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Cooking, Gardening, Angst and More. Including Job Search Tales and lifestyle tips about island living.

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Outspoken Podcasting Chef, Sustainability Advocate and Farmer.

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Home » October 2005
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Happy Halloween

What more can I say:

posted by: ChefNeal at October 30, 2005 21:34 | link | comments (3) |
photos, halloween

Sunday, October 23, 2005
Sunday, again

The darkness outside the windows is thick, as we slice through the water gliding in fog past green capped stone rising from the depths. Islands slip by, illuminated by the cast off, second-hand, light from inside the ferry.

I'm on my way way to teach another cooking class. In many ways I'm not really wanting to go. Torn from my warm Sunday bed way too early. Fresh cinnamon rolls awaited us in the kitchen, baked late last night. It helped to soften the blow and sent me out the door on a sugar high.

I spent yesterday afternoon cutting and splitting firewood. We now have more than a year's supply. It has yet to be stacked, but hopefully it won't rain too much this week and the girls and I can get in to the shed and re-arrange it so we can fit all the wood in. All this, however, has done my back in and I am wishing I was on  my way to the chiropractor. No such luck. I have to race around town and get supplies so I can be at the teaching kitchen by 11am. It's 7:51 now and I won't get to the mainland till 8:30. Not a bad way to commute, but I've been in line and on the boat since 6:50--too early, especially in the fog and drizzle.

With any luck the crowd of students will be engaging today. I need that. I've picked a super simple menu to promote the freshness of the season. I need to psyche myself up for today, later. The last class I taught had way too much prep involved and I was too focused on getting everything done before I began that I lost my edge and fumbled for quite a while just keeping my head down explaining how to do everything.

If I can get one job from today it will all have been worth it. I need the work, both for some holiday cash and some piece of mind. Damn. . .I just realized I did not include any sort of product plug in this cooking session. Usually I try to promote some items from the kitchen store which houses the cooking school. That way there is value added and the students learn to use something, or the value of it, that they may not have experienced. Ah, well.

At least I am cooking Irish cuisine today and that is a passion of mine, so all is well. This morning is a very Irish morning, mist and fog and drizzle and I've got a pint of Whiskey in my bag--just like old times.
I'm already getting a vision of what I must do. . . .

posted by: ChefNeal at October 23, 2005 09:38 | link | comments (2) |
teaching, work, mainland

Wednesday, October 12, 2005
This could be Seattle



(From Amiran)

These latest, tragic quakes half-way across the world are a grim reminder that our area is expected to get "the big one" sometime soon.
How can we learn from what is going on?
How can we prepare?  Is there anything we can do?

Although the building codes around here have been anticipating a great quake for some time, many of the buildings are older.  If Seattle itself gets the brunt of it, that is horrible enough--but the coastal communities, and up here where we are would also, likely be wiped out. And then the tsunami--that's what worries me. First the bay drains--"oh, look, cool--let's run out and get the sunken treasure!"--and then whoosh. My house is only 50 feet from shore and only 20 feet tall. A cresting wave would tower over it. What could we grab?

I'm confiden the quake itself would do little damage to us. We're built on solid rock. I haven't ever felt any of the several quakes which have hit here since we built.
I called my Wife from another island where I was building a house during a quake. She felt nothing. I was wavering around like a flag during a gale. But even there--I was in the framed part of the building and my apprentice was standing on a concrete slab. I was moving--he was not.

How quick would aid come to us?
Could we wait it out?
It stand to reason that we should prepare for the worst case. In the last two major tradgedies in the world aid has been slow to arrive. We can expect no better in the next one either. Global resources are tapped out. I am tapped out. My heart and thoughts are with the afflicted people. I have never been to Pakistan. I would like to go. At one point, during University, I almost had a Pakistani wife. . . .and several chums from my English Bording school days were Pakistani, or from the stricken region.

