Category Archives: Opinion

Jalapeños and Facts

12/01/2020 X Teri Leave a comment

This post is part recipe, part observation, and the result of intense thought, none of which was used in the making of said post.

I opened the oven, temporarily forgetting that the wall of hot, moist poisonous gas was about to hit me.

For a second, I felt myself start to faint. I wondered what it would sound like if I fell headfirst into a hot oven.

{Did you know that a lot of adults don’t know that chipotles are just smoke-dried jalapeño peppers?}

You’d think I was making a batch of meth, which is ridiculous. It’s cheaper to buy. Also, if you don’t know whether I’m being serious or not, assume I’m not. The police are tired of hearing my name and definitely tired of my picture.

It’s been YEARS since I made oven-roasted/dried jalapeño slices. Part of the reason is that I’m not a big fan of ‘hot.’ Given the amount of Sriracha and various crazy hot things I’ve eaten in the last couple of years, I might be mistaken. I don’t seek out heat. I’m too old to be playing Russian Roulette and too smart to ingest that kind of heat on purpose. Or so I thought.

{What did the jalapeño dress up as for Halloween? A Ghost Pepper.}

Using fresh jalapeño slices sounds better, but most of the time, the kind already in a jar turns out better. Feel free to cut up fresh peppers and remove the seeds. Don’t get wrong – they are delicious that way—just a bit more work. At Walmart right now, I can buy a 64 oz. jar of Mt. Olive sliced jalapeños for less than $4. That’s crazy.

I drain the juice off of the slices and put them on a piece of aluminum foil. While I can jazz it up, I rarely do. I put the foil sheet on the bottom rack and set the oven anywhere from 325 to 500. And then I wait. Depending on the temperature, it might take 15-25 minutes to dry the slices out or watch them darken.

That brings me to a warning: don’t open the oven without preparing yourself for a wall of fumes that will make you see Jesus on a skateboard. If you’ve ever got a whiff of chlorine gas or accidentally attended a political rally, it gets you close to the feeling that scorched jalapeño slices bring.

If you watch the slices as they dry and darken, you’ll figure out exactly what temperature and time work best for you. I was shocked to find out how much I loved the slices when they turn dark. It’s no surprise, though, given that I love burned food.

Why I stopped making these is a mystery. They ignite my taste buds and are very healthy. If harsh breath is a concern for you, you’ll have to take precautions. Even dogs curl away from roasted jalapeño smells, so I can imagine that your significant other won’t want to kiss you for a while, either.

Notes: {1} Zebras are black with white stripes. If you doubt me, go shave your zebra. If you don’t own a zebra, you’ve obviously made bad choices. {2.} I will never forget the first time I handled hot peppers without considering what and where I might be touching. That’s wisdom right there. {3} Most people don’t stop to think that New Year’s Day comes before New Year’s Eve each year. {4} A day on the planet Venus is longer than its year. {5} Bite your tongue and then imagine words with an “S” in them. You’ll find that the voice in your head has a lisp, too. {6} It’s almost impossible to hum while holding your nose closed. {7} Many baseball fans know that some pitchers have used jalapeños on their nostrils to produce the ‘slippery’ needed for curveballs. I thought you should know. {8} Most people breathe primarily from one nostril; more interestingly, most people don’t know that your nose has a 4-hour(ish) cycle. It’s complicated, and almost no one realizes it, much in the same way that we forget that we see our nose all the time – but that our brain processes it ‘out’ of our vision. {9} I googled “make meth in an oven” without thinking about the consequences. Tell the police I was joking. On the plus side, I think I could now make meth in a 2-liter soda bottle – which evidently is a ‘thing.’ {10} The perpetual contrast effect is a cognitive bias that distorts our perception of something when we compare it to something else by enhancing the differences between them. The easiest example for this is to mention that cold coffee and warm soda are at the same temperature. It is so obvious that you might have to read it twice. {11} The dot over a lower-case i and j is called a tittle. {12} Although it is no secret that the unicorn is Scotland’s national animal, people don’t believe me when I tell them. (13) Pringles are NOT potato chips. They are made from dehydrated potato flakes. Look on the can. They aren’t called chips, either. {14} Lemons have a staggering number of uses and health benefits. I won’t list them all because I like the element of surprise on this one! {15} The majority of laughter doesn’t happen as a result of jokes; instead, it follows social cues and bonding. {16} Newborns and kids have TWICE the number of tastebuds as adults.

