Feast your hungry eyes on this scrumptious photograph by none other than my blogging friend Kara. She sent it to me via email, kindly allowing me to publish it on my blog EVEN after she had learned about my copyright criminal instincts.
If you missed the post about my brush with the law, it concerned a photograph of a bowl of beans that I had pasted on a post. This made the blog owner pissy which led to issuing a Take Down Notice on my blog. So let my experience warn potential cut-and-paste cyberspace criminals. YOU may rationalize your illegal behavior as 'free advertising' for someone else's blog, but the law considers your behavior THEFT. So even if you're a proficient cut-and-paster, DON'T Do It. Why?
Because people like ourselves, people who obey the rules just 'cuz we like doing the right thing for the good of society, have a hard time accepting our inner criminal. Inner critics are hard enough to deal with, but embracing your inner criminal can throw you in a self-hate prison for weeks (or even months) before tapping your way out of Alcatraz. If you don't understand what I just wrote, consider yourself lucky.
Because people like ourselves, people who obey the rules just 'cuz we like doing the right thing for the good of society, have a hard time accepting our inner criminal. Inner critics are hard enough to deal with, but embracing your inner criminal can throw you in a self-hate prison for weeks (or even months) before tapping your way out of Alcatraz. If you don't understand what I just wrote, consider yourself lucky.
After my post about the DMCA Take Down notice, dear Kara felt duly sorry for me; enough so that she not only cooked my mjeddrah recipe, she took a picture of her culinary masterpiece! Her photographs were soooo gorgeous it was hard to believe she'd made the same recipe. I got out my iPad over dinner and showed Kara's pictures to my family who raised their hands with enthusiasm and agreed: from here-on-out, they're eating at Kara's. The mjeddrah we've been eating looks like mud.
How to Make Ugly Mjeddrah (pronounced: mi-jed-rah)
1-1/2 cups green lentils
4 cups water or stock
3 Tb. olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup brown rice
Wash lentils. Bring lentils and water to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Heat olive oil in another pan and saute onions and salt until onions are translucent. Add brown rice and stir for 2 minutes. Combine onions, rice and lentils. Cover and simmer until lentils & rice are soft---about one hour. Stir occasionally. Additional water may be needed, one cup or more. I always cook this in a cast iron pot, letting the liquid evaporate in the cooking without burning the food. Although mjeddrah is usually eaten with salad, we cram it in a whole-wheat Pita Pocket topped with lettuce and onions, tomatoes and cucumbers, spinach and sprouts. Drizzle a little olive oil and lemon juice as a finale.
Now look to your right. This picture is what Kara's mjeddrah looks like without the roasted peppers and feta cheese. Doesn't it look healthy? Doesn't it look delicious? Don't you wanna grab a tablespoon and gobble it up? I love the way her rice and lentils maintain their integrity in the bowl. Each kernel rests unique. Individuated. Kara's rice and lentils have good boundaries.
My mjeddrah resembles the narcissistic family: a big blob of enmeshed objects, losing individual identity in the ego mass. (I TRY to write something about narcissism in every post but yea, that was a bit of a stretch wasn't it?)
My mjeddrah resembles the narcissistic family: a big blob of enmeshed objects, losing individual identity in the ego mass. (I TRY to write something about narcissism in every post but yea, that was a bit of a stretch wasn't it?)
After cooking my mjeddrah to a fine mess, I top it with shredded iceberg lettuce and voila! Louisiana swamp in a dinner bowl. Sometimes my family eats with their eyes closed and now you know why. They aren't praying. Well, maybe they are! "Dear Lord. Please help me survive this ordeal-of-a-meal and I promise to fix dinner for Mom tomorrow. Amen"
Thank you to Kara for sending these gorgeous pictures which have been sitting on my desktop for weeks, waiting for an opportunity to post them. Now that it's raining and hailing outside, there's time to frame, post, and write a thank you note. You are a kind and thoughtful woman and I'm grateful to have met you.
Love,
CZ
Reference Post: The Creeping Crud of Self-Admiration, Copyright Criminals, and the Google Art Project
Love,
CZ
Reference Post: The Creeping Crud of Self-Admiration, Copyright Criminals, and the Google Art Project
I insist that you you take down this photo of Kara's mjedrah now. I know she'd tell you to herself but she's too shy. There's no excuse for making our mouths water like this. That inner criminal is outta control. Besides, haven't I seen lentils somewhere before? I don't that lentil is original. I also recognize that brown rice. Long grain. I've seen it before. Take it down at once or I'll....I'll.... oh crap. I'll go get a snack. love CS
ReplyDeleteYou are so funny! Listen, I don't take down my photos for just anybody, ya know. Show me yer paperwork first!
