The Perils of Airline Travel

This is a guest post from my mom, Mary...she's witty.

Airline travel has reached a new low.

 

After having had my unopened bottle of water taken from me and thrown in the garbage and purchasing an identical 12 oz bottle for $4, I entered the plane and strapped myself in as if I were a product of CAFO waiting to be fed.

 

And I was not disappointed. Soon after takeoff the feeding process began. This was a 6 pm flight and all of the passengers were pleasantly anticipating what wonders of modern cuisine would be presented on their flight. All eyes hopefully turned toward the flight attendant as she came down the aisle. She soon reached my seat. There it was slapped down in front of me was a plastic container. And what was it that slid off the top. Beef Jerky.

 

What!?!

 

A plastic pouch of Beef Jerky complete with the chemical pouch inside to prevent the food (?) from molding.

 

The Beef Jerky was from Brazil. Apparently US cows and their processing do not contain enough chemicals. It contained 24% of our daily requirement of sodium. Let me see, what happens to people strapped in seats for long periods of time in a plane. They tend to dehydrate. What happens when you give them sodium? Their legs and ankles swell. Good choice of food for flight. Maybe it was the chemicals that were supposed to knock us out and keep us calm.

 

What else was in the “meal”…

 

Rondele cheese spread. If I wanted the food contents I could call an 800 number. But more salt. Crackers more salt. But redemption was there for me. Buried under my Beef Jerky there it was. A Hershey Bar. Yeah!!!! Let’s see milk chocolate. Milk is protein that’s good. Cocoa comes from a plant. That’s good. Sugar for energy. And some kind of starch (carbohydrates) to hold it all together.

 

I always said chocolate was a complete meal.

 

As a footnote, I saw the pilot as he entered the plane. I should have been duly warned when the pilot got on the plane with a sub sandwich.

Hiding our heads in shame

I do not believe in depriving myself to the foodstuffs that I crave.  Then again, I don't particularly care for much in the way of dessert, rarely cook animal proteins at home, don't keep junk food in the house, none of the normal human being stuff.  But I my not so secret craving is Diet Coke. 

And, well, I go to Bastyr University, therefore people judge me for that. Don't frown as you read this, you know who you are.  You have actually called me out in the cafeteria for my choices.  I do not hide and I do not apologize. My one or two diet cokes every month are not what is contributing to my adrenal fatigue, thank you very much. And didn't we learn that there is a certain psychological aspect to food, that happiness factor, that plays a role in someones health.

No matter.  I am not here today to rant or lecture.

I am here to discuss the state of the economy when even the birds can afford to wait for the good stuff...they will just settle for Mickey D's.

I was feeding my guilty pleasure on the way home from my mind numbing Saturday job, getting a fountain diet coke at McDonald's. Yes, just a  coke. For real. And as I tried to pull out of the parking lot, there where two mallard ducks, nowhere near something that resembled their normal habitat, pecking away at the concrete and left behind french fry crumbs.  Times are tough.  They can't even wait around Greenlake for the cute little old guy to feed them week old Essential Bakery Rosemary Garlic bread.

I sensed they were embarressed that I caught them.  At least they where traveling as a family. If they won't judge me, I won't judge them!

Not uplifting

This morning I decided I needed a $6.00 Starbucks decaf soy latte so that I could concentrate on my Bioactive Compounds take home exam. Phytosterols, was that what I was craving. Whatever.  This isn't about that ...

I live in the suburbs.  That section of the lazy, boring country that I HATE.  I think most people live there and no offense to you, but it suffocates me.  But it is only temporary for me, until my Sailor returns to the surface and we live on the same body of land for the first time in three years.  But this is still not about that...

When I mindlessly drifted away from the Starbucks drive thru sipping on my somehow always too complicated to get it the way I asked for it coffee, I sat at the red light.  And I felt like I got hit over the head with a frying pan.  The sturdy cast iron kind.  On every one of the four corners was a homeless person begging for a "miracle." Each with the familiar cardboard sign with a quick explanation of their circumstances and what they needed from...anyone. And they always stare into your car windows directly into your soul.

I am unfamiliar with how someone finds themselves in that place, but I do not EVER pass judgement.  But what is it that makes us stare straight ahead, burning with self-consciousness? Is it guilt? Self-righteousness? Fear?  I really have no idea. And it may be an area of my inner self I don't care to explore because it feels safer to live in my little oblivious bubble.

I had exactly $6.00 in cash.  The same price as my coffee.  I rolled down the window (with a button inside my luxury car) and yelled "hey" to the couple on the nearest corner (who could not have been more that 24, if that) and handed

 them the cash.  It took a lifetime for the light to change to green and the guy thanked me the entire time.  Breaking my heart.  

But what am I supposed to do?  What are you supposed to do?

I was given a copy of Deborah Madison’s "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" about 8 years ago when I was in massage school. I have played around with it a few times.  After I graduated from massage school a few of my classmates and I would get together every month and one of us would host a dinner.  I put a crease in the books spine for a few of those dinners.  Though I have no idea what I made, I remember the complements. 

My mother, in her never ending quest to satisfy my out of control pickiness about my meals, played around with the cookbook a few times.  But most of the time it just served as a massive door stop for me.

Writing this food blog has made me want to start cooking again.  I just moved into a new house with a fabulous, never been touched before, kitchen.  I did not love my old kitchen.  In fact she fought me almost every day.  But my new kitchen, she had been yelling at me for over a week, “Take me and do with me what you will!”

