A Sea-Monster, Fitness Adventures and Hummus-dressed Potato Salad

Many thanks for all the valued, wonderful comments on my last post. I'm looking forward to implementing the two challenges mentioned, and will continue to put out calls for suggested recipes for me to make and workouts to do. Today, I have pictures of a sea-monster to share, some updates on my fitness adventure, and a recipe, or food-fixing strategy at least: yet another 'leftover transmogrification.'

First, two pieces of housekeeping.
1) I went back to my own rhubarb bread recipe because I was making it again for a guest, and realized that I had omitted to mention how long it needs to spend in the oven! I've edited that post now so that this important information is included.
2) I've turned off comment moderation. I hope that this makes it easier to comment here: please keep 'em coming!

After our whirlwind trip to Anchorage yesterday, we took advantage of a big low tide this morning to go for a drive on the beach.  Some readers may remember the beached gray whale we were visiting on the beach almost a year ago: this time, the beached sea-monster is a salmon shark. Its tail is missing but otherwise, it's intact.

 It's not quite as impressive as the whale in some ways--just slightly longer than Phil, rather than being as long as a bus...

 ...but dense! Phil suggested probably 700lbs (I hope he didn't try to pick it up when I wasn't looking!) It reminded me of that song from Shakespeare's Tempest--"Full fathom five thy father lies/of his bones are coral made/those are pearls that were his eyes..."--just seeing how this huge creature, out of its element, is gradually becoming something other.

After all those hours of driving yesterday, I was looking forward to doing another hour of rebounding today. Alas, only five minutes in, another strap busted out! You can see it at 12 o'clock below, and another one I mended with fishing line at 6 o'clock, and another at 10 o'clock.

So, I'm going to have to sit myself down and sew all around the whole thing before more of them bust out. And probably sit myself down in front of the computer and do my homework about getting a better one...
Instead, I headed out to our little deck that Phil built from salvaged lumber right on the edge of the bluff, and the rowing machine!

 We used to just sit on the rowing machine amid the grass, but this is more swanky. A little more thrilling too, because if you're going hard, you can make the whole machine jump forward toward the edge!

After 40 minutes of rowing intervals, I enjoyed the sunshine, tempered by wind and clouds, and sat there with my notebook and an icepack on each knee (tied on with my shirt-sleeves).

And then I rode my bike--going home was uphill into a stiff headwind with about 15lbs of groceries on board!

A poignant feature of this time of year is the rapidity with which summer becomes fall. We're only just getting into the stride of warmish weather, and leaves are already beginning to turn. I'll have some more pictures of fall's early approach later today.

Hummus-Dressed Potato Salad
I'll finish for tonight with the recipe/food technique, though. I love the idea of a creamy potato salad, with its variety of textures and balance of flavors. Mayonnaise just isn't it for me, however, and the vegan versions contain ingredients that horrify me almost as much as regular mayo, and I've never knowingly partaken. So once again, transmogrification of leftovers came in to create a new kind of dressing. The technique here is to use leftover hummus--all that hummus from the wedding!--but I think the result is so good that it would be worth making extra hummus just for this purpose!

Our own potatoes are not quite ready to harvest, but the basic ingredients of this potato salad could mostly come from our garden!

Veggies--
combine in a bowl:
~4 cups potatoes, chopped, cooked and cooled. (It's nice to have the spuds quite well done, so that they come apart a little as the salad is stirred.)
1/4 cup chopped chives (from our garden!)
2 sprigs chopped parsley (from our garden!)
2 small ribs celery, finely chopped
~1 cup corn

Dressing:
1/4 cup hummus
juice of half a lemon
1/4 cup sauerkraut juice (or pickle juice, if you have it)
dash of mustard
salt and pepper to taste

Simply stir all together with a spoon, and then mix well with all the veggies.
I enjoy the sweet surprise of encountering a corn kernel, and how sweet the celery bits are too. I hope you'll try this: it's yet another great thing to do with hummus.

Have a beautiful weekend! Can you believe it's almost August? What are you looking forward to in August?

Recalibrating: Fitness and Pleasure--Planning Two Challenges

Tomorrow, we're on the road again.

Today, though, I wanted to give a brief follow-up to yesterday's talk of recalibration, getting back on track, and using the blog for accountability, sharing and fun. I have two challenges in mind that I'd like to share here over the next few months (in addition, of course, to talk about my writing program!)

Fitness

I'm exploring the idea of working with another blogger and doing some sort of 'fitness challenge' that I'll post about. Since I leave for Tacoma for my MFA program residency in less than a week, however, it would probably be best to hold off until the second half of August when I get back. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, I know that for this body, "exercising more and eating less" is too simplistic, especially with my extremist tendencies. I've done that before and, depending on the time of my life, it's had one of the following outcomes:

-emaciation, despair, near-death

-slow results physically and emotional rockiness, followed by adrenal crash and chronic fatigue.

In order to get in shape, I will need to be consistent and accountable, both with the regularity of exercise and with regularity of rest and appropriate food. I know that giving my body the signal that it's under duress and starving is counterproductive. Other people's bodies might cope better: mine used to. It takes a toll that can't be reversed: the silver lining to that is that it becomes imperative to care for yourself and listen to your body when working on fitness.

This week, I've been doing more and more rebounding. I love my rebounder! (See this old post for pictures and our idiosyncratic way of storing it.) It's great to have a form of exercise that I really enjoy, and I'm always thinking up new moves to do on it. One possible "fitness challenge" would be to pursue a rebounder-based workout that's been rigorously designed, as opposed to my own improvisations.

Today, I've spent a total of 1 hour on the rebounder! (Three separate sessions.) In addition to being fun, it's also excellent for moving lymph, which may help to get rid of my current inflammatory situation. Well, it definitely "moves stuff:" let's just say I had to run for the outhouse each time I finished my session today! (Sorry tmi...) Yesterday and the day before, I spent less time rebounding, but also rode my bike.

