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Don't eat meat straight from the pan
[ 3 minute read ]
Opinion
Let it rest.
You know, I forget how the English weather changes so swiftly. Weeks of intense something and then a few days of equanimity and then average cold or hot depending on which season we are in.
September is my favourite month. It is the only reliable month and the one with the best smells and colours. It has hope in it and I have only a loving embrace for its days. September, for me, is also a month of cooling off. The intense summer heat and long days seem to stretch my nerves. I can almost hear the pitch lower now when it seems that somehow they are played with a bow drawn across them. I suppose there is a bit of Synesthesia at play there. Being in an English September feels like a gradual recovery after a long journey. Bit by bit I relax. After it finally rained following the months of no rain, and the humidity levels during the day went from below 40% back to over 70%, I felt like I could breathe properly again. Perhaps that is what I seek. Perhaps I am even dehydrated and never recognise it. Perhaps it is because I almost drowned twice that I am a little more concerned about breathing than I might otherwise be.
I like to control my own temperature. Of course, like everyone else I have an autonomic system that controls my breathing and heart-rate and tries to maintain my temperature. I really do not want to have to spend all my hours remembering to beat my heart or draw a breath so I am happy to let that just happen. I mean I want to be able to put clothes on and take them off according to how uncomfortable I feel. This isn't a new thing; as a twenty-something I longed for a metaphorical zip in my skin to let some heat out. Nothing has changed. I am incensed by outside influences on my life. I just want to 'get carried away' in the moment. Just like an alarm clock shatters comfortable drowsing before we must get up and do what we do, there are aspects of my day that shunt me from rich and colourful drifting straight back onto the tracks of a speeding train. That's me, see? There I am in seat E26, indistinguishable from all the other passengers; except we are not passengers, dead-weight; We are contributors.
I really don't resent the real world as much as it might appear that I do. I love it. The problem I have is I let it control my life. Something that really irks me is people in my way. In summer, if you are close enough to me you would hear me, sotto voce, railing at the people 'who crawl out from under rocks on sunny days'. I like winter because the 'silly people' are all indoors and it is only the people who are getting on with their lives who are 'braving' the cold, rain and wind. Let the reptiles who need to be warmed by sunlight stay under their rocks.
We don't have winters in the south of England that might mean we have to do anything special to get through our days. We don't need snow-chains on our car tyres; we don't need to have a hot-water bottle tucked under our clothes, or even carry an umbrella at all times. Winter is a time when we have to put more clothes on, that's all. It is also a time when I get to decide how much effort I put into exercising outside. For me, it means there are a whole wealth of opportunities that, in summer, just don't exist for me.
I like winter weather because it encourages people to stop treating pavements like their living rooms. These people who espouse the weather with enhanced sociability are absent. They don't clutter up the paths while they chatter about banalities. I like cold weather because people get on with 'getting on' when they feel the temperature or the rain, sleet and snow; they move from one place to another with purpose; they go to the shops because they need something and not because they want something; 'Let's go shopping. We can have lunch there and get a cup of coffee afterwards' becomes 'Do I really need those things?' Sensibility returns. The roads are emptier and traffic moves more efficiently in cold southern England. There is a valid basis for the understanding that summer is the 'Silly Season', I feel.
Finally, it is over. We can just wake up and make our own decisions on how to improve. I am no longer tied to watering heritage plants twice a day. I can go out and have full conversations with people without interruption by 'day-trippers' who live locally. I can relax again. At last!
It is 14 degrees with 78% humidity. Bliss!
The cooking analogy title: Don't eat meat straight from the pan
Many of us just cook meat and serve it immediately. I am led to believe that pan-fried and roasted meat should be left to 'rest' before carving or cutting. I am pescatarian (fish-eating vegetarian) so I have no idea of what differences may be observed if meat is 'rested'. However, very rarely, I will eat meat, but I don't look upon it with any seriousness. Like many people, I will eat a bit of meat as soon as it is cooked, almost from the pan, while I plate up the rest of the meal. It is the time between this 'picking' of the cooked meat and the settling at the table with knife and fork that is September for me. There is the 'Oooch of the meat burning my tongue and lips remembered from the immediate past while having an understanding of the expected flavour of the semi-rested meat that is to come. For me, the taste of the meat straight from the pan (the past) is enhanced by an expectation of a known future. I need summer to be in the immediate past.
October, harvest time and a time of plenty, is eating at the table. September is between kitchen and dining room.