Act
A little over a year ago, I had a breast reduction.
I’ve vacillated over whether or not I would share this information in a place so clearly attached to my name. But there’s no shame in talking about our bodies, these vessels that carry us. So, fair heeding: I am writing today about something private and something uncomfortable. Please look away if it isn’t for you.
Having a breast reduction consumed my thoughts for so many years, from the time I realized the difficulties that come from having a small body and giant breasts. It made me so unhappy, but I was resigned to my life of modified yoga poses, intense backaches, and swearing off strapless dresses. Make the best of the hand you’re dealt, I’d say. It’s selfish and vain to have an elective procedure when you’re healthy. It’s not your place to alter a genetic destiny for sake of convenience. What will people say? And aren’t all plastic surgeons so sleazy? I shamed myself – deeply – into indecision.
One day, this constant monologue quit. We put so much stock in what others will think – how they will judge – when we make a change, especially one that’s outwardly detectable. But nobody did. My family cheered me on (loudly), my best friends were extra-ordinary supports, and if semi-strangers noticed, I never caught on. When I finally put the pieces into action, the most difficult part was overcoming my fear of a very real and serious elective procedure for a non-life-threatening condition.
My breast reduction was one of the best things I’ve ever done. For my health, mobility and awareness of my body – things that matter to make a good life. I spent my first 24 years partitioning my vessel from my identity, believing my body was something other than me because it restricted me. Cutting away flesh made room for so much more in my life that has nothing to do with appearance. I found a surgeon who wasn’t sleazy. Rather he was kind and upfront and generous with his immense talent. He chose plastics because it let him create the most extraordinary invisible changes for people: he reconstructed bodies to help mend all the broken things inside of them. He told me: “I’m going to change your life, Maria, not just your rack,” and I still laugh because his words are so true, if a bit crass.
Perhaps it is most significant that the experience has made me less judgmental toward others and their decisions, made with the best evidence in their hands. I’ll never know the entire story.
As with so many things, my breasts are really a way to talk about something else – action. One of my favourite bands has a really poignant lyric: “But the time is never right / No it’s never right / To step outside her life / To find what’s been lost / She’ll sleep on it tonight.” How often do we vow to change something – a behaviour, a habit, a state of mind – but keep telling ourselves that we’ll sleep on it? Make the call in the morning. Wait for a tidy January 1st, for tidy resolution.
And there we are, never stepping outside this life made up of our little decisions and their multitude effects.
This leap made me vow to grab future opportunities rough and hard, and run fast with them, and to be my own judge. To not ponder so darn much over the pros and cons and consequences that are mostly in my head.
Meyer Lemon Curd
Meyer lemons are fleeting – they come in December and January and then poof! Gone for another year. If you find a bag, as they are most often sold at the grocery store, this is the perfect use. I love the tangy curd layered with unsweetened cream, sandwiched between shortbread, or freezing cold and right off the spoon from the fridge.
Method based loosely on Alton Brown’s Lemon Curd.
Ingredients
5 whole, very fresh egg yolks
1 cup white sugar
5 meyer lemons, zested and juiced (yield: about 1/2 cup juice, 2 Tbsp zest)
1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into pats and chilled
pinch of salt
Equipment
1 medium heatproof metal bowl
1 medium saucepan
1 spatula
1 whisk
Method
To a medium saucepan, add about one inch of water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat.
Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks and sugar in medium bowl until smooth. Add meyer lemon juice and zest and whisk until very smooth and bright yellow, about a minute.
Reduce heat to low and place mixing bowl over saucepan (like a double-boiler). Whisk constantly for about 10 minutes, until the mixture is bright but mellow yellow and coats your spatula. Promptly remove from heat and add butter, stirring completely to melt after each pat. The final product should be very glossy and smooth.
Store cooled curd in a clean glass container with a layer of cling film directly on its surface. It keeps refrigerated up to two weeks.
Makes about 2 cups of curd.