I've also been doing the Five Tibetans, which I mentioned a while ago: I'm now up to fifteen reps of each pose, and throw in pushups and crunches too. I do that every morning first thing, no matter what. I've also been doing squat-jumps, pushups, crunches, planks at random times throughout the day. I intend that I'll continue to do these bodyweight exercises, and that I'll figure out some substitute for rebounding and biking while I'm away from here.

Pleasure in Food
Delighting in beauty and allowing our senses to give to us is surely one of the highest ways of being.

 And yet, it's too easy for me to sweep all pleasure out of my own esthetic zone with a big, bristly broom! I recently read about the connection between highly palatable and 'rewarding' foods and obesity. It makes total sense that 'industrially processed food in a competitive marketplace' is specifically designed to keep people eating, to the point that their satiation signals are overridden. The flaw in my follow-through was to extrapolate that I (who never eat processed food anyway and am not obese, even if I have more body-fat than I'm used to or comfortable with) should not eat any rewarding foods at all (except for plain fruit)--roasted veggies gave way to plain boiled, favorite spices and flavorings dropped out. Extremist much? It's been pointed out to me that if anything, my problem lies in allowing myself to enjoy palatable/rewarding foods. It's too easy for me to get my pleasure fix vicariously: create a goodie that's full of gluten and dairy, and enjoy everyone else's enjoyment while sipping on cleansing tea!

This is something about which I feel so conflicted: I'm not even sure that I want to change it. However, I was inspired by an older post by the wise and brilliant Gena to think that I should try something different. Since I think it might be fun, and I might learn something from it and share something in the process, I'm going to take on the challenge of preparing a 'rewarding/palatable' dish that's also Ela-friendly once a week, and blog about it here. This will be a dish that isn't of my creation, and I'm only allowed to do minimal recipe tweaking: no drastic 'healthifying' moves. I will draw inspiration from other blogs, from recipe books, and I might start with something from a handout of recipes for an 'elimination diet' that a doctor gave me years ago: it's very 'virtuous' and probably the least intimidating place I could start, but it's also designed to help people who are accustomed to 'regular' foods adjust to living with allergies, so it's supposed to be 'tasty food.' Let's just say, I've never made anything from it yet because there were too many ingredients I used to think were no-no's.

I will do my first post of this series before I leave for my residency next week. While I'm away and probably don't have the chance to prepare food, I'll try to buy some 'goodie' that I wouldn't normally dare to, and blog about that in lieu of a creation.

Sound like a plan?
I would love for this to be an interactive process: if you have a recipe that you'd like me to prepare and feature, please send it to me!
Likewise, if there's a fitness move you'd like me to work on, please send it in!
One more question: I've had to sew up my rebounder twice--it was a very cheap one--and I'm thinking I probably ought to spring for something higher-quality. Any ideas on the best kind of rebounder would be most warmly welcomed.
Much love.

"I'm Sorry, I Poisoned You" and Other Health Updates, Plus Smoothie Recipe

I hope everyone's having a beautiful, summery day. Although we've had a lot of rain, and our garden is unaccountably less prolific than last year (perhaps because we planted less, in fear of the bunnies), the sun is shining and the fireweed is blooming and tall--bright magenta splashes of color and hope. Last year, the fireweed barely bloomed at all, the summer was so washed out and cool.

I mentioned a couple posts ago that I had a story to tell about my Naturopath apologizing for having poisoned me, and yesterday I added that some recalibration is going to be necessary, healthwise and otherwise. I'll share more on that today, and also the recipe for this smoothie pictured yesterday.

"I'm Sorry, I Poisoned You." A few weeks ago, I mentioned that amongst other crazy things, I was taking one last round of yeast-killing ketoconazole, which knocks me for a loop, and that my skin was horrendously broken out. I should have gone to see my ND right then, but I 'butched up' and assumed that I just had to try harder, and rubbed lemon juice and raw potatoes on my supposed acne.

When I went to see him last week, he took one look at the rash on my neck and chest and my puffy face and said, "You have to stop taking the ketoconazole. That's an allergic reaction: I'm sorry, I poisoned you." I hadn't known to what to attribute the water-bloat and emotional rollercoaster that I was experiencing, and he basically said that everything came down to the allergic reaction: everything was inflamed. So, I quit taking the nasty stuff and have been drinking as much liver-cleansing tea as I can hold. But a week later, I'm still puffy and broken out, so I may have to make a return visit.

I was impressed that he took such responsibility/blame for what had happened: that's kind of a dangerous admission to make! On the other hand, he takes responsibility for good stuff too: he'll say things like "I got rid of your mercury," etc, so I guess it's good that he takes responsibility for the bad stuff too. To be fair, I should probably have gone in two weeks earlier when I first called to express concern. I understand that health practitioners do the best they can.

This news should have been a huge relief and weight off my shoulders, but the rest of the session with him turned into a very serious talk about diet and nutrition, which, together with Phil's earnest feedback (thank  goodness (and Phil) for Phil and the 'judgment from the outside' that he provides!) led me to conclude that my latest dietary experiment has not been a success. Such conclusions come very hard to me and it was the super-busy days leading up to the wedding, so it was an agonizing period. Plus, after your ND has told you he poisoned you, do you feel like trusting him?!

