Food - Healing - Ditching Pissy

[Stevie]

Well, ya gotta eat right? An there's no point in letting anything drag you down too far too long. So go cook!

I realized that tonight - how long its been since I stepped into the kitchen and really took the time to use the two best tools any cook could have to CREATE something.

Now don't get me wrong. Any time you prepare any type of food for a loved one(s) you are giving. I like that cooking is a loving process. But lets face it - in time constraints or moments in life where demands pull us to other places, we've all opened a box of macaroni and cheese and nuked some fish sticks! No harm, no foul. But to create ------ ohhh to cut - chop - stew - mix - taste - add - ohhh to create in the kitchen.

There's some fun. And relief, and solace, and healing. Eben over the simplest of creative choices.

Over the summer though I was blessed with such a wonderful time with the gardens, I also learned that I have pancreatitis. Now for any of you that know me that means that food just got back burnered from eat and eat to - uh oh - what can I eat? "6 small meals a day, avoid fat and too much spice, and 2 acid reducing tablets a day".

Well hell - why even walk into the kitchen. And a few other things sorta sunk my ship as the fall approached. Life as it goes on and death as it ends for others.

So tonight I decided I need to cook. NOW - get back on track - eat a small portion - eat none if need be - but go back and get to work. Go make something.

For some reason once I had made up my mind that I was going to do that I had the strongest craving for crab salad.

I cooked and created - I modified, added, or omitted - and once again proved to myself something I may need to use to remind myself of part of the quality of my person when life starts to chunk away at me.

I can cook.

And now as a I enjoy a small portion of the salad with a piece of toast, I feel better.

Here is my version of the recipe - the grapes add a wonderful sweetness to balance the acidity of the vinegar and all seafood needs a kiss of dill [Smile]

Enjoy!

Stevie

3-5 Oz of imitation crab
1/4 cup finely chopped green onion - use the green, omit the white - munch on them later with a tomato
1/4 cup finely diced celery
3 tbsp mayo
1 tbsp ketchup
1.5 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1.5 tsp red wine or balsamic vinegar
1.5 tsp lemon juice
little pepper - try to avoid the salt as many of our ingredients are pre-salted
1/2 cup good fresh red/purple grapes halved
1 tsp dill (dried) if you have fresh, wonderful and just about double the amount

Mix all - chill - chill is important - many people are so tempted to serve a chilled salad before the ingredients have really had a chance to marry and blend - give it that hour to rest.

Thanks reading and letting me vent [Smile]