Early last year, I started reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. If you have not heard about this book or read it, this book discusses ways to eliminate clutter from your house and to create a home that feels tidy. Marie Kondo believes you change your home and you change your life, you leave your job or take more risks and feel free to live your best life in a way you were not able to before. I read this and thought, yeah right, that's not going to happen to me. I followed most of the suggestions, I did not eliminate art or all of my books or all of my things, but I pared down. I did this with my husband and for me the results were much more drastic than for him. I took it to heart and started considering the impact of things on my life. I threw out many clothes, a large quantity of books and started considering my environment. In a year since then, I quit my job and have started to radically evaluate my life. I am not sure if this is a chicken and egg situation but it is true. Here are my biggest takeaways and lasting influence a year later.
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I have decided to go back to the basics. I am cooking foods that I grew up with and that remind me of home. One of those is garlic bread. Our family had a rotation of meals, like most families. It looked mostly like: roasted chicken, vegetables and potatoes; or pasta pesto, sausage and vegetables; or spaghetti and meatballs and vegetables. We ate a lot of Italian-inspired food. Along with that, we always had bread. Great for cleaning the bowl with or dipping in soup. I did not realize growing up how lucky we were to have good grocery store bread. I assumed that the chewy and crunchy ciabatta we grew up with was everywhere. I started cooking for myself in college and realized I was sadly mistaken. Hence, my venture into bread baking. I wanted to make the ciabatta I had missed. In reality, that typically failed, my ability to make a decent ciabatta has not yet come to fruition and the loaves I have gotten in the past have been inedible. I am not sure what the ciabatta future holds, but I am not holding my breath. What I am ultimately trying to get at here is that you need good bread to make good garlic bread, not any loaf will do. I used a baguette for this recipe, specifically the Trader Joe's ciabatta baguette, which is better than the regular baguette in my humble opinion. This is the best grocery store bread I have found, and unless I am making sandwiches, it is my go to. I use it for croutons (or leftover homemade bread, but I am pretty sure most people do not have that just laying around their house), for garlic bread, for cheeseboards, to dip into baked brie and a number of other delectable creations. Other than starting with good bread, the other trick is to wrap your baguette or loaf before it goes into the oven, the result is a moist and delicious garlic bread, this is not going to be crunchy, but it will be totally worth it. If you wanted it crunchy you could broil it after baking it, but I have never tried that so beware, also report back, I would like to know if it improves it (though I very much doubt it). Garlic Bread
I have read six books so far this March. I recently finished Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. I loved it so much that I finished it in a day. I just had to know what had happened. The author of this book wrote another book I recently read, Sourdough. I am starting to recognize the author's style and what he does that I enjoy so much as I read. This book is a story about a man, Clay, who loses his job and finds another job in a 24 hour bookstore. The bookstore is more than it appears and it leads Clay on an adventure that is in the vein of The Da Vinci Code, but much more lighthearted. The characters are quirky and believable. I appreciate that the ending feels appropriate, but not necessarily expected. I also just found the plot moving along at a pace I thoroughly enjoyed. I would highly recommend this book as a fun, quick and lighthearted read. Also fun fact, if you have a paperback copy check to see if it glows in the dark,mine did.
If you want more book reviews check out here. This month I am focusing my happiness project on doing things I love. When I mapped out my happiness project at the beginning of the year, I felt it was important to do more of what I love. In recent weeks I have come to realize that I am very good at doing things I do not want to do and not good at doing things I actually want to do. This may sound counter-intuitive, but I still struggle with looking at life as something that is a challenge and is supposed to be hard. This in turn becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as I make my life harder than it has to be and I find the most difficult/convoluted way to achieve my goals, further complicated them if I am unsuccessful. I also sometimes find that doing what I want to do feels indulgent, and my mind wants me to tell myself that I have to earn my joy through suffering. I am actively working to change my underlying thinking, but I also want to take action to do things I enjoy.
When I mapped out my year the three main components of things I enjoy included- blogging, baking/cooking and reading. Most of the time I participate in those activities out of pure joy. I blog because I love to write and to spend time gathering my thoughts. I appreciate exploring my thinking and understanding of the world in a cohesive way. I enjoy sharing my learning and creative ventures in the kitchen. I love sharing my journey. I have been working this month to blog more regularly than I have in the past and I will continue to work towards that. As you can tell from my last post, I have been baking up a storm, more for the process than the product, which is what I find fun. I also have noticed that when I slow down in the kitchen I make less mistakes, have fewer kitchen accidents, enjoy myself more and my results actually usually end up better. I have been cooking quite a bit too, mostly other people's recipes. I have not shared that here recently but I am one recipe away from finishing cooking through the book Bread and Wine. Next I am diving wholeheartedly into Chrissy Teigan's book Cravings. I love figuring out how others cook. I also have found some recipes I love this way and some I plan on tweaking and switching that have inspired me for ways I plan on blogging in the future. Reading is something I love to do. If I am being honest I find I do have a competitive streak when it comes to reading. I am working more and more to stay in my own lane and keep my eyes on my own mat so to speak. I have only been reading books I am excited about or books for book club and I have thoroughly enjoyed that. I am deep diving into topics that matter to me and I may post more of that here. What are the things you love that you want to do more of? I hope you find a way to enjoy this life, because I truly believe it is not meant to be a slog, or a struggle, but that we can enjoy the process.
I recently listened to the book Sourdough by Robin Sloan on audio. From the moment I first started listening I could tell this was the book for me. Sloan describes the experiences of Lois, a software engineer as she moves to San Francisco. Lois struggles with finding her place in a new career and a new location. She is gifted a sourdough starter and begins baking bread. I loved this book from the beginning because I really appreciated how passionate Lois is about bread and how she dives deep into research and exploring. I was so inspired that I started making sourdough bread each week since I started the book. I really feel that Lois is a well-developed character and her passion and pursuit of a well-lived life come across in this book. Lois is willing to do challenging things and to pursue her dreams in spite of obstacles. The audiobook narrator was wonderful at giving the different characters different voices. The passion for good food was evident throughout the writing and I felt that Sloan did a wonderful job building worlds and providing distinct atmosphere to the settings within the book. I though the ending was not expected, but suited the story and was satisfying. If you are looking for a food-related fiction book, I suggest this be your next one. I rate it 5/5 (which is pretty rare for me).
I recently started to take stock of my life and I have realized that there are a number of years that just seem like a blur. Luckily I kept a blog during this time so I can step back into who I was then and what I thought, for better or more often for worse. I knew that I blogged occasionally prior to this blog but what I did not realize is that I have had a blog on and off for the past 9 years. That is a long time. Realizing this made me see things about myself that I did not expect. It was like when you get a surprising glance as you walk by a mirror and it makes you do a double take; Like, is that really me? My husband finds this humorous and is like yup that is just who you are, but I feel like it is a revelation because although I was this way I ignored it or brushed it off, I did not find it to be a given. This phase of my life seems to have a lot of that, realizing who I am that I may have been all along, but never knew. Although when it comes to my past blogging self I realize that for a number of years I was the same person and then recently I have experienced a larger shift. The voice sounds the same in those old posts and the ideas I spout come from the same place, but here in the future I am better able to see what matters and what doesn't. They always say you look back with 20/20 vision and in a way I think that is true, but I just find it surprising. Something new I didn't know. One tiny piece in a puzzle I will forever be putting together.
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About MeI'm Sarah; a wife, traveler, foodie, and adventurer. Archives
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