Harbingers of Spring from Full Circle--Two Wonderful Strawberry Recipes!

As snowy as the ground remains here, look what a treat was in our Full Circle box this week!

I almost couldn't believe it--strawberries in March in Alaska, fresh and organic, in our own little box!

They arrived when Phil was away at the end of last week, and I was careful to save plenty for him (it was only an 8oz box). However, I made myself one delicious breakfast and one delicious lunch using three strawberries each time, with plenty left to welcome him home.

For both meals, I put my agar gel to use, armed with the better knowledge that it needed to be blended down! The breakfast was a white pudding type thing, and the lunch was a thick green smoothie that turned out not green at all!
Strawberry Breakfast Pudding
1/4 cup agar gel (per the linked recipe)
1/4 cup flax milk or other nut milk
1/4 teaspoon stevia
splash vanilla, or pinch vanilla powder
optional: 1 tb vanilla protein powder, or lucuma, 1 tsp slippery elm powder
3 strawberries, chopped

Blend everything except the strawberries together. Even a handheld blender works fine for this.
Stir in the chopped strawberries, and garnish with a few mulberries if you wish.

I do love mulberries, and they're a garnish on the lunch too. Can you believe there's a cup of spinach in the below smoothie? This smoothie also features maca--I mentioned recently that maca and coconut have a wonderful affinity; well, I happen to think maca and strawberries complement one another just beautifully also.

Pink Green Maca Lunch Smoothie (which of course would be fine for any meal!)
1/4 cup agar gel (per the linked recipe)
1/4 cup flax milk
1/4 cup water or cooled herbal tea of choice (e.g. gynostemma-rhodiola)
1 tsp slippery elm powder
1 tsp maca powder
1/4 teaspoon stevia
1 teaspoon erythritol (substitute any preferred sweetener)
1 cup fresh spinach
1/4 cup frozen peas (love these in my smoothies!)
3 strawberries (if you wish, freeze these for an hour or two before blending)
1 small piece of beet (this is what gives it that wonderful color
vanilla
Blend in a high powered blender until creamy smooth; garnish with mulberries.

Such a pleasant lunch on a sunny snowy day!
Have you had fresh strawberries yet this year? What's your favorite flavor combination with strawberries?

"50 First Weeks:" the Sore Throat Smoothie Version

Monday again, "50 First Weeks" again: opportunity for a fresh start. Before I say anything else, my deep, sincere and humble thanks for all the comments, both on and off the blog, about my last post. I'll be responding to them individually in the next day, but just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated all of your insights, caring, and tough love.  I also want to apologize for anything in the post that smacked of worrisome or triggering or insensitive. I want to keep it real, even the crazy parts, and sometimes the wisdom and resolution don't all come at once.

So, if this is the "50 First Weeks" day, you know what my "new start" is for this week: my last post should make that clear at least: no more excuses about sending my writing out into the world! I sent off a submission today!

I have a sore throat and stuffy nose. It takes me back to the last time I taught a class--which I realized, to my shock, was five years ago! That course was accelerated Ancient Greek: a whole year of Ancient Greek in a single semester. I had an unprecedentedly large enrollment, wonderful students, and an intense long semester of 9am class every weekday. And during that semester, I completely lost my voice. Twice. Those were some fun lectures...

Maybe teaching makes me sick? It definitely adds to the ambient stress levels. So I slowed down my breakfast a little this morning, and made something rather like what I made when I'd lost my voice back then.

Sore Throat Smoothie
1 orange, peeled leaving as much of the white pith on the fruit as possible
1/2 a grapefruit
1/2 a lemon
1 cup herbal tea (or 1/2 cup herbal tea and 1/2 cup nut milk)
1 tablespoon flax seeds
1 teaspoon turmeric
cinnamon
1/2 inch ginger (or more)
2 dates or some carefully preserved and gently harvested healing honey from my beekeeping days
stevia if necessary

This is definitely a "strong" smoothie, between the ginger and the pith and seeds from the citrus. But between the herbs and the citrus, it feels like it's targeted directly at the sore throat. I made a similar one for lunch, with the addition of spinach, spirulina, maca and some coconut kefir. I think they helped--at least they didn't hurt, at a time when nothing really sounds good. More hot ginger/lemon seems like a fine idea too.