DeleteIs that the most delicious looking bowl of lentils and brown rice that you've ever seen? And you know what else? Kara created a finer photograph than the pissy poster's poopy bowl of pixelated beans!
What are ya gettin' for a snack, CS? I'm about to head upstairs for some homemade hummus and fresh vegies. Have you made your own hummus? It's an easy way to avoid preservatives and saturated fat. There's about ten billion hummus recipes on the web now---using a variety of ingredients other than garbanzo beans. Hummm...is it really hummus when its made from tahini and pinto beans? We could change the name to pummus unless that infringes on someone's intellectual property.
Strange world we live in, isn't it?
Love ya back,
CZ
Paperwork?? I have a grain of brown rice here, at my computer, that looks just like the one in that photo. Don't need no stinkin paperwork.
DeleteI haven't made my own hummus. I should, because I love it. Pummus. I've heard that. That's not original. Oh wait, I just heard it here. That is indeed a damn fine-looking bowl of beans, cowboy. Beans you can tip your hat to.
I'm a bean freak, I love beans and rice, in many combos. With chopped tomato and lots of cumin, avocado slices, chili oil. I have a big bag of red, yellow and orange mini bell peppers. I'm off to make a snack now, with store bought hummus.
But I also have to have the Stacey's Pita Chips, Naked (the chips. not me).
DeleteWhew! thanks for the warning! My blog has a PG rating. Lots of violence, but no nudity!
DeleteDo ya love those little peppers or what? Peppers, pummus, and paprika. That'll keep ya healthy. ha! I really should start a cooking blog now that I'm obsessed with the DASH Diet. I have collected new recipes and modified old recipes to increase the nutritional value of our diet. What's amazing is that we LOVE eating vegetables and whole foods so it doesn't feel like a deprivation diet which it isn't although we're losing weight in addition to eating delicious food. Plus (no surprise) I'm taking an online Nutrition Class from Coursera!
Aha! A Coursera addict. Your inner criminal is going to be overshadowed by your inner lifelong learner. Gotta watch that. Is the DASH diet the low sodium diet?
DeleteIt is. I'm not as strict with the salt because no one in our house has high blood pressure or heart problems. DASH (Marla Heller) suggests eating every couple of hours (OKAY!) while avoiding sugar as much as possible. Now we eat sugar-free Jell-O on Friday nights instead of pizza.
DeleteSugar's hard for me. I have a sweet tooth. But I know it will lead me to bad things if I don't curb it. I've substituted Stacey's Pita Chips. They're processed flour, but low in sugar (although high in carbohydrate, non-complex). They somehow hit the same spot, although I recently learned the company was purchased by Frito-lay, which explains how they got the science down on mouth feel with every single chip. I thought they were healthful, and they are, as long as I don't eat a whole bag! And put something with complex carbo's on them (like pummus).
DeleteIt's almost midnight and my head is blurry with facts about the FDA and nutritional supplement labels. I've never eaten Stacey's Pita Chips and maybe I shouldn't even try them in case I can't stop eating Pitas and Pummus.
DeleteThanks for keeping me company on my blog today. That was a lot of fun!!!
Love,
CZ
Hahaha, you both have a talent for comedy. I laughed so much reading this thread.
DeleteHi Kara! I hoped you'd show up today or tomorrow! Sunshine is predicted for the upcoming weekend which means I might not be on my computer for a few days.
DeleteI am head-over-heels in love with my garden again. I write "again" because The gardening passion was knocked clean out of me for awhile. It has slowly been coming back and this year, I'm a fool for flora. Proof that hope springs eternal and so do weeds.
Even IF we spend hours in the garden hugging trees and manicuring topiaries, we still have to EAT. AND, food always tastes better when it's artfully garnished.
Love,
CZ
I do hope you get some sunshine on the weekend. I haven't been able to anything in the garden, the weather has been, and still is, rather dismal this spring. Rain and hail and more rain, and if not rain, strong winds :P Not the auspicious weather one needs to paint fences and garden furniture...
Deletexxoo
Hi guys, I'd love to work in the garden but we're having crazy pollen problems, and I feel on the verge of flu all the time lately. Although the stress of this last week (FOO "decision") is making it worse. Weather has been all over the place, hasn't it? Also my passion for gardening is slightly dampened by the number of times a day I have to bend over to pick up dog poo! Two big dogs, what was I thinking? love CS
DeleteDog poo!! NO! We had dogs when I grew up which made it hard to protect our flower beds. They loved rolling in the petunias and digging in the cool soil. I hate to say it but my garden is one reason why we don't have a dog today. Another reason? Too lazy to take a dog for a walk.