The Latest Experiment-Fail --I mentioned some other cognitive dissonance with my ND's recommendations and my own findings a few weeks ago. I listed better digestion, greater stamina and reduced anxiety as positive effects of having introduced carbs and reduced fat in my diet. What I may not have said explicitly was that for the past three months, I've almost eliminated fat entirely, and have been eating mostly fruit with some greens and starchy veg (with occasional exceptions). Back then, my ND insisted that I should not reduce my fat: that it's important for someone with the kinds of hormonal problems I've had to eat enough good fat, and I took issue with it. At this point, I'm seeing that while reducing fat somewhat to make room for starch was a good thing, cutting it out completely was not. And anyone who reads this blog will remind me that in doing that experiment, I was flying in the face of "finding #6" in my "Nutritional Research: This much I have Learned" post: "attempting to exclude a macronutrient group completely will not yield good long-term results."

Phil had a lot to say about it, poor guy: he'd been suffering from the effects of this experiment too (as well as all the stress I take on when we have company, and the craziness from being "poisoned"). Several of his observations gave me pause, because they reminded me of how I used to be the last time I was eating high-fruit: things like "manic and super-high-speed all the time, but in a fragile way, dropping and breaking more things." But his summation and conclusion was, "I just think you're happier when you eat some fat."

It's hard to admit you're wrong, isn't it? I hated listening to all that! I was so excited at the prospect of returning to the elusive 'purity' of eating mostly fruit, of relying on dates and juice when I needed something more dense, perhaps of forcing myself to become more "athletic." But I had to admit that my ND's suggestion that any time I restrict any kind of food, it's opening the way for the eating disorder to come back in (which felt like an accusation at the time, all my defensive feathers ruffled) was right on the mark.

An important, key secret to success on the high-fruit diet is to eat plenty, way lots of calories. I wasn't able to do it last time I ate high-fruit, and was hungry for several years (which I didn't mind at the time because I was super-skinny, but it took its toll). I haven't been able to do it this time either. In fact, I'd already gotten to the point that I was cutting back and back, feeling guilty if I ate another helping of something, etc.

So, I've eaten "some fat" the last couple days, and I do feel happier. Sure, they've been far less stressful days too, but the sense of physical anxiety and discomfort seems diminished.

Now what, then? I'm still not in the shape I want to be in, and apparently eliminating fat is not the right way to that nirvana for me. More exercise? Thankfully, I'm enjoying exercise at the moment, stepping it up, and I'm highly motivated not to make that into something pathological: it would be a bad idea to have another adrenal crash. So, accountability comes in. I would love to work with someone else (e.g. a blogger who is in training to be a fitness trainer) on my fitness goals, and blog about it! If that opportunity shows up, I think it would be awesome for all concerned.

I'll talk some more ideas about using my blog as a channel for accountability and general steering of my craft soon.

For now, this is getting long, so let me get to that smoothie! This was my move away from "fruit alone," but it had plenty of fruit in it. As so often, it was a transmogrification of leftovers: I had so many grapes left over from the wedding that I froze some, which I'd never done before.


Fruity Smoothie
1/2 cup water (I used half water, half aloe vera juice, trying to fix that rash, y'know)
1/4 cup irish moss gel
1 cup frozen grapes
1/2 cup frozen mango
1 banana
2 heaping teaspoons Lifetime Life's Basics Plant Protein Powder, 5 Fruit Blend (my first try of it, start slow)
1 heaping teaspoon spirulina
small handful goji berries
Blend all together really well and serve!

I love how the bits of grape-skin and goji berry make purple and red flecks in the green!

 Speaking of "leftover transmogrification," I had quite a bit of peanut butter-chocolate chip hummus left over from the wedding (one of the trio of hummuses I made) and decided to make it into cookies. I added a half cup of flour--mostly sorghum flour and a little tapioca starch--and a teaspoon of xanthan gum, spread the mixture on a parchment-lined pan and baked for about 30 minutes.

They're just "OK," not great: but to be honest, I'm not much of a peanut butter fan (I know, bizarre, right?) On the other hand, chocolate chips could be addictive to me if I let them be. And I almost never get to eat cookies, so they have that going for them.

Would you like to hear me talk more about working on fitness, and about the food-mood connection? What are some things you have learned about how particular foods affect your body?

Taking Space--Fixing Foods For Others' Palates--Rice Yogurt

We decided not to go to Denali: we sent Phil's nephew and his girlfriend up there by themselves and drove to Anchorage and back in a single day yesterday to see Phil's granddaughter on to a plane home. It feels so good to take a little space, to preen those ruffled feathers and prune those barnacles...

As it turns out, I have some extremely important paperwork to do, getting close to the deadline, which cannot be missed, and it will take a little more doing than I had suspected, so it's a mercy that we took this space.

I'm feeling like a recalibration is in order. I've gone somewhat off track and need to get back to my center. So often, I get into a great groove and flow, only to find myself a few months later, ruffled and barnacled, longing to return to what makes me feel good. I plan to use the accountability inherent in having a blog to help me with this: hopefully it'll be a fun ride for everyone! Stay tuned for more on this in the next couple days. Part of the recalibration pertains to my perennial dietary monkeying around, so I'll postpone the "Naturopath poisoning" story for a health update in the next post too.

One of the odd effects of having had so many guests for a few weeks (and fixing food for them) is that it rubs my face in the fact of my aberrant eating. At this point, I've pretty much given up trying to make "Ela-friendly" versions of things that everyone will eat. I have boundless admiration for the vegans and raw-foodists who can produce food which is on their program that captivates all the omnivores in their lives: I simply haven't been able to do this. Perhaps this is because I don't think it's my place: they are going to make their own choices, they're not interested in changing their diets, and while they're visiting up here for a short time, usually engaged in strenuous activity, I'd better make food they're prepared to eat! (And that goes for my husband, too.)

And so, I (wore my dust-mask a lot and) made a lot of things like this...

...And when I produced chocolate-covered peppermint patties and peanut butter cups as a surprise treat for the wedding...

