Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Chicken Curry of No Attachment

So, something of a first happened to me last night. Have you ever made a meal where something goes just wrong enough to make the meal salvageable, but disappointing? Or, have you ever made a meal that was such a disaster you have to chuck the lot? Both of these phenomena have happened to me before and will happen again. Neither is what happened last night. Last night's experience was new and kind of neat.

I was 3/4 of the way through making chicken curry for supper when something went wrong. I added the yogurt to the curry, just like the nice recipe said, and next thing I know, my pretty curry is glorp. The yogurt curdled and split from the now mysteriously watery sauce and I was left looking at something that closely resembled vomit. I definitely did not want to salvage that. Still, I was left with three very nice chicken breasts that had been rubbed with curry and sauteed before the disaster. I did not want to waste them. I also had a bunch of tasty brown rice, but all of this needed sauce and I had no sauce. Then, all of a sudden, I adjusted. This is weird for me. I'm not a terribly adjustable person. I'm not even all that well-adjusted. But last night I adjusted with no problem.

I cut up the lovely curry chicken, tossed it with some arugula and feta and made a tasty hot salad from it. Then I made a batch of vanilla almond rice pudding from the rice that suddenly had no home. Nothing was wasted except for the vomit sauce, and I did all of this on autopilot. Very weird for me. Normally, I would have stressed out because of my attachment to how things were supposed to go. But this time, I didn't have that attachment and I was able to happily and easily adjust. This was a good experience for me, one I'd like to bring into other aspects of my life - not just when things go haywire in the kitchen.

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