The best peanut butter...ever

Soy, soy, soy.
With the help of The Nutty Vermonter I made some spicy peanut noodles. (she has recipes on her site, but I kind of just threw this one together.)

Package of firm tofu
peanut oil
2 scallions
a red pepper, sliced thinly
parsley
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 c of Maple and Chipotle Triple Nut Butter

one roll of Udon noodles (for serving one, use more noodles for more people)

saute the tofu and red peppers in the oil for a few minutes, then add the rest of the ingredients - all while boiling the udon noodles (8 mins). It's a very quick dinner. I am so happy I had all of this on hand.

It's a bit spicy, and my sauce was pretty thick actually. But it was good, and I have leftovers to put right alongside the Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge. Not really a local recipe...but you can get many local ingredients - plus I like always love to support my local peanut butter lady ;)

The Maple and Ginger Triple Nut Butter is FRICKIN AWESOME. I want to get more...

Going to pick Jamie up and work - and oh yeah, I haven't showered yet after yoga...ew.

Sunday

Jamie came home. He's showering.

We are going to get our Christmas tree.

I have put the turkey breast (previously mentioned) in my new crockpot - birthday present!

On a bed of:

- scallions
- onion (chopped)
- parsnips
- celery

Stuffed (under the skin) with:

- a ton of sage
- thyme from the garden
- 1/2 stick of butter

Salt & pepper.

We'll have home-made cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes.

Inspiration

"Cat"
We lay in that bed one sunny evening after making love
and decided to name our first girl Cat, we were going
to name her Cat, but now we have departed forever from our
love-making, and we will not have a little girl, nor any
children at all, and I am doomed to become the poet
in your dreams who falls continually like the evening rain.

-- Richard Brautigan

Get lost.

Solace

My family tells me that they consider me their 'food' person - that my ideas and attempts inspire them to learn more, or make better decisions, and cook good food. This makes me feel good. Being in Burlington, I meet people every day who inspire me in this regard, most I am intimidated to even get into a conversation with. Sometimes I feel like I am one of those people who have yet to move past the ability to spit out what I read (...what's the word?)

No matter - there is no need for me to find more things to feel guilty about. Tonight I spent probably 2 hours in City Market, 40 minutes of that conversing with a yoga friend who is also my inspiration to buy a juicer.

What all these people have in common is their attempt to be aware of their actions and decisions - in this case, regarding food, and what they put into their bodies. Ingesting is necessary, it is a requirement for life, and I think good, healthy food is a requirement to fulfill our humanness.

I am reading a great book right now called "Gardens; An Essay on the Human Condition," by Robert Pogue Harrison. I know, heady. Did you even make it past reading his name? Though scholarly and dense, there are some simple ideals in there I found and love.

He reflects on a photography book by Margaret Morton called "Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives" that features gardens created by the homeless or destitute in New York. Rather than creating some kind of shelter, which we would assume they would be in more immediate need of, these people create gardens, a place of repose. "A sanctuary of repose...is a distinctly human need, as opposed to shelter, which is a distinctly animal need, so much so, that where the latter is lacking, as it is for these unlikely gardeners, the former becomes all the more urgent."

We need good food like we need transitory gardens - our animal need can fulfill itself simply through the ingestion of calories, but our human need must be satisfied through healthy choices. Choices good for our body, community, world and yessss SOUL. We must utilize and satisfy our consciousness.

And don't worry, I'm not a super food freak...yet. I believe comfort food is just as important for our minds and bodies as any spirulina shake. We've just got to find some kind of balance and consistency...I'm on the search.

First slush tonight

And I'm staying in.

I want skills. But more than just the skills (which are easy enough to gain) I want to get good at them, to do them over and over again until it becomes true knowledge and meditation. Like baking bread: Bread idea.

Guess that means taking the time to do something, regularly. I hope I am capable of something like that. I am comforted in some ways that perhaps this is a skill that is not mastered when one is young, that maybe as I get older, I will be able to sit still for longer periods of time, to think less, to slow and focus my thoughts. Practice. Even without much effort, and just practice, I believe one can't help but get better at something. Like blogging (which I hate calling blogging) Ill call it writing, well typing. It's easy this way.

My GOODNESS I ingested a lot yesterday...some things which I will not speak of here. (Note, the pic above is not from Thanksgiving, but from my trip to Austria in August.) We spent the night at our friends', which was the smart decision. I can't tell what kind of confusion or guilt I am feeling, but I know it's nonsense - and I feel it too often. Travel really does throw off my discipline, which is another reason I decided to stay home this weekend.