I took her gently. And I found the Deborah Madison cookbook deep in some box in the garage because I left it behind and my roommate remembered to bring it with her.  And what I noticed was a whole bunch of ripped yellow legal notepad paper (from my attorney mother who LOVES her yellow legal note pads, NO LOVES THEM!).  She had marked a whole bunch of recipes, some which I remember her making me and maybe the rest she planned on using in the future. I am not real good a following a recipe, but I thought it would be good to try. 

Since I haven’t made it to the market (other than to buy snacks  for my beach adventure with Marcy yesterday) since I moved in, tonight’s dinner was all about fishing out what food made it from the old apartment to the new house.  Most of what I could salvage was shiitake mushrooms, button mushrooms, cremini mushrooms and portabella mushrooms.   Now that's variety.

 

Here we go…this picture...this is what I ended up with on the first go-round.  Burnt Butter.  I swear I thought I could cook. 

My Sailor tells me I can. But is he just doing that so he doesn't have to?

Every day should be at the beach!

It is strange for me to live in a place where people think being lakeside is being at the beach. I grew up twenty minutes from the shore (not the beach) in NJ and when I lived in Hawaii, well you can figure it out. I don't really know how to explain how I feel about the beach, but every woman in my family knows exactly what I mean. I don't just love the beach, part of me always lived there. I downloaded "music" from iTunes that is just waves gently crashing on the shoreline on a beach on Kauai while doves call to each other in the background. I can listen to that for HOURS. And if I owned a heat lamp, I might turn that on too and pretend I am actually at the beach.

My friend Marcy is from Tuscon. They don't have beaches there, I don't think they even have water. She knows of a secret beach here in Seattle. We decided it was time to escape reality and all things homework for the day. We brought trashy magazines, summer reading type books and a rainbow of delicious snacks.

The way I was raised, when you went to the beach, you packed a lunch. Not just any old lunch. The kind of lunch that could last from 9am until 6pm. Every yummy snack you could think of, but healthy ones. We are not talking potato chips here, you could buy that on the boardwalk (an explanation of boardwalk food will have to be a whole other post at some point).

I told Marcy to just pack some snacks that she might want and I pack some more. Let's see we had salsa, guacamole, chips, fresh carrots broccoli, cauliflower and snap peas, hummus, cheese, crackers, garlic stuffed olives, cherries, strawberries, blueberries and chocolate. And Marcy may not have been all that new to this idea, she packed a bottle of red wine.

It was the perfect day. We talked, we read, we eat, we relaxed and went we home that night ready to face the next week of graduate school with clear heads!

Tomatoes are my playthings...

I really enjoyed that egg salad that I didn't want to share with anyone. It was well worth my selfishness.

But I did share my pureed egg salad. Probably to the dismay of my classmates. In one of my classes at Bastyr University we had to create a meal for people that may have swallowing issues. My partner and I made pureed egg salad with lemon-lettuce piping on slurried bread. Not even remotely delicious. The best part about the project, for me, was my attempt at congealed tomatoes. Sadly they turned out more live Nerf footballs that tomatoes, so we just bounced them off the floor for 30 seconds of fun.

So you think you might want to make this for yourself, I know. Basically for the egg salad we just sauteed some onions, boiled some eggs and put the both in the blender with lots of spices and some mayonnaise. An blended away.

What exactly is this lemon-lettuce piping, you ask. Well it is lemon juice, plain yogurt, romaine lettuce and potato flakes pureed until smooth. Your mouth is watering isn't it.

Ahh, slurried bread. I can honestly say that while the consistency of the egg salad and lettuce was not something I ever want to get used to, it didn't taste to bad. But the bread. I am sacred just remembering it. Basically it was just a bunch of whole wheat bread covered in gelatin. it just kind of dissolved on your tongue and slid down the back of your throat. I kind of looked like those plastic toys that are supposed to look like food. It clearly was just not supposed to TASTE like food.

The beauty of our project was all the in the presentation!

Colorful Foods that Fight Inflammation

This is an article I wrote that never ended up getting published...

Of the over forty choices available, one of most meaningful definitions of spring could be, “to be released from a constrained position.” We often spend much of our winters in the coziness of our homes.  The days are short, the comfort foods are plenty. But as the day fights the night for attention and our sun starved bodies begin to shed their warm layers, our food choices are also released from their constrained position.

March brings with it asparagus, beets, strawberries, and rhubarb.  April reacquaints us with artichokes, green beans and mangoes. May continues to awaken our senses with peppers, spinach and melons. Fresh fruits and vegetables in vibrant colors help to release us from the habit of “stick to your ribs” winter stews, roasted meats and potatoes and all the other winter foods that help keep us comfortable during those long winter nights. With Spring, everything awakens and comes alive with the bright sunshine we had been missing.

All these delicious colorful foods aren’t just pretty on the plate, but contain varying amounts of hundreds of thousands of bioactive compounds. Many of these phytonutrients are highly beneficial in fighting inflammation in the body. Inflammation can be triggered in the body by a number of factors in including stress, viruses, bacteria, physical trauma and temperature extremes.  Chemical messengers called cytokines activate the immune system and can send it into over drive. In the body, the constant state of inflammation can lead to chronic disease. The phytonutrients that are contained in spring’s colorful bounty act to squelch the cycle of inflammation and help ward of chronic diseases such as arthritis, type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, cancers, asthma, allergies and irritable bowel disease.

Now that the sun is shining and the temperatures are on the rise, head out to your local farmers market (find one in your area at localharvert.org). Pick a rainbow of fruits and vegetables and incorporate them into your meals.  If you are unfamiliar with something, ask the vendor to suggest what you could do with it. Make a vibrant mixed salad, add them to soups, or make a fresh fruit sorbet for dessert. No one in your family would ever guess that you are feeding them a prescription for a healthy body.