Ah say... WHAT?

"WHAT?!" That was exactly the words out of our mouths.

Let me explain. My husband's family celebrates each person's birthday by going out to the favorite restaurant of that person who's birthday it is. It is always a really nice and fun time (I got particularly lucky with the in-laws). We eat, open gifts, eat cake and catch up on what is new or not.

It's February 15th, my nephew Anthony's birthday, we meet at a place called Bob's Burgers and Brews a new dining establishment in town. There are 14 people in our party and because we were so large the hostess seated us in an area made for such groups. There also happened to be another large group of people dining in that area as well and in their party was one ueber cutie patootie baby boy.

Throughout the evening we never really paid much attention to the table next to us but as the evening progressed the baby started to get a little vocal. My sis-in-law Chrissy and I looked back once or twice because we weren't sure if he was "talking" or fussing. She and I commented quietly that he probably just wanted to be picked up and felt bad for the little guy and once someone did he was fine. We weren't annoyed or irritated, really, no one paid much attention, in fact, we were busy talking and eating and celebrating that when the other table left we didn't even notice. So it came as a ginormous surprise after we asked for our checks when our server came back and stated that our dining neighbors paid our entire check, ALL 14 OF US. The waitress said "They felt bad for the baby screaming and wanted to apologize by paying for your dinners!"

That brings us to the beginning of this post...

"WHAT?"

Oh my god! The baby wasn't screaming, fussy maybe a bit, but not annoyingly fussy and like I said when someone picked him up he quieted down.

Talk about over the top GENEROUS!

A lesson for sure!

There are blindingly good people out there who do good things (and in our case was totally unnecessary but nevertheless it is humbly appreciated) and that in and of itself requires a moment of pause and staunch consideration on how one could be more aware and definitely find ways to do something like minded to PAY IT FORWARD. Necessary or not lifting someones spirit by doing something generous and thoughtful is, in my mind, the epitome of a beautiful and kind soul.

So this post I dedicate to the wonderfully thoughtful dining room companions and I say THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I hope I can find a way to honor your generosity and pay it forward in some similar and grand way!

O Magazine Article: 5 Things Veganist Author Kathy Freston Knows for Sure

Wellness expert and best-selling author Kathy Freston shares the secrets to compassionate, mindful eating.
http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Wellness-Expert-Kathy-Freston-on-Veganism-and-Mindful-Eating

I really like what Kathy says in this article. I know I want to eat healthier and embrace a vegan-ish lifestyle and the 'tips' she suggests here make me believe that I can succeed!

I hope that some of what is in the link can perhaps inspire you to start small and try a few vegan or even vegetarian dishes once a week. I know I plan on trying to veganize a lunch and dinner. I have breakfast covered as I eat Kashi cereals and don't drink cow's milk anymore. I began drinking soy milk in 2006 in my Starbucks lattes and since then the transition has been a fairly easy one. However since I have been hearing that soy milk isn't super healthy for you on a regular basis I decided I would try other alternatives like Almond milk or Coconut milk. I really liked the Coconut milk but noticed that it had a high saturated fat percentage so I chose to try Rice milk and WOW this is awesome! In my cereal, in my morning latte and even with dinner, just delicious! I just hope my adventure into veganism is as fruitful and fun as my moo replacement journey!

Here is a link to Oprah's Website that has a sample weekly menu from Kathy's book. I love the meal plans they sound delicious and easy. I'll be sure to let you know how some of them go!

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Week-One-Kathy-Frestons-Vegan-Menu-Plan

Luck to you and to me on the quest to healthy conscious eating!

Meat or not to meat? That is the question!

Recently I watched an episode of Oprah from her Season 25. It's her last as many may know, and I wanted to make sure I was there to watch her out do the years previous as her talk show came to an end. Any ways,  the show was about how Oprah and 378 of her staff members went Vegan for a week. WOW! That's huge.

I totally recommend finding this particular episode on NBC.com and watching it for yourself. Talk about becoming more consciously aware! As we all know Oprah is about growing, evolving, becoming better and doing better. As I watched and learned so many things that her guests and she herself said resonated for me. I decided I wanted to embrace a Vegan-ish lifestyle. My sister, Brooke, has been embracing a more healthy lifestyle, one with more whole foods, organic and processed free. And everyone knows that you succeed with support and people who carry the same overall goals. So. Why not! Why not incorporate better eating habits. Break the cycle my grandmother and mother started. Lead by example. I mean I am a quasi-mom now with a young impressionable little girl to think of, right? Right!

