BROWNIES + CHORIZO + EMMENTAL + SUNDRIED TOMATO

I'm having a little bit of a motivation crisis. I can't focus on work. I can't focus on personal projects. I have a shit ton of free time these days, and I tooootally don't make good use of it. I'm a classic combination of undisciplined, unmotivated, and my life lacks all structure or time management. Even my beloved sandwich blog, which I usually bury myself in in times of chaos or "other" is seeing the neglect I've been affording every other area of my life. As I've kind of alluded to in recent posts, all these sandwiches were shot in my old apartment, which I left 3 months ago now. I haven't shot anything new since, and I'm running out of backlog.

Why does this happen to so many of us? And why am I so prone to fall into this feedback loop of decreasing impetus? I've always found inspiration, and interest to be the strongest motivating forces, so when I find myself wading into the oblivion of blurred together days, I don't wonder too much, "Why the lack of momentum?"

How to balance this though? I feel so much pressure here to be doing, making, earning. It can get very overwhelming, and the artistic overachievers all around me don't seem to help. Toronto is such an ambitious place. It's no New York or London, but it's stressful to find yourself not doing much of anything. Excuse me while I reminisce again about my time in France.

Yes, it made quite an impression. People seem to be just as productive, but they put a higher priority on actually enjoying life, around all the necessary things, and not have the necessary things be where they're trying to source all their happiness. I think it's a smarter way to be, because not everyone can be a happy, successful artist, so coming home from your job and living seems like they've got it figured out. The French aren't weekend warriors. They make sure to enjoy themselves every day. This goes for most parts of continental Europe I've been to, but I can speak from the experience of having lived in France, the ritual is come home, meet with friends, eat food. The wine is implied.

There were times where I feel like my friends and I didn't eat real meals for dinner for weeks on end, because we'd meet up, and there would be 5 things that were always around: baguettes, cheese, saucisson (cured sausage), ample wine of all 3 colours, and (surprisingly?) chocolate. Yea. Lots of just bread/cheese/saucisson, all ripped off in chunks, or cut from a communal plate on a picnic blanket. Bottles of wine being passed back and forth (did you know rosé is the most commonly drank variety of wine in France?). And I honestly didn't realize that grown-ass people of all sorts eat chocolate errry damn day there. Who knew? The point being, enjoying yourself is simple, and it's not rocket science, or ambition fulfilment by working your ass off for a career (though it can be for some). It's what we already know; the simple things.

So I'm channeling some lazy early evening France for this sandwich, 'cause I kind of need it. Hope you enjoy.

• bread (Queen St Gluten Free Bakery white bean and millet seed)
• brownies (gluten free version of my grandmother's recipe I've been eating since childhood)
• chorizo
• emmental 
• sundried tomatoes
• butter
• Himalayan salt

I wanted to incorporate brownies in a sandwich somehow, and I immediately thought of the days when it was perfectly natural to eat chocolate with saucisson and cheese, and it always will be. I decided to pair it with a spicy chorizo, something bold enough to balance the brownies in a complementary way, as well as a strong, deep, back of your mouth emmental. The sundried tomatoes added a quite nice kick, and some softness, glazed in olive oil, salt for contrast. I assembled then fried the sandwich in a pan with butter. I ate it with some extra strong French press coffee in the morning. It was all excellent.

Bisous bisous, Emily