Super Easy Vegetarian French Onion Soup

So, as you may know from my prior blog posts- I am quitting smoking.  Almost up to 4 weeks.

What you may not know (I did not), is that when you quit smoking, you feel like garbage for weeks. Your lungs seize up with all this new oxygen and then start trying to make you cough-barf up 20 years of tar and whatnot.  Like you have a super bad chest cold, and maybe a flu on top, cause you're exhausted.

It is not the best.  Point is- I've been feeling sick.

I don't know about y'all, but when I'm sick- I want soup.  French onion is my favorite.  I used to just keep cans of it around in case I got sick.  But I went vegetarian, so now I can't eat the canned kind, b/c they use beef broth.  Bleh.  

And who wants to spend a full hour dinking around browning onions when you feel sick?  Cause the waiting on the onions to brown but not letting them burn thing-- it blows.

But I have found a really easy way to make it in a crockpot, and I am so happy.  French onion soup is back in my life in a big way.  And I'm gonna tell you how to do it too.  And keep it vegan, if you're vegan.

You will need--

• A crockpot
• 2-3 pounds of onions
• 3-4 garlic cloves
• vegan butter/margarine/coconut oil (any of these will work)
• veggie broth- either some you've made or 1 of those large cardboard cartons
• salt and pepper
• a bay leaf
• basic spices that you prefer-- oregano, basil, parsley, garlic powder at least. You can also include cayenne pepper or chili powder- depending on your own taste.
• Balsamic vinegar or red cooking wine 
• Additional optional seasoning- Veggie worcestershire sauce (you have to check, sometimes it has anchovies) and sriracha (The Hoy Fong brand w/ the rooster is vegan)

Also, this process takes roughly a day and a half, but it's mostly the crockpot doing the work for you.

Part 1--  The Brownening

Plug the crockpot in and set it on low.  Peel your onions and cut them in half. Thinly slice the onions and put them in the crockpot.  Peel the garlic and smash the cloves thru a garlic press or finely dice them and add to the crockpot.  

Add about a teaspoon of either vegan butter, margarine, coconut oil.  One of either, not one of each.  You want to add a little fat into the soup to give it some richness.

Then you are going to season.  Add good shakes of all the basic spices (oregano, basil, parsley and whatever optional ones you prefer).  I like it spicy, so I add a good bit of the chili powder.  Add 1 bay leaf.

Make sure you use the salt and pepper. And add the veggie worcestershire sauce and sriracha.

I don't really do measurements when I'm cooking like this, cause this is down South gramma cooking and you keep adding and tasting until it looks right.  

But here are some general seasoning rules-- add a little salt at each step of cooking b/c some things absorb salt better as they are cooking and you can add a little at the beginning where it would take a lot more later.  Be careful of over salting, b/c too much salt makes it not edible and it's difficult to fix.

You can be a bit more generous with pepper.  And you can be even more generous with your dried spices like parsley and oregano.   When it comes to those, put what you think is a good amount and then add a bit more.  

Always be careful with hot sauce and chili powder if you are cooking for people who don't like spicy food.  I loooove hot sauce and I am very glad Josh does too.  So I can go a little heavy handed without having to worry that I'm going to set his mouth on fire.

I suggest doing the cutting up the onions part an hour of two before you head off to bed.  Then the onions have all night to brown up while you sleep.  Make sure it's set on low. (I fucking LOVE crockpots!)

Part 2-- Broth Boogaloo.

You wake up the next morning, and your onions are going to be all awesome and brown.  There will be cooked off oniony liquid goodness too.  Yessss.

Don't be worried if the top onions bits seem slightly burnt.  They're fine. 

Take your veggie broth and pour it into the crockpot.  Stir and taste.  Season the soup again, adjusting for how it tastes-- if you'd like it a little spicier, add a little extra sriracha.  Add either the red cooking wine or balsamic vinegar.  Balsamic vinegar is pretty concentrated, so you don't need much compared to the wine.

You should leave the crock pot on low all day.  Every 2-3 hours, stir the soup and check the spicing.  Adjust the spices as you go to make it taste like the soup you like best.

By dinner time, it will be done.  I like it by itself, but traditionally you would eat it with bread and melted cheese, so if you like that, then pick vegan bread and cheese options to keep it vegan (if you prefer).

And that's it.  Easy peesy.