Within the last few years I've found that I am already leaning toward a more vegetarian lifestyle when I consciously think about it which is all together quite good, but my husband is all carnivore and that poses some challenges, but not too many thankfully. As a kid I grew up eating meat and seafood. It was a common staple in our daily diet. My dad would hunt and fish and we generally ate what was brought home. That particular way of eating is the epitome of organic of course before "organic" became a fashionable health style. Nevertheless when these forms of food were not available there was the grocery store and the 70's and 80's style of cooking my mother embraced so well. In her  house there wasn't a large variety of wholesome healthy dinners as we think of the term today. I mainly remember fried chicken and hamburger being served regularly. As a result my knowledge of variety and healthy was severely lacking. As I gained a family of my own I found I had a lot to learn about food and cooking and basically everything.

A few years back I found the book called "Skinny Bitch". Yea this book provided a significant shift in consciousness about the beef and poultry industries. I knew I wasn't ready to completely give up meat, and that I couldn't go vegan so I would try vegetarian. I was already sort of doing that anyways as Garrett informed me and he was surprisingly supportive so long as I didn't expect him to convert. He still craved "red meat" of course regardless of how much white meat we tried to incorporate in its place!  I loved that he didn't mind plus throughout our marriage so far I had managed  to shift his eating habits a bit so why couldn't I shift mine a tad more. That was six years ago when I attempted to change the way I ate.

It didn't last sadly enough. I think money played a big part and when you don't have a lot and healthy food is more expensive and you don't know how to shop in a way that enables you to buy healthy for a cheap budget you can tend to fall off the wagon. Yup that was me. Dammit!

That brings us to today. As I have said before, I think, I love love love food! But I want to be more healthy and be an example for Lili. And after watching Oprah's show doubly so! I really liked what Kathy Freston, the woman who helped launch this massive undertaking at Oprah's studio and author of the book 'Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World'. She said to take it slow. Just change one or two things. That her husband was Vegan-ish. Meaning at home he ate vegan like she, but still allowed himself non-vegan foods when out on business lunches or dinners if he so inclined. Kathy also said in her book that there were several vegan dishes that were a success and several that weren't; that is was all about finding what you like and going from there, essentially. (I paraphrased there) For me this says a lot. Most especially coming from someone who is vegan. After that episode I found myself at the Barnes and Nobel looking at Kathy's book and several great vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. And let me just say I was impressed. Some of these dishes were incredible! And filled with foods I loved! So many possibilities. And desserts oh yeah! Yum. Yum. Yum. You'd all be surprised!

Wow, becoming Vegan-ish is possible. It is all about planning and a budget. I can do that! Yeah! I already plan out weekly dinners and work within an allotted food budget; I've come so far. Hee hee. Plus I bet I could work in a vegan dish or two and how much you wanna bet Garrett or anyone wouldn't be able to tell the difference!  That's what I loved about some of the recipes I've found, they seem that good! I can't wait to try a few dishes and share their success or failure with you. So I ask you to "Wish me luck" on my evolution to become a better more healthy me! Go Vegan-ish!

Sisters!

My sister Brooke & I

I am proud to say this, my sister is my BEST friend. And I wouldn't have it any other way! I am so glad to be able to profess such a statement.

When I was younger I always hoped I would and could one day say she is not only my sister but also my friend. Sadly however there is an age difference that prevented us from truly knowing one another as we were growing up. An almost 7 year age gap can pose significant complications. Plus I being the eldest and she being the youngest we were raised differently and viewed the world in profoundly differing ways.

Yet in spite of the obstacles we faced in our lives now as grown adults we have slowly learned how to truly know each other and establish a bond, one I always envied with other women and their sister(s), of our very own. HOORAY!

My sister is one of the funniest women I know, she can make me laugh like nothing else and despite her complicated and turbulent life she still finds a way to smile and help you smile with her. She is beyond boundaries and balls to the wall unpredictable. Qualities I simply love in her! She is finding herself and doing what she can to evolve past our broken and bruised childhood into an amazing person aware and conscious of the world around her and her place in it.

I never really thought about sexual orientation and all the issues that people face today, but I am extremely impressed with her decision and how proud I am of her for coming out and declaring herself a Lesbian. I feel like she's continuing to grow and evolve into her true self even more now that she's embraced that aspect of her life and herself. It's as if a piece of the puzzle finally fit without force or fancy maneuvering. My sister is gay. It just feels right. I see her more happy and free than ever before. It's been a long time coming and I think she is ready for the world and all it has to offer her.

I look forward to seeing all she has to share with me and with those who's lives she has the opportunity to touch. Her positivity and zen mentality are infectious! Her view and her words are beautiful. I never knew how poetic and well written her voice could be and I am so glad that I can appreciate it all. I don't think I could have when I was younger. Age definitely helps, for sure!

So I dedicate this to my sister, Brooke. I love you my lil'zenacious B!
I got the luck of the draw when you were born and wouldn't change a thing! Thank you for knowing and understanding me sometimes better than I do myself! And I thank the stars above I have you as a constant in my life.

