Dreams (Beef stew)
Giving visions time to evolve
I’ve made this recipe before. I brown the beef and transfer the crusted pieces to a bowl. I sauté thick cubes of portobello and cremini mushrooms in the beef fat with some thyme, remove all of that and set the mushrooms aside until the end so they won’t get rubbery. Thumb-sized chunks of turnips and carrots go next, edges just caramelized before I add a heaping spoonful of flour. I pour in a few inches of light red wine from the bottle in the refrigerator, turn the heat up to high, flour and motion congealing the liquid. Maldon salt and fresh ground pepper at every step. And then water, or today, lux beef broth I bought from Heart & Seoul at their popup at HudCo, my coworking space.
Beef stew, the rhythm my own, though not too different from classic recipes like Julia Child’s beef bourguignon or thousands of stews before and after hers. When I originally published my recipe in 2022, I was less than a year into my post-Facebook career journey, imagining a feeling of everything in balance. The stew I made then had a heavy potpie crust, intended to please my son. Now, I forgo the crust, less worried about pleasing anyone but myself. I cover the simmering pot and place it in the oven at 275 degrees Fahrenheit for three hours until the cubes of beef feather apart. I add back the mushrooms and the dark liquid they’ve expressed.
This recipe still represents dreams to me, a cozy idea bubbling in a slow oven, but the dreams themselves have evolved. Now, I can see more specific forms emerge. Over the past two years, I’ve tried creating some things I now put down, for the moment: an oracle card deck based on my recipes and photos; puzzles based on potluck tablescapes; an online course in creative transformation. All of these are beloved ingredients in my pantry – I may use them again someday, but for now, I’m setting them aside to work with a more focused palette. I’m starting to build a prototype of something I’ve been calling “hammock.” I’m weaving it out of the feeling of being on a ladies’ weekend or a retreat: You are held.
Learning to listen to my dreams – the ones that whisper when I am sleeping and the ones that speak when I’m awake – has been the single most important skill I’ve cultivated since leaving my job. The sleeping dreams I write in a notebook beside my bed immediately when I wake up, and then I apply a method from Jungian analyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés: I underline the nouns, write quick associations of each one, note any feelings or messages I remember, and then retell the story of my dream using the associations. It’s like a letter from my subconscious every night, showing me what’s possible or urgent or blocking me. When I’m awake, my dreams speak through my hands onto whiteboards or through my voice in memos I record when I’m walking in the woods.
Lately, in my sleep I’ve been dreaming of my grandfather, my father’s father Alfred. This is notable because when I work with my ancestors, I feel most connected to the women in my mother’s family. But his presence has been clear and I pay attention. He seems to have two messages for me. One is of confidence: The son of Russian-Ukrainian Jewish immigrants who suffered persecution and violence, Alfred started an electrical contracting company at age 19 that, at its peak, paid 200 people’s salaries. I worked there when I was little, helping with filing and drinking Mountain Dew from the vending machine. I saw the company he built, the blueprints of the buildings they worked on and the invoices they billed. The other message that comes to me is one of ease: He worked so hard his whole life – even taking his briefcase to his deathbed, though his work ended decades earlier – and his work has made my life easier. Money from his company helped with the down payment on the first house my husband and I bought, that we shared with my sister and her wife.
Having made space for my own dreams to speak, I’m holding space for others to share their dreams. At my birthday party in January, I asked my lady friends to bring a dream to brunch: What are you hungry for in 2024? We lingered at the table after the feast my husband made was eaten, each woman taking a moment to share while the rest of us listened.
Dreams spread, each one its own flame that swells when it joins others. My friend Kelley was inspired to bring the idea from my birthday to hers, and she added a beautiful touch – her own reflection of each woman and the role they played in her life. The two parties could not have been more different: mine a chill Sunday brunch with arts & crafts and puzzles in my living room and a walk in the woods; hers, the high-energy delights of Las Vegas. But the feeling was the same: connect with our amazing lady friends, feed ourselves and our joy.
At my party, I had said I was hungry for focus, that I was ready to take the energy I had diffused across many dreams and create something with impact in the world. My friends gave me feedback: “It sounds like you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself,” they offered kindly. Kelley’s party gave me an opportunity to revise my dream. “Release expectations,” I said when it was my turn. “Allow unfolding.”
The stew, bubbling in the oven, has its own momentum. It asks me to give up a bit of control – when I remove the lid, I’m surprised at how the stew has thickened, and when it doesn’t, I accept that and make adjustments. I take this feeling of being open to surprise and play with my dream a little. I ask Adobe Firefly, a photo-based AI tool, to play with me. “Can you show me a hammock with a magical portal on top?” I type, feeding it a photo I’d taken of a hammock on the beach in Troncones, Mexico, where I’d stayed on a yoga retreat with nine women last November.
I can see it now, where my dreams are leading me, even if I have no idea what I’ll find when I get there.
Recipe as feeling: Dreams (Beef stew)
Appreciate what’s come to you.
Set aside what you don’t need.
Give it some thyme.
Let yourself be surprised.
Actual recipe
Beef stew
Serves 6
INGREDIENTS
Grapeseed oil for browning the beef
1 lb. stew beef
1 large yellow or white onion, sliced into half-moons
1 large turnip, cut into thumb-sized chunks, about 1 ½ inches
2 large or 3-4 smaller carrots, cut into similar size as the turnips
3 large portobello mushroom caps, cut into 1-inch chunks, plus a handful of cremini or button mushrooms, quartered
A few springs of fresh thyme
1 heaping tablespoon flour
Optional: ½ cup whole grain like wheatberries or spelt berries
1 cup red wine
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper
Water or beef or chicken stock
EQUIPMENT
Knife and cutting board
Heavy-bottom pot with a lid like a dutch oven
Tongs
Wooden spoon for scraping the bottom of the pot
Preheat your oven to 275 degrees Fahrenheit. Adjust the oven racks to make room for the size of pot you have.
Salt and pepper the beef. Heat oil in your pot over medium-high heat until the oil shimmers. Add the beef in batches, leaving plenty of space between pieces so they brown, not steam (it will probably take 2 batches to brown 1 lb. beef depending on the size of your pot). If you have a fan to ventilate smoke, turn it on. Flip the beef when one side is brown to brown the other side, then remove to a heat-proof bowl. Adjust the heat to keep the meat from burning. Repeat with the next batch.
Add more oil if you need to to keep the pan from burning. Add mushrooms, salt and pepper, and the leaves of a sprig or two of thyme. Sauté for a few minutes until the mushrooms start to brown, then remove them to a separate bowl (you’ll add these back at the very end of the recipe). Once the mushrooms are out of the pot, add the onion, more salt and pepper, and sauté the onions until the edges brown, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Add the carrots and turnip and sauté until those start to brown too. Add the flour (and grains if you are using), sauté for a minute or two, and then add the wine. Let it bubble for a few minutes, scraping up as much of the brown bits on the bottom of the pan as you can. Add the beef and any juices that have collected in the bowl. Add a bay leaf, and water or stock to almost cover (a few bits of beef and veggies should be visible above the liquid).
Bring to a boil, cover the pot, and place in the oven for 3 hours. (At 2 ½ hours, you can check for doneness and add more liquid if needed; the meat should be falling-apart tender.) When the meat is as tender as you want it, remove from the oven, stir in the mushrooms and their juices, and adjust the seasoning to taste. If you want the stew a little thicker, keep simmering it; if you want it thinner, add more water. When it’s done to your taste, serve in a bowl on its own or with crusty bread and butter and a crisp salad.
