Get a Life Tofu

(experimentation vs. perfectionism)

This recipe from the New York Times.

It looks perfect. A peanut sauce on tofu? Yum!

The result, my friends, was not yum. The opposite of yum. The sauce was too thick and it didn’t get crispy. I layered it on hastily in large globules. (My sister chef

Natalie Davey

is having a heart attack right now. Why Bec??) I tried to send Violet out the door with a piece and she recoiled in horror,

“No, Mommy. Anything but that.”

I used half a jar of organic peanut butter to make the sauce. The tofu was from the store up the street that sells expired food—whose vision for equitable food I like to support. But in the end my meal didn’t know if it was trying to be frugal or extravagant. Did I think it could be both? It was confused. It could see that I wanted things from it, but my wanting was too earnest.

See how the sauce now looks like something out of the toilet? You were rushing. (They said)

Why can’t you just be delicious? Why do you have to make me doubt myself? (I said)

Get a life. (They said)

Later I told Elsie that I tried to be a food adventurer. I wanted to reframe. I didn’t want to feel sad about the tofu.

“Yay, Mommy,” she said with a confused smile.

“Food adventurer” is not a term I’ve used before, nor will I likely use it again. But I guess that’s me…experimenting with phrases and tofu. Carrying opposing things inside me all the time (perfectionism vs. experimentation) and then living with the consequences.

I didn’t tell her how the sauce told me to get a life.

A lot of news. Which is making me anguished. Anguish, which I discovered in this beautiful essay “What Gardening Offered After a Son’s Death” comes from the Latin angustia and means narrowness, lack of space, narrow space, narrow passage, strait, limitations, restrictions, confinement, imprisonment, restrictedness, shortage, scantiness, critical situation. Do any of those words resonate?

The same grey t-shirt. I have three of them because I thought I might give them to my children after my writer’s retreat. But I decided to keep them all. Three grey shirts. Grey t-shirt + fancy pants. Grey t-shirt + jeans. Grey t-shirts for sleeping in, grey t-shirts for stretching in, grey t-shirts for self-portraiting in.

Have a lovely weekend, friends, as you encounter your own contradictions, your own mundane. Make some meaning, will you?

Testimonials

“In a world where we so often feel bombarded, Observables is a balm. It always arrives in my inbox at just the moment I need a smile, a tender observation, a kind word, and someone to say - oh, it hurts here, doesn't it? Plus I can always use a little fashion advice.” - Jessica.

“Observables is one part educational, one part entertainment, and one part naked soul. My favourite thing about it is all the secondary characters - the daughters, partners, pets, and even moments that have a life of their own. I get to observe them first through the writer’s eyes and then through my own.” - Tamara