Spring cleaning, part one.

it seems criminal
to recycle hemingway
coffee-stained or not

So not a Friday five.

Five things that I am going to do, starting in 2013, in no particular order:

• Eliminate selfish, thoughtless negativity.  In my work relationships, my personal relationships, even the entertainment I choose.  My time on this planet is too short and deserves more laughter and less frowning.  (This one is gonna be tough.  I admit that wholeheartedly.  Please bear with me.)
• Read more.  A whole lot more. Time to get back to my Read-a-Thon-stuffed-McGruff-the-Crime-Dog-winning-days of elementary school.*  
• Write more.  It's fun!  I like it.  I hope you do too.
• Yoga.  I do it now, sporadically, when time permits and/or when muscles are achy and/or when it's really cold and rainy outside.  I think that defeats the purpose of yoga.
• Slow down.  Because really, unless someone is dying or about to give birth, nothing is that important.

These are not resolutions, because resolutions are (frankly) copouts.

These are things I am going to do. 

Dammit.

Happy forthcoming 2013!

________________
* Don't worry, I won't ask for $0.10 for every book I read.  I might raid your kids' next bookmobile visit though.

We survived! Hooray.

Now that the world hasn't ended and the holiday madness is starting to subdue, it's time to recap the last 3 months... 

Find free fun - other than teaching English once a week, which is still really fun: check, sort of.  Walks around town are fun.  Photo walks, always fun. 

with my ragtop down so my hair can blow

Not entirely free but most definitely fun: Laurelthirst free music (free if you don't buy a drink or tip the band, but not supporting the pub or the band is lame).  Game night sponsored by Goodwill (chess and 1987's National Geographic are our recent faves, approximately $3 each). 

so, it is down to you

and it is down to me

 also a fave

(but only when I win)

Those are not "free" per se.  Free is nerdy and/or wanderlust and/or local historical DVDs from the library, and OPB - none of which involve getting out and about, or any interaction whatsoever, really.  So, yeah... more to explore in this "free fun" arena.

Branch out on gluten free baking: ehhh.  I made none of the aforementioned recipes, but I did make these (with peppermint extract and candy cane topping, probably should've left both out), and some things from this (transformed into GF goodness when needed), and the aforementioned maple almond butter sandwich cookies.  But rest assured.  I am going to make this soon.  And these.  Maybe.

and we did make this delicious ginormous 

gluten free peppermint ho ho

Finish Wildwood: check!  I SAID, CHECK!!  Yes, I am quite excited about this accomplishment.  After several hundred pages of PhD-level vocabulary, enough references to 12-year-olds doing yoga/meditation to last a lifetime, and constantly getting "Bandit Queen" stuck in my head, I was ready to call it quits. But all of the sudden there was a rabbit using a colander as a helmet which was AWESOME so I plowed onward. I can see how others might love it, and it did make me want to listen to all the albums again.  But I think I'll skip Volume II for now.

Anything on The List. Nothing this quarter but something is coming soon.  A new transmission means that selling my car and therefore, #12, likely looms in my 2013 future.

Speaking of...here's what is in store for January:

• New soup recipe every week:  I love soup.  Really, really love soup.  Soup like this, and this.  Looking forward to three months of delicious soup.  And a lot of lentils, apparently.  

the first "this"

(with fritos)

• Spring cleaning: time to pare down.  Significantly.
• Shamrock Run 2013... Q: what's 9 miles after 13.1?  A: cake.
• And yeah, learn how to drive a stick shift well.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And here... we... go!

Belated Friday five.

Five recipes I've tried and enjoyed recently, in no particular order:

• I used to love Annie's Goddess salad dressing.  LOVE IT.  It was the only salad dressing I used for years, and I would also use it instead of vegenaise on sandwiches, as a dip for grilled cheeses, with pita and falafel...  (I would only buy it on sale, though, because really, $4.50 for a tiny bottle of salad dressing?)  But then came the food intolerance which meant that in addition to soy sauce, xanthum gum and therefore all store-bought salad dressings were out.  Last week we had some leftover tahini after making hummus and I ran across this simple version (with tamari instead of soy sauce) which was pretty close, although I think this one might be better. 
• I'm not a big cauliflower fan, but this roasted cauliflower soup was amazing.  We used cream instead of milk and surprisingly, it wasn't overly rich or heavy.  Roast the onions with the cauliflower and add crumbled bacon to take it over the top.
• Ran across this carrot and leek frittata recipe while looking for something that contained no gluten, potato, dairy, or soy to make for some friends last weekend.  I left the milk out, obviously, but it was really lovely and even looked almost exactly like the picture!
  

