Food. Gardening. Poetry.

Here is a glimpse of what I like to do in my free time.

Quesadilla plate.


Brown rice with glazed tofu, cashews, and fall vegetables.


Chicken and mushrooms in a rosemary cream sauce with warm goat cheese.



We have a pumpkin now gracing our front porch and I would like to create a dish next month with the toasted pumpkin seeds. Stay tuned. Inspiration comes from this ingenious blog. What I never could quite express about my thoughts on the power we have to heal ourselves through food, she says it beautifully. My hands long to sink into warm dough as much as breaking open the earth and inhaling the smell of evergreens. My free time is spent dreaming about food and cooking and gardens and the poetry that runs through it. My table is a collage of cookbooks, gardening books, and books on fiction writing, where I make creations to release to the outside world.

I've been making phone calls this week to find a secure place to teach the writing workshops. My housemate's non-profit organization, the one I applied to work for a week ago, has now laid off the entire division the job was in. Now I understand why I was never called to interview! Knowing my luck, I would have been hired only to be laid off from yet another temp position. I've been considering waitressing to earn a little extra at this one favorite restaurant of mine that told me they were hiring. When I met with the manager yesterday afternoon after filling out the application in detail, he informed me that they are no longer hiring. I almost felt like crying getting back into my car parked on the street. The crushing weight of survival is intense. This is exactly the reason behind "diversifying" and going into business for myself as a designer, a teacher, and a writer. The roots of survival must not be completely dependent on other businesses and corporate America.

Drops of rain were falling onto the windshield, running down the glass, pooling at the bottom and rolling onto the front, and I just sat inside the car without switching it on. The beginning of rush hour traffic whizzed by. A street bum wandered down the sidewalk next to women in business suits waiting to cross at the light. I looked up at the tall city buildings full of offices and computers, which symbolize the core system I'm striving to break free from one day. However, I'm not about to turn down a job that pays well within it right now as I find new and alternative ways to earn a living. A friend's phone call interrupted my reverie and she said, "Hey, would you be interested in working as a freelance copywriter for the company I work for? My boss is looking for someone like you." It often comes down to not what you know but who you know in this city. The sunshine of hope began to creep back in like the sound of jazz music breaking me from the blues.

I remember my life two years ago. I remember having enough. I had my own apartment downtown with a garden tub and balcony overlooking the city. Black granite counter tops in the kitchen and tall bookshelves in the living room. Minutes from The Blue Dahlia Bistro and Rio Rita. I could walk to work in twenty minutes in the mornings. I had my own desk that I decorated with favorite photographs and books. I was paid well to write. I was dating E* and I remember her coming over to see me and how I would dash down the three flights of stairs to open the door to let her in. She would kiss me on the lips in the doorway and I would lead her back into my apartment. I miss that life. But I was aware of the void I felt being caught working for a corporation. Something was out of place and back then I could not place my finger on it. I was conscious on a deep level that this was not what I was meant to do for long. It was as if at any moment the foundation would snap and everything would be gone...

It did, and the pieces have been rearranged, but I am still standing.