Sunday Soliloquy, #1

A new feature to serve as a round-up for thoughts and lessons of the week.  Since a soliloquy is the “act of talking to oneself,”  it’s the perfect word for my low-readership blog!

• Culinary lesson of the week: Shred your own cheese!  A friend of a friend who’s a former chef said that he always sheds his own cheese.  I thought it was because of the dryness with more exposed surface area but he said he dislikes the additives used to prevent clumping (dextrose).  Now that I’ve learned that, I can’t untaste the powder in my current bags of cheese.
• Swedish Death Cleaning.  After disparaging/mocking the KonMari method to my sister last night, I think this method might be better.  My main issue with the KonMari method is that it’s hard to only focus on joy when decluttering.  One, I don’t love the chore of organizing and two, there are a lot more emotions tied up with belongings than joy/not-joy.  Swedish Death Cleaning can also apply to moving and since I’m hoping to move next Summer, I think this will be helpful.  Now, all of my adult possessions fit into a one-bedroom apartment so I don’t think I’m too much of a hoarder, but my wardrobe and trip souvenir detritus could use a little pruning.
• California Day Trip Idea: Point Lobos Loop Trail  This looks beautiful!
• Blog Goals: I really want to focus on itineraries for places.  I feel like I plan trips really well and maybe I can show that you really can fit a lot in without being super-stressed.  I don’t feel stressed on my trips- I love them!  I’m taking a fiction writing class and I had a “fictional” itinerary that received the feedback that obviously it was overly ambitious and that would be a good plot point to create conflict when the itinerary didn’t happen.  Well, false!  It totally can.  Although for my fiction writing, I think the feedback actually has merit for creating an interesting story.
• Online Shopping High/Low: So, I bought a grill pan from Williams-Sonoma (discount!) and I grilled a perfect steak with instructions from my meat CSA (no, I’m not kidding about the existence of a meat CSA).  So, it was awesome except grilling inside produces about as much smoke as grilling outside so my apartment becomes quite smoky.  The birds don’t seem to mind though- probably because I’m not cooking chicken?
• Do YOU want instructions on perfect indoor grilling?  Below is a screenshot from the CSA newsletter (although I recommend a 3 minute sear on each side instead of 90 seconds because it was ahi tuna-style raw initially and had to go back into the oven).