What’s on the Reading list: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

By Barbara Kingsolver

Ok, so this is a goodie! I’m halfway through it. My mother in law showed up with this one in her hand and I handed her one of mine and we read each other’s books the remainder of her visit.

Anyway, it’s the story of one woman and her family who move from Suburbia to Farmland and for a year, eat only what that county can provide. This means they farm. A great deal of this book involves farming stories, tomatoes, zuchinis…. roosters. It also goes into responsible eating and explains why eating out of season foods from far off lands is a bad idea. i.e. your grocery store has mealy tomatoes for a reason.

It is really making me feel good about the farmer’s market, and my decision to shop there every week. It’s a good decision.

Buffalo Wings

Yesterday I did something brilliant. I followed a recipe for Buffalo Wings…. and they tasted like the real thing. I was thrilled. Do you know how many wing sauce bottles I’ve opened and was sad over? Do you? Many. They just weren’t giving me that restaurant wing zip that I wanted. But lo, I am saved. Pioneer woman (aka Ree Drummond) did it again! Ok she did it 3 years ago, but I found it and …… happiness! My chicken wing cravings are now to be effectively dealt with forever without the restaurant price tag.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/09/wings/

Update on the Anti diet

So since my last post on diet, things have been busy and strange and ….. full of company. We’ve had several house guests who stayed several days and took us out to eat quite a number of times, I’ve been obsessed with roller skating, hiking, and bird watching and I’ve made a number of observations about myself and food.

1. Bread and noodles are not my friend. We experienced a month long money crunch and ended up eating a lot of pasta and bread to fill the gaps in the hunger department. When I eat something like french bread along side my chicken, I gain 3 pounds overnight, literally. And other bad things happen which I don’t want to talk about.

2. Chinese food, even the fried stuff like sweet and sour chicken doesn’t do that to me at all. Of course I’m filling up on rice and sweet and sour soup and tea along side it and I’m not eating my weight in fried food. But I’ve had chinese food three times in the last 4 days and I’m dropping weight.

3. The farmers market is my holy mecca. I finally got there yesterday. I’m swooning and in love. I’ve reconfigured our budget so I can go now every saturday. I need my veggies.

4. Little Debbie snack cakes now make me feel very unsatisfied and don’t taste good to me any more. I had the chance to eat one about a week ago (which is rare for me now) and it was yukky. I used to love those things.

5. homemade yogurt is my best friend. You should see my fingernails. Long and beautiful. I now eat dairy on a daily basis, which didn’t used to be the case. Ok… reality is that I almost never ate it unless it was cheese. And I had horrible pizza cravings every week. now I don’t crave pizza at all. I think it was the cheese. I don’t drink milk, btw. I think it’s icky. And don’t try to feed me a glass of soy, almond or rice milk either. I’m not about to drink my calories that way. ew. I mostly drink tea and water. Milk is not for thirst. Milk is for cooking. In my world.

6. If I eat too much, I gain weight. You’re shocked I know. But I’m having a learning curve here. I switched over to all home cooked foods and it’s hard to not overeat them because they taste so good. I’m learning tricks to manage that, slowly. Like eating out of a smaller dish and putting my seconds in my bento box for later so no one eats them on me. Mine! grrrrr. I’ve discovered I feel very competitive and protective of my food if everyone else has mountains of food and I only get a little bit. I feel like they’ll eat it all before I even have a chance to have any. It’s a real issue. We’re a bunch of roommates. It’s tricky.

Farmer’s Market

So today my henchmen and I are off to the farmer’s market. I moved here 9 months ago and had all these plans about using the car less, going to the farmer’s market, shopping locally….. and it’s taken me all these months to actually start putting this plan into action. Change doesn’t come easily.

Anyway, I’m excited to go. We’re going to hop on the bus and hail off into parts unknown and see whats in season that we can eat. yummy.

bacon wrapped jalepenos w bbq

Oh yummy. Today I’m going to make …. a la Pioneer Woman aka Ree Drummond….. bacon wrapped jalapenos with bbq sauce. stuffed with cream cheese and cheddar. All I have to say is……. mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Over the weekend

So this weekend I went on a little adventure. My best friend’s mother very generously took my bestie and me to a women’s retreat this weekend and the location turned out to be on the coast, specifically at Cannon Beach. I got to do a bit of shopping in the cute little resort town, catch up on some light reading, enjoy some good meals with a nice group of women, and then……… best of all…….. we took a couple of hikes up the beach to Haystack Rock. It was fantastic.

