A little bit ago, I was lamenting how boring my daily menu has become. As luck would have it, I was invited to a Facebook group entitled To Your Very Good Health, which was created to “to share recipes, cookbooks, blogs, encouragement and photos of healthy food! Paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, vegan…whatever floats your boat as long as it’s healthy!”

Admittedly, I thought my friend had me confused with someone else. However, I realize that somewhere in all my chatter about food and fitness, I have been talking about going, being, and staying healthy. It’s encouraging to know someone’s paying attention. So far, I’ve posted a few times, but mostly, I’ve been reading the posts that come though the page. Along with that, I’ve been learning quite about about what it means to be GF, DF, Vegan, Vegetarian, and all places in between.

I’ve picked up some good recipes, some tips and tricks, and while I’m not sure I’m ready to go feet first into any one way of eating, I’d like to think I’m taking the best parts of all of them to create a lifestyle that suits me and my family. Really, isn’t that what is all comes down to? I have to do what works best for me in all areas of my life. I maintain that line of thinking when it comes to child rearing, when it comes to home improvements, when it comes to pretty much everything that I have a hand in. Food is so pervasive in our daily lives. The way in which we eat it, how we prepare it, where it comes from, where we purchase it from — these are discussions that five or ten years ago, I wasn’t having.

I’m trying to be mindful of those things in addition to things like sodium and sugar content, the amount of processing, do I even know how to prepare theses things and so on. There’s been quite a bit of trial and error, but my greatest successes have been with my salads. I’ve always liked salads. When I was in middle school, I used to take my mom’s CorningWare Casserole dish and make a “Big Salad” — this was way before Elaine Benes and her big salad. Everything — lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, celery, olive, hard boiled eggs, nuts — went into that dish. I’m a creature of habit, and these days, my salads are roughly the same. Though, as I said before, I was starting to get a little tired of the repetition. I poked around some websites, a few cookbooks and added a few things to my salad fixin’s. First up was endive.

I didn’t really know what endive was when I came across it in my Mediterranean recipe book. Straight to Google, followed by www.endive.com and I had an “aha!” moment. I’ve heard it pronounced en-deeve and en-dive, and I’m still not sure which is correct. The recipe I saw didn’t say specifically which kind to get (there are several varieties), so I just got what I laid my hands on. I chose to add some Belgian endive to my salad. It looks like a a white torpedo with pale green tips. It’s crunchy and a little bitter, but adds a punch of flavor to you salads. According to www.endive.com, you can eat it raw, you can grill it, you can slice it or you can just pull the leaves off and use them as scoops for a dip. Very versatile little green. I got my Belgian endive, sliced it up and added it to my baby lettuces, red onion, chopped walnuts and grilled chicken.

Endive, Baby Lettuces, Red Onion and Walnut Dijon Dressing

Staying with the endive (they were on a two-fer special), the next day, I added it to the baby lettuces along with some leftover roasted aparagus and red onion, chopped pecans, sliced granny smith apple and a lemon walnut sauce. It was really good. The peppery bitter bite of the endive balanced out the heavy handed salting that I had given to the roasted veggies. The apple slices and grapes provided some crunch, some sweet and some tart.

Endive, Baby Lettuces, Granny Smith Apple, Grapes, Asparagus, & Lemon Walnut Sauce

When I was going through the fridge to see what I could use next, I came across a few avocados that had left to ripen. As luck would have it, one of the recent posts on “To Your Good Health” was for a deconstructed guacamole salad. I usually keep tomatoes, red onions and cilantro on hand to make my salsa fresca, I didn’t have any coriander. I thought it was used more as a ground spice, as opposed to the base of a salad. Learn something new everyday, it seems.

Enjoy and Happy Friday, y’all!

Deconstructed Guacamole Salad

recipe found here:

2 ripe avocados, in thick slices
1 red onion, sliced in half moons
A generous handful of coriander
Cherry tomatoes, sliecd in half
Salt and pepper to season

Dressing:
Juice and zest of 1 lime
1 teaspoon of Tabasco sauce
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing in a bowl and set aside.