I am gross

Hey, y'all!  I am still quitting smoking. I'm about 3 weeks into it, and I am a gross, sweaty mess of a zombie person.

This feels like having flu with a chest cold on top of it.

This is where I should probably say- don't smoke, but I'm not going to do that.  I started smoking b/c it was the least worst option at one of the lowest points in my life.  It helped me to not self-harm and kept me on my feet and moving forward.  It gave me a way to be sociable when I was feeling really unhappy with myself and not sure people would want to know me.

So if you are still smoking? I get it.  

I am afraid of getting cancer, and Josh doesn't smoke.  And I want to spend as much time with Josh as I possibly can.  So I'm quitting.  

Please enjoy some photos.  It may be photo blog updates until I get thru this hump on quitting.

But what about the thin people?

I swear to god.  I can't talk about fat shaming or fat politics anywhere without someone popping up to self-righteously intone that "Wahh, all shaming is bad and why do you hate thin people?? And people say mean stuff to me too, and wahhh everyone is mean, especially you."

Man.  Fuck this conversation.

I am not having this conversation online with anyone. Ever again.

I promise you.  I am writing this about it, because it's happened AGAIN for the umpteenth time, and I am really tired of it.

I can't even talk to the people I want to talk to, or talk about the topics I want to talk about, without someone slam crashing into my conversation to derail the whole thing and make it about them.  

If this so-called body positive movement gave a damn about fat people, we wouldn't need fat activism. But it doesn't.  It only cares about including people who are already considered acceptable in the first place.

And that's not enough. 

There are people who think there should be a White History Month and a Men's History Month, because- hey there's a Black History Month and one for women too.  And hey, it would just be fair.

Most progressive, liberal people get why that's not ok or reasonable.  But they still want to argue with me about how all shaming is bad.

A system of oppression where the government DECLARES WAR on one group of people (the War on Obesity) and everyone seems to think that's fine and dandy-- that's why thin/skinny shaming isn't a thing. 

You show me a War on Thinness that the government declares. GO ON, I'LL WAIT.

Because if you're thin and you feel bad about yourself- you could (through a long process) feel better about yourself one day. And then your problem would be solved.

If I, as a fat person, dare to feel good about MY body-- the cultural pressure is only increased. Because the problem is not how I personally feel.  It is a cultural problem, and it doesn't go away based on what I, as one person, do.

And I am sick to death of people coming at me with all kind of pompous, hippie bullshit- "Hey, man. Everyone feels bad sometimes you know.  And all kinds of feeling bad are equal. And I refuse to understand what systematic oppression means b/c that might make me have bad feels, and I am against bad feels for everyone! Especially ME!"

"And I have to center every conversation around ME and how it makes ME feel, even when people are repeatedly asking me not to! Now I have to go fart rainbows of cluelessness on someone else who is trying to describe the crushing weight of oppression they have to deal with every day!"

I am DONE with this.

This is an automatic block issue for me. Mention skinny shaming to me = get blocked out of my online life.

Thinkings

I'm feeling a little scattered.  I am trying to quit smoking. Again. 

I've lost track of how many times I've tried this, and I've never managed to make it stick.  It's especially frustrating because in other areas of my life, I am the getting shit done MASTER.

It is frustrating as shit.  And I am entering EPIC levels of bitchery.  Like, I found myself angrily arguing with dudebro nerd boys on Tumblr about the season 8 Doctor Who premiere. 

So, I've basically just completely lost it.  And I'm filled with hating. Can't forget the hating.

I'm exhausted, my chest hurts and I'm whining to you fine people on the internets.

I was going to write a blog post about the latest Doctor Who and sexism, but it'll keep.  (I am pretty mad about it, y'all.)

Basically, if I wait around until I want to stop smoking- like REALLY want to, I'm never going to do it.  Because I like it.  So I have to just do it, and it fucking blows.

I'm going to go read a book and eat something.  Wish me luck.  

Fat and being girly

I've been asked to write a blog post for the online book tour for Queering Fat Embodiment by Cat Pause of the Friend of Marilyn podcast and radio show.  She's also an editor for the book.  Thank you to Cat for asking me!

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Let's talk about fat and the concept of "Girl".  Or femininity, which I always think of as girliness.  Girlhood. 

When I was a very little kid, I wanted to be a boy.  But what did I really want? Not a difference in my body.  I wanted access to the things I perceived boys as having.  I wanted to be able to run and shout and jump and play without being told constantly to "be more ladylike".   

