Raw Carrot Ginger Soup (with Kasu)

I changed my diet to raw food just over a year ago.  In that time I have learned to sprout and make great salads.  When I acquired a Vitamix blender I also began to experiment with soups.  Over time I've learned how to make good raw food.  I find that because things won't be cooked or served hot, I have to be much more conscious of how things naturally taste so I can blend flavours properly.  Texture is also more important.  I don't always succeed but my rate of success is increasing.

Yesterday I had lots of carrots in the fridge and I wondered what to do with them.  I was tired of the recipe I had been using for carrot soup and wanted something more subtle and smooth tasting.  The recipe I had been using had raw tahini in it which made it somewhat bitter.  Also there was lots of leek which also gave it some harshness.  So I decided to just go by feel and blend tastes that I know go well with carrots.  Here is the result followed by the recipe:

I don't know the exact measurements of anything but I'll attempt to describe what I mixed together.

1 avocado
kasu about 3 tablespoons (eosoteric ingredient I know but it's delicious if you can get it.  It's the lees from making Sake.  Really great fermented rice that tastes like sake.)
juice of a half of lemon (about 3-4 tablespoons I think)
ceylon cinnamon (maybe 3/4 teaspoon…if you're using a stronger cinnamon, reduce this amount)
fennel (maybe half a cup, I included some of the stem/leaves)
leek (maybe 2 inch piece from the non-green part…though that's an accident of what I had.  I wouldn't be adverse to using the green part)
ginger (1 inch piece, not peeled)
coriander (a handful of leaves)
carrots (about 6-7 carrots…I think it was roughly 3 cups)
pepper
water to the degree that you want the consistency.  I think I added about 3 cups but it's hard to say.  I just kept pouring into the blender until it was soupy.

Add the ingredients roughly in the same order as above to a Vitamix or similarly powerful blender.  Blend, blend, blend.  Fun.  Delicious.  

Salt as needed.  It doesn't turn out so salty even with the kasu. 

Garnish: rapini broccoli sprouts
I also added some sprouted beans for protein and crunch.

Owl to Lark in 30 days

(It's been a long time.  Several reasons are compelling me to start writing again.  Mostly it's because there are many new things in my life and I have enough mental space to feel like sharing.  I'm happy.  I'm inspired by life and by others.  It's also because my friend Leanne mentioned it.  And I like her gentle prodding and curiosity about why I stopped writing.)

For reasons I will not share here, I've decided to refashion myself into a morning person.  I have not been a morning person since my undergrad days when I had 8:30 classes.  At that time I'd wake up at 5:30 and head to the gym, come back, groom, go to the cafeteria, and then head to class.  I guess in some ways things haven't changed.  I still need 3 hours to get ready in the morning.  But now I squeeze in meditation too.  I like a slow introverted start.

So I entered into a 30-day challenge that I call Owl to Lark.  Today was day 7.  I was worried about today because it's Sunday and unlike yesterday I didn't have an 8am meeting.  There was nothing to compel me to get up at 6.  But I did.  Actually the getting up part hasn't been too hard.  It's the falling asleep that's not happening as smoothly as I'd like.  I have lights out at 10:30 but end up tossing and turning until 11:30 or later.  It's ok on the weekend when I can take a 20-30 minute nap to catch up but during the week, I end up quite tired by the end of the day...but still can't fall asleep!  Some have suggested reading Derrida ("...and if you don't fall asleep, you learn something!")  Maybe. I'll try 10 minute meditation and see if that changes anything.

A song for this post.

Green and Purple

Thursday again, the Farmer's market.  I replenished my supply of vegetables and fruit for the week.  Beautifully sticking out of my bag were the leafy parts of a bunch of beets.  Two people that came into my office exclaimed "Oh I love beet greens!"  and proceeded to describe a favourite way to prepare them.  I'm embarrassed to admit that I never even thought to eat the beet greens.  I always threw them out.  Oh the waste!  All these years I had missed out on some amazingly sweet yet salty and buttery leaves.  I prepared them tonight with basil, tomatoes, red pepper, shredded beets and carrots, and apples.  Dressing was olive oil, lemon, salt+pepper.   Here's what it looked like on a beautiful teal plate (made by an Emily Carr student!  Got it at the Christmas sale):

Symbiosis

One day rolls into the next.  This is the beginning of term and I come home tired, wired, with a list of evening tasks, the majority of which have to do with feeding myself or the bacteria.  As I was walking back from the grocery store with a gallon of milk and a couple pounds of sugar, it dawned on me that I was solely carrying fuel for the bacteria.  They will eat all this, I marveled.  And then I will eat the product of their eating.  And then they will populate my body and help digest what I eat.  It is a peculiar symbiotic relationship that I hadn't thought about in quite that way before.  I help make them and they help make me.

