My house smells like Thanksgiving

butternut squash roasted with apple, onion, sage, and whole cloves of garlic

“Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned”

Sometimes I spend too much time in my head. Those of you who know me will immediately see the truth in this, and often are the ones who kindly point it out to me when it gets really ridiculous. Right now I am beginning to get overwhelmed by all that needs to be done over the next few months, so I have temporarily dropped the “to do” lists and am reflecting on some small accomplishments instead. I am finding it to be reassuring. Here is a taste of what has been going on…

Still fanatical about tarragon, I made a Nicoise type salad with green beans, heirloom tomatoes, baby potatoes and anchovies with a white wine tarragon vinaigrette.

Bagged up a gigantic bunch of clothes to consign and made space in all my drawers, plus cleaned out a closet for storage.

Got rid of a bunch of old junk mail and filed some paperwork, began sorting through stuff for the fall semester.

I haven’t yet moved the monstrous broken TV out of my dining room, but I moved it to a less obtrusive corner and the space feels a lot more free.

Did some schoolwork, which considering the way my summer has gone in that regard should really be topping the list. I have been slacking big time.

Quit caffeinated coffee (again) cold turkey. This was the first time I ever really suffered from the withdrawal headaches, because I was drinking coffee with a regularity that I think I hadn’t in maybe eight or nine years. It was terrible, but once it was over I felt like a new person.

Overall I feel good. I have quite a bit of work to finish and submit to a professor before Tuesday rolls around so the weekend is going to be intense, but at least I’ll have Irene to keep me company. Sometimes patting yourself on the back for one or two small things can give you the peace of mind to get it together to do one or two more, it’s an easy trick and an effective one (and I don’t mind if you steal it). I think it also helped that I got all Feng Shui up in here and cleared some serious clutter… I can seriously feel the mental and emotional clutter dissipate with each pile that disappears. And it really makes no sense to have the windows wide open to let the beautiful late summer air in when your apartment looks like shit.

Bring on the hurricane.

Booty

I really, really wanted to purchase a farm share this year, and I really, really could not justify coughing up the money in advance instead of paying it out in dribs and drabs at my weekly farmers market trips. Serendipitously, a dear and generous friend came to me with an offer; if I could pick up her weekly bags of vegetables from the spot that she struggles to get to because of her work schedule, my payment would be to take home a bag for myself of the fresh goodies that she doesn’t ever manage to finish herself anyway. Yes yes YES! And thank you thank you THANK YOU! This week’s haul included spring onions, zucchini, beets, broccoli, potatoes, green beans and red cabbage. Here is what I am thinking thus far.

Potato and green bean salad with a tarragon and spring onion vinaigrette

Shredded red cabbage and spring onion slaw with mango, rice wine vinegar, sugar, cilantro and a little toasted sesame oil. And maybe some chilis.

Mini pizzas on whole wheat naan with caramelized onions, fig jam, and prosciutto and done either with ricotta, goat cheese or organic mozzarella… because I happen to have all three, and because that is the beauty of the mini pizza… you get to make it ALL!

The zucchini will just be eaten sliced raw and dipped in hummus, and the broccoli will probably be snacked on raw as well. I am struggling in regards to the beets. I do not. like. beets. Especially the red ones. I grabbed them for the greens and can’t let them go to waste, so I will probably roast them (while dying from the heat of roasting something in the oven in July) and throw them over arugula with goat cheese, pistachios, and some balsamic vinegar. And hold my nose when I take a bite that is mostly beet. And make faces even though no one will be around to see me. Maybe I will post a photograph of my terrible beet-eating face on here, just for fun. I am also considering shredding one of them for a beet tzatziki, which I have had before at Sofra and can somewhat admit to enjoying, but I like beetless tzatziki more so I just don’t know if I can bring myself to do it.

Any other suggestions for making beets palatable are greatly appreciated.

“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state to another”

I like comparisons, especially when I’m bored. I am also taking a math class for the first time since 1992, so I’m going to use some math speak. Just because.

1.) Raw vegetables > cooked vegetables
I generally find this to be true, but it’s true X100 in the warmer weather. I think it has something to do with my overall preference for crunchy over slimy. The only major exception I can think of to this rule is onions. Cooked onions = delicious and sweet, while raw onions = “there is a time and a place and it most certainly is not all the time and everywhere”.

2.) Interesting lemonade > regular lemonade
Some recommendations are the blueberry lemonade from the Oxford Spa, the orange blossom lemonade from Sofra, the cerbat at the Baraka Cafe, and the ginger lemonade from Cafe Zing. Also, limeade > interesting lemonade any day.

3.) My extended family members under the age of five > your extended family members under the age of five
I am sorry, but it’s just true. They have awesome names and they call me “Fifi”. Love.

