resolutions

as usual, XE is late with her new year's resolutions. she's not especially fired up about this kind of thing, actually. but it's something to blog about, and her bloggy well has run dry. her chi, apparently, is being held captive by the many unpacked boxes still sitting around. that it should come thus, yadda yadda....

but here goes...Xtreme English's resolutions for 2010:

1. for 2010, i resolve to quit cooking. or at least slow it waaaay down. according to the raw foodies, cooking is NOT GOOD. it destroys vital enzymes needed to digest food properly. cooking also destroys germs, however, and that icky raw taste, especially in chicken. i am not ready to do the whole raw food thing like my friend mary t. does. mary t. drove off cancer with raw foods, and she sticks to it now, several years later. but i can deal with my cyclical aversion to raw fruits and veggies not in season.

2. for 2010, i also resolve to eat out at least once a day at Francis Carry-Out, which is just a few blocks from my new digs. Francis in theory is open only from 6:30am to 11am every day. except it's open more than that, and when it's open, you can get food there if you can live with what they've already got prepared. the cooks are all from el salvador, and the salvadoran cuisine is my favorite. i consider it head and shoulders over mexican, with which it's often confused. but never mind that. a fresh, hot tortilla or pupusa from Francis is worth its weight in gold. ditto a serving of huevos rancheros. i watched them cook it this am, and the secret seems to be the corn oil in which it's all...kind of...boiled.

this morning, too, one of the other clients handed me a dish full of sliced japaleno peppers and motioned me to add it to my huevos. he also pointed to a small bottle of EXTRA HOT sauce, "naturally colored," which appeared to be kind of mauve. I tried the pepper slices, and i loved them, and my fellow diner beamed.

i should point out that the other thing about Francis is that there is a MAJOR language barrier. i can read spanish just fine, but whoo boy, try to get some food if you can't say what you want so that the cooks can understand it. i'm thinking of drawing some pictures to bring along: pollo--i have lots of practice chickens from my LRH cartoons, guacamole--little bumpy green things. But they seem to have accepted me and my shrugs and puzzled looks. gracias a dio.

i also enjoyed some chocolate de leche--a generous plastic cup filled to the brim with HOT milk and just the right amount of chocolate syrup. they fill it so full you can't put the lid down tight without making it run over. and are you ready for the price? $3.25(plus tip) for the whole breakfast! cathy and i wandered in about 1 pm today because they were still open, and we got two homemade tamales for $2.50.

(please note that this is not really contradicting #1, which was simply to stop cooking so much. it said nothing at all about what i actually would eat....)

3. i resolve to get a real job. this retirement gig has been fun, but it's not good for a shy person like me to be sitting around all day by myself--even though i may be gainfully employed while doing so. just what kind of a job remains to be seen. maybe Francis will let me trim the banana leaves and sweep the floor.

4. i resolve to be open to living in a warmer place. the older i get, the more i understand dante's lowest circle of hell being COLD! and, as eunoia, formerly ole phat stu, said earlier this year, heaven is actually hotter than hell. i'm all for it, though heaven can wait. florida, maybe, or...el salvador???