Writing and Eating and Anxiety - Three of the Four Basic Life Groups

[teddy_radiator]

TheHubs™ and I are currently eating lots of plant-based stuff. We're also eating up all meat and dairy products until we done with them, so I don't know if that qualifies for doing something good or not. But we have been trying some fairly good plant-based meat substitutes and like them. We've done this before and I failed spectacularly - mainly because I tried to exclusively substitute tofu for meat and it was a disaster of monumental proportions. I cannot cook tofu. And I don't know what I'm doing, so I don't even know if I dislike it or not. What I need is for someone who really knows what they are doing to cook me some decent tofu and tell me, "This, now THIS is the way good tofu is supposed to taste." Then I'll know for sure if I actually do like it and just don't know how to cook it, or, like eggplant, I can't stand it no matter how well it's prepared.

Still battling depression - still fighting the good fight. It's approaching two years since TheHubs™' stroke. We still talk about it alot. Both of us were deeply traumatised by it, and right or wrong, it still haunts us a bit. Both of us are doing all the right things - eating well, taking our meds, getting regular checkups, but the event itself fucked me up mightily. I am still prone to bouts of anxiety and fear. I have been a fearful person all my life. Some Leo, huh? I'm the original cowardly lion. I find myself afraid about 70% of the time. I hate it, but I think it's just the way I'm wired. Talking about what happened helps, and writing helps, and working helps, but still, sometimes I'm almost paralyzed by fear. Now we are nearing the two year anniversary of the stroke, and I find myself afraid of that day. Hell, I get anxious if we drive past the parking lot where it first happened.

I started writing a short story today. We drove by an old house yesterday, and we started talking about a prompt for a story. We knocked it around while we drove from job to job, and today I've worked on it. It's around 2K, and I don't know if anything else will come from it, but TheHubs™ cried like a baby as I read it to him. I think that's about the best compliment I've ever been given. He even mentioned it on Facebook today. It makes me think I should submit it somewhere, but I've got no idea where. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Comments

[kellychambliss.livejournal.com]

Sending hugs and good wishes, my dear. Depression sucks. It makes perfect sense to me that you'd feel anxiety and fear about the stroke: terribly scary stuff. You're doing what you need to do in terms of eating and exercise; that's a lot to be proud of.

I wish I could hep with the tofu, but frankly, I can't stand the stuff. Ditto eggplant. Why can't it be cheese that is the thing that is good for us?

[too-dle-oo.livejournal.com]

Oh, if you love cheese and wish tofu tasted like it... you are in luck! Whenever I'm craving, say, deep fried cheese balls or mozzarella sticks, I bread up some tofu and bake it. It's a pretty decent replacement, if I do say so myself. (But I'm not a dairy eater and haven't been regularly in maybe 4-5 years, so I'm not constantly comparing the tofu dish to the real thing.) This takes about 5 active minutes of doing things, but those 300 seconds are spaced out over a good deal of time.

Here's what you do! First, gather ingredients: FIRM tofu, large flake nutritional yeast, salt, and whatever other seasoning you like. Then cube the tofu and toss it in a marinade. Soy sauce and sweet chili sauce? Great. A little EVOO and garlic? Sure. WHATEVER YOU LIKE. Come back hours later and pull out of the marinade, letting the cubes air dry on a sheet pan for an hour or so. Then toss the cubes in a little olive oil, and next add nutritional yeast so the cubes are coated in the stuff. Put back on a sheet pan, on parchment paper or a silpat to prevent sticking, and back for 20-30 minutes at 350*, stopping to turn the cubes halfway through. When the tofu is ready, the outside is crispy and crunchy and has that umami flavor from the nutritional yeast, and the middle melts in your mouth.

DELICIOUS.

[kellychambliss.livejournal.com]

Thank you! This does sound delicious, and I look forward to trying it. Very kind of you to type out the recipe.

[too-dle-oo.livejournal.com]

Tofu is a fickle beast, and it has taken several vegetarian friends to convince me that it's delicious. BUT IT IS. Or... at least... it CAN be. It's terrible when plain.

Other great ways of using the firm stuff: I love a vegan saag paneer, just swapping out the paneer for baked tofu (prepared as above), and I love a bowl of soup with ramen or rice noodles, a nice broth, loads of fresh vegetables, and raw tofu. As long as you let the tofu sit in the broth for at least 3-4 minutes, it absorbs the flavor.

The soft stuff is a good replacement for ricotta in a baked eggplant parmesan (and swap the parmesan for, again, flaky nutritional yeast), or in a non-dairy cheesecake.