Happy Halloween, all you crazy kids!

I'm not gonna front, I haven't actually made the soup I'm about to suggest to you, but I ABSOLUTELY WOULD. If, that is, I were actually planning on cooking tonight (or any other time soon this season) and not drinking my face off and scaring children. Because that is my real reason for the season.

Tonight I'll be relying on my too-poor-to-botox face and my generally surly attitude to get the point of my "costume" across to the Halloween freeloading youth-- I'll be "Get-Off-My-Lawn-You-Whippersnappers" without having to leave the comfort of my couch or getting dressed AND I'll get to keep all my candy to boot. Win-win!

PostedOctober 31, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriesquick pics!, vegetarian, soup

Tagsthere is no need for an organic jack-o-latern, quick pics!, get off my lawn, recipe, soupapalooza!, is drinking your face off an olympic sport yet?, pumpkin, halloweenie, vegetarian, soup, curry, halloween

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I love crazy people. Love love love them. Across all areas of my life-- be it romantic, interpersonal, professional, you name it-- there are at least one or two crazy people in each part that inspire me daily. Please understand that I mean crazy in the best possible way, that I say the word with great reverence, because lemmings like me can only exist because they have pied piper counterparts that lead them to the edges of cliffs.

There. I've said it. I'm a lemming.

I live to be lead. To be inspired. I need my muses because I find it hard to feel things deep within myself without some sort of outside stimuli. That's not to say that I'm not crazy, too, oh no. But I'm situationally crazy, not endemically crazy, and there's a huge, gaping hole of a difference.

PostedOctober 6, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriessalad, vegetarian

Tagssalad, mushroom, recipe, you put the fun in fungi, gouda, arugula, lemming, soupapalooza!, Menil Collection, so easy my kid could do it, crazy=cool, on the edge, Rothko, sides

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I have to remind myself that when I start to feel tinges of sadness it's most likely because I'm in the process of letting something go, and, almost always, there is greater happiness on the other side. I have to say this to myself over and over. This standing on the precipice part is a real bitch. Every cell in my body is at attention, ready to respond to some kind of directive and yet I have a hard time pin-pointing exactly what it is that's bothering me because, quite frankly, I don't really want to identify it. Because then I have to address it, jump off the cliff and then realize it's over. And yes, there is relief after the dive, but holding onto crap is what I know; it's my human condition. My name is Melissa and I'm an emotional hoarder. I need a producer from A&E to hire a junk crew to remove all the shit from my brain and haul it away while I try and hold on to the useless bits like bottle caps and love letters in a shoebox.

Since I arrived in New York I've worked most days. Because obviously I'm here to work and to learn. And I'm having a great time doing it, as I've made mention a few times in these recent posts. In fact, I feel the same sense of hope that I did when I lived here when I was studying at FIT almost 10 years ago. I'm trying to figure out if that's because I have a pathological need to jump from one creative discipline to another (costume design to goldsmithing to recreational cooking) and it's some kind of well-established pattern of folly, or if it's just a little internal compass reminder that I'm on the right path for right now. It scares me to think that I'm constantly reinventing myself, my life and my surroundings, but I just deeply hope that I don't have ADD or that I am a dilettante of the highest order (though I don't think I'm wealthy enough to be considered a dilettante, anyway).

Even though I've worked most days I've managed to visit with old friends, one of which drove down several hours from another city. It was an uncharacteristically spontaneous thing for him to do, which is a weird thing for me to even know about him, because I don't actually really know him at all...

