Hello Darling Ones,

I don’t know how your day started, but mine started with an awkward phone call with the Brain Injury Alliance.

“Why was it awkward?” Sister #2 asked.

Uh, because I was a part of it. That’s why it was awkward. I’m a feral beast with a damaged brain. I should not be foisted upon the general public. I thought that was obvious. Not to her, apparently.

I called the Brain Injury Alliance because I’m toying around with the idea of maybe, perhaps witnessing a Stroke Support Group to see if it’s something I might benefit from. That is, I might, maybe, perhaps join if I can get over my whole “I don’t want to be a part of any club.”

I’m a loner, Darling Ones. A rebel.

As I’ve made clear, I’m struggling a bit in the mood department. BFK ending our 22-year-friendship without even a discussion is a tough pill to swallow. I don’t know what upsets me more, the loss of a relationship that is very important to me or the realization that I’m easily dismissed and so maybe I was the only one who found the relationship important. It fucking hurts, man. And, also I’m recovering from a stroke and trying to come to terms with my disabilities and then there’s the absolute lack of income.

No worries, I’m having a med check with my doctor tomorrow to discuss upping the Lexapro since I can feel the anxiety creeping in again.

In other disappointments or perhaps victories, depending how this works, I had to bust out my Top Chef ingenuity for dinner tonight.

Now that I’m broke I’m doing my best to eat down all my hoarded food. The smug part of me (which is about 89% of me) is all See? SEE! I knew I’d be poor again one day and this food would come in handy. Who knew trauma from childhood poverty would be so useful?

My plan tonight was to eat the other half of the Tator Tot Hotdish I made last month. I froze half the meat/veggie mixture sans cream of soup and froze it. All I’d need to do is mix in the soup and top the sludge with tots and cheese.

Easy peasy.

For the record my Tator Tot Hotdish is made with ground beef, charred corn, jalapeños, onions, green chiles, and cream of jalapeño soup. I’m spicy.

Turns out that of all the food I hoard, cream of soup is not one of them. There was zero soup in my cupboards. No Cream of Jalapeño. No Cream of Celery. No Cream of Broccoli. Not even a lowly can of Cream of Mushroom.

Heaven help me, Campbells!

After feeling a bit like a failure as not just a homemaker, but a Minnesotan, I thought What would Padma do?

She’d pivot.

So I added kidneys beans, chili powder, more green chiles, and tomato sauce to my meat & veggies then I topped that shizz with tots and cheese.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. It should be out of the over in about 10 minutes.

Your favorite hot dish,
Jodi

P.S. I know Padma isn’t on Top Chef anymore and I adore Kristen Kish as the host, but the joke works better with Padma’s name.

P.P.S. The hotdish pictured above is what the first batch I made that produced tonight’s leftovers.

The post What Would Padma Do? appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hey Darling Ones,

How goes it? I’ve been quiet lately. I’m sorry. Some of you get a little worried when I go dark for more than a week. Would you believe in the way olden days people would get freaked out if I went dark for a day or two? This was before social media or what we know as social media. This was when we used to update our blogs like Twitter. It was fun.

Speaking of the way olden days, a week or so ago I quit reading Swipe Up for More three pages in. Why? This was a nonfiction book about influencers and the author called her subject an “OG Mommy blogger” because in 2022 the woman had been blogging for an entire decade.

I can’t remember noping out of a book so fast in my life.

Are you kidding me? We love to credit Mommy Bloggers with making blogging a thing in like 2004, but trust me people were blogging well before that. I started in 2000 and I’m not even an OG.

Bleh.

This cranky anecdote fits perfectly with my mood of late and explains why I’ve been so quiet.

I’m unpleasant to be around lately. At least to myself I am. And I got nothing much to say that isn’t a frustrated yawp followed by a deep growl.

My tremor continues to be super tremory. My balance is such crap that I have to use a wheelchair to get the pool for physical therapy, which I dislike. And the world is general misery. Bridges collapsing in Baltimore. Turnip’s continued ascendancy. Genocide in Gaza. Fucking dire, shit.

Also, the stroke and its physical repercussions have entered my dream life and that’s bummer. Up until a week ago my dreams, for the most part, had me in my pre-stroke body. I walked okay and drove in my dreams. It was glorious. A few times I’d dream I was kinda pissed nobody was as amazed as I thought they should be that I was walking like normal. But now in my dreams, I can’t walk very well at all and have to use the walker. Frankly, it’s rude of my subconscious to do me dirty this way.

Ugh.

What sucks is despite everything I have plenty I to be happy about. I mean, Top Chef has returned and it’s set in Wisconsin.

A friend of mine who will remain anonymous paid my mortgage for April.

YES! MY ENTIRE MORTGAGE.

Do you have any idea what kind of relief that is for someone who has only made $1300 so far in 2024? Huge.

And yet, I’m still sitting around in crankypants for no damn good reason other than maybe seasonal transitions are rough.

My goal come April is to write more because I always feel better after I write, even if it’s just pointless bellyaching. I’ll try to make it more than that, but no guarantees.

Love & kisses,
Jodi

The post Betrayed By My Subconscious & Other Complaints appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hey Darling Ones,

For a delightful change of pace I’m not going to complain about living in the Smelly Trashbags of America. However, if you’re wondering how I’m handling the imminent revocation of abortion access, I cried while singing along to Pat Benetar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” I was driving home from the grocery store singing my head off when the second verse came up. . .
You come on with the come on, you don’t fight fair. That’s okay, see if I care. Knock me down, it’s all in vain. I get right back up on my feet again.

