Foods That Comfort Me

Time for a little listology tonight. Its been a long time since I had a listy post. Been thinking about food lately, especially since we were just on a little weekend away and I was cooking for pure pleasure one night. Some people think vacation is a time to get away from food prep (and I do that too sometimes) but I find a deep enjoyment in cooking for pleasure with no time pressure or requirements. Food is a kind of art, but also a kind of loving communication. We all care for others with food. How do we care for ourselves with food? I think the notion of comfort food gets a bad rap. No need to imagine Bridget Jones gorging on a tub of ice cream while sobbing to illustrate the idea. Comfort food can be frivolous or ridiculous but it can be just as building and health giving too. The real idea is to think of what foods bring kindness to you in an intimate and reflexive way. Comfort is something our country needs a little bit of right now.

When life has handed me lemons and I am lower than low, when I wish I had a Mommy in-house to take over for the day, when I have company coming and everything is at all ends....these are my comfort foods:

• Mushrooms of any kind but especially morels, chanterelles, or oysters sauteed in butter.
• Roast Chicken....especially cooking it but eating it too. Its my tradition that I always make roast chickens for people the first time I have them over to dinner. Its my safe meal, and it makes me feel calmer to cook it.
• Early Grey Tea is my favorite flavor...its the stuff that feels like ideal winter evening or ideal summer vacation early morning or idea slow afternoon remedy. Extra cream, drizzle of honey....ice or hot. 
• Raspberries are my favorite fruit, I think. They are so delicious and totally one of things I grab for a Mommy comfort snack during a rough shopping trip to the store. 
• Eggs. Fried, boiled or scrambled....its my favorite breakfast. I eat them almost every day. I think A might have finally decided to stop complaining about it. Its just how it works. I love eggs. Blame my mama...I remember her eating them the same way when I was a kid.
• Shrimp or Crab. I like them canned, fresh and frozen and all the better for a little melted butter and squeeze of lemon at the end of a hard day. 
• Coffee. It has to be admitted that I drink it not only for the caffeine but for the comforting, nurturing ritual of the whole affair. Nobody loves you quite like your coffee pot some mornings.
• Goat's Milk is a throwback favorite to my early childhood. When I was a little girl we had goats and that was the only drinking milk I really had. It must have imprinted deep or else the romanticism of the idea lodged in my mind....in either case, a glass of warm goat's milk makes me feel okay in short order.
• Sprouts, are always the very most fragrant, delicate and tender of the leafy greens. I love all kinds of sprouts: sunflower, radish, pea, bean etc. I feel like I am getting the most intense shots of nutrition and the most gentle and motherly of foods (no tough chewing, just all melty, baby sweetness) both at once. 
• Chocolate Croissants or Pain Chocolate, if you're being properly French. I know they aren't good for me but they make me feel like a Dutchess who will make it through her trials. 
• Chocolate Chips + Coconut Flakes + Coconut Oil + Tigernut Flour, melted in the microwave and stirred until a melty, chocolaty goo, eaten with a very small spoon, huddled in the kitchen after the kids are in bed.
• Avocado, with a squeeze of lime and a sprinkle of sea salt, eaten right out of the skin with a spoon is a really big favorite of mine. I've been known to eat them in the car, pack them for picnics or even take them camping. 

What do you eat or cook to bring yourself some measure of safety and love? 

Chinatown, Flushing- Photo Essay

One of my favorite things about New York City is that everyone is from everywhere. You can find anything you want to try in this city. The melting pot effect is in full force and there is no more delicious way to appreciate it than in the food world. You could explore-eat in the city for years.

This weekend we had a little meander and nibble through one little foodcourt in Flushing's Chinatown and I was blown away.

Consider.....

The world blows me away. The New York food scene is no exception. What a life!

Girly Frog, Changes Clothes

 

Did you know frogs shed their skin????

Totally blown away by that, just a little fruit of my naptime research on Science Tuesday. The boys and I went out for a little hike this morning and found this beautiful she-frog. She's a "green frog" which is a real name, not just the obvious descriptor for her coloring. We found out she was a girl when we got home and did some digging. Girl green-frogs have a pale creamy belly (you can just see the edges of hers peeking out below her jaw), boys have a yellow throat. Lady green frogs also have an ear (that circle behind her eye) that is the same size as their eyes. Boy froggies have whopper ears. I wonder if they can hear better than the females. 

But yes...the skin. Frogs can breathe through their skin and drink through their skin and that's why they are slimey to the touch. They secrete a mucus to keep their delicate hides all perfectly in tune. If they can't drink or breathe because the works get clogged they'd be in major trouble...so they change outfits a lot...keeping their skin in perfect condition. When the old skin needs replacing they wiggle out of it (like a snake) and pull it over their heads with their front feet and then......

