I disappeared from food blogger cyberspace again, didn’t I.
I’m sorry.
A few years ago I did the same thing and wrote about when I went missing in action. However, that was only for a few months. This time, it’s been over a year. I’ve been drafting and redrafting this post ever since I listened to Adele’s comeback single, Hello, it’s me back in December, and was inspired to get back into blogging again. And therefore, if this post creaks a bit and the flow isn’t quite there, please understand and allow me a bit of time to adjust back into writing.
At the start of last year, one of my friends shared a picture of how this would be a year when I go deeper with God, richer like when you boil beef for a long time to make a rich broth that is delicious.
I didn’t realise that this richness would come out of a (relatively) short season of depression, rejection, various relationship mishaps, misunderstandings, and self-loathing as I gained almost 10kg and couldn’t motivate myself to do anything. This coincided with an extended hot season in Cambodia which exaggerated all the ugly parts of me. Believe me, nobody tries harder than I do, to assassinate my own self-esteem and point out all my character deficiencies. In that hot season, I felt like I was boiling in every sense. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, and as a result, all the ucky scum of my nature was coming up to the surface.¹ You know like when you make a good stock. *wink, wink* It was an act of grace, someone chasing me up to hand in an essay that was long overdue, that helped snap me out of my funk.
It’s taken a few months of being honest, refusing to indulge in the negative thought patterns, eating well, exercising regularly and laughing A LOT to get my equilibrium back. In the recovery, I’d choose to laugh and laugh SO hard that it felt restorative and that the joy would continue, past that evening and carry on into the next morning, and even the following week.
So, I guess it makes sense that I tell you about a recipe that involves making a rich beef broth! Except I won’t in this post. Funnily enough, I made one recently with beef rib bones for Tteokguk, a.k.a Korean New Year Rice Cake Soup while I was in the middle of writing this post. (The photos are from that time, which may give you an indication of how long this post has been lurking in the drafts folder.) There was a lot of simmering, skimming of the scum and the resulting stock was indeed rich, but a bit too rich for me for tteokguk. I’ll hone the tteokguk recipe a bit more before I write it up. So, instead of a recipe, I’ll leave you with an excerpt from one of my favourite authors, Isobel Kuhn:
¹On the ship on the way to China, a veteran missionary was meeting with the new girls going over, and one day she said, “Girls, when you get to China, all the scum of your nature will rise to the top.” Isobel was shocked. Scum? Was that not a strong word? All of us were nice girls, were we not? Scum? A bit extravagant surely. And so I was totally unprepared for the revolt of the flesh which was waiting for me on China’s shores. The day was to come when on my knees in the Lord’s presence I had to say: ‘Lord, scum is the only word to describe me.’” – Isobel Kuhn, In the Arena