The Diminishing Joy of Cooking

I love to cook. When I was little, I always wanted to help mom in the kitchen. While her rules of baking and cooking were somewhat repetitive and totally unhelpful as a teaching tool (all rules were to “listen", which taught me nothing about reading recipes) I loved the proud feeling I got from proclaiming “I made that!" It felt magical to take simple thing like flour and sugar and turn them into cookies or whatever was being created.

As I've become a self sufficient adult, my love of cooking and my ability to create something edible from raw components has grown exponentially. I love to have people over for dinner. I love finding new recipes. I still feel proud knowing when the finished product is on the table that I made that. Which is why it's so sad that lately cooking is more a chore than a joy.

Budget austerity means meals out are a thing of the past. And in an effort to lower the grocery bill, menu planning has become a necessity. But cooking every day and twice daily on weekends has stripped the fun out of it for me. I feel like I spend my life in the kitchen. Moreover, I feel like my life revolves around the kitchen.

Part of my problem is stubbornness. I could make simpler dishes or let my husband take the wheel. But, if I am forced to eat in, I want to enjoy what I am eating. So my kitchen prison is of my own design.

In order to make this self-imposed kitchen exile more fun, I am going to start sharing recipes and tips on this blog. I hope that sharing my kitchen wisdom will inspire others to cook more and perhaps reinvigorate my joy of cooking. Stay tuned for more from this high heeled contessa :) And unlike my mother, my first and only rule in the kitchen is to make what you love. Because if you don't enjoy the fruits of your labor, then cooking is truly joyless.

Eye Cream with A Free Gift of Self Loathing

Long gone are the days where cosmetics counter girls (or the occasional guy) fawned over my skin. While prone to a blemish here or there, I had a relatively lucky adolescence skin wise. While I didn't appreciate my porcelain skin at the time, it was a thing of beauty to the women who spent hours and hundreds of dollars trying to achieve a dewy and fair complexion.

Now when I go to a cosmetics counter, I am bombarded by hard sells for cleanser, toner, and more creams than I have time to apply. I remember when I toyed with the idea of not using foundation for my wedding, and the woman at the Bobbi Brown counter looked at me as though I were plotting murder. There was this horrified expression all over her face.

I see these women - none of whom have great skin - convincing other women that they need a cream to get rid of oil, one to replace the oil, one at night, one for daytime, and much more. Meanwhile, my dermatologist has flawless skin and just instructs me to use sunscreen.

I used to love buying make up. It was fun. Now it's just depressing. I try to always remind myself of the summer I worked as a stock girl in the Saks cosmetics department. I learned some very important lessons there. 1) toner is a waste of money. It dries out your skin so you use more moisturizer, and the circle continues. 2) for years Bobbi Brown only sold essentials meaning very few skin care products. Then it was acquired by Estee Lauder... 3) most of these women who gleefully point out your flaws while ringing up cream after cream or serum after serum lead sort of sad lives. Most peaked in high school when they were still beautiful without a lengthy beauty routine. 4) most importantly, they work on commission.

Sure, I am starting to have a few small lines (with the occasional blemish, which I think is unfair and utter bull), but I am still young. I still have pretty good skin. And I know that creams and serums won't turn back time. I will never look 17 again, and I refuse to spend hundreds of dollars trying.

Goodbye Sky Harbor

I think that no matter where I travel in life, Sky Harbor will be the airport with which I have the most positive associations.

As a kid, a trip to Sky Harbor International Airport either meant a vacation to some exotic locale (like Minnesota where you could actually wear pants in the summer) or a special visitor coming to town. Sure goodbyes were hard, but they didn't compare to the joy of an arrival or my own departure.

As an adult, Sky Harbor is my entry point to return home. It's more familiar than most of Phoenix since the big changes took place before I left. Though the end of the trip is usually bittersweet, Sky Harbor means returning to my own home and bed after a reminder of why I left Phoenix in the first place.

Going home reminds me of a time before I found where I fit. I was a nerd and so painfully insecure that I constantly tried to prove how interesting my life was. I was a humble bragger who lacked subtlety. When I encounter people like teenage me as an adult, I understand why I was picked on and excluded. I was annoying.

As my plane ascends and I grip the armrest for dear life, I leave all that pain and awkwardness behind. I am reminded of the formative experiences that shaped who I am today. And I am as grateful to go as I am to come. No other airport has that sort of association, and I doubt another ever will.

But, I still don't understand the 16 minute Jimmy Eat World song that I borrowed the title of for this post - or why it's 16 minutes.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

As you may have read in an earlier post, I am buying a home. As I mentioned, that has meant a new, austere spending regime. I am getting used to eating at home and denying myself lunches or coffee during the work day. And in general, I am not so sad to not shop. But, this weekend is different. This weekend I am going to Phoenix. Tucked away in Scottsdale is my personal mecca - my shopping Jerusalem: Scottsdale Fashion Square.

