When Writing Retreats Become Culinary Disasters

Since I didn't have any interviews scheduled for this week, I decided to join a friend up at Birch Bay for a couple of days of writing and resting (it's amazing how exhausting job searching, dating mishaps, housekeeping and basic life management can be).

We were blessed with very little traffic (a minor miracle considering we left Auburn after 3). En route, we checked out a quilting shop in Mount Vernon (R's a major quilter) and then popped into Wedding Belles, since R's wedding is next August and I'm her M.O.H.

Since R has already found her gown, it was my turn to play dress up. And let me tell you how much fun that wasn't given:

• Bridal designers uniformly design small
• The samples in the store were in some pretty interesting colors
• I'm woefully out of shape.

But we did find two designs that actually looked lovely (the two designs, in gold, made me look like QUITE the princess): one from Bella by Venus, and the other from Alfred Angelo.

And then we got peckish.

I've already bemoaned the dearth of healthy eating options along the I-90 corridor. Suffice to say, the I-5 corridor is no better. And our dinner at a Mexican eatery with overly-potent margaritas kicked off two days of Relapse Eating.

Granted, if I'd been on the ball, I could've made some nut milk and other healthy eats (I did bring the leftover paella). But I wasn't. So we had to stop by the local grocer in Birch Bay. I don't think I saw ANYTHING organic or genuinely natural in there.

Instead, we bought ready-bake Tollhouse cookies, pre-made sandwiches (because the fixin's added up to more than the pre-fabs), and muffins whose ingredient lists included multi-syllabic rejects from a toy chemistry set.

Needless to say, I paid for this relapse. My GI tract was not amused. The only redeeming detail is that I AT LEAST remembered to bring some dried fruit and almonds from home, so my snacking (when it didn't involve shoveling Tollhouse Crackies down my gullet) was fairly tolerable.

But, I am definitely getting back on track this week. So long, Tollhouse and thanks for all the guilt.

Like riding a bike

Transforming one's life for the better sure is hard work.

Especially when you lose your job ... and your roommate, and you have to switch to COBRA in$urance, and the in$urance company balks at paying for a procedure you need, and your car isn't getting sold, and your body wigs out because of the medication you are on & all the stress you are under, and your dream job (owning your own cafe) is both overwhelming and the only thing that has really put a smile on your face in years...

So yeah... in the last two weeks I have fallen off the hippie wagon (bye-bye pescovegetarianism, hello culinary therapy at Tamarind Tree) and damn near fell apart (Hot flashes and mood swings? In rapid, overlapping succession? Lupron...I hate you).

But thank God it's Monday. A new week and new beginning. To "celebrate" I returned to the cycle class at my gym, and unlike my effort last month, I managed to complete the whole class! I bought more beet juice and cranberry juice. I made a really tasty veggie pizza with fresh zucchini & basil from my garden, on a gluten-free crust. Small steps in the right direction; but "steps" nonetheless.

In general though, I find this whole journey to be VERY hard. It's not just a matter of changing what I eat or how I get around. It's really a whole different relationship to time.

It takes time to cook from scratch. Even with the right recipes or even raw cuisine. It takes time to coordinate travel plans via public transportation, & even more time to use it. Which is why, I suppose, I have only done so when I took the bus back from the airport and to Tacoma's July 4th Freedom Fair.

I have to admit, as a dyed-in-the-wool procrastinator, the time thing is not my forte. And as a stubborn only child who seems to grow more stubborn with each passing day, the whole "change thing" is a real pain in the ass. Kind of like Kreacher's reaction to being willed to Harry. But I digress.

The point is... I think I'm better with making changes when they come one-at-a-time, not all-at-once. And with all of the flux and uncertainty around my financial, professional, entrepreneurial, academic, and health needs and goals... well...damn it... I just feel like I'm too busy spinning and losing my bearings rather than making a coherent change for the better.

Falling off the wagon, but getting back in the saddle

I think I learned a valuable lesson today:

ALWAYS EAT A HEALTHY AND FILLING BREAKFAST.

Today I did not. I had a restless night and decided that it would be much more satisfying to sleep in (as in oversleep) and then do my best to jam to work as fast as the morning commute would let me. Breakfast was just one organic banana, some water and a multivitamin.

No wonder I found myself, a mere hour later, staring down a chocolate croissant in the cafeteria. I willed myself from there, walked upstairs and ended up staring at a chocolate croissant AND an apple fritter in the cafe upstairs.

I walked back to my office, slightly proud at my self-discipline, but mostly sullen. I engaged the department secretary in a long discussion about the (de)merits of chocolate croissants. I even defrosted some frozen mango and sprinkled raw sunflower and pumpkin seeds over them.

And yet, I still ended up with a bag of Harvest Cheddar SunChips.

I was good the rest of the workday. I was good until, ironically, I went to Marlene's - the health food store in Federal Way. I restocked my beet juice and cranberry juice concentrate with no sugar added. And then I promptly went to the frozen foods section and bought a Soy Cream "Ice Cream" cookie with chocolate chips. To "balance it out," I did buy one of the Perfect Foods Peanut Butter Honey Bars. But somehow, I think snarfing it down, while the Soy Cream cookie was still in my gullet, was probably NOT the best way to reap its benefits.

At any rate, I felt a little guilty. And a tad nauseous.

So, I returned to the gym after a 1 month garden-and-surgery hiatus.

