Wonder – #Reverb10

Potluck at my place for The Earthbound Cook. Photo by Jane Maynard, This Week for Dinner.

December 4 – Wonder

Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

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This year I started to enjoy cooking, something I never thought I would say. It came about (indirectly) through getting back to yoga, like many things this year. I read an article in a spring issue of Yoga Journal about soup – the writer’s description of finding joy in cooking really amazed me. I had started to see food in different ways before this, having gone from coffee to tea last February and eating more living foods in general. But after reading this article, I was sort of in awe of food. The mystery of cooking started to seem like something accessible to me.

I started to cook. Some simple things. With recipes, ALWAYS with recipes. I asked my husband for help – he knows how to cook and I am not afraid to ask him how to boil water if I don’t know how. Kidding, I know how to boil water 🙂

But when I cook, I am truly a beginner. I am open to suggestions, even…criticism? Yes, I don’t care if you tell me it sucks. I am learning, I expect for some things to suck. I am a little like a small child when it comes to knowing what to do in the kitchen. I am not afraid to ask in the grocery store what fennel is – I honestly don’t know and I can only find out by asking.

I wonder about all things food.

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This post is part of the #reverb10 challenge. Read all of my #reverb10 posts here and please let me know if you are doing the challenge too, so I can read your posts too!

A kitchen connection

Potluck at my place for The Earthbound Cook. Photo by Jane Maynard, This Week for Dinner.

I have been doing a lot of work in the kitchen lately. And by work I don’t mean putting on gray trousers and heading to My Cube – although that is a new thing in my life lately. Last week I headed back to an Office – not Starbucks or my dining room table or my car – to work as part-time corporate counsel for a tech company. It isn’t new work for me, per se, as I’ve been doing outsourced general counsel work for companies in my solo law practice for almost 7 years now. But physically going into an office on a regular basis, having a corporate email account (and an IT guy!), an ID card, a nameplate, a printer in a room full of printers…it is so strangely familiar. It is odd. I feel a bit giddy about it, I suppose. Though I have loved being an entreprenuer, I need a little less drama in my life (and a little more paycheck too, I have to admit!). I feel at home, even though…I’m not.

AT home, the work I have been doing in my kitchen has been evolving. I used to hate cooking and now I love it, love it. Cookbooks? I never used them. Now I am devouring them. Even making my own (meaning I rip pages out of magazines or print them out from recipe sites and put them in a binder…very low tech and lame, but hey its convenient when meal planning).

The Earthbound Cook by Myra Goodman

Last week, I was thrilled to host the first (of many, I hope!) Cookbook Club, a coming together of my book club at From Left to Write and a new cooking club of my friend Jane’s, who writes the awesome blog This Week for Dinner (yes, her recipes are definitely in my binder! Pesto tortellini soup for example…love). About 30 women packed themselves into my (tiny) Silicon Valley house and potlucked, each bringing a dish made from the cookbook The Earthbound Cook by Myra Goodman, co-founder of Earthbound Farms (located in nearby Carmel – a gorgeous spot). I made the Tri-Color Potato Salad – it is so good that I think I might bring it to Thanksgiving dinner next week.I know, potato salad feels like a summer dish, but with all of the green beans, it screams turkey day to me.

Tri Color Potato Salad from "The Earthbound Cook" by Myra Goodman

Wow, these women brought it! Such amazing food and company. I have to say that The Earthbound Cook is truly a wealth of great recipes. Not only that, but author Myra Goodman also spent time informing her readers about cooking with the earth in mind. It is not just about buying organic, but about conservation – what does it really mean to compost, to use cloth napkins (we did at the potluck and I’m inspired to switch at home too), to enjoy your food, to feel a connection to the earth in your kitchen.

Silicon Valley potluck for The Earthbound Cook. Photo by Linda De Los Reyes, Solheim Photography

Coming off of the fall cleanse through Yogahealer that I did a few weeks ago, recipes like the ones from The Earthbound Cook are helping me stay on track with living foods. I definitely don’t eat 100% nutritious, healthy, organic food, but I am a lot closer than I was a year ago. And sharing the connection with friends makes it that much sweeter.

Until the next cookbook club…

Disclosure: I received a free copy of The Earthbound Cook by Myra Goodman for the From Left to Write Book Club, a virtual blogging book club that I founded last June and which now has over 100 amazing bloggers participating. I was not obligated to write about the book and all opinions are my own.