  

• Cashew garlic sauce on... something. I can't remember what we put it on, but I remember the cashew sauce I had on the walnut pesto "pizza" at Blossoming Lotus and this was very similar. So easy, so tasty!  It would probably be delicious with the broccoli I'll be steaming to go with the recipe's Wild Mushroom, Lentil and Olive Burgers. Yunno, whenever I get around to that.
• To my surprise and delight, I learned by accident a while back that corn+dairy apparently doesn't have the same gastronomic ill-effects as other grains+dairy (thank you, Fritos, cheese and September road trip).  Have I not posted this cornbread yet?  How is that possible? I think we're on batch #3.  We just keep making it and it just keeps getting better and better.  This last time, we used bacon grease instead of butter, half-and-half yellow and blue corn meal, and muffin tins instead of an 8x8 pan.  The muffins went really well with the aforementioned cauliflower soup and will be going really well with the Mexican corn soup on the menu for later today.

When I got my "diagnosis" this summer, I told my naturopath that I was excited about the challenge ahead of me.  Apparently, I was the only patient she'd had who'd ever had THAT reaction.  I have my weak moments for sure (hello, crappy pizza I had after that show two weeks ago) and I will continue to taste things even if I can't eat/drink them.  But despite all that, the diet continues to be challenging but fun, worth it for the physical/mental health benefits, and oh so delicious at every turn. 

(About either of them.)

just a smidge jealous
joy met barefoot contessa
say "who?", you're disowned

Or the foundation of a beauty school dropout.

welcome to my world
in which tp rolls become
christmas ornaments

happy holidays!

Well, with 8 hours of sleep in between... and some coffee.

today i learned that
four drinks, no dinner, late show,
twelve miles = possible

"Where's the turkey, Chuck? Don't you know anything about Thanksgiving dinners?"

It's hard to get excited about Thanksgiving when you can't eat mashed potatoes or gravy.  Just sayin'.

Regardless, we were headed a few hours south for dinner Thursday so I wanted a couple of simple recipes we could make the night before or that morning, that would travel well and not require precious oven space upon arrival. 

I found two from my new hero, The Wannabe Chef, whose motto ("love the ingredients, not the food") and totally simple, mostly gluten-free, handful-of-ingredients recipes won me over a few months ago. 

First came the maple roasted brussel sprouts.  Apparently this maple-syrup-brussel-sprouts business is really common, but it was news to me earlier this week.  Good news, it turns out.  They were a bit overdone but still delicious, and they traveled well. 

not pictured: the brussel sprouts we actually used to make the dish

Next up: maple almond butter sandwich cookies.  I am all for homemade nut butter but I bought pre-made almond butter just for convenience this time.  We used the whole jar for a double batch of the cookies (which took about 3 seconds to whip up, by the way) so I had to improvise for the filling.  After a 10 minute showdown between my As Seen On TV Faboo Quad Pro food processor and the filling ingredients, I decided to settle for chunky almond creme, and I actually think it made for a more interesting texture and tastier filling.  And I'm not just saying that because I'm lazy.

The kids tore into the cookies as soon as we put them out after dinner, probably because they looked like peanut butter cookies and tasted like gingersnaps and had creamy sugary buttery mapley goodness in the middle.  The adults got a few as well.  We set aside a few cookies while packing food that morning (which will go fast) and a few spoonfuls of filling (which will go wonderfully on... something yet to be determined...  pancakes, perhaps?  who am I kidding?  I suspect it will go wonderfully on a spoon on the way to my mouth).

no spoon necessary

Finally we threw together a quinoa pecan salad with parsley, mint and lemon.  I overcooked the quinoa just a bit the night before but in the end it didn't really matter.  So easy, so tasty, so protein-packed! 

 note to self: make more

Couple all of this with turkey, ham, fresh veggies and homemade wine (and maybe some ill-advised cheesecake sans crust too close to the quinoa salad, but only mildly ill-advised) and I'd call my first healthy Thanksgiving a success.