In January, I began taking a cycle class and eventually worked up to four or five, one-hour classes a week. It was awesome! I felt great. My butt was coming into the same time-zone as the rest of my body. And I felt my stamina was steadily improving.

That was then.

Today, I barely lasted a half-hour in class before my left side sharply announced that it was not yet healed. Had I stayed the whole class, I would've crawled out. As it was... I limped.

Thank God for saunas!

Needless to say, tomorrow I will try to better control my sugar-carb cravings. I will also start taking a Goji-Acai juice with my smoothie, which I will definitely roll out of bed early enough to make.

Week in Review: Week One

A New Pact

I'm an omnivore. Plain and simple. I get that the amount of grain and water used to feed cattle, piggies and chickens could be used for better purposes. But I can’t deny the carnivorous beast that pricks my spine every time I smell frying bacon, grilled steak or coq au vin.

So, rather than sabotage my transformation before it even gets really started, I decided to allow myself two meat days per month: one for poultry or pork; the other for red meats (preferably buffalo or lamb). On the other 26-29 days of the month, I will get my protein from vegetables and fish. Pescovegetarianism, here I come! Well, except for those two days a month.

It's an imperfect pact for an imperfect woman. But I have to start somewhere and I fully intend to make sure my two animal protein days only use organic and free-range animals.

It's beets, not blood

Even before committing to developing this blog, I began seriously delving into the first part of my Accidental Hippie plan: taking better care of my body, so that my body takes better care of me.

I revisited the archives of the Uterine Fibroids and Healing For Fibroids Naturally Yahoogroups, and finally began reading Dr. Warshowsky's Healing Fibroids, and began to integrate some of the things I was learning about into my diet.

Apparently beets (sometimes combined with molasses) has been used in ethnic medical treatments for fibroids, with some success. UNFORTUNATELY, having never eaten beets before, I was unpleasantly surprised to discover their effects on certain body wastes. Asparagus reeks havoc with number one; and beets bedizen number two.

What was pleasant to discover was that unsweetened cranberry juice combined with beet juice makes a rather nice drink. I now try to have it before every meal. Beet juice can be a little spendy ($6 for a 120z bottle at Marlene's). But it looks like my garden beets are doing well, so soon I'll be able to make my own juice.

The Garden

As I am still recovering from my surgery, there's not much yard work I can do, even though there is MUCH I need to do:

But I am happy to say that my organic raised beds are coming along nicely. I have found that if I take things slowly, I can still get down and savor the triumphant rush of weeding. My next garden project: getting the worm compost bin up and running. I bought one during last summer's disastrous retail therapy, and promptly neglected it. But now that my fruit and veggie intake is climbing, it makes sense to resurrect the worms (or, more accurately, buy some new ones).

Easy Omega-3s

Prior to last week, I had a habit of eating flax meal only when I had applesauce or Soy Cream's Very Cherry Chocolate Chip. This week, I discovered that I can add flax seed to mashed potatoes for a rather nice and subtle nutty flavor. I've also added flax meal to my new weekday morning routine: fruit smoothies. But perhaps the Omega-3 discovery of which I am most proud, is the Copper River Salmon sushi I made with my dissertation group buddy on Wednesday. Sure, I now understand why brown rice rarely shows up in sushi. But that just means that the next time I make it (likely this evening, I will make the rice mixture 2 parts sushi rice, 1 part brown rice).

Smoothies in the morning help the commute pass by

I used to drive to work with a mug of molasses tea and some sort of muffin in my lap. This week, I began using the blender to make smoothies: frozen berries + cranberyy/beet juice blend + prune juice + flax meal + almond milk (I use Pacific's Almond Milk because I'm lactose intolerant) = VERY good! By the time I get to work, I've finished the smoothie and simply wash out the bottle and fill it with filtered water at work

Stocking up: some pre-hippie rules STILL apply, like DON'T SHOP WHILE HUNGRY

On Thursday, after my acupuncture appointment, I made a pilgrimage first to Marlene's, then to Trader Joe's. I brought a list, which was good. But I also brought an appetite, which was not so good. The damage: Marlene's - $83.61, and five items not on my list (I bought 28 items), including a seriously yummy raw peanut butter and honey bar ; Trader Joe's - $75.65 and three items not on my list (out of 28 items), including the oh-so-good Sharon's Coconut Sorbet.

Minor relapse: Consequences of impulse-purchasing; and ye ole "Well, I've got to clean out the refrigerator" excuse, or how I ate two hot dogs as a "snack"

Friday morning began with me being a very good girl: nutritious smoothie and packing my lunch. Unfortunately, my lunch was one of the impulse buys from Thursday: Morningstar's BBQ Riblets. Sure, it's soy-based and soy in moderate amounts is very good for my overall health and my efforts to get rid of Fi. But a soy-based product doused in seriously delicious, sugary badness? Not so much. I tried to "make it up" to myself by adding flax seeds to the mashed potatoes I made to go with it. But still, this was clearly a relapse.

And it was aggravated when I got home later in the afternoon: tired and hungry. I looked in the fridge and two relics stared out at me: left-over hot dogs.

I was torn. Do I toss them, and thereby waste them? Or do I eat them and have today count as one of my two meat days for the month?

I ate them.

Treat of the Week:
Sharon's coconut sorbet with fresh strawberries and flax meal