Ponderings on Peaches

My neighbour has a lovely 'fruit cocktail' tree. What exactly is a fruit cocktail tree you may be asking... It is a tree you order from an ad that sounds like a scam to get some quick money... It is a tree grafted with branches of apples, pears, peaches, apricots and I /think/ plums... It should have died that first year... It didn't. It is a beautiful, thriving tree. Standing stately on the border of our property and his. The branches hang heavy with fruit. I am green with envy. I am also jealous of his lawn. It is immaculate! Granted, he cuts his grass twice a day (or maybe it just sounds like it). He also is a retired agriculture teacher. So I have no reason to try to 'keep up with the Jones'. It is a pointless attempt if I do. But I want to harvest my own 'crops'. I want to be able to walk out my door and pick a fresh peach off the tree... or a pear... or Brown Turkey Figs!!! I am vowing to have something planted to get at least one piece of fruit off of next year. Well, maybe to harvest the year after... I know a lot of fruit-bearing plants require becoming established first. We live on a little over 7 acres of land. Our land. Right here in the city of Athens. 7 acres that I should be able to do /something/ with. 7 acres with a pond. 7 acres with a creek at the back. 7 perfect acres to plant something in. Wouldn't it be lovely to have a peach and pecan orchard right in your back yard? I have wild blackberries that grow thick and full around the pond. How lovely would it be to have some blueberries or cherries too? If I had the money, I'd hire someone to come in and clear some of our 'forest' away in order to put in some plants to thrive. Looks like a project of that magnitude will have to wait until I finish up with college, and by then we may decide it's better to have a house out in Oconee county instead. Taxes in Athens are insane!! Until then, I'm going to seek out a couple peach trees to plant in the back yard... Now to just pick the perfect peach variety.

Oven Braised Brisket - A southern right-of-passage:

  From my oven wafts the mouth-watering aroma of a tender (hopefully), juicy, flavorful (again, hopefully) Cajun dry-rubbed beef brisket. Last night, after I arrived home from work around 9:30pm, I carefully trimmed the 4lb brisket I had cut to order at PigglyWiggly. Walmart only had 15lb uncut briskets, and I am sooooo not ready to play butcher myself, so I opted to drive down the road to PigglyWiggly where the meat department manager had no problem cutting me a great brisket. Back to last night, I trimmed the brisket of the visible fat (which wasn't mentioned in a few recipes I was looking at but was mentioned in others, *shrug* I may learn from experience that this trimming is either necessary or unnecessary.) I bought Weber grill's N'rleans seasoning, and generously dry rubbed this perfect-looking brisket. I bagged that puppy in a sturdy gallon ziploc and went to bed thinking about how great this is going to turn out! When my darling hubby left for work this morning at just shy of 7am, I popped out of bed ready to "do this thang". I unbagged my meat, set it in my already-lined-with-aluminum-foil roasting pan, and pushed that gem into a 350 degree oven, uncovered. I let it roast this way for a whole hour before taking it out, bathing in the heavenly aroma of spicy roasting beef, adding 1 and 1/2 cups of beef broth and an added 1/2 cup of water. I covered the whole shebang tightly with foil and reduced the oven temp to 300 degrees. Checking my recipe, yes, 3 more hours of slow braising before I can pull that glorious hunk of beef out of the oven, let it rest for 15 mins, then slice. We are in hour 2 of the 3, so I decided to just jot this down.
  I've taken on a lot of southern traditional foods in my few years here in Georgia. My home-cooked greens were an absolutely inedible disaster... (I can still taste that horrible bitterness). But in drastic contrast I can make one mean Pecan Pie that will make you think your momma never had a clue about southern cooking! On the Pecan note, I still need to figure out how to make some perfect pralines... suggestions/recipes are welcome.
  Back to the brisket, I can't help but think that cooking this brisket is giving me a comparison to life. That ol' saying, "Slow and steady wins the race". Coming into this in a wild and spicy whirlwind I must still have patience (Every recipe cautions 'no peeking', which I'm notorious for doing. Damn my lack of patience!!! My history in rice-cooking yields many a burnt-bottom-pot) If there is no patience, the end result is a dry, tough, inedible disaster. The few times in my life when I have been completely impatient (who am I kidding? I lack all forms of patience... just now that I have a lil' baby am I starting to show patience!) I have had disasterous results. My husband can testify to that. This brisket is not only a right-of-passage for me, but it is a reminder to slow down and enjoy!
  So I challenge you to find something yet un-mastered in your life and to go ahead and master it! You may just surprise yourself, and learn more about yourself along the way. I am going to enjoy my brisket and tweak my Master recipe as needed... though from the aroma, it won't take much tweaking. Mmmmmm. 

Is it hot? I hadn't noticed...