PostedAugust 23, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriesvegan, vegetarian, soup

Tagshumble-pie-a-palooza!, so square you have corners, dilettante, recipe, whiskey, tomato, chorizo, soup, jalapeño, august adventure, cucumber, AWOL, soupapalooza!, shishito peppers, gazpacho, lost weekend, little do I know, jumping off a cliff

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I feel alive in New York. More alive than when I'm anywhere else, actually, even though statistically speaking I'm much less significant. There are 12 million people hanging around these here parts, and I am a cog in a big machine, not anything large in and of myself. There's some kind of harmony in the dirtiness, in the smells and in the little inconveniences of being surrounded by so many people and so many agendas and a rhythm in being in it. And as I was walking to dinner last night I was struck by exactly how much I felt like an ant. Like one of those "scout" ants that releases a smell trail so that other ants know where to follow to find food (I was somewhat smelly from a very hot day in the prep kitchen). And yes, that could seem dehumanizing and sad to think that people are like ants, but it somehow made me feel comforted, like it's amazing to think that being so infinitesimally small is actually powerful. That yes, we may have the illusion of freewill (or maybe it's not an illusion, I don't know) and we also have consciousness, but there's gotta be something bigger, too. And I'm really happy to give the idea of my big ego and my big life a much needed vacation; they've worked some long, miserable overtime hours and I'm hopping they'll be more fun when they return with some good drinking stories and a tan.

Making jewelry and cooking both put me in the same headspace that New York does. It's my meditation. It's having a plan, and in putting that plan into motion, making hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny little movements to complete the plan. It's more rote than conscious and it's incredibly mentally quiet, though it's certainly not physically quiet-- the prep kitchen was insane with playlists of both Tool and Tejana music last week. I had to completely block that shiz out the same way I did when we had the same 45 minute music loop (including Coldplay tracks, oh joy) for six months when I was folding t-shirts at Banana Republic.

PostedAugust 14, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriessalad, vegetarian

Tagshumble-pie-a-palooza!, shallot, spinach salad, thyme, herbs, chopped herbs, chopping to the oldies, new chefs knife kind of sucks, it's OK to be a scout ant, august adventure, blue cheese, Chef Kenobi, Englebert Humperdinck, spiced pecan, callouses, herbalicious, Tom Jones, vinaigrette

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Wouldn't you know it, the very SECOND I open my gaping pie-hole about owning up to my responsibilities as an adult, I get tested. I don't believe in any kind of karma or universal smack down in general, but I do find it quite funny (and not in a "not unless clowns are funny" kind of way) that right when I tell the world (OK, when I tell you, Mom, and you, Unnamed Visitor #2) via my blog that I am growing up and kicking some Elvis-style-TCB ass, my car decides to go on strike.

Yes, 11 year old cars have a tendency to do this. And yes, I've kind of shirked some of my car owner responsibilities as of late, too (shocking, right?), so it's really not much of a surprise that it's my turn to have to deal with the unpleasantness of bending over for a mechanic.

Because I'm still teenager sitting (more on my fabulous weekend of zero sleep, Facebook status feed Olympic spoilers and stress-induced nerve damage later) I totally lucked out and happened to have said teenager's dad's car in the garage for my use. It does alleviate the pressure of having to pay for a rental on top of what I expect will be a pretty grotesque bill, so I've got that going for me, which is nice. But I really freaked out to myself when I initially sat in my car and it did nothing but grind and moan and tell me it was officially done with my ass.

PostedJuly 30, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriessalad, vegetarian, appetizers and snacks

Tagsburrata, growingupsucks, poolside, bruschetta, Innercity Velvet, Jenni Jihad, appetizer, basil, snack, carpocalypse, Terror Teen

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curried pumpkin soup: Happy Halloween! or, when good pumpkins go bad

arugula, roasted portabella and aged gouda salad with port vinaigrette: you can lead a lemming to the cliff but you can't make her jump

quick and delicious gazpacho: stop thinking and start jumping

Hugh Acheson's spinach salad with spiced pecans, sliced pear and blue cheese with a shallot-thyme vinaigrette: zen and the art of herb chopping

simple bruschetta a la minute: saying something and doing something are totally different things

Why? Because soup is cheap, delicious and easy. Kind of like me.

a weekly attempt to eat well and to savor life. or to see how much food I can get on my clothes.