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Posts from the ‘Baking’ Category

May 20

Muffin Monday: Let’s Make a Date


I know so many young adult men who are single and I keep wondering why.  Before you start whistling the kettle that my pot is calling black, I’m not going to yenta any of these friends unless they ask for it.  As president of the “single and happy about it” club I fully respect those loud and proud in their relationship status…but I know not all of them are happy about it.  Yet despite being able to say they want something more, they don’t seem to know how to go about doing it.    Guys don’t think it’s just you either.  It’s 2013 and plenty of ladies can be the ones to initiate a date—and we know it.  So ladies get to share in the horror of the asking too and it’s no less terrifying to be a girl in that situation I promise you.

The process of initiating a first date can be intimidating.  Does the mere thought of asking a girl out give you sweaty palms and heart palpitations?  Are you struggling with just the right, witty first line to impress her?  Are you reading every body signal and analyzing if her thanks for picking up the pencil she dropped is a sign that she’s ready to have babies with you?  Well STOP IT.  STOP IT RIGHT NOW.

It’s not that complicated.  Trust me.  You aren’t going to find some magical pick up line that makes her love you forever and ever and ever…. Sure there are those amazing stories from romantic comedies that make the story of “how I met your mother” seem legend….  But they aren’t real and they aren’t realistic either.  I promise you that no girl (I can’t speak on behalf of guys but I imagine this hold true with them) will think any less of this opening line:

“Hi, I’m ____.  I’ve seen you around work/the building/wherever and wanted to finally introduce myself.”

Now what?  Now you let her introduce herself.  If she doesn’t walk away, you move on to the second part of the process.

“It’s nice to meet you her name.  I was wondering if you were available at all for coffee or maybe even dinner sometime?”

That’s it.  That’s all it will take if the object of your affection, hereto known as the OoA, is at all interested in going out with you.  You don’t need to offer any sort of compliment—you can but it’s not needed and things like “you have the most beautiful eyes” can sound cheesy depending on the girl or the delivery.  I promise you, you don’t need it.  Save the compliments for the date if it’s received.  That’s when you want to use them.   Trust me you aren’t going to change her mind for a date by telling her she looks pretty; the mere fact that you are asking her out pretty much set the expectation that you find her attractive.  Now there are some girls who will love a huge romantic gesture, this is true, but to others it can scare them off.  If you keep it simple, stupid, you don’t run into any risk of seeming too…well too anything.  Too interested, too apathetic, too boring.  Simple is good.  Save the complexity for the date.

Which brings me to the most crucial part of the asking out: setting the date.  Don’t leave it up in the air.   Be prepared with a date, a place and a time.  Offer these up but be flexible for her schedule or dietary preferences.  “I know a great place for coffee.  How about Tuesday at 6?” and then let her respond and beyond all be flexible if she suggests some-when or somewhere else.  Unless it’s a local skinhead bar.  Then run away.

But Olivia what about if they say no?  How do I handle that kind of rejection?  *Sigh*  Okay I’m going to try to explain this without going past a second page.

“We make time for the things that are important to us.”

There’s so much truth in such a simple little statement like that.  Right now my life priorities are still: Family, Work, Health, Passions and Friends…followed by everything else.  Notice what’s not on there?  Funny business aka romantic interludes.  The fact that I’m not willing to make time is a good indicator of how serious I am about it—and that’s not at all.  So guys and gals, if the object of your affections can’t be tied down to a time and a place…well then this person just isn’t that invested and you shouldn’t waste too much time on it either.  But don’t take it personally and don’t think it means there’s something wrong with you.  Just let it be.  Make a second attempt to connect if she doesn’t respond to your initial text or phone call about the date–she may have accepted tenuously but just has been too busy to follow up.  That being said if she just can’t commit to it on a third try just let it go because as the book title says “He/She’s just not that into you” and it probably has absolutely nothing to do with you.  The worst thing is to send a barrage of messages, to get too personal, to get rambly….  Do NOT send a message about your past relationships or how eager you are.  Just be simple, flexible and reserved.  When you throw too much emotion at someone whose middle name you don’t even know…they’re gonna bolt.  You might ask out 100 people and get 1 positive response back and that’s okay because I’m telling you that of those 99 rejections, 99% of them have nothing to do with you.  One might.  Maybe she saw you picking your nose or getting into a parking lot fight, I don’t know, I’m just playing the odds here.

I mean I’m not dismissing offers for any reason to do with the date-asker-outer.  It has nothing to do with appearances, personality or any aspect of their physical presence.  I just can’t even fathom making the time to emotionally invest in something that intense and I have so many things to juggle…I can’t have the responsibility of handling someone else’s emotions on that level.   Your OoA (Object of Affection) might have too much on their plate for romance.  Or you might a gross slob.  Look in the mirror and get real and we’ll talk about what to do if you ARE in fact kind of a slob on another day.

In the meantime here’s a surefire way to get some dates into your day honey-muffin.  Bwahahaha segue?  CHECK!

Honey Date Muffins

An Olivia Original Read more

May 7

Think Thin Tuesday: Vegan Rice Crisp-easies

Do you burn potatoes in the microwave?  Do you know the difference between a rolling boil and a simmer?  Does even the act of cracking and separating an egg mystify you?  Is your idea of making breakfast putting the cereal box next to the milk?  Don’t worry.  It’s not your fault.  When women left the kitchen and entered the workforce we got fat, lazy and lost generations of cultural kitchen knowledge.

No I’m not currently the victim of an alien abduction.  I don’t actually mean to blame this epidemic of culinary ignorance on moms; certainly not with mother’s day approaching.  I once had a professor who blamed our overweight, convenience food culture on women’s lib.  This wasn’t a soapbox about forcing women back into the role of housewife mind you.  He was just trying to grab our attention and demonstrate how a shift in family structure created the opportunity for the fast food market, also known as the fat food market, to gain a stronghold.  Prior to the 40’s, women stayed at home and family meals were a daily job.  Food was made from scratch, at home, and generally was more nutritious as a result.  It wasn’t a matter of grabbing a box of processed junk from the drive thru window while juggling teleconference calls.    Don’t go rushing off thinking your shrink is right and that all your problems are rooted with dear old mom.  There’s no reason Dad can’t stay at home instead and make those meals for the kidlets.  Sadly in today’s world having either parent out of the workforce just isn’t really a possibility even when/if a parent wants to.

