Am I the only gal who didn't love Frozen?

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This post has been two months in consideration. And it comes on the heels of one of those times that I'm grateful to be the only gal in the house. The buzz about Frozen has reached such epic proportions that the girls in all grades throughout my sons' elementary school have been asked, repeatedly, to not sing "Let It Go" quite so frequently. The boys counter as often as they can with "Everything is Awesome" (equally irritating in my opinion), but it's not taken (strangle)hold like Elsa's crooning ode on self-liberation. And really, Frozen?? A not-so-subtle allusion to historically blaming shit on women's frigidty?? Can.we.get.over.this?! I took the boys to see the flick on President's Day, a school holiday. We spent the morning at a local shelter packing up meals that would be delivered throughout city parks that night; after our own lunch, I thought a movie would be fun, and Frozen was the film du jour to be sure. At the time, my most recently seen Disney-does-heroine film was Brave which I thought was absolutely terrific. In that movie, the forge-her-own-path princess was Merida, a headstrong, red-maned Scottish lass with serious talents for archery and horseback riding.

I found Merida infinitely more relatable, likeable and appealing than both Elsa and Anna of Frozen. Both snub-nosed, Anna was overly perky while Elsa was overly distraught. They constituted the black and white of any argument, and no one fell into the gray in-between which is where the truth almost always resides. Olaf was a kick in the pants (thank you Josh Gad of Book of Mormon, you are brilliant), but really, he was the only touch of originality and freshness in the otherwise cold tundra of a film, and I hardly find a song that starts, "Do you want to build a snowman?" overly moving. It's not like it was the Forrest Gump soundtrack, people. Good lord.

Stereotypically, Anna, the total ingenue, is swept off her feet by the superficial salesman, and then must/does sacrifice herself selflessly and fearlessly for her sister, the freeze-vexed princess Elsa. Everyone turns out fine in the end, even Olaf the snowman who gets to live safely despite the sun, and we are made to feel better about the onward march of feminism because it's not clear, only intimated, that Anna and Kristoff end up together.

Of course they do people. They have come to respect one another despite EVERYTHING to the contrary initially. Which is all fine and good, but...

Merida?? She does her own damn thing for the entirety of Brave. She is a tomboy from the get-go, strongly suggests that she does not want to simply be betrothed to anybody just for traditions' sake, can bow-and-arrow her way out of anything, hides that skein of hair masterfully AND even does something stupid in support of what she believes. Yes, yes, yes, she feeds the damn cake to her mother who proceeds to turn into a bear. A bear that strongly resembles Mor'du, a very scary bear who ate the leg of Merida's father but who, as she comes to realize by her own bad self, represents the ages-old clan splitting which actually needs to be repaired.

So, she and BearMom figure things out and all is well albeit after some seriously nervy moments. I truly thought Elinor was going to remain a salmon-eating black bear. The only bit of Frozen that put me on the edge of my seat like that was the 3D snowflakes that Oliver kept grabbing for during the flick. Cool but hardly the same.

So, on this full-on Friday, I'm just saying, I am comfortable being in the "No, I Didn't Love Frozen" minority. I'm standing strong and proud for Merida, super girl of the Scots. We are Brave!

Whoa Nelly! Turklafel!

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Not a few people have, throughout my years, called me an Energizer Bunny. To be honest, I see where they're coming from, but I will say this: if you had told me ten years ago that simply carting small people around and/or running errands on their behalf could make me feel borderline whooped, I'd have laughed. Yet tonight, you'd be laughing 'cause I'm whooped. A good day, but whoa! I did have a lengthy meeting this morning after bringing the boys to school, and I did build my raised veggie/herb bed all by myself -screwdriver! bolts! multiple wood parts!- and there was an arseload of mini traffic snares all around town, but once 2:15 hit, yo! To the market, the nursery, school, home, welcoming babysitter, leaving Ol with her, taking J to orthodontist, taking J to Tae Kwon Do, almost getting plowed by an exceedingly old man in a minivan, making it back home, giving J dinner, tucking Ol back in, reminding J to complete his reading log...

And admiring my veggie bed. I am just thrilled with it and have already planted some Red Russian kale and rosemary, both hardy enough to handle the in-the-40s temps I think we'll have for at least a few more nights. If y'all could have seen me when I was an adolescent or young adult, you'd laugh again at the thought of me building a planter and gleefully tossing in soil and compost; I did not like to be wet or dirty unless I fully opted into either. Now? Well, I still hate to be wet when it's not part of the plan, but dirty? I love to lose myself in the yard and surface hours later; crescent moons of dirt impacted under my fingernails; brown smudges on my knees; grass stains and tiny scratches all over my limbs. I've never met an  earthworm to whom I didn't say, and I still watch with complete wariness and a tinge of fear those brown ground spiders who have white butts. They give me the heebie-jeebies! Most things with too many legs give me a slight shudder.

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www.em-i-lis.com

At some point yesterday, I noticed a pound of beautiful ground turkey in the freezer so popped it into the fridge to thaw overnight. I had in mind some meatballs- flavorful but simply spiced, ones the boys might cotton to but that could also be dressed up with some yogurt sauce. Yogurt sauce is the cat's meow, don't you think? I mean, you could spoon it over dirt, and I swear people would still cheer.

Anyway, I didn't want to have to deal with egg or breadcrumbs as binder/filler so did a little mind map exercise that's become a really helpful method for me in creating recipes from scratch. You take one or two ingredients and consider all the things that pair nicely with them.

Ground turkey in meatball form minus egg minus breadcrumbs --> food processed chickpeas would substitute nicely and add a depth of flavor and texture (so, don't food process too aggressively) + lemon zest which is always a sublime addition + salt (critical).

Ok, what about herbs? Parsley is so bright and lovely as are scallions = a small'ish combo of both. You know what else sounds good? Ground walnuts --> honey is nice with walnuts and might also be nice here.

And so on and so forth. This system is not foolproof but overall, it's both fun and has yielded some fantastic results. Having cooked one to many times almost daily over the past decade, I've learned a lot. I feel I have a good sense of what might work together and what definitely won't. And knowledge of ingredients and myriad techniques is important! But so is a willingness to experiment. Yes, some creations suck but you really won't create much of memory if you play it too safely either, you know?

J was my first taster, and he immediately ate three and made me promise to save him some. T dunked his first into the walnut yogurt sauce I'd made and promptly ate eight more. I quite enjoyed it all myself- the textural variety provided by the concert of turkey, walnuts and chickpeas was wonderful! And these are full of protein, fiber and good fats!