Phil's Stairway
I hope everyone's having a great weekend. As the photos suggested, we have snow again here. Full moon-swollen tides and icy beaches thereafter: a whole new spin (or skid) on core strength-building.
It's been three and a half weeks since Phil's trabeculectomy...
...and today, his eye looks like this:
He's seeing out of it better too. He's been such a trooper, patiently waiting for things to get better, but for such a visual person, and a person who's been blessed his whole life with a body that does basically whatever extreme stuff he desires, it's been a testing time.
Having been given the all-clear to perform his usual level of physical exertion, he took advantage of the break in the wind and lesser amounts of sea ice yesterday to launch his boat...
...to go load up a staircase he'd seen washed up several miles up the beach. Man, that boat rides low in the water! Are you sure it can hold a
staircase??
Well, he came home with it safe and sound, dry enough and quite pleased, and I failed to get a pic until we'd gotten it home and it had been snowed on. It may be just what we need for our storage 'bunker!'
Wildlife
Here is Phil's 'pet:' fire. Our burnables (paper packaging, old mail, etc): he loves tending fires. They're cheap to feed, you don't need a vet and it's easy to start another one.
And fire in snow looks special...
We saw this moose down close to the beach when I picked up Phil and the staircase. They are such incredibly hardy creatures: what a life!
And earlier in the day, we got pretty close to this eagle. I love watching eagles, and although I'm not much of a photographer, I enjoy photographing them so much that I could probably devote a whole post to it at some point.
A Different Approach to Dinner
We had friends come to dinner last night. Although,
as I've mentioned before, I'm loving the encouragement to make 'Ela-friendly' party foods, and that marzipan last week was one of the most wonderful things ever (I'm so sad the leftovers are all finished),
I'm also
currently in a funk about food in general. And in addition, most things--like marzipan--that I
really love, Phil doesn't care for. It makes me sad to make something that I think is special but that he doesn't appreciate. I'd rather make something he likes! So for last night, I decided that I'd go with salad, which is always my staple and always good...
...roasted veggies (parsnips, yams, brussels sprouts, leeks par-boiled, sprinkled with salt and roasted with a bit of coconut oil). Last summer I couldn't have digested these, and am grateful for the progress that's allowing me to enjoy them. They taste as sweet as dessert to me and as I overcome carbophobia (more on this soon), I can see them becoming a staple.
Sorry about the belated photo after they were almost all gone!
I also served a bear roast, garlic and ginger with a broth reduction with caramelized onions and cranberries (not pictured, but very well-liked), toasted home-made sourdough bread with a dip I made from roasted bell peppers (not for me, obviously!), scallions, kalamata olives, a dash of parsley and cheese (also not pictured, also very well-liked)...
...And, for dessert, I used someone else's recipe!
I made
Evan the Wannabe Chef's banana-chocolate chip blondies with
peanut butter frosting
Ordinarily, I don't enjoy making 'regular' desserts as much as raw desserts. I don't feel my creativity being in play so much, I hate getting butter anywhere near me, getting flour on me is a bad idea too. But these were fun, quick and easy, and worked just as Evan's recipes promised. And yes, I did pretty much follow the recipe, which I'm almost incapable of doing, normally. Thanks so much, Evan!
Best of all, unbeknownst to me, one of our guests was a huge peanut butter fan. And everyone really liked it. I just love it when I fix something that turns out to be someone's favorite without having known it ahead of time. As a food-preparer, it feels like a special blessing.
It didn't bother me at all not to have dessert: I had another piece of roasted yam. I don't know if I can make that my general m.o., never to have any treats. Much of my life, that's how I've done it, but that marzipan last week may compel me toward a more Dionysian mode...
What's a special blessing to you? And what wildlife do you see as you go around town?
much love
Glad to hear it was a hit! Posting it made me realize how long its been since I've made it. I just never seem to have enough bananas around for desserts/freezing at the rate I eat them raw.