Decisions
According to Sameer, whenever I’m making a decision or weighing options in my head, I twitch my nose from side to side. This nose twitching doesn’t accompany particularly life-altering decisions, I should mention. Mostly, it’s as I’m fussing over what wine to order with dinner or whether to roast an eggplant whole or sliced. As it goes, I must not make decisions – life-changing or otherwise – in front of the mirror, since I’ve never seen said nose wiggle. But I’ll trust Sameer on this one.
Quickly: name three decisions you’ve made lately.
You listed three great big decisions, right? Changing jobs, or moving to a new city, or taking in a dachshund as a pet (that last decision is mine, and I’m still working on it, for the record). But every day is a heap of decisions, mostly unconscious. For me, it starts as I clumsily jump from bed to push 20 more minutes on my alarm – one consistent decision on weekdays.
I’m convinced the big decisions matter much less than we think. Indulge me with a (really long but really good) quote from Stephen Jay Gould:
…with contingency, we are drawn in; we become involved; we share the pain of triumph or tragedy. When we realize that the actual outcome did not have to be, that any alteration in any step along the way would have unleashed a cascade down a different channel, we grasp the causal power of individual events. We can argue, lament or exult over each detail—because each holds the power of transformation. Contingency is the affirmation of the control by immediate events over destiny, the kingdom lost for want of a horseshoe nail.
No matter that Gould was actually an evolutionary biologist and I stumbled on the quote doing some “fun reading” in university. Tiny decisions drive kingdoms lost and also many terrible romantic dramas. Heather and I became housemates and friends because I liked the colour blue she used in her flyer. I studied politics at Queen’s instead of life sciences because I hated McMaster’s drab monolith of a student centre. I’m not being glib or devaluing these “big” events. The tiny details – whether cerulean or concrete – compound to create any number of life-altering decisions.
Cooking is the most tangible reminder of how little decisions add up. Take tomato sauce. Easy stuff, right? But the difference between a bang-on and ho-hum sauce is in the little decisions. The tomatoes, to start. Do you peel them and seed them? Blanch them first? At how high of heat should you cook the onions? (Nice and low, we don’t want them to brown.) Butter or olive oil for fat, or both? Dried basil or fresh? Do the tomatoes need some sugar to balance their acidity? (If it’s winter, most likely.) And what about salt? Should I fling the spaghetti at my wall to test its doneness? Spoon the sauce over top the strands or stir the lot together? Phew. It’s enough to make a girl throw down her apron and order in.
Luckily, with a four-ingredient tomato sauce this easy and delicious, your decision is actually pretty simple. Pour a glass of wine, pull out the cutting board, call up some people you love for dinner … and begin.
Tomato Sauce
Originally from the Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, by Marcella Hazan
Makes 4 servings
This sauce is so simple, you’ll read the recipe and be convinced it can’t possibly be so darn wonderful. I did. But when two great food writers (Molly Wizenberg of Orangette and Adam Roberts of The Amateur Gourmet) gush this hard about a sauce, I listen. It’s been a staple in my kitchen since.
Some help with decisions: out of season, I use a jar of good tomatoes like San Marzano or Muir Glen. In the summer, whatever mixture I find at the market works. While using butter in tomato sauce sounds strange, trust me that it’s the star ingredient – softening all the acidic edges often found in homemade sauce. Resist the urge to chop the onion: halved will work magic. Finally, though it’s a tomato sauce staple, don’t add garlic here.
Ingredients
1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes with their juice, roughly chopped (or 2c fresh tomatoes, blanched and peeled)
5 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 medium onion, peeled and halved
salt, to taste, as you go
1lb cooked pasta, to serve (I like good ol’ spaghetti with this, but anything that holds a medium-body sauce works well)
To a heavy saucepan, add tomatoes, onion halves and butter over medium heat. Taste your tomatoes for saltiness and adjust accordingly. Bring to a low simmer and cook uncovered until everything melds and deepens, about 45 minutes (you’ll see some fat come to the surface). A couple times in the cooking process, stir and test for salt. Discard the onion.
Boil your pasta in well-salted water (be generous – pasta water should taste like the sea). Drain and toss with the sauce. Ladle into deep bowls and dig in.
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