Don't Crowd the Mushrooms, Among Other Things

Around the same time last year, I experienced something along the lines of depression and anxiety. I tend to not admit it. I tend to not use the “d” word at all. After all, what did I have to be depressed about? I was living abroad, making a name for myself. Or, rather, I was learning what it meant to do the job in front of me because it needed doing. In February of last year, I developed Secondary Traumatic Stress (a similar beast to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but one typically seen in those helping people who experienced trauma firsthand) in an effort to help out on a project the NGO I interned at managed.

It has been a growing year for me since then.

In March of this year, I had gotten sick with probably one of the longest running bugs I’ve had in a while. And that turned into a terrible sinus infection, which in turn lasted another two weeks with an on again, off again fever. All motivation to do the things I enjoyed went out the window. No Insanity with CK. No Meals with Morri posts (or celebration of its fourth birthday, for that matter). No art. No job applications. Nothing.

My weakened immune system brought me back to how I felt last year, and the lack of interest from potential employers made it worse.

I write about this because I think it’s important. Meals with Morri is, first and foremost, a site about living healthfully with food sensitivities. But it’s also a place where I write about other health issues, like hypothyroidism, disordered eating, and stress.

In Malta, I kept my emotional pain relatively quiet (with the exception of CK, my parents, certain friends, and my therapist). I was living alone and on my own for the first time. I was finishing up grad school. I was working in a country on issues that were highly contentious and subject to scorn. Outside of work, I didn’t have a social life because I found it hard to assimilate and integrate with the culture). It was a hard lesson in learning to be alone and honest with myself.

Fast forward to today. I’m in Rome for twelve more days, living with an amazing human being that I refer to as my Partner with a capital ‘p’. I’ve volunteered my time and expertise at his school to get out of the apartment. I’ve improved as an artist, a cook, and as a writer. I’ve applied for jobs everywhere.

Depression isn’t logical. I am aware of my privilege. I have supportive friends, and I’ve grown as a person because of my experiences. But there would be days where I go through job listing sites like Idealist.org or Indeed.com and come up with nothing. Until recently, the idea of sending an email to another potential employer only to be ignored would bring me to tears, staring at the computer screen with blurred vision as the anxiety and worthlessness feeling grew. If you are presently searching for employment or had a hard time finding a job, you’ll know how detrimental it can be when your inbox is empty, and no one seems interested in what you can offer both their mission and their office.

But as I’ve said, I’ve been able to volunteer my time at CK’s school in more ways than I could have ever hoped for. It has validated my self-worth in that, despite the empty inbox, what I can and do contribute to the world (even to one person's world) matters. 

Upcoming post: the importance of school gardens

This funk has made it that much harder for me to do things that I clearly love doing, including Meals with Morri posts. The turning point for me was realizing that it was affecting my physical health too.

I know gaining 1.6 pounds isn’t a lot in retrospect, especially since the body fluctuates that amount on any given day. Regardless, I had gained 1.6 pounds, and it bugged me. It had nothing to do with the number and everything to what it represented. To me, it represented my depression affecting me in a very real way with very real consequences. I love physical activity. I love working out. I love being creative. And seeing that number gave me two ways of dealing with it: I could either turn it inward and accept it, beating myself even further to feeling lower than low; or I could say “f*ck that” and take charge. I chose the latter, and with it I had to be prepared to hold myself accountable.

I can’t control whether or not an employer wants to hire me. It’s a vulnerable position to apply for jobs, and that can’t be helped. But what I can do is make my first impression, that is, my cover letter and résumé, a labor of love. I can send them in and be able to say, “I wrote these to the best of my ability, with sincerity and integrity, and that’s something to be proud of.” Sure, it may also mean being downcast when they don’t get back to me, but that just means the right job will.

I can also control how I manage my time. I can sit around and mope, or I can actively seek out someone to talk to. I can work on my art or read another Terry Pratchett (Gods, I miss this man) novel. I can do Insanity instead of napping away the day in an effort to avoid my anger, disappointment, and sadness. I can stop comparing myself to others and instead focus on the positive as well as the things I can control.

I can control how many jobs I apply to. I can control how much time I put into my art and physical health. I can control how often I post on Meals with Morri.

Never let depression ruin your progress. Never let it win. Experience it. Work through it. But in the end, you can and will triumph.

This recipe isn’t particularly relevant to what I’ve written, only that I’ve been meaning to post it for weeks now and wanted to take those first crucial steps in overcoming my funk. It is more of a technique than a recipe. But if you learn anything from today, learn this invaluable tip: Don’t crowd the mushrooms in the pan.

Flawlessly Pan-Fried Mushrooms

400 g Mushrooms of your choice
Olive oil, for the pan
Sea salt

As I said, this is more of a technique than a recipe, but it’s an easy way to dazzle dinner guests. I’ve done this technique with three types of mushrooms: oyster, white button, and a long stemmed, small hooded mushroom that came in clumps and various sizes (I’ll update the name when/if I can find it). All where prepared and cooked similarly, and I have to say I’ve come to appreciate mushrooms by themselves because of this technique.

When you take the mushrooms out of the package, the first thing you do is cut the bottom roots and clean off the remaining debris from its initial picking with a dry paper towel. This is important. If you do end up wetting the mushrooms (they soak up moisture like a sponge, leading to a soggy product, which we do not want), let them sit on the counter to dry out for fifteen minutes or so.

Now, you can keep the stems on or remove them depending on your preference, but it’s up to you. You can also slice them in any shape or simply leave them whole. How you prepare them will determine the cooking time, so be aware of that. What I typically do is, if possible, cut them into quarters to get ultimate browning and body with every bite.

Once the mushrooms are cut, place a large sauté pan on the burner on high heat. When the pan itself is hot, pour a decent amount of olive oil at the bottom of the pan, enough to coat the bottom evenly but not thickly. Toss the mushrooms in, lower the heat slightly (not by much, around medium-high), but be sure that each piece has room. This is extremely important for perfectly cooked browned mushroom: do not crowd the pan with them. This may mean cooking them in batches. And since the mushrooms won’t be crowded, the liquid they do give off will evaporate, leaving soft, browned deliciousness in the pan. 

Stir with a wooden spoon or spatula and shake the pan once in a while. You will know you are doing the recipe right if the pan starts to look dry and the mushrooms sound like they’re squeaking. If it looks like the mushrooms are smoking, DO NOT ADD WATER. Instead, turn on the exhaust fan and maybe add a little more oil.

Once evenly browned, pour onto a serving plate and sprinkle sea salt on top. Repeat if you have more batches to cook (add oil every time). Serve hot as a side dish or simply eat as is. Yes, they’re that good.

This makes two servings… if you’re willing to share, that is.

The Herbivore Transition

Stress is a black hole. It sucks your energy with vigor, and worse, it spreads like a disease into other aspects of your life. You feel vulnerable and hopeless. You feel self-doubt come in like a neighbor to your inner critic, and they gang up on you like the bullies they are.

I graduate with a Master of Science in Conflict Analysis and Resolution at the end of this summer. With my internship school requirements completed, I remain in Malta to gain as much experience as possible while searching for a potential career. I want to find something that combines direct services with youth, education, sustainable development, conflict resolution, and food. But the search has soured somewhat, and I wonder if I will ever find something like that. It’s hard to explain to people that I don’t want just the career; I want the life that goes with it, and that includes CK and I finding a way to make that happen together.