Assemble the ingredients for the salad on a serving platter, start with the slices of avocado then top with the red onion slices and then the cherry tomatoes. Pick off little leaves of coriander and sprinkle all over the top of the salad.

Drizzle over the dressing and then season with sea salt and a good grinding of black pepper.
Serve straight away.

IN: recipes ON: April 18, 2014 TAGS: baking, cooking, food, om nom nom, pinterest, recipes, spring BY: Hilary

Do The Right Thing

In the locker room at the Y, I overheard several ladies talking about the shooting that occurred at the Jewish community center in Kansas. The talk centered on the tragedy that left three people dead as well as the incredulity that someone like the alleged shooter has the capacity for such hate in these days and times.

The women, all of them in their late sixties and seventies and all of them White, then turned their discussion to their own experiences with racism, segregation and civil rights. One woman was still surprised at how, when taking her daughter to camp in Goochland county during the 1970’s, the family spied a Klan gathering as they drove through the country side. Another woman talked about her experiences with de-segregation of schools in Richmond, while a third recounted her first experience with an inter-racial couple. Despite the casualness of our surroundings — it being a locker room and all — there usual air of levity was missing. These women were reporting histories, what they had observed. I listened to the history lesson of sorts and continued to carry out my ministrations, heading to the shower.

When I returned to the locker room, the original group of women who had been talking had dispersed. Another older woman was packing her bag when a friend of hers walked in. They exchanged pleasantries and the first commented to the second how much she admired the latter’s snowy, bobbed hair. “It’s so lovely!” she gushed, “I bet people say that you look like Paula Deen.” The second woman thanked her and admitted that in fact, when her hair was longer, she was oft-mistaken for the chef and author. She then went on to say how glad she was the Paula Deen had “gotten her life back on track” and “put all that nastiness behind her”. The first woman nodded in response, saying “I mean, who among us hasn’t used that word. Anyone who says they haven’t is a liar.”

“Oh, absolutely!” the second woman said, as she laced up her sneakers. “When we were kids, we said it all the time!”

At this point, I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. My heart started to beat a little bit faster and in my head, I was telling myself be calm. I don’t know these women; they don’t know me. I doubt they even registered that I was there. I’m sure they saw me, but I don’t think they saw me. I told myself to give them the benefit of the doubt. This conversation could abruptly shift in its nature, but I could feel myself getting prepared in the event it did not.

“What was it we used to say?” the second woman continued, pausing to recollect. “Oh, eenie-meenie-miny-mo,” at which point the first woman joined in, “catch a ni—

“Excuse me, ladies!” I turned to face them, half dressed and completely put out. “I don’t think that is an appropriate conversation to be having in here. Thank you.” And I looked at each of them very pointedly as they gawped at me like fish out of water. There were no apologies from them, no words spilling from their mouths like milk from an upturned glass. There was silence, followed by several murmurs and their prompt departure from the locker room.

Did I do the right thing?

Would they have self-edited and stopped before actually saying the n-word? Should I have let them finish and then verbally eviscerate them? And then what? I’m never prepared when people pepper me with seemingly innocuous statements about my hair, my children’s parentage, or my own racial make-up. What makes me sure I could have handled this situation in a decorous, yet scathing way that brokered no argument about the absolute impropriety of their discussion? I’m struck at the dichotomy between the incredulity the first group of women felt about the persistence of racism and the complete cavalier nature of the second group of women. I wonder if there had been anyone else in the locker room at that time, would they have spoken up? Would they have continued in their routine and just shrugged past, chalked it up to two ol’ blue hairs talking nonsense? I hope that wouldn’t be the case, but if you plotted my hope in humanity on a graph, it would look more like a roller coaster than a beeline.

Have you had an experience like this? How did you handle it? Would you have done anything differently? Let’s talk in the comments.

IN: ON: April 16, 2014 TAGS: honesty, sharing, spring, venting BY: Hilary

April 11th

Do not stand at my grave and weep;

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

—Mary Elizabeth Frye

It’s still not easy.