I think that calls for some sausage.

Friday five!

How totally cliche - five things I'm thankful for, in no particular order... except for maybe the first and last ones:

• that my basic needs of food, clothing and shelter are met every day
• being able to run 3 or 9 or 13.2 miles in a row
• peanut butter
• winter sunrises and sunsets
• my small but powerful support network (here, near and far) who keep me grounded, open their homes and hearts to me, teach me something almost every time we talk, and make me laugh

_______________
What?  You're thankful for peanut butter too.  I know that you are.

Plans!

three emails this week:
"portland!"  "portland?"  "in portland"
love when friends visit

Pins and needles...

good job, florida
lookin' good, my maryland
virginia... deep sigh

ears versus forehead
this is how some people vote
sadly not kidding

i'll give YOU four years
and a crapload of issues...
let's see what you do

organic farming
not seventeen billion kids
sends the right message

varied results from
fox vs huffington post
quite interesting

really, fox?

however it ends
democracy in action
is pretty damn cool

 

to democracy!

Belated Friday five.

Five movies we have seen recently(ish), in one sentence and no particular order:

• The Hunger Games - everything about this movie bothered me and yet I liked it a lot.
• Moonrise Kingdom - I'm really not sure how Wes Anderson keeps topping himself, but he has now officially set the bar impossibly high.
• Beasts of the Southern Wild - could've done without the prehistoric monsters, but otherwise a really interesting and moving film.
• Samsara - the aliens must think we are ABSOLUTELY INSANE.
• The Dark Knight Rises - I had so many questions afterward, the main two being "why the hell does anyone still live in Gotham City?" and "why the hell are they still making Batman movies?"

Holy cow, it's almost November.

A little late on the recap.  Hmm... a lot late.  Patience patience patience. 

• practice patience - check... mostly
• get healthy - check... mostly (I looked back through food pictures and many of them prominently feature bacon or sausage, and I'm not doing nearly as much yoga as I'd like, but the gluten-free potato-free diet continues rather successfully and I did start training for a half marathon)
• be crafty - this in June, not so much during 3Q, but 4Q is shaping up nicely (thank you, holiday cards!)
• anything on The List - nothing done but numerous things are in progress (hey 6, 12, 20, 24, 29 - I'm talking to you)

I struggled with the patience goal.  I'm just not a very patient person, especially when it comes to myself and the very high bar I set for everything I do...  Or the lack of time in the day...  Or people in general...  Or work.  Especially not work.  I found that smiling helped a lot at work.  I smiled extra big during a meeting a few weeks ago when I explained that 3Q was up and my patience goal had officially expired.  However, I would like to informally continue this goal.  To help with that, in late September I started a volunteer gig in which I teach English once a week.  I've found this to be a good patience test with the added bonus of it being in a positive and constructive environment. And it's also just terribly fun!

So now the next 3 months:

• find free fun - other than teaching English once a week
• branch out on gluten free baking - it's winter, which means rainy Sundays, which means lots of time in the kitchen with a warm oven and recipes like these
• finish Wildwood
• anything on The List

Why free fun, you ask?  Why not?  Spending money does not guarantee fun or enjoyment, and I'm tired of watching my hard earned cash slip away for an experience I don't remember fondly.  Last weekend we went to the apple tasting festival at the local nursery - a few hours, a full belly of apples, and zero dollars.  (Well, except for the $6 we spent on apples.)  Last night we spent $40 on happy hour and entertainment, and it was alright but not worth $40.

(I just re-read that last paragraph and I think it's safe to say that I'm officially old.  Now ask me about my senior discount, and then get off my lawn!)

The tricky part about the baking goal is that I can't eat dairy and grain together, which eliminates 95% of the recipes I find online.  A while back I said I would still bake with real flour and just not eat the result...  Well, after making apple brownies last weekend and having to see them in the refrigerator every day, that resolution has been thrown out the window.  Perhaps a side effect of this goal will be to find a website actually dedicated to people with my exact food intolerance?  (Or to start one?)