.....they eat it. 

Surreal, right? Nature. Its a trip.

Food For The Soul

Eating without refined sugar or grains is very good. I feel good, really good. I have basically no headaches or stomachaches not related to sickness, I am effortlessly trim, my moods stay super stable and I have more endurance physically (though its hard to tell if that's because of weight loss or good diet).  I'm not sure exactly where I stand on the celiac/gluten intolerance spectrum but I firmly believe my body doesn't like wheat. I have to say though, I notice similarly dramatic reactions to sugar consumption in my body. A handful of chocolate chips consumed on a bad day can put me off kilter with headaches and irrational mood-swings for another 48 hours. The individual psychology of eating sugar-less and grain-free is pretty easy too. I tell people all the time that I still can eat a LOT of stuff. All meats, all dairy, all vegetables (save the potato) and all fruits. That doesn't sound so spare, right?

I truly thought a lot of this stuff was hokum insanity whipped up by kill-joy hippies, obsessed with controlling their whole existence and I am ashamed to admit that I have made fun of people talking like I do now or even just quietly eating in a careful way on the sidelines. I have been flabbergasted by how extremely hard it is for me to choose a different path with food and still be part of mainstream culture. People have been angry with me over my food choices, argumentative about the things I have read, pushy about what they'd like me to put in my mouth and verbally ridiculing about the things I am choosing to politely decline. I felt blindsided by people being threatening and mean about silly things like cake and hot dog buns. I think I might have been better able to handle the negativity if I had had any idea it was coming. I assumed in this age of rampant food allergy and vegetarian, local, vegan eating that people wouldn't bat an eye and I'd have to have very few actual conversations about my new eating. I was super wrong. Note: To Those Considering Eliminating Refined Sugar and Grains....people are not ready for this...prepare for a lot of judgement and skeptical questioning.

Its good to learn compassion by needing it yourself, to learn acceptance by seeing how important it really can be for you and to learn to love humility and secure space for a no answer after being pushed and prodded by those who are uber sure they're right. Did I mention that the theme of my year this year is acceptance? Even food has lessons to offer. All things are windows into the soul, even the way we cook, eat and serve our meals.

Mango Mania!

Its mango season, yo. Such a great way to celebrate the first day of spring! The big red and green mangoes are alright but my favorites (the ones I wait all year for because they're still blessedly seasonal) are the little, golden ataulfo mangoes. I buy them by the case and A balances them in long lines on all our shelves and windowsills, an ever-ripening  line.  Then one day the first one is ripe and they begin to pile down on us ripely ,we eat them end to end, slicing off the two cheeks and then gnawing all of the leftover flesh from the large seed in the middle.

I have many plans. There will be cardamom lassis, broiled mango halves a silken mango pudding and a saffron colored mango salsa over wild salmon. YUM.

The ataulfo mango is different from the standard mango on a couple of points. If selected properly they are sweeter, the color is richer and so is the depth of flavor. You get none of the stringy fiber in your teeth with these babies, the flesh is soft and melty, no ropy bits to be found. The pit is also more slender so even though the fruits are smaller the proportion of meat to seed is greater.

Having a naturalist in the house is contagious. We were eating one over breakfast one minute and the next thing I knew we were dissecting the seed and examining the embryonic sprout end vs the stem end and letting the boys touch the papery brown skin. Its living on the window sill now in a tiny metal pot of water. Google tells me I have good odds of growing a mango tree! I'm for that.

 Must be time to buy another case.

Checkups and Coral With a Side of Pea Shoots

Have just had another little check-up at the midwife and tomorrow I take the two big boys to their yearly appointments as well. Its a week for medical doctoring. We usually get very simple, happy news at the pediatricians. We've been very lucky to have such normal, easy childhood health situations so far. I do think there may be some shots for Dee which will be tricky since Ru is positively exultant over the fact that he is quite done with shots for a few years. Please lets not have a meltdown.

Brothers fooling around on Mommy's cell phone, under my recently framed apple painting in the office.

My appointment went well. Heartbeat sounds strong and clear (135!), my blood pressure is pumping along at a perfectly healthy spot, iron just a touch low, glucose test was all clear, and my weight...have I told you about my weight? My weight was wonderful! They always tell you to gain 20-25 lbs during a pregnancy and then I always gain more like 40-50 lbs. Intimidating to the max. Part of the problem is that I binge eat when stressed and pregnancy brings out very worst in my emotional instability. Part of it is honestly just laziness in menu planning and eating. But this time around I am doing amazingly well. I've gained 20 lbs so far and between last appointment and this I didn't gain anything at all, just held steady, although Baby continues to measure larger.

