Carbonarish

Dear Joanne, 

I'm so excited for you. You are doing so much! All those fellowships, all the interviews. You are amazing. I'm so glad that we're friends and someday when you're famous, I'm going to be like that mom in Joy Luck Club with her daughter on the cover of Time Magazine who carries the magazine everywhere while she tows her daughter around. Count on it. Except it will probably me and your mom, hand in hand, magazines to our chest, staring the rest of the world down.

I went 13 miles yesterday! It took forever. I walked some, jogged some, ran some, clawed some, but I more than doubled my benchmark distance of 10K (6.2 miles). I'm doing this in preparation for a future half marathon and marathon that I have yet to sign up for but WILL HAPPEN because I told myself once that I could never run a marathon.

This year, I'm all about proving myself wrong. 

All my plans fell through on Friday, so I got out of bed (at noon) and managed to go from my house in the Sunset, up through the city, across the Golden Gate Bridge and back. This is amazing, by the way. More than 13 miles. The elevation was probably immense. I took a detour down a cliff trail to stand by the ocean, because I wanted to, then climbed back up the trail to the Golden Gate Bridge, armed with only a bottle of water and some Sultana biscuits.

It's not hard core compared to experienced runners, but consider the fact that I started in January. Consider that I work a full time job. That I sing, I research, I write, I volunteer, I have a social life.

Now consider that I almost didn't go. Consider that I've trained for this. Consider that I had unlimited time, water, food. Consider 13 miles as not being so much. Yet, starting the moment I woke up, there was a voice in my head telling me I couldn't do it. As I filled my water bottle and added two umeboshi plums (for electrolytes!), I couldn't do it. As I threw a package of Sultana biscuits into my Flipbelt, I couldn't do it. As I exited Land's End park onto Camino del Mar, up into the Presidio, are you kidding me, turn around, this is stupid.

That voice is always with me. "I feel terrible. I won't go to the gym today," I say to myself as I throw my gym bag over my shoulder. " I guess I won't run today, its raining," I say as I lace my running shoes and throw on a jacket. I argue with myself until I realize I'm at the gym or on the trail, going through my usual workout. "Well, since I'm here, I guess I can do an extra set with higher weights."  Or on days when I run, "Okay, maybe just two miles," turns into "I've already gone this far, might as well keep going."

I bet you never knew this about me. Most people don't. Imagine waking up next to me and I'm talking myself out of my day. You'd be like, "WHO IS THIS PERSON, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH SHELLY?!" I've heard it before. 

I know that I am not that voice. I know that it doesn't speak the truth. At best, I ignore it. At worst, I exist beneath it, on autopilot, just accomplishing the things I need to do without interrupting it. I feel the day out in a semi-blind state, relying on the compass of my heart, on its generosity and passion while I lean on my intelligence, navigating under a thick fog of doubt. 

I prove that voice wrong constantly, but it doesn't go away. I imagine what life would be like without it. I imagine what it would be like to wake up every single morning with relish and really bite into my day, ready to run, ready to go full tilt, 16 hours doing exactly what I love. I imagine (incorrectly) that this will be me when I am able to do what I am most passionate about all the time.

This is my point: We all think there's a green grass future somewhere, a place where we'll be happy and feel loved and our lives will be perfect. It's just around the corner--if only we can work harder, be better, run faster, be stronger. It's a someday that will never come until it's too late, we look back and we see it, but we couldn't enjoy it while it was happening. Self doubt does that. It keeps us from enjoying.

We must embrace every day the best way we can, doubt and all. Every day is the perfect day. 

I will never be fully rid of this damn negative voice. I'm learning to have compassion for it. To coo softly at it and acknowledge its presence and its fears while I place it into a small, soft box, and let it sit, warm and comfortable so that I can get shit done.

I have to sometimes remember to remind myself that I am not what that voice says. I am strong. I am athletic. I am competent. I am intelligent. I have a big heart. I am love-lucky (I see love everywhere). I am generous. People call me when they're in need of encouragement or support because I know how to give those things. I am lovely. I get things done (if at my own pace). I think outside the box. I work hard. I inspire. 

And baby, I can cook.

Do you have a love list, Joanne? Make one! Make one because you deserve to love yourself out loud and in public.  

Once again, I realize how the previous may be misconstrued. I apologize for nothing.

Vegetarian Fussili Carbonara

Carbonarish, because carbonara is made with spaghetti and bacon, two things I don't care to keep on hand. I was inspired by the recipe in Relish and inspired to fix it because you're right--it was too watery. 

