Get ready for a bunch of randoms.

Lucky Peach Presents 101 Easy Asian Recipes is seriously the bomb. No deep frying, no sub-recipes (i.e., recipes whose ingredient lists are themselves things you need to prepare). Irreverent, bold, nerdy, lazy, pan-Asian. Basically everything I am. I was already sold, and then it came out and used the word "subparenthetically" in the middle of a parenthetical! What the what?! I need.

David and I both finished Scary Close and loved it. (Eunice, I'm sorry I'm so late to the e-book game. For the life of me I could not figure it out two years ago when you gave me a free copy!)

I have also been bawling my eyes out over Lost and Found, the episode on the Liturgists where Science Mike and Michael Gungor tell their stories of their losing their faith. (It's taken me a week and I'm still in part 1 because of all the crying breaks.) This was the first time I've heard the term "deconversion." I resonated with almost everything they are talking about, and it's so validating to have intelligent people articulate some very complex and nuanced and vulnerable things. I also chortled when they talked about Donald Miller and Rob Bell being "dangerous" authors to a Southern Baptist.

Speaking of Bell, listening to Velvet Elvis and enjoying it so far. (The audiobook is actually read by the author, who is, in this case, a great reader. But David listened to Scary Close and the reader - not Don Miller - was not a good match for the book. Alas.)

Annoyed by The Couple Next Door. Shame on me, but I skipped the middle section and read the end. I never do that kind of thing. Oh well.

Also enjoyed The Power of Habit and the perhaps controversial Love Warrior.

Absolutely slayed by my Enneathought a couple of days ago:

Today, explore the issue of boundaries. As a Six, are your boundaries too rigid? Can you trust people to get close to you? Can you share more of your feelings and ideas?

(Yes, Kayla, that was what inspired my notebook entry. ;p)

Invented this dish of steamed tilapia over silken tofu cubes with black bean sauce. We loved the layered textures. (It felt analogous to the Asian carb-on-carb-ness of potatoes and rice as well as reminiscent of Fuschia Dunlop's avocado over silken tofu appetizer.)

Had a super eggplant week with Persian-style eggplant dip and miso-crusted eggplant (both from Liana Krisoff's Vegetarian*), and then yu-xiang eggplant with grass-fed ground beef (amazing!). *Kind of trying to do a cook/book club with this. Slai, can you please give me more details on how you guys did yours?

Finally, gearing up for Thanksgiving season. What are some creative ways you guys are thinking of celebrating Thanksgiving this year?

In a pickle

Help! I'm in a writing rut and a cooking rut.

Please let me know what you're cooking and eating these days or if you have any tips on menu planning. I've talked about this before (twice!), but nothing seems to be sticking. Like I said before, I like routine, until I get bored.

I do think we are going to get on a little pickle train though. We'd been getting lots of peppers from the CSA and when I know I can't use them fast enough I just slice them and throw them in a jar and pour cold vinegar over them. Done and done. Here are some watermelon radish, ready for a sandwich (e.g., banh mi) or right out of the jar.

Next up, picked red onions.

Other randoms:

• The Liturgists podcast. "We create art and experiences for the spiritually homeless and frustrated." Yes, please! (HT: Marla)
• Today I was listening to Ep 3 on The Bible and the guest speaker was talking about how Jews look at the Bible as a mystery or problem to be solved whereas Christians see it as a message to proclaim, hence the intolerance for theological ambiguity or tension. THIS EXPLAINED MY LIFE. (Another connection to Heisenberg, if you try to get too precise you lose the accuracy.)
• Trying to get back into routines, ala FlyLady. I'm trying out the shoes thing even though it goes against everything in me as an Asian American.
• Really enjoyed another book about the process of writing, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. "The life of an artist isn't easy. You're never free unless you're doing art."
• The idea of being "all kite and no string." I think all my life I have been "all string and no kite."
• I found this assertion interesting: that it's easier to be demanding/critical than to be satisfied, and thus that enthusiasm is a form of social courage.
• Been loving the awkwardness that is Doc Martin.
• I keep hearing about how This is Us is filling the Parenthood-shaped hole in people's hearts. Any tips on the best way to watch it? (HT: Eunice, who told me about this way before now.)
• Made my first batch of harissa this week. It needed to be more garlicky but other than that I loved it!

05. All quite comforting

Every day since this project began (i.e., these oh-so-dramatic last five days), I have had to resist the urge to begin every post by typing into the stratosphere, "I don't want to write. I don't want to write. I don't want to write." Liz Gilbert reminds me that it is simply boring to be a creative who complains about how frustrated she feels, because frustration is essential to the creative life. She also talks about how you don't have to be a creative and be a tormented, tragic person. It's all quite comforting.