I didn't want to rein myself in.  I didn't want to be quiet.  Girlness seemed very restraining. 

To be Girl was to be depowered. It meant submitting to the will of others.  It meant being fake and being silenced.

But Girl also meant pretty and fun.  It was bright colors and glitter and fancy.  Lipstick and nail polish.  

And thin.  Girl is Thin.  

Since I couldn't be thin, even though I tried and tried, and since I didn't want to be quiet- I rejected Girl.  Girl felt like the death of the soul.  It felt like giving in and giving up.  I didn't want Girl.  I wanted to be me.  I wanted access to pretty hair and lipstick, but I wasn't willing to die for them.

The first time I saw anyone try to bridge the gap between being girly but still having a voice was riot grrrl when I was a teen.  Pretty sundresses, but with combat boots and lipstick in smears.

It called to me.  But then I had to face reality.  I was fat.  I couldn't dress as a riot grrrl.  Where would I get the dresses?  

It's only in the last 5 years that I have been able to bridge the gap.  To grab my own piece of Girl and make it my own.  Only in the last few years has there been supply for my demands.

I wear dresses almost every day now. I like to dress femme.  For one, what reads as easy and casual on a thin person is read as sloppiness on a fat person.  I don't like looking sloppy.  I am already dealing with people's negative snap judgements of me for being fat.  I know that if I look 'sloppy', I will be judged even harsher.  

I also know that for me to read as 'Woman', I have to dress very femme.  My fat shows me as a failed woman.  Fatness desexualizes me and turns my sexuality into a punchline.  For me, wearing dresses and makeup is a defense.  If I over perform Woman/Girl, I am pushing back against my perceived gender failure.  

When I perform Girl, I am deliberately confusing my role.  I am pushing into a between place.  I am between Girl and Girl Failure.  I am being political.  I am challenging.  This can make some people angry.  It makes me the subject of gossip, dirty looks, and the occasional awkward conversation.  It also makes some people very happy.  

It is also the place where I am most comfortable.  I change my body with large, girly tattoos to suit myself better.  And when I am in my dresses and sneakers- I am most myself.  

I used to think I had to be like a boy, because I was a failure at being a girl.  I saw the devaluing of girly things and I wanted to be valued and valuable.

But being fat has freed me in a way, to be as girly as I'd like.  Because I will never be Girl, so I can freely take what I'd like from girliness and pass on what I don't care about or don't have time for.

And let's be honest.  No human person can live up to Girl. Girl can crush your soul.  

Free yourself from the shackles of Girl and wear lipstick if you want to.  Or not if you don't.

Street harassment

There's been a story going around recently about a man who tried stop street harassment in Philadelphia who was then assaulted by the harassers.  It's gotten national attention, mostly along the lines of- oh street harassment hurts men too. Or oh look at this poor guy with his chivalry and how he got beat down by the big, bad city.

And it's making me really angry.  Angry and upset.  Because now that a man got beat up, someone is going to cover the street harassment in Philly for a second.  Because a MAN was hurt, people will pay attention for a minute.

I have to tell you, the harassment situation in Philly is bad.  I am in the Rittenhouse area multiple times a week and have been for a few years now.  And it seems like it is steadily getting worse there.  Specifically, really aggressive panhandling.

It's pretty rare for me to go more than a few days in a row without someone jumping in front of me, getting in my face, or yelling at me.  Demanding money.  Demanding cigarettes.  Men using their size to push into my space and physically intimate me.  Men who scream, "Fuck you, fat bitch," or call me a liar when I say I don't have money or when I try to put my stone face on and pretend I can't see them.  

It is exhausting to walk around the city sometimes.  

It would be pretty easy to say-- Why doesn't the city DO something?  And I have certainly wondered angrily why the city doesn't seem to care.  

But what would "doing something" look like?  Not more cops.  The cops here have a long history of beating the shit out of people.  And while I don't want to be grabbed or shoved by someone I've declined to give money to, I don't particularly want the cops to beat them up either.  Also, cops don't necessarily come when you call here, even if you did think they would help, which I'm not so sure of.

Now why would Philly have a problem with people panhandling?  Hmm... Let me think.

There's no shelter capacity for nearly half of the homeless people in Philly.