And about Wildwood.  I bought it a year ago.  I even went to the reading and got a signed copy.  I was very excited about it.  Since then I've started it about six times and just can't get into it.  I get tripped up on the expected audience.  Twelve year olds won't know a lot of the words he uses, and 37 year olds don't have patience to look them up.  This makes me sad (faithful readers will know how much I celebrate Mr. Maloy's entire collection) so I will keep trying, and maybe by New Year's Eve I can label it as "read" and move on with my life.

And here... we...  go!

Ode to Frank Turner.

wrote you an email
you actually replied
indebted fans for life

Maryland, my Maryland.

maryland blue crab
one bushel plus four hours
nowhere close to full

before

after

splitting half and half
annapolis, baltimore
really good idea

Annapolis

Baltimore

mentally taxing
and physically exhausting
but still a good trip

(hotel in Baltimore, also really good idea)

OMMMMMM and some junk.

practicing patience
and "you can DO IT" mantra...
only six more months

Haiku to TriMet.

i did not expect
a huge decrease in service
with the last fare hike

(Thursday's HOTD.  Not funny, but true.)

Oh, THAT'S why you were yelling at me.

thank you, shirtless man
for pointing out the bee swarm
though you were just weird

(Wednesday's HOTD.  I can't figure out how to retroactively post under blogger's new format.)

Fun with camping/road trip food. (Really!)

The eight-day road trip was pretty successful, food-wise and overall.  Who knew that gluten, potato, and grain/cheese intolerance on the road could be so easy?  (Of course, it helped that we packed two full grocery bags and a cooler before heading out.)  Here's a quick summary of how we did it...

We started and ended with coffee, bacon and eggs at local diners.  The starting breakfast was much more satisfying than the end.

Cricket Cafe - Day One

Drift Inn (Yachats) - Day Eight

(Although my four-cheese omelette was disappointing, with just a clump of cheese slapped between an egg tortilla of sorts, and the service there is absolutely terrible, I will give it to the Drift Inn - Patrick's spinach/feta frittata was pretty good, dinner the night before was delicious, their food is fresh, and I got to choose polenta over toast/biscuits at breakfast.  This reminder has inspired several polenta dishes recently and I can't wait to explore more of this wonderful food-I-can-eat.  Polenta croutons are next on the list.  As with any breakfast I handed those potatoes over as soon as she set the plate down though.)

And OH MY GOD if you are ever in Yachats go to the Green Salmon and get a cup of their Melitta filtered house coffee.  I don't care if you don't like coffee - just do it. 

Otherwise, camp breakfast was coffee, oatmeal, and whatever additions we felt like that morning: dried cranberries, honey, peanut butter, dried bananas, fresh peaches, slivered almonds, flax and chia seeds were all viable options.  Honey and peanut butter were always chosen.  Good to know that a container of quick cook steel cut oats from Trader Joe's and a bag of Peet's were just the right amount for the week.  Note to self: next time bring cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice!

about 3 minutes before I spilled my coffee the last morning

Road snacks and lunch consisted mostly of rice cakes/peanut butter, Whole Foods Spanish mix, Trader Joe's plantain chips/cheese, and lots of dried and fresh fruit.  However! One simple peanut and safflower oil treat Patrick found in Crescent City inspired me to check Fritos (my road trip weakness) to see if they were safe - AND THEY ARE!  And Trader Joe's has a Frito imitation chip that's way less greasy than the name brand!  All of this information made me very happy.  These peanut poofs made me happy too.

 thank you, Israel!

Dinner was just delicious.  Every single bite, every single night.  And so easy (thanks in part to heavy duty aluminum foil - sorry environment, I make up for it every other day of the year).  The night before we left I made a big batch of quinoa for me and couscous for Patrick, with just a little olive oil and salt and pepper, and this lasted us four days in the cooler and served as the base for the first several dinners.