As a result we’ve got a whole generation to whom seeing Mom or Dad in the kitchen is an anomaly—and as a result we’ve got kids who aren’t learning how to cook at all.  Heck even stay-at-home moms are so busy with their kids overloaded schedules that cooking is still likely to fall by the wayside when we have so many convenient options for pre-made meals.  It’s all about prioritizing and if someone else can do it then delegate, delegate, delegate…right?

Never let it be said that I don’t try to accommodate even the busiest of lifestyles.  I have stretched myself even thinner than usual so I definitely understand the need for something easy to make that takes little time, little effort and little cleanup.  One party dessert popular amongst soccer moms for this reason is an American Classic: the Rice Krispy Treat.  You can make these with almost no kitchen training whatsoever.  The hardest part is melting the marshmallows and this can be done in a microwave—no stove needed!  They are also traditionally pretty low in calories and thus folks like them as a more diet friendly dessert.  The only problem?

Diet food that’s low on calories is usually low on nutrition too.  That’s because foods high in nutrition usually package those vitamins to be absorbed by our bodies—meaning fats or sugars.  My theory is that dieting isn’t really worth it when the calories you’re consuming are totally empty.  Since Rice Krispies are really just fat, sugar and empty carbohydrates I wondered: could I make these slightly healthier at all to justify them as a diet dessert?

The first step was to eliminate the “Crispy Rice” of a certain name brand cereal well all grew up snapping along with.  Instead of using fried bits of white rice, high in fat and low in nutrition, I went for air puffed brown rice instead.  You can buy for cheap at Whole Foods.  This substitution reduced the fat content of each square by 60% and introduced some fiber.  The benefit of airpuffing also means that the brown rice retains most of the vitamins and minerals; one cup has 1/3 of your daily B vitamins. I actually made these during my vegan week so in addition to being low calorie, gluten free they are also totally vegan…and yet still manage to taste like what they are.  Thus instead of using butter I used a flax based butter substitute which cut the calories from fat AND reduced the saturated fats.  As for the marshmallows…well you can’t replace that sugar but if this were 100% healthy I don’t think I could call it a proper dessert right?  Mine do have a little more sugar probably because of the brand of marshmallow but since they also have more B vitamins, zinc, potassium, fiber and less fat and fewer calories…I think I will let that slide.

One last tip: if you aren’t worried about gluten free try using puffed whole wheat, puffed kamut grains or puffed barley instead.  You’ll get even more vitamins and fiber from those!

Vegan Rice Krispeasies

An Olivia Original

  • 6 cups puffed brown rice cereal
  • 1 bag of vegan marshmallows (I used Dandies)
  • 3 Tbsp Smartbalance with Flax (this product does contain some soy)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract or any flavored extract you like

Prep a 13×9 inch cake pan with lining or a small rubdown with buttery spread.

In a microwave safe bowl heat your marshmallows and butter substitute on high.  Watch these carefully and stop periodically to stir and continue heating.  Once entirely smooth remove from the microwave.  Stir in the extract if you want to add a little oomph of flavor to these treats.

Mix the puffed brown rice cereal into the melted marshmallows. Spread into your prepped pan and let cool for at least 1 hour before slicing and serving.

Vegan Rice Krispeasies: (1 serving – 12 total) 128 calories | 1g Fat (<0.5g Saturated) | 28 carbohydrates (17g sugar) | 1g protein

TraditionalL1 serving – 12 total) 140 calories | 4g Fat (2.5g Saturated) | 28g carbohydrates (14 sugar) | 1g protein

May 6

Muffin Mondays: Money, Religion and Politics – The three Tablueberries

Question from reading facebook last night: Are we, that great high school essay “we” meaning “society”, getting smarter or just louder about politics?

I know many of us grew up with the phrase “You don’t discuss money, religion or politics” thrown about in reference to topics of polite conversation.  I tend to follow this rule as best as I can since it has some validity—especially in the workplace or a dinner party.  I find it’s usually good not to engage in a conversation on these topics with that dirty man wearing the tinfoil hat on my street corner.  Doesn’t he know it’s rude to shout at strangers about government?  Where are your societal standards of dignity man!

On the internet though…man have we ever abandoned this axiom of polite conversation.  As we should—after all these things DO need to be discussed…somewhere.  You don’t get political action if everyone is too polite to talk about it.  The internet, outlets like facebook especially, provides us with a chance to discuss these things but also turn it off and walk away.  You can close a forum with a particularly nasty character in it.  You can’t move offices everytime you get into it with a coworker.  Yet the internet, facebook especially, is littered with misinformation.  I get frustrated when memes proliferate on newsfeeds that are invalid—misattributed quotes, ignorant assumptions or loud proclamations based upon faulty information.

Sometimes I really wonder if this magical interwebs is making us better voters or just louder whiners.  No one on either side of the aisle denies that our political system currently is a mess.  We’ve got a gaggle of elected officials who don’t seem to be worth a damn and they are running us into the ground.  You might disagree about which side they are on but republicans and democrats all in general seem to be pretty dissatisfied with something.  United we stand…in our disgust.  But why? I mean we elect these officials—the power is theoretically in our hands.  Why is this happening?

On my more cynical nights, of which there are many, I come circling back to one thought: People don’t actually know a damn thing about their government anymore.  Healthcare, Guns, Taxes, Marriage…we all have our emotional responses to these issues and most of the posts I see on facebook are precisely that: emotion based declarations.  No one actually examines the issue through the scope of how our government works.  Take the very powerfully, emotionally charged issue of gun control—most reactions and demands for legislation are based entirely off the result of tragedies or regional upbringing.

