Meryl Streep's Wise Words On Friendship.

    My dear friend Karen who often contributes to this blog with her recipes. 

I often dwell on the subject of friendship and it's interesting to know that research suggests that people deliberately narrow their circle of friends as they get older.

When we achieve enough maturity and self awareness to know who we are and what we want, we have a degree of clarity about which friends deserve our attention and which are a drain.

Even the most omnivorous collectors of friends acknowledge that with maturity comes the need to go through a pruning process. Quite often we find ourselves playing parts in different films to those of our friends.

The work environment is a hard place to make discerning choices regarding friendships. Basically people are thrown together for thirty-plus hours a week, more time than we spend with our families or chosen friends, and often we start to mimic behaviours of those around us as we feel the need to belong socially. In these circumstances we often participate in behaviours such as passive aggression, hostility and covert bullying, it's often not until we remove ourselves from the situation that we see how we adjusted our personalities to follow the crowd.

Meryl Streep is one of my favourite actresses and humanitarians, her thoughts on friendship are beautiful and if we all heeded them, the world would be a nicer place.

'I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I have become arrogant, but simply because I have reached a point in my life where I do not want to spend time with what displeases or hurts me.

I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism or demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not smile back.

I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate.
I decided not to coexist anymore with pretence, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise.

I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust to either popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities.

In friendship I dislike a lack of loyalty and betrayal.

I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a kind word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting cruelty to animals.

And on top of everything, I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.'
- Meryl Streep.

I would add to that: I no longer want to coexist with jealous people, this insidious disease, whether out in the open or wrapped under layers of veiled spite, is the root cause of all evil.

Having pruned out some of the weeds in my life I can now concentrate on enjoying the beautiful, kind, funny and charismatic friends who deserve my friendship. Karen, one of my closest friends, passed on this delicious recipe this week, the beauty of it is that the sauce is rich and creamy but not calorific.


Chicken in tarragon and mustard sauce

Recipe
2 tbsp sunflower oil
650g free range chicken thigh fillets
150ml chicken stock
200ml creme fraiche
1 tbsp course grain mustard
1 tbsp dried tarragon

Heat oil in a non stick pan and cook the chicken until golden on all sides

Add the stock and cover, allow to simmer for 10 minutes
Add the creme fraiche, mustard and tarragon, stir and continue simmering uncovered, for another 10 minutes

Serve immediately, delicious with rice or mashed potatoes, I served it with vegetable risotto

'Your perspective on life comes from the cage you were held captive in.'
- Shannon L. Alder

Love Donna xxxxxx