Beef Pasties with Onion and Stilton, Caramel Nut Tart, Texas Beef Brisket Chili, Roast Beef with Dijon Caper Sauce, Winter Minestrone, Glazed Pearl Onions in Port, Brandied Plum Clafoutis….
“Brandied Plum what?”
Never mind. What do all of these things have in common?
This is only a partial list of recipes I will never use. So what the heck are they doing in my e-mail in box? They are there because I can have them. I can collect them and store them in a section of my computer; pull them up, drool over them (O.K. well not the meat items as I haven’t had beef since 1971), and taste them virtually without ever having to make them. Ones own little stash of food porn, available at the tap of a key.
They won’t collect dust on my shelves or take up any physical space just gigs on my laptop. And what the hell is a gig anyway? And why is it one of the top items listed in a computer’s features? I know it’s got to do with storage space but I’ve never run out of them so what should it matter? It’s like telling me that: some hot little sports car can go from 0 – 100 in 3 seconds flat (yup like I’m going to need that on the way to my yoga class and a cop’s not going to nail my ass if I did decide to test it out); or that a record player “can even play your records upside down” (told to me by a phonographophile salesman).
“Wow,” was my wide-eyed response, as I was truly impressed by this technological marvel.
When I shared this fact with a friend his response was, “So then I guess you’re intending on listening to the Ride of the Valkyries, as your boat goes down during the perfect storm?”
I don’t own a boat.
Back to my point, I’m still working the Soul Coaching program and each day I have been sorting out stuff. Stuff takes up space. As I get rid of excess stuff space is opened up. This opening feels spacious, actually allows me to breathe freer and feels so good that I haven’t been tempted to fill it up again.
My old recipe box now has 1/3 rd less cards in it. In the clearing out process favourite dishes were unearthed and brought to the front of the box. Inspired by these dishes, I actually spent a day cooking various meals and freezing them. Yes, my friends you heard that right. People who know me know that I loathe the mundane, daily routine of meal planning and cooking with a passion.
This conversation drives me crazy:
Me, “What do you want to have for dinner?”
Translation: “What would you like to make me for dinner?”
Rod, “I don’t know. What do you want to have?”
My interpretation: “I don’t consciously know, but do the Vulcan Mind Meld on me and pull out one of the many possibilities that reside in the depths of my mind and I will know that our love is true.”
Me, “I don’t know.”
Translation: “Aaarrgh” I begin to hyperventilate and run screaming from the house, jump into the hot red sports car waiting in my drive and in 3 seconds flat go blazing down the road at 100 miles an hour.
Actual translation: “I really, really, really don’t know. Please God, make this conversation go away!”
So, now I have an assortment of simple, home-made, healthy, preservative free food labeled and waiting to be plucked from the freezer, awakened from their frozen slumber and joined with a side salad for leisurely and hassle free daily consumption. Light some candles, turn on the record player, raise the stylus up to the record, ah bliss; works for me.
Back at the computer now; sorting out stuff includes, surprise surprise, virtual stuff too. Hoarding is hoarding in all its forms. Imagining myself to be some sort of gourmand, I had signed up for weekly recipes and food feature mailings from epicurious, months ago and I just keep filing them away without a glance. Turns out all of this excess accumulation does use up memory and make your computer run slower; like one’s mind which, caught up on distractions and diversions take us off the path of our true desire and deplete our energy for life.
And as I sort out this stuff I imagine my mind clearing itself of useless clutter, getting sharper, focusing on what I really want to spend my time doing while these keys are smok’n under my fingertips.
DELETE it is!
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