Suddenly Single

Look, I know it’s bad for the planet. I know it’s inhumane. If I ever really thought about it I’d be a vegan, but since I am not, I offer my apologies, while I go ahead and made me a steak and a pretty big one at that. Whenever my loving wife Tess and I went to Longhorns, Tess would kindly ask our waiter to cook her chopped sirloin with onions and mushrooms until it was burnt! No pink… Well, well, well done. Tess also hated the whole idea of meat and hated the aroma while cooking as well so when at home I did all of my cooking outside.. Now I’ve moved indoors. I’ve cut the heat back just a little bit, but I still get that sizzling seared exterior that I’m looking for in a steak while keeping the inside nice and rare. I used what is becoming my staples in cooking; Cavender’s seasoning, Olive oil sizzling in a hot pan and chopped onions. It is pretty amazing how just a few key ingredients can make up my entire diet for what it’s worth I do eat vegetables and this video I used spinach. I ...

 You know sometimes I think I’m getting over it well yes I am. I am functioning very well thank goodness for my friends and people around me who care and lift me up but every once in a while something just happens just something like a song like going through old pictures, like just sitting in the stillness and suddenly the tears just come and I’m filled with the memories of Tess. The little song she sang to our Shih Tzu… Mama loves the baby boy better than life itself better than life better than life better than life itself. She would sing the song when she got home from work. It just lifted her heart to see her little baby boy and hold him in her lap as she would often say to me, Peter he’s a lapdog Tess taught me compassion. She taught me Patience, kindness, and love…. The wounds of my loss are healing day by day, but the pains of love and loss are never far out of reach. I never want to forget I do want to heal. I do want to live, but I never ever want to forget and each day I...

 A very dear friend of mine named Cindy got caught up with the cooking bug this weekend and whipped up the most beautiful batch of spaghetti sauce. She was kind enough to share this with me and even sent me the recipe but me being of somewhat of a stubborn nature and unable to or unwilling to follow a recipes instructions, I was inspired and had a problem to solve. Cindy is 1000 miles away. I can’t taste it from here and I can’t just hop up on a plane and fly to Boston!! In addition, my best hiking and campfire cookout buddy Chip and I have had some amazing results with flame broiled Brats while out on the trail. So what I did was run over to my local Harris ‘dam’ Teeter, buy some ingredients and I figured if I got the right stuff and just chopped it up, mixed it up, heated it up and hoped for the best 🤞  Maybe things would work out OK. So that’s what I did and I called it Suddenly Single Spaghetti Sauce and Brats

My experience with the Death Café has been profoundly meaningful. I first became aware of the local chapter about five years ago. At that time, I was curious about attending, but my circumstances weren’t conducive, so I put it in the back of my mind. About a year ago, a friend mentioned it again. After talking it over, I decided to go, and it turned out to be a positive experience. I’m reminded of a quote by Amy Grant, who said that anyone who has lived long enough has a bittersweet experience with the advent of each Christmas. What she meant is that each Christmas brings wonderful memories, but also an awareness of loss. The Death Café is a place where you can share and explore those memories of loss in a safe and supportive environment. I found that just by listening, I felt comforted. Hearing others express their feelings and memories made me realize that I’m not alone. The two people who facilitate our local Death Café do a great job of gently establishing a supportive environment....

 Death Cafés provide a unique and safe space for individuals to share their feelings about loss and grief. These gatherings allow participants to express their emotions openly without the fear of judgment or the pressure to find solutions. The core principle of a Death Café is to create an environment where people can talk about death and dying in a relaxed, non-judgmental setting, often accompanied by coffee and cake[1][2][4]. Grief can often feel like an overwhelming appetite, consuming those who experience it. It can lead to a desire for solitude, where individuals may become engulfed by their feelings of loss and sadness. However, there is also a need for expression, and finding a suitable outlet for these emotions can be challenging. Traditional social settings, like a hike or dinner, may not always accommodate discussions about grief, as these topics can be uncomfortable or unexpected in such contexts[4][5]. Death Cafés address this gap by offering a space where people can sh...

An appetite for grief. I really don't know if there is such a thing. I don't know that I've heard it describe this way before, but I've decided while observing my own process that there seems to be in fact an appetite for grief this is what I mean by that. I feel like I have been adjusting to the loss of my wife over these past three months and I'm making some progress. I mean I am functional and I'm tapping into the resources that are available to me. One of those resources is Hospice. it was in-home hospice care that we chose and home hospice care that brought us together in our more in our most profound hour of need and loss. I feel that the initial shock of loss was numbing. I think that the functioning I embodied was somewhat robotic. I knew what to do because I used to function and now I was imitating that behavior, but inside I was crushed and I needed time and space to express those deep promotions, after the business of the service and visiting with all...

  What do you do with leftovers???? Use them! So if you remember my last post, I was singing the praises of fried rice and while I’m not extolling the health benefits, I was saying it sure tastes good. So this morning I had to figure out a way to make use of the leftovers I had from last nights Suddenly Single Succotash. I look in the refrigerator and sure enough I have a carton of eggs… don’t we always have a carton of eggs on hand? So I plucked out two eggs, a couple of onions, 😉 😉, and a couple of green peppers that were left over from last night as well. I fired up the frying pan with a touch of olive oil and so the process begins . Suddenly Single Sunny Side Down  &  Fried Rice  

  There’s a lot you can do with hamburger and so I like to explore all the different options. Obviously, you can make yourself a nice big thick, juicy, rare hamburger on the grill or even on a fry pan but when you season it with Cavender’s , mix it in with vegetables and other goodies, it turns into something special. It turns into a meal! So in this case, I’m mixing it with some zucchini and yellow squash on top of our go to foundation of onions and instead of throwing it into a crockpot and letting it cook for hours, I throw it into the All-Clad and onto the Frigidaire induction range and cook it up in basically a matter of minutes that way I can eat dinner tonight and again tomorrow 😂😉😉 I call it Suddenly Single Succotash 

Cooking is an art and a science and a basic necessity So if you want to eat you’ve got to cook. Now some people have elevated their skills to a level that might be considered an art where as I consider my cooking well… edible. I mean I like it and now that I’m Suddenly Single I’m making a lot more meals at home and  making a lot more meals that go farther on the dime. I’ve been making a lot of crock pots which are terrific but here are a few I whipped out that are done on the skillet and ready to eat within the half hour. I’m calling this series Suddenly Single Suppers. 🤓 So first up is my Suddenly Single Pan Seared Salmon. I love salmon. I often choose Salmon when I go out for dinner and I often go to Mezzaluna who, I believe make the absolute best salmon in town. Suddenly Single Pan Seared Salmon My next favorites fish and may be tied for First is yellowfin tuna again my choice here in cooking it myself is pan seared and here’s how I made out with that dish. Suddenly Single Pan ...

  Today I’m starting my new blog Suddenly Single the reason I’m starting this is because I am in fact, Suddenly Single after 46 years of marriage to the love of my life find myself alone again, naturally as the song says, and it really has its twist and turns good and bad ups and downs, and I learn a lot as I go, and I believe that there are a lot of people out there just like myself we’re trying to adjust to this condition that I’m calling Suddenly Single. Now, in fact, I am a very lucky man 46 years of marriage and certainly we had our ups and downs, but as I said, we lived through all the Seasons Of Love our early summer love was hot and heavy, passionate, hold optimism, and maybe naïveté ou know what I think it takes that to jump on borders ship where you really don’t know where it’s going. All you know is the engines revving and it’s Full Steam Ahead. So we fell passionately in love. We had a wonderful honeymoon and then within that year we had our our baby girl, and that my ...