DeleteWe have a cat now and he scratches the top of every antique in my house and snags the corner edges of upholstered furniture.
I had a pet husband once. He was destructive, too. I haven't gotten another one for that reason.
Yeah well, I used to have a green grass back yard and now it looks like the moon, craters and all. Or Verdun. When it rains it looks like the La Brea Tar Pits. The dogs have destroyed the yard. I figure that's what it's for. When they grow old and pass on, I'll have it sodded, I'll get a chihuahua named Pedro, and that'll be that. Or a husband named Pedro. Whichever comes first.
DeleteO man, CS. I"m not sure my love for animals extends to living in La Bea Tar Pits. You love those dogs though and they are awfully cute peering out the living room window keeping you safe from external criminals. Your dogs are a necessity. Grass is optional; grass doesn't love ya back.
DeleteIf you get a husband named Pedro, I'll get one named Jacques and we can blog about men, dogs, and narcissistic cats. Jacques lived next door when we lived in France and Jacques was, well...even more yummy than Kara's Mjeddrah. *grin*
Dear CZ,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this post. It made me laugh out loud. You and your family are welcomed to eat a "Chez Kara" anytime ;) I'm very grateful to have met you too, you have taught me so much over the last year. I really cannot thank you enough.
I do hope you start a cooking blog. I'd love to try more of your recipes. :)
Lots of love,
Kara xxoo
Kara (picture Molly's mini-cowboy here), that bowl of beans is damn fine. With feta and peppers and greens it's glorious. CZ, I started to suspect something was up with Stacey's Pita Chips when I noticed that every single freakin chip as exactly the same degree of crunch, mouth feel (yummy), and gives an identical hit of pleasure. Only a food engineer could accomplish that (I'm serious!). Turns out Stacey's started as a local company then was purchased by Frito-lay. Busted!! However, the chips have very few ingredients, are mostly benign (moderate sodium, low in fat, no trans). But they have a magically-delicious (no Leprochauns here. Kara figure that one out) flavor, the plain or "naked" ones. I say don't even try them. I've got to have at least 2 bags in the cupboard or I get anxious. They're the only thing that unwinds me when I get home from work, and I think it has to do with the crunch (carrots don't do the same thing), and then the crumble.
DeleteGee, does it seem like I've over thought this?? :-)
Aww, the crunch, nothing beats crunchy food, does it? You should see DH and I fighting over the crackling when I make roast pork shoulder... ;)
DeleteI'm going to have to take your word for it about the Pita Chips, I don't think we have them over here but I will check next time I'm in the supermarket (just in case), and I'll report dutifully ;)
I don't know what it is about those things. I used to be addicted to blue corn chips. But Stacey's Naked Pita Chips, I just can't quit 'em. cowboy
DeleteI've met extraordinary people in cyberspace, who've become life-long and cherished friends. I've also met some real stinkers which means those 'cherished friends' are even more precious.
DeleteIt's a challenge making connections with other people after relationship betrayal. For one thing, they can't understand the depth of our experience or our suffering IF we experienced a "traumatic" injury caused by an "unchosen" OR "chosen" relationship. In the first case, we're supposed to LOVE our parents or siblings unconditionally so if we reveal the abuses of childhood, people blame us for not "getting over it."
If we talk about the trauma we experienced in a "chosen" relationship, people blame us for "choosing" a f-ed up person in the first place.
So unchosen or chosen, the fact is that many people can't relate which leaves us feeling isolated, judged, alienated from society and ourselves to some degree. Being able to find friends on the Internet who accept us at our word, who understand our experience through their own trauma, who allow us to be kinda weird sometimes and terribly loving at others, who embrace us as WHOLE individuals, not broken ones---those are the relationships that restore our self-worth and self-esteem and I do NOT take them for granted.
I am so grateful we can laugh together and allow one another to shine in our own special way.
Love,
CZ
That's so true CZ : people who accept and welcome ALL of us, (and there is so much more to us and to share than the trauma we've been through), make a huge difference in our lives. I'm so glad that we can talk about any subject and be serious or silly, without feeling we can only talk about Narcissism (though I did like the illustration of the grains and boundaries ;) ) or that we have to be funny all the time or serious all the time. That's what friendship is all about isn't it?