There’s another phrase that I think of on the topic of politics.  Lesser known and often misattributed (thanks facebook) to President Lincoln: “Every country has the government it deserves.”  Lincoln didn’t say that—in fact it came from a French lawyer by the name of Joseph de Maistre—who supported monarchy over democracy by the way.  Still the quote often times seems valid.  Ultimately we seem to be getting what we ask for.  How many of our politicians have actually read the constitution?  Great question.  Here’s another one: how many voters have actually read the constitution?

I am not trying to belittle anyone when I ask that.  I just think it’s a valid question.  We want our politicians to be smarter, to be more responsible and to actually act in line with how our government is supposed to work.  I ask you how do we get better politicians?  By becoming better voters.  We won’t get the government we want if we don’t inform ourselves.  I know some highly opinionated people who engage in political discourse quite frequently who never seem to know their 4th amendment from their 5th; who don’t know that the issue of a federal bank was largely debated from the founding of the government; who don’t know the origins of the income tax.  Understanding the basis of our government, why it operates the way it does, dramatically alters the scope of how we should legislate.  If we want our politicians to know what they are talking about, we need to know what they are talking about not take them on their word.

It seems that most Americans born in this country would fail the civics test that foreigners have to pass to be naturalized, voting citizens.  I don’t think that being born in this country makes you inherently wiser about its political system.  Let me ask you these five questions–can you honestly answer them?  Answers can be found if highlight the hidden text except for the 1st question as that’s state specific….

  1. Name your State US Representative
  2. How many amendments are there currently to the US Constitution?  Answer: 27
  3. How many justices are on the US Supreme Court? Answer: 9
  4. When was the US Constitution written? Answer: 1787 –
  5. How long do we elect a US Senator for? Answer: 6 years

Why do these kinds of questions matter?  Well take number 4 as an example.  The revolution was fought and won between 1774-1776.  Knowing when the constitution was written and/or ratified (hint: not immediately after) would raise other questions that make you an informed voter.  How did we govern ourselves between those years?  What prompted the content of our constitution–what was the intent of the framers?  Knowing this helps to guide us in drafting new legislation and understanding how it should be written in order to work within the specific architecture of our political system.

The only way to make our politicians begin to legislate with more wisdom and less rhetoric is if we as voters become more demanding and more educated.  So sometimes on my more cynical days I wonder what would happen if the first 10 boxes you had to check on a ballot were actually a mini-civics test.  Fail the test and your vote doesn’t count.  Interestingly enough there isn’t anything in the constitution that says we can’t do this…I’m not saying we should and I’m aware how problematic this would be.  We would wind up creating a class structure since lower classes are more likely to be less educated yadda yadda yadda.  I’m only positing this as a thought born out of frustration.  And now I can never run for office because the media will take this musing thought experiment and turn it into a headline reading “Congressional candidate thinks only the rich should vote.”  I should probably make political discussion entirely taboo on this blog and not drive you all away with these kinds of radical thoughts.

How about something radical in the kitchen instead?  I wanted to reinvent the blueberry muffin recently and man oh man did this recipe turn out amazing.  The muffins are a deep, mahogany color thanks to my inspiration to use date syrup as a sweetener.  I also wanted to find a new, unusual but complimentary flavor for the blueberries.  I was running a mental run-through of all the spices I know and one screamed out at me: anise.  The vaguely licorice flavor is really nice with blueberries and can stand up to the stronger flavor of the date syrup.  I was quite pleased.  Finally the use of sour cream in the batter makes these really moist, springy and tender to eat.  I might not be able to get a better brand of politician but I definitely got a better blueberry muffin.

Anise Blueberry Muffins

An Olivia Original – makes 18 muffins Read more

May 1

2 Comments

Sweetening my Salty Tongue

I had a bit of an epiphany the other day—when I realized that I was guilty of being a total retard insensitive creep.

Forget the sailors, I curse with the vigor and frequency of a godless pirate.  I try to minimize it as much as possible and have incorporated many useful stand-ins to my language thanks to the cleverness of scifi shows I love.  Frak, Frick, Frell…all those satisfying F’s and hard k sounds that are just so satisfying to an angry tongue.  I’ve been known to use sexual organs as expletive remarks as well—usually modified to make them grotesque rather than anatomical.  Fuck Cock Balls was a refrain I used pretty heavily at one point, much to my mother’s dismay.  I’m far from angelic when it comes to how I choose to express my frustration.

Even so I always refrained from using racial slurs or references to homosexuality as part of my salty repertoire.  For my generation avoiding some of the more notorious and long-standing racial slurs has been taught from birth.  We know better than to use Huck Finn language, the terms our grandparents will still use to our horror, but I was always frustrated by the acceptance of terms like “Gay” and “Fag” as a young child.  I would lecture my peers, practically handing out S.P.E.W. badges in my more righteous moments, and even refused to associate with kids who didn’t understand why it was wrong.

This is why, when I finally had a moment where it clicked, I was both elevated and horrified by my understanding that the word retard needs to be evicted from my vocabulary.

This issue is hardly new and trendy—I’m late to the party.  When I first became aware of the seeming embargo on the word “retard” I will admit I thought it was ridiculous.  After all the literal meaning of the term is “Delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment.”  After all a delay in say an insurance certificate could be said to retard the progression of your study start up.  That’s a valid use of the dictionary definition of the term.  The problem is that we don’t use this word in that manner 99% of the time.  Most of the time we use the word retard to describe people who are developmentally disabled.  Again at the inception of the use, it was a simple medical term.  You can’t go around not-defining people purely because the medical condition you are defining is debilitating can you?  No so I dismissed the concept of being insulted by this word as oversensitive poppycock.