After six weeks or so of weather in the single digits and often below zero, it's warmed up to the 30's and feels positively balmy. Which also means that there's melting water freezing into rinks on frozen ground--some perilous hiking! I'll aim to share some pics next time.

Getting Ready to Leave--Persimmon Smoothie

Here's how it looks in Homer on 11/11/11.

Very different from how it will be where I'm headed.

I've been transitioning in a pleasant sort of way, though, aided by the recent appearance of one of my favorite fruits of all.

I so love persimmons! The ones we've been getting here are the Fuyu persimmons, flat-bottomed and edible before they're fully mushy. Often, I prefer to let even this kind go to the full jelly stage, but the fun thing about them when they're relatively firm is their wonderful gelling propensity. Probably some good polysaccharide action in there! Yes, definitely an 'eat with a spoon' smoothie.

Like just about everyone who ever writes about food in a blog (it seems), I've enjoyed a few pumpkin smoothies this season. I have to say, persimmon smoothies are even better. And they're a true transition toward being in Israel because another name for this kind of persimmon is "Sharon fruit," where "Sharon" refers not to a girl, but to the Sharon Valley, the part of Israel where most of my family lives! Cold feet notwithstanding, I am on my way.

I made these smoothies out of 'a bit of this and that,' but here's an example of how that might go:
1 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon lecithin
1 teaspoon flax meal
2 tablespoons irish moss gel
handful frozen berries
1/2 scoop protein powder (Life's Basics, or plain Pea Protein)
1/2 cup frozen watermelon
juice of half a lemon
1 fuyu persimmon
1 date and/or stevia to taste

This one, please do try at home!

I'm riding to Anchorage leaving here tomorrow at 5am. Flying out Tuesday, so you'll hear some more from me before I leave. Now I'd better go start getting all those last minute things together--a long list indeed.
Much love.

Technology Worries and "Rethinking Bananas" Bean Smoothie

A couple nights ago, after a couple hours away from the computer, I went to look at my email and got this:

 "Your account has been disabled." With a suggestion that this usually happens if you violate the terms of service, i.e. "It's your fault, now stand in the corner and think about what you've done." My blog is a gmail item, so I was locked out of that too. I work regularly on more than one computer, so I rely on google docs a lot to transfer files back and forth. Many of my work contacts are only saved within gmail, as are many of my social contacts.

Panicking, I filled out the "contact us" form, please please please, and spent an anxious night. Next morning, everything was working again, with an apology from the gmail team but no explanation.

I've moved away from living in the jungle, eschewing all technology, back toward the 21st century, appreciating and celebrating the magic of connection, the ability to present and share my work, the possibility of being employed by people on the other side of the world. But that sudden removal of my account, my fast-track into the world of connection, really scared me. Reconnected me with the paranoia in the Hawaiian jungle, where many people think that the net and everything else is soon going to disappear and it'll be back to the Stone Age.

I'm going to take the time to record some of my more important contact addresses somewhere other than gmail, back up my files somewhere non-cloud, and think about moving my blog. Any other advice, friends?

The next morning, our heater quit working.

 This small, ugly, oil-fueled heater is probably older than me--it's not the first time the heater has just stopped working. There have been times when it was below zero outside, and we were in down coats and blankets indoors. It didn't even quite freeze the last few nights because we're having a south wind storm, so we weren't too terribly cold--but on the heels of my email panic, it surely reminded me of all that we rely upon to survive and to reach out--and reminded me not to take it for granted.

It makes me anxious, living in this cold place. I don't see myself lighting fires in this cabin!

Moving away from anxieties toward something for which I have been finding creative solutions, I want to talk about rethinking bananas. Don't get me wrong--I love bananas. In my fruitarian years, my typical lunch was four bananas. Many bananas every day. Raw foodists and vegans in particular love bananas because of their texture, which binds things together; their sweetness, their robustness which isn't heavy.