A lot of what catapulted me into this project is the result of stewing and marinating in the cocktail that is reading Brené Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are and listening to Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. (Prior to last month I did not know there was a genre for "Creativity" on Amazon. And now for the last few weeks I've been talking David's head off about creativity and the creative process and I'm sure he's like, Yeah, I went to school for this. #arsepoetica)

What I'm taking away from Gilbert's book (besides everything, obviously) is that creative living is a marriage between discipline - the only thing you can control among talent, luck, and discipline - and inspiration. (I'm paraphrasing here, but: "If greatness were to find me, may it find me hard at work.")

Being creative is a gift bestowed on all of us; however, actually creating is a choice. I appreciated how Gilbert acknowledges that having (or making) time to create is a complete and total luxury, but that perhaps instead of seeing creative living as hedonistic, we can instead perceive and then thus receive the ability to create as a divine gift.



P.S. Thank you, Eunice, for introducing me to Overdrive for e-books and audiobooks. It took me about a year to actually try it out but I'm loving it now! And thank you, Christine, for recommending the audiobook version for Gilbert. Totally the perfect medium; except for when I'm driving and I need to pull aside to write down something amazing she said.

01. That notebook

Yesterday, our guest preacher Therin Fenner's opening metaphor was The Notebook of Middle School Girls circa 1997. You know, the spiral Mead notebook decoupaged with magazine cut-outs and the days' musings, which you would deposit in your friends' lockers? At one point I'm sure I had at least five of them going, each with a different friend. It didn't matter what I said, or how I said it; the point was just to write, and wait for her to write back.

That is the perfect metaphor for what I need right now.

I'm not ready for something like #The100DaysProject at the moment but I will attempt my own modification: writing and posting something here every day, for one month, weekends excluded. Without too much thinking or planning I'm going to dive in from today, August 8, 2016, to September 8, 2016. 

If you're lurking out there (I often see at least 15 page views on my posts), would you please drop a comment to let me know you're here? I hope you'll pass back the metaphorical notebook and let me know what you think today and in the next 30ish days. And if you want to jump in on your own creative venture, let me know about it as well!

***

Random (because random is the essence of The Notebook) thoughts on the picture above:

• Pictures at nighttime are considerably horrible. Other than obviously taking pictures in daylight, does anyone have simple/easy tips for pictures and/or even filters? I've been so low-tech in the last eight years that I feel slightly embarrassed to not know any of this. 
• "Just Start" is from Get To Work Book. It's the tear-out from January but I decided to use that with the August calendar taped onto it because it's just what I need. (I'm being creative!) Kathy was surprised to read that Enneagram 6's procrastinate. Oh boy, do we procrastinate. 
• I think all of my posts from the next month are going to mention something about me being the dreaded, horrible, tragic 6. You're probably going to want to vomit and/or stop reading my blog. So sorry. If you want to see into my soul, read this. 
• Yes, that is Eunice's beautiful calligraphy on my bulletin board.

#ohrenee

I'm thinking of trying to post at least one recipe a week; this will give me a schedule to keep me writing. (And cooking, let's be honest.)

Lucky for me, Eunice visited this past weekend when David had to work, and brought a bag of clams from Taylor's*, along with Bon Appetit's recipe for Steamed Clams with Chickpeas and Green Garlic.

When Eunice first texted me the link I honestly didn't think it was going to be anything special (and worth the somewhat specialized ingredients**). And when I read the prescript calling this recipe "pure Erickson," I wondered "Who's Erickson?" Then later upon reading the article in its context I realized it was Renee Erickson, famous Seattle chef and owner of many restaurants. (Insert embarrassed emoji.) But by the time the meal was over I had forgotten all about "Who's Erickson?" and was all "Oh, Renee" with Eunice like I'm on a first-name basis with her.

I hope that's enough of a motivator to you to make this recipe. Eunice and I loved how flavorful the broth was and how surprisingly light it seemed, despite the heavy cream and creme fraiche. We used regular garlic instead of green garlic but other than that we followed the recipe as written. The tarragon and dill are delightful additions which we feel you shouldn't skimp on, and we also thought that if you wanted to stretch the meal more you could add another can of garbanzo beans.

Eunice and I polished off almost three pounds by ourselves. I was sorely tempted to "destroy the evidence" before David got home.

Thank you Eunice for bringing and making us dinner! You are a gem!

Here's a link again to the recipe so you don't have to scroll up.

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*plus a fresh loaf from Breadfarm, Meyer lemon bars, chocolate chip cookies, and all the other ingredients to make the dish. I was seriously wooed this weekend! Watch out, David!

**Eunice, on the other hand, thought this recipe looked rather simple and easy to put together. But that's because she's amazing. Like bringing us homemade chicken enchiladas with homemade sauce (think: roasting multiple types of chiles, etc.) after the baby was born. I am pretty much the laziest cook on earth compared to her. But really this recipe is pretty simple, once you have the ingredients together. Do it.