Habits & Cinnamon Rolls

 -A delicious lack of self-control.-

I had intended to keep things nice and light with the start of 2015. A life filled with contemplation and reflection. Perhaps yoga, too.

I've always been bemused by the phrase, "drop it like a bad habit." We don't. Or rarely ever. Bad habits are like wet over coats. Clumsy, thick, and drenched. We get tangled up in them and once they finally fall to the floor they have to be heaved about, the mess cleaned, and tossed away. We pray that perhaps they'll end the way we hope a marriage doesn't; with one quietly gathering their belongings, and slipping out in the middle of the night without saying saying goodbye.

So it is the same with good habits, like trying to convince your body that of course it can fit into a shoe four sizes to small. JUST WORK AT IT! It used to fit back in college!

So yes, 2015 was going to be filled with cardio, core fitness, and salad with friends I didn't see enough of.

And then came the champagne brunch and the eight trays of homemade cinnamon rolls I made.

The habit may have left in the middle of the night. Then it came back and egged the house.

Oh well…

At least 2015 looks like it'll taste good with friends, instead.

-Commitment to oneself never involves frosting, which is why so often it fails.-

Culinary Ennui: Garlic and Parmesan Bread

-It's strange how little I actually write about garlic on here.-

I'd like to take some time and talk about forgotten foods.

Right now, we need to be able to step aside and re-evaluate the foods we once loved, foods each of us once personally thrived upon once out of necessity, and re-embrace them.

For those of you who went to college or moved out on your own for the first time I want you to remember ramen. Remember? Those fifty cent packets of Styrofoam noodles and flavor pouches that you once subsisted on when you were penny poor and your couch was a hand-me-down? Lunch, dinner, and even a few breakfasts consisted of five-minute noodles and powders filled with MSG, sodium, and many other delicious and unpronounceable chemical compounds. If you learned how to really make it work and turn it into a healthy meal you started tossing the packets and began to use chicken broth. You sauteed garlic and onions, and added them to the soup. You plonked in slivers of radishes and the radish greens because a bunch of radishes were only a dollar.

You didn't bemoan these meals (well, not often). This was because they were your first foray into self-reliability. The ramen was a means of living and eating. It was a codex that brought your social circle together and gave you a common, affordable food to bond over. It was what got you through the slag of finals, the heartache of another electric bill you somehow had to pay, and what you made to celebrate the passing of both.

Now that you're years out of college, have found success, and sit at a desk for a grownup job how often are you eating ramen? When was the last time you even thought about it?