Then one day I went to describe someone as a retard and I stopped myself.  I realized that what I was about to do was equate someone born with a genuine mental disability to someone who was getting on my nerves for being willfully ignorant.  A much better descriptor by the way and one that I find myself using a lot now.  Willfully ignorant.  But that got me to thinking…the reason I objected so strongly in my youth to the term “gay” was that it had been commandeered by our culture to be a word that meant inferior, stupid and unworthy.  Hadn’t we done the same thing to retard?  True or false: we primarily use this term, which describes a medical minority, to also mean lame, stupid, ineffective, uncool and not worth our time?  So I was okay making the same kind of analogy that I so strongly objected to with regards to homosexuals for another group who similar to my gay friends, were just born different than me?   When I used “retard” as an insult, I was in effect attempting to insult a person/thing by comparing it to mentally disabled people and in the process also insulting all of them as well.  I was implying that being mentally disabled was wrong and using that to attack others.  I was belittling people via association and insulting all parties in the process.  I am disgusted with myself for taking so long to realize it. Call it an opening of the third eye if you will.  Call it divine intervention.  Call it inception.  I don’t know what it was but I suddenly realized that my insistence upon using this word, after knowing it offended some people, was wrong.

I’m not about to stop cursing anytime soon.  I find it too cathartic.  Maybe I’ll have an epiphany about that sometime in the future.  I can’t make any promises.  I also am not going to stop thinking that shallow, lazy and willfully ignorant people are annoying.  I simply cannot abide useless people. I will stop using the word retard in a manner that implies someone born with an intellectual disability is useless.  There are those born disadvantaged and those who simply choose not to use the healthy brains they were given.  When so many in the handicapped community work to overcome the obstacles they were given, not only was I being insulting but I was being inaccurate in using “retard” to describe someone who chooses to be lazy.  The only thing I hate more than being an insensitive jerk is being a wrong, insensitive jerk.  I was wrong to lower those with born mental disadvantages to be on the same level as creeps and lazy assholes.  When I saw it from that perspective, I was appalled at myself.

I am genuinely and sincerely sorry it took me so long.  I am also sorry for any slip-ups I may have in the future.  I think part of the reason people resist this kind of change is because removing a word from our language is hard but not everything worth doing is ever easy, is it?   With that in mind, how about an easy recipe to help with the hard journey to sweeten that salty tongue?  Maybe a Salted Caramel Swirl Cheesecake would help?

It totally would.

Salty Sailor Caramel Cheesecake

An Olivia Original Read more

Apr 29

2 Comments

Muffin Monday: Attracting seedy attention

I just got back from a work trip to exotic Fresno where I was harassed so severely by two men at my hotel that I actually complained and got them kicked out of their rooms.  Their behavior, which included asking to take my picture and following me in a parking lot, was beyond the level of good taste.  While what happened was unquestionably inappropriate, got me to thinking about times where this kind of behavior is tempered and the disconnect between what men think is okay and what women do not want to experience.  So menfolk we need to have a little chat.

This doesn’t pertain to all of you, or even most of you, directly but I think you all need to be made aware of this so you can understand women and stop this behavior when you see it.  Now I will make small talk when I’m in a good mood with my cashier or the cab driver.  I know that it breaks up the monotony of the day in the service industry to have someone friendly engage you for even a few minutes.  I’ve been there.  I had my high school stint as a worker bee at Mervyn’s.  But if there is a woman you are ringing up, or helping, or in a car with who is clearly having a bad day–leave her the frak alone.  Seriously.  Don’t make it your job to cheer her up because if she’s anything like me she really, really doesn’t want you to.  In fact having a strange male approach me when I’m in that mood doesn’t help me feel better–it puts me on edge.

Often I will be walking down the street after having a bad day, and I wear my heart on my sleeve I admit it, and a man will tell me to smile.  “Smile!  You’ll be so much prettier if you smile.”  – “Would you smile for me?” — “Cheer up!  Smile!”  This does not make me feel good.  This does not make me feel safe.  What’s more you don’t have any right to demand that I be “prettier” or happy all the time.  I do not know of a single woman who has ever done this to a complete strange man as he passes her by on the street.  You know why?  It’s not our place to tell you how to feel or express those feelings.  It is also not my job or duty to be pretty for you.

You have no right to demand that the women all around you in the world always be happy and smiling.  Even if your intention is to cheer us up, a great intention I’ll admit, you have no right.  I get to be upset or tired or sad or angry if I want to.  I’m human damn it and I have a right to the range of emotions that don’t make me some shiny, plastic flower in your garden.  So let me be.  Especially if you are someone I don’t know stopping me on the street.  If I’m having a bad day and I’m feeling out of sorts, I’m going to engage in a fight or flight panic when you do this.  I’m going to immediately have to question your intentions and get ready to protect myself.  So even if you aren’t in any way threatening, you are eliciting the exact opposite response from me that you intend to.  Because sometimes I do have to get ready to protect myself like last night.

I pulled into the hotel and it was late.  I was tired.  I don’t particularly enjoy driving for more than an hour at a time.  I get antsy.  I like to move.  I don’t like being cramped in a car having to worry about drivers cutting across 4 lines sending me swerving to avoid both them and the wall–yes this happened too.  It was dark and I was in a strange place.  I just wanted to get into bed and sleep.  Two men on a golf cart start in on me.  “Aww honey smile!”  I ignore them and continue to get my bags out of the car.  They stop.  “Hey can you do us a favor?”  Exasperated I say “No.”  The men turn to each other and roll their eyes.  “Come on you’ll be so much prettier if you smile.  Smile.  Let me take your picture, it’ll cheer you up.  Don’t worry it will be tasteful.”  I am inflamed.  This is beyond just “cheering” me up.  Maybe they were drunk.  Maybe they were professional photographers for Vogue.  It doesn’t matter.  It was uncalled for.  I shuffled away, satisfied they weren’t following me and went directly to my room, to my phone and called the front desk.  I was called back 15 minutes later and told these guests had been removed from the property and that I didn’t need to worry about the duration of my stay.

Even ignoring this situation guys, please try to remember that women are not under an obligation to be pretty or happy for you.  No one demands that men always be happy, smiling and walking around with muscles and perfect hair.  You do not have the right to demand this of me or to try to impose it upon me.  When you try it does not make me feel special or happy.  It makes me angrier and makes my day worse.  Not all women are sure to feel this way.  I can’t speak for all of womankind but I’d wager that there are more of us than not.  It just comes across as seedy.