DeleteLove,
Kara xxoo
Well, Kara...I haven't participated in a "blogging group" before so having people comment on my blog so reliably, is a shock AND a joy.
DeleteBlogging was a way for me to relay much-needed information about narcissism before we had so many sites (even professional ones) to choose from. So now I can relax my focus a little and just have f-u-n with my friends. (while we learn from one another, i must add!)
Love,
CZ
Hi again, I just finished Alice Miller's The Body Never Lies, and I'm amazed at how hard she had to argue for points that we've now helped each other see so clearly: that loving abusive parents is NOT a requirement no matter what; that the 4th Commandment is a patriarchal holdover; that our bodies and illnesses tell the truth even when we do not.
DeleteBut back to fun stuff. Now that I've examined each grain of rice in your photograph of Kara's Mjedrah, I can see that they only superficially resemble the grain sitting by my computer. So no charges or warnings will be leveled at this time. But I've brought a pinto bean over to my Mac, and consider yourself forewarned.
Re: Stacey's Pita Chips, the best best part of the bag is when it's almost empty, all the crumbled oily salty flakes are down in the corners; I have been known to tip the entire bag into my mouth at that point. I'm sure I'd be stripped of all professional credentials if anyone saw. I also feel like Frito-Lay should be paying me for the publicity here, what with your gazillion members....I hope it gets sunny and not too humid and you can work outside in the dirt.
I can see you now, pita chip bag over your nose with Alice Miller's book in the other hand. Nope. Not exactly what you'd like blown up poster-size and hung on your office wall, is it? ha!
DeleteSay, I found a recipe for Black Bean hummus. Bummus, anyone?
Bummus
1 clove garlic
1 (15-oz.) can of black beans, drain and reserve liquid
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1-1/2 tablespoons tahini
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
10 Greek olives
Mince garlic in processor and add black beans and 2 tablespoons reserved liquid, lemon juice, tahini, cumin, salt and cayenne pepper. Process til smooth and garnish with olives and paprika.
YUM! Now I'm headed to the store for Stacey's Pita Chips. If you've wrecked my diet, CS, you'd best plan on getting a rash of hate mail. Anonymously, of course.
LOL!! Bummus, I love it. And I adore black bean anything. Thanks for this recipe, I'll make it this weekend. Re Stacey's, be sure to get the "Naked" ones. They're the best.
DeleteIf you send me hate mail I'll sic Molly's little cowboy on ya. Pilgrim.
Bummus sounds like a great starter to serve for people to snack on before serving roast lamb. :) Thanks for the recipe. I will try it and send you a photo ;) xxoo
DeleteI'll be waiting, kara. (you do take beautiful photographs).
DeleteMy daughter is making Lima Bean Hummus this week-end. I said to her, "You're making Lummus?"
She just stared at me. "Internet humor again, Mom?" she asked. hahaha!!!
"Lummus" hahaha, your daughter's reply is hilarious, love the term "Internet humour" :D
DeleteForgot to mention I made bummous two days ago. I always have canned black beans in the house, love anything with cumin. I picked up some tahini and paprika and olives, and Bob's your uncle! I spread it on....wait for it.......Stacy's Naked Pita chips. It was delicious (and it made me eat fewer Stacy's, so a help on that front too).
DeleteOh Beans!! ROTF!!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I embrace my inner criminal as much as I can get away with. And that top photo looks luscious!
I've been on green smoothies for exactly a month and haven't budged a pound..perhaps the fruit (frozen) I have been filling the blender has over powered the kale?? LOL! But! I have more energy than ever, and more criminal intent than usual, too.
I love recipes and steal as much as I can....but I also give back..sometimes. Anyone up for a Hungarian Kflee recipe?? it's a dough made of butter/flour/cream cheese wrapped around prune paste, apricot paste or walnuts, with powdered sugar after baking. Ugh.
But Bummous sounds wonderful!@!! I think it would go well with these rotten green smoothies that have me by the short hairs right now.
Love this blog! As for narcissism...well, garlic seems to be to me, at least, the most narcissistic herb around!! Dominates everything!!!
Everything else is it's supply line. LOL!
Hugs, all....
Lady Nyo..who is going to try to get through the dragons that guard this blog!
Hungarian Kflee? What's it look like? Is there a picture somewhere I can steal???
DeleteI'm so glad the dragon masters let you talk to me, Lady Nyo. I was posting a comment to a blog the other day and dang if I didn't have to retype those squiggly letters five times before my comment posted! It's irritating.