Ice-cube trays I snagged at IKEA last month for this wedding surprise

 ...I used confectioner's sugar and store-bought dark chocolate chips: no attempts at "healthifying" or "high-grading" whatsoever. And these confectioner's sugar-and-store-bought-chocolate-based goodies earned epithets like "divine"--blew my mind.

(Unfortunately, I didn't manage to photograph them with their chocolate party gowns, and didn't photograph the peanut butter cups either.)

I have to say, although I don't blog about my gluten-and-dairy/refined sugar-containing offerings, let alone the meat and fish that I fix for people, because these are not the locus of my creativity, I have definitely basked in appreciation I've received from the people who ate the food! I really intend to prepare food with love, no matter what the food is.

It doesn't bother me at all not to eat any of it: I'm quite happy with my transmogrified leftovers...

 (Leftover fruity kelp noodles that I posted about last week, with a bit of avocado and a bunch of lettuce)...and my staple smoothies.

(I'll share the recipe tomorrow).

Perhaps because my tastebuds, acutely sensitive as they are, so often play second fiddle to my brain's extremely forthright opinions about whether something belongs in my mouth or not, as well as because I'm allergic to most of the ingredients in so many standard foods, I am extremely unattached to 'standard' tastes or how something's 'supposed' to taste. Since Phil and others around me have a very strong sense of how something 'should' taste, my fantasiacal creations tend not to be as well-received as my attempts at 'old standards'--a whole different kind of creativity for me that I've been embracing, but that tends to omit attention to my own food needs.

One recent grocery store find really brought home to me this odd freedom that I have from 'supposed to be's around food. This is rice yogurt. I was curious.

 It's basically rice milk with a little sweetener (there are blueberry and peach versions too: I tried vanilla), several different kinds of gums (locust bean, xanthan, guar) and some live cultures. Given the ingredient list, I wasn't surprised when I popped the lid and thought, "That isn't yogurt!"

 And it really wasn't yogurt in any sense of the word. It's the wrong color (beigy-gray), the wrong texture (more like pudding), the wrong flavor (sweet, with no sour tang). And yet, I ate it gradually, and concluded that I liked it! I really didn't care about how it looked and felt and didn't look nor feel like yogurt.

Do you derive pleasure from fixing food for others that you don't/can't eat yourself?
How do you avoid leaving important paperwork till the last minute?

It Was A Beautiful Wedding

Congratulations to Amy and Jess on their wedding! And what a beautiful occasion it was. The rain even cleared up for long enough that the ceremony could be held outside. The house that Amy's mom and her husband share with Amy's aunt and uncle, which is such a gracious gathering venue for us so often, was transformed--all the furniture moved out into a travel-trailer, wedding drapes on the windows, pictures of Amy and Jess everywhere, in beautiful frames, two large tables set up, a full bar including kegs of beer...

 It was a short ceremony, matching the breaks in the rain. Their dog treed a squirrel right at the poignant moment and started barking excitedly--a touch of humor too.

It was a small occasion, and everyone knew at least many of the other people there.  I was busy helping with the food magic and so failed to take many photos--I missed the trio of hummuses that I produced, missed the beautiful creations that others provided, missed the three-tier stand of gluten-free cupcakes decorated with pansies, missed the peppermint patties and peanut butter cups that I made as an extra surprise.

Phil snapped this one of 'the girls,' including the official photographer in a blur on the right.

I'm the one with the eyes closed.

One of the unique things about this wedding was all the recognition of all the family members and friends who participated in creating the event. Everyone who helped with the food was given a beautiful apron--Amy's mom and her sister are seamstresses extraordinaires. I'm wearing mine under my coat and over my green dress in the above picture: such lovely purples complementing the green. They even made mine with the pocket on the left, acknowledging my lefthandedness. Phil's granddaughter who stayed when the others left is wearing her apron (in the front of the pic) with ruffles--the top part of it was made with the material cut from Amy's wedding dress when they shortened it.

Phil, Amy's mom's husband, Amy's uncle and our great friend David were 'security' and were each given 'security' jackets--customized to say "Social Security" on back and a unique title on front. Phil was "Security Blanket," Royce (Amy's mom's husband, looking scary in the hat and shades) was "Security Bond," Kevin (Amy's uncle) was "Homerland Security" (since we live in Homer, after all), and David was "Wavy Gravy Security." Don't they look formidable?

Guests also went home with recipe cards containing all the recipes for the food provided, (I hope that mine were reasonably accurate: I mailed them in when we were in the thick of Anchorage, long before I actually put them together), and a gorgeous home-decorated candle.

I am so happy for Amy and Jess: they created the most beautiful, relaxed, joyous, convivial occasion. Jess is the most wonderful man: strong but kind, reliable but funny, an incredible storyteller but also comfortable with silence. Amy is the closest human being to a saint that I've ever had the privilege of being around. She is remarkably considerate and sensitive, smart and funny, and knows how to take care of herself so that she can be at her best among other people and out in the world. She is supremely gracious in her ability to accept the vagaries of others around her, and of course, she is just so incredibly beautiful. Phil refers to her as 'the best thing he ever made.' I feel like she's the big sister I never had.

And after all the beautiful framed pictures of Amy and Jess that were on display all over the house, I'm ashamed that I don't have a single picture of the two of them to share here. 

Phil's nephew and his girlfriend have headed for the back-country. We'll either be joining them, or things will return to something more like normal for a few days, although Phil's granddaughter was supposed to be leaving tomorrow and might end up staying longer, so there's still no telling. I'm grateful for the relative calm and quiet of today: it's been beyond hectic the last few days, and I've been out of my tree. I'm hoping to get caught up on here somewhat with some of what's been going on, including the story of my Naturopath saying "I'm sorry, I poisoned you!" Yes, I'm starting to feel better. But if we do end up heading out to the wilderness, it'll take a while longer to get caught up here.