And speaking of seeds how about some gluten free sesame seed muffins?  I’ve broken out of my vegan week–huzzah!  It was an interesting experiment but definitely not the way I think I’ll be living my life 24/7.  Worthwhile to make the effort though and so you might see some “Meatless Mondays” breaking up the muffin monotony.  Not today though.  Today I have this recipe which I was inspired to make during my vegan stint.  It seems that gluten free baking became much easier for me to fathom when I was cutting out eggs and buttermilk as well.  These muffins are very strange at first but I was inspired to make them after craving some chocolate covered sunflower seeds.  Savory and sweet.  These seem to improve the next day if you keep them airtight. I might cut back on the mini-chocolate chips though.  I think a third of a cup would suffice.

Gluten Free Sunflower Seed Muffins

an Olivia Original Read more

Apr 25

3 Comments

Lembas Bread for Tolkien Reading Day (Vegan, Soy Free and Gluten Free)

We’re going totally topsy turvy this week!  Vegan food!  Gluten Free!  Oh and Fantasy Friday being hosted on a Thursday but it’s for an important reason.  Today is Tolkien Reading Day!  Set on March 25th each year to commemorate the fall of Sauron, fans of the Middle Earth are encourage to read or rather re-read this epic saga.  Since I’m on a journey of my own with this vegan challenge, it seems appropriate to call upon the fellowship.  What did they travel with but the elven Lembas bread–a recipe I had yet to tackle.    I’ve seen a few recipes on the net for Lembas bread but one thing has always bothered me: they were essential just short bread cookies or butter cakes.  Hardly the sort of thing you take on a long journey.  The bread needs to be sweet and delicious but also full of protein, vitamins and fiber.  Challenge accepted!  I totally would imagine Tolkien’s’ elves as vegans…wouldn’t you?  I mean I think the Mirkwood elves in The Hobbit may be depicted as eating meat at their feast scene.  I don’t remember those details and I should try to look it up I suppose.  I’m sure I will later but for now I’m going to stick with my mental image of the elves as vegans.  I could buy that .  Except for one thing: pretty sure the elves eat honey.  Did you know honey isn’t universally considered vegan?  When I first found out, I though okay, it made a modicum of sense—honey is after all an animal product of sorts.  It’s produced by insects which aren’t really classified as animals but I can see the logic path that would leave vegans to opposing honey.

Then I thought about it some more and realized that if you consider insects “people too” you basically have to desist from eating anything manufactured.  In fact even growing a backyard garden and employing some organic tricks for pest control would mean impacting and killing the insect population should be disallowed.  At what point do you draw the line?  In a normal day any plant processing your vegan agave nectar is going to kill a thousand insects simply as a side effect of running the plant.  Bugs get in the gears; bugs get in the food; bugs get everywhere and they get filtered out.  So I can’t really get on board with the anti-honey vegans.  The issue of animal-cruelty hypocrisy has been pretty prescient lately when PETA was exposed for “putting down” up to 96% of the animals they “rescued”.  Having worked with dog rescues for years I’ve known this for a long time and wasn’t surprised.  It’s why I never, ever have supported PETA.  Bunch of money grabbing phonies.

One of the driving motivations behind vegetarianism, and veganism, is the issue of animal cruelty.  Factory farming practices for animal welfare are abysmal.  I don’t think I’m going to surprise anyone by saying that.  Most of us are happy to plug our ears, close our eyes and try not to imagine the animal that used to be alive outside that Styrofoam and plastic wrapped non-animal looking pound of protein.  Nevermind that cows are kept crammed together in their own feces and fed diets that make them ill.  Nevermind that hens are kept so close to one another they peck each other out of anxiety.  Nevermind that pigs experience such anxiety in their close captivity that they bit each other’s tails—causing horrible infections.  To combat this farms frequently cut off their tails which actually puts the pigs in more pain because nerve endings are exposed but eliminates the pesky, costly infections.   And yes pigs DO experience emotions like anxiety.  They are highly evolved, intelligent creatures despite the dirty connotations we’ve given them over time.  That being said I don’t have a problem normally with eating them because wild pigs are also really fucking MEAN.  The tiny, human bred teacup kind people keep for pets might be Wilbur-esque but the sort you find on a farm, the natural version?  They’ll eat your kneecaps before you can yell uncle.

I accept that in the natural order of things some animals eat other animals—and that I am one of those predators.  That doesn’t limit my desire to see these animals raised humanely and slaughtered as painlessly as possible.  I think of this way: torture is often seen as something worse than death.  Keeping someone in a state of constant pain and agony until they desire to no longer exist is horrible and overall we tend to object to torture more vehemently than even death itself.  I accept this because, as with the honey issue, finding a way to eliminate any negative effect of our human need to eat on other living creatures is impossible.  I’m not convinced that honey farming, especially the small scale local level, is particularly harmful to the mental state of the insects.  I do buy locally sourced honey and not just because I try to be a locavore, but because eating local honey has been demonstrated to help with allergies—local pollens and all that.

That’s my biggest problem with veganism, and to a lesser extent vegetarianism, if you examine it closely enough you will always find something that is inconsistent with this mindset.  Vegetarians who eat eggs, as an example, if they get eggs from factory farms are still supporting the slaughter of chickens.  In order to raise hens for egg laying farms will have to hatch thousands of eggs and male chickens, aka roosters, get tossed in a grinder upon hatching.  So ovo-vegetarians you ARE supporting this industry unless you buy eggs from small farms that raise their own hens and don’t slaughter baby boys.

In fact…the egg laying hen industry essentially Craster’s Keep of the food world.  Anyway that’s why I’m happy to align myself as this new fangled term “flexitarian”.   I realize that there will always be some impact from my existing and eating–but I can work to minimize that as much as possible.  For that I do applaud those who make the vegan and vegetarian lifestyle choices.  At least they are doing something…minimizing the cost.  Just don’t get too militant about it and recognize that in the end something, whether its a cow or a blade of grass, dies for us to eat.  Let’s give it the respect it deserves and avoid the nasty factory farming practices that really are just unnecessarily cruel and unusual.

