I felt like improvising today so I made my first raw recipe. I made 'spaghetti' out of raw zucchini and butternut squash. Then in the blender, I made a spinach/basil pesto!
2 Large kale leaves
2 cups of fresh spinach
a handful of basil leaves
3 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup of raw sunflower seeds
1/4 cup of raw pumpkin seeds
sea salt to taste
I also added an avocado to the spaghetti to make it more filling, but I made plenty!
Oh man it was so delicious!
Also, one of my friends loaned me his industrial juicer that he used at his old restaurant!
I had my first glass of freshly juiced granny smith apple juice-- the best juice I've ever had! Then (don't gag) I juiced a blood orange, a lemon, a handful of spinach and a couple kale leaves together and sweetened it with agave syrup. It was amazing!
I love all the healthy vitamins and nutrients I'm getting. I feel fantastic!
For the last week now, I've only been eating uncooked organic fruits, vegetables, nuts and some sprouted whole grains (quinoa for instance).
Whenever I write it out like that it seems so extreme. In practice, it hardly feels that way.
I started seven days ago mostly out of curiosity. I like to experiment with nutrition to see what works best for my health and vitality. There's a bajillion books out there that will tell you what you should eat, but really, only you can know what will make you feel the best.
I'd already discovered that a diet devoid of processed and refined sugars as well as starches like pasta and potatoes makes me feel pretty good. I'm fairly certain that I have a genetic predisposition for sugar addiction-- my body does not process them well and tends to balloon. I never really felt good about the volume of meat/dairy I ate on that diet and that's for ethical reasons. In the last couple years, if I bought meat it was organic. The meat industry is nasty and I'd rather not support it with my patronage.
Anyway, I've known many a vegan in my lifetime and none of them were malnourished. Some were even overweight. 
I guess it's not hard if you're a pasta freak. The only major deficiencies I've read about that happen when you haven't thought through your diet well is B vitamins. For those of you who are immediately concerned for me-- I'd say take a look at your own diet and ask yourself where the vitamins are coming from. Pasta? Even if its enriched, those vitamins aren't exactly readily absorbed by the body. Processed foods? I'd like to avoid a platter full of chemical additives, thanks. The saturated fats and cholesterols of meat, eggs and dairy are something that the body doesn't particularly need. The liver actually produces enough cholesterol-- you don't need to add anymore to your body!
I've set out some rules for myself for the next thirty days:
1. If I feel like crap, or starved, I will stop.
2. No dairy, no meat, no eggs
3. I'll aim to eat at least 1 lb of green leafy vegetables each day.
4. I will not use my stove or microwave.
5. I will work out as usual.
So far so good. No hunger pangs, no sugar rushes from the fruit, no malcontent. I've actually felt fabulous. 
In fact, I've lost 5.5 pounds eating plenty of delicious and healthy food with no deprivation.
Here's a sample of what I eat in a day:
Breakfast:
Banana, pecan, almond milk smoothie
1 Grapefruit
1 Avocado
OR
1 celery stalk cut up
1 red bell pepper
Fresh raw pesto for dipping
1 banana
Lunch
1/2 pound spinach greens in a salad with tomatoes and green peppers
1 banana
1 green apple
1 pear for afternoon snack
Dinner
3-4 cups purple cabbage chopped
2 carrots grated
1 avocado, all mixed together with olive oil and rice vinegar
Also, lettuce leaf spring rolls with bean sprouts, beet greens, fresh pineapple, fresh basil, carrot, cilantro. Dipped in peanut sauce!
Maybe it's hard to believe I'd be satisfied on that, but the sheer volume of it is quite heavy. Also incredibly nutritious.
Costs. One might predict that it's rather expensive. Some of the things certainly are. Raw nuts? Expensive. You can find them though and you don't need many to supplement your diet. I also got some coconut oil which has the saturated fat necessary to spur natural cholesterol production. Avocados are like 89 cents each and I eat about two per day. I make frequent trips to the store but it's limited to the produce section. a bag of organic carrots, a bunch of beet greens and a cabbage cost me 4 bucks. That's three dinners right there. The lack of meat is really what makes it cheap. Also the lack of dairy. Almond milk is pretty inexpensive and adds some creaminess to the diet, along with the avocados. In some ways, this is really a great poor man's diet.
Let me see what the break down of costs would be for a day:
2 avocados @ .89 each
1/3 purple cabbage @ .75
2 carrots @ .40 cents
2 bananas @ 1.00
1 red bell pepper @ 1.20
1/4 cup of pecans @ 1.00
1 pear @.75
16 oz almond milk @ .75
(I get lunch free at school)
Basil for pesto @ 1.00
1 Celery stalk @ .25
about 8 bucks a day? Sounds about right. It can be expensive if you don't have seasonings yet. But once you have them they last a while.