Holiday, Humor, Opinion, Personal, Whimsical

For The New Year

11/29/2020 X Teri Leave a comment

“Time seldom approaches with a wild machete. It creeps from behind with a small, concealed knife.” – X

But Mel Brooks said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”

Someone more creative than me pointed out that the sand in an hourglass imprisons itself, as glass is made from sand. Don’t you wonder if we aren’t the same, becoming our own prisoners? There’s no emotion or problem that we can’t complicate, escalate, or initiate.

Noted philosopher Coco Chanel said, “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” She obviously never worked a real job or dealt with people who have few laughs in their hearts.

My scars insist that time is real, but in the quiet moments, I wonder. I used to assume that most people had these thoughts. It was disappointing to discover that many people can’t imagine that Aslan or tesseracts are real – or walk in an imagined world where they might be the figments of a greater creature’s imagination.

“There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.” – Bill Watterson. I was equally surprised in later life to find people who deny that sitting in a quiet room can sometimes be better than a vacation. All good lives start with a quiet room. Add your preferred levels of crazy for a great life. Subtract what takes you further from the quiet room. It might be that simple for many of us.

“Why is that I never heard these words: ‘Let’s gather by the river, drink moonshine, and tell jokes and the stories of our lives.’ But I always hear stories of obligation and things that don’t linger in the minds of others.” – X

If you’ve never read “The Time Traveller’s Wife,” you missed this quote by Audrey Niffenegger: “It’s dark now and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing.”

Haruki Murakami said, either comically or seriously, “For a while” is a phrase whose length can’t be measured. At least by the person who’s waiting.”

Hippocrates (assuming it was the father of medicine and not the hockey player of the same name), said: “Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”

We all wonder about 2020, which ends in about a month. We look forward. Where were we a month ago? The difference between comparing now to then is a question of knowing what lies in the interim. It requires no faith. With what lies ahead, our imaginations seize us. Whether that imagination is fueled by the dread of what will come or the expectation that we will find a way to be who we need to be is our choice.

This is my New Year’s post, written a month early.

If you can’t feel time slipping up behind you with that knife, that is okay. There is no defense against it except to live a good life. You only win by yielding.

One last wise quote: “Time is a great healer, but a poor beautician.” -Lucille S. Harper

Eats, Food, Health, Opinion, Weight Loss

Tuna Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

11/27/2020 X Teri Leave a comment

Note: no one in their right mind should take nutrition advice from me. However, I do know what really works well for some people. Sometimes.

If you’re going to eat tuna, I recommend that you ditch the mayo entirely. Lite sour cream, if such a thing is needed, works admirably in place of mayo. Two tablespoons of lite sour cream equal 40 calories, whereas light mayo is about twice that. Regular mayo is 100 calories per tablespoon. If you are craving the lovely sheen of fat when you eat, this won’t help you. You might as well take a bite of Crisco and get it over with. Growing up, several of my family members did just that.

Ditching the creamy additives saves you time, calories, money, and fridge space. It also lessens the amount of dairy you consume.

While I don’t count calories, I’m unavoidably aware of the benchmarks for many foods. When you’re trying to eat healthy, unless you are treating yourself, it is weird for me to justify eating something that is so much higher in calories. For that reason, I stopped using anything creamy in my tuna. Unlike most people, I much prefer to eat my tuna as dry as I can get it. If I add anything, it might be the miracle of lemon juice.

