Go where your best prayers take you.
~ Frederick Buechner
My mirror monologue moment this morning took me by surprise. I was calmly brushing my teeth and contemplating cooking eggs for breakfast when an unexpected voice spoke (cheekily, I might add): “How about fried brains for breakfast?”.
I paused.
I was alone in the bathroom, as far as I could tell. Did I really hear what I thought I did? It had certainly been loud. Who had spoken? I thought fleetingly of this [see 3:08]. Cheeky, indeed.
I know this post sounds a little kooky…
“You are soooo weird,” you may be thinking. Frankly, I wanted to say that to myself this morning too. Except that I didn’t really want THREE monologues running in my head at the same time, that is WAY too many internal personalities to handle at 7 in the morning.
So I didn’t say anything. I just considered the comment… and I knew that kooky-self-talk or not, whoever had spoken was right.
Fried brains never did make the world a better place, and since I have them now, that has to change.
It’s funny how the world tries to grab our attention and tell us something sometimes, through books/films/people and all, and how we then try so hard to ignore it all and try to keep on keeping on… [with what? Who? Why?]… like a hamster on roller skates. Pointless recipe for disaster.
“Look after yourself”, people kept saying. “Mettez-vous en vacances!” [put yourself on vacation!] – a line from Patricia Wells’s book seemed to yell at me last night. Paul randomly sent me this excellent link. I received this in my inbox yesterday. Probably the worst (or best) of the lot was this evil virus infection which bowled me over and knocked me out for a good few days.
So I’m not going to fight it anymore.
I’m going to sleep like a normal human being. I’ll get up early and fill the morning air with the likes of this (somehow I feel relaxed listening to her sing), and I’m going to live, and not worry. I’m going to be an explorer again, not another human in Auckland queuing for bad coffee or complaining about the summer we never had (“get over it”, I want to tell some people). I’m going to put love before deadlines and lists. I’ll stop for a sunset. I’ll be spontaneous again.
I’ll put myself on vacation.
And while I’m attempting to write a FOOD BLOG, here’s what I had for dinner last night:
Meticulous and orderly it was not, but delicious – oh yes it was. This was me forgoing a trip to the supermarket, in favour of throwing opening the fridge and pantry and cooking with no rules except a vague aim of having fun in the kitchen. And it was good. Big fire, too much garlic, chopped tomato, dash of chilli flakes, splash of red wine, handful of chopped cashew nuts, squeeze of lemon juice, fresh baby spinach leaves… poured onto a bed of angel hair and crowned with a poached egg.
Till next time. Remember. Sometimes, you just have to mettez-vous en vacances!
treehousekitchen 
Wow, i love your dinner, and um No I shall pass on the fried brains too! Are your brains feeling that fried?.. c
To be honest, yes they were – but not so fun to elaborate on the details of that on my blog, so I’ll leave it out. ;-)
This dinner looks delicious and I love your idea of taking yourself on a vacation. We all need that from time to time. :)
:-)
oh oh… but I was born Italian…
Haha! I am not French either, I suppose we can all borrow from other cultures at times…
You know I’ve been feeling the same Mel. Even though I was only just back for a holiday (wasn’t that fantastic weather though?). Hope you feel better soon!
And the same to you Jian! Skype + catch up properly soon!
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Well my brains are fried, at first I read fried beans and though yum. Oh well!
Lol!! Sorry Greg… :-)
My brain feels fried. I must say, if I had to eat brains, I think fried would be the way to go. Sounds nicer than boiled brains anyhow.
Do you think zombies would eat fried brains? Or would they prefer them sashimi style?
I hope your brains recover soon. Fried brains are so bad uh!? Yeah I would definitely pick fried over boiled too… and hide them under a thick layer of batter. :-D
I think zombies would have them fried tempura-style and serve them with a shot of bloody mary. What say you?
Bloody Mary sounds perfect. Extra vodka (anti-bacterial) and extra tabasco (hide the putrid flavour). It will put hairs on your chest!
Have you had fried sweetbreads before? Under the batter, they were very soft and delicate when I tried them. Kind of reminded me of a super silky tofu or cooked milk. I wonder if fried brains might be like that?
Haha! Hairy chest on a woman, my… that would be quite an aesthetic fail!
Yes I have tried sweetbreads before. I loved the name of them so I kept eating even after I found out what they were :P Scary to think that fried brains might in fact be quite like that. Probably shouldn’t try to find out, though…