[Author's Note: As proof that I did not forget about my blog the last two months, here is an entry I drafted but did not publish earlier in the month, that is comically ambitious but ultimate incomplete in it's attempt at allegory.]
I'm going to start calling my quarter-life crisis moments "The Stroganoff Effect," even though no one will know what I'm talking about...
It's because I very clearly just relived my whole quarter-life crisis in one evening while cooking stroganoff: Tonight, I painstakingly picked out the finest ingredients, I easily mixed them together from memory and imagination with major success (college), got distracted when it needed to be carefully boiled down (grad school), walked away for waaaaaaay too long (aka The Olive Garden Years), came back and it was completely boiled away and burnt to the pan. (Quarter-Life Crisis)
After lamenting for a bit, I realized some of it could be salvaged. Not much, but enough. :-) I scooped the mushrooms and onions out from the old batch and started a new batch of broth. Now I'm letting it simmer, a lot more careful than before, and thinking that the burnt parts might actually add kind of unique, smoky flavor to the sauce. I think I'm also feeling a lot more satisfied than I would have if I had just cooked it great the first time through. Somehow salvaging the remains of my failed attempt, sifting through it for what's good, and exactly what I did wrong being the thing that makes it one-of-a-kind and great, will make it taste even better. I also noticed that the second time around cooking it I was much more involved in the process, much more determined and passionate. There was actually a moment where I was attentively stirring and looking deeply into my meal and thought "I WILL prevail," standing there in my gallant chainmail and armor. Plus, when I had to remake the broth I tweaked it a bit. I even added a completely new ingredient that I had no intention of using before!! Booyakasha! So the whole process took a lot long than I expected... oh well. The meal will be over in twenty minutes anyway. But the cooking experience was unforgettable.
How's that for the most heavily laid on Russian cuisine metaphor you've ever heard? Hey. Sometimes stuff just makes you think of bigger stuff and takes on a whole new meaning. And that feels good. Like the microcosm resonating into the macrocosm... or perhaps it's the macro infusing itself into the micro... At any rate, with life experiences kind of emulate each other, or at least teaching you something, you feel like things are going good and you're right where you should be.
[EDIT: it gets even better, earlier in the evening when I accidentally pushed the cork in the bottom of the pepper shaker and after fidgeting with it for however long, couldn't get it out again, I coldly tossed it away and moved on. But while cooking I remembered that pepper is a key ingredient in my stroganoff and had to fish the pepper shaker out of the garbage. Plus I realized that I could at least take the pepper out of the pepper shaker before throwing it away. That was kind of wasteful. So insert that into the metaphor however it suits you. It's a tired old thing by now anyway.]
P.S. If you want to read about my night in a bachelor party earlier this month, which I also drafted, but did not and probably will not post, I can email you that story in confidence, as I'm a little hesitant to post it on here just because it's a tad risque (only a tad) and truthfully a bit of a reckless adventure on my part that probably sets a bad example for how to find adventure in the world, as I tend to be a bit impulsive in my quest for the new. It has been part of my scanning nature to recklessly talk to and participate in activities with strangers, a habit I've been trying to quell while living alone in such a big city, as I'm not keen on being driven to the coast or the top of Mount Hood in the back of anyone's trunk.