If you are interested in joining the virtual book club site From Left to Write, please contact me. From Left to Write holds regular book clubs, writing not book reviews, but our own stories that are inspired by the books we read.

938 words about cleansing

An unsigned gift

I am sitting here drinking a Diet Dr Pepper, something I really did not think I would be doing just one week post-cleanse. It is a slippery slope, getting back to “reality” and “normal” eating/drinking after really restricting yourself. I’m not so proud of myself just now. But I do love me some Diet Dr Pepper every now and then. Hey, at least I’m not eating Cheddar and Sour Cream Ruffles along with it, right?

I felt great on the cleanse, which consisted of a “pre-cleanse” period for about 5 days (during which I got rid of the wine, caffeine, second helpings and chocolate binges, and added more green smoothies to my lifestyle) and then a “full-on-cleanse” period for 5 solid days. I post-cleansed for 3-4 days….and I suppose I feel like I’m still sort of in the “post-cleanse” period.

During the pre-cleanse, one of the things I did was to take an afternoon to clean my kitchen. I listened to Cate’s 1-hour audio on “The Simple Kitchen” (a free workshop that she does – I highly recommend it) while I cleaned. I felt like I was already in a good place, having done some of my “pre” work. I had shopped for the fresh veggies and herbs I would need for the cleanse – asking “Where in the ginger root? How about mung beans?” in Whole Foods. Hearing Cate’s voice while I threw out leftover taco meat and wiped down the shelves of my refrigerator solidified things for me and helped me to see my kitchen as a…well, simple and central place.

This was not just about what I would be eating during the cleanse, but also about how the kitchen is the CENTER of my house and of my family. This is true for me more and more. I used to be just in and out of the kitchen, never really spending time there. This, despite my kitchen being literally in the center of my house (we have a “great room” concept, so there is no closing the door to the kitchen or avoiding it – it is there all the time). But I was not really present in kitchen before just several months ago.

On Saturday morning, I called my sister. One of the drawbacks of Robin living so far away is that she is 4 and a half hours ahead of me timezone-wise. In this case, however, I used this to my advantage. I was just getting up, but she had been up for hours and had already done the first item on the to-do list for the cleanse – the salt water flush. She and her husband had both done it, with good results – the results being that the heaviness of the sea salt completely cleans you out. I turned on my kettle and sat down with a mug of sea salt water. Um…ew. But it wasn’t terrible. It also did not work for me. What?! Later in the day, I reported my lack of results to Robin. It took us a while to figure out that I hadn’t used enough salt. Oh, fantastic, I get to do it again! This time, I only had to drink half a gallon of the nasty stuff and voila.

In the afternoon, I dusted off my juicer – literally, it had been sitting on top of my dryer for at least 2 years and was caked with dust – and Jeff and I figured out how to make Green Lemonade. Pretty tasty (sweet apple, celery, kale, ginger root and lemon – the lemon is key, by the way)! Ok, I could do this.

Ingredients for Green Lemonade

I feel like I need to do a quick aside here…. Let me just say that I am not a fan of boxes and herbs that you buy in the health food store as cleanses. This cleanse that Robin and I did through Yogahealer was a “Living Foods” cleanse. We mostly drank juices and hot peppermint tea. We had some soups and salads as well. We did not take any “supplements” – just add tons of fruits and veggies. Guided by Cate Stillman at Yogahealer (Cate was one of my yoga teachers over the summer at an amazing workshop we attended), it was challenging for sure, but very supported. The online forums that Cate moderates as part of the cleanse were key. Key. I could NOT have done this by myself, even with Robin. I needed this community.

That being said, I do feel a bit lost now. Even with the post-cleanse recipes and all I have learned (and continue to learn) about what the best things to eat for me are, I am SO tempted by Starbucks cranberry-orange scones and Tootsie Rolls (damn you, cool fall weather and Halloween!). I am continuing to drink my Green Lemonade on many mornings (ok, I’ve had it only twice in the past week…), but find the culture of treats and junk around us incredibly alluring. I want to have a healthy relationship with food and feel ok about indulging in moderation. Is this possible in today’s society of convenience and packaged foods? I know, an unanswerable question. I suppose we all have temptation, right?

