2021 - The year of Intention, a glimpse from my own Experience
I will start this by saying, the vision for this post comes directly from the JOY I experienced from taking time to be intentional in the kitchen just last night on the 17th day of December, only days before 2021 comes to a close! Deciding this week that I wanted to be intentional about creating food this week, because I have learned the last few months that one thing my soul LONGS for, and mandates for my own comfort - cooking! There are always task and ‘things’ that can get in the way of our time & how we spend our days, but this week, I set aside time to create my second attempt at a fully homemade vegan barbecue and I was SUCCESSFUL! During the time spent creating in the kitchen, I began thinking about fostering joy and hear my mentor on repeat in my brain, “but I know she wouldn’t want that grief to steal away any moments of joy. So I look for the joy. And I find it. If I don’t find it, I create it.”; so I accepted the moment to be JOY, I find joy in creating food and it is a joy deep in my bones when I know I am creating something NOT only delicious but nourishing. (Recipes and pictures will be posted at the end)
As I was creating in the kitchen and owning the moment of Joy, I began to think about the year and how my life is forever changed. It’s to no surprise that 2021 has changed me at my core - the loss of my momma, there’s no being the same; but this moment wasn’t about that or how HARD 2021 was, but how beautiful.
With this, I decided to pause and write - to not ONLY capture the beautiful vegan creation that I want to share, but to capture the moment I chose joy!
As I begin to write, as per usual my brain works faster than my fingers or my mouth to get out the words that are running through my veins as vivid, as the blood that flows.
To fully capture the reflection of the impact of 2021 - the growth, the change, I must start with how I was struck in December 2020, when my therapist asked me if I felt safe and then asked if the inner child, my inner self, truly my whole being did I feel safe? Well, damn, I must say I’ve spent 2021 figuring out how the fuck to answer that question because my pause/response to that question from my therapist, defiantly made me aware that I was in fact NOT feeling safe. Starting a new year with intention to look within - changes the game, particularly if you have been gaining new tools for your tool set to process through some of the YOU via that internal inventory!
In 2021, I set to use the tools I’d learned from Heather Vickery in 2020 - to be Brave. And for clarity, the Brave Method, Heather has created means: Boundaries, 3 R’s (Reframe, Reassess, Resilience), Accountability, Vulnerability, & Empowerment! For 2021, I was specific to set out to reframe and reassess the narratives.
But 2021 had some really icky things in store, the things that feel so icky, it feels as if you may never make it - and you sure the fuck won’t be coming out the other side the same.
On January 4th, I had to rush my mom to the ER, only to learn the most heart wrenching reality that COVID had hit her and hit her hard. This spiraled into a catastrophe of events related to my mom’s contracting of covid. It’s hard to see clearly sometimes when the pain and angst are so loud. But I was determined to continue stepping into the light of my own integrity, regardless of what was being thrown at me, because I was intentionally practicing living with pause - reminding myself of where I did and did not have control.
It’s interesting to consider how often in my life I have heard people reference the importance of spending time with ‘self’, but never really knew what that meant in my core; but truly it’s so fascinating - the more time with yourself, the more time you have to learn about the things you love, hate, the pain - with self is where you can really spend time dealing with that internal inventory- all of the things that make you. I have spent a lot of my life in situations and finding ways to find the language to express the things I don’t want and along the way, I have been able to find ways that I find joy and when I am intentional about taking time to do those things.
Most of my early 20’s, I struggled with intense anxiety, that eventually turned to moments of sever panic attacks, to in turn led to many doctor’s & therapist for trying to determine the WHY. Why was I so anxious and what could I do to “fix” me. There are many things I have tried over the years to foster healthy habits, HOPING that the anxiety would subside. But it’s always been an on-going battle or to me not really a battle, but a way of life. There are many layers and steps that have been taken along the way, but it’s truly with the tools I acquired in 2020, sharpened in 2021, that I see now SO MUCH of the POWER of Intention.
