Pandemics ii.

 Chicken Cakes with Horseradish Aioli and Heaping Salad with Yogurt Ranch

 Lasagna for One, Recipe from Internet, so Easy and Delicious

KB's first True Poached Egg (thanks, Jamie Oliver, for tips!) over Brussels Sprouts etc.

Baked Salmon (KB-style) with Stuffed Mushroom Caps, Stuffed Tomatoes and Asparagus

My Forest Hills Kitchen just off Queens Boulevard, a Gemstone for NYC

Disclaimer: It isn't characteristic of me to write twice on the same calendar day however the previous post was uploaded around 2AM so I'm giving myself a hall pass here.

And I mean, what does the term "calendar day" mean anymore anyway? Thanks, COVID.

I'm sharing food photos in lieu of any other photos because, well, primarily that is the purest and most comforting distraction I have currently. It still isn't emotionally optimal to cook "For One," but the art and chemistry of it tend to curb the frustration of not having someone else to enjoy the end result of elbows deep in the kitchen.

*I just pushed play on Belly's album King for a change of musical atmosphere. Belly (Tanya) and Kristin Hersh have been loud in my head since the onset of this disastrous Pandemic situation, but with Belly, the album Star exclusively (even though I recall King's release and how elated I was at new Belly at the time, 1995, when I would be a high school senior getting ready to shove off to Indiana University.)

Back to my kitchen and its seductive nature for a New York City studio apartment (see above photo.) When I moved here in January 2019, it was a sad and yet triumphant unveiling of the New Yorker I've always desired to be: independent, courageous, possessing the ability to self-care and to organize belongings and thoughts without someone else's input.

Sad, only having moved out of Jon's and understanding I may never see him or Fitz again.

But here I am, under lock down, living alone with this romantic kitchen and a Pandemic outside;  despite getting severely sick last week (full story still to follow) I've recovered almost 100% physically and have been exerting each day's pocket of energy on cooking for myself, though last night I caved hard and ate a cardboard trash frozen pizza but it was a one-off. I mean, I do have a second one in the freezer but that's my second one-off and I don't plan on having that one until sometime in the week when I'm bored and lazy again.

What I've found to be rewarding in the kitchen is that there is an actual plate of end results. 

*Speaking of LA from yesterday, just pushed play on Figure 8 (Elliott Smith.) It's been a while.

Additionally, I've been horribly out of practice with my culinary exploits. I've only cooked for Rob a handful of times, all of which were safe dishes (salmon, of course, and scrambled eggs) but I'd like to believe that if we escape this and reconnect our lives and souls, I'd be a welcome commodity in his kitchen as well as he'd be one in mine, and these home cooked food delights are an experience we could share (building memories all the while.)

So evidently this particular Pandemic entry deals little in what's happening out in the wild. And that's alright. I'm not pressuring myself overly so today. 

I'm contemplating (speaking of my kitchen) food options today and they are plentiful (at least as of today.) My Mom made herself a cold pasta salad yesterday with Italian dressing and sweet pickles (I gag at sweet pickles, unfortunately) which prompted me to want a cold Ranch version thereof, which calls for cubed sharp cheddar, chopped dill pickles and chopped onion (I have red and white on hand.) One of our first dates, Rob brought over an artisanal jar of dill spears with garlic floating in the brine but I also have just a pedestrian jar of dill whole pickles which I'd lean toward for the chop factor. I also have a full head of cauliflower that calls to be dealt with (roast? steam? mash? not sure yet) and more Brussels sprouts (probably I will turn into one here soon enough, I eat them so frequently) and I have ground turkey of which I've only used a bit (I'm trying to ration and not waste which is such an embarrassingly difficult feat for me, I confess.) I was thinking of, for dinner, pureeing a can of cream of potato soup, browning a bit of the ground turkey and tossing it all with cooked egg noodles. I made an "easy" ground beef stroganoff a week ago or so, or two, or three (thanks, Pandemic, for really blurring the fields) and that was cream of mushroom sauce, to which I added fresh sliced baby bellos and it was pretty divine, for white trash quick concoction. So now that I've got these other items instead, it sounds fairly promising, if I just make it up as I go. I could probably add a small bit of shredded mozzarella just to cheese it up.