Anyway, I'm down from 156 to 150.5 as of this morning. That means a 1 month total weight loss of 11.5 lbs. Diet and exercise! Yeah.
Toodles.
I have arrived in Massachusetts, thanks to a miraculous woman at one of the dozens of United Airlines counters in O'Hare. The people at O'Hare remain true to their word. I have no doubts that that place is indeed the busiest airport in the world.
My flight to Manchester was delayed many multiple times before it was finally cancelled. Indeed, I'm not sure how even Boston was able to clear the massive amounts of snow from their runways in time for planes to land. I spoke to a woman at a localized counter in lieu of standing in a customer service line that was quite literally a quarter mile long and two to three people thick. Having observed many harried passengers and employees alike, I decided that good humor and a smile are really the weaponry of the cunning when it comes to getting your way in the airport. I'd watched the poor woman at my chosen United counter get harassed by anxious and irritated travelers with a variety of twangy and lilted voices. I approached her with sympathy and politely explained my situation and my hope that I'd be able to put on stand by for the next flight to Boston. She didn't say much, but tapped on her little computer furiously, ripped my boarding pass to Manchester in half and promptly issued me a new ticket. I'd just witnessed countless people get denied... probably for lack of manners, so I felt pretty special. I called the lady magical, wished her a happy holiday and danced my way over to a seat. There must have been hundreds of people-- maybe thousands with no flight in that concourse.
Anyway, I made it out of there. I'm not sure how-- I'm sure the winds of Chicago would have blown us all to hell if the plane had been any less stalwart. It was pretty thrilling either way. I'm not sure how I made it, but I did. Driving home (which usually takes 40 minutes) took us an hour and a half... people were driving through the slush like getting where they were going quickly was a matter of life or death haha... how ironic. The difference between here and Saint Louis? When people do it here, there aren't car crashes all over the road. There's something to be said for knowing how to handle in the snow pretty well at high speeds-- but there's also something to be said for the "i've never been in an accident so I probably never will" naïvety.
My brother is schlepping me up to Manchester to collect mes baggages perdues, probably not out of goodwill as much as a strong desire to show off his new method of transportation... 2009 WRX in gunmetal gray. A car well-suited to the perenially insane driver. Afterward, a sibling reunion of sorts will occur over lunch.
I think I'm going to Maine tomorrow to visit my grandmother. I haven't seen her in over a year-- probably more like two years. She's suffering from Alzheimers so I'm not sure she'll remember anything about me. It'll be good to see her regardless.
Anyway, huzzah-- I'm back in New England. Home. Off to collect the baggageses. 8')
The cold, cabin-confined months of winter are the perfect time to mull over the state of the nation's bicycle commuting infrastructure.
The good news! Obama is knocking around names like Earl Blumenauer (congressman from Oregon-- perhaps the friendliest state toward bicycle traffic) and Jim Oberstar (congressman from Minnesota, mountain biking state extraordinaire) for Transportation Director. These bicycle advocates would almost surely make some positive changes in our lagging national transportation network. If you look at Blumenauer's site and transportation priorities, it all looks incredibly positive. I'm hoping that a bipartisan effort will be made to renew and reinvent (sometimes for the second time) our infrastructure. A return to rail and bicycles? It really, really, really wouldn't hurt to gradually abandon our car culture.
Synopsis of that site:
- Street cars and "Smart Starts"
- Amtrak and Rail Freight
- Bicycle and Pedestrian needs
Anyway.
St. Louis proved to be a harrowing bicycling experience, mostly for lack of light and space on Ladue Rd. Now that I'm downtown, I'm more concerned about the kinds of people lurking nearby. There seems to be ample space for bicyclists to assert themselves-- downtown is hardly cramped. The western portion of the city could really benefit from some city street redesign. By that I mean slapping some paint down on the pavement and declaring it bicycle and scooter territory. I can't help but feel anxious as I see scooter drivers in open lanes asserting themselves as cars. They're so very vulnerable.
Is cramping automobile traffic so very bad? They would perhaps be obliged to drive a bit slower, perhaps.
Bike commuting news!
A big no-brainer
New bicycle lanes in Manhattan
Pedal powered cabs in Pensacola now!
The case for separated bike lanes. And how.
While it wasn't too long ago, that my colleague and I were driving to work solo, we have recently joined the seeminly small population of carpoolers in St. Louis city. With highway-40 closed for 5 miles of critical commuting territory, you'd think other people would get a clue as well.
Just this morning Tara observed that most of the east-bound traffic on Forest Park Parkway were cars with just one passenger. Carpool, fools. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to sit in a car and ride for a week at a time than contend with traffic behind the wheel personally.
Apparently, we're part of something that's developing
On a final note,
Are you kidding me? Metro to make cutbacks in St. Louis.