And so I’ve tried to find ways to encourage my creativity in various outlets, but that’s hard to put on a CV. It’s hard to turn ‘I’m awesome’ into a technical term and reason why organizations should hire me.

But the beauty and inspiration behind the stress is how many organizations and initiatives are actually out there. The conflict resolution field, although it’s something I have to explain from time to time, is growing. So I know there’s a place for me out there. Until then, I am content working through my internship and learning all I can for the next seven months in Malta.

One of those learning experiences is the transition to vegetarianism. 

It’s been a fairly easy thing to do, actually. Those with food sensitivities, allergies, and health/moral-based diets have to find other ways to fill the nutritional gaps when entire food groups are cut out. I admit that being gluten free, soy free, and cane sugar free is a challenge sometimes, and it has been a journey to figuring out the balance of health, fun, and moderation. I went through a time where certain foods, if ingested, resulted in a panic attack. I thought that if I ate certain foods, all my efforts to being healthy (old paradigm code word for 'thin') would be wasted and BAM!, instant return to the awkward, sad little girl I used to be.

Malta has given me the ability to not take it so seriously, and I’ve even gone so far as to facing my food fears more than once. My fear of fried foods had pretty much disappeared when CK made British style chips in coconut oil.  It was such an amazing experience, a moment where I enjoyed the process of making and eating something I hadn’t had in years. We also experimented in making fried zucchini flowers, lightly breaded and cheese stuffed. It's only a matter of time until I make donuts...

I’m not sneaky. I wear my fears on my sleeves and in my actions. Typically, instead of using a certain amount of oil or sugar (honey) a recipe calls for, I’d substitute it with a banana or some peanut butter. I still use bananas as a sweetener replacement, but now because my palate finds a certain amount of sweet to be too much. As for the oil, I’ve focused on how foods make me feel, and incorporate oils and protein in every meal as consciously as possible.

... and coffee

Back to the vegetarian thing. As I've said before, CK was born and raised as a vegetarian, and he has shown me the importance of protein and fats. Being the cheese fiend that he is (living in Rome surrounded by such a variety of cheeses will do that to you), I came to enjoy cheese as a protein source. Even before the whole rabbit thing, I wasn’t eating very much meat anyway. It was a deliberate shift that I have been doing for a couple of years to cut out or remove meat from my diet. But in Malta, I started to notice that the meat I did get (chicken typically) left me feeling, for lack of a better word, oily. I didn’t feel nourished or wholesome. The whole rabbit thing left a permanent mark on my psyche as an animal-loving individual. After the second and third time feeling the same way, I decided to take on the vegetarian lifestyle. 

What a gluten free herbivore eats...

... and sticking to what I believe in

Being a gluten free die-hard vegetarian is tough though, especially in the Mediterranean where there’s bread, pasta, and pastries everywhere. Often times the only gluten free thing in a Mediterranean restaurant is meat. When I was visiting Rome for the second time, CK’s parents were also there. We went out to eat quite often, and I remember a restaurant that didn’t have any gluten free thing on its menu, but the kitchen was kind enough to make a dish with cooked steak slices over arugula. Even though Italian restaurants are starting gluten free pasta and bread more often, I don’t expect every one of my sensitivities to be met on the fly; so when something gives in order to go out, I either need to eat ahead of time or step out of the meat-free circle.

While stress tends to bring out the inner critic and the focus on the food I am [not] eating, or the exercise regimen I am [not] doing, cutting out meat hasn’t affected me other than positively. I’m actually eating more and maintaining my metabolism just fine. And you can imagine how creative you can get with the same ingredients in different dishes.

So this isn’t an official “Meals with Morri is going vegetarian” announcement, but saying that I’m mostly vegetarian or “I’m vegetarian with the occasional steak/burger/fish/chicken stew” makes it sound like it’s a fad or a trend. It isn’t. I eat food that makes me feel the most wholesome, and do my best to know what doesn’t in order to limit or remove them from my intake. I don’t think eating meat or products from animals is a bad thing, and not because they tend to be delicious. I find the way we treat them in factory farms and the use of hormone-laden foods and vaccines to be inexcusable. But I am more than willing to support farms and other local initiatives that have similar ethics and beliefs on animal raising, care, and slaughter. The fragile symbiosis we have with the flora and fauna is a beautiful thing when done correctly, and I think it needs to be more apparent in how we eat. 

Warm Lentil Salad
250 g Brown lentils
1 Red bell pepper
1 Onion
2 Garlic cloves
1 tsp. Mixed herbs*
1/4 tsp. Cumin
550 ml water
2 tsp. Apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. Olive oil
1/2 tsp. Sea salt
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. black pepper

Thoroughly wash the lentils and allow them to soak at least an hour.
Rinse and pour the lentils and water into a medium-sized pot over medium-high heat.
Add the remaining ingredients and cook until the water is absorbed and the lentils are soft (more or less 30 minutes).
Pour on top of noodles, rice, (in my case) quinoa, potatoes, or additional veggies.
Can be served hot or cold, and topped with cheese, lime, or avocado is a guaranteed delight.

Makes 3 – 4 main dish servings.

* See link and scroll down.

One Year Closer

I did it. One year of grad school over, and another to follow. I don’t like to think about it very much, simply because the idea of leaving academia in search of a career scares the heck out of me. School was my only focus for months, and as a result my work at the community center suffered, as did my overall health and social life. I wrote my final papers and proposals in a haze of fatigue and tear-filled vision, my walls finally crashing down and hard. How long have I been like this, you ask. Too long, dear friends. Too long.

The Meals with Morri front page was up on the screen of my laptop on a daily basis yet untouched, a neglected hobby you once couldn’t tear me away from. At one point I had so many recipes and photos it took, I kid you not, weeks to get them all down. It’s been over three weeks, and not one recipe was recorded, with only one meal photographed. I didn't even celebrate my site's second anniversary back in April. Something was seriously wrong. 

Mother's Day Dinner: Grilled scallops & crispy polenta salad

I don’t take the idea of depression well. It’s a phenomenon that happens to other people, whereas all I experience is a funk that won't go away. All the stress and the obligations and the things I simply wasn’t doing were purposefully replaced with over-activity and worrying. I wasn’t eating enough, sleeping enough, or being enough… and people noticed. All I wanted to do was sleep and read, a red flag telling me to slow down if I ever saw one. But I didn’t slow down. I just kept going and going and going.

I know I said I wouldn’t use the “h-word” early on in my writing, but I’m using it now. I hated it. I hated that I couldn’t do it all. I hated that people and activities I loved with every essence of my being were left in the dust while I scrambled to make everything work. The past wouldn’t stay where it was, and the future was a mixture of uncertainty and terror. Never mind the present, I said to myself, because if I work my butt off now I will have everything in place for later. That’s the thing about time, though: it’s always the present.

So with summer school starting next week, I’ve decided to change my focus. I’m not working at camp this year, sadly, but I will have the energy to get through school and also spend these months being with friends and family, starting new hobbies, and going on adventures. 