I solved this by not using spaghetti. Fusilli absorbs the sauce better than spaghetti. I also add the hot mushroom mixture slowly into the egg mixture, slowly tempering the egg, the way you'd do with a dessert where you don't want to curdle the egg or the cream with the heat of the other ingredients.

Ingredients: 

1 cup Fusilli

1 cup Shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and roughly chopped (or any mushroom, the stronger-tasting the better)

1 tablespoon of butter (I used margarine)

1/4 cup onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp cooking wine (I used chinese rice wine because that's what I have and it's delicious)

1 egg

1/2 cup finely grated Pecorino Romano (or any cheese, grated. I'm not above using cheese sticks. Not the best. But in a pinch? Not bad.)

Chopped parsley, as you like. If you like. This is optional.

Salt and pepper

Ideally this recipe wouldn't take two pans and a bowl, but ideally I'd have a chef and he'd prepare it on a yacht while I sipped sinfully expensive scotch whiskey.

1. Fill a pot with water and set it to boil, as one would in order to cook pasta. 

2. Saute mushrooms in a dry pan  on medium heat. Don't crowd the pan. At first. Don't crowd the pan, take a photo, then throw all the rest of the mushrooms into the pan because you don't have time to cook stupid mushrooms in stupid batches. Understand they won't be as good. Accept it. Move on.

3. Crack an egg in a separate bowl. Add the grated cheese. Whisk it all together. Add pepper, because you like the smell of pepper.

4. Is the water boiling? When it does, salt it.  Add the pasta. Cook for however long it needs. Multi-task. If you can't, cook the pasta after you do the next two steps. The egg mixture can wait. The pasta cannot.  

5. Salt the mushrooms. Add the butter, onion, and garlic. When all that browns, add the alcohol, let it cook off for a few seconds.

6. Take the mushroom mixture off the heat. Add a small amount into the egg mixture, whisk it up so the egg doesn't curdle. Keep adding, spoonful by spoonful, whisking the egg mixture really well inbeween each addition until it's all added. Keep whisking for a bit, until it looks creamy. I add the parsley now and keep mixing, because I happen to like parsley, so I used like 3/4 cup of it chopped and it's kind of woody, so it needs the tiny extra heat to wilt a little more than if I'd added it to the dish at the end.

7. Add the pasta a little at a time into the egg mixture, mixing fully. Reserve some of the pasta water to add to the sauce if it's too dry. Don't add too much. This gets watery very quickly. Add more pepper or salt, to taste. 

Steal a few bites from the kitchen counter, but then enjoy while sitting at a table as you watch My Fair Lady.

PRO TIP: EGGS AND CHEESE ARE NO LAUGHING MATTER. WASH EVERYTHING ASAP OR YOU'LL NEVER GET THE EGG AND CHEESE OFF.

Have you written your love list? Post it someplace where you can see it. If you're embarrassed with the plainness of words, use photos, paints, music. Be creative. Let it be something you look at every day and are proud of. No one should let doubt be their primary voice.

And thank you, Joanne, for being the best friend in the world. You and Graham, spending an hour at Grand Central just to talk to me on the phone? Who does that?! You do. (When you say, "We love you," referring to you and Graham, even without him there, my heart grows three sizes.) You guys are the best. 

YES, ELIZA, YOU TELL HIGGINS.

"I want a little kindness.  I know I'm a common ignorant girl, and you a book-learned gentleman, but I'm not dirt under your feet.  What I done--what I did--was not for the dresses and the taxis.  I did it because we were pleasant together and I come--came--to care for you.  Not to want you to make love to me, and not forgetting the difference between us, but more friendly-like."

Ahem.

Yes, I'm still watching My Fair Lady. And yes, I may know that monologue by heart. And I may have used it for an audition or five.

I also crazy love Rex Harrison in the Ghost and Mrs. Muir. The ghost of a salty sea captain who reads Keats? Where do I sign up?  "Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam/ Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn." SWOON.

D: And since we are to be collaborators, you can call me Daniel.

L: That's very good of you.

D: And I shall call you... Lucia.

L: My name is Lucy.

D: It doesn't do you justice, my dear. Women named Lucy are always being imposed upon. But Lucia, now there's a name for an amazon. For a queen.

**Dies**

Love you! *fairy wand inspiration now you can conquer the world!*

Shelly