Lord Peter Wimsey & the Cabbage Witch
I’ve had an awful day with a bitch of a migraine that won’t let up. I wasn’t able to go to my second barre class because I’m feeling so miserable, but I’m trying to be kind to myself. My depression tends to increase when I’m sick or not feeling well overall, and I’m currently using one of the coping techniques I learned from CBT group therapy: to replace “so I can’t” with “and.” Instead of my inner voice saying, “I’m depressed so I can’t write a blog post,” it’s saying, “I’m depressed, and I’m writing a blog post.” The depression isn’t a roadblock; it’s a piece of luggage in the car.
Since I wasn’t able to attend barre fitness class today (or do any other kind of physical exertion for that matter), I will instead recount the events of yesterday’s dinner. In an attempt to not let the accidentally acquired cabbage go to waste, I jumped online and searched for “quick and easy cabbage recipes.” Number one result was cabbage rolls. I chose the cabbage roll recipe that looked the tastiest with the highest reviews, did a quick jaunt to the grocery for the few ingredients that weren’t in our pantry, and after I finished work for the day, I started what the recipe claimed was a 45 minute prep.
The recipe lied.
Undoubtably, this recipe takes 45 minutes to prepare if you are an old hand at boiling cabbage. I read the line in the recipe, “Boil cabbage for about two minutes,” to mean that after the pot of water was boiling, I would add the cabbage and wait two minutes and remove the boiled cabbage to continue with the recipe. Nope. The line read further: “Boil cabbage for about two minutes. Remove the leaves as they become tender, and return to pot.” Each damn layer of the head of cabbage had to be boiled until loose enough to pull off. I now have eternal respect for any and every person who has ever boiled a cabbage.
The rest of the recipe prep was easy enough: cook rice/chop garlic, onion and parsley/brown the ground meat (I used ground beef and turkey) with chopped veg. It was just the onerous task of cabbage boiling that took ages. Once all the ingredients were prepared and mix together and then wrapped and rolled in the accursed cabbage leaves, it was after 8 o’clock and the friend we had invited to dinner was about to arrive. The cabbage rolls need to bake covered in tomato sauce for over an hour, and then sit for 15 minutes before serving. Luckily, my friend brough wine and we had a ton of talk to catch up on while I washed the million dishes I had used. Two hours total prep and cook time, my ass…
In the end, the cabbage that was not to be wasted turned into quite tasty cabbage rolls. I would consider making them again with a few alterations in the tomato sauce and the spice/herb ingredients. I mentioned to my husband and our dinner guest that before I attempt this recipe again, I would need to search online for the proper method of boiling cabbage. They immediately corrected me that I should instead search for the quickest and easiest method, since the “proper” method of boiling cabbage might involve sojourning into the woods of Eastern Europe with a cauldron in search of the Cabbage Witch. The Cabbage Witch is now cannon in our apartment lore. We also now have an enormous container of leftover cabbage roll stuffing in the freezer. If I do make this again, I’ve making a quarter of the recipe.
On the getting-books-off-my-“to-be-read/listened-to” front, I spent some of my miserable headachy day today listening the BBC Radio dramatization of the final Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novel. I love the Wimsey series by Dorothy L. Sayers, and I have the first six Lord Peter books in unabridged audiobook, but no one recorded the last few books unabridged. I did, however, find that the BBC made radio dramatizations of all the novels except for “Lord Peter Views the Body,” which is a collection of short stories. I’ve enjoyed listening to the old radio-show style, with the sound effects and period music. It helps me sometimes when I’ve got a bad headache to focus solely on something, and the audiobooks are a great help with this, as I can just listen and focus on the story and my headache isn’t exacerbated by bright light while trying to focus on words on a page.
And there. You see? I sat down and wrote a blog post in spite of my constant companion depression. My head even feels a little bit better now. I’ve learned that my depression isn’t going to just up and fly away, so instead of trying to ignore it, I use the tools I’ve been taught to continue living my life in its company.