Dinner Club this week:
Roast Goose with gravy
Glazed and roasted carrots
Lobster Bisque with brandy
Arugula and endive salad with a honey vinaigrette
A variety of mashed potatoes
Cabbage cooked with apples
A chocolate bûche de noël
Pastries filled with vanilla cream
Best yet. Thank you, Wes!
Food glorious, food. I've stumbled into something fabulous.
Every week (or two) there's a dinner served at one of two stupendous St. Louis eateries-- The Scottish Arms and The Shaved Duck. The dinners each have a theme. So far I've been lucky enough to attend three-- The British Empire, All the Trimmings and tonight, Mint. I've been fortunate to have ducked Foot and Face and Organ Meats... but I'll bet even that was phenomenal. And really my fear and reluctance is more talk than anything-- I did have the haggis at the Arms the first time I was there.
Tonight we were served several dishes, each containing mint.
Pappardelle with mint pesto
Mashed Parsnips with Mint
Pork with Mustard Mint Sauce
Spinach Salad with Mint and Duck Fat Dressing
Braised Rabbit with Mint and Vegetables
Chicken Curry with Mint
Chocolate Truffles filled with Mint and some kind of nut
Carrot french fries with mint mayonnaise
I think that might just about cover it. As usual, it was phenomenal. I may take pictures of the meal next week. It's a traditional French Christmas complete with a roast goose. The week after that? Lamb. Oh baby.
Additionally! Agave!
Jim and I went out to a wonderful dinner at Agave on Manchester this weekend. It's safe to say that it was there that I experienced the best Margarita I've ever had. El Mayor Blanco tequila, Gran Gala, Cointreau, fresh lime juice and agave nectar. My god. I also had the snapper with tomatillos and roasted chiles. It was quite phenomenal. It was pricey, but you pay for presentation and atmosphere. Go for the margaritas if nothing else. You will NOT be disappointed. They do a tamarind margarita as well that was pretty stellar.
Toodooloo for now!
The best chair in the world! 89 bucks at Treasure Aisles. Oh baby.
Please ignore the clutter, I am still settling in.
Contrary to what the title suggests, I actually really enjoyed this film.
All I'm really mocking are the hordes of teenage girls clawing at their faces as they anticipate the film. It probably includes some of my eighth grade girls, and frankly, back in my teenage years? I'd probably have clawed at my face a little too.
For those who have not read the book or seen the previews, Twilight centers around a girl named Bella. Delightfully ordinary, but with a sharp wit, an isolationist attitude and a serious problem with clumsiness. Bella decides to leave her mother and her new step-dad behind in one of the driest places in the US for one of the wettest to live with her father for a while. In a tiny town named Forks, Bella quickly is navigated through the limited social workings of the local high school. She encounters a strange and inhumanly beautiful guy there who seems about bipolar as they come and they develop a nearly immediate fascination with one another.
Push comes to shove? He's a vampire, he wants to both eat her and spend the rest of his days with her and she could care less of the danger at hand. Cue gratuitous girl-porn love story!
While I enjoyed this movie-- and I'll tell you why momentarily, I would like to get my gripes out of the way.
1. The score. I am a self-described connoisseur of movie scores and soundtracks. This movie had an appealing theme, but I found that most of the music written specifically for the movie was mishandled. While the writing was good the *scoring* was bad. It was not applied to the film as seamlessly as it should have been. I was pretty disappointed. On the other hand, a lot of the songs that were used (mostly inappropriately with a couple of exceptions) were phenomenal and I'm looking forward to actually buying the soundtrack. Go figure.
2. The movie was criminally underfunded and it shows. A lot of its shortcomings probably stem from this low budget, but none more so than in the special effects and camera work. The cinematographer did mostly terrible work. Some of it was directorial, I admit, but it kind of seemed like the camera man couldn't pick a style and stick with it. It went to shaky hand held, to sweeping (but shaky low budget) fly arounds, to another style to yet another style... all within the space of one scene. It was distracting and amplified the cheese. Sad. You could see some of the scenes where they had actually spent a lot of their money, but unfortunately they were often overshadowed by the ones with bad special effects. Let me be clear! By bad, I certainly don't mean old school-- just, obvious CGI or something.
3. The most pivotal love scene in the movie, really a mishmash of a variety of scenes in the book was totally mishandled. Instead of the intense, poignant, sweet and sweeping scene it could have been it came off as sloppy and cheesy. The actors did what they could but this was clearly a directorial mistake. I was sad about that. A combination of bad blocking and bad camerawork really killed it.
4. A lot of stuff was overdone. I mean, did there really need to be a crazy effect when Bella touched Edwards ice-cold skin the first time? Wouldn't a recoil by the actress have been enough? A movie like this needs to achieve a balance of the magic of the Cullen family (the vampires!) and the ordinaryness of the humans. Sometimes that balance was thrown because of the little overdone parts.
