on beets

The beets didn't exactly slip out of their skin, as I'd been led to believe they would. After boiling them for 45 minutes and then shocking them in cold water, I thought they would come flying out of those skins.

Instead, I found myself scraping off the skins, chastising myself once again for my unfortunate habit of nail-biting. More and more, it only comes out in times of stress, and that particular week—when I decided to see if I, in my grown-up-ness, had become someone who likes beets—I had started a new position at work. That overwhelming amount of information to consume every day—new people to meet, new processes to learn, new schedules to adhere to, my gosh, even a new desk—it was a lot to take in, but it wasn't until the end of day #3 on the new job that I realized I was perhaps more on edge than I thought.

My nails had become short without me noticing, until I tried to skin beets and found no useful nails for digging in.

No matter.

I turned to my Wusthoff paring knife {what a delight it is to use a quality knife, instead of one that come from Target or, heaven forbid, Ikea}. Even with its sharp edge to give me a start on peeling the beets, if was not a clean job. Beet juice splattered on my white, just-cleaned stove before I thought: Perhaps I should do this outside.

Sometimes the most obvious thoughts occur long after you should've thought them.

No matter.

The beets got peeled and then pickled, a process that made me feel as if I should be in a farmhouse out on the edge of a cornfield, and then I took one bite of my beets, these things I had labored so hard over, and I thought: Oh, beets, where have you been all my life?