Much love to all and apologies for my absence.

Poetry Reading at Bunnell Tonight; Figs and Cream

Where I'll be tonight: at the Bunnell St Gallery, to hear my friends and much-admired fellow-poets Erin Coughlin Hollowell and Linda Martin. See Erin's post for full details. Phil is coming too, and so are his nephew and his girlfriend. Any of you Homerites reading this, I urge you to go too.

Both Erin and Linda are graduates of the same MFA program on which I'm about to embark: the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. Together with Mercedes Harness and Debi Poore, they are wonderful teachers and fellow-travelers for me. We are just starting to meet up as a group and critique each other's work, and discuss other books, and I am bottomlessly grateful for it. By undertaking a low-residency MFA, I'm missing out on the intense peer-to-peer interaction of being in school full-time. Getting to interact with these wonderful poets right in the place where I happen to live is more than compensation.

 Between guests, work, the garden, the approaching wedding and preparing for the MFA residency, I feel like I am being stretched on a rapidly moving wheel, each extremity pulled away from the other, like the skin of a drum. I pray to become more like that drum-skin, with a taut and definite center: at this point, my center is ill-defined and discombobulated. The ever-present subtext of trying to figure out how I fit with my surroundings, and how to incorporate my surroundings, specifically food, into my body, also continues to distract and puzzle me.

On the other hand, the sun has been shining for three days straight now and I feel my spirit rising to it. And when I stayed home to write while the rest of the gang went off on one of my favorite hikes, I realized that the sense of gladness that I felt over staying home to write was greater than my chagrin at missing out.

Last week, one of the markets here in town had fresh figs for the first time this year! When I saw them, I almost teared up from all the memories of harvesting my own in the California days. I ate one as soon as I'd paid for my basket, and it was just perfect.

We had a dinner gathering that night, so I made a cream from cashews, young coconut meat, irish moss gel, xylitol and lots of vanilla powder, and bathed the figs in it.

I love their expansive secrecy, their sweet fecundity.

When you miss out on an activity in order to do something more important to you, do you feel sad or glad?

"Comprawmising," and Fruity Kelp Noodle Recipe

We just got home, with Phil's nephew and his girlfriend with us. We're in the home stretch of Phil's daughter's wedding's preparations and also of my preparations for my MFA program residency. Sunshine, pouring rain, wind, and the red salmon are running, which means that there was more traffic on the road than I've ever seen before up here.

The Alaska cotton is blooming--it's a whole other kind of Dr Seuss plant!

 Today I want to talk about compromise. Again. Both in the 'raw' arena (hence the unashamed pun in the title) and in life in general. I've talked about this on this blog so many times before but it bears some repetition. After all, underlying harmonizations, finding balance, compromise, are major themes of this blog.

I'm grateful that I'm not rigid about being 100% raw. It recognizes the difficulty of living mostly on fresh produce in a part of the world where fresh produce is shipped in from far away and avoids setting me up for yet another impossible endeavor (yes, I do have an affinity for 'lost causes'). It also makes it a little easier to feed me when we're out on the road or staying with friends (both of which seem to happen pretty often in our life). Recalling my Conversation about ground rules for nutritional research and self-experimentation, I also remind myself that in these situations, it's smart to maintain a spirit of compromise  around my current fat-avoidance. The third piece for me today is that I'm generally a bit of a stickler for making everything from scratch. Especially with travel, and also with preparing food for people with very different preferences from mine, I'm recognizing that taking short cuts occasionally, if I'm canny about the quality of the products I select, it can be 'allowable.'

Sometimes, getting something that's not technically raw gets me more good quality nutrition for a lot less money. I recognize that this is a very shaky criterion of choice, but it does play a part. As an example, I can get a gallon of organic orange juice (not-from-concentrate but pasteurized) for less than $10 (if we're in Anchorage) or a little over $10 (with markup here in Homer). But organic oranges are almost unavailable and I couldn't even get regular oranges that would make that amount of orange juice for twice that much. I'd love to hear any words from anyone to explain why this pasteurized OJ is such a bad idea. I hadn't had juice for years, and I've been impressed with how good I feel with it. It fills me up and makes me happy. I used to think that juice is empty calories: it's true that juice has no fiber. But judging how my body feels after drinking it, it doesn't seem 'empty' at all.

Jars of salsa fresca have been a godsend for lunches on the road too, and the remaining 3/4 cup of salsa lent itself to a beautiful kelp noodle dressing when we got home today. In about ten minutes flat. We got home with a ton of unpacking and other chores, and of course I was fixing 'regular' food too.

 One of the fun things about buying lots of fruit nowadays, especially when we're so often traveling, is that I come home and have the opportunity to create a meal based on what has come ripe in our absence. I look everything over before we leave, so nothing is ever too far gone. I think that most people don't realize how shelf-stable fruit is: often, it keeps getting better.

There was a lovely ataulfo (aka champagne) mango that was gorgeously ripe. Also a pineapple that was about as ripe as they can get here without rotting.

Soak the kelp noodles in warm water for a few minutes, then drain.
Toss together with half a pineapple, sliced up, a sliced mango, a roma tomato and half an avocado.

The sauce was about a three-quarter-cup of salsa mixed with a teaspoon of onion powder, two tablespoons of maca, a quarter teaspoon each of smoked paprika and cayenne pepper, all dissolved in a quarter cup of water.

Garnished with chopped chives and cilantro from our garden...

...And served on a bed of freshly harvested lettuce (with a few mustard flowers).

I'm sure this would be good with other fruits too. Try sliced apples, goji berries, papaya, orange.

