All blogging has been moved to web.me.com/commodoreela

cheers.

Ohhhh kitchen...

Chef F is running the restaurant right now.  Today was the first day and I have to admit--I'm completely overwhelmed.  

El C and the PDX, head to head.

The ex called me on Sunday.  He's the good one.

"El C" calls me to shoot the shit almost every Sunday, like it's a bad compulsion.  Since the first week we met he has called me every Sunday, like I'm his one religious habit.  I used to find this incredibly annoying (right after the break up) but it's now taken on a certain endearing quality.  For all our arguing and the world's most dramatic breakup, it doesn't derail the fact that we want to be in each others lives.  I thought this meant it was becoming a real friendship.

Apparently not.  El C is all declarations of love these days, all tears and whines that I left Chicago, nothing but long lists of apologies...he keeps saying this awful phrase: "I can be the man you want".  He doesn't seem to understand that there's nothing wrong with the way he is right now, never was anything wrong with him.  It's been a year now and I still have to explain that I adore him, adore all the people in my life, but we're just not going to be in the same place for a while.  This time though, when I tell him, he offers to move out here.

You know, I almost said yes.  I thought about how much I need a friend, a person to hang out with and talk movies with and make stupid faces at.  Someone who understands that I'm quiet when I think and loud when I don't, which is why you want me quiet during a conversation.  He knows the important stuff:  leave her alone when she's reading, unless real madrid is playing.  Make sure the books are around, there is food to cook, things to do with my hands.  He gets all that, of course I want him here!  Until I remember he wants to be here to be with me and that's just something I can't have right now.

So, I say no.  He demands to know if there is anyone else and I tell him the truth, I've got nothing but me and a few close friends.  No boyfriends or lust on the horizon.  I'm busy though, career is in check, I am in check, life is mostly in check...I'm making it work, you know?  I miss him being my best friend but I can't invite him back into my life in any other way.  He insists this means he needs to stop talking to me.  I guess that was inevitable but it made my Sunday totally miserable.  Luckily, there were a couple of bright spots to the day.

The whole ordeal made me homesick.  I know why I came here, at least the reason I put on paper, but I miss home in an unimaginable way now.  Maybe it's because I spoke to so many Chicagoans on Sunday, maybe it's because one of them was hating Portland so passionately (or hating me, that's a story for another day entirely) or maybe it's just because it's fucking Chicago but I lost my shit today.  I started calling people, craving news from home.  Started making mexican food like I was possessed by a dozen abuelitas--I fell into complete regret about the choice I had made.

I'm okay now but for a while there...too, too rough.

Let's see what this week brings.

Poverties

I gots a bad case of the poverties and an even worse case of the no externships.

Whaddaya think about them apples?

Random Before Bed Thought

I keep getting asked why I don't have a food blog.  Here's the business:

I don't want this to be a food blog.  I love food blogs, I read them all of the time but I can't make this a food blog.  My own love of food is rooted in my love of people and that happy tummy face someone makes when you feed them right.  My life is pretty wrapped up in food learning, food fixing and food talk right now.  

You'll get food musings, no doubt.  This blog is for word vomit though.

When I feel like writing something with a purpose, I'll at least clean up my fuckin language.

Espain

I just sent an email to a potential externship site in SPAIN.

Consider me super nervous.  Fingers crossed.....now!

Canada? No. I don't live in Canada.

The first thing I should mention is that I moved to Portland, Oregon.

                                                                                                                                      

 

In the most unpredictable of moves I decided to not only stay in the country, but leave 

the one city I insisted was the only one worth living in: Chicago.  

Let me break it down for you:

I was in Chicago, wrapping up my senior year of college and working as a nanny.  I liked being a nanny a lot but I don't want to spend my whole life watching other folks' kids and I knew I certainly wasn't going to use my Latin American Studies degree.  I went into total life-crisis mode, brought to me live and in technicolor by the wonderful people at Depaul University and the tuition bills I will be paying back until I am 105.  So what did I do?  I crawled into bed and I watched the food network.

Most of the chefs on the food network are total nuts; women who cook cleavage first, men who have more ego than salt (and, let me tell you, a cook needs a helluva lotta salt).  I started thinking about food though, thinking about who was making it, wondering what was happening beyond the celebrity chef/foodie world.  I started picking up cook books and really reading them, I mean READING them.  

Know what happened?  I didn't learn shit but I got jealous.  I got jealous that all these people were devoting their lives to food and I was on the fast track to a cubicle job in some dank HR department.  How dare those assholes devote their lives to what they love, I can't do it!  Yeah, well, fuck that, turns out I can.

I decided I needed to get out of Chicago and do something with food.  I loves me the Chi-city, but I knew I'd be stagnant if I stayed there.  They have a wonderful food scene, one of the best in the nation, but I just couldn't be there anymore.  I started shopping around for something new and I found Portland.  I've been here since August 2008.

It's relaxed here.  I feel like people move the way I move, and I like the way we move.  I like the food carts and the farmers markets and the generalized laughter at the hilarity and weirdness that is my life now.  Currently. I'm a culinary student on a massive job hunt.  

I'm not saying this is the right choice.  I'm broke as a joke but I don't feel the nausea on this path that I did when I was on the cubicle trail.  Before, I was familiar with food as an occasional hobby but never even considered it as a career.  Honest: I'm no hot shot, no superstar.  Hell, by no means am I even skilled in a kitchen.  I'm going to be though.  I might not be good (yet) but I'm super food-curious.  Oh, and I also carry a big knife.

Maybe...

...I haven't posted anything in about two years.  

A lot has changed (reference image) and after I walk my dog, I'mna update the shit outta ya.

My X-rated Life.

I used to be an average college student. I ate ten cent wings, knew where all the dollar specials were, drank without rhyme or reason and stressed about all my finals. I'm not saying I've forgotten the past but the future is looking bad. The future is looking like it'll be covered in the fluorescent orange that comes off of Cheetos and sticky with Dr. Pepper. I am officially obsessed with the X-files.

Am I nerd? yes, always have been. Do I like sci-fi? NO. I have no idea what's gotten into me. An example of recent psychosis? When the credits are ending the words "the truth is out there" always flash across the screen. It sends me into a trance. I actually said "yes" in response the other day. I said it out loud. I had to judge myself after doing that.

A week later, I started wondering why I never got into comic books. I am NOT an indoor kid!

Within a month, I'll be holding D&D tournaments in the basement.

From the title of this post, did you think I finally got a job as a phone sex operator? Yes, I too am aware of my voice and what my obvious calling in life is.