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[Risotto con Verdure dal Congelatore]

Author's Note: It seems that getting pictures on the forum is somewhat more complicated than I am presently prepared to deal with.

Risotto con Verdure dal Congelatore

To make this dish, you first must accept that somewhere along the line you became the kind of horrible person that spends all your money on books and cameras and wine and books and such, and has to scrounge for food because would you just look at the price of potatoes these days!?!

Risotto con Verdure dal Congelatore is a spiritual descendant of the "Whatever the Hell's in the Fridge" gumbo that we all fondly remember from when we first struck out on our own and realized that come the first of the month someone shows up to take all of your food money.  It differs, though, in that now you're the kind of person who has fourteen different kinds of vinegar and eight different types of rice in the pantry.

To begin, find the lid to the enormous Dutch oven sitting menacingly in the corner.  Or a cast-iron skillet.  Or the $3 Ikea skillet you bought as a high school for that one cooking project and inexplicably still have.  Basically, something with sides that you can stick over a burner without immediately setting your apartment on fire.  Got it?  Good.  Stick it on the range and crank up the heat underneath.

Open your freezer and start rooting around—we both know that there are large bags of frozen vegetables sitting in the back, taking up space, and desperately wishing to be in some way involved in the kitchen—it's their lucky day!   Grab your onions and tomato and spinach, or your kale and broccoli and carrots, or some other combination of vegetables that sounds like it can fend of scurvy until payday, and throw them in the pan with a generous pour of olive oil.  Scrumble it up with a wooden spoon, and let the vegetables thaw and begin to cook.

Once they vegetables have started to heat up, throw in a few handfuls of rice--Arborio if you're feeling particularly fancy--and a few heavy pours of whatever stock or broth happens to be laying around.  Or a bouillon cube and some water.  Maybe water and some balsamic vinegar.  Some sort of liquid that has any kind of flavor.  Dump some dried rosemary and thyme on top of whole affair, mix it again, and let it cook until the liquid is almost gone, then pour a little more in.  Continue this process until the rice is soft and edible.

Top with leftover chicken and black pepper.  Serve with the beer that's been in the back of your refrigerator for as long as you can remember.  Remember to buy food next payday.

I was a Buddhist for most of my life.  I was a Zen Buddhist for most of that time.  Zen Buddhism is a community practice, with half of the year being dedicated to Ango—literally translated as "dwelling in peace."  During Ango, you work hard on yourself, and work hard to fit into the group.  In the chanting, your voice is lost in a sea of other voices.  In working, your work is done selflessly and with no hope or idea of ever finishing.  A teacher once compared Ango to the process rocks go through in a polisher—they bump up against each other, wear down the sharp edges, and come out more beautiful than before.  In a way, I suppose that's true.  When you give up your will, things go swimmingly.  No need to think about your work assignment, food, clothing, or what you'll be doing for basically all of your time.

Life is a rock tumbler, and when you take the metaphor out of the carefully curated and maintained monastic environment, you can see its dark side.  It's not polishing—it's grinding down.  Wake up early, spend the day at work, go home and sit in front of a screen until it's time to go to bed and do the whole thing over again.  The Ango of everyday life grinds the fundamental nature and vitality out of a once-dignified, unapologetic, and real person.

What can you do?

Get the hell out.  Maybe you're stuck in a job or a city or a circumstance from which there is no immediate prospect of extrication.  Realizing it is the trick—once you understand what's going on, you get to make the choice of "in" or "out."  Choose "out."  Spend your eight hours a day at your job, because you're an adult and you don't shirk your obligations, but understand on a deep level that you're moving upstream against a lie that washes all of us straight to hell.  It has to take time, and it will be subtle, but every person that moves against the stream puts pressure on the damned thing.  The lie is that "success" lies in how others perceive you, or the size of your paycheck.  The lie is that success is something that you need to get from Them.

Fuck Them.  The rock polisher changes you into something that other people find appealing.  Let them dive head first into the machine if it's what they want to do.  Plot your escape; make good your escape.  Be wrong—vigorously, go to somewhere that makes you uncomfortable, find something important to do and do it like it's the last thing you'll do.

I escaped from the rock polisher, and I'm deeply okay with being lumpy and pointy and not nice to look at.  Ugly pointy rocks are the kind that people remember when they see the scars on their knees.  The pretty ones get tossed in a sack in a box in a drawer and are promptly forgotten.

What is enlightenment?