Solitude and Mung Beans or why Rigor is more important than Blur.
Darlings,
When yesterday, today and tomorrow seem to run together like a watercolor painting, I think it's easy to find solace in the blur.
Unfortunately, the entirety of the past 12 months has been blurred to me. A year marred by extreme loss and profound gains. Those two extremely polarized spaces running into each other, both refusing to back down. The mourning and the hopefulness living together as one. Like I said, it's been a blur.
Which is precisely why, given this time for solitude and a general re-evaluation of what matters, I do not find any solace in the blur. The blur makes the uncertain scarier and the solitude quieter. In fact, the blur feels far harder to handle than any rigor I might impose upon myself.
Which is why I'm trying to take this time to learn how to reconcile the mourning and the hopefulness of this acute situation like I have been learning how to do in a broader sense in real life.
My two most precious ways of dealing with my anxiety are dancing and cooking. They always have been. I've hired and fired any number of therapists over the past two decades and none have helped me as much as dancing and cooking. Dancing and cooking don't judge you, don't use words like "abandonment" and "imposter" - Dancing and cooking don't suggest you "do less," but instead invite you to do more to combat what ails you.
I have built both of these activities into my new daily routine. Forcing myself off of conference calls just long enough to dance my way through an old favorite. To find some kind of assuagement in what has always been a comfortable space for me. The rigor of a daily routine doesn't have to be uncomfortable, in fact, the rigor of a daily routine has been the only thing providing me comfort.
Cooking was something I lost in the blur of the last year. As I became physically more alone, I felt like I had to physically reappear as something other than what I've always been. So I stopped cooking, started eating string cheese for two meals a day and tequila for the other. I thought that physically reappearing as smaller, taking up less space, being less of a chore might help me find a new person to be my partner, a new person to wake up next to, to hold my hand in public. In the last year, the only time I've really cooked was in the company of those giving me the gift of feeling less alone.
But now, we are all alone. Maybe you have loved ones with you. Maybe, like me, you are just one. Maybe 5 days into this, you are realizing, as I am, that I haven't given myself much of a chance to enjoy the silence over the past year. That I've been so overwhelmed with what I used to have then or what I might have soon, that I haven't spent time with what I have now. Certainly it's not a new sentiment. But I have a feeling it may be taking on new meaning to us all lately.
So last night, I fully made myself a meal. Because a bowl full of something spicy and coconut-y feels comfortable to me. And as long as we're in athleisure all day, everyday, I'm going to enjoy the full fat of the coconut milk, feel the purifying properties of the mung beans and revel in the fact that of course the leafy green I have on hand during a national emergency is baby bok choy.
Like all of my recipes, this is meant to be maneuvered to your taste and (now more than ever) to what you have on hand. The things I wouldn't fuck around with are: mung beans, garlic, chili, ginger, onion and coconut milk. That's your base. But after that, go nuts. or beans as the case may be.
xoxo LCF
PS - need something to listen to while you're cooking? I'm back in the business of making playlists because if there's ever a time to regress to adolescent coping mechanisms, it's truly now. This is the first I've made over this course of solitude.
Day 5: Mung Bean Soup/Stew/Whatever
Ingredients
12 oz mung beans, soaked for at least 4 hours
1 large yellow onion, rough chopped
6 glove garlic, minced
Large knob (technical, right?) ginger, minced
Chili Peppers of some kind, sliced in thin rounds (I LOVE a lot of heat, so us 4-5 tiny thai red chilis, but a milder jalapeno or serrano will give you a sweeter heat)
4 large carrots, chopped
2 13.5 oz cans coconut milk (FULL FAT, PUHLEEEZ)
32 oz veggie / chicken stock
1 bunch parsley
3 handfuls leafy greens of some kind (I used baby bok choy because it’s what I had on hand)
2 tsp tumeric
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp coriander
(this is the spice mix I like, but feel free to play around with your taste)
Olive OIl
Salt
Method
If you haven’t, soak your mung beans in warm water for at least 4 hours until they start to “bloom”. Sorry to say if you haven’t done this yet, you’re not going to be eating for a while, so might I suggest a box of easy mac instead? And I'm not judging even a little bit, I wish I could come over.
Coat the bottom of a stock pot in olive oil, don’t be shy with it, and heat it over a medium high heat.
To your oil, add: Garlic, ginger and chilis. Sprinkle with a liberal pinch of salt and saute for about a minute or until your house starts to smell better than Anthropologie.
To your trinity, add onions and an even more liberal pinch of salt. Hell, throw a little more olive oil in there while you’re at it. Saute until the onions become translucent.
Add your carrots and mung beans and coat them in your onion mixture.
Cover the mixture with coconut milk and stock and incorporate all spices into the liquid.
Bring to a boil, and then turn down to a simmer for about 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes, taste your soup for flavor and your mung beans for done-ness, if you like them a little softer, you’ll probably be looking at another 20 minutes or so.
When the mung beans have reached your desired doneness, throw your parsley and leafy greens in, just until wilted.
Enjoy!
One day I'll actually learn how to photograph food. In the meantime. This is it.