Thai curry and a realization

I made Thai curry for dinner tonight.  A kind-of staple here which may become more of one.  The kids both tried it.  The Omnivore liked it, GFCF Kid said, "it's not bad".  It was pretty sweet tonight, with only a hint of heat.  (I kept in mind that the kids might try it and I want to ease them into spicy foods.)

We use Thai Kitchen's Red Curry Paste and follow the recipe on the back of the jar to make our Thai curry.  Today I sautéed half a yellow onion and a green pepper and added to that leftover tofu and a bit of the chicken from the chicken stock pot (most of the chicken will be used to make a chicken salad for tomorrow night's dinner: chicken salad tortilla wraps).  I then poured the coconut milk over that and created the sauce.

By the time I remembered to take a picture I was down to the dregs of my second bowl which did not look appetizing any which way you cut it.  The kitchen was dark, our light is on the fritz, so I took a shot of the curry left in the pot dimly lit by the light of the stove.

coconut creamy goodness.

My realization, which it occurs to me, will sound perplexing to some in its obviousness, but my mind is really good at talking to me...and listening to me.  I am as gullible to the words of my own mind as I was once to the words of everyone.

After I finished my first bowl of rice and curry, I sighed with pleasure and contentment.  And instead of being with that moment...truly becoming one with it, I immediately began to think of a second bowl.  And, probably there were a few things that went through my mind, and I don't remember it all.  But, I do remember thinking: it would be better to have a second bowl of rice rather than have the rice go to waste.

Our rice cooker is on the fritz, too.  And where pre-fritz it cooked rice perfectly (for 16 years!) and then kept it warm and perfectly edible for 24 hours, as of a month or so ago, it is cooking the rice unevenly and the rice becomes wet and soggy after a few hours.

(And, yes, we can take the rice out of the cooker and put it in the fridge to reheat, so it wouldn't go to waste, per se.)

So, I had a second bowl.  It was a small portion, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't satisfy in the same way.  At all.  Because I didn't really want the food.  I wanted that delicious feeling of utter satisfaction.  And I was so driven towards that that I failed to recognize that I had that feeling already.  It. was. right. there.  Instead, I dropped it to chase it.

This is where eating mindfully can help me.  If I can slow down and savor to the very last bite, chew and swallow, bliss is there for the experiencing.

I love food.  And derive great pleasure from eating delicious food.  Eating mindfully can help me re-train my habit of thinking that eating more food will get me the pleasure I seek.  I can get a lot of pleasure from just one bite.  I know, because I've experienced that.

There's a flipside to this with two parts.

One is that maybe I have a fast absorption rate of pleasure (however that plays out biochemically...)  So, where someone else would experience the pleasure for longer, I burn through my pleasure quicker and it literally dissipates in an instant, leaving me eager and even a little edgy, for more.

The other is that I have a deep and unknown emotional (and/or possibly chemical) need for extending my experiences of pleasure (or having them at all).  This need extends its long fingers at the faintest whiff of pleasure and grabs at it, refusing to let go.

I know that I can achieve some balance through practicing Qigong.  And being more mindful and present in everything I do.  And hopefully, if there is some mystery emotional garbage down in my subconscious weighing me down, I'll be able to unearth that and get rid of that, too.