Which brings me back to our geeky subject of the day!  So what do you think?  Would the elves of Tolkien’s world be vegans?  I imagine that since they are magical there are ways for the children of the wood to avoid killing even a single bug in the making of their food.  If hobbits are the hippies of middle earth, the elves are definitely the vegan no-soy latte hipsters.  Sorry Legolas.    I’ve made two LOTR/Hobbit recipes already: Beorn’s Twice Baked Honey Cakes and Sam Gamgee’s Potato Dumplin’s… but I still hadn’t tackled the most iconic of all the foods in this world: Lembas Bread.

‘So it is,’ they answered, ‘But we call it lembas or way bread, and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more pleasant than cram, by all accounts.’

‘Indeed it is’ said Gimli. ‘Why, it is better than the honey-cakes of the Beornings, and that is great praise, for the Beornings are the best bakers that I know of”

And so without further ado I provide a recipe that is Gluten Free, Soy Free AND Vegan* It’s loaded with protein and fiber to keep you full on your journey.  My genuine original recipe and I’m incredibly proud of it because it’s INSANELY. FRAKKING. DELICIOUS.  One waybread slice is supposed to be enough to feed any man but I definitely went hobbit on these and devoured 4 or 5 though in my defense I cut them smaller than they are shown in the films.  Thanks to the high protein of the garbanzo, amaranth and almonds, this bread is not only going to taste good but it will keep you sustained both with carbs for your glycogen reserves and as a complete source of protein.

*I used honey in my version but if you are a non-honey eating vegan feel free to substitute agave nectar instead.

Lembas Bread

An Olivia Original Read more

Apr 22

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Muffin Monday: Going All Ameri-vegan

I don’t necessarily believe in veganism as a sustainable whole-lifestyle choice.  At least not for me.  I certainly think it has applications; it’s a good diet model for people with serious obesity health concerns.  With respect to animal welfare it is possible to find animal products from humanely raised animals so I don’t think someone has to cut all cheese out of their diets for this reason.  As for killing animals for food…well I don’t have a problem with that aspect of it but I’m not going to judge anyone who does.  Still that only means that people really need to go vegetarian if they are controlling where all the animal byproducts they consume come from.  But again that would be at home.  I really doubt Denny’s is getting their half & half from free-range, grass grazing cows

Yet still it has happened.  I’m a social vegan.  Oh you’ve never heard that term?  Well basically when I eat out I stay on a vegan diet but at home I’m happy to go about my omnivore ways.  Strange isn’t it?  Typically you’ll hear about people doing the opposite—eating vegan at home but relaxing out in company because eating vegan socially is fucking hard.  But my reasons make sense I swear…  See here’s the thing I don’t have a problem with eating meat or byproducts from livestock.  I do have serious problems with how the majority of livestock in this country is raised.  I object to it on a number of levels and decided that if I’m going to be morally consistent at all then I need to start really watching what I eat when I’m eating out because that is where I have no control over where my food came from.  Thus when I’m at home and I’ve bought the food myself, I’ll grill up a steak and slather it with blue cheese and runny quail egg.  But if I’m out grabbing a bite at some corner diner?  Odds are I’m asking for salad and a fruit cup.  So what prompted this?

Aside from some of the more well-known humane issues with modern animal husbandry, there are political ramifications that break my libertarian heart from the terrifying corn industry we’ve concocted to feed these animals.  The biologist in me abhors the antibiotic abuse and the nutritionist in me objects to the idea of eating such unhealthy meat when better options exist.  The environmentalist in me, who is a very small me all things considered, hates the waste and destruction the factory farms cause.  The agriculturalist and botanist in me hates the way monoculture is destroying our farmlands and finally the foodie in me bemoans the loss of variety of food monoculture causes.

 

Confused?  Don’t worry this week I’m going to take some pulpit time from my blog to break down some of my concerns to explain why these issues matter to me, why they might matter to you and try out some vegan recipes in honor of the Oakland Veg week happening here in Oakland. 
http://oaklandveg.com/
 It’s a pretty cool initiative sponsored in part by whole foods and a slew of local, organic, vegetarian companies. 

Hold on now Olivia.  If you’re eating vegan out, but omnivore when you stay in, then why bother with the vegan recipes? 

Well it’s a theme remember?  Plus I will admit that eating meat and dairy products that are only sourced from my hippie farms gets expensive.  I’m sure I’ll be eating more meals without them to save money so it’ll be good to have a few tricks up my sleeve for months when I just can’t afford free-range chicken every night of the week.  Plus it’s useful to know a good baking recipe for those days when you wanna make muffins but don’t have any eggs or butter on hand.  Like this classic recipe with a not-so classic vegan twist:

All Ameri-Vegan Apple Pie Muffins

Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance Read more

Apr 18

Bread-Pudding it into perspective

I should note I wrote this just before the Waco disaster last night.  Like an hour before.

It’s hard for me to focus on anything but the news when something big and horrifying happens.  That’s why the blog goes dark usually in the day following a major even like what happened in Boston.  I just can’t seem to bring myself to write about anything other than the event that’s taken over news media…assuming I’m able to bring myself to write about it at all.  It really disturbs me too that my last post was literally about just enjoying something for its own beautiful sake to be marred by a mass bombing that is anything but beautiful.  Unfortunately as evident by this post I’m still unable to get to writing about anything until I talk about the giant elephant in the room.  So okay here’s my response to the bombing of the Boston Marathon.

First of all when I found out I was actually climbing onto the treadmill to do my daily run.  I usually get at least 2 miles in a day now—minimum of 1 even on days when I feel like shit—and let me tell you that running while watching the news about people who died while running is surreal.  I found myself wondering “should I be doing this?  Should I stop?  This feels disrespectful somehow.”  It was the most bewildering thing to be feeling when I was supposed to be getting exercise.  I don’t normally watch the televisions in the gym when I work out.  I really like zoning out to my music and daydreaming or feeling the “pavement” i.e. the treadmill track beneath my feet.  Obviously though when the tv is in front of your face and the words EXPLOSION streaming across it tends to grab your attention.