"About 13 percent of Philadelphians - or nearly 200,000 people - live in deep poverty, meaning that a family of three makes less than $9,700 a year, which is 50 percent of the official poverty line."

"The poverty rate here is the highest among the nation's 10 largest cities."

Don't forget that our country completely dismantled the mental hospital system (which was very flawed) in the 1960s and 1970s and replaced it with fuck all. 

Oh, and Philadelphia is gentrifying quickly, and has a severe lack of affordable housing.  "In Philadelphia County, only 37 affordable rentals are available for every 100 households with extremely low incomes (... an extremely low income is less than $24,450 for a household of four people)."

And the rate of job growth is below the national average.

So yeah, we have a much bigger problem than we could solve with a dozen more cops.  Like a lot of other large American cities, we have systemic problems that require systemic solutions.  

My suggestions?  Total socialism, y'all. Guaranteed housing, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed minimum income.  Single payer health care that covers everyone, which includes dignified inpatient mental health care for people who need it and access to social workers for assistance and outpatient care for those who don't need inpatient. 

We need to totally reorganize our priorities.  I fucking love Philadelphia, and we deserve better than the same old free market bullshit that has eaten this town alive.

Making room for us

Who gets to be included in fat acceptance?  What does it mean to be pro-fat acceptance?  Are people who aren't considered fat by some impartial measurement system- does fat acceptance include them?  Does it have anything to say to them? 

I've been thinking about these questions a lot recently.  In really specific terms, since I read Jenny Trout's piece on the song "All About That Bass".  

I agree with a lot of what Jenny has to say.  I also personally don't like the song, b/c I don't like the singer's voice.  And I have a personal beef w/ people putting on a fake Southern accent.  It grates on my ears, b/c it's usually bad.  It is irritating as fuck to hear someone put on an accent like it's a fashionable accessory when it's an accent you've had to eat a lot of shit for actually having.  

I have a US Southern accent, and people make all kinds of negative assumptions about me.  Someone who isn't from the area puts one on to be "cute" = BOO!  I don't like it.  (I should say "had" the accent. I've been in the Philly area for a decade now, so it's pretty much gone at this point.)

It also makes me wonder if this girl is trying to sound black, which is a whole other ball of awfulness- cultural appropriation and structural racism and see Izzy Azalea's racist ass.

I had a conversation with my best friend, Mikkie, that I can't stop thinking about.

I'm not going to rehash the whole thing (it was LONG, y'all), but here's the gist.

I don't believe that song is a fat acceptance song, because the singer is clearly not fat. And while the message of "you can feel good about your body even if it's not a very thin model body" is a good one-- that's not fat acceptance.

Because a feeling good about yourself message that is only targeted at women who are in the medium/average range does exactly nothing for me.  It says- "it's ok to have curves", but it's only saying it to women that are already in the 'acceptable' range.

It's Jennifer Lawrence talking about how the word "fat" should be banned.  It's Beyonce singing "Bootylicious".

It's the message that it's ok to have curves- if you look like Beyonce or Jennifer Lawrence.

That's not enough.  So if I'm fatter than a US size 10, then it's not ok.  That's over the line.  That's "promoting obesity".  

When you have a system that sets up women who are clearly in the average/middle (or even the smaller side of average) as the largest acceptable body, that means there is no room for me or people larger.  It skews everything.

It's ok to say you love your body-- if you're thin enough already.  We'll allow some variation in body shape, but only under this line.  If you're over that line, then the world expects you to hate yourself. And you better preform hating yourself as publicly as possible.

Do you want people who are smaller than you to not feel ok about their bodies?-- No.  Not at all.  Fat hatred touches women who aren't fat, because they're scared of what will happen to them if they slip over that line.  It touches them because what counts as "fat" keeps getting revised downward while the penalties for being fat grow ever more severe.

But I don't accept that mainstream "body acceptance" is meant for me.  I know it isn't.  And the "be ok with yourself" message is not meant for me either.  If I didn't have a problem with the singer's voice, I might jam to the song anyway because nothing in mainstream culture is meant for me.  I have to take my enjoyment where I can.  

So I sing along to "Bootylicious".  But I am not fooled.  Because if Beyonce was a US size 26, we would never have learned her name.  If Jennifer Lawrence was a size 3X, she would not be in movies.  She especially wouldn't be starring in them.  And if Meghan Trainor was actually plus sized-- if she wore a US size 30-- no one would want to hear her sing about loving her body.