Should we be asking is this the end? In global history, recorded of course, has there ever been so many natural disasters in sucession? When will the next one strike and where? An exceptional remider that life can be nasty, brutish and short and that Gaia can be an angry mother. And we want to explore and live on more violent worlds in outer space? Perhaps the space program should be closed down to provide a relief fund for what is going on on our own planet. . . .

posted by: ChefNeal at October 12, 2005 08:36 | link | comments |
seattle, island life, earthquakes

Monday, October 10, 2005
Today

it's raining which is good because I don't feel like I have to be outside which is fine because we spent most of yesterday getting 3 cords of firewood in the woodshed just before the storms hit and that's okay we had to pay back my brother in-law with dinner last night for all his help splitting the wood which I could never have done all in half a day by myself the girls worked hard too but still I did to much and was sore most of last night which is why I don't think I slept well and so I am very tired now and couldn't keep my eyes open after lunch what will happen to me if I ever do get a job working for someone else I won't remember what it is like and I won't know how to act and I'll get fired and have to go looking for work again but if I can get some work on my own I think I wouldn't have to worry okay I won't moan much about that any more now I've been given a deadline by the Long Suffering Wife to finish my cookbook and soon because I spend waaaay too much time on the computer and don't I know I'm ignoring the girls but she doesn't realize this is my link outside the hell I'm in by being locked away in a prison of my own choice which has gotten out of control I need society I need people I need friends besides her and 5 prepubescent girls I'm going crazy at least if I was somewhere else I could escape the madness for an hour or two once and a while if there were a pub here I could wander down there of an evening instead of feeling like I'm dying and getting slow and stupid instead of slowly going mad like some worm is boring in my brain like I will snap at any minute I was close yesterday when I realized I'm not even half way to 80 but I feel like I'm already there and I can't do anything physical and so feel useless because I couldn't really help split firewood and the tractor wouldn't get going and I couldn't find the jumper cables and the whole reason we're in this mess is because we can't afford to move off the island and the family we own property with won't sell anytime soon and refused the best offer we're ever going to get because the market crash I predicted is starting to collapse property prices around our heads and we will be here until we can no longer afford to and it is too late and we will be thrown to the wolves because we can't afford to leave and can't afford  not to and sometimes when I lay awake at night this pressure on my chest is worse than apnea worse than my chronic snoring which is why I wake up sometimes which is worse than the constant pain in my back which cannot be fixed because it could cripple me don't they know I'm crippled the way I am don't they think I could get better somehow and stop having 1/2 my life taken up by this problem haven't I suffered enough and if I haven't when will be enough because as it stands I'm ready to walk away from it all but to where and how and what will happen if I did would someone notice or would I just be alone again without anyone or should I just give up and shout bloody murder until some one commits me at least I won't be here and crazy as they are I would be surrounded by people but only if I could have my computer because I need this connection or all is lost I really shouldn't spend so much time on it and really should be doing some work and not doing this because in the long run what will this gain me and shouldn't I start dinner about now no I never did call my brothers because I never can get hold of them and no emails were answered this week so I will try harder tomorrow and maybe I won't be so tired and feeling brain dead and maybe my lovely daughters won't get on my nerves so much tomorrow if I can make it through the rest of today

posted by: ChefNeal at October 10, 2005 16:02 | link | comments |
island life

Monday, October 03, 2005
Turn, turn, turn

The season has changed, yet something is lacking. I couldn't quite put my finger on it this morning but I think I've figured it out.
The weather is colder, damper and the smell of wood smoke permeates the air. The long gone drizzle is once again and in the early morning fog the chill catches in your lungs.
The thing is. . . .the thing I guess is that I'm not heading anywhere right at the moment. What I mean is that I spent half of my life so far being somewhere in this weather. Mainly school. Autumn is back to school, whether trudging to the bus stop or across the campus for a quickie in the sororities before lit class. There was time and place all wrapped up in a shroud of weather.

Now I look forward for some ungodly reason to the holidays this winter holds. I wish I could make them more memorable for my girls than any have ever been for me. I had such a disappointing childhood in many ways and very predictible--we did the same exact thing every year at each holiday with NO variation that I can recall. You could predict what we would be having. This has gotten me in trouble with She Who Suffers Long. "You hate tradition. . . ." No, I don't.  I just want to forge our own traditions as a family. Hers, mine and ours. I don't want to inherit the sameness of my family's "traditions" nor the homespun gather around the tv set of hers.

I am looking for that snug, tidy image of the winter which has escaped us for the last four and a half years since I hurt myself. I want the ambience and entertaining this season brings but which we can no longer achieve in our small, embarassing hovel. Oh, I could give in. Go on the dole. Accept assistance. Others do. Some in our own family. Pretty hard to justify living on million dollar property as you reach out your hand for everything else you can grab; toys for tots, food bank booty, welfare and food stamps. Dontcha think? Plenty of people who have less than we and need it more. Hell, I'd settle for less; less taxes, less pain, less government screw ups, less government period.

No, its not that bad yet. By 2008. . . .don't know.

posted by: ChefNeal at October 03, 2005 14:58 | link | comments (3) |
life