I need a carrot

I wake up at 1:30 am with a headache and a dog who wants to play. I let her out for a pee, drink a tall glass of water, then go back to bed. I flop around for a while, writing an email in my head to the trainer at the gym who will be expecting me at 6am. “I don’t think I’ll make it,” it reads, then I sleep until my alarm goes off at 5:35am. My head is still aching in a distant, veiled kind of way as I consider the email I wrote in my head several hours before. And as always, all of the thinking about not going wakes me up. I reach for my gym clothes that I laid out the night before and get dressed in the gray light of the bathroom. 

I’ve been doing this routine, three times a week, for many years now. It began after delivering my third son, when my back kept giving out. “You need to strengthen it in order to keep things in working order,” they said. Then came the anterior cruciate ligament, torn in two while skiing and talking over my shoulder on a smooth beginner run. “You need to strengthen it in order to keep things in working order,” they said. Then the right shoulder, dislocated as I slipped through the wintry village of Big White in inappropriate footwear, trying to take pictures of the white capped, marshmallowy rooftops. “You need to strengthen it in order to keep things in working order,” they said. I still dread waking up early, every time. But I’ve grown to love my gym community, the familiar chat and support, and the supreme feeling of joy as I drive home when the city is still quiet, knowing I’ve done it and coffee isn’t far away. 

I’ve just googled ‘dangling a carrot in front of a horse.’ Images pop up on my screen of riders holding make-shift sticks with a carrot attached by a string. Ponies trot slowly toward the carrot never reaching it, but alway moving forward anyway. The difference here is that I win the prize - my coffee is hot, kissed by a touch of frothy milk. I’m just about to take a sip. 

There are many carrots throughout my day, my week:

I write through the morning, knowing there will be biscuits with soup for lunch. They’re the Southern American kind, meant to be served for breakfast with eggs and bacon and pimento cheese, but I can eat them anytime. I heard about this recipe when the hosts of a podcast mentioned their favourite breakfast place when visiting New Orleans - Willa Jean - where they order a hot biscuit, sometimes two or three, every morning. This sent me on a desperate mission to find the recipe. I love my aunt Susan’s recipe (flour, salt, butter, baking powder, sugar and milk) or Sally Frawley’s sweeter, Seven-up ‘scone’ version which can be pulled in a salt or savoury direction depending on your mood. But Southerners know their biscuits, so I kept googling, over hot coffee, and found the recipe here. But please note -  it’s the kind of recipe that asks you to freeze the finished product for at least 12 hours before baking. I usually deflate when I read these words; my true self wants immediate satisfaction. But knowing I have a tray of biscuits ready for the oven perched in the freezer on top of frozen cranberries and popsicles nudges me through the day, like a horse to a carrot. 

And then there’s Violet Bakery’s egg yolk chocolate chip cookies. They also benefit from a few hours in the freezer, so I make a batch in the morning, form them into balls then freeze them, knowing I’m only twenty or so minutes away from the best, richest, chewiest yet still crispy cookie around. I don’t make them on the same day as the biscuits. These things need to be doled out slowly. You can't rush incentive. 

Or the pile of chopped rhubarb that I simmer down with lemon and sugar, slowly, until it turns into a thick ‘rhubarb butter’. This simple concoction keeps (at my latest count) for a week in the fridge and is perfect spooned over yogurt and granola, ice cream, or dolloped over a warm biscuit with butter or whipped cream. 

And my latest carrot discovery, marinated feta. I chop feta into a bowl and add lots of olive oil, fresh herbs, lemon, a good pinch of chili flakes and sliced green onions for sharpness, then I leave it for the day, knowing that it could be a dip, I could spoon it over soup or stir it into warm lentils or farro with some roasted vegetables for dinner. 

I pushed my shopping cart around the grocery store earlier this week with AirPods in my ears, re-listening to an episode of OnBeing¹ from 2016 with host Krista Tippet in conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of books like Eat Pray Love and Big Magic. I don’t have a great memory - I search for words, for names, for reasons why I entered a room, several times a day - but I can remember, seven years ago, Elizabeth Gilbert telling Tippet that she has a theory that everything interesting in life is 90% boring. Gilbert says - 

Marriage, I mean good Lord can there be anything more fascinating than joining two souls together in union and to spend a life entwined? 90% boring!

Raising children, I am not a mother but I am a God mother and an aunt and I know that raising children is hard labour, and then there’s the moment where you realize, this is a spark of creation that I am working with and this is magic and I’m seeing life through new eyes. 

And creativity is the same. Ninety percent of the work is tedious, but if you can stick through those parts, and not rush through those parts that have the most possibility of transforming you, but to stay with it to the moment of transformation, and through that to the other side, then very interesting things will happen through very boring frameworks.

I finish my coffee, put my mug in the dishwasher and wipe up the coffee grounds that always spill onto the counter. Then, I think about breakfast. And that’s why I take care of my body, I’ve learned, so I can drink coffee, eat breakfast, write, walk the dog and think about the food that I’ll enjoy later in the day and the stories they will bring. It’s as joyful and boring as that. 

Marinated Feta

This is a flexible recipe. Try other herbs, less or more feta, preserved lemon if you have it, fennel seed would be lovely, fennel fronds too. Experiment!

For this batch, I began with -

150g (almost 1 cup) feta, roughly chopped

3 tbsp each roughly chopped parsley, dill and basil

3 green onions, (scallions) white ends only, finely chopped

A good pinch of chilli flakes (or thinly sliced fresh red chili if you have it)

Zest and juice of 1 lemon 

3 sun dried tomato slices, chopped

1/2- 2/3 cup olive oil 

Several good twists of pepper 

A pinch of sea salt to taste, depending on the saltiness of the feta

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, stirring well to coat the feta. Cover and refrigerate for 12-24 hours so the flavours have time to mingle. Take feta from the fridge about 30 minutes before serving to allow it to reach room temperature. 

I tossed this batch through 250g of cooked farro and a tray of chopped and roasted peppers and sweet potatoes. The marinated feta provided a built-in dressing, a pop of green and a punch of flavour. 

1. On Being: Elizabeth Gilbert Choosing Curiosity Over Fear