So and anyway, that is all rocking around in my near-emptied skull (thanks, Pandemic, for stealing nearly every last shred of evidence that I'm possibly intelligent and clever.)

Rob and I have been known (by, well, ourselves anyway) to send along music to one another that resonates in some way, oftentimes speaking to our feelings for one another. I know he and I were amicably communicating last night via text, but this morning's musical selection (sadly, King was anti-climactic) (sorry, Tanya) located an Elliott Smith song for me to send to him, and so I did, while it may seem like borderline hurtful sentiment...it's almost as if I've been awaiting this song to fall into my lap to enunciate my feelings of the most recent weeks. I've been trying my good god damndest to maintain an emotionally safe distance from him because I know he's got plenty on his emotional serving platter and I don't want to be that surprising spiky chicken bone in the entree that cuts his mouth unexpectedly or the untrimmed steak fat that finds its way onto the palette and is indescribably annoying. Plus, I've been drinking very little alcohol so maintaining control of my runaway emotions has been somehow simpler. I have great appreciation for that.

Without delving deeper into how my delicate heart has been tugged and distorted from its regular shape and patterns of shoving love outward, I will end this morning's (now early afternoon's) post with the lyrics from the song I sent to him. I don't anticipate much of a response, really. I have suspicion that any kind of whiskey in him prompted his atypical (of late) frequency of texts to me, which doesn't mean that I didn't love the attention.

First, things I miss:

his eyes

his laughter

how he bobs his head slightly while we're walking and talking and he's attentive to me

his appetite and then how sweet it is when he eats food he likes

holding his hand

how for some reason when he calls me KB it puts electricity into my veins

his hand on the small of my back

the smallest sounds he makes when he sleeps

lying on him on my couch as though he were a body pillow

despite how I can't normally tolerate it, how he gets out of my shower and somehow leaves more water on the floor than was ever in the shower in the first place

how he loves hot tea

how he loves hot tea with his Mom late at night

his love of the Mets

his book collection that nearly matches mine to the titles, with some variances thrown in

coffee on his breath

the moment he uses both hands to pull that curly hair back from his forehead

he's the most thoughtful gift-giver ever

how he dips his chin a little if I compliment him, and smiles shyly, and his eyelashes create these dark crescent moons on his cheeks that are easily an image that melt me

Just some. I started tearing up so, here, and I'm going to figure out lunch and may watch Midsommar. Rob and I saw it in the theater here in Queens. He thinks I'm insane for watching it over and over but I find it to be an artistically profound film piece so...and I need the distraction today, now that I've spun myself into a sad brooding spider web. Going to unravel that and lift my own spirits again, given no choice otherwise.

Better be Quiet Now

Wish you gave me your number
Wish I could call you today, just to hear a voice
I got a long way to go
I'm getting further away
If I didn't know the difference living alone'd probably be ok
It wouldn't be lonely
I got a long way to go
I'm getting further away
A lot of hours to occupy, 
it was easy when I didn't know you yet
Things I have to forget
But I better be quiet now
I'm tired of wasting my breath
Carrying on and getting upset
Maybe I have a problem, but that's not what I wanted to say
I'd prefer to say nothing.I got a long way to go
I'm getting further away.
Had a dream as an army man with an order just to march in my place
While a dead enemy screams in my face
But I better be quiet now
I'm tired of wasting my breath
Carrying on, not over it yet
Wish I knew what you're doing
And why you want to do it this way, so I can't go the distance
I got a long way to go
I'm getting further away
I got a long way to go
I'm getting further away

--Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith