So we are on a trivia team.  That’s right, a Nerd Fest that happens to be in an Irish bar.  There is a point to this, other then telling you how genius I am.  It’s about finding different ways to get your drink on and not feeling like a bar hoochie.  I am usually fine with my 11 am Saturday cocktails, but it has really been taking it’s toll on my sensitive skin.  I’m kidding, I have been getting bored with it.  We have lived in Seattle over a year now and we have great friends here.  Well most of you are great…  The need to multi-task and have a few cockatoos has been really appealing.  We have a very stressful trivia night on Wednesday.  Super fun BINGO on Sundays.  Someone of my competitive nature should not be allowed to compete more then once a week.  Especially if you can win PBR socks.  PBR knee high socks!!

I will always pledge my allegiance to the bar stool, but for now, cheating with some good ole fashioned shit talk seems to be doing me just fine.  And besides, no one we know ever wants to go bowling.  I am the worst bowler and even I think it’s fun.

Tonight we are claiming our 4 week tournament victory.  Or I hope so anyway.  I will be back to gloat.

I am not going to lie, eating better has not helped my mood. Stressing about meals. hoping they aren’t too boring. By boring, I mean filled with at least 12 ingredients and 2 hours cooking time. I am a sadist and apparently I cannot do anything the easy way. In my last post, I talked about how much the book Eating Animals changed my outlook on food. Outlook is still changed, but now there is guilt. About everything. Fear not, it is not constantly, it just pops in every once in a while. We live in a society that affords us the luxury of making choices about what we put in our bodies. Yet, it is hard to make that decision. Maybe it is economic, organic always comes with a heftier price tag. Convenience is a nasty one as well. Sometimes you just don’t have any time. I have a friend, who I will not name, that is so busy there are undiscovered strains of bacteria growing in her fridge. She has her heart in the right place, but if you aren’t home, how the hell are you supposed to cook all of this expensive organic mess?

Since I read that damn book, we have been trying to eat at least half of our meals vegetarian. We aren’t going gluten free, Jesus one thing at a time! We feel better, C comments on a regular basis how much better he feels. I guess I see what he is saying. Although, nothing feels better to me then being weighed down by pork. The food we are eating IS better, the minute you eliminate meat, the calories come down. I have some tips and recipes on the way. We are also ordering our fruit and veg online. We just signed up for New Roots. It’s a local delivery service that brings you a bin of randomness once every two weeks. (Or every week if you are a rabbit) I am kind of excited to try things I have never cooked with. I also like getting presents, especially if it is food. So what if I am paying for the present! I won’t know what’s in there!

Needless to say, just read the book.  It is up to you to have your own reaction.  Maybe only chronic over reactors like myself woudl feel implied to change.  I will say, regardless of any inconvenience changing our eating habits has had, it does feel good to be sticking it to the man.  Take that Tyson!  In yo face Smithfield!  You are only invited into my fridge 50% of the time.  Mindless shit talking is over.

I have been reading an eye opening book, Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.  It has been keeping me up at night.  Seriously, I cannot stop thinking about this book.  Foer himself is a veggie eater, but he isn’t trying to convince you that eating meat is wrong, he just makes you feel like a heartless asshole.  The book is full of facts about the factory farming and its impact on our health and our planet.  It has been changing my life these past few days.  I can’t read it in one sitting, I feel ashamed.  Now I am not a book critic or even a very good book reader.  This book is making me feel differently about food then I ever did before. 

C and I are major meat eaters, it is not a complete meal if I have not eaten some form of animal.  I have been known to pick out entrees because of their meat to whatever side they are giving me ratio.  So reading this paperback has been hard on me.  Because I don’t know where to draw the line.  Foer gathers perspective from poultry farmers to PETA members to vegetarian meat suppliers.  I am eating pork sausage while I type this because I don’t know what is going on in my brain and I am feeling a sense of hoarding/panic.  I ate a salad before this, so shut up.  I don’t think, and pardon the pun, I could give up the meat cold turkey.  I am shaking my head because that sounded so cheesy.  I know for a fact C had teryaki for lunch.