Light, delicious, very summery and a great texture combination with the toothsome noodles and the melting fruit. Oh, and of course, it would have been perfectly easy to make a sauce/salsa myself with sun-dried tomatoes, etc, but this was a super

Do you think I'm doing something wrong by drinking organic store-bought OJ? Do you feel ok about 'cheating' by using something premade in a recipe rather than doing it all from scratch?
Apologies for the rushed nature of this post: I want to share, and am in many places simultaneously.

Kale Chips! Including White Chocolate Strawberry Kale Chips Recipe

A few days ago, I tantalized with this picture of a chocolate-orange raw cream cake (probably better designation than raw cheesecake) that I made for our guests, together with a bunch of kale freshly picked from our garden.

No, I wasn't plating the cake slices on the kale, though that would sure have been pretty.

It was part of my kale chip experimentation! Since I got the dehydrator, and since we raised up a bunch of kale (and I have more baby plants to go in to see if we can beat the shortening days with a second planting), I've been trying some kale chip varieties.

For my first batches, I followed recipes, as much as I ever do that! I made one tray of Averie's chocolate coconut kale chips, and I made four trays with a sauce based on one from the Sunny Raw Kitchen (but heavily tweaked). I thought both were _really_ good, and even more impressive, Phil liked the chocolate ones! He even said he was surprised how much he liked them. But he only ate one or two after all.

Next, I saved some of the fillings from my chocolate-orange cheesecake (or not-cheesecake) and made a tray of each. These are the orange filling/sauce...

And these are the chocolate flavor...

I also made a tray of chocolate-lookalike but not-at-all chocolatey chips with a dressing made of olive oil, soy sauce, rice vinegar, a tiny drop of sesame oil and a teaspoon of almond butter (I was trying to appeal to the kids' tastebuds). I added some chives to the mix to distinguish from the chocolate ones.

Saving the best for last--this is the creation of which I felt proudest.
I present White Chocolate Strawberry Kale Chips!

This was about a cup of coconut milk (could use any nutmilk) with about half a bean's worth of vanilla.
Add maybe a quarter cup of sweetener (e.g. coconut nectar),
a pinch of salt,
two tablespoons melted cacao butter,
and blend well.

Massage this into a bunch of kale really well and then add a half cup of dried or freeze-dried strawberries (I used the latter because that's what I had). It made one tray's worth (about one small bunch of kale). These were seriously delicious with the coconut-white chocolate note, the brittle crunch of the kale and then the more lingering, chewy crunch of the strawberries.

These were generally well-received, although they didn't match up to potato chips for the kids, or for Phil. His conclusion: "They're really good, but they're too kaley." Not much I can do to make them less kaley, since they are kale chips!

I've been a little disappointed by the reception of these kale chips overall. I like them fine, but crunchy, dry food isn't really my thing, and they all have more fat on them than I want to eat right now. So I end up eating them and feeling bad about it, and all the folks who love crunchy things would rather have their potato chips and wheat thins! Can't win them all, I guess...

Have you tried kale chips? Have the 'normal eaters' in your life been converted, or did you have the same experience as I did? (To be fair, there have been a few people who really loved them, but not the majority.)

Sleepover and Awesome Random Smoothie

Greetings from a wet and gray Anchorage! We've dropped off all but one grandkid (one is staying for another week) and are hanging here until Phil's nephew and his girlfriend show up on Saturday. Of course, there's a whole raft of beloved folks to visit here in town, as well as the treat of the Northern Renaissance Arts and Sciences Series of public readings associated with the University of Alaska at Anchorage's low-residency MFA program meeting. Lucky timing! Having been on the road all day yesterday and crazy-busy before that, I might actually get in two posts today just to try to catch up.

A few nights ago, the two youngest girls wanted to camp out with us.

Our tent isn't exactly palatial: even with just Phil and me in there, it's fairly tight. With two little girls in there as well, it was more than snug.

Now imagine that I had to slot in on the right of the pic!
We were teasing Phil and I caught him on camera with his 'cross face.'

That photo cracks me up so much--a treasure.

The next day, somewhat short on sleep , I got home after a morning with the gang, with a bunch of writing and work to do. I was _starving_, it was a cold and rainy day, and I didn't have much fresh fruit at home, so a smoothie would have involved a lot of frozen fruit. On the way home, I was going back and forth, back and forth--smoothie or potatoes and salad?
I checked mail on the way home and a package had arrived from the Raw Food World. Chilly as I was, that definitely pushed the decision toward the smoothie side. And it turned out to be awesome!

I put about a half cup of warm water in the blender, and threw in a handful each of frozen cherries and frozen mango. Maybe about a cup each?

I added a small handful of goji berries. 

The coconut sugar that I'd bought from the Raw Food World had leaked a little bit in transit, so I put the 'tidy-up scrapings' in the blender too.

I added a tablespoon of lucuma (haven't had it for about three years, was excited that it was on sale),

A tablespoon of maca,

half a scoop of pea protein powder,

a tablespoon of Amazing Grass chocolate flavored green powder

There was a free sample of Ormus supergreens with my order, so I threw that in too.

The smoothie was delicious, and eat-with-a-spoon puddingy from the gojis. And despite the frozen fruit, it wasn't too cold! That's way more ingredients than my smoothies have boasted of late, and it was delicious without being overly complex.

Only trouble was, I finished it and could easily have had twice as much! I often seem to have that problem when I fix a smoothie--I underestimate how much I'm going to want (and then get into a weird funky space about how 'that should have been enough').

I urge you to try this smoothie, or some similar variation: random though it was, and slightly insufficient volume-wise as it was, it really hit the spot. I think I ate a carrot and drank some water and was fine.

Do you over- or underestimate serving sizes? What do you do if you finish a portion of something and are still hungry?

Don't you love Phil's cross face?

More soon...