I want to pick up the phone and hear your voice.

I want to tell you how the girls love it when, after their bath, I stand them, wrapped in a robe, atop the toilet seat and dry them off, just as you did for me at that age.

I want to send you their drawings, and have you hear their adventures.

I want you to call them “doll”, and promise to send them fudge.

I want to see their faces light up when they get a “Just Because Card” in the mail from you and see two or three dollars flutter to the ground when they open it.

I want to hear you tell Mom and Dad to “be loving.”

I want to say, “Broken-down,” when you ask me how my broken-down brother is.

I want to sit on your couch, nursing the smallest can of ginger-ale I’ve never seen anywhere else but in your house, and have you tell me to look away when the daytime soap stars start doing the “hanky-panky”.

I want to make more memories with you.

I keep your recipe box on my kitchen counter and when I open the lid, I six years old. I am standing in your kitchen, pulling Golden Grahams down from an overcrowded shelf. I am sneaking cellophane wrapped candy out of the walnut shaped candy dish on your coffee-table. I am using your cane as a microphone stand while Donna Summer turns and turns on your record player. I am counting the bottles of perfume on your dresser, wondering if you really use all 17. I am sitting on the arm of the oversized armchair by the rotary phone, snapping open your address book and reading the names and numbers of your friends, our family written in your looping, slanted script. I am taking the dialer out of the address book, holding it like the cigarettes you sneak out on the piazza. I am standing next to you on the back piazza, as you call across the way to Jan, a cousin or some relation, and she marvels at how big I’ve gotten. I am following you down to the basement where your landlady has a beauty shop and I am going to get my hair done; my hair is going to be “flat”. I am bathed and dusted in Jean Naté, lying atop your chenille bedspread, watching the blades of the box fan blur into empty space until I fall asleep.

I want to make more memories, but instead, I choose to share my memories of you with others. I celebrate your sunrise, instead of your sunset. I love you so.

Happy Birthday, Gram.

IN: ON: April 11, 2014 BY: Hilary

Short and to the Point

There are times when I’m just going about my daily business of being me that I have these lightening bolt ideas of things to write about (like grade school English grammar lessons such as not ending a sentence in a preposition, but I digress). Inevitably, I can’t find a pen or paper and the idea slides right on out of my brain. I think I write the way that I talk, which is kind of more of an “Wait, wait, let me tell you!” as opposed to something more methodical and deliberate. By the time I actually get to the computer to write, I’ve got the vaguest hint of what it was that I wanted to share, but I can never truly wrap my fingers around it. The word diaphanous comes to mind. So, I just start typing. One thing leads to another, and then another, and then I add some back story and then I’ve got a multi-paragraphed, photo enhanced entry.

Sadly, today isn’t one of those days.

There are several things that I need to be working on, none of which I want to be working on. I should have woken V up from her nap about 20 minutes ago. I need to throw a snack together for the girls to have while they’re at piano lessons. I’ve written and trashed about half a dozen other posts trying to be charming and witty. I’ve putzed around online putting various clothing, shoes and household goods into a number of shopping carts without checking out. I’ve gone to the bathroom about a ten times in the last half hour because I’m trying to drink more water. FYI – drink 750 ml of water in less than 5 minutes, not the best idea.

Hang on. . .I’ll be right back. .

IN: ON: April 9, 2014 TAGS: funny stuff, honesty, sharing, venting, writing BY: Hilary

recipes

Recipe Friday

As I mentioned before, we are making some changes to the food intake here at home. It’s been about two weeks, and although I am still 5’3″ and myopic, I have enjoyed the challenge that comes with preparing gluten free foods. Before going head first in to this dietary change, I considered trying the Mediterranean style of eating. i distinctly remember there being a Mediterranean diet boom about 10 or 12 years ago. It followed the surge in Atkins and low or no carbohydrate eating styles. We had a book, I think it was eggplant colored with images of rolling Tuscan hills or something Mediterranean-esque on the cover. I don’t think I made one single thing out of that book and subsequently donated it to the first used book sale I encountered.

