. 

It was then when she announced she was going tell an embarrassing story about me. I've grown up with her son and I am sure there are a number of things she could have brought up. Just in case you'd forgotten this all took place in the entry to a library which by definition is not a place of talking. Nevertheless, I was actually kind of excited that she would share some funny middle school memory and we'd all have a good laugh. Instead she told a story about how when I was three I was at a reading group with my mom she was in one room and I in the other. Half way through group time I burst into the "mothers" room because I wanted my mom. Personally, I don't think there's anything embarrassing about a three year old wanting their mother. Had the same thing happened when I was 11 then fine, but this story had no punch line and was a huge let down. The weirdest part was she told the story to another women who was working at the library who clearly had no idea who I was.

Needless to say I won’t be checking out any books anytime soon and will continue to waste my money buying paper backs at target. 

Oppressive Obsession

Standing loosely tied to an ornately chiseled off-white dresser with glossy golden gilding I wish to break free, but remain immobile for fear of chipping the aging ochre.

The phone rings your voice late into the morning and reverberates through my brain into the night pulsing like a heart until I am sick and spinning. Spiraling downwards like a gunned down fighter plane.

A room wall-papered with your face begins to close in around me. The face smiles like a joker one minute and fades into a frown the next. Soon tears drop from the burnished black eyes down the perimeter of the room until the wood begins to warp and the floor bubbles up in a flood. Floating to the top of the froth I gasp for air as the door is forced open and the foamy water flushes out onto the pavement. The room empties leaving white salt deposits in the corners like snowy little mountains. 

Tiny men in woolen caps jump from the little lifts and sky to the bottom growing as they go the people multiply and the walls spread. Soon the room has melted into the a field full of over grown gnomes each of which wears a mask bearing your image. I frantically fall among the giant elves and try to flee loosing my breath as I realize the enormity of the pasture. 

Just like a pawn in a game whose boundaries are no longer defined I hide amongst a small patch of mushrooms seeking solace under their broad caps. Cowering under their umbrella I feel bits of dirt rain down and clump on my skin I wipe it away leaving dark brown smudge marks until I am covered in opaque filth and become one with the earth.