Stirring Fry

I just made stir fry. Last week, I made tacos. Both for the first time. This is largely in part to two factors:

a) I desperately needed to break out of the rhythm of eating variations of peirogies, stroganoff, and spaghetti.

b) I just got a rice cooker to compliment the free 17lb bag of rice that was inexplicably given to me with the second-hand microwave.

Reason A came about as a necessity of being in school - simple, easy to make meals using cheap ingredients that were quick to make and even quicker to reheat. I've been eating that diet for... A very long time, with a (un)healthy amount of mac n' cheese to further mix things up.

Alas, I grew tired of this diet pretty quick, and one of my goals over the last couple years of school was to learn to cook once I had graduated. So here I am. Every two weeks I go grocery shopping, and when I do, I make sure to buy the fixin's for a meal I haven't made before.

I discovered that making tacos is very time consuming and used an appalling quantity of dishes, and that beef for stir fry is stupid expensive. At my age I feel kinda foolish for only figuring this out now, and I know why: I've only really had those meals when I was at home.

My mom used to make sweet and sour porn and stir fry for my birthday. For my sister's, tacos. Both were quite the production, but appropriately delicious. And while I'm not quite sure I have my recipe as good as my mom's (as if such a thing is possible in the first place), my efforts were pretty satisfying. But it comes with the realization that these have now become my meals. Heck, it's probably the first or second time I've had these meals home cooked in 3-4 years. I'm about to eat it more as a creation of my slightly undersized stove, rather than from the kitchen I grew up with.

Makes me kinda sad. What I had appropriated to an exclusively family experience has now disappeared for quite some time now. The tradition is only kept aflame by myself and siblings, in our own kitchens, with our own families (or lack thereof).

The world is moving on, and I guess I am too.

It doesn't even stop with a couple of simple meals. All of the sudden I'm consulting with a financial advisor and saving (as little as it may be) for retirement. I'm excited now that my extended medical coverage has kicked in. Even though I feel like I'm entitled to at least a couple more years of indestructability, all of the sudden I've found a family doctor and am having bloodwork done. I'm cutting back the sugar in my diet for no other reason that I probably should. I own a mid 80's European sports car, and yet feel slightly compelled to bike to work.

Welcome to adulthood. It's here to stay.

Next week I'm going to figure out sweet and sour pork. Gotta use up that rice somehow.
-Cril

Mirrors on the ceiling
The pink champagne on ice
And she said "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device"
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
"Relax," said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave"

The Eagles - Hotel California