As for tuna, one of the best fillers you can use is dill relish. It’s one of the few things that is inexpensive yet adds bulk and texture. Dill relish is zero calories, too. Combined with shredded lettuce and the spice(s) of your choice, tuna can be made to be filling and savory. It’s hard to beat lemon pepper on tuna – although I enjoy at least a dozen different seasonings and spices on mine in varying degrees.

For the record, green olives are, in fact, delicious in tuna. They are only about eight calories each. My problem is that I need at least forty to be satisfied, especially compared to dill relish or something similar. A lot of people think the idea of green olives with tuna isn’t appealing. Most of those people have never tried it.

Another sore spot for me is the delicious taste of a well-made olive tapenade! If you want to fight, I’ll argue that green olives are indescribably delicious as a pizza topping – and more so than the dreaded counterpart of black olives.

If you are in tune with your body at all, it is easy to hold yourself to 1,000 calories a day if you need to. I know that isn’t sustainable, so don’t preach at me.

But if you eat two cans of tuna, add half a jar of dill pickle relish, a mound of shredded lettuce (mixed with lemon pepper), and two flavored bags of Pop Chips instead of crackers or bread, you’ve only eaten around 400-500 calories. It’s hard to complain about being hungry by that quantity of food.

P.S. If you are a Sriracha fan, you’re going to think I’m crazy. But. Sugar-free whipped cream drizzled with Sriracha is a surprising treat for the taste buds, much in the way jellied jalapeños are on vanilla ice cream. I’m not a huge fan of overly hot foods. But Sriracha came out of the left field for me a couple of years ago and took a place in my heart for flavor.

Holiday, Opinion, Thanksgiving

A Day Set Aside

11/26/2020 X Teri 3 Comments

My day started with bursts of restless sleep, punctuated by a cat insistent that I get up. Truthfully, I lay there writing stories in my head and attempting to gather the threads of my own life together. After giving the cat his beloved morsels of treats, I made a staggeringly strong pot of coffee. My first cup was black as tar. The bitterness, as always, renewed me.

Writing these words, I fully realize that the pandemic has changed everything. It’s the new baseline. Whether it has emboldened you to waste no further energy on things which don’t bring you joy, or robbed you of the pieces of yourself that make your life meaningful, I hope you can find refuge in this day. Gratitude is a daily affirmation more than an occasion.

For years, I tried to get the tribe to accompany me to Clarion Inn, try a new tradition, and trust me enough to experience something that I once loved. They resisted until one day, the Clarion closed. I’m not bitter about it; disappointed, yes. (It was their loss more than mine. New experiences aren’t as common as we’d like to think.) Likewise, I hinted and asked if we might try another type of food, with anything on the literal table for options. Those who needed turkey and the fixings could still have those. I offered to ensure that they would if they would join me in something unexpected and non-traditional. It’s not the food that makes the day. The people around the table, the spirit of the day as originally intended – these combine to make the moments worth doing. With each hard pass, they’d futurize and point to a vague moment in our shared future in which we could be creative and spontaneous. Moments delayed often never materialize. The players find new games, and lives scatter. It’s the way life is.

If you are counting the wrinkles on participant’s faces to determine who might not be with us in the years to come, you are foolish. From experience, I can tell you that youth is no shield from loss. I call this tendency, “The Clarion Misconception.”

One of my favorite people in the world hates Thanksgiving. For her, the day was her mother embodied. She’s faced more loss since, and the holiday has yet to recover any joy for her. It’s hard to enjoy some of the day when someone you love is hurting. Ache and loneliness are holes that seldom fill. As for my loved one, she is at least opting to have an extraordinarily simple meal of her choice to celebrate the day. In that way, she is lucky beyond compare. It’s ironic that our simple choices are envied by others. Those with a full table often envy a small personally chosen meal, while those with simplicity often find themselves wondering what a full table might bring.