Anywayyyy, moving on. Reasons I really, really enjoyed this film.
The obvious ones!
2. Gory, gory, gory love. Oh to be a teenager and to write stuff like this again! There's a purity and an innocence about this love story that few can actually craft once they've experienced the real ins and outs of love. It's this ideal we cling to-- it's written into fairytales and myths. It's no different here. A little grotesque at times... not gross... just fanciful, but oh so good. Like secret stash of Reeses Peanut Butter Cup good. The kind of good that you don't want to let people know that you're secretly enjoying oh so very much.
3. The casting was just terrific, especially with the bit parts which are often forgotten. The team of kids that played the supporting high schoolers played their roles with heart. They may be the most believable group of high schoolers I've seen on film in a while, at least in this kind of teen flick.
4. The handled the suspense well near the end. I wish they spent more time with it in a way, but the book doesn't, so why should they have? I wanted them to linger on the hunt a little longer. Still it was handled well.
5. Kristen Stewart as Bella is a brilliant, brilliant choice. People say the character isn't likeable and perhaps that's because we see a bit too much of what is going on in her head. The sad reality is that teenage girls everywhere think those same thoughts about completely fallible, normal, idiotic teenage boys. Sad really. I don't disqualify her because she has pathetically naive and needy tendencies. Anyway, well done, to her as well.
well, there is a monkeypants asleep in between myself and this laptop and it's getting increasingly awkward to share. Toodles my friends. Toodles.
Jamie Oliver, you can have my heart
Posted by Larissa Labels: chefs, cookbooks, cooking, food, risottoOne of the first cookbooks I ever owned was The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver. I almost certain that somewhere along the line, I was given a copy of The Return of the Naked Chef, and that later along that same line I lost it.
I ignored it for many years, mostly because I lacked an appropriate kitchen and the necessary budget to create some of his brilliant recipes.
Inspired by my friend Todd's amazing Saffron Porcini Risotto I'd had December 2007. I decided... it is time. Time to make risotto. Time to try my hand. I'd remembered that The Naked Chef had some risotto recipes, so I went at it. I made a Cranberry Bean, Rosemary and Bacon risotto. Those who ate it told me it could have been from a five star restaurant. Yessss! Success! I mean-- with enough butter, bacon fat and parmesan anything could be a success, but success nonetheless! Jamie, you served me well.
This Thanksgiving I'll be making a roast chicken a l'Oliver. I'm giving you my heart, Jamie Oliver. Clog it if you will. I expect you'll make every meal a little sweeter from now on.
Also, on a separate note, Monkey really enjoys cotton balls.
Three months in brief, details to come:
1. School = good.
2. Bicycling to school? To damn dark and as a result, dangerous. No longer bicycling to school.
3. New apartment downtown!
Some have argued that I've been criminally negligent about this blog. Rather than post tasty little stories about the day to day experiences, my negligence has relegated my blogs to sweeping updates over many months which must, then, omit any interesting little details.
Schoolio
I'm not going to carry on about school very long, other than the fact that the kids are amusing, my job is interesting, my co-teacher rules and the other co-workers are all an incredible nice bunch. I feel fortunate to have stumbled upon this position. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd post the entertaining bits from my students papers that I've been stockpiling. Tara (co-teacher) and I shared many a laugh over the gross leaps and assumptions the students made in their papers. Sadly, though, I don't think I could get away with it.
Bike Abandonment
It goes without saying that I had a hard time hitting the saddle again after that crash. There were a couple things that happened that led to the decision to quit commuting by bike. I will only really dwell on the major issue, darkness. When I first started to commute, I would begin my route in darkness in south Saint Louis. Thankfully there were street lights wherever I needed them and they guided me safely until the sun came up around 6 am. I did not, however, take into consideration the gradual shortening of the days and I soon found myself navigating streets without street lights in total darkness. Wydown was manageable, save dodging the packs of stay-at-home wives that jog down the street toward Forest Park. Ladue Road however was terrifying. Even in the light, Ladue had its share of problems. The "pedestrian and bike only" shoulder that is reserved was commonly littered with sticks and pebbles, dangerous to anybody riding a roadbike. The solution was to then ride the white stripe, which I did knowing that morning commuters could see me in the wan light. Once it got dark though, I was doomed. I went out and spent an unacceptable amount of money on a super bright headlight and tail light only to give into my anxieties about riding in the morning. In short, I gave it up.
Fear not, however! I am now carpooling to school, effectively elimating one car from the highways each morning. Why don't more people do it? It's lovely.
The New, Not-So-Humble Abode
Interestingly enough, the new apartment has many fishbowl like qualities. Not as many as Glass House once had, but I do have a set of four 8 foot tall windows. The view from within? A derelict building. The massive kitchen makes up for that though.
Anyway, I'll write more later and I'll try to get some pictures up. Business calls!