spring is in the air . . .

of all the seasons, spring is my favorite. signs of freshness and new beginnings are everywhere, from the birds setting up their nests to the flowers newly budding to those people who are opening up the depths of their closets for their annual cleaning.

it was the smell of spring that came to mind today. in los angeles, jasmine wafts through my windows. when i lived in indiana, it was the lilacs that signaled spring was here. i then got to thinking about how spring plays with all five of our senses. you hear it when the birds are singing. you can feel it as you dig your hands in the soil to prepare it for planting. the sight of the flowers' first sprouts as you silently pray that the frosts are over and the flowers survive. then there's taste. frankly, i may have to think more deeply about tastes associated with spring. there is the traditional easter ham - and the traditional chocolate bunnies - of course. that's a good start, but i think i'd like some spring food traditions.

anyway, while i was appreciating spring on the senses, i thought about cultivating this technique of analyzing the simple things of life through all five senses. it's the same "thing," just appreciated five times as much! and that sounds like abundance to me. happy spring!

free starbucks . . .

when it comes to coffee, some people are more taste-conscious. me? not so much. so long as it contains caffeine and is hot, i've generally been satisfied.

i recently began catching up on the 90s tv show "ally mc beal," and in the first season there is a scene where billy picks up starbucks coffee for everyone and when georgia gets ready to guzzle it down, ally stops her, pulls her aside, and then teaches her the fine art of . . . is it coffee foreplay? sniff the aroma, lightly lick the foam, and sip a bit of coffee and swirl it around . . . or something like that. point being, i don't drink coffee like that. i've barely tasted it.

and that is the point. i've taken coffee for granted. i assume it's there and just pay the price. i don't really take the time to engage in the coffee foreplay. in my desire to give the simplest things a new shade of meaning, lucky for me there are two starbucks promotions going on right now that could right my wrongs.

the first is an 8-week tasting event. once a week for eight weeks, starbucks around the country will be brewing a highlighted coffee of the week. if you participate in the tasting program, you can get sticker. once all the stickers are on the collection sheet, you turn it in to your barista and get a 1 lb. bag of your favorite. the weeks go from monday to sunday. week one just finished, but if you ask your barista nicely, s/he may give you a sticker anyway. this week's feature (march 15-21) will be the italian roast.

the second is a little more personal. i am a member of bzzagent. it's a nifty advertising agency that specializes in word-of-mouth marketing. essentially, they let me sample the product and share it with others, anticipating that talking about it will generate a bit of "buzz." i'm not invited to every campaign, and i don't join every campaign i'm invited to, but when i was invited to the current starbucks' pike roast campaign, i joined. i was sent 1 lb. of ground pike roast and about 1/2 lb. of ground caffe verona, and they arrived in the mail on saturday. i've had both before at starbucks itself - and i like them - but i've never brewed them at home. i'm quite enjoying sniffing the aroma.

and, as required by the federal government, bzzagent did provide me with free starbucks coffee, but i'm paying for my own 8-week taste test.

the 20 dollar goal . . .

a few weeks ago i read *somewhere* about someone's attempt to stay within a food budget of $20 a week. like me, the person was single. i couldn't backtrack on that article to re-read it; my attempts to search it resulted in a couple of articles, but not what i'd initially read. today via another blog there was a review of a book about someone who was attempting to eat on only $1/day. that person's point was that it couldn't be done healthfully. surprised?

i have been somewhat intrigued about the $20 a week budget, though, and it has been something of a goal these past couple weeks. to be clear, it's not the intent of my blog. i just kinda, sorta want to challenge myself. i am insulin-resistant, so i have to eat quite healthfully. i can't skip meals; in fact, i need to eat something every couple hours. i am also trying to lose weight. there are a lot of diets available, but fundamentally i am simply counting calories, eating good carbs, and aiming to eat my nutrients. eating fewer calories should automatically result in spending fewer dollars, and the past few weeks this has been the case. (i have still had a couple meals out, funded by my entertainment dollars.) putting better thought into my food choices for quality and cost makes it more meaningful and, of course, it's "meaning" that flavors the abundant life.

another experiment gone awry . . .

i made cream of celery soup quite successfully a few weeks ago. i followed the cream of celery soup recipe in a vintage better homes and gardens cookbook, the only substitute being that i used 2T of dried hummus mix in lieu of 2T of flour to thicken it. it was very good and i decided that cream of celery would be my finish-the-celery recipe. it lends itself quite nicely to using every last bit of the stalks and leaves, even the inner yellow ones.

it's been a couple weeks since i bought this most-recent bunch of celery. i've used a bit here for soups and a bit there for chicken and tuna salads. at its crunchiest i even snacked on it with a bit of peanut butter. i've really come to love celery. for about five minutes i even considered trying to grow it, but i then read that it was rather labor intensive. hmmm. better to just pay 79 cents a bunch every couple of weeks; it's more cost-effective.

