author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Hullo! This blog is not dead. Furthermore, actual writing happened today. On a Wednesday, even! UNHEARD OF. Generally my Tuesdays are epic and my Wednesdays are nonexistent. But this week both Tuesday and Wednesday were productive--and on a human scale, which is much more sustainable.

I've been experimenting with different scheduling brain-hacks, trying to see how best to trick my brain into behaving itself. Today's experiment involved a "done by" rather than "start at" check-list. "Let's see. Task one is my Morning Pages, which I'm in the middle of now" (Morning Pages tends to be where I figure out the shape of my day) "and I should be done by 1:00 PM. Next I have to record the Wednesday show for AINC, which I ought to be able to get done by 3:00 PM. Then the daily freewriting--that usually takes 25 minutes, but let's say done by 4:00 PM..." And so forth.

The unexpected benefit of all this was, although I had an idea that one task's "done by" was really just code for the next task's "start by," if I missed that start-by time by a few minutes, I didn't suddenly feel like I'M LATE I MISSED THE START TIME WHAT'S THE POINT ANYMORE. I knew I could get it done by whatever done-by time I'd intended. If I got it done early, I could futz around with clicky-games for a bit. Or I could futz around with clicky-games while I did the task, so long as I still got it done by the done-by time.

So, basically, we're talking about One Weird Trick to lessen the pressure and anxiety miasma surrounding certain writing tasks. It reminded me of Havi Brooks's "code words" strategy, although perhaps not at the same level of mental role play as the example she gives in the linked blog post. Today it worked. Who knows if it'll work tomorrow--tomorrow I may have a very different brain on--but I'll try it and see.

So, having gotten all my work (give or take a checklist item) done by a reasonable time of the afternoon, I had time to make salsa.

It has been a good year for tomatoes. A very, very good year. Every week, 63rd St. Farm has been sending me home with some five to eight slicing tomatoes and a selection of heirloom tomatoes, saucing tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes. It sort of piles up. And then there's a bit on one of the really pretty heirloom tomatoes that's starting to look iffy if not downright moldy, and that's how you know it's high time to do something with these tomatoes, y'all.

The Conservatory Kitchen Presents: Improv Tomato-culling Salsa

1. Starting with the oldest, worst-looking tomato in the bunch and moving up from there, cut off the bad bits and see what's left. (The aforementioned heirloom with the moldy spot cleaned up surprisingly well!) Put the good bits on the kitchen scale until the kitchen scale says 2 lbs or thereabouts. Take these accumulated good bits, dice 'em and chop 'em and mangle 'em, and stick 'em in a big bowl. (Bigger than that. You need room to stir, OK?)
2. To this add about a quarter pound of diced onion--yeah, that half-an-onion that's sitting around in the crisper drawer (dear Gods, organic yellow onions are HUGE these days), that'll do--and maybe three green onions and five nice-sized garlic cloves and oh, hey, something hot. Five serrano peppers sounds about right. (Serrano peppers are another veggie I've been accumulating.)
3. Spices. Very simple. About a teaspoon dried oregano and about a half teaspoon ground cumin. Fresh ground peppercorns of all colors: black, white, pink. More than that. KEEP GRINDING. Maybe a teaspoon of salt? More? I dunno, the chips you're gonna dip in this mess are gonna be salty already, aren't they?
4. Stir stir stir. Taste. What do you think? Did I forget anything? No, I left out the cilantro on purpose. Can't stand the stuff. More for you, right? Hm. Maybe parsley. Maybe a diced peach if one's rolling around the fruit bowl.
5. Let sit in the fridge until party time. If no parties are in the offing, throw one for yourself. Show yourself a good time. You deserve it.

And there you go. Salsa. By the time I was done, I only had about 15 tomatoes left in the house and maybe 10 serrano peppers. SHUT UP, THAT'S PROGRESS.