You Know You Work Too Much When..

You know you work too much when you arrive at work nearly every morning with a healthy breakfast in tow (there just isn't time to eat at home!) Today I packed a baggie of homemade granola and a fat banana and was looking forward to a nice bowl of cereal (milk in the fridge). Only there wasn't milk in the fridge. And it was 9:20 already, on a very busy day. I'd stopped at Target and lost the right to make a quick milk run and satisfy my breakfast craving.
So I ate granola and sliced banana from a bowl, with a spoon, milk-less.
And you know what? It wasn't so bad.

Why I Work Out

I do love exercise, really I do. But what I love just as much is eating a homemade ice cream sandwich at 2 o'clock on one of the first sunny Sunday afternoons in June and not feeling one ounce of guilt. Now if I had eaten two, I might have felt a twinge of inpropriety. They are rather big and sinful. But just one of the sandwiches -- chocolate-toffee-peanut cookies layered with vanilla and dipped in dark chocolate -- that is just fine by me. Delicious, as a matter of fact.

Bad Bad Blogger!

Apparently I am not cut out for the blogging world. It is a bit mystifying since I am a very routine orientated person. You'd think I'd fall into the world of blogging quickly and easily. But I don't, or I won't. I think secretly I am a bit wary of blogging.
Will I use it as a form of procrastination? I am right now.
Will it stifle or enhance my creativity? I don't know.
Will anyone read it, and if so, is that good or bad? I can't figure it out.
Right now it is 4:36 on a Saturday afternoon. It is June, but the Pacific NW is still gray and cold. I am wearing a cashmere sweater and am curled up on the couch, fighting the urge to get up and pour myself a glass of wine. It is, after all, almost 5 o'clock and it was a very very long week.
This morning I did all sorts of nice and luxurious things for myself; things I almost feel guilty about. First I went to an early morning yoga class, stretching and breathing to my heart's content. Then I went to the french bakery and drank one perfect cappucino, heaped with foam and dusted with sugar and cinnamon. Occasionally I'd dip the crust of my hazlenut cranberry roll into the foam and swirl it around a bit while I flipped through the pages of my library book. Then I had a massage -- a blessed, well deserved massage that left me invigorated and enthusiastic about life. And what better way to celebrate this new found verve than to go to the farmer's market. I bought pink peonies, cilantro, green onions, fava beans, and a large, large bunch of asparagus. All the bunches were beautiful and dainty and each cost $3.50. I paid and picked one and the guy manning the stand said, "Is that the one you want? It's so small." He reached for another, much larger bunch and handed it to me.
"But I'm a single girl," I said. How much asparagus can I really eat?"
He smiled. "If you live alone, no one is telling you what to eat. You can eat as much asparagus as you want. Only aspargus if you want."
"And then a chocolate bar?" I said.
"And then a chocolate bar!" He replied.
So be it.

Sunday Brunch

Just in time for breakfast tomorrow, check out my piece on Sunday Brunch:
http://www.nicolewilliams.com/living/host-a-brunch/

I made the cinnamon-blueberry muffins a few weeks ago. They smelled divine while baking and were sooo tasty. I took them to Mes Amies for a coffee break with Naomi and we both had to hold ourselves back from eating more than acceptable on a Tuesday morning.

I love blueberry muffins but have had a hard time finding a recipe I wanted to commit to and make my own. My mother's recipe is delicious -- a simple cakey muffin flecked with raw sugar on top -- but it is very simple, almost blueberry scone like. This recipe offers a little more. Sweet cinnamon and sugar, it tastes like a treat.

But Can She Cook?