But here’s the really sick thing I feel about these events now.  As I was watching and looking for a death toll, seeing that it was at 2 I thought “oh well okay, it’s only a little bombing.”  WTF.  What kind of world do I live in where I even have that kind of reaction?  Were other people having any of the same thoughts as me?  See I actually pay attention to the news.  I’m a media hound.  I have google news tabs open my computer all the time.  Bombings like Boston are happening almost every day in poorer countries around the globe.  It almost strikes me as arrogant when people in the US are so shocked about one like this happening here.  We’re a big fucking target for disgruntled angry terrorists—foreign and homegrown alike.  Frankly I’m really surprised we don’t have more bombings here.  We certainly get enough shootings it seems like the next logical one-up in the mad man’s mind for media attention.  I found myself getting cynical about how this is going to be on everyone’s mind for the next month but no one seems to be aware that today for example, Egypt sent two rockets into Israel.  No one is probably aware that 182 people died in Afghanistan this month in bombings.  These events are so far removed and so common that I guess we just don’t pay attention.  But I do.  Ever since I was woken up by two very large plane crashes over a decade ago I can’t help but keep a beat on the pulse of this world and the pulse is explosive.  Turns out a few of my friends were having the same thoughts/feelings/reactions as me.  I wonder if it was like this before 9/11 for other generations or if this is the new norm for us who exist in a world without the twin towers.

I’m not ranting or raging though.  I get it.  I mean these other events are far removed from us. The world is smaller than it used to be but we’re still made up of a myriad of cultures—many far removed and still barely understand by the others.  The events that hit close to home are the ones that are going to grab our attention because it could be people we know, people we experience life with rather than read about.  As we evolve in our technological achievements we’re also going to evolve at getting better at killing each other so the bigger the BOOM and the closer we are to it, the more we’ll pay attention.  I totally get it.  It makes me happy too that the silver lining to these events is always the revelation of the strength of human spirit and the good things that are possible by people en masse as opposed to the bad things the mob mentality likes to bring out of us as well.  Two sides of the same coin—that’s humanity in a nutshell isn’t it?  We are capable of horrifying evil and astonishing kindness.

I just hope that I don’t get lost in the apathy between the two.  I think I’m okay though.  I still cried at Glee last week.  Yes motherfuckers I was on a treadmill watching the latest episode about the school shooting with tears streaming down my face so I know I’m not a robot yet.

Anyway in times like this one of the best things is comfort food.  Certain things fall quite obviously into the category of comfort food.  Bread Pudding is definitely one of them.  I mean not only is it bread which I find incredibly homey, delicious and often crave just a giant loaf to chew on when I’m down, but it’s bread in pudding form.  You don’t get more rustic, warm and down to earth than that.  When we read about people using bombs, North Korea getting testy with nuclear weaponry, I think there’s a little bit of a longing for a world where these kinds of creative mass murders aren’t possible.  A little technological rewind.  Well we can’t undo any of these things without totally destroying civilization as we know it and frankly if you asked most people my age about living in a world without terrorist bombs at the cost of their smartphones…I’m pretty sure I know what they’d choose.  Hell I don’t think I’d choose any different.  I can at least travel back in time though in my kitchen and find comfort and delicious heaven where I make it.  Warning: this is literally the best bread pudding I have ever had.  I had total strangers at work seeking me out to tell me that they were brought some and tell me it was the best bread pudding that they had ever had.  It’s seriously the antithesis of pain and agony—it’s absolute joy in a bowl, in your mouth and in your stomach.  Hell you might like it so much that you even cherish a little fat deposit from eating the entire batch because it will stir such fond memories of the flavors.  It’s that good and I certainly need something good right now.  Don’t you?

Caramel Apple Bread Pudding

an Olivia Original Read more

Apr 16

Think Thin Tuesday: Getting Moussed on the Elkohol!

Girls like pretty things.  Guys stop asking me why girls like silly, pretty things.  Sometimes a rose is just a rose – and seeing something innocent, simple and beautiful can incredibly life affirming.  There are things girls love to think about and do purely because of the beauty of it.  I know you guys understand these fantasies more than you want to let on.  Barney Stinson and the popularity of Mad Men have proven that to me.  True your desires are a bit…smarmier than ours but regardless you are romanticizing those fantasies.  Why else would two of the most iconic womanizers of the decade be brandy swirling, suit wearing debonair dudes?  Admit it you kind of like getting dressed up once in a while too.

With summer finally starting to peek its head around the corner it’s time to start thinking about planning those wonderful summer cocktail parties.  Or at least in my imaginative world where I’m a Manhatten socialite I’m planning those parties.  You know the kind.  Music.  Women in summer dresses.  Men in linen suits.  China twinkling.  The sort of Audrey Hepburn fairytale life that a lot of silly girls like to daydream about.  I swear I never was one to imagine the details of my wedding but boy did I ever day dream about my ideal apartment and social gatherings in some upper-east side version of paradise.

I’d really love to have a place to host some sort of garden top party this summer.  It would just feel like the ultimate bucket list item.  OF course the problem is that I need money.  I need friends.  I need a life.  All of these things are kind of essential to this desire of mine.  I think if I were planning on for LA it would be easier since I know more people there who might enjoy an exercise in dressing up and getting all pretty just for the hell of it.

Only problem is that I don’t live in LA and I certainly wouldn’t be able to cater the affair which is half the fun of it for me.  Making appetizers and hors d’oeuvres is a lot of fun.  I love recipes like this one.  They are dainty, delicious and unfortunately oftentimes quite fattening too.  That’s why you have such little portions.  Hey we’ve gotta be able to fit in those fancy clothes we wear!  If the buttons are popping off and clothes exploding open it quickly becomes a different kind of party no?  And those little bites are pretty easy to start gulping down as the evening goes on…especially if you get the “drunchies” aka the drunken munchies. Since we all know the best garden party is a champagne fueled brunch at 11AM on a sunny Sunday…drunchies are sure to abound.