Om suryaya namaha

I chanted this often while I was gone. It's a mantra calling upon the sun, the dispeller of darkness. Dispell me from this dark cycle of thought. Dispell us from our ingestion sickness.

I am making a grocery list, and I am very bad at buying snacks, because I dislike buying prepackaged things. Any suggestions? (I want to get more of this nut butter at the next farmer's market.)

On this note, I have purchased daily multi-vitamins for Jamie and I for the winter...I'll post more on that soon.

There has been too much coming and going.
I'm reveling in my aloneness here, your aloneness there
a bit crazy and wild-like
endless opportunities
for me in this 1200 square feet
of alone.

Turkey Twice as Good

I am not really referring to the leftovers Thanksgiving turkey supplies us with.

I spent twice a much on a large breast (get the giggles out) for Jamie and I - locally and organically grown not far from here - as it would cost to buy a whole turkey from Price Chopper. I was reaffirmed in my decision after seeing a slide show about where Butterball turkeys come from, how they are conceived, live, and die. I wish I had inclinations to become a vegetarian, but I'll save that for my next, further enlightened life where I can survive on mostly air.

So I spent about $60 just beginning to plan our dinner for two, when we found out we have other friends in town - chef friends. Who won't allow anyone else to bring food. They're doing that to be wonderful, perfect hosts...so well, I guess we'll have our second supper on Sunday. Truthfully I was not completely organized, and I did NOT want to be trampled in the grocery store riot tonight - the night before Thanksgiving.

Back to the 'spend more, eat less, buy local' argument stuff. I narrowed my reasoning down a bit. We've all heard the gory details about tortured animals, the agregious amounts of pesticides used on our veggies, or even hormone influence growth in all of the above. Here's a more philosophical thought:

Not unlike the cannibal ideal, who desire to eat human flesh to gain the strength of their enemies, I desire to eat locally grown, sustainable, organic or handcrafted foods to infuse myself with positive energy and ideals of the farmer or artisan.

Every living cell holds a different story, knowledge or strength - life has scribbled a different note on each one, and I want to eat poems.

Meat in my salad

Travel is inspiring of course - it can expand our mind and perspective in many different ways. Spending 3 days in different airports and people-watching is part of this inspiration.

Inspiration to not end up like many of the people I see. Inspiration to never eat fast food again. Inspiration to boycott shopping forever. (I spent about an hour imagining the blogging possibilities not purchasing anything new for one year would bring me.)

The hardest part is finding something to eat that is semi-affordable, and does not make me grip my stomach in pain after eating. I made a mistake in Nadi by choosing the cheap option; veggie samosa and pakora. Cheap, relatively small, but totally deep fried. Luckily, I am not a large person by nature, but I think I understand food addiction. (Like there is chocolate cake in the fridge right now - I may not eat until I am sick in one sitting, but I will certainly take small bites every time I walk passed until it's gone.) Those samosa caused me stomach pain on the 11 hour flight into LAX...during which I ate a mystery meat chicken sandwich.

*Note: Always opt for the vegetarian option on your flight. Or simply drink juice - it is probably better for you. The vegetarian option is usually not as glamorous, but that also means it may not be microwaved. Which leads me to my next encounter - mystery meat.

"You know chicken is a chicken, right?" I saw this quote recently and thought "I'd like to think so." Most of us don't tend to think about what's in our food other than calories, vitamins or fat. But think bigger...think beyond words...chicken? Where? All I see is some pink, cushy type lump on top of my salad. It's most definitely that stuff they call "machine processed" which just makes me picture a poor chicken being ripped to shreds by 8,000 tiny, sharp surgical instruments in about 2 seconds. Or about this show I saw once, where they literally liquified a chicken, bones and all, into a sort of paste, which I bet could easily be stuck back together again into something resembling what was on my salad...that I ate in LAX, right along with the 'bacon' bits.

Ah! But it was my choice - this salad was sitting right next to a nice Greek salad, Olives and feta on top of the same creepy lettuce...and I chose the mechanical chicken.

I suppose it was better than opting for "Chili's, Too." Barf. Baby steps.

At least at home I have more control of what I am eating. I revel in buying local organic items. I had a hard time with the turkey this year - I spent 25 dollars on an organic turkey breast for Jamie and I from a local farmer...then saw entire turkeys at Price Chopper for 15, and tried not to get depressed. I don't do these things to boost my ego, (as far as I can tell) I honestly want us, people, to take pride in putting something good into our brains and bodies!

I realize this sounds rather harsh. I do NOT plan on always posting something cynical, but it's necessary at the moment. I thank the world for putting me in Vermont, a little bubble of awareness.

To be continued...