I have been very obsessed with kitchen and cooking orientated blogs recently. My new favorite is The Kitchn (www.thekitchn.com) followed closely, obsessively (at least for the past 24 hours) by Quirky Cupcake http://slush.wordpress.com/ I just cannot fathom how this woman makes, and eats, cupcakes, brownies, and sweet treats every single day. This just might be my secret yet unrealized dream!
The point is that beautiful food blogs are filled with beautiful food blog photos -- perfect poached eggs, flawless pies, soups to swoon over. And I'm wondering where the mistakes are -- the things that just didn't turn out. The dishes that aren't pretty, or even that good, but you eat anyway because you put all that effort into making it and you live alone, so it seems like a huge waste to toss it all away.
I'll be honest, these things happen. I am not a perfect foodie. This weekend I had two mistakes -- two! Even for me that was a tad high. The first was a seriously simple salad of arugula, white beans, bowtie pasta, garlic, a little butter, some toasted walnuts, salt and pepper. Sounds simple and good, right? Maybe too simple... and a little too influenced by garlic. It was a great lesson in how simple has to be good simple, right simple, not just simple.
On Sunday I decided to make a spring soup. Something like but nourishing sounds divine so I added leeks and carrots and celery to the pot along with homemade chicken broth, thyme, salt, pepper, and then towards the end, rice, a diced potato and some peas. Then I left for dinner. When I returned my soup had become risotto, minus the cheese and the really good butter and olive oil. I have heated and eaten it two nights in a row with sliced avocado on top and lots and lots of salt. So much salt it crunches, which I love. But then the salt and avocado are gone and I am left with mush and blah and a meal that reminds me a bit of something you'd find in the college dining hall. But I had the best of intentions! Where did I go wrong? Don't tell me, please. I won't make either of these recipes again. I'll just hope for better the next time.

Easter is NOT a Single Person Holiday

Easter always sneaks up on me. All the other holidays fall on predictable days and are easily marked on the calendar. But Easter hops around. One year it comes in March, another April, there's little rhyme or reason. One thing is for certain -- Easter is not for single people.
I would never invite all my friends over to celebrate Easter. I would never dye eggs or bake rabbit shaped sugar cookies to give away on Easter. I would never cook a ham, coating it with peachy jezabel sauce, steam asparagus, make homemade rolls and open bottles of clean, festive white wine to share with a motley collection of buddies. I'm not sure why. Maybe it is because Easter is religious and by acknowledging and celebrating it, it some how seems like I should also go to church. Maybe it is because at 30 years old, pastel eggs and sprouted wheat grass seems just a little silly. Whatever the reason, another Easter came and went, with nary an Easter moment aside from the adorable floral bag my mom sent stuffed with darling pastel candies and goodies. Yes, I'm thirty and my mother still gets me an Easter basket... but that's a whole other story.
I tried to revel in my solitude, but it was hard. It rained all day, hard sheets of rain that made it nearly impossible to go outside. I woke up early and couldn't fall back to sleep. I watched the sun rise and read the New Yorker in bed, and then ate oatmeal and drank coffee. It was tempting to think of breakfast out, but the idea of being surrounded by dozens of celebrating families was too much -- the lines, the spring dresses, the bows. I couldn't handle it. I lit candles and read and wrote and read some more. Still it was barely noon. At the grocery store later that afternoon I stocked up on ingredients for a springy rice soup and bought milk and yogurt and dried bing cherries. There was nobody in the store but the grocery was overflowing with samples -- large hunks of havarti cheese, small tastes of stuffed french toast with chai whipped cream, slices of bagels topped with store-made strawberry jam, mini pancakes with pure maple syrup, perfect blood orange sections. Who were all these extravagant tastes for? I realized that they were for the people like me: the girls who didn't have brunch dates, the folks without family, the people alone at the grocery store on Easter Sunday.
It made me feel better, but also a little worse. It certainly didn't help me feel any less alone. But it did make me feel a little less hungry. The chocolate cadbury mini eggs helped a little too.

Single Girl Food I

So many people are secretly jealous of the single girls. We get to spend whatever we want on clothes, shoes, and other fun stuff, watch lots of trashy t.v., and eat whatever we want.
I am usually pretty boring and non-single girl in my habits. I like routine, don't often over-spend, and like to eat pretty healthy. But I do have my days, and today was one of them!
It is only Wednesday and already this week has been a doozy, the kind of week that makes you wish and wish it was Friday -- or at least Thursday-- and really it is only Wednesday. There is laundry to do, stinky garbage to take out, and still it is only Wednesday.
So, I did what any self respecting single girl would do: turned on the T.V. for a nice diet of Extra Gossip and America's Next Top Model, poured myself a big glass of fat red wine, picked some cold chicken from the bone, ate a stinky hunk of goat cheese and proceeded to do the laundry, take out the trash, and count the moments until the weekend.