I also brought along a freezer bag full of spice jars (the basics like rosemary, parsley, oregano, red pepper flakes, plus a few surprises), and we tried to vary the produce with each meal (except for corn, which we ate at every opportunity).  Protein at each meal included either salami, soy curls or fresh fish we picked up that day. 

corn, brussel sprouts, salami, quinoa/couscous

corn, asparagus, snapper, quinoa/couscous

zucchini, carrots, snapper/cod

 fresh oysters - four each gave us a week's worth of iron!
or something ridiculous like that

 precooked brown rice, canned black beans, farmer's market tomatoes, salami

 eggplant, mushrooms, bean threads, soy curls, garam masala

We only ate out a few times...  Once in Brookings when we were really craving a burger but the "best burger joint on the coast" was closed, so we agreed to hit Dick's Kitchen when we were back in Portland and settled on the DoLittle Cafe for a Cobb salad w/oil and vinegar for me, BLAT for him.

Once in Bandon to try the infamous Tony's Crab Shack fish tacos...

pretty good, but not *the best* I've ever had

And dinner and the aforementioned breakfast at the Drift Inn in Yachats.

dungeness crab salad for me

dungeness crab and artichoke bake for him

Dessert was usually peanut butter with dark chocolate (Trader Joe's to the rescue again, with their dark chocolate peanut butter cups).  Except when it was peanut butter fudge, dark chocolate fudge, or some combination of the two.

And yes, there was wine and whiskey involved.  Back in the day Franzia {shudder barf} used to be the only wine-in-a-box option.  Recently I've definitely seen an upswing in the variety of boxed wine at the grocery stores, and since we got back we've leaned toward that because they do seem more eco-friendly.  (And we're not super picky about wine.)  (And we are cheap... er, frugal.)

Bandit and Bota Box wines are surprisingly good.  Black Box, on the other hand, not so good.  And the box is shiny so we couldn't burn it in the campfire.  I didn't stoop to Columbia Crest or any of the other crap I wouldn't buy bottled either, so I have no opinion on those.

You do have to be careful with these boxes though.  There's no way to monitor how much you're drinking unless you count refills, and after a few refills who counts refills?  Not that I learned this from experience or anything.  Really, I didn't.  I'm just supposing.

neither Bandit nor Bota Box -

I had two glasses

So...  After all this, I had only one minor issue, and I think that was the cole slaw from Tony's Crab Shack.  (Not that it was bad - but I think there was some vegetable gum in the dressing or something.)  And even that was fairly painless.  Pretty amazing, and a really good reinforcement of what fresh food can do for you.

Well, fresh food charred with carcinogens and paired with wine in a box, I suppose.

Let's just keep going.

wrapping up road trip
with whiskey and Long Way Down
not a good idea

File under: owwwww.

oh stomach issues
how i have soooo not missed you
let me count the ways

Belated Friday five.

 

I think we're gonna need a bigger grill

Five things I have recently done with an abundance of suburban house-sitting zucchini, in no particular order:

• Buckwheat zucchini bread.  (I subbed sorghum flour - my new favorite flour! - for AP flour.)  Due to the aforementioned abundance of zucchini, we've tried numerous variations on this recipe, including muffins instead of loaf bread, subbing mashed banana for applesauce, adding currants, adding dark chocolate chips and walnuts.  It's BREAD THAT I CAN EAT (!) and I can't complain about any of it, although I lean less toward the currants and more toward the dark chocolate chips and walnuts.  But it's really alllll good and I will happily eat the currant muffins tomorrow morning.
• Zucchini bread with chocolate chips.  As much as I wanted to love this recipe, it was only good when compared to the above recipe.  To be fair, it could be that I used sorghum flour for the almond flour.  But we are still enjoying the leftovers of this too.
• Zucchini cakes.  At first I thought this was actual cake and I got very excited.  Upon reading the recipe one evening I realized it was a breakfast thing, so we tried it... twice... and it was good, but not something I would make if I didn't have an abundance of zucchini on hand.  Don't skimp on the dill and salt the zucchini for a good half hour before embarking upon this one.
  
  
  
• Stuffed zucchini with tomatoes and mozzarella.  O. M. G.  So tasty.  So. Tasty.
• Grilled zucchini. I can't believe there are actual recipes for this.  I mean, you just slice it, throw it on the grill and enjoy.  Who really needs a recipe for that?

I miss that Weber

I ate bread, and it was OK. And then it wasn't OK.

