And then sometimes good things happen

It's been a hard few days for us, and then the rain came this morning and it was difficult to get out of bed and drive to work. I fueled myself on long-steeped tea, reasoning in that not very coherent, early morning way that if Edith Wharton's characters can get a buzz from English Breakfast, so can I. (Not true. A cup of coffee and another cup of tea later, I felt somewhat conscious. Also, why is caffeine the only thing I remember from House of Mirth?) I pulled on my Oregon Girls Rock t-shirt that I save for cheerless days and my favorite ripped jeans. I packed an especially delicious and unusual sandwich. I slipped a Neko Case CD into my purse.

I was ready to be gloomy like the baddest most emo hipster poser you know.

And then I went upstairs to kiss T goodbye.

I think I married T because I had no other choice. And before you get huffy, let me explain. I met him and electrical currents zinged and I felt peace descend. My brain shut down completely except for one reverberant thought, thrumming through my limbs, that let me know, in these absolute almost godly tones, that this someone was for me. Of course, I didn't know that we would fall in love and get married and become the proud co-owners of an orange velvet couch (seriously Tom, I like the couch), but somehow I knew that future was possible.

I tried to delude myself for a little while, imagining T as a wild fling before I moved to New York for school, but it's hard to resist a 6' 3" dark-haired, blue-eyed prankster who dances to embarrassing love songs he makes up about me, and makes the best hash browns, and attracts the adoration of animals and babies everywhere, because he's really that kind. True, he also likes to pants me while I'm washing the dishes, and he's filled my Netflix queue with manga and monster movies, but I'd watch a month's worth of manga for one of T's hugs, because I feel like I'm disappearing into comfort. Six months into knowing Tom and I was hooked. More than seven years and life without him is like a Caesar salad without the anchovies in the dressing. (In other words, improbable. Inedible. Completely and utterly beyond the order of things.)

Tomorrow we will be married two years, and it's been awesome. Not easy, not all the time, but maybe better for that. I know I'm braver and kinder and just possibly, minimally less stressed because I get to kiss him goodbye each morning, and hello every night. And because he's a chiropractor and will give a back rub in exchange for a back scratch. I've never been in better alignment.

Take that how you will.

Happy anniversary, my sweet man. I love you.

Unlike Snow White

Yesterday one of Tom's childhood friends died of an oxycotin overdose. We think he took it recreationally, with his girlfriend, and just took one too many and so never woke up. Like Heath Ledger, and so many other people who take these drugs liberally, with no stigma, because doctors dispense them.

We have some experience with less acceptable drug use in my family. One of my siblings is a recovering methamphetamine addict. When she was high she was a raving lunatic with drug-induced paranoid schizophrenia and painful ulcers from head to toe, where she'd scratched the "bugs" away. People see what meth does to a person and they think they're looking at a trailer trash loser whose parents did something wrong. It's shaming to the parents, and the siblings, and eventually--if you're lucky enough that this person stops using--to the drug user, who knows that she's done something illicit and ugly. My mom thinks that the cultural stigma against crystal meth helped bring my sister back from the brink; she wanted to live in this world.

Meth is a bad drug. And while I support the legalization and de-criminalization of drugs, to reduce drug cartel violence and hopefully inspire a more transparent social conversation and response to drug use and treatment, it's really hard to say that people should be able to buy it. Heroin fits into that category, too, because it's so dangerous. Two Reedies (my Alma mater) have died of overdoses in the last year. But I'm not sure that making heroin illegal has stopped anyone who wasn't already disinclined to try drugs from using it. Instead, illegalizing drugs like pot, heroin, cocaine and meth has flooded our prison system with low level offenders and helped a devastatingly violent black market to flourish in South America and Mexico. Perhaps most importantly, making these items illegal has allowed Americans to push drug use off to the side as a marginal thing, a low-life activity; we do not face the fact that it is our country's demand for drugs that keeps the Mexican drug lords' pockets fat, and Mexico's northern states in the flux of brutality.

But we do allow Americans to take vicodin, and valium, and oxycotin, and any number of medical narcotics. The last time I was at the dentist I had a root canal, which if you haven't had one hurts, but really not that badly--not badly enough for the vicodin they offered me. I don't know why a doctor would offer someone an addictive substance when maximum strength Tylenol is sufficient; I don't understand how a drug like oxycotin, which has a physical impact and addiction risk to rival morphine and methadone, has been given to my cousin for the last ten years to help her mask the pain of a knee injury that should have been rehabbed. And yet it's okay for her to spend her days in a minor fog of substance abuse, to drive a car and mother her children. And it was okay for Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich and myriad celebrities who have crashed cars, passed out, and died in their sleep, because they weren't doing drugs. They were doing medicine, and medicine is safe.

Prescription drug abuse ranks second behind pot as the nation's largest drug problem (http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/drugfact/prescr_drg_abuse.html), and yet even after several high-profile accidents and overdoses, most of the people I know love to have a vicodin and a glass of wine before bed, if they can get it. Because it feels good. I know, because I tried it once with Tom many years ago and all I can think about tonight is how goddamn lucky we are that we woke up. How unbelievably overjoyed I am that I didn't wake up like Justin's girlfriend to find the person I love most in this world gone from this world. And for nothing. The waste makes me feel like raging.

Tonight I feel sad because my husband is so deep in grief, and angry because drug use and abuse is just one problem on a long list of things we could change about American policy--and so change about the world--but that we do not because these pills make a few people a lot of money. And so tacit approval for the use of these drugs, legitimately, recreationally, leaks out into our culture and into the bodies of people who someone loves, and for whom they mourn.