Fast forward to 2014 and I’m thinking about lifetstyle, well, mainly I’m thinking I’d like to take a vacatin to the mediterranean and do some hands on research. Seriously, I’ve plateaued with calorie counting and measuring and am ready to just eat without having to think about it. The Mediterranean approach appeals because it has a lot of foods at its core that I like:

almonds, walnuts, pecans
asparagus
avocado
cilantro
brussel sprouts
hummus
legumes

I have fallen into a weekly meal rut because I know there are certain meals up my sleeve that I can make in a pinch and others that I can make with my eyes closed, I’ve done it so often. Monday through Friday, the menu is the same for dinner, it just the order in which it’s presented that gets the shake up. Standard dinner fare includes:

tacos or fajitas
chicken picata
spaghetti
breakfast for dinner
hot dogs, pizza, or chicken nuggets (that remains a Friday staple)

I’m not saying that I can’t stick to this routine now that we’re trying GF, but I’d rather branch out a bit and see what else I can incorporate into the rotation. Aside from the Mediterranean cookbook I have, I also used the Epicurious app that I have on my iPad. I know, I was just decrying the prevalence of apps yesterday, but bear with me. This app has been useful when I’ve got a handful of ingredients and I’m not sure how to put them together. I’d never make it on that show “Chopped”, when they give you a picnic basket filled with random fridge ingredients and then you have to make a three course meal. I plug in what I’m working with and the app provides me with some recipes that include what I have. Sure I may have to sub a vegetable or a protein, but overall, there’s a deep sense of satisfaction that comes with preparing a new dish with what you have on hand and having it come out right.

The other night, I found some scallops in the freezer and some asparagus in the fridge. I was tempted to just make breakfast for dinner, but wanting to capitalize on the new cookbook, I started thumbing through the index. The recipes looked great, but either I was missing some key ingredients or the protein called for something other than scallops. I fired up Epicurious, typed in what I had and bingo! Scallops with Asparagus! It’s very reminiscent of chicken picata, truth be told, it basically the same thing, minus the capers. No matter, the buerre blanc was new and topping it with the asparagus made it aesthetically pleasing to my chefs in training, gathered around the table. When I look as this photo, I should have garnished it with a lemon peel or something! Lemon garnish or not, it was delicious and certainly something that can be done again.

Happy Friday, y’all!

Nailed it!

Scallops With Asparagus

Ingredients

1 lb medium asparagus
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 lb large sea scallops, tough ligament removed from side of each if attached
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup dry white wine
2 teaspoons white-wine vinegar
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces

Preparation

Trim asparagus, then cut stems into 1/4-inch-thick diagonal slices, leaving tips whole.
Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a 12-inch heavy nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté asparagus, stirring occasionally, until just tender, 5 to 6 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a plate, reserving skillet off heat (do not clean).
Pat scallops dry and sprinkle with pepper and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Add 1 tablespoon oil to skillet and heat over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté half of scallops, turning over once, until browned and just cooked through, 4 to 6 minutes total. Transfer scallops with tongs to another plate as cooked.
Wipe out skillet with paper towels, then add remaining tablespoon oil and heat until hot but not smoking. Sauté remaining scallops, turning over once, until browned and cooked through, 4 to 6 minutes total, transferring to plate. (Do not wipe out skillet after second batch.)
Carefully add wine and vinegar to skillet (mixture may spatter) and boil, scraping up brown bits, until liquid is reduced to about 2 tablespoons, about 1 minute. Add any scallop juices accumulated on plate and bring to a simmer.
Reduce heat to low and whisk in butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, until incorporated.
Add asparagus and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook until heated through, about 1 minute.
Serve scallops topped with asparagus and sauce.