It's been about eight weeks since I started my potato-free, wheat-free, no-dairy-plus-grains adventure.  Other than occasional memory lapses, I've committed wholeheartedly to the diet.  I just feel so great, why wouldn't I?  (Although I still have zero energy where running is concerned... frustrating.)

Wednesday night we cashed in our 2-for-1 Chinook Book coupon for the Oregon Culinary Institute.  Their motto is "Training Kitchen Ninjas"; more fitting might be "Training Tattooed Hipsters"... but whatevs.  I'd been once before and had a great experience, so I checked the menu last week, verified that it seemed mostly safe, and reserved a table for their fixed price 4-course dinner.

And then the night came.  We were celebrating. I was weak.  (I miss bread.)  I was also experimenting a bit - maybe now that my system is happy, a little indulgence would be OK? 

It was a good lesson.  And a fantastic meal as well.

All I have to say about the starter is this:  whoever decided that speck ham and peaches were a perfect pair should be the next president. 

grilled speck ham wrapped peach, 

 flageolet bean fritters with calabrian chili aioli

Well, maybe that's not all I have to say about the starter.  The peaches melted in your mouth, and the salty/sweet combo was wonderful.  The bean fritters (what I should not have eaten, exhibit A) were quite tasty too, although the aioli was a bit too creamy or oily - we couldn't decide which.  For the record, I only had a tiny taste of the fritters.

Next up: salads.  And what I should not have eaten, exhibit B.

salads of arugula and fennel, summer greens with figs
... and that darned bread

 
in addition to learning that I need to stick to this diet, 

I also learned that I need more figs in my life

The tender figs in the salad were bursting with flavor and paired deliciously with the olives and other vegetables.  My arugula and fennel salad was bright and spicy.

In total I probably ate about a piece of that bread, breaking off little chunks at a time and eating lots of "me-friendly" food in between.  It was good, but it wasn't that good.  Not good enough to scrap eight weeks of progress.

sauteed salmon with sweet corn, chanterelles and bacon

grilled carleton farms pork chop with speck ham and roasted veggies

The salmon was pretty basic, but the pork chop was possibly the highlight of the evening.  Sorry, pigs, but it was a ham, bacon and pork chop kind of meal.  (Notice the lack of reference to "what I should not have eaten" here.  Ha!)

Maybe this is common in fancier restaurants or with fixed price meals, but I loved that there was no rice, no grains, no pasta - just meat and vegetables.  Simple, healthy, how food should be.

creme brulee and caramel nut tart

And for dessert, I planned to just try the caramel nut part of the tart and ended up eating half of the tart shell too (what I should not have eaten, exhibit C).  It was tasty, the whole cream ice cream was tasty, the creme brulee was tasty...  And I should not have eaten any of it in that combination.  Just the creme brulee or ice cream would've been fine, I think.

This was the point where I resigned myself to the forthcoming pain.  Oddly, it hit me about 16 hours later, instead of the usual four.  But it hit me hard, and lasted quite a while.

Which is not to say that I won't eat bread again. 

But it's going to have to be some pretty damn good bread.

Belated Saturday HOTD.

backyard picnic
followed by hammock nap...
suburbs could be worse

Eau d'suburbia.

lawns and dogs and flags
soccer moms and cul de sacs
and miles of long roads

hour plus commute
coupled with 9-9 work week
is quite exhausting

yes the bus ride sucks
but reading two whole chapters
almost compensates

after a week here
arcade fire's album now
makes a lot more sense

“Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.”

So yeah, I watched Julie and Julia a few weeks ago.  Mostly for Meryl - god bless that woman, she is amazing - but also because of all this homemade DIY cooking I've been doing lately, and also because I've been on a "books about writing" kick so I thought I would change it up a little and watch a movie about writing (among other things)... And also because it just happened to be at the library one day a few weeks ago.  God bless the Multnomah County Library too, while I'm at it.

As expected, Amy Adams got on my nerves (I can never tell, is it her, her characters or a little of both?) but like Julia, "Julie" had some gusto.  Some real drive.  Over 500 recipes in just one year?  That trumps my 90-haikus-in-a-quarter project by a long shot.  (But who's counting?)  I was happy when she finished her last recipe.  And I wondered if, after that endeavor, she went back to life as usual - or did she embark upon a whole new crazy adventure?

