Peas to Particles

Tonight I quite accidentally created a little masterpiece. I didn't feel up to cooking, but I didn't think Aaron would feel up to another night of just salad. From years of experience in the kitchen, I know that the tastiest, most satisfying "quick-meal" is a stir-fry. So I proceeded to gather my bounty, harvested earlier in the week from the Farmer's Market: kale, onion, tomato, cilantro, and fresh peas (in the pod, so quaint). I felt like Anne of Green Gables shelling those deliciously old-fashioned peas. I heated spices and onion: coriander, ginger, tumeric, cumin, salt, garlic, chilies. In twenty minutes I had stirred up a lovely veggie curry and then realized I would be enjoying it alone. I'd forgotten that he would be home late. I took my one-pot wonder, poured over a bed of fluffy basmati rice, to the front-porch, along with a home brew.

I knew I would be blogging about this, so I got the camera and snapped some pictures before I even had the first bite. While I ate, I mulled over how I would describe the dish, what interesting words would I use. These thoughts ran in the front of my mind, but lurking behind--a sort of metathought--was the notion of framing an experience in words as it is happening. The act of thinking about how I would tell the simple event actually changed the experience of the event. Like in quantum physics when a particle is altered the moment it is observed. No matter how I tried to stay in the moment, relish the flavors of my masterpiece, my fingers were itching for a pen...or the keyboard.