Category Archives: Chit chat

Food in technocolor

January 23, 2012 4:16 pmLeave a Comment

Our food has never been so colorful. So full of flavor. We recently watched the documentary Forks Over Knives (wow, I just now get what the title means. Am I the most clueless person ever? I’m thinking yes. Forks over knives. Eat food that requires use of forks instead of knives. Ie: veggies are better than meat.. duh. Makes total sense now. Geez…).

Where was I? Oh yes, we watched that documentary and found it fascinating and just a bit exciting. Not that I’m going to hold to that philosophy in its entirety. We still eat meat and will continue to do so but I’ve cut back in the amount and upped our veggie intake even further.

colorful food!
excuse the photos – taken in a hurry with my iPhone

Look at that plate filled with glorious color. It’s like a painting. Red, green, orange, black, yellow, purple. Vibrant colors that are just bursting with flavor. So much more welcoming to the taste buds than bland rice or a bowl of oatmeal. And infinitely better for you.

Our breakfasts typically look something like this: sliced zucchini, green peppers, sweet peppers, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, black olives, yellow squash, etc. Some days I’ll scramble some eggs over the top or like today, we’ll have some diced up ham. Toss it all in a frying pan with coconut oil and you have a meal that satisfies for hours (we ate 6 hours ago and I’m just now making dinner… I’m hungry but certainly not *starving to death*) and is so chock full of good health, it should come with a prescription. Or at the very least, a brownie point. (mmm.. brownies… best not to go there)

It will take some time for us to arrive at our permanent way of eating. There is so much information out there that one could literally follow a new whole-food diet of some kind or another every day and not run out of different viewpoints over months of doing this. For us, it boils down to several important facts.

1. Whole foods only.

2. Emphasis on fresh vegetables.

3. No processed food. No sugar. No soy. No dairy, corn, gluten (of course), grains of any kind, legumes, potatoes. No natural sugars (honey, agave – horribly allergic to that anyway – and the like). No artificial sweeteners or sugar-subs.

I have learned to love fruit again. I made a list of all the low-glycemic fruits and we have small bowls at breakfast and then for dessert after dinner. Berries, oranges, grapes. Delicious. Fresh. Healthy.

colorful food!
And look at the color. That is real food, folks. Good for you and great tasting. Is it any wonder that I now wake up in the morning craving my breakfast fry-up of assorted veggies? Yum.

(Those sweet peppers are like candy. Crunchy, sweet, bursting with garden-fresh flavor. Nom. Nom.)

Posted in breakfast, chit chat, fruit, vegetables

Life – not what you’d planned

January 17, 2012 9:44 pm1 Comment

I struggled over whether or not to write this post. This is supposed a blog about healthy living through whole food, not about the turmoil and agony of my personal life. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I want this blog to not just be about delicious foods and meals, but also about how to handle things that come along. Things that no parent or sane person ever imagines they’ll be forced to confront. Things that shake the very foundation of daily lives of complacency and and mold us into the people that we become.

my precious son20 years ago this May, my husband and I welcomed a robust and wailing little boy into this world. He was the light of our lives and our focus from that point forward. We’d just been married 10 months when he was born so our entire marriage together has included our son. He was just the first of what we had planned on being a large family, but unfortunately, due to my developing celiac disease during my pregnancy (unbeknownst to me until 12 years later…) and the myriad of health issues that came along with that, I was unable to have more children. Our son was it. We loved him so much.

As you watch your child grow, it’s only natural to think about the person they’ll become. To think of telling others that your son or daughter is an XYZ or is off doing this or that. What no parent ever thinks about or could possibly plan for is telling others that their child is a drug addict.

Timothy started like most teens, I suppose. He was “out with friends” but was actually out drinking. “Kegger” parties in the woods. This when he was just 17 1/2. I nearly had a stroke when I found out. It simply couldn’t be! He was a GOOD boy. He went to school. He had a job. He was responsible. But as we later found it, it was a sham. Everything. He was biding his time until his 18th birthday when his true self finally emerged.

our son, Timothy
Because he was “legal” at that point, we could do nothing to him or about his illegal behavior. I died a bit the night I called the local police station to find out if they could do anything and the officer spoke to me with such pity and blanketing kindess… I was mortified and ashamed. We soon found that he wasn’t content with drinking – he was also smoking (something I despise and which is an absolute filthy and disgusting habit and for one with asthma, beyond stupid). And not just cigarettes, but marijuana. It was at this point that we had to tell him to leave our home.