I removed the robot-filter on my blog for a few days and my email filled up with SPAM. Now I can handle Bummus and Pummus and even Lummus but PLEASE don't serve me spam! Not even with Pita Chips.
Green Smoothies? Check out the DASH Diet. It's the best diet we've ever been on and we feel great, too! (I say "we" because my daughter, sister and myself are trying to lose some weight). You eat lots and lots of vegetables, turkey roll-ups and yes...HUMMUS. My creative urges are spilling over into cooking now---mixing all kinds of food together. BUT NOT IN A BLENDER! hahaha
Love,
CZ
Oh! I'll do that! the DASH diet...I've heard of that before and I certainly need to lose some weight!!!
DeleteHungarian Kflees....I use my 100 year old Aunt Jean's recipe...she's still kicking and today (June 1st) went to the huge Hungarian festival in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She was complaining that she could only stay a 1/2 hour, and she had other activities to get back to in the 'assisted living' place where she stays, and I was laughing. Her social card is always full. Sometimes she has to say "goodbye" I have a class to go to and I'm late. Talk to you later." LOL! What a gal.
Ok...2 1/2 cups of unbleached flour
2 sticks of butter
1 8 ounce of cream cheese....
blend well, by hand or in a mixer or have someone do this...I broke my wrist last year on July 4th so I have trained my long suffering husband to do this stuff. Him sitting in front of the tv is good. LOL!
Roll out, about 1/4 thick, and cut into squares. I chill the dough before for about an hour if I have the time.
Prune paste: (I love it...) get a bag of prunes and simmer until soft in water...drain water (drink if you are stopped up...) and smash into jelly. Same with apricots. Walnuts I never do well, so I'm leaving that out.
put in a teaspoon or less into the middle of each pastry square...fold over two opposite sides...and bake until ...well, my oven is cursed, but at 350 for about 20 minutes...don't over bake and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
My first fatherinlaw was a cardiologist and he ate 27 of them in one sitting. LOL! They are wonderful and simple to make. And I eat them at breakfast with coffee...dessert, etc.
Years ago I had an open house here and the old ladies of the neighborhood came...I made 400 kflees and I watched them shovel them into their purses. LOL!
I also wanted to say that you are so right: So many people are so..well, just unsensitive to our plight as adult daughters and sons of narcissistic parents. They expect us, and are totally shocked when we express our NOT loving our abusive parents...and siblings. They refuse to understand. It is a very lonely life when you think you are the only one who suffers these issues. And I have known women...at least one, who killed herself because she suffered in silence. Only later did I know what a monster her mother was. Another one? Well, she is severely wounded and her own mother tried to strangele her twice. She is not right in the head because she has never had the help she needed, nor the acceptance. She (and so many of us...) are branded as 'weird, selfish, etc' because we don't march in step with the rest of society on these issues.
Yes, it's always an issue of "us getting over it" and I think you said this first, CZ? "What is worse than the m-narcissist are those around her who excuse her behavior".
The ultimate betrayal is of family: when people, siblings know there 'is something wrong with mom' but continue to berate and demean the scapegoat of the family...well, this is very hard to overcome. And done in the name of Christ is even worse to me. It has turned me off any thought of Christianity, and I know that these people don't hold Christ in their hearts, just their mouths. They don't swallow.
But! Mental health and a break in the isolation comes from these wonderful blogs, like yours, CZ, where we come here and find that we are normal and in fact, loving creatures BECAUSE we have suffered these terrible and chronic abuses, and we have learned the good from the bad by our experiences.
Back to beans! They are very good for us, especially when we are diabetic or prediabetic.
Love to all here!
Lady Nyo
Lady Nyo,
DeleteYour Aunt Jean sounds fabulous! Like the Aunts on my father's side who were writing family books and sewing wedding dresses practically up to the day they passed away, one at age 100.
I printed out your recipe, thanks! I get a creative urge to try different recipes, even exotic foods. Prune paste fits that category rather well...ha. I used google to see an image of kflees and yup, I've seen them before but have NEVER eaten one!
Lady Nyo wrote: "She is severely wounded and her own mother tried to strangle her twice."
It's a sign of increasing psychological and mental health and maybe even self-esteem I think, that adults are breaking the No Talk Rule on abusive parenting. We have gotten to the point where it's not okay to "spank" children, much less strangle them!! People didn't lift a finger or do ANYTHING about physical abuse thirty, forty, fifty years ago. I'll never forget the kid in our school who's father hit him in the head with a shovel. As kids, we thought our parents had a right to punish us, even kick us if we didn't OBEY. Ya know, that kind of thinkin' just doesn't happen anymore. People still turn a blind eye, of course---but there's been a shift in consciousness. Never fast enough to please the "shifted" though.