After all, Life isn’t about how much you do but how much it means to you doing it.

The Birds and the Trees

A couple of years ago, I rescued a nestling from one of my cats. Miette (i.e., the Abyssinian Ninja Assassin) has this habit of coming to the kitchen window with something in her mouth, sometimes alive but usually not. I’ve seen it all: mice, voles, huge insects, and small birds barely contained in her small mouth. She likes chasing dogs, and her battle cry sounds like a banshee wail whenever another cat enters her territory. She has food sensitivities like I do, but whenever she brings something alive home I do what I can to rescue them from an otherwise dreary fate. It's not like she eats them, anyway...

I appreciate the birds that roost in our trees, especially as they sing their songs in the morning when spring comes around. In my opinion, it's a pleasant alternative to a beeping alarm clock scaring you awake.

This nestling seemed to be learning how to fly and hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it when Miette chased it into one of our yucca plants. I get a rush saving other things from the feline authoritarian regime that runs our house. After I put Miette inside, mad that I ruined her fun, the bird sat on my knee, trusting me enough to close its eyes after such an ordeal. And finally, as I had an amazing summer day ahead of me, I put it on a branch and wished it well.

I still look back on that memory fondly. Not the killer Abyssinian part, mind you, but the part about watching the bird’s inactivity and savoring the calmness of the moment shared.

Two Fridays ago I fell and bruised my tailbone (a nicer way of saying I fell on my butt) so badly my entire spine was affected. The initial bruise a few inches below the inflamed tailbone was black, and sitting upright and lying down hurt like no physical pain I’ve ever encountered. The funny thing about back injuries is how unaware until that moment how much you use your back, and how much energy it takes healing such an injury. The initial shock left me feeling fragile and vulnerable, and for one brief moment I could relate to the terror of a nestling that fell from its nest… or a tree that had been uprooted without care. Such trauma brings out pain from other places, and what is a tree without a sturdy trunk but sticks and leaves and not much else.

When I hurt my back, I was uprooted and had to reconsider so much about myself. Why do I have to be overactive and stressed out to feel like I’m actually doing something useful? Why do I not savor the breaks in the day and enjoy inaction as it was intended? For what it seemed like an eternity since the last time I relaxed, I slept and ate and dealt with my insecurities in quiet contemplation without distraction. And I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this, but as my stress levels went down, so too my tolerance of it.

Sentience is too fragile and vulnerable to be in a constant state of stress, and regardless whether or not my injury was a divine intervention or a “sh*t happens” occurrence, I received the message loud and clear. My body is not impervious to injury, and thriving on stress can only take you so far. But there is strength in being uprooted, because it gave me the mindset to evaluate all the traumas and dramas I had experienced up until this point. It sucks, royally and painfully so, but it is necessary and liberating to not hold onto them anymore. Luckily, despite being uprooted (or having fallen from the nest), I’m healing quite nicely and actually have the energy to make recipes happen.

With all this talk of birds and trees, I felt it was appropriate to share my version of peanut butter Easter nests. These were my only favorite Easter sweet besides the solid chocolate rabbit as a kid (I had an aversion to Peeps). I loved the confection’s combination of sweet and savory, creamy and crunchy, peanut butter and chocolate, and I wanted to recreate a healthier version of the treat to indulge when a craving struck. They turned out so well, I brought them to one of my graduate classes along with my Early Grey shortbread for my colleagues to enjoy. Not only did they enjoy them, they wanted the recipes for both!

It’s the little things that make bloggers happy.

No-Bake Bird Nest Cookies

68 g Puffed rice cereal
252 g Honey (or maple syrup)
192 g Creamy peanut butter (salted)
15 g Hulled hemp seeds
15 g Cacao nibs
15 g Toasted whole flaxseeds
25 g Unsweetened shredded coconut
15 g Sesame seeds
Thompson raisins, optional

Place the dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.
Combine the honey and peanut butter in a small saucepan, and cook over low heat until melted and the edges begin to bubble slightly, stirring until smooth.
Pour mixture over the dry ingredients and thoroughly coat using a silicone spatula or a wooden spoon.
Using a tablespoon (you can guesstimate with your hands too, but I felt this was a less stickier alternative), form mixture into tight balls using 1 heaping tablespoon of mixture per ball.
Make an indention in center of each ball to resemble a bird’s nest, and place them on parchment paper to cool and set completely.
Place two or three raisins or other egg-shaped candies into each nest.
For storage, stack them in an airtight container in layers with parchment paper in between to prevent sticking and staling.

Makes up to 30 cookies.

Today's Menu: Stress-free Soup

With all the progress I have made since the start of the year, I thought my health would be at its peak when spring came along. The birds started singing and the weather began to warm (as far as strange Virginia weather is concerned), and I thought it meant that I had it all together.

But health isn’t like that. It isn’t some commodity you need to only focus on once and you’re good for life. It’s a lifetime responsibility, and one you should never take lightly. So when school resumed from Spring Break, I found it harder and harder to do my daily responsibilities. I slept whenever I could, and all my plans for my mornings were left undone as I nestled further underneath my warm quilts and blankets.

It was heartbreaking to see that weeks had passed without a single recipe written down and plans with friends cancelled because I was so tired. Frustration seeped in to my otherwise bubbly demeanor when I saw my winter troubles reappear. I admonished myself for not having the capacity to handle nine credit hours of school, plus work, plus climbing, plus a social life of some description. The stress was getting to be too much.

This likely started with an old acquaintance of mine dying in February, and I spent the majority of March padding along in morose reflection. Death and dying, school and career possibilities, old relationships and new loves… this was my mindset. Perhaps that was why I chose to either push myself beyond exhaustion with sixteen- (sometimes eighteen) hour days with less than six hours of sleep or nap when I had the free time. I didn’t want to think about the building emotions whose intensity I couldn’t discern. I didn’t want to think about anything other than my obligations to other people; and as I result I forgot who I was and why I do what I do. Among other things, Meals with Morri was terribly neglected.

I didn’t think J’s death would affect me as much as it did. At most we were friendly acquaintances a couple summers ago who shared amazing conversations about identity, gender, and love. When I learned he had died, I felt a part of my Universe shift. Everyone who has ever passed through your life matters, no matter the time or the impact. Everyone matters, and I frantically tried to make everything equally important. A month later, I officially crashed and was so burnt out from the self-inflicted stress I carried. I spent all of yesterday in bed, leaving work after an hour, with school and social plans discarded. I slept and I dreamed and I recharged, three things I hope to never take advantage of ever again.

This soup is the kind of food everyone should have when life seems too real and you need a mental health day. It isn't the prettiest of soups, true, but it is perfect to sip on in bed while you catch up on your reading or on the couch as you watch uplifting comedies. Better yet, have it with the people you love at the dinner table, reflecting upon one of  life’s greatest lessons: 

“Be mindful. Be grateful. Be alive.” (Mama Dazz)

Creamy Celery Soup

24 Celery stalks, coarsely chopped
450 g Sliced leeks
4 (536 g) Red potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 Garlic cloves
2 tsp. Sea salt
1 tsp. Cracked pepper
Pinch of rosemary powder
Dash of nutmeg

In a large pot or pressure cooker, combine all of the ingredients and pour water just an inch below the line of vegetables (more or less, depending on your preference of soup thickness).
Cover the pot and place on medium heat to cook for 45 minutes to an hour or until all of the vegetables have softened.
Turn off the heat and use an emulsion blender to puree the ingredients smooth. (Should it be too thick for your taste, add a little water at a time and place on medium heat until at the desired consistency.)
Pour into bowls/mugs and serve hot.