Our Visitors--Me a Gramma?--Rocking Summer

As most people who read this know, I'm married to a man almost twice my age. One of the funny quirks about this relationship is that he has two children who are older than me. Stepmom? I don't think so! More like little sister. (You hear about Phil's gorgeous daughter fairly often, since she's awesome and she lives right here in Homer.) Even funnier (in terms of imponderable relationship titles), Phil's son has kids! So, our first set of visitors are Phil's son (on the left), his wife (on the far right) and their four kids!

 The center of activities is up at their mom/'real' grandma's (much bigger) house: most people who read this also know that Phil's first wife also lives in town and is one of our very favorite people, and that her house is the center for many activities in our life.

This is about the most fun, good natured, positive, cheerful crowd of visitors one could wish for. They've gone fishing, and maintained interest and engagement all the way through the process. We've hiked the beach picking up rocks, collecting the most beautiful ones and practicing skipping the rest, or throwing them down hard to try and break out geodes. We've hiked around in woods and meadows gathering wild flowers, bird egg shells, and even a road-killed baby snipe, flattened in the dust like a pressed flower.

 She wasn't really going to eat that jellyfish we found on the beach! But she's such a good sport, she posed as if she would.

I'm finding ways to take a few hours out of the melee here and there in order to get some work done and have some quiet time and space, which allows me to be fully present the rest of the time. It feels good. Some of those 'time outs' have gotten engulfed by food-prep and garden projects rather than reading/writing/working, however.

And what that chocolate-orange raw not-cheesecake has to do with all that beautiful freshly harvested kale will have to wait for my next check-in!

I hope you're having a beautiful weekend.
What's growing in your garden?

Taking a Deep Breath...and Some Recent Good Things

Starting tomorrow, we're going to have company through the end of July. Phil's daughter's wedding is also happening in that time period. It's major all-systems-go season for all kinds of gardening/gathering/fishing/hunting. I have lots of preparation to do for my MFA Residency, coming up at the beginning of August. I still have editing and translating aplenty to do, some of it on deadline. Take a deep breath...

...Lots of very good things are happening. Even the weather has been quite gorgeous the past few days. And yet, I confess that I'm clouded by a sense of apprehension. It's not that I'm refusing the hurdle, but I am feeling some stage fright. At a Writers Group in town today, I volunteered not to read my work because there was a big turnout, and then realized that I actually didn't want to read my work (which ordinarily, I'm quite happy to do every time).

Seeing my workshop submissions amidst the workshop materials for the upcoming MFA Residency, I feel hopelessly outclassed. I have a similar feeling toward a poetry group that a few of us here in Homer are starting up. At the same time, I'm jumping-for-joy-excited about both the MFA and the local poetry group. The truth of the matter is that I'm tremendously stoked to be facing these magnificent learning opportunities. They merit all the hyperbole I'm giving them: dream come true.

Stage fright and nerves are just tribute to what a big deal these opportunities are. And to the confuzzlement of all the other stuff that's happening at the same time!

I'm also not feeling so well, and am frustrated by it. I'd been feeling fantastic for a while, working out loads, getting in shape, feeling like I'd left chronic fatigue behind. These last few days, it's caught up with me. And my skin is worse than when I was a teen--I feel unsightly. I'm also taking one last round of medication for the yeast/gut balance issues; the same medication that made me feel like hell back in March, so that may be a part of it. Worst is that I don't like myself very much right now, and I'm not even sure why, except that stress is high.

Here are some more of the good things that have been happening recently:

 I just harvested a first round of spinach. There's some more getting ready to go in the ground. Yummy, and so glad that they've been unmolested.

Our Fourth of July festivities were dwarfed by our friend David's 65th birthday on the 3rd. Olga had gotten him a boat as a special gift, and we were complicit in keeping this as a surprise. It was driven up outside their house while David was distracted...

 ...And the look on his face when he first saw it was beyond words. Major success.

 Several days later, he's still having to check outside regularly, make sure it wasn't a dream.

As for Phil of the bad back: he's pretty much back up to full speed, although he's talking about making the significant lifestyle modifications that his back condition supposedly requires. I called the Insurance on Tuesday, we got him in for an MRI on Wednesday, and today, Thursday, we saw the doctor about the MRI findings. Even though it wasn't good news, it couldn't have been good news: we were trying to find out what was wrong. Sometimes, it just feels good to get stuff done. MRI stuff can take months. The procedure itself merits a story all of its own--I got to watch! I may tell it sometime.

As suspected, there are some degenerated discs and damaged vertebrae. "Degenerated" and "damaged" have very irreversible, permanent rings to them, designedly so. He is open to the 'lifestyle modifications' urged on him (i.e. less log-lifting and bear-schlepping), or at least, he says he is. I am cautiously optimistic: I know few people on earth who are better than Phil at finding a nugget of beauty in dung, or finding a positive facet to an unfortunate situation. A book from which I ought to take a leaf, in my current melancholy.

Given this crazy-busy, I've no idea what my blogging schedule will be able to be for the next few weeks. I'll look in as I'm able and share as much as I can.

Do you enjoy witnessing medical procedures like MRI's? (Phil got to watch my LASIK surgery!)
How do you cope with overloaded schedules?

A Load of Rhubarb (Rhubarb Curry?!) and Cabin-et-ry

I told you we lived in a small cabin...

 ...So small, it's actually a cabin-et! OK, I made that up. But I did get back to kitchen construction today: the cabinet is 8 ft tall and 15 inches wide (which means barely 13 inches on the inside, above). It had to go in this space:

 And I had this much space to put it together.

 We took the pic of me inside it before I put the shelves in!

Some more drawers to go in, but a good start, and suddenly our storage potential in a tiny space is amplified and magnified. Phil's back is so much better, and mine, which had gone on the fritz in sympathy, bore up, so I was definitely glad of his help as we danced that gangly, heavy baby around.