ReplyDeleteThat boat ride looked hard core! I'm glad that your hubby's eye is healing. It's too bad he doesn't share your taste in food. How could anyone not like that marzipan you made?
ReplyDeleteI am impressed with everything you made for your dinner party. My husband would have loved the bear roast. I, too, enjoy the feeling when other's enjoy something you have prepared.
My favorite yard wildlife is moose, although we had bears visit last summer. That was exciting!
Evan: I like the concept so much that I anticipate I'll need to make it dairy and gluten-free and no-sugar so that I can have some! It certainly went away fast.
ReplyDeleteAs a former fruitarian and inveterate bargain-produce-shopper, I'm always on the lookout for marked-down ripe bananas: maybe even more so now that I'm starting to be able to eat them again a little bit. But (as an inveterate recipe substituter/tweaker), I suspect they'd also work with pumpkin puree, maybe even pear puree.
love
Ela
kt--yes, Phil is the master of hard-core adventures of all kinds! Sometimes I go along too. It is sad to me that we have such different tastes. My middle-eastern blood invites all these spicy flairs and although he likes curry and thai food, he just doesn't care for the intensity of bitter almonds, sesame, cardamom and my other faves...
ReplyDeleteI very often get more pleasure out of fixing food for other people than for myself, but lately this is coming up for review--progress, I guess.
We get a lot of bears visiting, although right now the snowshow hares are doing such a number on our raspberry canes that maybe there won't be any raspberries next fall to entice them. This last fall we had one almost walk into the cabin! That was a little too close. It was shot downtown a few days later, raiding the soy oil outside the donut diner (ewww!) and making a nuisance of itself!
love
Ela
I'm not normally one for wildlife photos, but that eagle really is a stunner.
ReplyDeleteA bear roast?! As in, meat from a bear? Wow, how does one go about getting that?
Way to go, again, on making the smash-hit blondies :) I'm going to take a peek at that recipe. I hope you try my raw one sometime, perhaps with stevia and/or chia-sweet and/or a dried fruit you enjoy. I think treats are entirely necessary, no matter how small.
Glad Phil is on the mend and able to be active again.
ReplyDeleteThe blondies sound good and pretty easy to make GF and vegan.
Amber--thanks. I have some more eagle pics I'd like to share sometime. Yes, black bears are in excess in the area around here, and Phil hunted one last spring. I blogged about it here: http://ulteriorharmony.blogspot.com/2010/05/went-bearhunting-story-and-thoughts.html
ReplyDeleteI thank you for the treat-encouragement: I definitely feel kinda sorry for myself if I go without, but go through phases of thinking I should just suck that up and get used to it. I definitely want to try your blondie soon.
love
Ela
Bitt--welcome back!
ReplyDeleteThanks for Phil-wishes: he's definitely glad that his patience isn't being tested too much more. And I agree, those blondies sound super easy to make gf-vegan and now that I'm having a bit more fruit, I'm tempted to try. Easy to make raw too, come to that. Unfortunately, Phil never prefers things made with gf flours, or sugar substitutes, so I tend to just make it how he prefers.
love
Ela
I always love seeing the photos of your backyard wildlife. ;)
ReplyDeleteSo I tried making a version of that marzipan... it was ok but definitely not as good as yours looks! But it was also made only with Stevia... but still.
LOVE your dinners! Roasted veggies are divine.
Lori--yes, I'll be posting more soon about how good roasted veggies have been allowing me to feel, as well as being so delicious.
ReplyDeleteGlad you tried the marzipan: sorry if it didn't seem to hit the spot first time, but that's what experimentation is for, I guess. I've been 'incubating' some ideas for how to do it a different way and will report soon. Stevia's slight bitterness may be too 'close' to the slight bitterness of almonds, so maybe a little xylitol or coconut nectar or other 'neutral' sweetener will be necessary. But I'm thinking I may try it with just stevia too, and see where it goes.
love
Ela