So do we find a farmer that will raise animals and slaughter them in the nicest way possible?  Or is the allure of $5 whole chicken too great?  I will end up knawing on C’s ankle if we try to go vegetarian to soon, I need to be weaned.  (A-yo!  Another farming reference!)  Read this book, borrow it from me.  Get it from the library.  Learn anything you can about the impact that factory farming has on disease and pollution.  I think animal rights activists turn some people off because they seem to value animal life higher then human life.  Listen, when you are an organization that threatens the family members of a chef that cooks goose liver, you are an asshole.  Yes, animals are suffering and it is cruel.  Good on you to be a voice for them.  But another side is the impact it has on our own health.  The factory farms that are so deep in pig shit, they are polluting wherever and whenever they can.  Why not?  They have the money to pay a silly fine.  Strains of virus that are bred in the cramped pens of factory farmed animals.

I’m not sure where our stance is on any of this, maybe I will lose interest in a few weeks.  We will go back to eating anything we want.  It’s not just about animal cruelty.  Not just about disease control.  The ridiculous amount of pollution and carbon emissions.  And the list can actually go on and on.But I wanted to put it out there, just in case I am a stronger and better person then I think I am.  This way C and I can look back and remember when we took a stand for something that was really a bunch of somethings that saved our lives.

I’m sure I will change my mind on this a million times in the next few days.  I just needed to get this out there.  Thanks for writing this book Mr. Foer.  To be continued…  

p.s.  I get it if this seems like a bunch of nonsense.  But please forward this to anyone you think might wanna know more.  I will be back with more info.  The title link will direct you to a website with excerpts or just visit the website http://eatinganimals.com/

No, I am not talking about the band.  Something has been on my mind for a few days.  Namely, when am I going to fail at this whole being healthier thing?  I am sore from my workout yesterday, God knows why, it was a breeze when I did it.  I am menu planning healthier options for meals for Beau and I, with some excitement.  I do love to cook, meat product or not.  So there should be things to keep me occupied instead of plotting my downfall.  But I feel like maybe I already am. 

Every weekend it seems there is something going on, something to celebrate.  I know I love a party, but it feels like I can’t be that girl that slams shots till 2 am.  Not if I expect to change anything.  I can’t eat 1500 calories a day just so I can drink another 2000.  Maybe an exxageration, I’ve never counted the calories of my drinks for fear of fainting.  So I guess that leaves the sensible option.  Be a good girl.  Don’t overindulge with the fun shots or the need to stay out all night. 

Here is my question.  When did I decide that I NEEDED to be out all the time?  Why can’t I be at home with my wonderful man, who by the way hates when I go out during the week.  I am usually home a soggy mess, way past my bedtime.  At some point in my life I made the decision to be a bar rat.  Maybe it’s because I didn’t have anywhere else to go for so long.  Too many cities, not enough friends.  But my life is different now, so why hasn’t anything changed?  

I am supposed to have plans tonight.  So I am throwing down a mini challenge.  Have my fun, try not to be such a mess.  Since these are baby steps, try to be home before I feel the need to eat something fried.  Try anything different then what I have been doing.  Needless to say, I’m a little scared.  I know I can do it, trouble is, do I want to?

I am a bad little blogger, but I can be better. As soon as things settle down a little bit, I have a laundry list of things I know I want to talk about. But right now, there is one thing I have on my mind. Change. Beau is selling his house and I am hoping that someone out there is dreaming about a huge house in our neighborhood. Every day I read online or the news tells me about the market improving or not, up and down, my brain is scrambled eggs. Now I live in said house with him and I am a team player and I have made it priority number one to get the casa staged and Pottery Barned. We live in 2000 sq ft with the minimum amount of furniture, needless to say I have been purchasing a lot of wall art and bullshit such as that. I am at Pier One at least 4 times a week. Home Depot is… I can’t believe how much I’ve been to that store.