anyway, having been eaten down and to the point of slight softness, it was time to use my new finish-the-celery recipe. i essentially followed the same recipe, but i decided to try two new things. first, i decided to see if olive oil could substitute for the butter. it didn't render it awful, but it wasn't as creamy-wonderful as my first round had been. the second variation was in using some greek yogurt i'd picked up at the 99 cents only store instead of milk. i love greek yogurt. i especially love voskos and trader joe's greek yogurt. this was a different greek yogurt and it was not prepared the traditional way. it had gelatin in it. so, i decided that i would just toss it into a soup rather than eat it as i normally do: with a drizzle of honey. between the gelatin and whatever else they put into it, it did this weird curdling thing. it didn't hurt the taste, though.

the upshot was that i wasted nothing, yet i still tried a couple of new things within the framework of routine.

routine kind of gets a bum rap. i mean, we're bombarded with messages daily that something is "new," "improved," etc., etc., etc., and then we see our own humble routines as boring. but maybe it's not that boring. maybe routine can be restive, regenerating, restorative, etc., etc., etc. now wouldn't that be "new" and "improved."

it's about the joy . . .

tonight my small group begins reading "money & faith: the search for enough" by michael schut. i read the first few essays in preparation for the small group meeting and am quite taken by what i've read so far. the take-away from the introduction is that "abundance" is defined by "joy," not necessarily more - as i like to call it - schtuff. the oxford dictionary defines "joy" as "extreme pleasure."

for some people, joy can be found in their things. that's different from schtuff because their things reflect them and their personal history. there are the books they've read over and over, pictures of family and friends, the cabinet that had been their grandmother's, and the very imperfect hunk of clay that resembles a bowl that was given to them by a child. these things are displayed with love and bring a smile to their owner's face.

in contrast, there is no joy in a pile of schtuff collecting dust. and, quite frankly, it doesn't retain much value either. years ago i worked part-time at a high-end auction house. i really love history and have had a lifetime fascination of how people have related to their possessions. what i found interesting about the estate auctions was how things that seemed unique and priceless were devalued because of their condition. they were wet from basements, dried-out from attics, or broken from hasty packing.

it is human nature to take care of things that have meaning to us. it's where we can find our joy. nineteenth century artisan william morris is quoted as saying, have nothing in your home you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. to which i add, and that you want to dust. it stands to reason that if you're not willing to care for it, you're letting it go to blazes. and that is not a joyful act. it's ok to let it go.

good with the bad . . .

i hate waste. i've always hated waste, which is precisely why - even as a child - i gravitated towards things like rebates (get paid for your trash); re-purposing (how to do two or more things with the same thing); and recycling (how to create something new from something old). where some people see only the final product, i see raw ingredients and materials. it's a running theme.

anyway, about a year ago i picked up a small can of decaffeinated coffee grounds. i really did not like the taste. roommate had no interest in decaf. well, i didn't want it just sitting there taking up space. that's wasteful. i didn't want to just toss it. that's wasteful. one can't use it for cooking (generally). and, quite frankly, you can't donate an open can of food to bon wille or out of the closet. my solution was to brew the coffee i didn't like with the coffee i did like, at a ratio of 1:3. it's worked quite nicely, and also stretched the good coffee by about 33%. so, not only can one add a bit of the bad with the good to use up some "mistakes," but one can also use it in reverse to stretch the good stuff and realize some savings without sacrificing taste. it's taken a while, but small things add up and the coffee can will be put in the blue bin this week. yea!

by analogy, we can do the same with our daily lives. if we've had something spoil our day, we can "brew it" with three equally good things in our day. that way, the bad thing won't just be taking up space - as ma used to say, "living rent free in the head." it takes looking at the spoiler and making the effort to add the three positive things. check your gratitude list: it may already be on hand.

almost free day . . .

wednesday was quite an abundant day. some weeks ago, denny's had an offer to join their e-club and receive a coupon for a free burger and plate of fries. and quite some time ago i'd redeemed some program points or another and received a silver certificate from amc theaters. so, i chose wednesday to use my coupons.

first i went to denny's at sunset and wilton. the server hadn't yet seen one of these free coupons and went to ask the manager if it was ok to honor it. sometimes corporate doesn't tell its stores about its promotions. in this case, i was prepared to go through with ordering a burger and fries anyway and get a receipt to send to corporate for reimbursement if there was a problem. the server came back to me, apologizing for any delay and offering to upgrade to a cheeseburger but making the point that the coupon did not cover a drink. i knew that and it wasn't an issue. the burger was pretty good.

so i next headed over to the amc theaters in century city to see "shutter island." the amc silver certificate made the movie free so i didn't have to present my movie lover's card to record my ticket purchase, but i did anyway. their scanning my card kicked out a coupon for a free small popcorn. nice!