4.) Farmers Markets > supermarkets
I would also like to suggest the documentary “A Crude Awakening” to anyone wanting to know a little more about the oil crisis. Buy local please, it’s the little things that count.

5.) Cherries > strawberries
I used to work with some crazy people who didn’t like fresh cherries. I love you guys, but you are crazy. Also, nectarines > peaches but only because I don’t like the fuzz.

5 seems like a good place to stop.

blueberry lemonade chillin' on my back porch

Raptured

So the world is going to end on Saturday, right? You’ve all heard about this? I am finding it entertaining to think about what I’d like to do with my week, you know… on the off chance that this year is the year that it actually happens (although also amusing, if you scroll down the Wikipedia entry and find “notable rapture predictions” you will see that Sir Issac Newton determined that the Apocalypse could happen no earlier than 2060, based on some calculations he made from the book of Daniel. Whoa whoa whoa… did he really read the Bible and throw some science up in that shit? Crazy.)

Anyway, there isn’t anything remarkable on my list. I want to cook something delicious/go running outside/kiss a boy/smell the ocean/see a movie/listen to music/eat a pomegranate. Also laugh, cry, sleep, and have an orgasm. And maybe watch some Youtube videos of cats on treadmills and shells with shoes on. In fact, there is nothing on my list that I don’t do (or try to do) on a semi-regular basis. Some might say this means that I lack motivation and creativity in the face of disaster, however I prefer to think it means that my life pretty much rules already.

My friend Kris and I used to play this game where we would discuss -sometimes for hours, and yes I know that means we’re geeks – what five fruits we would select if we could only eat those five for the rest of our lives (although if I can only eat five fruits for the rest of my life the world better fucking be ending on the 21st. Just sayin’.) In the spirit of that ridiculous game, I want to know what people would eat for the rest of the week if Saturday is the day. Give me your rapture menus people! I’d love the inspiration ’cause I’m planning on doing a lot of cooking this summer. Mine would look something like this I think…

Tuesday:
Eggs over easy with salt and pepper and toast
Blackberries
Lemony caesar salad
Pizza

Wednesday:
Greek yogurt with honey and almonds
Pasta with anchovies, lemon, parmesan and fiddlehead ferns
Red velvet cupcake
Irish breakfast tea

Thursday:
Bi Bim Bap with grilled salmon and brown rice
A honeycrisp apple
Orange blossom lemonade
Salt and pepper potato chips

Friday:
Flatbread with goat cheese, grilled fennel and pear
Iced honey latte
Raw almonds
Roasted cauliflower

Saturday:
How long do I have? WTF time does the world end anyway? I want Greek food… roasted lamb, tzatziki, taramosalata and grape leaves. And ice cream please. And I want to end the day by going to a yoga class, having sex, and watching “Wet Hot American Summer”. Ok I’m done.

So let me have it friends… I want to know!
~Fi

(Confession… I totally just wrote this post because I figured my blog would get a ton of hits from people searching for The Rapture. I win.)

uh... 1992?

oh my

It’s almost summer (sort of), which means I’ll be able to make this pizza again soon.

These are the things that make me happy on a rainy day.

Eggs for lunch

I made a vinaigrette by chopping up the fresh tarragon and shallots I still had in the house and adding olive oil, organic dijon mustard, sherry vinegar, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of juice from my last Meyer lemon. I then broiled the asparagus with a little olive oil and salt, drizzled it with the vinaigrette, and topped it with the poached eggs (on a side note, I had never poached an egg before today. And by never I mean never. So thank you LPB for talking me through it via text… I have no idea what I was so afraid of).

I recommend sopping up the egg yolk and dressing with some crusty bread, so nothing goes to waste. And of course salt and pepper your eggs to suit your preferences… I like a good dousing of both on any kind of egg with runny yolk.

Enjoy!

Bullets

Remember when I blogged every day for a month (almost)? Sigh.

I am mildly obsessed with tarragon right now. I bought a fresh bunch the other day and used it to roast chicken with shallots and meyer lemon, and am now trying to decide what to do with the rest… I think I might mash it into some organic sweet cream butter. I also have an insane amount of dill, so SEND ME SUGGESTIONS! One can only make and eat so much tzatziki.

Beyond thrilled that I can actually consider purchasing a farm share from a local CSA this year, something my work schedule never allowed me to do in the past. I’m looking at Red Fire Farm … the egg share tempts me. I also have some lovely new coworkers who are interested in going in on one with me… Love sharing.

I am fuzzy and a little delirious right now from having avoided doing schoolwork all weekend, only to have my anxiety hit the breaking point this evening and compel me to bang out a ton of stuff in a bunch of hours. Fuzzy and delirious in a good way, just to clarify. But I should wrap this up… apologies for the lack of pictures.