We waited until the tide was out and splashed and played our way up to the foot of the monolith, collecting shells and getting randomly drenched up to our knees until we reached the tide pools around the base of the rocks. The volunteers had set up viewing stations so you could see puffins nesting. I got to see all sorts of barnacles and sea anemones and hermit crabs and lots of little creatures. We took a cute picture of ourselves against the rock.

One of the minor discoveries we made was that my knee high wool socks are amazing. I happened to have on my doc marten mary janes, a pair of rolled up yoga pants and various coats, gloves and hats. It wasn’t warm out there. It started out as a stroll on packed wet sand…. but then a wave came in and surprised us and we both got soaked, shoes, pants, socks and all. That water was chilllllly. As soon as my lower extremities stopped being covered in brrrrr water, I found out just how heat retaining dripping wet wool is. The instant the water wasn’t actually submerging my feet, they were warm again, just like that. Soaking wet and perfectly comfortable.

Ok…. now go back a moment and ponder if you will the fact that I’m always either too cold or too warm. To me, this was a minor miracle. I feel like I won the sock of gods lottery.

We were nearly late in walking back to lunch, and so we went into the dining room, still in wet everything, brushed off loose sand and washed our hands (after touching said outdoor wildlife) and sat down and had a nice lunch. Meanwhile….. we were still in our wet clothes. So that would put me in wet cotton yoga pants for approximately 3 hours in 50 ish degree weather in wind. The socks, however, were between me and the pants and I stayed warm. Even later when I finally peeled off the wet things, those socks were still warm to the touch. It was really incredible.

I’ve heard how wool keeps ya warm even when it gets wet, I am now a very firm believer. I had no idea how wet…. I thought they meant a little bit damp. Well… ladies and gentlemen…. I wasn’t damp. I was walking in sea water up to my knees. I now get why sailors wear those sweaters. I’m converted. It’s official. I’m buying more wool. I love that stuff.

http://www.cannon-beach.net/cbhaystack.html

On My Reading List: The Complete Walker IV

So this week I’m hip deep in hiking boots and outdoor paraphanalia. I’ve been out and about exploring local parks, the Audubon Society and generally getting lots of fresh air. And blisters. Those new boots I got for 75 percent off that felt comfy in the store are anything but happy on the trail.

Anyway, this tome I’m reading is good. I’ve read it before, about 20 or so years ago and it’s impressive how much I didn’t retain. This edition is by Colin Fletcher and Chip Rawlins. It makes me want a tent.

New Book on my List: The Fires of Heaven

So congratulations to me! I finally finished book 4 of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I have literally been reading it for the last year and just kept setting it aside to do random things like, oh, move across the country. That kind of stopped my reading right in it’s tracks for a while, but I’m back on board now with my usual habit of 3 or 4 books at a time. Now I’ve moved on to the next book in the series. Woo go me!

The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, Book 5)

On my Reading List: Little Women

So last night I was pouring my way through one of the final chapters of this timeless classic. You know how it goes… you start one of these books because everyone and their brother has read it and you want to know why it fits into the ‘classic’ category. I have to say it took me some time to get into it and I almost put it down within the first 2 or 3 chapters because I felt it was a little on the preachy goody-good side. Well… I changed my reading tactic and just took my time on this one and did one chapter per day, and suddenly, halfway through the book, I was attached to all the characters and cared what happened to them. They had come alive for me and now, here I am, very close to the end. If you don’t already know how this one ends, I’m not going to tell you. It would ruin things for you. But I consider this one worth the read. That surprised me. I really did almost quit before I began.

Little Women (Signet Classics)

teenagers visiting for spring break

So it’s been a busy week here!  Taylee’s girls have come for a visit this week and we’ve been showing them around the city and haven’t been home much since sometime last friday or saturday.  We pop in and out and sleep and have dinner and run back out again.  It’s a little weird to think Monday is kind of a nice day… but it’s true.  I’m slacking off, still in pj’s, slept in until 7 am.  I love that whole sleeping thing.  I think it may be time to go make a fresh batch of granola.