Yogurt (Short Stack 02/12)

In typical February fashion, my cooking didn’t go as planned and there was hardly enough time for what did. Earlier this year I decided to work toward a more plant-based, vegan-ish diet, and Yogurt was left in the dust, due to its inherent nature as a dairy product.

I should have more to say, but I don’t. February has always felt like a transitory month. I’ve had a lot of headaches, real and logistical. I read a lot this month, and I cooked a lot this month, and I tried many new foods this month. That’s probably part of it: transition into a version of myself both more and less like who I was years ago. When I was 10, I could finish a book in a day, and I never dreamt of eating rice. I’m not sure what my motivation was. I was afraid of the possible texture, I think. Reading cookbooks has let me grow softer with my fears. When Samin Nosrat described tahdig in her recipe for Persian-ish rice, I thought it sounded like something I’d like, and if I didn’t at least no one would be the wiser. So I made it, and it was delicious, of course.

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Things for yourself

In classic Chloe fashion, I’ve left a passion project to sit for nearly a full month and barely noticed the time go by. It’s been a busy month, but it’s about to get busier, what with Thanksgiving coming up; around this time of year I start really wanting to cocoon, but that’s not a full-time option. Unfortunate. But if I can’t do that, I can spend my days off doing things I like — baking, spending hours with my girlfriend watching TV or hanging pictures on my walls for the first time in the 3 years I’ve lived in this apartment, petting my cats, reading, listening to Ariana Grande…all the usual things that make weekends nice.

But weeknights are important too. I sometimes feel like I’m tripping toward the weekend, stumbling through the days of work before I get to the full days off. On busy days at work that feeling is intensified. With the weather changes and general stress, I keep getting little (and big) headaches. At work I eat the same things over and over, which I can’t really complain about (free!) but am going to anyway. There is a lot to be said for making your own food. Maybe I enjoy it so much because I don’t do it a lot.

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