Apparently, avoiding schoolwork makes me blog more.

My first draft working title for this blog entry was “Fiona Likes Lists”, but the sentence structure was a little too “Debbie Does Dallas” for me. Anyhoo…

books, not being used to reference for a paper

I am not even pretending to write a paper this afternoon. No, that’s not true. I am making every effort to pretend to write a paper. My books are out on the dining room table, the resource page for using proper APA citations is bookmarked and easily accessible online, and I opened a blank word document with the best of intentions… about an hour ago. Then I began taking pictures of my new hair color to post on facebook, which led to taking pictures of my recently redone apartment, and then to taking pictures of my cat. He is so photogenic.

mungry, aka wally

But the truth is, the procrastination began much earlier today (some would say it began at about the age of 2 or 3, a fact I probably wouldn’t argue). Upon returning from the store, did I unpack my groceries like a good girl? No. I laid them out on my dining room table, moved them around a bit until they looked comfortable, and took about 7 pictures of them. Because clearly, I am mad. But I have loads of friends who go just as week in the knees as I do for a good grocery list, especially when it contains parsnips (ARB) and a persimmon (that one’s for RC and Mr. Marx. Ahem. Shout outs.)

On to the sexy, exciting list.

Bunch spinach
Green leaf lettuce
Anjou pears
Blackberries
Nashoba Valley 7 grain loaf
Parsnips
1 large sweet onion
1 acorn squash
Purple fingerling potatoes
Coleman natural whole chicken legs
2 pomegranates
1 fuyu persimmon
Nettle Meadow honey lavender fromage blanc

… and 2 blood oranges

sexy exciting groceries

And so it goes.

There’s a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out.

My great aunt passed away on Monday, less than a year after being diagnosed with stomach cancer. She was easily one of the kindest people I have ever known, as well as being the best cook in my family. The food she laid out on her dining room table for us has always been, and always will be, what I consider to be comfort foods.
If I can produce food with half the flavor and half the love that she did, then I will be a happy girl. RIP.

Aimlessly wandering through my kitchen and my brain

My first attempt at beef stew was not a particular success, but I’m not going to beat myself up over it. I didn’t follow any sort of recipe, although I snuck a peek at Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything” to figure out how long it needed to simmer. My eyes then happened upon an ingredient or two that I knew I didn’t have and I promptly slammed the book shut. So my stew was bland and the meat wasn’t falling apart enough for me, but thanks to the magic (or is it science? I’m never sure) of the internet, I have now suggestions on how to doll up the leftovers and a few great ideas for my next attempt. Thank you, facebook. I did have an immensely satisfying experience cleaning the dirt off of the carrots my dad brought me from his garden, so I guess I’ve got that going for me.

Right now it’s a beautiful Saturday in November, right on the cusp of Morning to afternoon. I have lists of what I need to do today, such as “buy mop”, and “don’t forget to pick up coconut milk”… yes, my lists tell me not to forget things… it helps, I swear. I’m planning on spending at least an hour walking around outside a little later, enjoying what is left of the season. My day was, in fact, off to a great start this morning, until I ate one of the apples I bought the other day. Lesson learned, don’t necessarily choose local over organic… my bland Honeycrisp nearly reduced me to tears. I don’t even know if the rest of them are worthy of roasting with the butternut squash I have (also from my dad’s garden, lucky me!) But on the subject of roasting and fall foods, I’m going to divulge a little secret… pumpkin pie spice makes everything better. I use one from Trader Joe’s that is a blend of cinnamon, ginger, lemon peel, cardamom, nutmeg, and cloves. It is amazing with any kind of fruit or sweet vegetable (or fall soup!), and I daydream about the way it tastes on my morning oatmeal.

I have also been drinking coffee again more regularly. I’ve got to work on that… it really makes me feel like crap, but it tastes so damn good. I did take some pictures of my yummy, dirty vegetables.

The Four Agreements

By definition, Holistic Nutrition is not about food. Where I studied, the science behind the food we eat was deemed secondary to the other forces in our lives that nourish us. Try to be a healthy person without an awareness of and an attention to things such as physical activity, relationships, work, and spirituality, and you will find that you are a very hungry soul indeed, regardless of what you put in your mouth. Although the focus of my blog has always been, and will continue to be, on food and it’s relation to my mood, health and lifestyle, I may at times find myself so moved to write about other things.