There is no other place on earth that contains all of my favorite stores, yummy chain restaurants, and literally tons of air conditioning and parking under one roof. The mall is massive. It has high end department stores, Banana Republic, J. Crew, kate spade, and more. It's busy but never as maddeningly packed at Tyson's Corner (the best mall in the DC area, which is technically two malls separated by a very busy street). It's like all the best parts of the Tyson's I and the Galleria without the drawbacks of either. Shopping in a town like Phoenix is what shopping should be. You walk into Neiman's in flip flops, a tank top, and shorts? No big deal - you still get treated like a person and a customer! The east coast and big city attitude doesn't penetrate the Valley of the Sun. Maybe the extreme heat keeps it at bay. But whatever the reason, the result means that trips to Phoenix always require a spiritual pilgrimage to Fashion Square.

But this trip is different. I have to break with tradition and break up with Fashion Square. It pains me to do the responsible, grown up thing and not give in to my shopping addiction. Also, sales tax in Scottsdale is nearly twice that of VA - a fact is of little solace at best. But that fact means it is especially important that I stay strong.

So Fashion Square, I am sorry, but you and I are done (for now). I can't let you know the touch of my American Express or Banana Republic credit cards any longer. I can't wander through your ample stores or up and down your escalators. It kills me to say goodbye, but I must. Please know, that there is no mall that can ever replace you. Until I have equity in my house, my beloved shopping center. Until then...

Fear and Loathing at Ronald Reagan National Airport

I hate flying. I hate everything about it. First, you have to stand in a long line to have some TSA employee either see you naked on a monitor in some undisclosed location or let them feel you up if you opt out of the body scan. Make sure to remove your shoes, sweater, belt, watch, and dignity lest you have an abnormality that gets you groped in spite of going through the scanner.

But it isn't just the ridiculous security theater that gets me. I can no longer bring gels or liquids in quantities larger than 3 ounces through security. I am still not used to this restriction after years of suffering through it. My hair products don't come in travel size. So I can pay the airline blood money to check a bag or make due with a pony tail during my trip. Speaking of blood money, if I want to drink something while I wait endlessly to board, I can pay $3 or more for a soda or bottled water, because those items can't come through the security checkpoint.

Once my rage about the TSA has subsided, and I am finished muttering about how the terrorists have already won or given my obligatory speil about how much better the security is in Israel, I have to get on the plane.

It boggles my mind that after decades of aviation, the boarding process remains entirely inefficient and fucked (apologies if the language offends, but it's just the right word). What part of get out of the aisle is so hard to understand? And, the battle for overhead bin space is like something out of Hunger Games.

After all the trials of getting on the plane with my luggage, I get to sit in a cramped seat with a small ration of free beverages from a surly flight attendant all while terrified at 32,000 feet.

I have been flying my whole life. Each trip lately is more terrifying. Every bump or vibration makes me clutch my armrest and close my eyes while praying we smooth out. When I land at my destination, I am relieved and eager to get the hell off of that crowded tin can that seems to be full of people who have never been on a plane before. Because getting off the plane quickly and efficiently seems to be more difficult than getting on that way.

I realize flying is a necessary evil. I like to visit places and vacation. I just may need to start medicating to do it.

Home

It's been nearly 13 years since I left Phoenix and the home I grew up in. My parents and a lot of my crap still live in that house. I was luckier - or perhaps more determined - than many in my generation who had to move back in with mom and dad because of money or other difficulties. So I haven't lived there in more than a decade. Yet I am heading to Phoenix this weekend and am referring to the trip as going home.

Despite the bugs, humidity, bullshit, and tourist infestation, the DC area is my home. I've made a life here and am buying a house here. So why is going to Phoenix going home?

The house, the neighborhood, and the city have all changed immensely since I left. There is a familiarity, sure. But it's one that feels like some fuzzy memory or distorted dream - not like the place I spent my first 18 years that I knew so intimately. I love visiting Phoenix, seeing my parents and friends or hitting up my old haunts. But lately the visits are bittersweet. They serve as a reminder of the passage of time. And while high school was decidedly not the best 4 years of my life, there was this optimism about the future and what my life would be.

I realize 31 is young, and there is lots ahead for me. But many of the big questions are answered. I know who I am spending the rest of my life with. I know what I do for a living. I have a pretty solid idea of what my life will be (at least I hope I do). And going to Phoenix sometimes makes that growing pain very acute.

In college I used to laugh at the cliché "you can never go home again." I always thought, of course you can! I do it all the time. It wasn't until a few years ago that I realized how much wisdom there is in that hackneyed phrase. You can visit the physical place, but eventually, no matter what you call it, it won't feel like home. But there is some small part of me that still hopes it will. And I guess that part of me is the one that answers "home" when people ask where I'm going this weekend.