While I’m no fan of the holiday, I am a genuine fan of the opportunity that the day can bring. At its heart, it is a day of companionship and love. It is a gong being rung in our hearts to remind us that this day, like all others, is not a given. I wish people could stop looking toward the pomp and ceremony of the preparations and instead take the chance to use the day to sit and laugh. And eat, too, yes. Whatever suits them, no matter how ridiculous or unexpected. Even the first Thanksgiving, the one we supposedly observe, resulted from what was available rather than what people wanted. Traditions are meaningless to me if they cannot be bent or broken when people want them to be something else.

Things? I need none.

Food? I’m more full now than I ever was while eating unhealthily. By focusing on less, I have more and enjoy it more.

Love? No gauge can ever read full in this regard.

Whatever number of days you have, you now have one fewer to sit and laugh. Take the small moments and hold them close to your heart. As you do, the larger moments will take care of themselves. You can’t have an empty life if you fully appreciate who and what you love in the small moments. Most of your life is lived in the intervals.

After all, the day is about having a hungry heart. Mine is ravenous.

P.S. A couple of links below, if you’re interested…

https://xteri.me/2018/11/22/xs-realistic-thanksgiving-list/ 2018

https://xteri.me/2019/05/06/the-clarion-misconception/ 2019

https://xteri.me/2016/11/23/a-thanksgiving/ 2016

New Word, Opinion, Religion, Social Rules

Ears. Heart. Mouth

11/22/2020 X Teri Leave a comment

I heard one of the best sermons in my life.

The problem is that I didn’t. I was dreaming.

The time change and my recent life have aligned to place me in the gauzy betweenworld of sleep and reality.

Yesterday, I watched the last episode of Bill Maher. One of the guests was Michael Eric Dyson, a preacher, professor, and activist. Another was Jon Meacham, a historian, and writer. Both were exceptional. Jon’s intelligence and ability to explain his ideas impressed me. Michael had the same gift, amplified with a poignant and natural turn of phrase. If I’ve learned nothing else about myself, I treasure these gifts.

Though I didn’t know I was dreaming, a writer invited me to attend an unfamiliar church on a Friday evening. As happens in dreams, I entered the church without any connecting events.

After a round of introduction and applause, a man approached the podium placed in front of the altar at the front of the church. He cleared his throat and began to speak:

“If you want to be a good person in life, the most important thing you own might be your ears. Your eyes are forever full of appetite and illusion. If you’re receptive to what you hear, you learn a lot of knowledge. But you also learn a lot of subtext and context that your eyes convert to confusion. If you educate yourself, your mouth allows you to share what you learn with others who hopefully have their ears open to different voices. But no matter how much you learn in life or what you achieve, if your heart isn’t open, you’ve wasted your life. Your heart shouldn’t be open only for what you see as God in your life. It should be open to people as they struggle. Because you have a lot of life experience, it would be easy to use the conduit between your ears and mouth to forget that whatever someone else is going through, they need your ears and heart to open long before they need your mouth. A welcome ear and a warm hand on one’s shoulder can cure more disorders than any amount of preaching. Present company excluded. If you have God in your heart, I believe you’re ahead of the game. But more importantly, just open your heart at every opportunity and figure out what’s keeping you from doing it all the time. Wide open. My message today is this: Ears. Heart. Mouth. Your achievements are meaningless otherwise. And all the knowledge? Dusty information doesn’t help anyone. Flex your fingers and arms for an embrace.”

The preacher took the papers from the podium and threw them into the air, and laughed.

“See? You weren’t expecting that! Sermons and life must contain unexpected moves – and laughter. Love one another as much as you can and listen. Amen.”

I’ll see you in the betweenworld sometime.

Eats, Food, Opinion

Pop Chips

11/15/2020 X Teri Leave a comment

I don’t remember when I tried Pop Chips for the first time. I don’t remember the 2500th, either. But I could fill all the pickups at a NASCAR race with the chips I’ve eaten since.