If she wrote a song about loving her body and put it on the internet, she would be getting death and rape threats.  And the only national attention she would be getting is dudebro comedians making fun of her.  Because how dare she.  Can't she see she's disgusting??

That is not fat acceptance.  If it was, it would make room for us.  For real fat people.  

For me, fat acceptance is not about making individual people feel better about themselves.  Although it does do that, and that's not a bad thing.  But I want more than that.  I want this entire system of women being held down and held back because of looks-- I want to smash it all.  I want the whole system of discrimination to come tumbling down.

And a song about how you can feel ok if you're already acceptable-- that's not doing it for me. 

It's not enough.

Happy Birthday!

It's my birthday weekend!  So, instead of doing a normal blog post, I'm cleaning the house for a party tomorrow.  People are coming in from out of town, and it's gonna kick ass.

But I do need to de-fur the house.  And clean dishes, etc. 

We're gonna watch The Protector 2!  OMG.

YESSS!  Tony Jaa and the RZA!  

Go watch all of Tony Jaa's movies!  Hooray!  

Fat and Family Stories

Hi, everyone!  I've got a couple of stories I wanted to share with you.

Comments are welcome, but please keep everything supportive.  Also, all comments are subject to moderation, so bear with me if it takes me a bit to get your comment approved.

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I grew up in the sole custody of a beautiful but very mean mother who used to lock up the food in our house because she was so sure I was overeating. (I wasn't; I simply inherited my father's fat genes.)

My mother and siblings, who were all thin and good-looking, treated me like such shit that I've had to cut off contact with all but one of them completely. The only one who didn't abuse me is the one I have contact with. 

It's scary to live a life without any family support, but I wouldn't have had that anyway even if they were still in my life. I know it's impacted my life negatively in a number of ways: I have major depression at a disabling intensity and I'm sure much of the cause was my abusive childhood.

it's prevented me from being able to finish school, getting a decent job, getting my own place. My life is better without them, and I know if I ever went back they'd simply revert to their old ways. I don't miss them, but I do miss having supportive people around me because that's something I never had.

I don't have any advice for anyone else except to say that it's okay to walk away from abusive people, no matter how it may shock others. People from happier homes just don't understand.

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 I've been fat since I was 14, which was 35 years ago. Till the day she died (5 years ago) my mum hated my extra weight. She told me every day of my life, (even before I was fat) that I was "fat, useless, stupid, lazy, good for nothing" - and that I'd be dead before I was 25.

She would ridicule me in front of my siblings, "jokingly" tell people (friends and strangers) that if anyone upset me "She'll sit on you" and generally made my whole life miserable. I definitely think I got bigger as a direct result of this.

The only part of my life she couldn't control (when I was younger) was what went in my mouth. It was an unconscious act of rebellion every time I sat down to eat. She told me repeatedly that she didn't love me, and no-one ever would - because "who could love a fat, disgusting lump like you?" It took a long time for me to realise that she was very, very wrong.

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Thank you for sharing your stories.  It means a lot to me and I know it will mean a lot to others.  

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I'm still taking stories about fatness within families.  I may add line breaks for readability, but otherwise I won't edit your words.  Please feel free to get in touch.

Happiness writes white

Hey, there!  Do you know about Harvey Danger and Sean Nelson?  Look, I know we all remember the song Flagpole Sitta from the 90s, but the rest of their music is not very much like that.  It's REALLY REALLY good.

I'm really drawn to vocals and lyrics, and I find these lyrics really beautiful and compelling.

These are songs that especially speak to me right now.  

So.  I've made you a mixtape.

listen to ‘Sean Nelson - Make Good Choices’ on Audioboo

"Your smile, it was disarming. 'Cause nothing is more charming than a narcissist with whom you've just agreed."

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Harvey Danger

"You can bash your head against a wall for years. The wall is not impressed."

You can bash your head against a wall forever, The wall will never change. But if you start to like the bloody bruises, The wall cannot be blamed."

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Track 10 of Little by Little by Harvey Danger

"Progress shall be defined by your position on the bridge as it burns."

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Happiness Writes White, a song by Harvey Danger from their album Little by Little. Released year 2005 by Phonographic Records.

"When I consider what you put up with I'm amazed you still have skin."

"I've been in the tall grass all my life until you came along; now there's one less thing wrong. Even though happiness writes white."

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