Makes 6 – 8 servings.

Taking Charge of Anxiety and Stress

I admit that, when I last wrote, I was still knee deep in fight-or-flight mode. My sentences were run-ons and manically distributed. The words I used were emotionally driven and hectic. My stories were jumbled together and I had just started the process of coming down to Earth from a lifetime of stress and anxiety. A chill pill would have worked wonders during those two weeks of uncertainty, followed by a hot cup of herbal tea and warm milk.

(source)

Whenever I talk about taking medication - in this case I mean the antibiotic and the antispasmodic - I worry about perceiving myself as a hypocrite. After all, I often write how I am all for using natural means for healing. Be it with the food/supplements I eat, the thoughts I think, and the actions I do, I exhaust every option I can think of before even considering the idea of taking a pharmaceutical drug. Getting an artificially dyed pill from a doctor in a lab coat is a last resort thing for me. And I was definitely in the “last resort” category not too long ago.

So I took the medicine and I am gradually healing from the inside out. I am feeling better than I have in years, and I celebrate the changes: I can discern hunger, and I’m not as hungry as I once was; my activity level has skyrocketed while my fatigue has decreased; my mood is level and I’m not overexerting the good mood image (I am simply in a good mood); my skin is clearing up and my organs are starting to function properly; I'm sleeping (a big factor in all this); and I do not feel rushed or overwhelmed.

“The truth is somewhere in the middle.”  When I said this, I originally meant this as a way to balance the various practices and professionals I’ve gone to for healing purposes. This statement is also true for the concept of healing in general, and this post is dedicated to how I'm working on making this happen.

Along with the prescribed medicine I’ll be taking temporarily, I wanted to find ways of healing that I would feel empowered doing in the long run. I considered the gastroenterologist’s diagnosis of ASD, and how once upon a time another gastroenterologist tried curing my supposed “depression” with an antidepressant. I didn’t want to take a pill that altered my brain chemistry and played ping-pong with my emotions. I wanted to learn how to bring myself back to a peaceful baseline and essentially change how I handled stress in a positive and loving way.

(Note: What I’m about to share is in no way a formal treatment to ASD, IBS, or any other health concerns you may have. These statements are personal opinions and things I’ve tried that are working for me. Please consider this as you read on.)

I had received wonderful suggestions when I’d asked for advice last time. Emails, social media comments, and words face-to-face offered support and food essentials for tummy troubles and antibiotics. Oddly enough, no one really touched on the ASD aspect, and I think I know why.

We are part of a global paradigm where stress means productivity. At least in my interpretation of Western culture, we have to be “on” all the time to feel like we’re doing something meaningful with our lives. In many cases, and this resonates with me also, we have been in “fight or flight” mode for so long we don’t even remember what being at peace is. We become bored with inaction, and worried that we are stagnating progression. We lose our self-awareness with constant pressure from our inner dialogue, perceived expectations, over-stimulation, and over-scheduling.

Stress and anxiety are normalized internally. When we experience the adrenaline rush and adrenal fatigue over a significant period of time, our body gets used to the highs and lows of both, and our baseline adapts to being at the height of Mount Everest rather than sea level. A bit extreme, I know, but I want you to understand how crucial it is to nip chronic stress and anxiety in the bud and how small changes can leave a big impact on your health.

The first steps I started working with were self-awareness and acceptance. I asked myself questions like: How are you feeling? What are you feeling and what caused that feeling to occur? Is your mind racing and heart pounding when you’re trying to sleep/meditate/calm down? What external factors are affecting you internally, for good or ill? Acceptance is a hard thing indeed, for we are our toughest critics. Thoughts like “What do I have to be stressed about?” and “Come on, Dummy, this isn't hard!  Why can’t I do this?” can plague the chronically stressed and anxious. When we are in this state, it is extremely hard to see the big picture because we are so hyper-focused on the mini crises all the time.   

I learned that by being in a constant state of distress, I was hungry all the time. When I was stressed and anxious, I snacked on nut butters, rice crackers, and smoothies. Add that to my tummy troubles and my habit of not getting enough sleep, I was too fatigued and in too much pain to be active in my daily life. I used the medication prescribed to me as a tool to remove my body woes from the equation to turn my focus then on what was going on upstairs behind my pretty face.

The second step for me was analyzing the life I live with love and compassion. What are the things most important to me? What can I place on a shelf to work on later? What do I keep? What do I let go or change? These questions led me to the journey of finding an inner calm and adjusting the structures of my life to suit me.

There are certain ways to calm yourself, and you do not have to do it alone or by your own design to get positive results. To increase my own ability at achieving a steady baseline, I looked to meditation. I was advised to do fifteen minutes a day, but my mind tends to wander and think of all the things I need to/have to/should be doing. So I became even more frustrated when I was unable to return to mindfulness and stressed by those precious minutes wasted on trying.

The answer for me was guided meditation, and there are many sources out there varying in length, type, and technique.

“But I don’t have time to meditate and sit still”, you say. “I have all these obligations to do…”

Stop. right. there. When you are in this mindset, of course you won’t have time. And my answer to that can be shown in this image:

(source)

As I said, guided meditation is helpful for me because I can focus on a voice and the instructions I am being given. For 10 – 20 minutes (or more), all that matters is my breathing, resetting my brain, and reveling in the possibility in how it will affect my day for the better. I find doing it in it the morning (though not necessarily right when I wake up) and/or before bed good times for me, but choose times that work for your schedule.

(source)

This leads to another crucial aspect in lowering stress and anxiety for me: routine. Now, I’m not talking about being a “slave to routine” as the comic above implies. I’m talking about having something your body can work with, a way to regulate and manage yourself and what matters most to you. Since graduation (and quite possibly before that), I was flying from one thing to the next – blind and awkward in between – doing everything I could to stay upright. Instead of planning by the hour for everything I do (as I tried to and bombed at), I’ve laid out my weekdays in morning, afternoon, and evening time-slots. I have days where I am climbing or doing other forms of exercise and completing a certain chore/task for the house. I have definitive times when I’m working or at school. I have days dedicated to studying, and an evening or two dedicated to whatever it is I may treat myself to. From doing it this way, I found that I not only have more time than I thought; I also have focus and energy without becoming overwhelmed. Work and play are becoming wonderfully balanced.

The final reflection I’d like to share is to not sacrifice taking care of yourself in order to “get things done”. I admit there are still days in the week I perceive I have a lot to do and the consequence is getting less sleep/relaxation than I’d like. For example: On Tuesdays my class gets out at 10:00 p.m., and then I am up at 5:00 Wednesday morning to climb. I know that I’ll get less than seven hours of sleep in between, so it’s just a matter of adjusting certain variables to ensure I’m doing all I can to not return to that unhealthy cycle. Be honest with yourself and others when everything in your being is telling you to chill out. And when stress and panic arises, don’t beat yourself up about it; instead, take pride knowing you realized what’s going on and take as long as you need to bring yourself out of survival mode. 