So if you are thinking of hosting any sort of party this summer—a wedding, a brunch for friends, a fundraiser with all your wealthy single bachelors for puppies (and hey invite me would you?) this is a great light recipe to whisk around on those serving platters or serve up as a dessert after a lavish dinner party.  Go ahead and “gazelle” it down because this recipe is deliciously, drunkenly de-lite-ful.  I have made this mousse several times over the last few summers and I don’t even really like melon all that much.  It’s sweet, it’s light and refreshing and hands down one of my FAVORITE drunken recipes.  The mousse itself is totally gluten free as well so if you have any celiac intolerant folks in the group you can just serve it in cups instead of pastry shells.  They will LOVE this…and then they’ll eat enough that they will “like oh my god you guys, you are the most awesome people ever and I really, really fucking love you.  Okay?  Let’s make this moment last forever okay?”  You know what I’m talking about.

Musk Melon Mousse Bites

Adapted from “The Boozy Baker”

  • ½ cup Muscat Wine
  • 3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
  • 1 honeydew melon, sliced into chunks
  • ½ cup sugar, divided
  • ¼ cup lemon juice, divided
  • 2/3 cup fat free plain yogurt
  • 24 phyllo pastry shells
  • Sliced strawberries for topping

Pour the Muscat Sec into a small saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin on top.  Let it soften for about 2 minutes and then cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the gelatin is dissolved.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

In a blend puree half the melon with ¼ cup of the sugar and 2 Tbsp of lemon juice.  With the blender running, slowly pour in half of the Muscat mixture.  Transfer the melon mixture to a large metal bowl set in a pan of ice water.  Repeat with the remaining melon, sugar, lemon juice and Muscat mixture and then add the second half of the melon mixture to the metal bowl.

Stir the melon mixture for 3 to 5 minutes, or until it begins to thicken slightly (its texture should be similar to that of maple syrup or raw egg whites.)  Remove the bowl from the ice water and stir in the yogurt.

Pour the mousse into a large glass bowl and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.  Serve scoop spoonfuls into your pastry shells and top with some sliced strawberries.

Nutrition info per pastry shell: 66 calories | 14g carbohydrates (9g sugar) | 1 g fat | 2g protein

1 serving of 3 shells is still less than 200 calories.  Not a bad dessert.

Apr 15

Muffin Monday: Out and Ab-oatmeal Bread

Every once in a while I remember that I’m a 24 year old single, attractive female and that I should try to enjoy that while I can because it’s not going to last forever.  It can be hard to break out of my cranky old British man persona but last Saturday night I did and oh it felt so nice to be young and dancing again.  I actually had a drink or two, went out, met new boys, met new girls, spent a little cash and most importantly I went dancing.  Oh how I’ve missed dancing.  I haven’t really been properly out dancing since Comic Con last year and I wasn’t even properly single then.  There’s something very wrong with that.  So since I wasn’t going to make another engagement on time and was looking at a night in doing nothing, once again, I hesitated for a beat when a friend from yoga let me know she was going out that evening.  Then I said “What the hell is wrong with you.  Act your age already!” and asked if there was room for one more.  So so glad.

What makes dancing so cathartic, so therapeutic and just so damn much fun?  It’s the release I think.  It’s physical, if not always sexual, and requires that you trust in your body rather than letting your mind do all the work.  Overthinking means you lose the beat.  If you have a partner you need to be able to really let your body win out and react to theirs.  If you let your brain worry about where his or her foot is going next, by the time you figure it out they are already two more steps ahead.  That’s not to say it involves totally turning off your mind because I certainly feel like mine is still racing but it’s in a reactive mode rather than predictive.  That’s a rare thing for me to be able to do and enjoy.  As such a Type-A(sshole) I find myself craving the ability to plan and control the majority of the time so finding a situation where I can be comfortable not doing that is rare and worth relishing.  In retrospect I wish I had taken ballet lessons when they had been offered as a child.

Now I don’t know as much about it as I do food but I do know that the concept of “Dance Therapy” is something that’s been around since the 60’s.  It’s distinguishable from just general physical activity but I will admit that even just getting your body moving whether it’s dancing or chopping wood is going to cause an endorphin release and improve mood.  How effective is it?  Well it can depend on what you’re treating.  I’m not sure that there’s as much of a verifiable success record that dance therapy can cure severe mental disorders like schizophrenia but it has shown significant impacts in the lives of the elderly, those recovering from brain injuries and in autistic children.  There aren’t any recorded negative effects (except maybe a sprained ankle or two) from what I’ve read on the topic.

Going on Saturday didn’t cure all my problems.  It didn’t end my celibate streak.  The fact that I haven’t even so much as kissed someone since July rather horrified one of my friends.  But it did reconnect me a little with the girl I’m supposed to be acting the age of.  Plus the nice part about being on the dance floor is that no one is talking.  No one is asking me what I do for a living and being impressed, or intimidated or suffering inferiority complex.  Instead it’s pretty simple: can you keep up?  For some reason people seem to be more up to that challenge on the dance floor than anywhere else with me.  Of course that might just be because I’m not a very good dancer….  White girl dancing isn’t exactly that poetic or challenging is it?  But I do it with gleeful abandon regardless of how good I am.

I remember being little at a dance party at my karate studio.  I chose the karate over the ballet lessons.  I don’t really regret that as much but I do wish I’d found a way to do ballet too.  Anyway I just remember that I was there with my first grade “boyfriend” who got tired and went home after only a short time.  I spent the entire party hopping around, throwing punches and dancing.  I remember hearing my Mom say to someone “Men are always going to struggle to keep up with her on the dance floor.”  Little did I know at that age that what she wasn’t just talking about the dancing.  Either way I need to get out a little more and act my age.  Even if I’m just dancing on my own—no wild oats need to be sown for me to enjoy myself.

For the mornings after this is a fantastic quick bread that comes together using the time trusted muffin method.  This means it’s simple and can be done even if that night before involved enough liquid courage for the dancefloor to leave you suffering some of the afterness of badness.  You can use the recipe to make muffins or a loaf for easy slicing.  It’s filling and delicious—yes even to someone like me who doesn’t really like oatmeal.

Dorie’s Oatmeal Loaf

From Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking from my home to yours”

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