Indeed, as any writer knows, we write much more for ourselves than for any audience, despite how blogger culture may seem to contradict this. And tonight I simply feel like writing, something I have been doing quite a bit of lately for school. For those who don’t know this, I recently went back to school to complete my bachelors degree at Lesley University. One of the things that drew me to the school was the opportunity to put together a Prior Learning Assessment portfolio. Essentially, I am petitioning to be granted college credit for experiential learning… 40 college credits, to be exact. I am currently in the throes of this extensive project, that once completed will be no less than 50 some odd pages detailing, reflecting upon, and critically dissecting all that I have learned over the past 10 years that I have worked at The Perkins School for the Blind. My job has been one of my great passions and one of my primary sources of nourishment, and this process is both draining and exhilarating. In part because of this, in part because of other things (always those damn other things,) I have been in a particularly reflective and emotional mood as of late. I find myself reaching out – almost frantically at times – for sources of familiarity… objects, actions and thoughts to keep me grounded, so that this endeavor doesn’t completely overwhelm me. I have been taking innumerable long walks outside (weather permitting), making efforts to speak to and see friends and family that I had been neglecting, and revisiting some old philosophical favorites.

On or around December 3rd, 2006, a dear friend gave me a book. Scribbled across the entirety of the inside cover was the following…

“From: one sister to another sister, To: another sister
Passing this wisdom on to you, from my sister who passed it on to me. She sent me an additional copy to share with a special sister friend that turned out to be you.
Peace & Love Always Fifi
Love Rhea”

The book, of course, was The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz. For the purpose of this missive, I will simply share the agreements themselves, as I have found that it is the simplicity of the message that makes it so appealing. However for anyone who’s interest may be piqued, I don’t hesitate to recommend reading the book in it’s entirety. It is well worth the time. Ma io divagando, cosí…

I Quattro Accordi…

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinion and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment, it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

Many, many, many books have been written… call them spiritual guidance, call them self help… call them bullshit if you’d like. But when you find something that speaks to you, do yourself a favor and don’t dismiss it. I credit the above message for a great deal in my life – my work ethic, my communication style, even at times my peace of mind (read number two, and then read it again, See?) That’s not to say that I always remember these agreements, or that I practice them 100% of the time, or even that I hadn’t cultivated a similar approach to certain things on my own, prior to even having been gifted with the book. But the eloquence of Don Miguel Ruiz’s writing and the simplicity of his message has stayed with me, from the first time I read it, to the last time I picked it up…

And tonight it feels worthy of sharing.

“Eat little, sleep sound”

Above is an Iranian Proverb I came across while perusing the world wide web on day. I copied it into a document and tucked it away for another day, knowing I would undoubtedly use it as a jumping off point for a blog post (as I tend to do). At the time, I thought I would write about fasting, a topic I find fascinating for it’s history, cultural and religious significance, health implications (both the good and the bad), and even it’s transition into the weight loss trend du jour for celebs such as Jared Leto and Beyonce. But in true bear-with-very-little-brain fashion, this particular quote comes back to me as I laze around during the first real heat wave of the season, nursing a strained back with some gentle yoga, and debating whether or not I could actually, really, truly survive the summer subsisting on only coconut water, lambic, and the orange blossom lemonade from Sofra.

Despite the obvious appeal, it is clear that my dream diet wouldn’t quite do the trick for more than maybe a weekend… albeit probably the best weekend of my life. What I advocate instead, for all of us who feel a twisting pinch of distaste for food when the weather gets hot, is my father’s preferred style of eating… also known as grazing. My dad (or Pop, as I have always called him) fondly recalls the days when he used to release my cousin and I, as well as the neighborhood kids we were friends with, into the garden behind our summer house in Seabrook NH to munch on fresh carrots and peas straight out of the dirt. To this day, when I visit him meals consist of small plates of food strewn across the counter, so that any and all can pick and choose between slicing their own tomato for a sandwich, throwing some fresh avocado into a bowl of his homemade black bean soup, or just grabbing a slice of the pie that I usually bring him from Petsi Pies in Somerville (Tart Michigan Cherry, oh my lord is it good).

I can’t, don’t, and wouldn’t do this year round, but when the weather gets warm and the days are long, I just find it to be extraordinarily difficult to sit down to a full meal. Summer is a time for tapas, mezze, “apps” or dim sum, be it at home or out, at Dali or at Toro, in Chinatown or in West Cambridge. Summer is a time to eat little, sleep sound, and drink orange blossom lemonade on your porch or beer down by the Charles. Summer is gold.

I’ve been called worse

It has been established that summer days are lazy, hazy, and crazy, and that the summer wind comes blowing in from across the sea. That summer loving happened so fast, that a cruel cruel summer is leaving me here on my own, and that summer in the city makes the back of my neck sweaty and gritty. But really really (really!) what summer is all about is the living being easy. And by easy, I mean Easy… with a capital E.

Easy means fast. Easy means cold (actually, easy might sometimes mean grilled, but that’s really the only acceptable time for fire to heat my food in the summer time, and only in a backyard or on cape cod). Easy means there is no way I am putting jack shit in my oven and making my house feel like a furnace, but rather that I’m sipping lemonade on the back porch with a bowl full of berries, a bag of raw almonds, and a book.