The Truth is Somewhere in the Middle

Warning: may contain less than pleasant descriptions of bodily functions and words of ranting, needing advice, and strong-ish language.

Ever have those moments where you perceive that everything is happening at once and time is moving faster than you can handle and run-on sentences suddenly make sense and your body is exhausted and your mind keeps going and then… BAM! You hit a wall.

Yeah, I absolutely “adore” those moments too.

As mentioned in my last post (an astonishing two weeks ago), I’ve had tummy troubles. This term is an understatement, but I try to keep the content of this blog as family friendly as possible. I was so terrified of my symptoms and the pain that I scheduled two ASAP appointments with a gastroenterologist and an urologist. Add the fear of the unknown with emotional/hormonal upset in the form of body image obsession… My two weeks MIA from MWM have not been all rainbows and free hugs. But goodness, I wish it had been.

For a week it seemed like I was balancing a number of plates in the air with spectators looking on, ready for a good laugh. I wanted to do so much, be so much, in a short time frame. And instead, when everything was expected to crash down, porcelain shards littering the floor, some spectators were kind enough to join the act in assisting. Some plates were added and others removed, but little by little I could balance the aspects of my life. And while I was overwhelmed by it all, it isn’t as bad as it was.

If I could list all the plates I have been balancing based on their importance and priority and my focus of them, it would be thus: Health (includes all aspects), Grad school, Future, Miscellaneous obligations, Work, Family and Friends, Meals with Morri, and so on. The overall feeling of crappiness health-wise bled onto the other plates, and I was so exhausted and so stressed out and internally so toxic it started to physically manifest in the form of bloating and red bumps around my eyes, hands, and elbows.

I waited and waited and waited until I couldn’t take it anymore. The pain was terrible, the Google searches foretold impending doom, and the inner dialogue was scattered and anxious. Doctors’ offices were called and appointments were made. And if there is one moral in this story, people, it is the following:

“The truth is somewhere in the middle.”

The gastroenterologist I met with is an esteemed practitioner in his field of practice. Mama Dazz even visited him back when she was in her early twenties and recommended his expertise. With appointments like this I tend to be nervous. I lose all sorts of control and power when presented to doctors in general, so it was nice to have her come with me. I walk into his office and the usual questions are asked: Why are you seeing me today? How long have you experienced these symptoms? What have you done thus far in regards to treatment, management, etc.? What additional medications are you taking? What does your diet look like…?

The last two questions resulted in him essentially going into a tirade about how as far as he could see, a healthy young woman did not need hypothyroid medication and most certainly should not be on a gluten/soy/refined sugar free diet. From this conversation I was shaken to the core. This person did not know my history and had only one doctor-patient meeting to go on. He did not know how much better I felt eating the foods I ate, or how the Armour Thyroid did indeed affect my life positively. I felt so small leaving his office. I began to cry when the discussion turned to possibly having to incorporate gluten and soy based foods in my diet for tangible analysis in future blood work, to stop taking my hypothyroid medicine, and to think about a colonoscopy in the next couple of weeks (his recommendation, but not something I plan on doing right now).

Upon reflection, I realized I was given a broader image of what ethics and values the health industry contained. The majority of my health providers (such as Hurlock and Harris) are holistically based. They tend to focus on the intangible evidence and have a more qualitative outlook on healing. The gastroenterologist, however, as I perceived him is a man of numbers and facts, needing tangible evidence to satisfy his quantitative logic. My other grievance was, along with his strong opinions about my life, he didn’t really provide me with any answers, only diagnosing me with terms I’ve had been labeled with all my life. He mentioned ASD (anxiety stress disorder) and IBS, but I knew that already. What I didn't know was how I could fix a lifetime of adrenal fatigue and self-imposed stress and how my symptoms tied into it.

The urologist, another esteemed practitioner (who reminded me of the stereotypical grandfather image giving advice while on a fishing trip) was a little softer in his quantitative logic and needs for tangible evidence. Instead he listened and pondered and asked questions when appropriate. His practice was in no way what I’d consider an alternative practice, by his demeanor was. I felt no judgment as we talked about possible reasons as to why the UTI and other symptoms were happening now, and if his options matched my values and ethics. I was reserved at the thought of being on low dose antibiotics and very powerful antispasmodics for the next three months, but I do feel the difference after a week of treatment. 

The truth is somewhere in the middle, and for me that means joining the two logics and needs for evidence to see the bigger picture regarding my health. I can’t help the world sick. It’s as simple as that.

I end this long and non-recipe based post with a request. I am currently looking into other ways of stress management and anxiety diminishers. If anyone has had any experience similar to what I’ve gone through, from mindfulness exercises to probiotic recipes to balancing the antibiotic’s side effects, I’d love to hear from you.

The New Year so far

Nine days. That’s how long my hiatus has been from this blog. A little over a week, but it has felt like an eternity. After we came back from Timberline, I finally caught the bug everyone had in the last week of the old year, so I’ve spent the first two weeks of the new year with a terrible cough, a persistent off again and on again fever, a weird eating and sleeping pattern, and napping throughout the day in between enthusiastically reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries via my Kindle Touch.

Even with my borderline delirium – because lack of decent REM sleep and persistent fevers can do that to a person – I was often in the kitchen, cooking up new breakfast bakes and thinking of innovative recipes I would like to make when I’m feeling better. With my new oven-safe soup bowls and my consistent socca breakfast bake success while at Timberline, I’ve been trying out different flours and gluten free grains, fruits, and spreads. Most of them have been delicious, though I think I would have preferred using a tad more stevia for sweetness. I would like to experiment with savory ingredients, so for those who are big on savory breakfasts, feel free to give me some ideas.

One of my new oven-safe soup bowls: perfect for breakfast bakes!

As for my 6-Week fitness plan, it could’ve been better. It’s clear that I started at the wrong time to get any benefit out of it. Three of the six weeks I was either dealing with school or sick, though I did enjoy having a plan and trying something new. At Timberline I felt so calm and at peace with myself. Even after the injury (which is doing A-Okay at present, thank you for asking) and lazing around the cabin, I was sleeping until nine or ten in the morning, never before eight, feeling well rested and enjoying the quietness of the surrounding mountains. Even if I couldn’t ski for the remainder of my stay in Davis, West Virginia, I can’t remember a time I was so relaxed. Not only was I not hungry at odd hours, I was content after every meal, and I learned the deliciousness that is Russian cuisine. 

After a few days, I decided to throw caution to the wind and try out the dinner laid out for the others. I was told what was gluten free (as well as sugar and soy free) and what wasn’t (essentially, the bread, beer, and crackers), and I gobbled it down with gusto. Russian cuisine varies from family to family, but I knew I had a new favorite type of food. Each dinner was balanced in flavor and nourishment, and there was a satisfying tang of vinegar in many of the dishes that brought out a new depth entirely new to my taste buds.

Yours Truly with the boyfriend's brother, the adorable Mr. "Button".

Besides making amazing food, the Russian family I spent the last week of 2011 with opened my eyes to a culture that the boyfriend still holds onto in very particular ways. Like the Swedes I met the year before, they were reserved but open, shy until they get to know you, and can converse until the early morning. They are competitive, enjoy philosophical and logical forms of debate, and love the complexities, the beauty, and the sheer largeness of nature, various sciences, the universe, etc. They warmed up to my larger than life affectionate ways, my bear hugs, and my willingness to listen to their opinions, whether it was in English or not. Personally, I find Russian to be a soothing language, one I’d like to learn by next year’s ski trip. I learned quite a different way of celebrating this time of year, and we drove home on New Years in time for another traditional meal. By Tuesday the 3nd, I traded my limp for a cough, and have been trying to stay afloat ever since.

Kale, Hearty Beef Stew, & Green Beans with Black-Eyed Peas

It is clear that I have to reconsider New Year resolutions. In the past I’d write pages of resolutions, varying from the very detailed to the very vague. Truthfully I focused on my health in a very vain fashion, and I had rather unreasonable goals pertaining to my weight and the things I wanted to do in life. If I wasn’t a certain way, no matter how hard I tried, I would feel like a complete failure. In reality, I just wasn’t aiming for the right goals and, thankfully, I think 2012 is going to be an amazing year.

So what are my “resolutions”? Stress management, mostly, and going where life takes me. I’m a young, recently graduated BA student, with a fairly successful food blog and have plenty of things to keep me mentally and physically busy. It is very likely I’ll do another fitness plan after I recover, but I’d really like to do atypical things outside the gym. I want to hike, boulder, swim, kayak, ski, and learn some form of martial arts. I also want to write, continue cooking and working towards the evolution of this blog for the better, hang out with the people I’ve sorely neglected, volunteer, and simply enjoy every moment that I experience. And this isn’t just for 2012. These are resolutions for life.

My grain-free, one fruit a day, and stevia-only diet has come to an end, though it shines through for days at a time. As you may recall, it was to help the healing process of my tummy after simultaneously getting glutened and fluey. Now that my stomach has clearly healed itself, I’m integrating root veggies and gluten free grains back into meals (though buckwheat, groats and flour, has become a Morri favorite), and am not afraid to have an additional serving of fruit or one to two teaspoons of honey in my afternoon tea. Oh, and I've finally perfected a recipe that has been the bane of Morri's everywhere, and it's a perfect side dish to chili...

... can you guess what it is? :)

   

Even though it is clearly belated, I wish you a Happy New Year all the same, with plenty of recipes ahead.

November Reflections: Grain-Free and almost Stress-Free

I had so many blog posts I wanted to do, explicitly focused on my birthday, my talk with Cheryl, my grain-free week, and a few recipes as well. But life had different plans for me, and for the first time I am totally okay with it.

Ostkaka: my birthday "cake"

My birthday week was quiet. So quiet, in fact, that it went by in a blur of rain, school, and work. Both my Anthropology teachers canceled their classes on my birthday (divine intervention, perhaps) to attend conferences in Montreal and New Orleans, so I spent my day doing absolutely nothing. And as I mentioned before, I’ve been trying out the grain-free, one fruit a day (not including the lemon water I use for drinking down FiveLac), and no additional sweeteners, I didn’t have a cake specially made for the occasion. I did, however, have a piece of ostkaka I made on the 14th to celebrate Sweden’s “Day of Ostkaka,” a food holiday established in 2004. Oddly enough, it was the same “cake” I had in Sweden for my birthday last year.

I miss those times. I really, really do. My last semester of school had left me a stressed, anti-social mess, with a sore throat and a dry cough that finally went away after two (plus) weeks. I would have loved to go out on my birthday with the people I’ve been neglecting, but I was just so tired that all I wanted to do is sleep. I thought it was the whole grain-free thing, but really I was underestimating just how compromised my immune system was with the getting glutened-flu double whammy hullabaloo.

For a while I was still getting headaches, though the FiveLac keeps me from being hungry an hour after eating a full meal. I can wait until after six to eat dinner instead of having to eat right at five. My digestion is doing awesomely, and I think my hormone imbalance is leveling itself. I thought I had to increase my Armour Thyroid to 90-30-90 due to the emergence of previous symptoms (i.e., lower body temperature, cold hands and feet, yellowish palms and fingertips), but after acknowledging the headaches being stress related (and also for thinking too much) they’ve miraculously gone away.

Grain-Free "Granola" Bowl

As far as drastically changing my diet for the long term, Cheryl recommends I get tested for Candida until I officially go down the ACD or SCD route. For now I like being grain-free, white carb-free, and eating one fruit serving a day (most days). I’m noticing that I’m not as hungry, I’m fuller longer, and for the first time this Sunday I was actually hungry.

Interesting, isn’t it? Instead of eating when I was hungry I was eating because I was programmed to eat at a specific time. There is a difference to a hungry stomach and a stomach experiencing discomfort. For as long as I’ve been blogging, I ate to feed the headaches and I ate after eating to feed the “hunger” pains. After this weekend, filled with a family meditation seminar, the headaches went away and I slept. I mean, I actually slept in a way I thought was lost to me. Before the meditation I thought I had been too grounded to let go of all the stress. I am feeling more in my body than I have for two years. My hands are finally warm, and school (and graduation) isn’t so scary anymore.

With two weeks of school left after Thanksgiving weekend, I am definitely looking into doing Kundalini yoga again. Being grounded is at the heart of being healthy. And if I’m going to change the world and nourish the people in it, I have to live by example and nourish myself. Since I've returned to running and working with the munchkins at the community center, I need to be eating more than I have been if I don't want any more zombie nightmares. It's day four of warm hands, so I must be doing something right.

Individual Buttermilk Spoon Breads

After my midterm yesterday, my nervousness had lessened despite having been up since 4:30 a.m. that morning (and up for nearly twenty-one hours by the time I went to sleep). Along with figuring out how to handle my hypothyroid condition as well as keeping my adrenals from getting wonky with my immune system, I am still having issues with falling asleep and staying asleep. Could it be a hormonal imbalance or the inability to manage stress, I do not yet know. What I do know is that I am in a better place because I have a great support system called “Family.”

With all of these health concerns I have to be careful with what I put into my body. While it is true that I love a good cup o’ Joe in the mornings, my caffeine intake stops with that drink of the gods. My daily intake for unrefined sweeteners (i.e., honey, maple syrup, or agave) doesn’t exceed one tablespoon. Obviously I avoid gluten and soy products, and I take special pride in knowing how food affects me. Chocolate is one that I do not eat much of anymore because, even when unsweetened or made with sugars I do eat, I feel a tad “off” afterward. I don’t digest corn properly unless it treated with lime as it is with most masa harina brands. With my hypothyroid and adrenal conditions, I have to take particular care of myself. When I get headaches after I’ve eaten, I know that I am either dehydrated or I haven’t eaten enough. It’s usually a combination of the two.

Even with the headaches, the shakes, and the flare-ups from my adrenal glands, I am extremely grateful that my body tells me immediately when something’s wrong and instantly calms down after I’ve given it what it needs. I am also grateful for being able to discern the symptoms from the illness. I know I’m not sick, but something is keeping me from sleeping and being at peace.

Anxiety and insomnia can really affect your day, but our dinners have been satisfying more than our physiological needs, and spoon bread has become a weekly affair as the result.