"I know that these people don't hold Christ in their hearts, just their mouths. They don't swallow."
I love how you wrote that. It's on my quote card block now.
Love,
CZ
Hi CZ and company,
ReplyDeleteLoved the dialogue. I am allergic to lentils, but the bummus sounds wonderful. Maybe I'll get out my pressure cooker and throw some bummus together. Believe it or not, I have all those ingredients in my pantry, lol! Thanks guys, for giving me a smile on yet another rainy, dreary day. After such rousing endorsements, I'll have to venture out for some of Stacy's pita chips, too. Naked, of course. (The chips, thankfully, not me.) XX00, Kitty
Morning all, I'm simultaneously taking cooking/baking notes, and laughing at all these internet jokes. I think these 'old world' recipes are SO cool (although some of them, Gah, you just don't wanna know about). I love the idea of Lady Nyo's former FiL cardiologist shoveling in the Kflees. They've got to be that good.
DeleteCZ, I will admit that of all beans, lima and I don't see eye to black-eye. I've always thought they were flavorless and awful, unless disguised with that most narcissistic of all root bulbs, garlic. But garlic will fix anything. CZ you might remember this, having some CA connections, but each year Gilroy CA has a garlic festival; thirty years ago they ran a short film called "Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers," it won a prize of some sort. That title has stayed with me. To this day, when I strongly need comfort food, usually in winter after a long hard teaching day or soul-crushing committee meeting, it's pasta, with veggies, and three big cloves crushed directly into the cooked pasta. It's as good as opiates.
Almost.
DeleteHi Kitty! Glad you got a chuckle out of our conversation! If you made the recipe, let me know what you thought of it!
Deletep.s. I'm also glad to hear that when you're grocery shopping, you're fully dressed. lol
Love,
CZ
CS,
DeleteI am sorry to hear that you don't appreciate LIMA BEANS. We made Lummus this week-end and it was delicious!! We still haven't purchased Stacey's pita chips but they're on my shopping list. I'll ALWAYS think of you when eating pita chips now.
I used to live close enough to Gilroy, California to smell the garlic harvest. We opened our windows and the night breeze filled our home with the aroma of garlic. Say, now that I think about it...my X traveled during Garlic Season. That little fact blew right by me, kinda like not noticing he kept one foot out the door the entire time we were married. Duh
I tried to find "Garlic is a Good as Ten Mothers" (1980) and no one has uploaded it to YouTube. Considering the director was a famous documentarian, you'd think someone would preserve the film. He died in 2013 so perhaps someone will collect his lifeworks and add them to the public domain.
WE love garlic too! Baked garlic (one whole bulb per person) with baked brie and a slice of French bread....HEAVEN. I'd never eaten this appetizer til living in France and now my kids request it for their birthday dinners.
Have not tried the recipe yet but I copied it to my Recipes folder, so I will soon. I love lima beans too. I think I would love lummus. As for the Kflees, as wonderful as they sound, and boy do they sound wonderful, I think I'll wait until the holidays to try them. But I will try them, believe me. I couldn't let a recipe that sounds that wonderful go without a sampling.
DeleteBaked garlic with baked brie and french bread does sound like HEAVEN. I'm definitely trying that :D xxoo
DeleteI hate lima beans....LOL!
ReplyDeleteBut garlic is comfort food..and since I am 1/2 Hungarian...I'm taking a big risk here. (perhaps the tons of sour cream and paprika that we eat is a buffer...LOL!)
My Aunt Jean at 100 has more love in her heart than most mothers I have known. When I whined that my mother never loved me (which is true...) she said that she wished I was her daughter, that she always wanted another 'little bundle'. Oh, God! I call her "Anya" which is Hungarian for Mother, and she calls me galambom...which is 'little pigeon'...or daughter. (actually fat little pigeon, which fits...LOL!)
So, what I have found is the search for a mother figure for some of us is a life purpose. Aunt Jean's days are numbered, but for the past 5 years she has given me such a gift of mother-love. I can only hope to pass it along to some young (or not so young) woman who needs a mother's love.
Those lessons we learn of love because of our life experience are deep. Love randomly, spread it around and do it often! My Aunt Jean has this mentality, and perhaps that is why she has gotten to 100 with her wit and intelligence and humor still flashing.
Love,
Lady Nyo
Your story makes me tear up...I just love that generation of women who adjusted to an unfair world without being bitter, cynical and MEAN.