When I say that it is crazy, tiling the laundry room and organizing each room is just the surface. This year has been about a lot of change, new president and the crumbling economy is making all of us think about a new direction. I am ready for change and moving and starting a new life together is just the start of that. I have been working on a book and the writing has been exciting and frustrating all at once. Spring is here, at least in my mind, and I wanted to convey that even if things are hectic right now, there is much to look forward to. Take the positive in your life and make it a springboard to bigger and better things. I have been letting stress make me it’s bitch and I’m no one’s bitch. I guess I needed to get that out. For those few that actually read this, there is good stuffs to come. I’m ready.

Oh Friday, where have you gone? Instead of having fabulous dinner plans, we are tiling the laundry room. Don’t get me wrong, I would sit in a cardboard box with my man, but I want to go out for a nice dinner. I don’t want to go to Home Depot. Okay, I am sounding like a spoiled brat. Maybe it is the imminent arrival of Spring, but I am antsy. I want to be out and enjoying life. Now I have to remind myself of all the great things to enjoy this weekend and the ones that might send me over the edge.

Pro-Beau trying not to yell at me when I glue myself to the floor.
Con-When I eventually do glue myself to the floor and I blame him.

Pro-Sleeping in.
Con-Having to get my lazy arse out of bed.

Pro-Friends coming over tomorrow night, lots of fun and drinking to come.
Con-I am going to feel like total shite on Sunday.

Pro-I am making Italian Beef sandwiches tomorrow!
Con-I am trying out a spicy chicken dip that may give our guests gut rot.

Pro-Sharing the weekend with Beau, he has nowhere to run. Muah ah ah!
Con-In order to keep me in whiskey he has to go to work on Monday.

I am trying to find some balance in my life. Yeah, I just realised how lame that sounded. Happy Friday! Screw the pros and cons and have some fucking fun.

Roasted pork belly over sauteed brussels sprouts slaw.  Didn’t get the skin as crispy as I wanted, but it was my first time.  Just have to keep on pluggin away!

So yesterday should have been an extremely productive day. It wasn’t. Instead of cleaning the basement and doing responsible things, Beau and I watched an entire season of Amazing Race. Right now they are on season 14, but a reality channel was doing a marathon of season 9. The show is great because I like watching the dysfunctional couples. The group dynamics and personalities is what makes reality television great.

Well one of the challenges on the show was when they were in Thailand. Each member of the team had to eat a big bowl of stir fried grasshoppers. I’ve eaten bugs, I think they are crunchy and fun. I am also the girl who as a toddler got a fly stuck between her teeth while out in my paddling pool. Now I like the fact that the show tries to teach you something about the culture of the country they are in. Grasshoppers were the added bonus. I like to think the food community as a whole are opening the door to our stomachs and closing the cultural gap one insect at a time. I mean, that was their challenge. Eat a food that thousands of people eat on a daily basis. They weren’t saying drink out of a toilet.

I have a point here, somewhere. I was thinking that mainstreaming what we eat and how we eat was the way to go. Now I think that the realism of what things are makes it that much cooler. I told someone I was making pork belly last week. They gave me a face and I just explained that that is what bacon is before they cure it. Then it was, “Ohhhhh. I love bacon.” They come from the same foundation, but they are two unique and separate foods. I like each for different reasons and would not replace one with the other. I suppose it is all about perception. It’s not that different to how we see other people. Some find me brash and rather strange. I drink a lot of whiskey and I think gossip sites are awesome. Scary movies are really scary to me. I’m from the UK and I live in the Midwest now. People look at me like I am a bowl of grasshoppers sometimes. But I would rather be myself then have to explain that I am just a version of something that makes people comfortable. I don’t want to mainstream myself. Call me pork belly, cause I haven’t been cured yet.

image by ewen and donabel

My dreams have finally come true. Last night I ate a cheeseburger, okay a half of one. With chips though! Beau and I went to the Lion’s Tap in our hood because the web told me too. Apparently they were ranked high for best burger in the Twin Cities. And they were right, damn they were right. It was everything I thought it would be. (sigh) Regardless, the healthy eating has not stopped. I have been cooking with a vengeance. I have a bunch of pics and recipes to post, so when I can pull my shit together I will do so. For some reason I have been falling into shit and choking on leftovers. Today is a dangerous day for some reason. I am going to go play in a padded room.