Spoon bread hails from the states south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and has a similar consistency to savory puddings like England’s Yorkshire pudding. It’s rich, creamy, and a great side dish to just about anything. When it was Mama Dazz’s turn to cook a few weeks back, I had forgotten just how delicious it was. The spoon breads of our kitchen’s past were made from a box – with cornmeal and wheat – but the Joy of Cooking has quite a few spoon bread recipes that don’t even call for gluten ingredients. I will definitely work with different flavor combinations in the future, and the spoon bread recipe calling for cooked rice or millet looked very interesting…

In all seriousness, though, this recipe is scrumptious as is. Have it for breakfast. Have it for dessert. One bite and you will be hooked for life.    

 

Individual Buttermilk Spoon breads (Adapted from Mama Dazz’s 1975 copy of Joy of Cooking)

1 c. (120 g) Masa harina or white cornmeal
1 1/2 c. (360 ml) Boiling water
1 Egg
1 tbsp. Butter
1 c. (240 ml) Buttermilk
1 tsp. Baking soda
1/4 tsp. Sea salt

Bring the water to a boil and pour it over the masa harina.
Mix well and let the mixture cool slightly.
Preheat the oven to 350ºF and place the greased baking dish(es) in the center.
Beat together the egg, butter, buttermilk, baking soda, and salt and slowly add it to the masa harina.
Pour the batter into the now hot baking dishes (either one 7-inch or four medium-sized ramekins).
Bake for 30 – 40 minutes (or until a nice brown crust has formed on the tops).
Serve with a slab of butter or a drizzle of cream.

Serves 4.

Cottage Pie

Do you ever have those moments where you ended up questioning something, even things in the past you didn’t have control over in the first place? Do you ever think you took the wrong path, whether it is for a career or a college major? My blogging activity waned for five excruciatingly long days, just as my motivation had for school. I kept cooking, and I kept going to school, but when it came time to study the weekly readings or blog my latest recipe, I couldn’t focus, my eyes glazed over, my mind went blank, and all I wanted to do was sleep and hide from the world.

Yesterday all I did was sleep, and I was still exhausted. My inability to sleep more than six hours without the compulsion to get up each night was starting to get to me (zombie-free, thank goodness). I look out from my bedroom window, gazing at the beauty of this clear autumn day, and I can’t help but feel so disconnected from the Cosmos. I don’t feel like I’m part of my own life.

So I’m looking back at my college career, and I think about Steve Jobs and Chris Botti. Both men are geniuses of their respective crafts, Jobs with computers and Botti with his trumpet. Neither one of them completed college (Jobs dropped out and then back “in” college, only taking the classes he found interesting and Botti dropped out to pursue the life of a musician), but look at the impact they’ve made in the world! I started thinking to myself, my minor classes in anthropology were the ones that kept my GPA under a 3.5, and suppose if I decided use those credits to take the classes I found interesting. Where would my GPA be? Where would I be as a person if I took a year off before going to school and traveled? A lot of recent opportunities have come up in the S/CAR program, opportunities that I can’t be part of because this is my last semester as an undergraduate. Maybe this is where it all started, when I found out that future S/CAR majors would have the ability to turn their senior year into their first year of the Masters program. That, and the fact that I still haven’t heard anything about my grades from Sweden transferring, that kept me from filling out my application and, in my mind, hindering my ability to being selected for the upcoming spring.

For the past few weeks I’ve been angry and frustrated and sullen. I was angry because I felt cheated, because I didn’t know what George Mason could have offered me if I hadn’t taken on the anthropology minor. I was frustrated because all the motivation and drive I had was quickly fading, and December was looming closer and closer. And I was sullen, because the only thing that was keeping me from the people that mattered most to me and inhibiting me from doing the things I loved and wanted to do was, well, me.

The nervous breakdown last night, in front of my family and friends, was my turning point. We all get together on a monthly basis to eat, love, meet new people, and discuss new ideas and philosophies. We started talking about the concepts of Wyrd and Ørlög, or fate and its path, as it is known in the Old Anglo-Saxon and Germanic cultures, and despite all my efforts to not break down, the tears fell and I excused myself for the rest of the discussion. It was at that moment I knew I didn’t feel connected to something I felt I should have been, and that my fate and destiny were secrets I wasn’t in on that they might as well not exist. What was I going to do with my life after graduation? What credentials could I possibly have that gave me a doorway to do something great for the world? What was the point of going through higher education when upon graduation I don’t feel prepared for life outside of academia? I am scared, so completely and utterly terrified, and more than once I’ve half-jokingly told people I’m going to become a Buddhist nun just to get away from everything. I began doubting my ability as being a conflict resolution practitioner. I began doubting my ability to cook. I began doubting the things I loved and the things I was good at. I wanted to put the covers over my head and wait until graduation, to not eat or move or talk.

I sat there, petting my uncle’s two dogs while I calmed down, and a couple of people came down to check on me. I told them why I was a blubbering mess with tears in my hair and a heavy heart, spilling out my fears and my reflections. Two of them, brothers and roommates, said they went through the exact same thing before and after they left the military. In fact, most if not all who talked with me said they’re still trying to figure it all out. “Your career doesn’t define you”, my uncle’s girlfriend said, “but that doesn’t mean you won’t end up where you’re supposed to.” I left the get-together in better spirits than I had arrived. I couldn’t have felt more loved or supported, and for that I am grateful for the amazing family I have.

If it hadn’t been for following Mama Dazz’s incentive and looking into conflict resolution as a discipline, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I learned the art of communication, the power of empathy, and have met the unsung heroes of this wonderful world we have. If it hadn’t been for George Mason or the S/CAR program, I wouldn’t have met the people whom I cherish more than anything, including my colleagues in my classes or the love of my life one fateful Halloween party two years ago. And finally, if I hadn’t been part of this program, I wouldn’t have gone to the conference last year and hear Andy Shallal’s speech that inspired me more than he will ever know.

Thinking about this, now, as I write this post, further reiterates what I’ve always known. Everything is connected. There is no such thing as a coincidence. I’ve been disconnected from the Universe because I’d lost my belief in the process. And when you turn your back on that process and distrust it, you become lost and your way is uncertain. You begin to fear the process, and what it might bring. 

When I was first looking into making shepherd’s pie for the family, put into my single serving Pyrex® dishes, I searched for other people’s recipes before I sought to create my own. Maybe I wanted a point of departure so I wouldn’t mess up something I’ve never made before. Or maybe I wanted to walk down a path already traveled. But then, I noticed none of the recipes were what I was going for. I was afraid to pave my own path, even if it was a recipe for cottage pie (and before you say it, there is a difference between the two recipes).

So, despite my revelation (and a bangin’ original recipe), am I still terrified, frustrated, and sullen? A little. Graduation is still coming up. Midterms are still this week. Morri is still a stressed out, hormonal mess. But you can’t change what has already happened, and you shouldn’t worry about the things you can’t control. Sometimes what other people have done before you isn’t exactly what you want to do. And there may be a better way to do what you have in mind.

Everything happens for a reason. Trust in the process. Believe in your fate and that path your fate is taking. So here, have some cottage pie for your journey. I guarantee you’ll feel better.