Typical lunch at our house. A plate full of nibbly bits, lots of produce and nothing that requires Mommy to cook. :)

I have been doing a good job lately, trying to eat carefully during the week and allow myself to cut loose on the weekends. I've heard this sort of back and forth effect is good for the metabolism and keeps food restraint from getting too restrained to keep up. I also gave up drive-through restaurants for Lent which was a very good plan. I sometimes skipped fast food and just went home to get food or even dashed into the grocery store and made better choices for quick lunch ideas. Am hoping to keep this going. I am also trying to track what I eat as consistently as I can and watch my nutrients using Fitday to be sure I'm hitting all the targets which is far more interesting and encouraging to me than watching calories.

You can see the matching baskets and new runner on top of the bookcase here.

In other news, my Interior Design class is done. I feel so-so about it. Am not terribly inspired as a result of what I heard and learned and I don't feel accomplished in the subject or anything like that but it is a toe in the door. I think I may take an online class next to see if a different instructor helps. My assignment for the class was the living room in our house and although I have just a few new ideas and no real progress there I did get a few thoughts for the dining room.

I put all our regularly used eating accoutrements (olive oil, salt, pepper, butter, etc.) into a pretty basket that matches one for bibs and cloth napkins. When the meal is over the get cleared to the top of my cookbook cupboard which functions as a sort of sideboard. I also bought matching runners for the top of the bookcase and the dining room table to try to pull in the coral color inside the corner cupboards. And I bought a stunning ceramic bowl for a between-meals centerpiece.

Am madly in love with it. Am now considering painting the walls a soft oatmeal grey to set off the white and coral accents. What do you think? After of course, I finish all this crazy spring cleaning I'm in the middle of.

The pea shoots are turning their velvety leaves to the sky and starting to uncurl tendrils here and there. I am hoping they really begin to climb sometime this week. We have forecasts for warmer weather and even a little rain (Heavens, we could use rain!) and spring is really chasing us down! Hooray!

Eating To Live

I have a pal who keeps asking me to write a post about how I eat. I've written before about my foodie philosophy thoughts but never specifically about meal planning and nutrition and health and what I think about eating well. So, this post is for you, Jo....

Image via Wikipedia

I'm the daughter of a hippie, raised on Adelle Davis and granola so in some sense health and deep interest in natural eating has been ingrained in me. (Thanks Mama! I'm eternally grateful!) I've done all kinds of reading and research about food and the upshot of my study is that I really, truly believe that whole foods, as found in nature are healthy and processed foods, particularly refined flour and sugar are poison. I know that sounds unnaturally strong and unpopular but its what I really have uncovered. I eat grains if they're whole, I try to minimize breads, pastries and pasta since flour doesn't do us a lot of nutritional favors. We have pasta once a week, for Sunday night dinner and it is always whole grain, sometimes I eat the sauce over steamed or sauteed veggies instead of noodles.

Here are some of the food tips I use to try to guide myself to eat well:

• Three colors of produce at each meal.
• Each dinner I make has a protein source (not necessarily animal), a cooked veggie, a raw veggie and a fruit, and sometimes a grain (usually rice or quinoa).
• Solid breakfast every day....no exceptions, ever.
• Drinks at our house are water, milk, tea and coffee (once a day on occasion), and lately sometimes fresh juice I make in my juicer.
• Chocolate is our sweet of choice, always dark an eaten in small squares. 
• Fat is not the enemy. We drink whole milk, we butter our veggies, we eat our steaks untrimmed, we saute in olive oil and we eat cheese regularly. (note however, that none of us are lactose intolerant)
• I cook and shop from a subscription menu planner that is delivered to my email account weekly. You can find it here, if you're curious.
• We buy fruit in quantity and keep it out in the open to encourage eating it for snacks.

I've done all kinds of things to stay healthy I've weaned myself down to skim milk, I've eaten diet products, I've lived on gas station cappuccinos, but I feel healthier sticking to my current eating regime than I ever have in my life. And the research heavily supports this kind of eating. There is a lot of evidence to prove the theory that something serious is wrong with modern, Western eating...people all over the world are leaving their native diets and adopting our fast food, convenience lifestyle and they are suddenly and dramatically inheriting our legacy of heart disease, obesity and diabetes. I truly believe that aging in a strong, fit way is possible and normal on the right diet. Although exercise is supportive and good, evidence tells us the most alarming factor is that we've left foods that make us strong and healthy for foods that are toxic, dangerous poison. I really believe that modern processed foods are the single source of most current health issues in America.