IN: recipes ON: April 4, 2014 TAGS: baking, cooking, food, om nom nom, pinterest, recipes, spring BY: Hilary

Overload

There are days when I wish Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram and their cohorts would just disappear. I am totally inundated with access to everything and everyone all the time. While I choose to have accounts on several of those platforms, what started as a “Hmm, wonder what this is all about?” has become a “Wait, I didn’t refresh my feed!” and a “Oooh, let me tweet this real fast,” situation of embarrassing proportions. Well, actually my ability to tweet is laughable, I’m so bad and inconsistent with it. I blow by 140 characters way before I have even gotten to the point of the tweet. I’m better with long form than short, but I digress.

I’m in my mid-thirties, so I remember a time (hold on, let me get in my rocking chair and adjust my cardigan), when in order to use the Internet, no one could be on the phone. And God forbid they picked up the phone while you were doing whatever it was on the World Wide Web — good-bye connection, back to dial up.

True story.

Ugh, it was so slow that the real reason why I wrote any of my college papers the minute I got home on break it took the entire break to get the information! Now, you flip open your laptop and bingo! Instant access.

I read this article the other day that talked about how the prevalence of smartphones and other handheld devices is destroying the use of the Internet. Think about it. Pre-smart phone, when you wanted to know something, anything, you had to go to the computer and look it up. Google is now a verb as a result. Imagine if you watched “Purple Rain” and wanted to know if Apollonia really did jump into Lake Minnetonka, chances are, no one knew. You’d have to wait until some reference materials were available to you. Maybe you asked several people between the initial curiosity and the time it takes you to actually find out and guess what? They didn’t know either. Maybe you see someone wearing a Purple Rain t-shirt and you ask them, “Hey, did she really jump into that lake?” and they’re like, “Dude, I got this shirt at a yard sale.” Maybe you just didn’t know until it was the answer on Final Jeopardy one night.

She really did jump into the lake, by the way. I looked it up.

All I’m saying is that now, you could be at work or at home or anywhere in between and when your synapses fire in a such a way that you must know the who won the 4th Season of Dancing With the Stars, you don’t have to wait. You can look it up and be smarter (or not) for having gotten the answer. If there was a record of the random queries I pose to Siri, I would need the floor to open up and just swallow me (no, I’m not going to give you an example. Suffice it to say a lot of them involve grammar, cartoons, and bodily functions).

Why is it that when my daughters ask me to define words, explain photosynthesis and list the Bill of Rights, I come up short? I know these things, but I can’t explain them. I can define words by using context clues, but my 6 year old doesn’t know what context clues are. I’d have to define that first. When the girls have questions that need straight-up textbook answers, I’m always like, “Hmm, let’s go look that up,” and we open the laptop. I kind of miss the encyclopedia and other desk references known as books. I definitely felt pangs of nostalgia last week when M had an assignment to memorize the Psalm 23 for religion class and was instructed to look at YouTube videos for additional resources.

I need to break up with my devices. I’ve got a MacBook, an iPhone and an iPad. I carry them around with me, sometimes all three, usually just the iPhone though. It has become an extension of my arm. I have gone into straight Amber Alert panic when I can’t find the phone, and while I know I’m not the only one who has busted a U-turn to go home and the phone when it’s been noticed that it’s missing, that makes me sad. I read this article talking about the grossest items in your house and the phone and iPad were right up there because people take them into the bathroom. Go ahead and make the connection. . . .I’ll wait. . . Yeah. Bathroom germies on your hands, on your touch screens, some of which you hold up to your face. Blerg! And yet, I caught myself — yeah I do it, too.

Have you ever heard the term FOMO? Fear of Missing Out? Yikes! And yet, I’m doing it. I’m firing up Instagram and Twitter and all the apps! I’m giving in to the FOMO! I actually participated in the live tweet session for Scandal last week and ended up having to watch the episode again because I was so busy reading tweets! I’ve talked before about how I wonder if we do things for the pleasure of doing them or for the satisfaction that comes with receiving “likes” and notifications when we post status reports and photos of those very activities. I’m guilty of it, too. The pervasiveness of social media, apps, the Internet! I love it and I hate it! I have carried my iPad around the house with me while I did various things. I frequently get on Tumblr and Pinterest for fashion ideas, recipes and crafts when I could just open a magazine, a cookbook, or my own arts and craps bucket. I’m in a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I gave it up for Lent last year. I gave it up prior to Lent this year just because I needed a break. I check into Facebook maybe once or twice a day. I have my blog automatically synced up so I don’t have to log-in to post, but I no longer keep the window open or myself logged in for any extended period of time. When I deactivated my account last month, people thought I had un-friended them. The idea that I voluntarily put my account on hold didn’t even come up as an option. Ugh, Facebook! I need it for work, but sometimes, I’m over saturated with the amount of infomraiton that is so easily accessible to me about the lives of my friends and colleagues. And sometimes, I get a little too excited when I see a notification. Not as excited as this post I read on FML :

