A Character (still in the oven)

The house seems empty. I can’t find my books.

And suddenly I imagine a beautiful woman. Maybe she’s dressed in black, a long black dress, standing on the sand, looking out at the sea. Maybe the pier is in Lisbon and she is tall and elegant, powerful and astonishingly feminine.

It smells of wine, wind and fado.

But then she goes crazy because of a man and gets ugly, and weak, and vile, and mad, and monstrous, and demented, and hunched, a woman men cannot see why they ever loved. She’s lonely, and not only scared, but scary.

“I refuse to be defined by my love for that man”

Men make me weak.

I fall in love with them and start, slowly, to hunch.
It smells like wine, crowds and sadness.
They never love me enough.

“We made love twice and I could tell it the first time, not even the second. I said: ‘I can tell you right now. I can tell you now because I foresee it. I can tell you right now that you’ll never love me enough. You don’t love me enough.’

And the more it hurts, the maddest I go.

IT’S SUFFOCATING NOT TO HAVE MY AUTHORS HERE TO MAKE ME PUT IT OUT WITH THEIR WRITTEN WORDS ABOUT MADE UP LOVE STORIES THAT SEEM TO ALWAYS TELL MINE.

It’s suffocating to be the only one in this room. I needed a character to put me back on my feet. I need a character to hold my hand, to lend me impulse!

My own pain is so stupid. And I can’t just put it in the drawer and keep it safe there. Out of sight.
I can’t turn the page and read what the lover actually felt, or thought.

HOW SHOULD I LIVE THIS HALF OF LIFE NOT BEING AWARE OF WHAT’S PASSING WITH THE OTHER ONE?

And then comes time: This evil, destructive monster that, at the time, is the only one who can heal it.
This bubble growing inside my throat.

It’s like a bubble of anger, or fear… or pain!
To go.
To go back.
To find the books, the words, the text.

To go back home. Go back to my city, the sun and the love stories that I have already survived. The sun.

The comfort of being home, my mom’s old perfume, the streets that sound so different, the yellow trees, the terrifyingly bright blueness of the sky.

It smells like wine, wood, and freedom.

"Brazilianized" Red Lentil Indian Soup

I love cooking. With a special friend, on summer afternoons, with my boyfriend D, in New York winter nights, and by myself too, of course!

My sister sings in the shower; Dad types words on his computer's keyboard with Buddhist concentration.
Outside, -2ºC.
D, rehearsing.
Inside the just-arrived Netflix envelope, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

What we need in this house tonight is a soup.
It's been a couple of weeks that I bought a package of red lentils and have been avoiding the challenge. No, they're not hard to handle; they're just new to me.
As usual, I look up in the internet a few different recipes. From there, I basically come up with something simple, something that I can do with what I have at home, something my family would like, something interesting to try.

Suddenly, during my 10-minute Google search tonight, I found an Indian-style soup: red lentils, curry, coriander, turmeric, tomatoes, spinach, potatoes, greek yogurt... That just had to be it. D loves Indian food. Besides, he has been, for the last couple of days, taking such good care of me, overwhelmed by PMS, followed by all kinds of cramps, and cravings! He definitely deserves a surprise-soup tonight.

Now, the idea was to make it a bit more Brazilian. The spinach became collard greens; the potatoes became tropical chayote.
Is that more Brazilian? Oh, well, here it is:

Ingredients:

1lb of Red lentils (chief lentils are the most common kind)
Chicken/vegetable stock or water
1 cup of tomato puree
1 medium chayote, cut into cubes
1 large onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 cups of frozen collard greens (or fresh, even better!, but then sauté them with onions before adding to the soup)
Olive oil
1/2 tablespoon of ground coriander seeds
1 tablespoon of curry powder (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon of turmeric
Salt to taste
Black pepper to taste

Method:

Sort the lentils and briefly wash them with cold water.
Put them, along with the chayote, in a pot with water (or stock) enough to cover them (add more if necessary) and simmer until lentils are tender (about 20 minutes).

In a frying pan, sauté the onion and garlic, with olive oil, and add the spices (coriander, curry, turmeric).
Tranfer mixture to the pot with the lentils.
Simmer for about 10 minutes and add the collard greens.

Season to taste.
Serve in individual bowls with a dollop of greek yogurt, a candle burning and a glass of red wine.

Delicious!
Spicy and savory.