They are only 100 calories a bag. Under the “Anything that opens is just one serving” rule, these keep me from the insanity of opening a large bag of baked chips and discovering a large blob of regret at the bottom.

More importantly, though – the texture is perfection. Yes, the flavor is perfectly proportioned. It’s the texture that makes these chips sublime. When I eat them, though they aren’t heavy, they make me feel like I’ve eaten something substantial, much in the same way you’d lose your appetite if someone put a small frog in your mouth while you’re chewing. Except in a good way.

I eat mine with tuna, soup, lettuce, and would probably brush my teeth with them if I could figure out how to do it.

Sams Club sells a case of 30 for $12. I usually just run in, throw money at the manager, and scamper out with several cases. I’ve considered hijacking a semi-trailer full of them. So far, they keep varying the routes, so it’s hard to pick a suitable robbery location. Having a mask on all the time only exacerbates the whim to do this.

P.S. If you overeat this item, it does have the curious side effect of making you want to dress like a handmaiden. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

Eats, Food, Opinion, Product Review

Olé Xtreme Wellness tortillas

11/14/2020 X Teri 1 Comment

Obviously, reasonable people get their culinary advice from me. I didn’t go wrong with the plant-based alien-skin bacon, did I?

These tortillas are available in tomato, spinach, regular, and dirty cardboard flavor. The last one isn’t true. Not that I care. With the right spices, a lot of things suddenly acquire a new flavor and texture. Dogs bark for a reason.

Although not related, I think any product high in fiber shouldn’t attempt to use the word “regular” in its description. You’ll be regular.

Each tortilla is only 50 calories and each contains 38% of the recommended daily fiber you need. Most of us don’t even eat half the fiber we’re supposed to. If you’re not sure whether you are getting enough, eat two of these and sit patiently on the couch. You’ll have your answer sooner or later. Otherwise, have a big bowl of brown beans and sauerkraut. While it may not work for you, eating a lot of fiber has helped me in ways I wasn’t expecting – not the least of which is people now approach me with considerably more caution.

Unlike many of the other healthy alternative tortillas, the texture for these is normal. Normal by normal standards – not normal by mine, which present another range of potential issues.

I’ve been taking fiber supplements for several months. I’ve also eaten at least 100 packs of these tortillas this year. They allow me to eat less, more quickly, and feel full.

Just don’t start eating them until you discover if you normally eat enough fiber.

Or, ignore me and find out creatively. Go ahead and apologize to your family first, though.

Since I’m shouting out an opinion, I love these. They taste great and have a normal texture.

Language, New Word, Opinion

Oof

11/11/2020 X Teri Leave a comment

“Oof.”

Such a facile word, one rapid syllable. It is supposed to mean “expressing discomfort, surprise, or dismay.” Generally, it also is used to convey a gut-punch or calamity. A recent copyright dispute brought up the previous and singular connotation for the word.

As happens in life, the word transitioned for me without my recognizing it. It was an incremental change until the lever sprung, and it suddenly acquired a different meaning, much in the same way you peer into the eyes of someone you’ve known and see a depth that you’d skirted around unknowingly.

Oof: a sudden emotional reaction, usually characterized by intense pleasure or divination.

The word now carries a paralyzing and gossamer overtone for me.

I’ll ask you to whisper the word internally, in a quiet moment. Find a place, person, or time in your guarded heart of memories and say the word as you vividly remember it. If you pay homage sufficiently, you’ll be able to see “oof” in the same way.

The word is mine now.

It is shorthand for the unuttered but not unfelt contagion of bliss or glimpse of what lies beneath.

Opinion, Personal, Politics

Enigma

11/08/2020 X Teri 1 Comment

“I just want competency to be the standard for political office. All else is a distraction. I don’t need a leader. I need a decision-maker who takes pride in making the best available choice with the options given. Whether the person is a D or an R is a ridiculous modifier. We should have many political parties, with each staffed with the best, brightest, and most compassionate people. Governments not run by coalition fail us – and lead us to fail each other.” – X