I'm sure Wikipedia would have an answer but I honestly don't like her enough to look it up.  I do, however, associate with the soul-killing office job and the need to create and achieve and feel fulfilled outside of office hours.

I'm not sure how to best manifest this in my own personal life right now.  DIY food, cardmaking, reading, writing are all fun but time-consuming (and sometimes expensive).  By the time I get home, do some sort of exercise and eat, it's 9pm.  My spring chicken days of staying up past midnight and getting up at 6am are long gone.  And right now we are housesitting in suburbia, which means a much longer commute and housesitting duties like watering the beautiful garden that provides our dinner each night and spending hours and hours petting the adorable kitteh.

 

beautiful garden that provides our dinner each night

 

adorable kitteh

Rough life, I know, but I have even less time for time-consuming activities.  So for now, I bide my cubeland hours and work on Plan B.

And while I'm doing that, I watch the sunset.

Can you see the sunset real good on the West side?
You can see it on the East side too.

Thank you, lady who blocked the intersection as the light turned red and I started to cross the street.

really amazing
how your heartfelt "i'm sorry"
turned ire into calm

(File under: and I'm not being sarcastic.)

"Sounds efficient." Indeed.

forms in triplicate
same question answered ten times
lather rinse repeat

Backpacking menu.

Dinner, night one:
- reheated black eyed peas, zucchini with spices, salami

eaten with a spork, of course!

- Dagoba chocolate bar with Justin's peanut butter (so backpacker-friendly!)
- Pendleton whiskey in Mr Flask
- Bandit wine (so backpacker-friendly!)

Breakfast, day two:
- coffee
- oatmeal with Trader Joe's dried cranberries and vacuum fried bananas (which reconstitute nicely, turns out!)

Five-turned-ten hour hike snacking:
- Trader Joe's dried plantain chips
- aforementioned trail mix bars
- rice cakes with Justin's peanut butter
- Spanish mix from Whole Foods (our pantry is never without these days)
- Cost Plus mini sausages (really gross if you actually think about them, but so tasty)

Dinner, night two:
- see Dinner, night one

the usual suspects getting into the wine

- ginger tea


Breakfast, day three:
- see Breakfast, day two

All in all, not much prep work and plenty of sustenance for the three hour tour... I mean, 10 hour hike... on Saturday.  And no tummy issues.  Win win!

Want. Comfort. Food.

And thus begins the TMI portion of this post.

It seems inhumane that I should be denied gooey, warm, doughy pizza whilst enduring a sinus infection and the early signs of PMS.  But I guess this is my fate.  I've never been one for chocolate, really, but dark chocolate and peanut butter it is tonight.  Along with a screening of Julie and Julia.

And thus ends the TMI portion of this post.

So far so good, otherwise.  I've managed to stick to the foods I can eat, remember the separation of grain and dairy, and enjoy some delicious indulgences...

U-Pick berrypallooza

... a lovely raw meal at Blossoming Lotus on Sunday evening...

walnut pizza crust and cashew "cheese" - soooo delicious

followed by a wonderful tofu/quinoa dish and walnut falafel

and ending with me-friendly pecan pie

 
... and a delicious walnut banana pancake concoction on Sunday morning.  Must get that recipe.

I've also been inspired to make my own almond and coconut milk, since the store-bought variety contains Vitamin A Palmitate and various other bad-for-me things.  (Links are more complicated than the recipes I actually used - which just included soaking almonds/coconut overnight and blending with water, which turned out perfectly sweet on their own - but I'm dying to mix in cinnamon, vanilla and dates to see how that changes the flavor.)  And kale chips!  Six dollars at the farmer's market?  Pshhaw.

Who knew this could be so easy and so very delicious?  Well, I do and now you do. 

I have to say, between the whole milk, whole yogurt, whole cheese and all these nuts I will gain 874 pounds on this endeavor, but dammit, it will be worth it.

Kinda sorta like the Regal Beagle Larry. Only not at all.

I don't think I've mentioned Larry yet.