Easy means that I am regularly hitting up Trader Joes for reasonably priced (and entertainingly packaged) snacks, and bags of avocados. It’s all well and good to shop the farmers markets for fresh fruits and vegetables, but sometimes I want some goddamn frozen berries to make my smoothies with so I don’t have to use ice, and TJ’s Very Cherry Berry blend makes me swoon. My love affair with my kitchen cools off in the summer time, and I am unapologetic about wanting nothing more than to throw some cold chicken that somebody else cooked for me, into a wrap with some hummus that somebody else made for me, and maybe a half of one of the 4 avocados that came in the little green bag.

… and some fresh spinach from the farmers market, of course.

“There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein”

Ah… the sweet smell of neglect (isn’t that how the saying goes?)

It’s not that I haven’t been writing, I really have. And it’s not that I haven’t been eating, cooking, or taking pictures of food… because I really have been doing that as well. But the connection has been lacking, for no discernible reason except perhaps that I have been distracted by school, life, and the rain. Regardless, tonight I decided to open the vein and let spew forth all sorts of awesome about my recent raw food lunch on the North Shore with my friend Jessica. Excited yet?

Jess has been eating primarily raw foods only for breakfast and lunch for a couple of years now, and swears that it is one of the only things that helps her sustain through out the day, and avoid the 3PM slump that makes so many of us avoid physical activity and fall prey to the couch after work. There is no doubt that raw foods can be energizing, and my own consumption of them skyrockets in the summer time (you can barely get me to touch a salad in the depths of our beloved New England winters, however). Jess has supplied me with many a tasty recipe (and gotten me hooked on her delicious green smoothies), so when she suggested the Organic Garden Cafe in Beverly for a Saturday lunch, I jumped at the chance to try it out.

The food was fantastic, the staff were charming, and the sun even managed to come out for a half a day. I got the pad thai (fresh veggies in a yummy cashew/almond/lime dressing, with just a hint of spice and sweet), and a side of falafel, Jess got a guacamole taco and a spring roll, and for dessert we split a slice of the Black Forrest pie. We both were over the moon about our main dishes, and I liked my mini falafel as well. Jessica thought her spring rolls were a bit sweet (I sampled them and had to agree, the coconut wrap tasted almost like a cookie), and I didn’t love the cashew “sour cream” that came with her taco – I don’t do so well with food that pretends to be something else… if I’m trying to limit my cheese consumption, for example, I’d rather add avocado to a sandwich for the mouth feel than to stoop to having something like soy cheese sully the experience (go ahead, call me a food snob and see if I care). Jess, on the other hand, cannot eat dairy at all, and in her words “It’s been so long since I had real sour cream, I don’t really remember what it tastes like”, so she wasn’t down on the nut cream at all. And the big surprise of the day was that neither one of us was particularly impressed by the dessert. The strawberries were frozen, I thought the crust tasted like a Lara Bar (although I suppose most raw crusts do), and Jess didn’t think the carob was carob-y enough. But it made for a pretty picture, albeit a picture of some obviously frozen strawberries.

I don’t know enough about raw food preparation to do the meal justice with further descriptions, but would I recommend the place? Yes indeed. In fact, given it’s proximity to some of my favorite North Shore beaches, I’m quite sure I’ll be back at least once or twice more this summer. And really, don’t people just read food blogs for the photos anyway?

if it looks like an eyeball, and it tastes like a lychee…

On a recent excursion to Russo’s with Ms. Abigail, she went into a fit of excitement upon the discovery that they had rambutan for sale (or mamón chino, as they are called in some parts of the world). I am an adventurous sort when it comes to unusual foods, and I’ve never met a fruit I didn’t like – ok, I can be a little weird about bananas, but that’s another story – so I was eager to try one. None the less, I was a little put off by the fact that they looked like the things that fall off of trees and litter the sidewalks all over Cambridge in the spring.

To my relief – although I’m savvy enough to not have been surprised – when she cracked one open (as soon as we got into the car), she extracted something white and slimy, and altogether more appetizing looking than what had been in her hand only a moment ago.


So yes, they are delicious, and also fun to eat. I was at Russo’s again this past weekend and picked up a bunch for myself to snack on and take pictures of. I highly recommend trying them, and remember… don’t be turned off by the fact that they look like sea urchins.

Sometimes things just don’t work out…

For the life of me I don’t know why, but I’m having a tough time posting the link to the Special Teas website in my last entry. I think I’ve figured out how to fix it… Ok that’s a lie, but I think I’ve figured out how to make it work for the time being.

www.specialteas.com

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future”

It all started with the random discovery at the old Tea Tray in the Sky on Mass Ave in Cambridge near Porter Square – don’t bother looking, it’s no longer there – of a green tea called Spring Thunder. What a name, eh? With hints of coconut and lime I was instantly hooked, and when the tea shop closed I was in a panic… that is of course until I remembered the awesome power of the internet. A quick search brought me to Special Teas, and a quick order brought a batch of Spring Thunder to my own home. I have since ordered from them with some frequency, and never been disappointed. I am particularly fond as well of the English Breakfast Blend.

Enjoy!