While riding in the car, with my dad in the driver’s seat, nearly a decade ago, I told him about an extremely frustrating situation. I don’t remember what made me so stressed, but I do remember feeling frustrated and anxious about it. I said, “I could just scream.”

And so he did.

While driving down the Interstate-15 freeway, he let out a yell. His mouth agape, his tonsils warbling, he screamed at the top of his lungs for as long as he could.

It took me about 10 seconds to join him.

There we were, cruising at 70 miles per hour, yelling until our lungs ran out of air, sucking in a new breath and starting again. We did this until our chests heaved, we gasped for air and our vocal chords surrendered.

It was cathartic.

Like I said before, I have no memory of what  actually made me so upset. And I find it hard to believe that anything about the idyllic life I led at the age of 16 could feel so overwhelming, but teenagers are full of overwhelming.

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately. I feel like I have a lot of projects now, most of which are long-term and none of which are making significant progress. There’s blog posts to plan and groceries to buy. There’s bridal shower invitations to design, invitation pieces to print, envelopes to address and a wedding favor cookbooks to write. There’s seven stories waiting to grace the front page of the Ligonier Echo next week and three more meetings left to attend. And there’s a house to clean, a dinner to cook and a dessert to bake for company coming over on Saturday.

Man, looking back at that last paragraph, I feel ashamed. Here I am complaining about making time in my job-filled, still-idyllic life to buy groceries with the money we can count on every two weeks, while there are people out there in the world who don’t know how they’re going to feed their kids. I’m complaining about planning a wedding ceremony and party for 100 of our closest friends and family, and there are people out there who have outlived their entire family and will die alone tonight.

I gotta get a grip.

Everyone gets stressed out and even in the most charmed, luckiest, most blessed life, obstacles can seem insurmountable. And it’s OK to feel stressed and complain, even for trivial things. But let’s keep it in perspective.

It’s late now; A.J. is asleep. But tomorrow. Tomorrow, while driving to work I’m going to scream until my lungs give out. I’m going to remember that afternoon in the car with my dad where we both just needed a few minutes out of our own heads to focus on a single task. And then I’m going to make a to-do list (once I’m out of the car and stationary, obviously), and cross things off one at a time.

These crispy potato coins are the perfect side to a stressful day. They’re cheap, quick and easy. Oh, and they taste great too. The outside of the coins get a thin layer of buttery, golden skin that tastes of rosemary and garlic. Biting into each coin, the inside is tender and soft.

I started with fingerling potatoes, but any small potato species will do, such as creamers, baby reds, Dutch yellows or Yukon golds. I sliced the potatoes between one-quarter and one-half inch thick and threw them in the steamer basket with salted water boiling underneath. (Adding salt to water intended for boil — even when it’s not used for flavor such as with the steamer basket — brings water’s boiling point up about six degrees. This means when you finally reach the boiling point, the water is hotter and cooks food faster.)

I steamed the potatoes (covered) for about 10 minutes, or until they were soft when I pricked them with a fork. [Read more...]