Lest you think I'm some sort of glowing, fork holding poster child, let me share that I am also a compulsive eater who has major weakness in the food department. I have a hard time coping with emotions, usually negative ones and I eat to calm down and feel good again. I wish a salad made me feel sane again but right now I'm pretty trapped in eating foods that I know are toxic and dangerous when the panic hits. I can eat well most of the time but as soon as the chips are down...I head for a gas station candy bar or a cookie stashed in the freezer from Christmas...or five or eight. I want to kick this habit. I need to learn other ways of calming myself and I need to just cut these dangerous foods out of my life so they aren't even there in the freezer if life does take a sudden bad turn.


I was just saying today that I am pretty committed to eating a real food, no processed goods diet but I need some form of support. So, at homeschool coop today, I told the other crunchy mommies about my plan...and then afterwards we ran to Whole Foods to pick up a couple things and serendipitously there was a woman there, signing people up for the Eat Right America Challenge, a 28 day real foods pledge with built in email and real life support. If you have a local store, you might want to think about joining me. 

Image via Wikipedia

If you're curious about where I'm getting these wild nutrition ideas consider checking out a few of the following sources and beginning your own research campaign:

Books
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
Nourishing Traditions
Real Food, What to Eat and Why
The Omnivores Dilemma
Deep Nutrition
50 Secrets of the World's Longest Living People

Movies
Sick Fat and Nearly Dead
Food Inc.
Fast Food Nation
Forks Over Knives

Related articles

• you.are.what.you.eat ::: The Food Matters Project (keelymarie.com)
• Why your Grandma has better diet than you, balanced habits 7 (balancedprofessional.com)
• Processed Foods vs. Whole Foods (bleilerfitness.com)
• The "Asian Paradox": How Can Asians Eat So Much Rice and Not Gain Weight? (marksdailyapple.com)
• Clean Eats (givethanksandpraise.wordpress.com)

The Here And Now

Our fig tree is making fruit!

Life is slow and gentle at our house today. I painted this morning with my art fellowship group, we did a little errand running and now there's a chicken, slow roasting in the oven while we dash off for a post-nap park run and then pick up A from work.

Cold winter light through my blue bottle collection on the kitchen sill

I picked up paint to turn the foyer/entry area into a dark teal color with glossy white trim, a new print of a Jose Royo portrait is in the mail to me to hang on the main wall and I am hoping to attack the cupboard that I've stationed there to catch keys, and hold a scented candle and house baskets of mittens.

Little sculpture, little plant life: bright spots in our sunroom.

What else is new? The weather is insane. Last week we had chilly temps and our first real accumulation of snow. I was out shoveling snow up around the bee hive to insulate it extra and try to provide some protection. And then abruptly over the weekend we had a blast of warm air and a long rainy drizzle that made all the snow disappear into a swirl of foggy mist. The upside is, I've been out counting daffodil tips in the flower beds and have taken to morning walks before anyone else is up. (Yay motivation to be physical!) The downside is that although April weather feels good, it is after all only January and something feels unsettled in the pit of my stomach at all this balmy cheer. I hope the trees and the bees can weather it alright.

I can't get enough kumquats. And they're cute as all get out.

My reading list at the moment. Food issues, birth, gardening, poems. Good fodder.

I'm eating well....doing all in my power to avoid ridiculous cravings and gain control of my urge to sooth myself with food. (see the top book on my current reading stack above, for reference) I have dusted off my juicer and been revving myself up once daily with the juice of the hour and am still tracking what I eat on fitday, aiming for optimal nutritional content. I am also doing a pretty good job at weighing myself and tracking my progress there. I have gained 10 lbs so far this pregnancy and am at week 21 so I'm feeling good.

How I'm looking these days.

Speaking of pregnancy, the other big news is that we've found a midwife! It's about time! Halfway through is wayyyyy to late for my comfort level...but better late than never. We'll be delivering at the only birth center in the state this time which will bring my personal birth experience to a new level of well-rounded since I've been at home, and in the hospital already. Good for a future midwife, right? Someone tell me yes. Am still feeling a little bit unsettled and nervous about it but they have told me they're willing to handle my ITP and allow me to birth in their cozy home-like birthing room. I have found no other midwife besides Martha, my late provider who was willing to take on a blood issue like mine so that was a deal maker for sure. We're an hour away which is kind of annoying and there are still a few more medically procedures that I'll have to deal with than I'd prefer but it seems like a good solution so over-all I'm feeling grateful. My first real appointment is on February 2nd. Am looking forward to getting the ball rolling.

Munch, Munch...A Friend Lunch!

A visit from friends for an impromptu leftover lunch and mommy nosh session is sometimes exactly the cure for what ails you! 

I do love having friends just drop by. Am starting to mull over ways to restructure my life to allow a little more of this.