DeleteYour Aunt Jean loved her little galambom and THAT is probably why your mother's rejection wasn't as detrimental as it could have been. Not that it hasn't been a long serious of consistent attacks on your worth-and-value, but because your Aunt Jean told you (by her acceptance) that you WERE lovable and worthy. I've read many times that as long as a child has one other person in their life who can make up for the deficits of inadequate/deficient parenting, that child will be able to love and attach to people. The loss of extended family can be tragic for children...
Your heart must be aching at the thought of her passing. What a beautiful gift she gave you, by continuing to love you throughout your lifetime. Here's to all the Aunt Jeans in our world, and there are many!
Love
CZ
Dear Lady Nyo, to have someone, an aunt, regard you as her little galambom, is such a saving grace. Being motherless essentially my entire life, with no loving aunts on either side of the family, I can imagine what a welcoming oasis Jean would've been. Especially being your mother's sister. I do a lot of mothering (in as appropriate a way as I can) to my students. I've often thought that I get to do the maternal mentoring/role modeling, without ever having to change a diaper or drive anyone to a soccer game! But then of course, there are my dogs, so I do deal with my share of daily poo!
DeleteGarlic is bigtime comfort food for me. mushed in cream cheese (but then, anything with cream cheese is comfort). I've seen this last year my fat migrate to what used to be a flat almost concave belly. Seems like it happened overnight. Freaking hormones....so I need to lay off the cream cheese. But not the Stacy's Pita Chips. Never. Maybe I'll try lima beans with garlic.
ps had a long visit with my friend's wife yesterday. Enlightening.
ReplyDeleteDear Calibans Sister, I tried to post something here directly to you, but it wouldn't take. What I wanted to say is this: my heart goes out to you. I didn't have Aunt Jean as mother in my life until only a few years ago. And it was unexpected. I think this is the deep black hole for all of us motherless daughters...and the only thing I can say, is this: It's born of a particular desperation, and the only way to fill this hole is to find some kind stranger to accept our love, and to trust us enough to love back. Aunt Jean's days are numbered, but what she has given me is this: confidence that I am loveable. As are you. I went to so many churches, temples, etc...looking for a mother for 20 plus years. And I will again when Jean dies. I think it is what makes our ability to grow and love continue. I feel exactly your pain, dearheart, because at 65, I have only had a mother's love for a few years. It's new and awkward to me sometimes, but when I can trust it and believe in it, it's wonderful. Find any stranger that stands still and love her with great gulps of passion. I hope both of us will find this to plug that great hearthole. We are worth it, and we are worth the energy in doing so.
ReplyDeleteLove to you!
Lady Nyo
This is such a wonderful message Lady Nyo. As odd as it sounds, I feel a little like I'm receiving some maternal care from and with my blogging friends here, even though we're all grown women. It feels both sisterly and maternal to me, in deeply good ways. Your Aunt Jean is not long for this world at 100, and finding a way to fully honor her passing will be a hard and loving task for you. Maybe dedicate your NEXT book to her too? Your mother will love that. xoxo
DeleteOF COURSE!!! That is in the works as we speak! Or type.
ReplyDeleteCS, I feel the same way: the comfort from these sites is remarkable: I think a couple of us tried that before with another particular site and were smased down. I know that I felt the same rejection there as with the NM.
I have never had a sister and tried with the sil, but she wsa too corrupted by my own NM. And became another GC. Ugh. So....I pick up what sisters I can, and mothers, too. Well, this site is wonderful and so are others. CZ has a whole blooming, crying bunch of new sisteres who sit at her kitchen table and dip into that (famous) bowl of Prozac. LOL!
love, lady nyo
Women nurture one another through crises. It appears to be a natural instinct for women to 'tend and befriend'. You can read more about this phenomenon here: http://wonforum.blogspot.com/
DeleteDr. Shelley Taylor writes: “Tending to others is as natural and biologically based, as searching for food or sleeping, and its origins lie deep in our social nature.”
I believe friendships can make up for whatever we missed out on as children. The trick though is knowing how to create-and-sustain healthy relationship when you grew up with unhealthy examples. But we can learn how to be better friends and sisters and cyberbuddies AS LONG AS we value relationships. The thing about narcissists is that they value AGENCY more, devaluing relationships with other people (unless those relationships reaffirm their superiority/dominance).
What I've witnessed online is a majority of people who WANT relationships and can learn, unlearn and relearn whatever they need to know to create-and-sustain healthy relationships. I love love love my cyberfriends who have allowed me to make mistakes, to own my successes, and to Change Over time.
