Market to MOHAI and the Failure to Bounce Back
(and spicy fried farro with kale)
I don’t know enough about the moon and the stars to be able to say that cosmic movements are behind whatever it is that’s been happening to me all week, but I am struggling to feel excited about anything. Forget feeling excited; I’m barely making it through the days without feeling like I’ve climbed a mountain. Even now, every word I have written so far feels like a slog. Maybe it’s the moon? Is Mercury doing something? I don’t know, but I have found myself interrupting work to go for a walk, in the hopes that “maybe it will jog me out of this funk” only to return home and stare at the computer, unable to focus on anything. I hope it’s not just me.
On one of those desperation walks, I ended up following the Market to MOHAI path, trying to be mindful of the quotes that I seldom bother to even stop and read. As the name suggests, Market to MOHAI is a pedestrian path between Pike Place Market and the Museum of History and Industry on South Lake Union, thus connecting two of downtown Seattle’s major waterfront areas. The path is lined with historical plates and tiles on the pavement with quotes from major cultural and literary figures. What I love about this walk is that it’s one of those that you can turn into an event onto itself, just reading and reflecting, or you can let it guide you into parts of this city that perhaps you don’t always pay attention to when you’re minding other things. I also love the fact that it’s an intentional thing that exists for no other purpose but to delight you and me, walking along this gorgeous city that has certainly seen better days but seems to weather it all with grace.
Next time you find yourself somewhere around here, I encourage you to look down at your feet, see if you can find one of the blue tiles, see if the words make you stop and wonder for a while.
Not long ago I used to walk past the empty places all along this corridor, places that used to be the sites of my stories, where I went to find friends or to be alone. I think about how much I missed those places and those times and how readily I thought I would welcome a return to everything, to myself, as soon as we’re able. And we are, suddenly able, and I’m totally lost. The places are full of people and my social media feeds tell me that everyone is “outside,” yet I can’t shake the feeling that I’m failing to match the energy. I can’t help but feel frustrated with myself, to yell internally “just get over yourself and get back to normal,” but then I sit down to drinks and my palms are sweating. I can’t do small talk, or I talk way too much, about everything (says the woman who writes a newsletter for no reason at all other than to just talk…about everything).
In some ways, I’m not the same person I was when this thing started back in 2020, all those years ago. There are parts of the old me that I miss and hope to get back. Like her confidence, her ability to capture a person with her stories. Her love of meeting new people. Her enthusiastic embrace of new places. I don’t want to let go of that woman. But this new woman also has gifts that I don’t want to lose. She’s less afraid to talk about hard things, even if it doesn’t win her friends. She’s learning how to say no, to set better boundaries, to seek rest as an activity all onto itself. She knows how strong she actually is, which is something that I hope all of us have learned about ourselves, standing here in the midst of all this grief and healing and still finding it in our hearts and minds to reach out to each other, to be vulnerable to the pain of reconnecting in what we have painfully learned is such a frail and fleeting existence.
Without getting too “woe is me, I survived a horrible pandemic without losing a loved one or my home or my job,” I would like to make space for this tenderness that some of us may be feeling. This sense of failure and disappointment for those of us who can’t seem to bounce back quite as readily. A calling card, if you will, for those of us for whom uncertainty is the central feeling right now. Not to mention all this weird stuff with the planets.
I think we’ll be okay. But, also, as those Instagram quotes say, it’s okay to not be okay. ___
Something to Cook: spicy fried farro with kale (and an optional but very good fried egg)
Here’s the thing about farro. I love this grain, but I used to struggle with cooking it until I figured out (by way of my aunt) that trying to cook it like rice or other grains was my pitfall. Once I learned to cook it like pasta, everything changed. So, that’s the lesson here: cook your farro like you would a dried pasta and you never have to worry again about water-to-farro ratios, cooking times, pearled or unpearled, etc etc. Also, as you’ll quickly realize, this is less a recipe and more a warm thing to throw together in about 20 minutes. That’s why it’s one of my weekday staples and why I have eaten it three times this week.
Note: the Calabrian chili paste I used here is the Bomba sauce from Trader Joe’s, which has a wonderful kick of acid. I have previously made this with regular red chili flakes that I mixed with a little lemon, vinegar and olive oil to create a paste.
Ingredients
Farro (I cooked half a cup)
Shallot: 1, finely diced (or sliced or whatever you like)
Garlic: 3 cloves, sliced (or whatever you like)
Calabrian chili paste: 2 tablespoons (use less if you want to tone down the heat)
Kale: thinly sliced into bite size pieces
Olive oil, salt, freshly ground black pepper ad nauseam
Cook the farro:
Bring to a boil a pot of well-salted water and add the farro, stir a couple of times and then let it cook just like pasta for about 11 minutes before you start tasting it for your preferred texture. For me, the chewy al dente is perfect right around 12-13 minutes. Drain and thoroughly wash with cold water to stop the cooking, then set it aside while you prep your onions, garlic and kale.
Put it all together:
Into a cold pan or skillet add your olive oil, shallot and garlic all at once and bring it up to medium heat (obviously also seasoning with salt and freshly ground black pepper). Slowly heating the oil together with the aromatics is an important step because there are so few ingredients here and you need a well-seasoned, garlicky oil to coat the farro.
After about four minutes of sauteing, add the chili paste and stir to combine.
Then add the kale and let it wilt before adding the farro. Then it’s about five minutes of sauteing, while you stir constantly so everything is well combined.
Top with a fried egg or a bulb of creamy burrata or whatever else you fancy. The farro is your oyster.
I hope you enjoy, and I truly hope that next week is better for us all.