Those of us going to meetings have heard dozens and dozens of stories where a member will ask the group, "I came in for the first few times, and I couldn't figure out what they were all laughing about. This isn't supposed to be fun."
I get the laughter now. I've been around so many different/diverse tables in the past 30+ days, getting to know new people and in return getting to be known by them, we can have actual conversations prior to and after meetings. There's also a little good-natured needling. To use a loose term from one of my favorite authors, Thomas Harris, I've been accepted by the herd. (In his use of the term/sentence, he meant it in a totally good way.) It all comes down to acceptance. I can laugh again.
COOKING SOBER
Anyone who knows me knows that I adore cooking. I like to think I do it well. I "marginally" follow recipes. I tweak and customize here and there, but the problem is... I don't write those tweaks down and cannot recreate a dish at a latter date. This drives me crazy.
I made one HELL of smoked rib/pork butt rub back in my drinking days that I utterly love. It's all dry ingredients. I am running out of it... and I have no earthly clue how to recreate it. I've tasted it with sober taste-buds and can't figure out WTF I used! It's driving me crazy... but I'm not going back to that frame of mind to try and recreate it.
There were mornings/days/nights during my "banner" times that I would totally screw up the simplest of meals. Why? I'd been drinking. It's not hard to make a freaking quesadilla or simple hash browns.. yet when I'd had too many (which was almost always)... I managed to. How I managed to successfully make two separate deep fried turkeys without causing massive harm to myself or burning down the house, I will never know.
Thankfully, things are much better now! It's been an utter delight to be in the kitchen again. I've been goofing around with some things, and it feels SO MUCH BETTER doing it with a clean head.
APPARENTLY at one of the newer meetings I went to I missed a chili cook-off! GASP! Are you kidding me? I make a DYNAMITE crock pot, stove pot of chili. So sad I missed that. In one of the cookbooks we received during my separation, there is a suggestion for replacing beer in a recipe with equal portions of apple juice and water. I haven't tried it yet on my own personal recipe, but am going to certainly give it a whirl!
If it works out, I may share "SOME" secrets... your chili recipes are you own. Hit me up on the comments or email side of things with your version. ;-)
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