Today’s post is the 4th of “I eat, I read, I watch,” my column highlighting one of my solo dinners and my reading or Netflix accompaniments. Please treat yourself well - dine! - at mealtime too. You’re worth it. And it’s not hard to do. Missed the earlier instalments? Click #1 (pork chop & green beans), #2 (trout & veg), and #3 (shrimp pepper bisque).

I eat: Rice and Peas

  Sometimes, I have a hankering to follow a recipe - or at least as close an approximation as I can muster. I’m more of an “inspired by a recipe” kind of cook which, by the way, makes me a really lousy baker. You can’t freestyle when breads, pastry, and cakes rely on the precision of chemistry. But I digress.

I live in a community rich in food from around the world. I often pick up Jamaican jerk chicken sitting on a bed of rice and peas. Never before have I given a thought to what makes rice and peas taste the way it does. So I Googled and found a recipe where I had most of the ingredients or reasonable substitutes and set about to make the largest damned quantity of rice and peas ever!

First, I set the oven for 400F. My oven is a bit finicky. If I actually sat down to read the instructions it likely wouldn’t be, but there you go. I haven’t. Instead, I cross my fingers that the icon I choose for air flow and heat direction is going to work for this. (Spoiler alert - it works out) I then get some butter going in my Dutch oven. Six months after I eloped with my late husband, Jack, we held a reception. Instead of gifts, we asked people to donate to the cancer hospital, where we’d been regulars at the time of our secret wedding. Some, however, ignored our request, including the one who bought this Le Creuset. I’m glad she did - using it brings back many fond memories. I add a sliced head of garlic from my garden (they’re very small but tasty), a diced cooking onion, a tsp of all-spice, 2 bay leaves, and a chopped jalapeño, a close enough stand-in for the scotch bonnet the recipe calls for. I stir it for a few minutes (3 maybe?) and then add a can of coconut milk, a cup of water, a can of drained and rinsed mixed beans (the recipe says kidney), and salt to taste. I bring it to a simmer as directed and then add two cups of rice. Recipe says long grain white rice which I don’t have. I go with a mix of basmati and red rice. When it comes to a boil, I add a few springs of thyme from the garden (it calls for dried), put a lid on it, transfer it to the oven, and set the timer for 40 minutes.

While it’s cooking, I shred some red cabbage and red onion and, for a little twist, I dress it with poke dressing. Poke bowls are the latest fad - a mixture of raw fish, rice, avocado, edamame, and so on, and I could, of course, make my own poke dressing which I gather is just sesame, soy, sriracha, vinegar, garlic, ginger, and lime, but I’ve bought some. I add a good dollop and give it a swirl and refrigerate my slaw.

At 40 minutes (well, 38 - I can never wait), I pull my snappy red Dutch oven out. It’s heavy and I’m worried I will drop it. The thing could really do some damage in my kitchen. I get it safely to the counter and open the lid. Perfection! Let it rest 15 minutes, the recipe tells me. Then fluff it and eat. Very good. Would have been better with some chicken, and next time I get a BBQ one, I will pull the leftovers from the freezer. Google tells me freezing this will work just fine.

Prep Time:  70 mins.

Cost: 6 servings of rice and peas likely cost me $1/serving. Add another $.50 for the slaw.

What takeout food have you successfully replicated at home? In the Comments below please!

I read: Rememberings by Sinead O’Connor

On my June trip, I entered Dublin’s Eason’s, Ireland’s #1 bookseller, with a hope that I’d still be able to pull my suitcase on my way home, but knowing I’d be adding to my TBR (for more about my “to be read” problem, click here). One that I couldn’t pass up is the autobiography from the late Sinead O’Connor, “Rememberings.” Sinead was born the same year I was but otherwise our lives couldn’t be more different. After a difficult childhood, she shot to fame in her early 20s with “I Do Not Want what I Haven’t Got” as I was finding my way through grad school. “Nothing Compares 2 U” is the song that I, like countless other women my age, still use to revel in sadness. I certainly did in anticipation of my late husband, Jack’s, death; I can ID it from the opening chord, and when I do, I reach for the volume knob and the Kleenex box simultaneously.

It’s O’Connor’s songwriting process that I really related to* “….the songs sing themselves to me bit by bit while I’m going menial household tasks or while I’m walking around the streets. One day, part of the song will sing itself to me. The following week, the next bit.” And so on. Let’s be clear - I’m not in Sinead O’Connor’s league. But that’s how these blogs emerge from me - I trudge around Weston, stopping to make notes on my phone. And then eventually, I reduce it all to my computer.

Reading Sinead’s book written before her son died by suicide and a year after she died herself provides perspective on her beyond what’s in the text. To be honest, I don’t know that I would have liked her, but her life was interesting, her book is a good read, and fellow fans should give it a read.

Got a celebrity autobiography you recommend? Add it to the Comments below.

* see page 232-233 of the book for the full passage.

I watch: After Life by Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais: a name evoking a range of emotions. Some are super-fans. Some bristle at the controversy of his standup. And then some, like me, fall somewhere in the middle. Jack was a huge fan - loved how unafraid he is to stir the ‘ism pots in his comedy that many are quite rightly scared of - sexism, racism, heterosexism, and perhaps most controversially, cisgenderism. Ricky would say that he’s playing a role - simply giving the people what they want to hear and making money from it. That troubles me. But his series are brilliant. First for me was The Office, then Derek, and most recently, After Life.

After Life doesn’t shy away from things either - in this case, it’s widowhood. The opening scene is a woman with a chemo scarf on against a hospital bed headboard. She says: “if you’re watching this, I’m not around anymore.” By the 1 minute, 14 second mark, I’m already crying. And it goes from there. I devoured its first season hungrily in early 2019 in the basement of the house where Jack and I had lived and laughed, and where Jack died just three months earlier. Gervais’ ability to get to the core of spousal death gripped me. I sobbed. I laughed. I loved the series. Seasons 2 and 3 followed, tracking my own grief experience in so many ways, although, to be clear, I didn’t contemplate ending my life, befriend a prostitute, or dabble in heavy drugs.

Rewatching it in anticipation of November, the sixth anniversary of Jack’s death, gives me new respect for Gervais’ work. If you haven’t tuned in, please set aside whatever reservations you have about him and give it a chance.

What’re you watching? In the Comments below please!

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