And so it happened...

I miss my mom. Everyone misses my mom. There are days I miss her so much it hurts and days that I smile at the memories. 

The first year after she died was probably one of the hardest years of my life. Dealing with what the experts say "all the firsts". The first Mother's Day, the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, her first birthday without her. All so difficult. At times, buying eggs would set me off down the grief path. Crying in the grocery store for no real good reason, other than grief. 

As the years progressed those days still hurt and I still feel her loss so acutely. 

Every year I usually have a very hard day on the day we lost her, January 17th. I usually spend the day in and out of crying fits. And I usually don't realize why I'm so sad until half the day is over. Once I realize what the day is, I tend to "feel better".

This year...this year Jan 17th flew by and I didn't even notice. I realized yesterday that I missed feeling sad that day and didn't even think about it. Then I felt sad for not remembering. 

Grief is such an interesting thing and it's true what people said that you will eventually start just remembering ALL the days, feeling sad when you need to, keeping memories alive all the time, and one day you just won't care what day is what. 

Oddly I feel like I let mom down. Like somehow not remembering her on the day she died is letting go of her some how. Yet I know in my heart I think about her every day or a memory (good or bad) comes to mind every day. She's here in me. Shit, I've turned into her on so many levels it's like she's been reincarnated (only as a democrat).

Finally I realized, it's ok. She's still in my heart. And skipping feeling sad on the day she died is ok. It's been an odd year, so I'm not surprised I forgot. 

Hot Stove Virtual Cooking Class

I've been blathering on and on today about this cooking class and I figured I might as well go into more details here. I mean, that is what this blog is for right? 

Our company postponed our holiday party and today we finally had it. A poll was put out about what type of virtual thing we should do and the cooking class won. So our amazing office manager arranged it and today we all cooked. 

The cooking class was through a company called Hot Stove. And the class was with Chef Tom Douglas. He's a local chef who owns a metric crap ton of restaurants in Seattle. He's been on the news lately for cooking and feeding those suffering from the pandemic. In person he seemed mostly like all chef's seem...an egomaniac. 

Still it's Tom Douglas and I was determined to learn from him. But I am getting ahead of myself. 

The box of ingredients showed up yesterday with a menu and recipes. Unpacking the box was interesting. It reminded me of when I used to order those meals from Hello Fresh. Everything pre-portioned and pre-measured for you. It's part of what I really didn't like about Hello Fresh. In this case, it totally makes sense though. 

One of the containers that contained smaller containers for ingredients to make the dipping sauce. Two of those little containers had sprung a leak. So the soy sauce and rice vinegar were a goner. Thankfully I had those ingredients on hand. 

I really wasn't sure how a virtual cooking class would work out. I liked that I was in my kitchen using my tools. I had everything all arranged and ready to go for the class. 

It really looked like it was a whole production going on on their side. He had a camera man and a side helper chef. It was like watching a cooking show only I was doing the cooking. 

The best part about this was he cooks a lot like Julia Child...with wine. I had some wine poured too and I had to pace myself or I'm pretty sure the dumplings wouldn't have turned out. 

Anyhow, we made this cucumber salad first. It's called Smacked Cucumber Salad. You literally crush the cucumber instead of cutting it. Two things happened to me:

1. I couldn't smash it. My OCD side came out and said, "Ah no. We'll be cutting it like a civilized person". 
2. All I could think about was Gallagher

Now I love cucumbers. They, however, do not love me. I burp just thinking about them. This recipe was made with English cucumbers. Many people believe they are less burpy. For me they have the same level of burpy too them. But they're so darn good ... I suffer. 

After the salad, we moved on to the fun part. The dumplings. I've made wontons before but never pot

stickers. I was looking forward to learning how to fold them.

The interesting thing about how this class went is that sometimes he went slower than snot over things. Other times he sped right past them as if it were like we had all done whatever a thousand times. Folding the dumplings, I felt, was one of those speed right pass moments. He showed it twice, but the camera angle wasn't great so I didn't get a good idea how to do it. Thus I created my own fold. 

It looks like a little crown. The pork filling we put inside these babies came already prepared (the recipe for the Pork Dumplings is here). I made about 10 by the time we started cooking. 

The cooking is where it all comes together. Tom's method is to put some oil in the pan to begin with (he didn't really say how much) and letting them pan fry for a bit, then you add some water. Again, he didn't really say how much to begin with. 

Now having cooked some I think the problem I had with the first batch is the heat was up too high. Have I mentioned I really miss my gas stove? I burned the first batch. The second turned out way better. The "burnt" ones were just extra crunchy. Both were delicious. But what made them so good was the dipping sauce. Oh man I could have drank that sauce. 

The kit came with enough ingredients to make 66 pot stickers. There was a mushroom / tofu mix too for the dumplings. I haven't made those yet. I made the rest of the pork ones and froze them. I'll pull those bad boys out for an appetizer on Saturday when the Niece, her GF and the fam come over for dinner. 

On a side note, I jokingly said to the Niece a couple of weeks ago that I get her and the GF every Saturday night before they leave. I was joking (mostly) and this will be the third Saturday night they'll be here for dinner. I'm so glad they took me seriously. I'm gonna miss her. Maybe I can mail her dumplings.