This has been a fun and stress-relieving thread and I thank each of you so much for being a friend!
Love,
CZ
Hi CZ,
Delete"I believe friendships can make up for whatever we missed out on as children." That is one of the points in the book "Families and how to survive them" by John Cleese and Robyn Skinner, that whatever we missed out in childhood can be made up for later in life by finding healthier examples for our relationships.
Thank you to you too for being such a loving friend to us.
Hugs,
Kara xx
Kara,
DeleteYou are easy to love, easy to talk with, easy to feel safe with. Our emotional, psychological and spiritual safety becomes increasingly important in this "journey": knowing how to build boundaries that don't shut people out; knowing what's okay to share and what isn't; knowing who to trust and who not to. The advantage of cyberspace is that we can make HUGE mistakes trusting the wrong online people and we won't have to move out of the neighborhood because of it. ha!
Love,
CZ
P.S. I ordered the book. :-)
DeleteThanks CZBZ, that's so sweet of you to say. I'm really touched :) When it comes to " knowing how to build boundaries that don't shut people out" I have learned a lot from you, from your generosity of heart and from your experience. Probably one of the most important lessons of this last year is that it's ok to make mistakes: you learn a lot more from them than you ever do from never doing anything wrong.
DeleteI think you'll like the Skinner/Cleese book. It's very funny. Some of the Freudian stuff was a little over my head, but what I found most interesting is that, unlike most self-help books, it focuses a lot on what healthy families are like. Skinner himself said that there are so very few studies on healthy families, that most of them focus on pathology, and his point was something along the lines of "surely if we're going to get healthy we need to look at the people who are getting it right". Makes sense to me ;) Look forward to hear what you think of it when you read it.
Love,
Kara
Hi guys, I ordered the Skinner/Cleese book. Btw, CZ, I read Lowen's Narcisism book, and I found his thinking too Freudian for my tastes, and his patriarchalism made me uneasy (that stuff about women who work, etc). But he's a man of his age, isn't he?
DeleteStill, some useful material in it. I just go back to Sandy Hotchkiss's "Why is it Always About You: The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism" whenever i need instant strength. I'll travel with it in September.
Re: finding friends, we've been through trial by fire, that's for sure, this last year, and of course, CZ, you and many of your long time friends have been through fire elsewhere too (as Lady Nyo points out). I guess I just don't understand people who blog about their pain, and want to talk with others, who then attack and drive them away. I'll never understand that. But group dynamics (even unofficial groups) are always tricky organisms. Only some time shows who is able to flex and roll and grow. You and our other friends here have been lifesavers and soulsavers for me (since I'm not a churchy-gal). Not that there's anything wrong with that! :-)
ps my sign-in captcha was Antiochus Greenspur. How cool is that?
Yeap...I agree with all the stuff I've read here about friendship.
ReplyDeleteYou know what? It's hard to find friends! I do better on the internet but I have made some real mistakes (as in some damn dangerous narcissists.) But the good thing is we can always detach from the 'puter with these folks, but it takes (at least for me...) quite a while to sum up what is happening. Just don't meet them in person, like I did and end up picking yourself off the pavement.
I am so grateful for those here I have been corresponding with: and I realize that the best of friends have come through this damn refining fire of NMs and Narcissism in general in our lives...husbands included.
Yeah, CZ...you have led a lot of us out of this confusing forest with humor, compassion and just plain, generous friendship. I've learned so much for you...reading your blogs and your emails.
We who have not had the 'normal' social signals in our earlier lives have really had to learn by the seat of our pants. We had no way to protect ourselves, set boundaries (something that I find still very difficult...that's part of the 'neediness' we assume from our disrupted earlier years) but still...overall, we are developing discernment...a healthier kind.
My husband went out an bought me butterfly bushes yesterday and last night we found that all our garden tools were stolen out of our shed. I had a fit!! Then, when I calmed down, I realized that I hadn't lost something that couldn't be (expensively) replaced. At least people I have come to like and love were still alive. Perhaps it's just the deprivation that we suffer in another form? But it's beautiful today and hubbie is goine to Home Depot to replace stuff.
The main point for me is I can survive these slings and arrows (however how I wish that I had been on top of this garden shed WITH a bow and arrow!!!) and I think it's because when we feel loved and of some worth, we are maturing?
Love to all here...except the thief in the night who is going to get it in some form....(how in hell did he get past a 5 foot fence and three dogs???)
Lady Nyo