food to die for

all hail to bacchus, god of good wine, good food, and really good revelry!

it might've been healthy food, and completely not reminiscent of ancient rome, but still. praise all the gods of good food, and praise the universe for putting all that second-generation star dust into the right combination to form my body right here, right now, so that i am able to enjoy such pleasures of my physical incarnation.

because...damn.

thankfully, my head is only dimly pounding now, which is a far cry from two days ago. not so thankfully, i've always been prone to really bad headaches, which brew over days (sometimes a week) into full-blown, blinding, pounding, please-someone-at-least-cut-off-my-head migraines. the one i had the other day wasn't that bad, but it wasn't too far off.

but today, it was only painful enough to make me pause a few times. so i figured i'd finally get around to making that homemade chipotle burrito i'd been craving last week.

oh. my. gods.

it was so much better than that!

i broke out the coconut oil, heated up the pan until it was smoking and made the most wonderful stir-fry. i had sliced carrots, red onion, and a green bell pepper very thin. separately, i stir-fried the carrots with a little diced garlic, then threw it into a bowl. next, i stir-fried the bell pepper and red onion with ground black pepper and a couple splashes of lime juice (okay, so it was more than a couple!) until the onions and bell pepper were mainly blackened at the edges, then put that atop the carrots. after that came a whole heaping pan of white mushrooms with garlic, a couple pinches of salt, and extra coconut oil. then i julienned a small handful of fresh ginger root, just enough to fit into the palm of my hand, and sauteed it for just a few seconds.

then i diced up a fat handful of fresh cilantro and sprinkled that into the bowl, and mixed everything together. it was so pretty i had to take a few pictures of it with *cc*'s camera, just to capture it.

shauna at gluten-free girl has a really good point: looking at your food through a camera lense really makes you stop and consider your food in an entirely new light. i know every ingredient i used, chosen for health benefits and flavor both, diced up every bite with my own hands, and made a magic with that food all by myself. i could only imagine how good it was going to taste.

i let that sit while i melted more coconut oil into the pan, and heated up a pan of refried pinto beans with more garlic.

then i put it all into a bowl, and slathered it with that Amazing Guacamole of Mind-Altering Fantasmicness (oh my gods...). i sat down, put in "Just Married" into the dvd player (i love that movie, it always makes me howl with laughter no matter how many times i see it), and took my first bite.

it was...

...it was...

...goddess, it was enough to make me want to go out and start a new religion. that bite...that perfect bite! it had the perfect balance of garlic, the deep headiness of bell pepper and red onion dancing with the tany sweetness of lime juice, blanketed with the heavenliness of cilantro, with the old-home familiar refried beans at the bottom and cold contrast of guacamole on the top. and every once in a while, if i was lucky, there was a small bite of beautiful ginger giving the mexican blend just a hint of something more.

and while it may sound like sacrilege for a mexican to say no tortillas required, it's true.

i sat and had a new experience in luxurious taste just now, all those textures and flavors blending together to make the perfect aria, mixed with heaping spoonfuls of laughter.

it was... *happy sigh* oh goddess. it was just so good. you gotta try it!