The Weather And The Work Schedule: Both Too Hot For Hunger

It’s 82 degrees at 8:30 pm tonight. The sun is down and the sound of my neighbors’ numerous wall air conditioners taunts me through the open windows. Hummmmmmmmmmmm.

I don’t care. I’m not turning on the AC. This is my third summer in Los Angeles and I have so far refused to turn on the air conditioning in my apartment until August each year. I know it gets hot. It’s the desert. But as long as I keep the blinds drawn in the afternoon, the heat is bearable. In the evening, everything cools down and we make dinner and relax.

The weird thing is, I haven’t felt very hungry lately. When I ask myself, “What do I feel like for dinner?” I find I have no idea. I actually feel tired of foods. How about pizza? Nah. I don’t feel like pizza. Pasta? Soup? Sandwich? Mashed potatoes and gravy? Cheeseburger? Veggie wrap with garlic hummus? Tofu stir-fry? NOTHING?!?!

Nope. Nothing sounds that great. Not junk food, not healthy food, not comfort food.

This is weird. On both sides of my family, we are eaters of the first order. When they were growing up my dad and his siblings would trade you a toy for a pork chop. (They probably still would. Can anyone confirm this for me?)

In my mom’s family, we have a joke award called “The Hogmaster” for when people do stupid things for the love of food. Like when CK split open his chin crashing an ATV in the woods and refused to go to the hospital for stitches for more than 30 minutes because he was waiting for the BBQ ribs at the party to be served.

The story goes that he said, “But they make you wait so long in the emergency room, I’ll be STARVING by the time I get back here.” Well, we wouldn’t want that. Eating ribs was clearly the higher priority over receiving treatment for his gushing head wound. He went to the ER with BBQ sauce and his own blood all over his t-shirt. Congratulations, CK, you’ve won The Hogmaster!

I don’t think I can attribute loss of appetite to the weather alone, given my family history. The hot weather is part of it, but the other part is work.

Starting in December I began to network in earnest:

• I created a profile on LinkedIn and started getting in touch with all the publishing people I’ve worked with over the years, getting caught up with them and letting them know I’ve been freelancing.
• I became active on the message board of the Editorial Freelancers Association, answering questions related to my area of expertise, copyright and permissions editing.
• I created a basic website about my services and experience at http://www.permtrackers.com.
• I wrote about the role of the permissions editor in publishing for an industry blog and a professional newsletter.
• I submitted my resume whenever I found publishers seeking a freelance permissions editor on online job boards.

I wanted this spring and summer to be the best busy season ever. I wanted new clients in general and new projects from established clients. So far I seem to be getting what I wanted. This month I added three new clients to my roster. And this week an established client showed up with a new project.

As business heats up, I’m getting more joy and satisfaction out of my work. And continuing to network and market presents a suddenly appealing creative challenge, which is a relief after I feared and avoided it for so many years. These are all positive outcomes of increasing my professional profile, and I swear I do not mean to complain. But the down side is that stopping work to cook and eat has recently been an annoying interruption to the freelance reverie. And it’s a bit of a problem for me considering the high percentage of my happiness quotient I generally expect to get from food.

Choosing not to be daunted by a lack of appetite, I decided Thursday evening that I would open the fridge, grab a veggie, chop it, and sauté it in olive oil. Then, I would just stand back and listen.

I found a carton of white button mushrooms, chopped them and turned on the burner. After a few minutes stirring with a bamboo spatula, the mushrooms whispered up from my favorite stainless steel skillet, “Garlic. Rosemary. Fresh cracked pepper.”

OK, it was working. I started cooking without any idea of the end game, and the food led me on. On my way to the spice cabinet for dried rosemary, I found the sea salt and some thyme. So I threw those in, too.

What the heck should I do with these mushrooms? I only had two notions: omelet and pizza. I ran them by Eric. He said pizza.

Fine. I had our favorite middle eastern flatbreads in the freezer. And I had a few slices of provolone. But I had no sauce. Not my problem. Just keep going. Do not get in your own way. Keep cooking.

So, I placed two flatbreads on a baking sheet and thickly covered each with half the sautéed mushrooms. Yes, I used every last mushroom on two individual-sized pizzas. I know, I didn’t expect to do it either! But it nicely made up for there not being any sauce. Next I rummaged through the freezer and found some whole frozen spinach leaves. On they went, still frozen. Then I cut two slices of provolone into tiny triangles and arranged them evenly across the toppings.

I know that cranking the oven up to 375 degrees (Fahrenheit) is a wretched, wretched thing to do on a hot evening, but I’ve decided just to get over it or else we’ll end up eating instant noodles all the time. Good food (and good living, I think) is not always about being comfortable. Sometimes happiness comes from pushing yourself a little further as long as you’re able. And being neither elderly nor infirm, Eric and I lived through a hot night without air conditioning in Los Angeles and we even dared to heat up the oven.

And I’m likely to do it again. Appetite or no.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 18:40 and is filed under copyright & permissions, los angeles, balance, publishing, making do, cooking, attitudes, LinkedIn, freelance, editing, change your mind, enthusiasms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.