Not Irish stew - when throwing everything in the same pan is actually a great idea!

I am not an organized person. Truth be told, I'm rather chaotic. I was once told I'd thrive in chaos magic, but the fact is I'm a little scared by chaos - maybe because there's always been far too much of it in my life? But there are moments when I really do wish I was organized, meticulous, with every single chore in my day specified an appointed slot in time. I wish I could make lists of things to do and then stick to them. I wish I could pin down my thoughts and ideas and organize them into neat rows of what to tackle first. I wish I could self appoint chores and specific time slots for them and then stop when the time for doing that was over. Like say, sit down to do my social media for about fifteen minutes and stick to it, not let it drag for almost an hour.

I'm always coming across very organized people - they seem to pop into my life as a way of telling me I should be more like that - and lately, very organized authors. I envy them so much for their organizational skills, for about five seconds only, because when I really think hard about it, I would hate to be like that, I'd be unhappy like that. Some of us are really meant to only function in chaos. I'm one of those. But there are a lot of moments when I do feel I'd be better off with being a little more on top of my things. So I am training myself for that. It's not working, so far. Particularly when it comes to my writing. I am the most desorganized author there is, and actually it is not a good thing. Not that it's bad, mind, but it's not good either.

I have my brain divided into small compartments, you see, and I keep everything there and not on notebooks. Imagine yourselves my brain is one of those huge chiffoniers of old, with tons of small little drawers. Now imagine every drawer has one of those drawer divider things they sell on Ikea, and inside each drawer there's one group of ideas, and these are separated into each compartment of those drawer dividers. That's my brain. From ideas for novels to ideas for food photography, from opinions on art to opinions on people, my brain is like that. No notebooks, all's kept in my mental drawers. And like in the real life drawers, sometimes shit happens and stuff from one drawer ends up inside another drawer. This can be very good, actually, as sometimes brings about a new perspective I wasn't even considering before, but it forces me to go look into those drawers and maybe tidy up some. I hate tidying up.

But I do like the idea of getting things jumbled up from time to time, like what's been happening recently. See, as I'm reaching the final leg of my vampire series - or thought I was! - I started thinking about another novel I have on the back burner, and new ideas for it popped up. I filed them away at the specific drawer, but didn't realize some got stuck in the drawer belonging to my WIP (work in progress, as the experts call it). And then suddenly a new set of ideas for my vampire novel was infusing itself into my writing, and I noticed a few novelties coming up and realised that maybe I wasn't done with only three books. I felt like I had to go back to the second book and re-write certain parts, I felt like I had to take whole chapters out of book three and get them into book two so it all made new sense, I felt I might end up with the possibility of a fourth book in hands. And all because I muddled up some drawers. And I loved that it happened.

It's like that with food as well. Sometimes I want to cook stuff that I can throw into a pan all mumbo jumbo and just let it cook there for a while. Mix it all up, you know? See what comes out. Stews are perfect for this, and my sone loves stew, especially if it's thick, brothy and packed full of veggies like this one. It's not an Irish stew, it's his momma's stew.

• six to seven small new potatoes, diced
• two cellery stalks, chopped
• one leek, chopped
• two cloves of garlic, chopped
• one onion, chopped
• one red chilli, sliced
• one orange bell pepper, sliced
• two cups of frozen vegetable mix
• 200 gr of pork, diced
• 1 tsp worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp turmeric
• one can tomato + a cup of homemade stock or water
• olive oil, salt, pepper, mixed herbs - herbes de provence are very good here

On a large pan heat up the olive oil and gently fry the cellery, leek, onion and garlic. Once they're tenderizing, add the chilli and the bell pepper. Sprinkle with the turmeric and add the potatoes, stirring them around so they get coated in the olive oil and the turmeric. Now add the meat and let it fry for a few minutes. Pour in the tomato and the stock with the worcestershire sauce, lower the heat and cover the pan. Bring to a simmer and let it cook for five to ten minutes. Add the frozen veggies and season with the salt, pepper and mixed herbs. Cover the pan, but not completely and let it cook until the meat is tender and the vegetables done. Serve with a slice of bread on a cold, Winter night and allow your tastebuds to sing! It's that good!