Unfortunately, it’s been a downhill journey since that day. It’s been a little over a year and half and just this weekend, our greatest fears were realized. He’s actually using needles and, we assume, meth. Or heroin. Or whatever other poison is cheap and readily available on the Olympic Penisula. Not that it matters one whit what he’s shooting up. My baby. My one and only child. The sturdy, confident boy who was going to be a Marine and then go into some branch of the Special Forces. That boy with the bright and promising future – has given it all up to worship at the altar of alcohol and drugs. My precious son is a hard-core drug user.

When I heard this, my world collapsed around me and my first thought was desperate hunger. I wanted something sweet. Chocolately. Dessert. Ice cream. Candy. Cookie. Cake. A bottle of syrup. It didn’t matter. I simply wanted to eat anything, and everything, in an attempt to drown the sorrow and push back the grief. But in a moment of startling clarity, I realized that doing that would solve nothing. Instead of waking up the next morning, heartsick over the plight of my son, I would wake up heartsick and ashamed of my own behavior. I cannot control what my son does, but I darn well can control what I do.

our son, Timothy
And so I did. I cried for hours that night and into the wee hours of the morning. I cried for his future.. unknown and nightmarishly scary. I cried for what could have been and what was forever lost. I cried until I could cry no more. The following day was sheer misery. But in the midst of this seemingly bottomless sorrow, there was a tiny flame. A miniature candle. My resolve. In spite of what seemed at the time to be overwhelmingly horrifying news, I didn’t give in to my old self. And though that was a perfectly awful day, there was that bit of me that flickered. Proud of myself for not letting this take me down.

I have no idea what the future holds for our son. I really don’t want to think too much about it or it’ll consume me. Until he wants help, I’m afraid there is nothing we can do. He’s bent and determined to pursue this deadly course and if pressed too hard, we believe he’ll just vanish and leave us wondering if he’s still alive.

No parent should have to go through this. Not us, not anyone. And certainly not our son. But this is our life with all the ups and downs that make it so amazingly wonderful and so horribly tragic.

our son, Timothy

Posted in chit chat

All about onions (and other gross stuff)

January 15, 2012 10:05 amLeave a Comment

There are a few different veggies that you’ll never see on my blog. Onions, eggplant, hot peppers, copious amount of garlic. Since onions are used in practically every single dinner recipe known to mankind, this might strike you as odd. Am I an onion snob? Do I think I’m better than the lowly onion? What gives?

onions, eggplants, garlic, peppers
Allergies and intolerances, that’s what. As it turns out, both my hubby and I just don’t do well with onions. Lest this turn into a TMI post that has you scrambling for the unsubscribe button, let’s just say that onions make me *very* sick. Immediately. And they do the pretty much the same for the man. Onions in the raw are 10000 times worse for both of us, but sauteed or cooked onions still cause us upset tummies and a day or so of feeling unwell. Instead of onion, I’ll use the leafy part of celery and a few celery stalks. No, this doesn’t give the flavor that onion does but in a pot of chili, it fools the mouth into thinking that bit of crunch could be onion and since neither of us likes the flavor of onion, we don’t miss it one bit. I haven’t cooked with it in years so if you like onion in your dishes, you’ll want to add it accordingly.

As for garlic.. this is yet another intolerance that the hubby and I share. Too much garlic gives me heartburn and an upset stomach and he’s one of those unfortunate folks who oozes the stench of garlic from every pore, necessitating his sleeping in the guest room – of a house 10 blocks away. I’ll never forget the day he came home from work after going to lunch with his work buddy. He opened the door to the house and before he could walk through, I was assaulted by the noxious cloud that ran in ahead of him. It was like nothing I’ve ever had the horror of smelling before.

“WHAT THE HECK IS THAT SMELL?” I calmly asked him (although to hear him tell it, I was screeching…).

“It might be the white pizza I ate for lunch.”

“What is a white pizza? (And stop struggling – you’re not coming in this house so just get back outside.)”

“It was this really yummy pizza with lots of whole garlic cloves, white sauce, cheese. How come I can’t come in? It’s cold out here!”

“Well, you should have thought about that before you ate that pizza. You’re banned from the house until that stench goes away.”