I've posted many recipes involving bananas here, although given how much I love smoothies, my smoothies throughout the history of the blog haven't been quite so banana-heavy because of all the months that I was avoiding all sugar. Lately, bananas have been on the menu and, for some time this summer, I even went back to the old 'four bananas=lunch' a few times. However, I've been noticing that I often don't feel too good after I eat them. It seems like I don't feel so bad if I eat them for breakfast, although it might increase my post-breakfast nausea, but is much worse if I eat them for lunch or later.

So--I had many other banana alternatives for a smoothie. There's irish moss, if I wanted to keep it raw, which provides the texture but not much flavor. There's pumpkin, especially this time of year! There's applesauce. Both of those add some flavor and texture, make the smoothie thicker and yummier. But I wasn't wedded to having this smoothie be entirely raw, and I was looking for something that offered more protein.

I had some adzuki beans left over from the bean-beet stew with shiitakes, and I felt like continuing the purple theme--and it was great! Adzuki beans are some of the sweetest beans, so this was probably a good place to start. Trust me--it was _really_ good! Satiating with protein, sweet and refreshing with berries and melon, good coconuttiness and omega-3s from flax.


Purple Protein Smoothie (vegan, high raw)
1 cup coconut milk (I used half coconut milk, half coconut kefir whey)
1/3 cup cooked adzuki beans, cold
scoop of protein powder (optional)
1 cup frozen watermelon (bye bye, summer)
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1-2 dried figs
1 teaspoon lecithin
1 teaspoon flax meal
stevia, if desired

Blend all together and enjoy!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on technology, how much we rely on it and how stable it is. And I have two blogger-tribute food posts coming up soon.

"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?

Running Water!! And an Idea for Redirection of 'Ascetic' Energy

Look at this. Really look at it for a moment, as it's something momentous:

 Yes, we have water coming out of the faucet in our cabin! Running water! A couple days ago, the guy showed up with the water truck. He attached the huge (maybe 4in diameter) pressure hose to a pipe sticking out of our 'bunker.' Phil was down in the basement, directing the other end of the pipe into the water tank. 1000 gallons later, our bunker smelled like a swimming pool (what happened to the city's plans to change over from chlorination to reverse osmosis?) and our tank was full.

Best of all, it's coming out of that faucet by gravity feed (the bunker is several feet higher than our cabin), so we didn't have to get a pump. It's not blasting pressure by any stretch, but running, it is.

I think that the biggest effect of this will be that since we no longer need to haul water home every couple days, we might be able to do more of our grocery shopping by bike (if I can bring Phil to haul some of it!) and save on gas.

Happy Memorial Day!
Our group of friends is getting together this evening for a 'Home Foods'-themed gathering, where everyone will bring something that was 'comfort food' or 'traditional/childhood' food. I'm excited to make some middle-eastern-themed goodies to share.

Today is also my 'treat day,' so this was my breakfast:

 A smoothie of two frozen bananas, a cup of water, a heaping teaspoon each of coconut cream powder, maca, tocotrienols, lecithin, a pinch of vanilla powder and a sprinkle of ceylon cinnamon.
It was just heavenly...

Many thanks again for all the wise comments on my recent posts on restricted diets. I have been reflecting on how very easy it is for me to undertake a very strict diet, and wondering how it would be to take that 'ascetic energy' and apply it differently. Specifically, what if I were to focus on what comes out of my mouth rather than what I put in? That ties in with the blogger responsibility discussion too. What if, instead of deciding that I'm going to live on yams, carrots and nettles, I decided that I'm going to pay exquisite attention to being impeccable with my word? I'm not sure what a 'treat day' would look like in that setting, lol! I also know that, for me at least, it would be much harder than sticking to a restrictive diet.

Do you think that would be a good redirection of my 'ascetic energy?' Do you think I could do it? Could you do it?