Then tears. So that’s fun.

I had to go to the grocery stores so I could get some achiote molido for the pollo asado I’m going to be making tomorrow (I hope). I was supposed to make it tonight for dinner but BFK and I had tacos for CSA and I’m not hungry enough to put a big effort into dinner.

You should know Top Chef is my very favorite TV show. It used to be Project Runway, which I still love, but my pal Vodo once described Top Chef as “Project Runway, but with knives.” And well, knives are infinitely cooler than sewing needles. Sorry, Christian Siriano.

I love Top Chef so much that I’ve seen every episode of every season multiple times — even the shitty seasons where Josea or Kevin won. I can talk in-depth and passionately about the Voltaggio brothers. I have very strident opinions about winners, losers, controversies, and Tom Colicchio. I will cry when talking about certain episodes or contestants, and nothing makes me hotter than how Edward Lee talked about food while judging Top Chef Portland.

My love for this show is so big and annoying I have gotten most of my family to watch it. We will have long conversations about past episodes and the current season. Last summer when my brother-in-law and nephew had a steak cook-off my sister announced the winner by telling my brother-in-law to pack his knives and go. Then we all laughed for a long time because we are nerds.

I have way more to say about this than I thought, so I will save some things for another day and get to the list of my Top Chefisest behaviors.

• Buying a new spice I never bought before. See: achiote molido.
• Quick pickling vegetables. I did this last week when I made a garlic-brined pork to be used for banh mi.
• Eating a bowl of popcorn seasoned with Tajin and featuring a handful of M&Ms. I call it “me in a bowl” and I eat it using chopsticks so my fingers don’t get icky.
• Anytime I make soup from scratch, including the stock.
• My little tray of vinegars & oils featuring: red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, rice vinegar, balasmic vinegar, olive oil, vegetable oil, fish sauce, mirin, chili oil, and other things I’ve probably forgotten.
• Knowing to add a touch of acid when something tastes a little muddy.
• Every time I make something with a bechamel sauce.
• Four different mustards in the fridge.
• When I put a pretzel M&M and a caramel M&M in my mouth at the same time.
• Marinating anything.

There’s probably more, but Top Chef is literally on right now and Padma is calling.

Jodi

The post Things That Make Me Feel Top Chef-y appeared first on I Will Dare.

“Top Chef” is my favorite show currently on TV. It’s the one show I actually buy on Amazon so I can watch it while it airs, and even though I own a lot of the seasons I still watch the old ones on Hulu because I am lazy. Last night I told Sister #2, that my proudest achievement of 2018 is getting my brother-in-law hooked on the show so now I have someone to talk about it with.

This year, I’ve chosen random seasons of “Top Chef” to be my go-top while working on the reindeer hats for Dorkmas. I’m currently in the midst of “Top Chef: Texas.” I’ve seen every season at least two times, but I’ve seen my favorite seasons upwards of three or four times. Recently, I went through all the seasons and just watched the Restaurant Wars episodes.

I love shows like this, with people who are super passionate about what they do coupled with creativity and quick-thinking on demand.

When it comes to “Top Chef” I’m a super nerd, and my new favorite game is to try to see if I can remember which contestant goes home each episode. So far in this Texas season I’m at 100%.

The post Day 145 of 200: Top Chef Super Nerd appeared first on I Will Dare.

Confession 1: I was going to complain about busyness and how I loathe it and how in my head I make fun of people who mistake ridiculously packed schedules with importance/a full life. Eye roll. But everyone is busy this time of year & who cares, right?

Confession 2: I had hotdogs and mac & cheese for dinner. I made the mac & cheese from scratch. It was delicious. I also added about a pound of steamed broccoli to my plate because I am an adult and I’ve been eating like a garbage person the past few days. Also I love broccoli.

Confession 3: Supergenius HQ would probably qualify for federal disaster relief money. It is that messy, which is only a slight problem because I’m hosting A Very St. Martin Christmas on Wednesday. This is a problem exacerbated by a bunch of work that landed in my lap yesterday (which I am thankful for and annoyed by at the exact same time).

Confession 4: I’ve started re-watching all the old seasons of Top Chef for reasons that include I only ever seem to watch TV I’ve already seen before. I’m at Season 2 now and I have roughly 88,291 dirty thoughts every time Sam is on the screen.

Confession 5: I have a lot of things I want to write about: favorite song lyrics of 2014; my goals for 2015 (a first); how the Black Sheep reacted to The Beast; New Year’s Resolutions for the Internet; Year-end List Fatigue; Buffy’s relationship with Spike; and My Christmas Wish 2014 For You.

Confession 6: My insomnia has been a vengeful prick lately, which is why I haven’t done all the writing things I want. I have, however, had plenty of time to do all the thinking, but trying to organize the thoughts into any sort of coherent form of communication is beyond my sleep-deprived brain at the moment.

Confession 7: I’m pretty stoked about Christmas this year, mostly because I got all my Christmas gifts done and even a bonus gift for my niece, Jaycie, which I cannot wait to show you.

The “It’s (Insert Day of Week) and I’m Boring” is a series that Christa and I do to pay homage to the beauty of old-school blogging. (I totally copied this nice explanation from Christa).

The post It’s Monday & I’m Boring: Seven Stupid Confessions Edition appeared first on I Will Dare.