Stories

North in CP

I'm not over this girl statue bird bath, yet...I think she's so quiet and sweet!

Today is one of those times I can sit back and reflect and genuinely feel life is okay. I've had an exciting week, not at work as much as at home. I worked out mid-week and it felt great. I'm working out later this morning and I can't wait to feel that light almost "high" sensation again following a work out. I cooked dinner for us the entire week, as well: sun-dried tomato pesto with feta, arugula pesto over linguine (I splurged on freshly shaved parmesan, mmm), (oops, sushi one night, too, ordered in!), something else I can't recall??...and last night's dinner: last night was hands down a keeper recipe. I'm going to really break this one down, because this one impressed us both and I renewed my faith in myself in the kitchen, even, in the preparation of this (which includes analyzing a recipe to chronologically and successfully arrange the steps - I rarely follow the actual "steps" of recipes, simply because I'm such a snail at certain things that I have to make up my own "steps"!) To begin with, the recipe is from Cooking Light (only from April 2008, so I don't feel like I have been missing this forever or anything!) and is simply titled "Chicken-Orzo Salad with Goat Cheese." While many are put off by the idea of goat cheese, feta is a satisfactory substitution for this one, however, I love goat cheese and wouldn't sub anything for it as a matter of personal opinion. Oddly enough, the recipes calls for 3 cups of Tyson grilled chicken breasts. Seriously? I understand the need for speed for some families, and for working types and others, but for me, Tyson grilled chicken breasts are the jarred spaghetti sauce of chicken. Hmm, I don't mind jarred spaghetti sauce for some things, so maybe that's a rotten parallel. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be paid to use those things in anything I prepare. So, I thought about it. Boneless skinless chicken breasts remain a neverending problem for me to make. They're not easy to get right, really. And I feel like I can't trust the expiration date at grocery stores on their boneless skinless chicken breasts. Paranoia, but I can't help it. So, I decided I'd roast split chicken breasts, skin on, on bone, instead. I found another foodie's website who broke down a very basic roast split chicken breast recipe: rub the breasts in extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt, pepper and cayenne pepper, roast in oven for 1 hour at 350. Nice! And so I did that. Meanwhile, around 30 minutes in, I grabbed my bright red bell peppe (summer's here!) from the fridge, chopped about a cup of it (despite that the recipe calls for 1/2 cup), chopped half a red onion, thinly sliced some fresh basil, threw those items together in a container and dashed the mix with dried oregano (recipe calls for fresh, but that's harder to come by here.)

Then I began to boil the water for the orzo. Craig picked up some multi-colored orzo for us the other day, so I was anticipating quite the colorful dish. :) As the water boiled and the time narrowed for the chicken to roast, I got our wheat bread buttered and sprinkled with garlic powder to pop in the oven once the chicken came out. Orzo into the water, chicken out of the oven to rest for 10 minutes, bread into the oven; I tossed the red bell pepper/onion mix into the bowl, began to chop the chicken, tossing it ontop of the pepper/onion mix, then quickly drained the orzo. The arugula went ontop of the chicken/pepper/onion, then the orzo ontop of it to wilt the arugula. Meanwhile, I had mixed a red wine vinegar/extra virgin olive oil/salt/pepper concoction and that served as the dressing to be mixed in. And, goat cheese ontop. Voila! It was amazing! There were so, so many flavors dancing around in this! And roasting the chicken was a must. It was melt-in-mouth savory. So yummy. We both ate seconds and there are still leftovers for our lunch today! Add in a little more fresh arugula, sprinkle with goat cheese, and there you have it! Craig commented that it also seemed an appropriate summer salad. I would totally recommend this to anyone who loves a good chicken pasta salad! Orzo? You can really rarely go wrong with that.*Moving along. Much of my week was then absorbed by my short story obsession. I swear I go through this once a year, maybe give or take, a little more or less than that?, but whatever the case, it all began (again) by stumbling across a short story contest through a website called "flatmancrooked." The short story judge is Aimee Bender. Aimee Bender, I repeat! Most people who know me understand that she is, simply put, my favorite authors. I am a superlative human being and have superlative loves (as pointed out lovingly by an ex in college) but seriously, if someone actually seriously came to me and said, KB, this is IT, one author, CHOOSE, I'd pick her. The only, only issue I have is that she hasn't written enough. But she's young. She's got time. Flatmancrooked publishes what seems to be a majority of stories penned by MFA students, either matriculating or currently teaching or what have you. And I'm no MFA in Creative Writing degree expert, but I've researched it good and plenty, and know a number of them in my life, and they're not always the most skilled story tellers. However, on flatmancrooked, it appears that they hold high standards for publication. And I like their standards. So I've spent the latter part of my week consuming short stories, one after another after another, on my iPhone on the train, on the computer, from books (I gathered together my Julie Orringer, Miranda July and JD Salinger short story collections, then last night, located my Raymond Carver one) and over the course of a month, I intend to swallow just about as many short stories as I can. The structure of a short story is such a fragile skeleton, and it takes serious talent to sculpt it well. Each word holds relevance, because there are only so many words and pages available. Quantity of characters must be limited, and they each must mean something to the underlying basic theme of the story. It's just hard. And those who do it well, well, they really do it well. I love language and feel fairly competent at turning a phrase. But I have yet to write what I would deem a narrative worthy of short story status. It's a tough task. I read, earlier in the week, that to break it down, an author can: 1) put a man up a tree, b) throw stones at him, c) get him down from the tree. And those are the basics. Sounds simple enough? It's just not. So, in the next month, while wholly consuming my reading time with nothing but the short story, I want to live in my mind in these pared down vignettes. That is, I want nothing epic. So this good thing has happened to me. I've been reminded of countless times where I have finished the last line of a story, closed the book quietly, and just meditated on how difficult it must have been to construct that! How flawlessly people are able to say so much by saying so little. I hope I stay here with this for a while. I'd like to think it's something I've always just loved but haven't been loyal enough to. Thus begins the loyalty.*On to a restful weekend, although, the forecast predicts rain, so there may be less photography than I hoped. Drats.