i was very excited to see "shutter island." dennis lehane is one of my favorite authors. "mystic river," based on one of lehane's novels, is my favorite movie. and leonardo di caprio is one of my favorite actors. i could see the work they put into it. i'm still thinking about the movie itself. i'm trying to figure out if di caprio played it straight, or if he played it as a disturbed man with the sincere belief that he was solving a crime. or was there even another layer of the portrayal? hmm.

experimental success . . .

last sunday i had lunch at the indian restaurant next to trader joe's. it was only my second time ever having indian food, and i ordered the chicken tikki saag (chicken and spinach in creamy sauce). it came with rice and naan bread. it was quite a generous serving, so i made sure to box up the remainder of about 1/2 c of the chicken tikki saag and 3/4c of rice.

i could've merely heated up and eaten the leftovers, but instead i decided to experiment by converting the chicken tikki saag into a soup. i started by heating 3c of water. to that i added two low sodium chicken broth packets from trader joe's. once the broth was hot and blended, i added the tikki ssag and rice. there was enough seasoning in the tikki saag that i didn't need to add anything else.

it was delicious and i was able to eat off of it for two days. don't know when i'll next be eating indian or chinese, but i'm kind of excited to play with whatever future leftovers i have. (and i'd have posted this when i did it, but . . . well, see previous post).

best laid plans . . .

and sometimes it happens that we can't do what we want to do when we want to do it. in this case, i was delayed posting to this blog because i was having internet connection problems. it's ok for now, and that's what matters.

coming on the heels of my last post, it causes me to think about the best way to handle frustrations. there's a part of me that just wants to close the door, turn on the tv, and escape into my own world. the thing is, there's a lot of life beyond that door and it's where abundance can be found. i think back to the serenity prayer: god grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, courage to change the things i can, and wisdom to know the difference. again, it goes back to accepting what's beyond my control and taking responsibility for what is within my control. yes.

frustration

it was one of those days. i woke late. roommate hadn't set up the coffee pot. i stopped at 7-11 to fill my coffee cup for bus ride to church. i missed the bus i should've been on and wound up waiting nearly a half hour for the next. i got to church late. afterwards, i got on another bus to go to a film screening for "a chemical reaction" about lawn pesticides. i thought i knew which theatre it was at but i was wrong. [sigh] i decided to simply run the errands i intended to run after the movie and waited for the next bus and when it came and passed me up, i realized that i was waiting at the wrong bus stop. [sigh]

none of these inconveniences individually were major problems. cumulatively, i felt a bit like sisyphus rolling that rock uphill. i wanted a do-over. you know, when you are trying to live your life according to the simplicity philosophy there's a part of you that says i've got the key, the tool to all problems going forward. and then life happens. it's reality vs. your belief of the way it should be. and the reality is that having some frustrating days is precisely the way it should be. it's how we can practice the best that's in us and realize where we erred. it's that whole diamonds-are-coal-formed-under-pressure mentality.

i could've woken earlier. made coffee. got to the bus stop sooner. actually looked up the theatre's address. and double-checked the bus stop's sign. could've.

making sure i was at the right bus stop, i realized there was nothing else i could do until the next bus actually arrived. so i pulled out the latest issue of "the atlantic" from my tote and read it while i waited. and thought about where i'd erred.

it wasn't perfect

i love chicken. and i hate wasting even the smallest bits of it. a few days ago, roommate made an el pollo loco run and i greedily held on to my leftover bones. this afternoon i rendered the last bits of meat off of those bones, boiling them for about an hour in about 3 cups of water in my zojirushi electric skillet with about 1t of dried oregano and a few shakes of cinnamon. i used a slotted spoon to get the bones out of the rendering water and then added two low sodium chicken broth packets from trader joe's, making sure it was all combined. i replenished the evaporated water and while the temperature was rising, in a separate dish i beat a single egg and then added 1/2c lemon juice. once the temp of the soup was hot, i removed one ladle-full and added it to the egg-lemon juice, quickly stirring. then i added it all back into the soup. then i added about a handful of rice and added a bit more oregano and cinnamon to suit my tastes.

you may recognize this as greek lemon chicken soup. and as delicious as it was (particularly with a mexican bolillo roll (which is like a french roll)), it wasn't perfect. the darn egg curdled when it hit the hot liquid. now, i've made this soup before, so i know the egg and lemon juice typically disburses throughout the soup, thickening it. i think the egg curdled because it and the lemon juice were coming straight from the fridge. but, anyway, the point is that it wasn't perfect. and that's ok. it still tasted good, i still made use of the last bits of some chicken, and i made it.

over the years i've noticed some newcomers to simplicity lament that they couldn't find another use for this or that that experiment didn't quite work out. maybe it's time to color outside the lines a bit just to have the experience. it wasn't perfect, but it was good.

welcome

hello and welcome to un soupçon.

my plan here is simple: to share my simple successes. i've recently renewed my personal commitment to simple, abundant living and, while i want to keep track of what works for me, i know there are others who enjoy "exchanging recipes." so grab your pen, a few index cards and whatever you're drinking and let's chat . . .