I am cooking mainly out of two cookbooks right now – one is the Kripalu Cookbook (Kripalu is a yoga retreat center in Massachusetts that Robin went to last summer and we have made many yummy recipes from this book and online recipe center – largely vegan and vegetarian, very accessible in terms of healthy eating) and the other is The Earthbound Cook, which is a selection that the bloggers at From Left to Write are reading for November. It is my hope that I can find a good balance and to take the things I learned with me to the “real” world. For instance, The Earthbound Cook talks about how to do sprouting, something I learned in the Yogahealer cleanse – I love seeing this stuff as more “mainstream.” I guess my whole goal is to ENJOY the healthy food I’m cooking and eating and to learn more about how my family can eat and cook less packaged/more living. And I think I’m in a good place to do that.

Thanks to all for the support during this cleanse. Among other awesomeness, I came home one day to find the lovely rose and lavender arrangement and unsigned note from a friend (pictured at the top of this post). Thank you to whoever left it! (Actually, I DID figure it out – this nice person is very nice to me and others all the time – she inspires me to be a better friend. Thanks :))

If you want to do a cleanse of your own, do a Living Foods cleanse with Cate from Yogahealer, as opposed to out of a box. All right, I’ll dump out the rest of the Diet Dr Pepper and have some tea now…

Healthy Mom, Healthy Kids

Yesterday at our elementary school, ice cream cones were being sold after school. We already have ice cream on Fridays (and we definitely get right in line for that at the end of a long week!)….do we REALLY need ice cream Wednesdays too? Ridiculous. Where is the healthy alternative here?

Six months ago, I thought our family was pretty healthy. Not super healthy, but fairly good. I thought that our kids were doing ok in the food department – typical picky eaters, but getting better, trying new foods, adding different things that they liked. We were not sedentary. The kids knew what vegetables are (unlike some of the kids Jamie Oliver talked to in his The Food Revolution/TED speech). There was no soda or chips in our house (regularly anyway…I pull all the junk food out for special occasions like the Super Bowl :)).

But…last February, I started making changes in my life(style). This wasn’t prompted by a crisis or anything. It sort of just happened. It started with switching from coffee to tea. This was an easy one for me, but it might not be for everyone. I just personally have never been a big coffee drinker (I had drank decaf for 9 years) and had heard about the health benefits of green tea (antioxidants, better breath, cleaner teeth, etc).

In March, I added another change, since my tea thing had worked so well. I continued adding something every month and I tried to make sure the effort was going TOWARDS something healthy, rather than a feeling like a deprivation.

February – drink tea

March – daily yoga (minimum: 15 minutes of sun salutations)

April – no red meat…ok, that’s a deprivation one, but still pretty easy for me

May – green smoothies, no/less processed foods….ok, definitely deprivation and this one is HARD!

June – enjoy summer

July – get outside

August – light candles

September – meal planning

Some of my descriptions above are slightly cryptic. Like June’s enjoy summer truly means work less. I was living in my email for years and was ready to do something else with my life. July’s get outside meant for me taking walks/going for runs/gardening/shopping at the farmer’s market instead of the grocery store/biking to somewhere I would normally drive. August’s lighting candles meant cleaning my kitchen table off and lighting candles every night to enjoy my home (this has all been helped tremendously by FlyLady and if you don’t know what FlyLady is and you have a cluttered/messy house/life, go check it out NOW! It can be slightly cheesy at times, but I just take what I like from it and routines work wonders for me).

In the course of this, I have realized that we have been FAR from healthy and that our mainstream culture is on a fairly dangerous track. For me, it is a process, it is still a process. I am continuing to add new healthy habits to my lifestyle and I know changes won’t come overnight. I am not trying to lose a bunch of weight (although those nagging 7 pounds would be nice!), but to focus on prevention of disease, feeling good and setting a healthy example for my kids. It is also about having less stress in my life and just enjoying life to the fullest.

For September I have focused on meal planning. A good friend of mine, Jane, who writes the blog This Week for Dinner, has proven to me by her example that I should plan what to have for dinner every night. I KNOW that, logically. The problem for me had been that, up until several months ago (when I cut out processed foods and was forced to start cooking), I did not ENJOY cooking. I have always said “I don’t cook. I’m not a cook. Jeff is the cook in our family.” My mom was not a huge cook – she made the same 10 meals, alternating them around, for my entire childhood and none of them were quite inventive (sorry, Mom) – but she was a great baker and I learned that from her. My dad was a good cook, but he threw in a little bit of this and a little bit of that and I never quite learned the basics. My Grandma Nita was a wonderful cook and baker – I wish I had been able to spend more time with her growing up (we moved away when my sister and I were 8 years old and she did when I was in college).