“Today, I got a text message. My phone was sitting on the edge of the bed and set on vibrate, so it fell off. I reached down to grab my phone and fell off the bed. My Macbook landed on top of me. I fractured my arm and broke my laptop to read a text from Facebook.“

Yeah, that’s a sign to take a break.

IN: ON: April 3, 2014 TAGS: Odds and Ends, sharing, thoughts, venting BY: Hilary

Lap? Length? Lesson Learned.

I really look forward to my twice weekly swim. It’s been a nice change of pace from the grind I put in on the machines in the fitness center. While I have been working on the Couch to 5K and feeling very proud of not passing out after fifteen minutes, I definitely feel stronger after getting in a good swim.

What I also enjoy about swimming is the camaraderie that comes with suiting up. Just like with membership on any team, you become privy to inside jokes, sport related jargon and things that irritate life long swimmers (i.e. poor lane sharing etiquette, not knowing the difference between circle and split, choosing the appropriate lane for your skill level, etc.).

The other day, I was talking with some ladies in the locker room, doing a post-swim debrief, as it were. We were comparing the number of laps we do, the amount of time it takes us, the variety we throw into the routines and so forth. One lady mentioned how she was having a slow day, so she only did backstroke for several lengths.

“Well, is a length equal to a lap?” I asked. “I go down the lane and come back. Is that a lap or a length?”

“Ohhhh!” another woman chimed in, “they’re totally different!”

And with that, I learned the difference between a lap, a length, the pros and cons of fins, and secrets related to swimming. A lap, I was told, was the distance down the lane and back again. If you end where you started, that’s one lap. A length, on the other hand, is the swimming the length of the pool one time. 32 laps or 64 lengths is equal to one mile. I had been doing several drills in 10 rep increments for a total of 30 laps, which is 60 lengths, and just a touch short of one mile. My first set of 10 laps involved me doing the backstroke with fins down and the crawl or freestyle, with fins, back. The second set of 10 laps found me doing backstroke, without fins. Finally, I alternated backstroke and freestyle, no fins for 10 laps (freestyle on the odd, backstroke on the even). It’s been working well for me; I come out of the pool thoroughly exhausted and feeling like a million bucks.

After comparing notes with the other swim ladies, they urged me to just suck it up and tack on another 2 laps (or would that be 4 lengths) to reach that mile. One super eager swim supporter followed it up by saying that by doing so, I’m practically triathlon ready! Slow down there, Speed Racer. I’m doing laps, but I have to pause for the cause between lengths, adjust the goggles, and fast forward to the next upbeat song on my waterproof iPod. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating — The Hubs really gets Hubby of the year for gifting me with the waterproof iPod for Christmas. That little device is a game changer when it comes to helping me make it through the last few laps (or lengths). Of course, it’s easier to sing along when you’re doing backstroke as opposed to the freestyle. And let me tell you, nothing will get you stroking fast than that wicked beat from Black Skinhead by Kanye West (sidenote: the lyrics are bursting with expletives, so turn your speakers down). Those drums kick in and I’m all “Missy Franklin, who?!”

Maybe I am 1/3 triathlon ready. With the Couch to 5k program, I may just be 2/3 ready. Now to find someone with a bike. . .

IN: ON: April 3, 2014 TAGS: random, sharing, spring, working out BY: Hilary

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Recipe Friday: Salad Days

April 11th

Recipe Friday