4 Things it's Easier to Do when You Don't Have a Job

I've never been a stranger to hard work and long hours. It's just how things go in the industry, and most of the time I love it. The trade off, of course, is that it's hard to find time for much of anything else. For a long time that was fine with me because I like what I do, but now I'm beginning to realize that some things are a lot easier when you're not working all the time. For example...

#4. Anything that Might be Crowded on a Weekend

Raise your hand if you enjoy the great outdoors. Now raise your hand if you’d rather enjoy those outdoor activities while surrounded by hundreds of strangers. Now put your hand down, because this is a blog and I can’t see you anyway. Last Monday my lady and I went on a hike in The Pinnacles. The park itself was quiet and secluded, and we probably didn’t see more that two or three other groups during our 6 mile hike along the High Peak Ridge. The views bordered on mind-blowing, and the absence of other hikers surprised me.

 Once we’d finished our hike and returned to the trail head a gentleman there asked us if we would take a short survey. What followed were eight pages of questions about overcrowding in the park: “What’s the longest you would be willing to wait for parking?”, “How many people at the Overlook viewpoint are too many?”, “How jam-packed would this place have to be before you just gave up and tried to hang yourself over a hand-railing with your camera strap?”. We weren’t the only ones sitting at this picnic table taking the survey, and clearly we weren’t the only ones confused by the questions (especially that one about the camera strap). Finally I heard someone else ask The Survey-Slinger (not his actual title) the question we were all thinking. “How busy does this place really get?” Survey Man then told him that, on weekends, you can’t even get a parking spot, so people park several miles away and are shuttled in by the Parks Service, and sometimes certain sections of the trail could have a up to a 15 minute queue. I can’t imagine, I mean, doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose? Why not just go to the mall? We might go back there… on a Wednesday.

#3. Taking as Long as You Want to Make and Eat Lunch

Seriously, I just spent like 20 minutes making a sandwich, and then another 7 minutes deciding what to have with it. (Answer: white wine and Wheat Thins)

#2. Turning down Things You'd Rather Not Do Anyway

Just because I like to drink doesn't mean I always want to spend my wee hours in a bar, or at a party. When you work in the foodservice industry, however, that's what some people think. It was always hard to come up with good excuses to not go out at night with friends or co-workers, without sounding like an octogenarian. If I didn’t want to go, I’d just tell them I had to be home before “Matlock” was on, and save them the trouble of making their own jokes.

Now, today, I’ve got the most airtight excuse in the book: lack of funds. You see, I don’t have a job. It would be irresponsible of me to drive all the way to X to drink a bunch of Y with you and your friend, Z. I mean, I’d like to, but I simply can’t afford it. Anyway, I need to get to bed early so I can be up in time to catch “The Price is Right”.

#1. Braising

Braising is like food magic, it makes everything taste better. If it has one downside, it’s the time it takes. Braising doesn’t exactly lend itself to the weeknight post-work meal, but if you find yourself with the time it’s well worth it. In this recipe, the chicken thighs will be fully cooked after the first 35-40 minutes or so, but it's what happens in the oven after they're done that makes all the difference. The extra hour of cooking means all of the flavors will have time to mingle and become friends, and your chicken will be fall-off-the-bone tender. The other great part, especially if you have the whole day at your leisure, is that you can put the entire dish together in the morning, go enjoy your day, and then pop it into the oven a couple of hours before dinner time. Of course I've made this dish before during the work week, when I was usually coming home late and short on time, and served it as soon as the chicken was fully cooked, but the difference in flavor is night and day.

Braised Chicken with Oranges and Olives:

·         2 Tbsp. olive oil
·         8 chicken thighs
·         3-5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
·         2 carrots, peeled and sliced 1/4”
·         2 ribs celery, sliced 1/4”
·         1/4 cup chopped yellow onion
·         1 cup sliced cremini mushrooms
·         ¼ cup white wine
·         1 Roma tomato, diced
·         ¼ cup chopped parsley
·         2-3 sprigs thyme
·         1-2 sprigs oregano
·         1 bay leaf
·         1/3 cup very coarsely chopped green olives
·         2 medium navel oranges
·         ½ cup chicken stock
·         salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Heat olive oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Season the chicken liberally with salt and pepper, and place skin side down in your pan. Cook for 3-5 minutes, allowing skin to brown, and working in batches if necessary, and then remove them from the pan to a large baking dish.

To the pan, add the3 garlic, carrot, celery, onion, and mushrooms. Season to taste with salt and pepper and cook for 3-5 minutes. Deglaze the pan with white wine, and then add the remaining ingredients. Cook until everything is hot, then add this mixture to the baking dish, over the top of the chicken thighs (at this point the mixture can be cooled and refrigerated until ready to bake, if desired).

Place the baking dish in the oven and bake for 1 hour, then reduce the oven temperature to 250 degrees and cook for 1 additional hour. Serve in a bowl over rice or with a thick slice of bread to soak up the braising liquid.

What We're Willing to Part With

“It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly”
          -Bertrand Russell

Holy sh*t this is a lot of stuff. Somehow, piling it all in our living room only makes it seem worse. If we could just set it all on fire we probably would, but we're in an apartment, and that might upset our neighbors. Maybe if we just set our neighbor's apartment on fire then it would spread to our place and no one would know it was us, but I digress.

I've been in Seattle for the past three years. My time here hasn't been bad; I held down a great job, I found myself a pretty lady (hi Cora!),  and together we managed to fill a two-bedroom apartment full of all the things you're supposed to have as two full-fledged adults living in the city together. We kept that up for a while. Now, finally, all the stuff... all those things you're supposed to have, we've gotten rid of them all.

The furniture wasn't hard. I didn't have a lot of sentimental attachment to any of it, and almost all of it was mine before we moved in together, so out the door it went. We sold what we could and donated the rest. The photos came out of frames and went into albums. The books, vinyls, guitars, clothes, these things we packed into the pickup, and the rest, at least most of it, went by the box-load to Goodwill. It was getting rid of the food, however, that was probably the strangest thing. Not that we threw out any "starving kids in China could really use this" kind of stuff; we donated what we could. No, it was the less-than-usual ingredients, like so many quarter-full bottles of fancy vinegars and flavored syrups; too old and used to give away, yet too unnecessary to take along on our trip. These sorts of things had to go down the drain. The entire process, from giving notice at my job to getting in the truck and hitting the road, was much more work than I ever thought it would be ("Hey! let's just get rid of all our stuff and run away together!" -me being naive), but in the end it's been nothing short of liberating.

What we're left with now is a truck full of our clothes and favorite possessions, a housecat, and just enough gumption between the two of us to go gallivanting around the country together on a shoestring budget.

... I'll let you know how it goes.