OK, Rhubarb! People usually set rhubarb up for downfall by calling it a 'fruit,' which is kind of like presenting carob as 'chocolate:' with that kind of fanfare, it's never going to live up to the billing. (Imagine: I read in one low-carb cookbook that rhubarb was a great substitute for peaches! I'm sure the author had only ever eaten peaches from a can.)

Actually, the stalks of rhubarb are not a fruit, but are thick stalks that support leaves, just like celery stalks or cardoons or...chard. A lady I know and love very much, who loves rhubarb, once received some red chard stalks, assumed that they were rhubarb, and made "chard stalk pie." Apparently not the best ever. She wasn't far wrong, though, because rhubarb and chard are in the same family: the same family, too, with spinach, beets, dock, amaranth.

Now, I have no qualms about using spinach juice to color a dessert recipe, or using beets in a chocolate cake, but not everyone is that way inclined! When most people think of this family of foods, they consider them vegetables and use them as such.

Like the other members of that family, rhubarb contains abundant oxalic acid and thus an abundance of tartness, and requires a lot of sweetening if used in desserts. Given its taxonomical spot, it does make me laugh that most of the recipes I see for it are as pies, jams, cobblers, crisps.

However, I'm going to indulge that tradition myself here with a bread recipe and a couple breakfast ideas. But then, I present Rhubarb Curry, and I think you'll see why I'm proud of it.

Rhubarb Bread
I made some rhubarb bread that was very well liked, thrice, and failed to photo it at any point. I adapted it from a recipe in Cooking Alaska with enough tweaks that I feel comfortable sharing what I did. It's super simple and quick.
Grease 9x5 loaf pan, get oven to 350.
Sift together:
1 1/4 cup flour (if gluten free flour, add 1 teaspoon xanthan gum)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Add to that:
2/3 cup sour milk (which can be dairy, or nondairy milk plus some lemon, or kefir whey, or...)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg (or 1 tablespoon flax and 3 tablespoons water: gives a great depth to the texture)
Stir until just mixed, then add in:
1 cup diced rhubarb
1 cup chopped nuts

Bake in the preheated oven for about 50 minutes (check at the 45 mark). Even when it's fully done, it will still be very moist.
I didn't taste any of the versions, but they went fast: I was impressed that Phil, who is not a rhubarb lover and is not impressed by gluten free flours, ate about half the gluten free one at a sitting!

And hey, if you don't have rhubarb, you can use chard stalks! No wait, I mean you can use zucchini.

Breakfast Ideas
Again, I haven't eaten any of these, but they've gone down well. Sometimes, I make Phil oatmeal for breakfast. Lately, it's been 'oatmeal' made out of kamut or barley flakes, because he's been discerning a lack of feel-good after eating oats.

Sometimes I've been cooking in some rhubarb with the oats, adding a little sweetener and coconut oil, serving with some almonds on the side, and leaving him to dollop his strawberry jam liberally, as he does no matter what's for breakfast.

 Once, I put frozen blueberries in to thaw with the cereal and rhubarb, and it all turned a pretty purple. At least, I thought it was pretty, but Phil really prefers cereal (and food in general) to look the color it's 'supposed' to look. My habit of dyeing things green with spirulina or purple with beets or berries is quite appalling to him sometimes, I think.

But what of the potential of rhubarb as a vegetable?
I had to try it out--and I was pretty pleased with the results, as were the four other people who enjoyed it!


Rhubarb Curry
Cast: Onion, garlic, ginger, cauliflower, potato-broth, rhubarb.
Crew: Coconut oil, mustard seeds, curry powder, coriander powder, cayenne powder, salt, black pepper, turmeric powder, goji berries, coconut cream.

disclaimer: I'm no photographer. this was gorgeous

Step 1:
Chop: (keep all the vegetables in 1-2inch pieces but mince the garlic and ginger)
1 small onion
half a cauliflower
3 cloves garlic (or to taste)
1 inch ginger (or to taste)
2 stalks of rhubarb

Melt a teaspoon of coconut oil in a three-quart heavy-bottomed pan, add a good sprinkle of mustard seeds. When they start to pop, add:
the onion
a tablespoon of curry powder
a teaspoon of coriander powder
a shake of salt

After a couple minutes add the garlic and ginger too.
When the onion has softened, stir in the cauliflower. Cover, and cook for around 7 minutes. Add a few drops of water if it seems too dry.

Meanwhile, mix together about one cooked, chopped potato with a cup and a half of the water it was cooked in. (This happens to be what I did: if you don't have cooked potatoes on hand, use a quarter cup of potato flour or other starch with warm water). Often, I would use the immersion blender to make this smooth: this time, I just used a fork, so it was slightly chunky.

 Add this to the pot and bring to a boil. When it has been simmering for a couple of minutes, add in the rhubarb.

Stir in thoroughly, add a teaspoon of turmeric and a shake of cayenne. Bring to a simmer and cover until all the vegetables are cooked. Check for seasoning and adjust to taste. Grind some black pepper over the top, add a handful of goji berries. If you'd like it creamier, add about a quarter cup of coconut cream.

The rhubarb goes in last so that it holds its integrity and stays in chunks rather than going to mush.

This was so tasty! The one taster who was a little 'weirded out' by rhubarb in a savory dish ended up loving it and going back for thirds.

There was barely a cup of this creation left, and the next day, that cupful was transmogrified into the basis for my dinner. Yes, like Gena, I love to transmogrify leftovers.

And yes, I turned it green.

I added in a bunch of sauerkraut, some corn kernels, some coconut kefir, some nutritional yeast, some more cayenne. And spirulina, obviously. The potatoes and purple potatoes look pretty as a border, but of course they got mashed up in there too. Some of it even got squished into a nori roll!

Have you ever cooked with rhubarb? Have you considered treating it as a vegetable?