Changing your lifestyle is not something to be taken lightly.  When I met the Beau, I was a crazy drinker and could drink him under the table like the sissy he was.  Now our tolerances have met in the middle and I still fall down for no reason, drunk or not.  I changed that part of my life to make room for him and also because no human being wants to cuddle a gal who smells like whiskey… a lot.  Cooking has seen a similar change.  I found myself making things I knew he liked and making a lot of it.  We had gotten into a rut and I’m glad we are starting fresh.  That having been said, vegetarians and vegans seem to go to great lengths to maintain their lifestyles.  I have spent countless hours perusing blogs for recipes and these people are serious.  They have a substitute for everything and seem to be fueled by the conviction of their dietary habits.  It’s kind of inspiring.  Kind of.

I haven’t decided how all of this new exposure to food has changed me.  I dream about cheeseburgers on a daily basis.

Trying new things can be a daunting experience. The fear and apprehension can grip your senses like a vise. Nonetheless, in the past two weeks I done quite a few things for the first time. This juice fast was the first. I posted earlier about the pre fast, but I don’t think I mentioned how great I felt pre fasting. I had clarity of mind and was flying high. A diet of fruit and veg was quite nourishing. Getting into the actual fast was a whole other story…

The diet I am on is outlined from the book JUICE FASTING & DETOXIFICATION by Steve Meyerowitz. He details everything from what to juice you should drink to what equipment to purchase. He gives a realistic take on what your body can handle and the benefits and dangers of such a regime. Now I think I was too cavalier going in to fully grasp what I was doing. Up until then I was stuffing my face full of calories and then BLAMO! a diet of less than 800 calories a day, easy.

The first few days became a blur. I was a juicing machine and the novelty of the whole process kept me going. It wasn’t until my first morning of detox that I hated the world and mostly myself. Through the various green tinged juices I drank, my body was and is cleansing itself. Those toxins gotta come out sometime. I was sweating with fever which would immediately be replaced with a horrible chill. I was too weak to lift my head and I cried a little. Really, little tears came out on the pillow and everything. Beau made me some juice and I fell back to sleep. A few hours later I felt right as rain confusingly enough. The next morning wasn’t as bad, but I was dizzy enough to fall down the damn stairs. The remedy? More (cringe) juice.

Even though the detox has passed, I still have these horrible mood swings. Beau has been dealing with headaches and the occasional grumpiness. As I write this I am on Day 9 and I know I won’t make it much longer. 3 cups of juice a day and a couple of bowls of broth do not a happy girl make me. And let me tell you strained miso and veggie broth has never been so delicious. Both were purchased at an organic shop and when cooked with some cayenne, heaven. Regardless, I’m tired of juicing the parsley, celery, lemon, apple, spinach, carrot… I could go on and on. Although the wheatgrass we purchased looks really cool on the counter. Cleaning that damn machine makes me want to throw it out the window. There is a monotony to my life that I have never experienced before… and it kind of sucks.

Don’t get me wrong, to date I have shed 8 delightful pounds and I feel pretty great right now. I know I got some much needed gunk out of my system, partly in thanks to the colonic, enemas and ear candling I have gone through. More of that in future posts. It has opened my eyes to a world that I think I needed to experience to know that I don’t want to experience it again. Beau always says to me, “It’s not for everyone.” No shit. But I am staying true to my commitment until the urge to murder him has reared it’s ugly head. I would quit if I was starving or going mad, luckily all of those feelings have subsided. I’m taking it one mug of soup at a time, but girl cannot live on miso alone.

I knew it was getting bad when my Beau was rubbing up against me the other night, saying I was like a hamburger and he could cover me in his condiment if I wanted. It was a low point for us, even if he thought it was funny.