So I baked, but never cooked. Never really cooked. I could follow a recipe, but would slink over to the prepared foods more often than not. Frozen pizza and a salad in a bag = dinner is served!

Now that I am cooking, I actually really enjoy it. And the kids are helping me cook, something that really did not happen before. They used to just continue playing and I would do it all (all being getting the scissors to cut off the plastic wrap and hitting “start” on the microwave). A big aha moment for me has been: My kids LIKE to cook. They actually enjoy it. It is fun and messy and experimental (especially if I let them get messy, have a turn stirring and pouring, and try their ideas out).

Today, Ava and I made pumpkin bread. We made it “healthier” by making some changes to our standard recipe. Of course, Ava can’t tell the difference (neither can I), but is learning how we can substitute whole wheat flour and agave to make it less sugary for us. This is not “hide spinach in the brownies” baking, but is very open with the kids about how I making things healthier.

 

Healthy Pumpkin Bread

 

Healthy Pumpkin Bread

Adapted from the recipe on Squidoo

3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2  teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup agave
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup pumpkin purée
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup applesauce
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes – 1 hour. I made cupcake too – bake about 15-17 minutes.

I could have adjusted the recipe to use just egg whites, but I didn’t want to go too off for my little experiment. It came out super yummy, so next time I’ll probably add some pumpkin seeds and some cranberries, maybe take away some egg yolks.

Because it is more a part of our lifestyle now, we talk with the kids all the time about the importance of getting exercise and eating healthy. We are (finally!) to the point where our family of five can go out for a run/walk/bike ride all together and not get overly exhausted, but all get exercise in. The kids see my make green smoothies every morning and I hope someday they will try them. For me, I feel like the key with young kids is to set a good example.

October habit?

Well, I am going to focus on my internal health. Starting October 11th I am doing my first ever cleanse/detox. I’m so excited about this Fall Cleanse (which includes some awesome yoga from one of my instructors, Cate, in the beautiful Tetons).

This post is part of the Yahoo! MotherBoard (of which I am a proud member!) discussion for September, centered on teaching kids healthy eating. Read more posts here on the YodelingMamas and on Yahoo! Motherboard.

My Mom’s HEALTHY GRANOLA

Granola

When I was growing up and still to this day, my mom has made granola. My parents are on a year-long RV adventure and every time they stop in to visit family or a friend, out comes the granola ingredients so they can stock up. My dad eats it for breakfast every single morning and swears it keeps his hypoglycemia in check. She found it in a La Leche League recipe book when my sister and I were newborns and has adapted it over the years. She doesn’t have to write it down, she just knows it by heart.

I have made it before, but it has never really turned out right. But lately…and I mean in the past couple of weeks….I have started to actually LIKE cooking. This will shock my friends, I know. But it is actually TRUE! I do. I LIKE cooking!

I think this new revelation has been brought on, in part, by some changes I have been making over the past several months. In February, I switched from decaf coffee to tea. In March, I began daily yoga. In April, I cut out red meat. In May, I have tried to drastically reduce packaged foods consumption. All of this is not listed out to pat myself on the back, but to see the path. I started with something that was (for me) easy. Now I am on to the hard stuff. But to live without challenge is not truly living, no?

And, I want my children to know how to cook. And to enjoy it. And to eat with their health in mind.

This weekend, after my dad informed me that Raisin Bran (a cereal that is in our pantry at this very moment) is the worst offender in the bad-for-you-cereal category (I checked – it has 19 grams of sugar!!!), I decided to make my mom’s granola. The kids helped (they love the stuff and love getting messy, mixing it with their hands) and voila – we have healthy cereal in our pantry now instead of 7 kinds of packaged cereals. Mind you, I will likely still buy Cheerios or Kix from time to time, but the emphasis will be on the homemade stuff.

Granola

4 cups oats (old fashioned, not quick)

4 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup wheat germ

1/2 cup walnuts (chopped)

1 cup coconut

1/4 cup flax seed

1 cup soy flour

2 tsp cinnamon

Mix the dry ingredients with your hands to blend. Add:

1 cup honey

1 cup olive oil

1/2 cup water

Mix the wet and dry ingredients together with your hands to blend. Clump the pieces together as you wish.

Fill two 9×13 pans and bake at 300 degrees for 45-60 minutes, turning every 15-20 minutes (otherwise it burns on the bottom).

Add raisins to taste.

Lily and Ava get messy making granola

Filling the pans - do spread it out

Will this last us a week? Hmmmm....