Creamy Gazpacho

Eating well today.  Harvest time is great.  Yesterday I bought about $50 worth of vegetables from the farmer's market.  I could hardly lug them home!  Enough ingredients to make some great salads and my special plan: a creamy gazpacho.  I had never made a gazpacho before but inspired by my weekly Cook's Illustrated email I gave it a go.  The recipe was pretty easy and just involved a lot of chopping which I suppose is expected.  The kicker is that you can't eat any before it "rests" overnight to develop flavours.  Well, this is the next day and the soup is fabfabfabulous.    Here is a picture of it, garnished with basil and chopped onions, pepper, cucumber, and tomato.

Ears to paper (day 338)

I listen to many audio books.  I have a twenty minute walk to work so that means I usually get forty minutes of listening per day.  That's not a whole lot given that most books are somewhere around 10 hours.  It's slower than reading but it can be multi-tasked and builds listening skills.  Currently on my listening roll are:

• Woody Allen - Side Effects and Mere Anarchy (both collections of short stories authored and narrated by WA).
• Kathryn Stockett - The Help (period piece performed by many different readers...so far engaging though not particularly lyrical or insightful).
• Mary Shelley - Frankenstein (a favourite which I've read and have in print)

I alternate between these.  Three books at a time is a bit much and puts me at risk of leaving one behind but they are each quite different so hopefully that mitigates the risk a bit.

I just finished:

• Barbara Kingsolver - The Lacuna (wonderful historical novel set in Mexico and America)
• Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go (amazing thoughtful, dreamy, tragic story)
• E.M Forster - The Machine Stops (great prescient short story about tech dependence written in 1909)

When I get tired of listening to longer books, I switch to podcasts.

There's only a few things annoying with listening instead of reading.  I can't underline, physically remember where in the book something was, quickly scan for a particular line or phrase, or easily transcribe and reference.  I also get fuddled when trying to refer to something in a book I've listened to.  Typically one says "this reminds me of something I read by..."  which is misleading and leads to somewhat embarrassing clarifications when someone follows up with "I'd love to borrow that book!"  Audio books are not easily shared.  They should be but they are not.

I have a wish list to make audio more integrated with writing culture:

• Give me the opportunity to buy the physical book at a reduced price if I've enjoyed (and paid for) the audio book.
• An easy way to 'bookmark' a bit of a book I found interesting.
• In addition to bookmarking, the ability to add audio or written notes to particular sections.
• A 'transcribe' button that automatically transcribes audio or video I'm listening to.  This could be time-limited to allow for fair use regulations to be respected.  I would also love to have that ability on youtube or vimeo.
• Integration with reference collection tools like Zotero.  For example, if I've bookmarked something I can easily add that bookmark to my list of references.
• The ability to share my audio book with anybody for specific lengths of time.

 A song for this post.

The common man (day 328)

I'd say I write to the government about 4 times a year.  Since Harper has been in power it's been more frequent.  This last bit about the census long form is so enraging I'm having trouble formulating a rational letter...I seem to quickly descend into sarcasm.  It's not hard to go there.  Harper says he's appealing to the "common man" who he claims doesn't want to fill out a long census form (which is not actually that long).   Who exactly is this common man?  I'm guessing he votes conservative.  Didn't we get enough of Joe the Plumber during the US election? 

I worked for Statistics Canada during my undergrad.  It was one of the most memorable jobs I've had.  The people there are so enthusiastic about what they do.  They LOVE data.  Just love it.  They crunch numbers all day and produce reports and are just really interested in what is hidden in there.  I learned something about the importance of proper data collection during my stint at Stats Can.  I also learned that our privacy is protected and that even if you report growing acres of marijuana there is no way that they can report you.  Nor would they want to.  They would rather know because that's their job.  They are there to inform policy and decisions.  I would love to get the long form because I know I'd be making some statisticians very happy.

I view filling out the long form as a very very small sacrifice of time to something helpful and necessary.  It's like jury duty only much less onerous.  Making it voluntary won't work because people are lazy and forgetful.  We need to get the proper distribution of data across the country to maintain accuracy.  There are people that know how to do that and we employ them.  Our head statistician just resigned.  Surely that's an important data point for Mr. Harper.  I'll help him:  It means "butt out and let us do our job.  The common man may never know it but it will help him too."

A song for this post.