I thought about putting him in with the dog but then I was worried that PETA might come after me for extreme dog abuse. At least if any vampires came attacking, I’d be safe. Cuz there was no getting past the staying power of that garlic. It took a full week before the smell finally dissipated and since then, he’s been on a “if you eat a clove of garlic, no judge or jury will convict me for what I’ll do to you” garlic moratorium. There are people who simply cannot eat garlic – he is one of them. As a result, you’ll find that I have a very gentle hand with the garlic clove. Just a touch here and a touch there – if you like your food to pack a real punch, you can up the quantity. My garlic is super subtle – just enough to provide the tiniest of flavors and give a bit of depth to whatever I’m cooking.

Which brings us to eggplant. And canker sores. Doesn’t everyone get mouth ulcers from eggplant? That’s what I used to think. I hated that vegetable as a child – Mom would pull it out and I would cringe, knowing I had several days of painful sores to look forward to. It wasn’t until I was an adult and could avoid that evil purple gourd that I came to understand that getting canker sores from food was not normal. No eggplant recipes will ever be found on my blog.

There is one final taboo item.. hot (chili) peppers. This hits both the mouth and the tummy for me – immediate canker sores and many a day and night writing in pain have taught me to steer very clear of the hot pepper family. Yes, I use a dash of cayenne peppers or paprika if necessary, but that’s about it. No amount of pink death (aka Pepto Bismol) or Alka-Seltzer can adequately negate the impact of a hot pepper on a sensitive system. Thankfully my darling hubby (sorry for throwing you under the bus earlier in this post, honey!) isn’t one for really spicy foods so I’m able to avoid using them in my cooking.

So there you have it. The whole sordid tale of woe and acid indigestion. Perhaps one day in the future, after eating paleo-style for a few years and removing other possible allergens (soy, dairy, corn) from my diet, I will heal enough to slowly begin using some of these off-limit vegetables. Maybe. But you still won’t find onions or eggplants in my cooking. They’re just gross!

Posted in chit chat, vegetablesTagged , ,

new direction, new blog!

January 2, 2012 4:45 pmLeave a Comment

Whoa! If you’ve been here before you’ll notice this blog has undergone a MAJOR transformation. I’m moving from just gluten-free to a whole-food lifestyle and therefore, blog.

Please bear with me as I move all old posts to my other gluten-free blog, She Loves Cake and make sure all posts remaining here are whole-food, diabetic & allergy friendly.

In the meantime, here are a few great resources on whole food living. Enjoy!
Whole9 Life
Mark’s Daily Apple
Primal Toad

Posted in chit chat

First day eats

January 1, 2012 8:19 pmLeave a Comment

I was worried about today. My husband’s Christmas gift this year was 2 tickets to watch the Cardinals play the Seahawks. What person wants to go to a game and not enjoy the various assorted off-limit treats that beckon to you from every corner and wall in the stadium? But, since today was January 1 and this was the official start of our better eating plan, we decided that we would be good.

So breakfast was a delish fry up of venison sausage with eggs and black olives (I need to go grocery shopping). And ice tea with mint – no sweetener. Hit the stadium and all was well – until the hour mark. Then hunger set in. Thankfully, they offer burgers there so I went down to the concourse and purchased us a double burger sans cheese and bun. Which presented another fun little memory to file away – the lady behind the counter had me repeat what I wanted several times. Then she just looked at me as though a second head had sprouted from my shoulders. Apparently I’m the first person in Az Cardinals history to order a burger without the cheese and bun. But, she got the order right and after some mustard to top it off and 2 cold bottles of water, we were set. Yummy and I will admit to feeling just a bit smug as I watched the masses around me shoveling in cotton candy, nachos, pretzels, ice cream, caramel corn, and beer.

After the game, we stopped at one of the restaurants located outside the stadium. Hubster had a delicious chicken caesar salad and I had a steak with steamed veggies on the side. That steak was amazingly delicious. Not sure if it was because I’ve not had anything remotely carb’y or because they just did a great job but regardless, yum.

One final stop on the way home to stock up on 101 spices, veggies, meats, oils, and some fruits and I’m set for the week!

What to expect over the coming weeks & months: I’ll be photographing my meals and sharing recipes as well as keeping a daily diary of sorts on what foods were eaten. It is my hope that this might help others in deciding what to eat as well as maybe encourage you to look into this new way of eating.

I’ll also be recommending a few different cookbooks and websites. But not tonight. I’m just getting over a terrible winter flu and today has just done me in. I’m so ready for bed.

Posted in chit chat