You may or may not know that about two years ago, I got hit by a taxi in Buenos Aires.  Nothing was broken but a lot of my left side was bruised and damaged from the incident.  When I got back to Portland I didn't have a job right away so I spent about $1000 of uninsured cash on acupuncture, and by the time I was insured I was still hurting but I found a wonderful chiropractor who healed me for a few weeks at a time.  At that point I was also suffering tension headaches from staring at a computer screen all day, and from sitting all day.

A few weeks ago my naturopath recommended that I get an appointment with Larry, teller of awful jokes.  Really awful jokes, she insisted.  Really, really awful - because he would hurt me so good, and telling really bad jokes was his way of distracting from the pain.  She alleged that Larry, who did not take my insurance, would fix me in one visit.  She also recommended another coworker of hers who would fix me and might take my insurance, but it would take a few visits. 

I resisted for a week.  I liked my chiropractor a lot, he seemed to get me, he got the issues I was having and he relieved them on a temporary basis.  But when I went back to my naturopath to have my food intolerance and other lab tests done, I'd been having chronic shoulder pain for a few months in addition to all the other back pain.  Larry had an opening the next day.  Which was, apparently, unheard of.  And I'd gotten to the point where I said to myself, "holy *&$% , you're 37, could you just accept a little help on this already?"

So I sucked up the cost and hopped on the chance.  I even went to my appointment prepared with a good bad joke from PIC to share with Larry - "a rabbi, a priest and a penguin go into a bar - the bartender says, 'what is this, a joke?'" ba dum bum.

Within 5 minutes of meeting Larry the next morning, I was dubious.  Whereas my naturopath spent about an hour with me on my first visit, questioning every single issue/habit/ritual/food I put into my body/family history, Larry literally watched me walk into his office and diagnosed me on the spot.  He didn't ask any questions.  ANY.  As far as I know he didn't even read my medical history to know about my taxi incident.  But he immediately knew that my entire left side was damaged, and he got to work.

An hour later I walked out feeling better but still dubious.  Larry had given me a great PT workout, stretching and working parts of me I didn't know needed stretching and working.  But when we were done, I asked about a follow up appointment or stretches or anything I should do to keep on with the healing.  He said, "just move."  Really.  That's all he said. I was seriously thinking I'd wasted my money.

The next day I barely felt any twinges of what had been plaguing me for months.

Three weeks later, after regular but small bouts of running and regularly hiking and walking whenever possible, I basically still feel no pain.

I will never doubt alternative medicine again.  It's not for everyone, and surely you've got to find your groove, but once you do, I doubt you will go back.

Gluten- and potato-free carb loading?

With this new low-carb-ish diet, one thing I do wonder about is exercise.  About a year ago I ran a half-marathon and was training to run Hood to Coast.  For the past few weeks I've barely been able to do a few laps around the local park without getting tired and out of breath.  A few miles into the 5-mile hike on July 4th, and my leg muscles were tired and achy.  This morning's 3-ish mile hike required a mid-afternoon nap.  (Granted, it's bloody hot in Portland right now, which isn't helping either.)

Bars and Gu and loads of pasta helped with all that running.  Obviously, that's not really an option now.

It's been pretty frustrating.  I know that my body is adjusting to the new food routine and that there are a myriad of other ways I can get carbs and find the energy to run.  We did try some delicious trail mix bars this morning on the hike (with dark chocolate instead of milk, of course), and Lundberg rice cakes with peanut butter are my new favorite snack. 

But with everything else I have to think about, that just feels like one more thing right now...  Patience patience patience.  

Belated Friday five.

Five foods I can eat!  In no particular order:

• Zucchini shredded into "pasta" strands with soy curls, ricotta cheese and arugula pesto
  
  
  
• Mashed, spiced strawberries and rice granola
  
  
  
• Hard boiled egg salad with toasted pecans, bacon and homemade bleu cheese dressing (subbing Vegenaise for mayo and strained plain yogurt for sour cream)
  
  
  
• Blackberry and basil smoothies
  
  
  
• Pear and pecan salad with bacon and the aforementioned homemade bleu cheese dressing, with ginger beer in celebratory champagne glasses - because, hey, why not?
  
  
  

One day I will get tired of bacon.  Today was not that day.