I will define intention for myself as the process in which I AM THE AUTHOR OF THIS DAMN JOURNEY! I am in control of how I do the day to day. With the tools I have now, in 2021, I began naming boundaries - ones I had previously set, as well as ones I wanted to define. Now with intention reframing some of my own narrative of distance or hard lines, I began feeling powerful even amidst the damnedest pains.
My mom’s journey with covid - truly empowered me. It’s so hard to think about in those terms sometimes, because it feels so fucking morbid to think of anything good being gleaned from the pain my mom experienced this year; but I now see that not only did I go into 2021 with the tools to reframe with intention - but so did my mom! On January 15th, my mom made some powerful ass choices, because she wanted to be intentional with her WHOLE being. On January 15th, my mom decided she DID NOT want to live forever on tubes, machines, or with taking 35+ medications for survival - this decision required a dedicated level of intention from her, as well as from me because she knew she needed help. She wanted to do everything in her physical power & comfort to see how far she could go. She began taking her own power - telling her stories, reframing narratives for herself and she set into the year being real fucking diligent to LOVE herself as much as she had loved others.
I say all of this because even in the moment last night, as I considered the words of my mentor - considered what it meant to seek out the joy, to create it even when we can’t find it - I now realize how damn intentional my mom was to cultivate joy, even amidst knowing she was dying. It’s quite controversial to many, but my mom was extremely intentional about the way she wanted to die, determined that QUALITY of Life would always be her choice of Quantity. Starting in March of 2021, without many folx knowing - my mom made intentional plans for how she would prepare for her own death on this side of our universe experience. It was not until late May that I was faced with the HARD truth of what my mom’s intentions were. She nor anyone else had the exacts, but Patti had intention. But that damn champion didn’t live with intention to make stuff easy for herself in those days but to make herself WHOLE. She did the deep work going through her internal inventory and facing some of her greatest fears, looking at parts of her life that had for so long categorized her with so many awful identities. Identities she had accepted from others for years, but as she began many years before opening her heart to love beyond things she knew, she was in the prime spot in 2021 to open to herself (which I have NO idea what it means to be a mom, but for my mom - looking at herself had SO much to do with how my brother & I identified her).
This snip of a back story of my mom’s journey with intention, is just yet a snip, is intentional for all that came with the time of pause in creating the kitchen. Though, I hope to one day fully find a way to write and detail out the experience of what this year was like for us and how we survived together, even in her death my mom survived! The WHOLE person, not a glimpse of the person under the pain & trauma, but the whole damn HUMAN.
Living in grief is bizarre - it’s not a phase or a thing that ends but a way of living. When we recognize the grief is here to stay but appears in various ways, it’s ALL the more crucial for me to realize how much my intentions carry power. One of mom’s favorite things for me to cook was my do it home best version of pulled pork southern goodness - and I wanted to make her favorite things in a way that created goodness for my body. I don’t often cook with meat for myself and I am severely sensitive to pineapple and so therefore, I must find a way to make pulled pork via a meat alternative and in the absence of Sweet baby Rays (as it is made with a HEALTHY amount of Pineapple juice) - so I did.
I carved space into my week to ensure I would be able to be creative in the kitchen, because as mentioned the more time with myself the more I learn of the things that truly bring me joy and I needed JOY! I hope that this recipe and this story of creation - living with intention just may open your heart to consider: Are you being intentional about your day? Or, Do you consider the control you have in your own Narrative, can you reframe some of the stories you have told yourself - to empower you to see how powerful you are?
Pam’s Vegan Creation of Momma’s Pulled Pork Favorite!
* I am no chef or traditional cookbook writer, so here’s my attempt at sharing a recipe!