Love ya!

Food Glorious *Everyday* Food

I love love love food! As I have gotten older my palette has matured and evolved right along with me. When I first moved out and lived on my own I dabbled here and there but mostly I just brought home food from wherever I was a waitress. When I began living with Garrett, we had a deal I cooked breakfast (because I was awesome at it and created great eats) and he had dinner as he loved to dabble and create tasty yummies off the top of his head. As our relationship grew so did our tastes and my desire to expand our hum-drum routine of same'ol same'ol. I started to embrace the role of wife and cook dinners more often, especially when I stopped waiting tables and became a full-time student. I found I was home in the evenings on a regular basis and maybe I could have a nice hot meal ready when Garrett got home from a long day. 

So began my journey into becoming a novice cook. I followed recipes to the letter, never deviating or sprucing it up as Garrett might say. Plus all Garrett ever wanted was beef and more beef. Now don't get me wrong a juicy burger or steak is always in my repertoire but I loved all the different things you could do with chicken and thankfully Garrett was willing to go with my chicken flow. At the time a girlfriend of mine was a far more creative cook, her meals were gorgeous, delicious, and healthy. This inspired me to venture out a bit more. I found lots of great cookbooks and recipes to try out, but sometimes they just required too many things, staples and other items we just couldn't quite afford during that time. That's when my girlfriend found Martha Stewart's Everyday Food Magazine. I have the first volume too BTW. The meals were awesome, we had a great time cooking dinners together for our men! And so my cooking experience graduated from novice to slightly better.

As the years have passed I have become more aware of all the great dishes out there. I particularly enjoyed the Food Network and learned a lot. Watching the chefs do a guesstimate measurement with a pinch here, a dash there or whatever the recipe called for they rarely used a utensil to measure. I loved it, it was all about taste and using your best judgement for what was needed to make the dish great! But my cooking was always a bit hindered by the size of my kitchens. Living in apartments in the burbs of Seattle were small and kitchens likewise. So when Garrett and I moved back to our hometown I finally gained a kitchen of reputable size, one where the two of us could cook together and not get in each others way!




Turkey Chili in Tortilla Cups
Everyday Food Magazine
#79 p.84

  That alone inspired me to embrace my new home, my new kitchen, my new role as a quasi-mom and cook nightly delights! I found that having a plan helped enormously. Create a weekly dinner menu and shop with ease from there. Everyday Foods became my inspiration. Our choices of dinning delights expanded by leaps and bounds. I could master anything in my kitchen! For example just this evening we had Turkey Chili in Tortilla Cups and oh my oh my. I am never buying canned chili again. Lili loved it, Garrett even he loved it. Yes my poor hubby is sick with a nasty chest cold, high temperature and still raved about it.

I have found a new appreciation for food and cooking and the ability to tweak a recipe to become your own. For example in volume # 79 there is a Mini Cheeseburger recipe that I tweaked into Mini Turkey Burgers with Cheese. OMG are these just amazing. In another volume I found a recipe for Asian Turkey Meatballs with Carrot Rice and WOW, spicy and light yet filling. If it wasn't for that specific recipe I never would have had the courage to attempt my own regular turkey meatballs to go with my from scratch spaghetti sauce. No more jarred stuff for us, nope! I create my own sauce. And interestingly enough its never the same twice, but always just as good as the first! After Garrett had these two completely different types of turkey meatballs he was in agreement, we'd stop buying ground beef and continue to go with ground turkey from that point on! Yeah for healthy eats! My man has come such a long way and I am so proud, MR. I ONLY EAT RED MEAT! *tee-hee-hee*

One thing I have always loved about my hubby and our marriage is our joined love of really good food and that Garrett has never been afraid to venture out with me in trying something different. The two of us have come up with some great dishes just from not wanting to buy it or thinking we could do it better. One night we were grocery shopping for dinner and found in the meat display a gourmet ground beef with peppers and cheese. Garrett wasn't willing to pay the price per pound so we bought some plain beef and different fixings to concoct our version of a gourmet burger. And yes it was the most delicious burger I had ever had at home! Mushrooms, bell pepper, feta or blue cheese crumbles with an onion bun or whole wheat, lettuce, onion, jalapeno ranch, and whatever else sounded good. The next weekend we invited some friends over to try our new dish and yup it was a hit.

That story is just one of many I am finding myself being able to tell about my marriage! And just one of the many reasons I find myself falling in love over and over again with my man and with food. Is that too gushy for you? Sorry. But it's true. Our common love of food glorious *everyday* food has helped keep our marriage fun and fresh!

Thank you Martha Stewart and your kick arse magazine! I have found more ways to broaden our dinning experiences thanks to your ideas and suggestions, not to mention I have become a pretty darn good cook in the process!