~F

“Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt”

I need to blog… I keep putting it off because there is so much to write about, and because I don’t have any good pictures to post. It seems like such a small thing but aesthetics are important to me, and too many entries with no visuals brings me down a little.

At the core of what I learned during my training as a Holistic Health Counselor (or Health Coach, as the program is calling it’s participants these days) is that the food we eat is secondary nourishment to the other things in our life that sustain us. Relationships, work, exercise and spirituality are considered our primary foods, and when mindful attention and love are given to these things, as well as given to what we put in our bodies, we can be happy, healthy people… for the most part. I believe this with every fiber of my being (no pun intended… get it? Fiber?), and as a result have made some major career changes in the last few months that are begging to be shared, dissected and analyzed here. Or so I thought at least, which is why I hadn’t written… spending more time trying to prepare for the task than actually taking any action. And upon reflection, it isn’t really that complicated or needing of dissection or analysis of any kind at all.

It’s still pleading with me to share though, so here we are; I left my job, I’m slated to finish school in December, and I am getting by doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that – some things familiar, some new. I’m meeting new people and gaining new experience, and I am happier and healthier than I can remember being in quite a while. There are all sorts of little perks to this new lifestyle of mine, such as being able to cook more and reading Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras for a class. I most definitely have plenty of “Tasting Health” type of material to write about, and I am feeling motivated to find the time to do it.

Also, I’m going to post a photo from last year of the tree across the street from my house in full bloom because it’s almost that time and because I like pictures and flowers.

INTRODUCTION from New Poems

“The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople– it’s no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and
ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the squarerootofminusone. You and I are human
beings;mostpeople are snobs. Take the matter of being born. What does being born mean to mostpeople? Catastrophe unmitigated.
Socialrevolution. The cultured aristocrat yanked out of his hyperexclusively ultravoluptuous superpalazzo,and dumped into an
incredibly vulgar detentioncamp swarming with every conceivable species of undesirable organism. Mostpeople fancy a
guaranteed birthproof safetysuit of nondestructible selflessness. If mostpeople were to be born twice they’d improbably call
it dying–

you and I are not snobs. We can never be born enough. We are human beings;for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery,the
mystery of growing:which happens only and whenever we are faithful to ourselves. You and I wear the dangerous looseness of
doom and find it becoming. Life,for eternal us,is now’and now is much to busy being a little more than everything to seem
anything,catastrophic included.

Life,for mostpeople,simply isn’t. Take the socalled standardofliving. What do mostpeople mean by “living”? They don’t mean
living. They mean the latest and closest plural approximation to singular prenatal passivity which science,in its finite but
unbounded wisdom,has succeeded in selling their wives. If science could fail,a mountain’s a mammal. Mostpeople’s wives could
spot a genuine delusion of embryonic omnipotence immediately and will accept no substitutes.

-luckily for us,a mountain is a mammal. The plusorminus movie to end moving,the strictly scientific parlourgame of real
unreality,the tyranny conceived in misconception and dedicated to the proposition that every man is a woman and any woman is
a king,hasn’t a wheel to stand on. What their synthetic not to mention transparent majesty, mrsandmr collective foetus,would
improbably call a ghost is walking. He isn’t a undream of anaesthetized impersons, or a cosmic comfortstation,or a
transcedentally sterilized lookiesoundiefeelietastiesmellie. He is a healthily complex,a naturally homogenous,citizen of
immorality. The now of his each pitying free imperfect gesture,his any birth of breathing,insults perfected inframortally
milleniums of slavishness. He is a little more than everything,he is democracy;he is alive:he is ourselves.

Miracles are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of miracles: they are somebody who can love and who shall be continually
reborn,a human being;somebody who said to those near him,when his fingers would not hold a brush “tie it to my hand”–

nothing proving or sick or partial. Nothing false,nothing difficult or easy or small or colossal. Nothing ordinary or
extraordinary,nothing emptied or filled,real or unreal;nothing feeble and known or clumsy and guessed. Everywhere tints
childrening,innocent spontaneaous,true. Nowhere possibly what flesh and impossibly such a garden,but actually flowers which
breasts are amoung the very mouths of light. Nothing believed or doubted;brain over heart, surface:nowhere hating or to
fear;shadow,mind without soul. Only how measureless cool flames of making;only each other building always distinct selves of
mutual entirely opening;only alive. Never the murdered finalities of wherewhen and yesno,impotent nongames of wrongright and
rightwrong;never to gain or pause,never the soft adventure of undoom,greedy anguishes and cringing ecstasies of
inexistence;never to rest and never to have;only to grow.

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question”

~ e e cummings