Prep time 1 hour; Cook Time 4 hours - serves 6
BBQ Baked beans
Guava BBQ sauce
Jackfruit “pulled pork”
Bitchin’ sauce potato salad
REQUIRED INGREDIENTS:
2 Cans of green young jackfruit
1 large can of whole tomatoes
1/4 block of Guava paste (or your favorite sweet fruit for flavor)
1lb bag of Navy beans
Chipotle Bitchin’ Sauce
2.5 lbs of new potatoes (or potato preference)
Sea Salt
Tony’s or your favorite cajun seasoning
Brown sugar
Fresh Dill
Chives
1 whole large purple onion
1 whole head of garlic
1 medium to large Jalapeño
Vegan Veggie Paste
Dijon (seeds or mustard)
Celery Salt
Paprika
BBQ Baked beans
The Baked Beans can be done from a can, but if you do start from scratch - this will be the LONGEST portion of the meal.
From dry - rinse and soak your pound of beans the night before (8-12 hours of soaking is my preference). Once you are ready to rinse & clean the soaked beans, begin chopping 1/2 your onion, 1/2 of the head of garlic (5-6 cloves), 1/2 the jalapeño - then sautée just enough to see the onions begin, once they are there, then you add 2 tablespoons of veggie paste (or your preferred veggie stock concentrate), 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, and a splash of salt, 5 cups of water - then add the clean beans, bring to a boil for 30 minutes, add another cup of water and cover on medium heat for an hour. At the hour mark ensure the beans are still covered with water, if not continue by adding another cup and cooking on medium for another hour. After 2.5 hours, the beans should be beginning to tenderize, and then you can determine if they are to your preferred texture if not keep beans covered with water and the lid and cook took your preferred tenderness, once tender - remove the lid and put the beans back to a higher temperature, add 1/4 a cup of your homemade barbecue sauce and cook until beans have thickened! (I personally cook my beans in a dutch oven, but the timing for this process can be cut by 1/3 if you choose to use a pressure cooker)
Guava BBQ sauce
Take remaining garlic & jalapeño in a deep iron skillet or boiler/dutch oven of preference - I prefer using my deep iron skillet. Once you have started the garlic and jalapeño, add your can of whole tomatoes and let simmer. While this is simmering, you will add cubes of guava paste, mustard (3 table spoons of mustard or 3 teaspoons of mustard seed), little under 1/4 of cup of brown sugar, celery salt, paprika and cook for 30 minutes - then take all of your contents and throw into your blender and blend until smooth (this can also be done with an immersion blender if you are using a deeper dish), once blended salt to taste and transfer to a container for cooling **DO NOT CLEAN THE PAN USED. (I will ALWAYS ADD TONY’S Cajun Seasoning for Salt)
Jackfruit “pulled pork”
Once you have started your beans, using the same colander that you cleaned the beans empty both cans of jackfruit and rinse! Once your jackfruit is rinsed, allow the jackfruit 20 minutes or so to drain. Once you have rinsed and drained the jackfruit - add paprika (cover it, works best to add 2-3 tablespoons and mix with your hands). While your jackfruit is draining, begin sautéing the other hand of your onion in the pan you used for the barbecue sauce because the remaining parts of sauce that was left over after transferring the sauce will be a great base of flavor for your onions & jackfruit. Once the onions have began to caramelize, add the jackfruit you have seasoned and cook on the stove top for 5-10 minutes staring only twice, then put the jackfruit in the oven on 250 degrees for 40 minutes to simmer!
Bitchin’ sauce potato salad
Wash and cube your potatoes, while boiling water to prepare for the potatoes. Add a pinch of salt into your water before adding the potatoes, cook to your preferred tenderness and drain. Once the potatoes are drained, add 4 table spoons of bitchin sauce, 1/4 cup chopped dill, 1/4 a cup chopped chives, pinch of salt and black pepper to taste - then transfer to a container for the fridge to let the salad marinate while the rest of the meal cooks!
THEN BAM - YOU HAVE A BEAUTIFUL VEGAN MEAL! (WE LOVE A GOOD SANDWICH AROUND HERE AND ENCOURAGE YOU TO USE YOUR FAVORITE BREAD)
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