Cottage Pie

1.5 lbs Lean beef stew meat, chopped into bite-sized chunks

2 carrots (about 5.5 oz), peeled, quartered, and finely chopped

1 White onion (medium), peeled and finely chopped

5.25 oz Petite peas, fresh or frozen

3 tbsp. Olive oil

2 Garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

20 oz Water

1 tsp. Unrefined apple cider vinegar

1 Bay leaf

1 tsp. Thyme

1/4 tsp. Rosemary powder

1/4 tsp. Sage powder

1 tsp. Sea salt

1/2 tsp. Cracked pepper

3 (heaping) tbsp. Potato starch

4 Russet potatoes (about 2.5 lbs), cut into small chunks

2 Garlic cloves, whole

1 oz Salted butter

3 oz Sour cream

1/4 tsp. Sea salt

1/4 tsp. Cracked pepper

In a pressure cooker or large pot, combine the beef, veggies, water, and spices (sans the potato starch, and cook for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Cover the potato chunks and garlic cloves with cold water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil on medium-high heat until tender.

Drain the water and add the butter, sour cream, salt, and pepper, and mash the potatoes until there is a smooth consistency.

When the pressure has subsided in the pressure cooker, create a slurry with the potato starch (about 2 oz water) and add in with the meat and veggies on medium-low heat.

Once the stew thickens, turn off the heat, remove the bay leaf, and pour it into an oven-safe casserole pan.

Top it with the potato mixture and evenly spread it out.

Bake for thirty minutes or more if you want the potato to brown.

Serves 4 – 6 people.

Looking to the Future with a Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

A lot of turning points happened this week. It was a merry-go-round of enlightenment. I went to a resume builder workshop on Tuesday. I roamed a job fair on Wednesday. I facilitated a focus group and partook in a CARmunity meeting on Thursday (As of this week we are officially recognized by George Mason University and the first School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution student organization legitimated by the school!). I went to my chiropractor appointment and walked out with spider technology for my wrist as well as my monthly visit with Cheryl. As for today, I’m writing it down to make sense of it all after coming back with the boyfriend from the pumpkin patch in Delaplane.

Well, that, and also to tell you the joys of pumpkin and my latest smoothie creation.

As I sat in the workshop I couldn’t help but feel so underachieved in comparison to the others. One was in the navy for nearly twenty years and was worried about finding a job. Another worked full time, volunteered often, and managed a 3.97 GPA. Sure, I was part of the BFSI this summer and I helped to create CARmunity with a small group of amazing individuals in both cases. I’ve facilitated talks, simulated conflicts, done extensive research based on theory and practice, attended seminars, and went abroad to Sweden. I have over three years of office experience and a year working in two cafés. I will be working with kids in an after school program part time in the next week or so at a local community center. But after my job fair experience on Wednesday, I feel so unprepared for life after graduation.

I considered grad school, but I missed the deadline for spring due to some mishaps with my grades. True, I have wonderful references, but the Universe seemed to say that I needed to go out in the world and take a break from traditional academia for a semester. So that’s what I’m doing, and I have no idea where I’m going.

The employers at the job fair were mostly computer or business oriented, and one or two maybe had jobs for public relations or human resources. As a CAR major, our blessing and curse is how wide our potentials are. Since my concentration is international (with a little community/organization on the side), I could be a diplomat, run a non-profit, and work for the government. But I left that fair disheartened; no one there was looking for a Morri.

For a brief moment I felt like the world didn’t need what I had to offer, and that there was a lack of belief in my visions and potential. Doubt spread throughout my being like a sickness, a disease that only cooking and talking to other CAR majors experiencing something similar helped put it into perspective for me.

I have this vision, of founding a movement that follows in Busboys & Poets footsteps, a restaurant that promotes to flourish a healthy and cohesive community, one centered on the arts, dialogue, and holistic food. The holistic food part of my aspirations will have a modern take on traditional and comforting foods, that’s allergen friendly, mostly organic and local, and finally (I cannot stress this enough), affordable.

So I keep thinking about that job fair, all those people dressed in three-piece suits with resumes and this air about them I couldn’t relate to, and started thinking I was unqualified for what lay before me. Graduation is closing in, a mere two months away, and I don’t know what to do.

Actually, I do know what I want to do, and what I will be doing. I will get a job helping an amazing organization with sustainable development around food, or something to do with food distribution to those who may not know when their next meal will be, or do field work revolving around food and conflict. In a few years I’ll earn enough money to go to Johnson & Wales or Boston University and learn the art of professional cooking, restaurant management, and hospitality.

I will have my restaurant by the time I’m thirty (or at least something similar). Make no mistake about it, and it will be the most bangin’ thing since gluten-free sliced bread.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Bake, Trial 1

Now, about my love affair with pumpkin.

I’m sure you know that the wondrous pumpkin is incredibly rich in vital flavonoid poly-phenolic antioxidants and vitamins such as leutin, xanthins, and carotene. It is a member of the cururbaceae family along with cucumber, squash, and cantaloupes, and is one of the most popular commercial field crops all over the world.

Oddly enough, I’ve found I’ve been craving pumpkin almost as much as I’ve been craving socca (definitely another post of the multiple variations I’ve done since my sweet and savory carrot socca recipe), and I think it has to do with manganese.

True, the pumpkin seeds (or pepitas) are the part of the pumpkin that has the majority of this trace mineral crucial to – you guessed it – thyroid and adrenal function.

According to The World’s Healthiest Foods website, high-manganese foods:

• Help your body utilize several key nutrients such as biotin, thiamin, ascorbic acid, and choline
• Keep your bones strong and healthy
• Help your body synthesize fatty acids and cholesterol
• Maintain normal blood sugar levels
• Promote optimal function of your thyroid gland
• Maintain the health of your nerves
• Protect your cells from free-radical damage

And although manganese deficiency is rare in humans, the symptoms include (with mine starred):

• Nausea*
• Vomiting
• Poor glucose tolerance (high blood sugar levels)*
• Skin rash*
• Loss of hair color
• Excessive bone loss
• Low cholesterol levels
• Dizziness*
• Hearing loss
• Reproductive system difficulties*

If you think of incorporating more manganese into your diet, consider using these gluten free food sources:

Excellent sources of manganese include flaxseed, mustard greens, kale, chard, raspberries, pineapple, romaine lettuce, spinach, collard greens, turnip greens, kale, maple syrup, molasses, garlic, grapes, summer squash, strawberries, oats, green beans, brown rice, garbanzo beans, ground cloves, cinnamon, thyme, peppermint, and turmeric.

Very good sources of manganese include pumpkin seeds, leeks, tofu, broccoli, beets, and tempeh.

Good sources of manganese include cucumber, peanuts, millet, figs, bananas, kiwifruit, carrots and black beans.

I have been eating pumpkin and socca almost every day and literally cannot get enough of either. Even more interesting is that most of my favorite foods and spices are listed above. Anyway, here, have a piece of pie in a glass.

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

8.6 oz (about 1 c.) Canned pumpkin
1 Banana, frozen (or fresh) and halved
4 oz Carrot juice
4 oz Unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1/4 tsp. Cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg

Place all of the ingredients into the blender and mix until thoroughly combined.

Serves 1, but can easily be multiplied to the servings you need.