Tortilla de Patata

When I was fifteen, I accompanied my cousin Kate and her dad, "Uncle" Michael, on a 7-month stay in Salamanca, Spain. We lived in a furnished three-bedroom apartment with two bathrooms (amazing when you think about it), a living room, and a sizable kitchen with the world's smallest washing machine set into the wall. My bedroom wall had a reproduction of a famous Jesus on the Cross painting, in which a gangrenous Messiah wept down upon my sleeping, Jewish form. Other rooms had crosses, and the girls' bathroom had a beday. Which blew our minds, and which we used to clean our feet.

At the time Kate was a fairly picky eater and I was a vegetarian, neither of which are ideal conditions for eating in Spain where ham is king and there are all sorts of amazing, adventurous dishes to try like fresh sardine bruschetta, paella, baby squid in lemon, olive oil and garlic, giant salads with tomatoes, olives, tuna and hard boiled eggs, Basque panfried trout stuffed with bacon, and a cocktail called Tinto de Verano, which combines Fanta Limon with red wine and is actually pretty good. In addition to being difficult eaters, Kate and I were also teenage girls, which meant that we spent a lot of time mooning over creamy American peanut butter and 6pm dinner times and crinkling skeptical noses at late night tapas. What a waste of a culinary opportunity, though I know we each grew up a lot during that often difficult but wonderful stay. We also grew up into eager eaters, so perhaps exposure, if not ingestion, has its benefits.

Amidst the seafood that Kate wouldn't touch, and the meat that I wouldn't eat, we discovered the humble tortilla de patata, or potato omelet. Creamy on the inside, barely crispy on the outside, egg yolk-yellow and rich with the flavors of olive oil and caramelized onion, the tortilla is a simple dish with a deep soul. Spaniards eat it at room temperature, cut into wedges or, better yet, placed between two pieces of fresh bread just lightly rubbed with olive oil or mayo. Kate and I used to walk down to a tapas bar on the Plaza Mayor and share bocadillos de tortilla de patata and coca-cola in glass bottles for dinner. Sometimes for dessert we'd eat coconut ice cream that arrived in the coconut shell. I remember the waiter snickering at us just a little each time we arrived, maybe because we were eating a traditional snack for dinner, or maybe because of our accents, and maybe because the simple omelet brought us so much pleasure.

I started making tortillas of my own in graduate school, when my friend Erin lent me her fantastic tapas cookbook, Tapas by Penelope Casas. The secret to the dish is an obscene amount of olive oil, which you use to slowly simmer very thinly sliced potatoes and onions until tender. You don't want to fry or brown the potatoes! They sort of boil in the oil until partially translucent, and this draws out the sweetness of the potato and creates a velvety mouth-feel. The second important trick is learning to flip the omelet. I'm still learning this technique, but at least no longer break them. What you want to do is heat the omelet pan until very hot, which helps prevent the eggs from sticking. You'll probably need to help the omelet remain unstuck by periodically shaking the pan and running a metal spatula around the sides and under the omelet. When the omelet is cooked on the bottom, place a plate over the pan and invert the omelet onto the plate so that the uncooked side is resting on the plate. Then, carefully slide the omelet back into the pan to finish cooking. Ideally, the tortilla will be golden yellow on the outside and moist within. In all honesty, I've only ever managed golden brown; I don't know how Spanish chefs achieve a yolk-yellow finished product. Just be sure not to overcook the tortilla. You want it dense and moist inside, not dry.

It might take you a few tries to master the flip, but regardless of how your tortilla emerges from the pan it will be delicious. It's a tiny bit salty and rich, with layers of creamy potatoes and dissolving onions. Eat it with a salad and some crusty bread, grab a glass of light red wine, and you'll be a happy chica.

The following is based on what I remember Penelope Casas's recipe, but I tinker slightly with the type of potatoes I use (tonight they were baby goldens from the farm, with a sweet onion) and have occasionally added a green like kale.

Ingredients:
around 3-4 russet potatoes, very thinly sliced
1 onion, I prefer sweet, very thinly sliced
1 C olive oil
1-2 tsp coarse salt
4-5 eggs

Technique:

1. Pour the olive oil into a nonstick or other skillet (I use a cast iron). Bring to a medium-high heat--it's ready when a test piece of potato sizzles gently on contact. Lower the heat to medium-low, to sustain the simmer.
2. Place a layer of potato slices in the skillet and sprinkle lightly with salt. Now add a layer of onion slices and salt. Repeat until all of the vegetables are in the skillet.
3. Let the potatoes and onions simmer until tender but not brown, stirring occasionally. Don't worry if some of the slices break.
4. When the potatoes and onions are soft, remove the pan from the heat and drain the vegetables. I like to place the strainer over a bowl in order to save the olive oil, which should amount to 1/2-3/4 C. This olive oil should be stored in a jar in the fridge and used over the next few days to cook or dip bread. It's delicious.
5. In a separate, large bowl beat 4-5 eggs until frothy. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
6. Add the potato mixture to the bowl, mix, and let sit for 5-10 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, clean the skillet and add 1-2 T of olive oil. Heat until very hot but not smoking.
8. Add the egg-potato mess to the skillet and cook until the bottom is golden.
9. Flip the tortilla using the method described above and cook until golden.
10. Set the tortilla aside to cool slightly and eat plain, with a tomato sauce or salsa, or a garlicky aioli.