  It's about 5 million degrees outside and the humidity is making for one bitchin' sauna... Problem is, I don't love a good sweat. I'm from the great white north. I'm pretty sure that ice running in my veins is a necessity for survival!
  So my summers are spent indoors with my beloved A/C, or in the car and then a quick jaunt into a building with more beloved A/C. I don't do well with the tropics, so my idea of a perfect getaway is a cabin in the snow-capped mountains. I'm not a hottie in a swimsuit and I therefore layer on a sarong, or T-shirt, making the heat that much more unbearable. It's best if I just stick to the winter-y cabin retreats.
  With a little one, we aren't finding time or opportunity to 'get away'. So here I sit, in my lovely air-conditioned, and mildly cluttered home. Sippin' ice water. Watching bad reality TV (Yes, I watch ALL 'The Real Housewives of...' shows.) I'll admit it, it makes me feel better about myself and my life to see just how jacked-up their lives are. My husband doesn't understand that. I don't know why it works for me, but it works, and that is all that matters. They have so much in financial assets, yet they are paper-thin as far as personalities go. Those women are so busy going to clubs, going for drinks, or going shopping that they have no time or interest in their families. My Lil' Man took his first steps this week. I just couldn't help but think if I had him in a daycare, or had a nanny, I would have missed that. I made the best choice in the world when I went part-time at my job. The decision Mike and I made to not put Matthew in childcare is the best decision for us as a family. I want to be the kind of mom that my mom was. Involved! You just won't see us outside unless we are in temps under 80 degrees, and I'd have to wake Matthew up extra early, or keep him up extra late for that now...

They Myth of the Perfect Job

Yea, ok I'll admit it. I really did hate my job. I dreaded just setting my alarm every night in anticipation of having to get out of bed in order to get to work. I hated the drive to work. I hated that I had to run through a drive-thru on my way to work in order to pick up a hot cup of joe so I could make it through my morning at work. I hated walking in the door of the building. I even hated typing in my login and password at work because that process really did signal that I was stuck there in this horrible pit of despair. I really disliked my coworkers. No, wait, 'dislike' is too friendly a term. I loathed them. I wanted all my coworkers to just zip their lips. I wanted them to not say a word to me, or each other, and to just do their job as was outlined in their job description. And if I didn't like my coworkers, that was nothing compared to how I felt about management! So, "why didn't you quit?" you may be asking... Let me start by saying, "I kinda did." What does that mean? It means I had shut down. I shut down long before I started to hate my job. I shut down when I first moved to the South. I shut down the moment I drove away from the place I called home for the first 21 years of my life. And it was in that very moment that the part of me that was good, kind, caring, and empathic began the slow decline into where I sat, festering, until May 2009... What happened in May? I hit my personal rock bottom. I finally decided that if I wanted to see my situation change, if I wanted to see myself turn back into the person I used to be and loved so dearly, /I/ had to change my situation. So, that's when I took a DRASTIC cut in my hours and opted to only work 24hrs every other weekend. Yes, 2 weekends a month is all the time I would spend in the place I was blaming for all my problems. And since I switched my schedule, I have learned much more about myself and I see now that the workplace wasn't the problem. I was the problem.
I spent a lot of my youth trying to be the change I wanted to see in the world. I was quite the budding lil' activist. I started the first SADD chapter in Barrhead, AB. I was a member of PETA. I was one of 13 members of a Youth Advisory Panel to the Government of Alberta, reporting directly to the honorable MaryAnne Jablonski, MLA, RedDeer. I was recommended to be a youth advisor to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner of Canada. I received a Canada Day youth award for my achievements in volunteering. I was a BUSY 'kid'. But All this extra stuff really held me back from discovering who I was. I spent so much time trying to please others. I spent my youth trying to make things better for other youth. Largely, my youth was spent with adults. To quote one of my fav. bands, Social Distortion, "I grew up fast, I grew up hard." I have spent so many years being a force for change that once I hit a standard job, I still was pushing for change, except in this environment, no one wants change. I started to resent the people I worked with. Why didn't they want the same things I wanted? Simple, "Lili, you are not always right." There is a HUGE difference between fighting to prevent drunk driving versus fighting to change a work-flow process. OF COURSE people support stopping drunk-driving! But all that stuff I did in my youth warped my mind into thinking I am ALWAYS right in my endeavors and my opinions. Talk about an ego! So instead of realizing that, I just kept on pushing and pushing and getting more and more angry until I just couldn't stand it! But I've never been a quitter. NEVER. So I stayed with the same job, just reduced the amount of time I spent there. I have come to realize that my job is a pretty great job. I encounter something new and exciting every day. I'm not chained to a desk. I'm not afraid to speak-up. I thoroughly enjoy the people I work with. We all know how to take jokes, and we all know when to get serious. I was so blinded by my own damn filters that I never took the time to just ease back and enjoy the job for what it is.
I still have a lot of work to do on me, but at least I can see the light ahead of me now instead of focusing on the shadows.