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Posts tagged ‘yummy!’

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

Apr 26

Heads will Casserole

Okay Olivia so far for this “vegan” thing you shared a muffin, a cake and some vegetable broth–not exactly convincing that you are getting substantive fare on a vegan diet.  What about an actual meal?  Alright first of all I’m not necessarily advocating a full vegan lifestyle—remember the word I discovered is “flexitarian” but in being a flexitarian I do need a good vegan main course menu item or two.  Going Vegan for a main course doesn’t mean you have to rely on those expensive and often bland tasting “meat substitutes” they sell at your local grocery store.  Actually I kind of love the veggie dogs but that does not a meal make.  Organic, local vegetables can get expensive too—a meal at Wendy’s is much cheaper than a salad at Whole Foods.  So how do you work with this to make a budget friendly, vegetable heavy and still tasty vegan dish?

Let’s start by eliminating the idea that your only option for protein replacement is going to be tofu.  I love tofu.  It’s delicious when prepared correctly but it’s also soy based and just like corn, we have way too much soy in our diets.  Where corn fills the gap for producing cheap sugars, soy stands in many of your pre-packaged products because it is the cheapest form of complete protein to grow.  It’s cheaper even than the “beef” produced by the corn chomping factory farmed cows Ronald McDonald loves to use.  If you breakdown what goes into the modern American diet…it’s 50% corn and soy.  That’s nuts!  Again from an economic and agriculture standpoint, the high level of soyfarming we do is horrible.  It’s bad for the environment.  One place that loves to factory farm soy is Brazil—in land that used to be rainforest.  There’s also the not so awesome fact that most soy is GMO.  I don’t have a problem with GMO foods themselves; so far there hasn’t been anything to indicate that GM soy is inherently dangerous.  Remember I’ve got a biotech degree.  That being said, the way it’s been manipulated is so that the soy can withstand large quantities of herbicide to kill of weeds.  This means your factory farm can spray much higher levels of chemicals on your food—run off in the water and the seeping of those chemicals into the soy?  Not so good.  All the corn is GM too but depending on the modification we’re discussing I have less of a problem with it.  That’s a post for another day.  Back to the main point: more chemicals sprayed on my food is not something I’m eager to embrace.

There are also the health concerns.  Over-exposure to anything is going to be bad for you and soy is no exception.  Soyeans are high in phytoestrogens which are perfectly fine for you in small doses.  A wide array of our produce contains these chemicals which are plant based—legumes, cereal grains, fruits, vegetables and flax seeds all have phytoestrogens.  Too many?  Well…higher incidence of breast cancer, thyroid cancer and a lowering of testosterone levels which can be bad in men.  Soy also contains phytic acid which inhibits uptake of minerals that we need and some protease inhibitors which actually make it harder for us to digest protein.  Oh and overexposure?  That’s thought to be the cause of the seemingly increased number of allergy sufferers now.

Don’t lose your head and go running to the doctor just yet. Don’t think you have to stop eating soy completely.  Vitamin C can make you sick if you eat enough.  We just need to stop mono-dieting and make sure that our bodies are fed as wide a variety of foods as possible.  Since soy isolates are in over 70% of what’s on a typical supermarket shelf, I’m going to share a main course recipe that doesn’t have any soy products but is still high in protein.

Really my main point is this: if you want to get healthy, get away from processed foods.  When you do eat them, read the labels and know what’s in them.  I minimize my intake of what comes out of a box so I don’t worry about it as much if I want to have delicious tofu in wasabi cream sauce once a week or two.

I know most vegan food people think looks like dog food.  I guess this one kind of does too but don’t go running away.  I know it looks like health food but one bite of this casserole and you will be transported to Italy.  It’s the sun-dried tomatoes that do it.  Those little nuggets of tomato goodness can make anything taste amazing.  In fact I haven’t made my sundried tomato basil bread in ages.  I need to do that soon.  The original recipe came from Vegan with a Vengeance but it was very simple and un-seasoned.  Since I largely know people who wouldn’t eat broccoli if it were pureed and hidden in a chocolate bar, I decided I needed to jazz the recipe up a bit.  I was craving pizza and this is what came out.  It’s delicious and trust me one bite…your head will roll.  Plus garbanzo beans contain all of the essential amino acids needed to make it a complete protein for an adult.  Bear in mind that histidine, which is the 9th “essential” amino acid to create a whole protein, is typically produced by an adult body in sufficient quantities so long as the other essentials are present.  In children however this is not the case so if you have a little one to feed be sure to add some whole grains to this meal OR mix it up and use some cauliflower or mushrooms in the recipe.  These veggies contain histidine too.

Broccoli Tomato Garbanzo Casserole

Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance Read more

Apr 25

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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 8

Muffin Monday: Bran-ding Mango Fett

I missed my scifriday post last week.  I just got too busy and didn’t manage to get it together but I do have some geeky thoughts on my mind and they are invading my muffin zone!

Once again I find myself at a crossroads where I am both always staunchly defending geek culture to outsiders (the “normies”) and yet also often highly dissatisfied and critical of those within my adopted realm.  It is a strange experience to both be loudly defending and critiquing the world I’m a part of.  It is also strange that I feel totally locked into my role as a geek by non-geeks and yet constantly feel pressure to defend/demonstrate my worthiness of the moniker to my peers.  It’s a not easy to navigate this contradiction of my very existence.

The internal struggle within geek culture to demonstrate how geeky you really are….  Well it’s been on my mind a lot lately for so many reasons.  I was deciding how to decorate my bathroom and trying desperately to find some way to reconcile my desire for a “girly” space with my geekier interests.  I was spending way too much energy obsessing over which shower curtain to buy based on how it could accessorize with geekier objects in the room.  Eventually I sat back and asked myself what the hell I was doing.  I really didn’t want to spend more than $15 dollars on a shower curtain—I’m not actually decorating a home where I plan on living for the next ten years and my lease is month to month.  I could be gone at any moment.  It’s not a situation where I’m looking to nail art to the walls.  I don’t need to spend 75 dollars buying this one shower curtain because it manages to both fit into the more “feminine” styling I want but color coordinates well with lab equipment.  Why do I feel like I have to put my geek on display in a room which is really only used to “shit, shower and shave”?

Then I was spending International Table Top day with my family.  Mom busted out her Star Trek Monopoly game she got for Christmas and had been desperate to play.  Monopoly is a painful exercise to begin with—let’s be real.  It’s wheeling and dealing and any family that doesn’t end the game with someone upturning the board is ahead in my book.  We actually haven’t done that to date but you get the idea.  Anyway add in the Star Trek element and there were moments were I was literally grinding my teeth.  Mom picking on Dad for not getting references proclaiming “see he’s not really a geek” only a few minutes later to turn around and discover that there were cards she didn’t recognize either.  AHA!  See you don’t really know anything either.

When did Star Trek monopoly become about proving who knows more about phaser settings and Theremins?  Shouldn’t we be fighting over the gold pressed latinum and whether or not it’s ego-centric that the Federation be equivalent to Park Place.  We all were whining that the creators of “Continuum edition” were so lazy they couldn’t even rename the Jail to be the Brig.  Seriously guys the Contiuum edition of Star Trek Monopoly blows.  Don’t buy it.  Worst. Monopoly Adaptation. Ever.

But back to my point.  IT was painful at times to have this feeling of “one-uping” over geek cred.  I’ve bemoaned this problem largely as a female in a world predominantly male but it occurs even when you remove the gender part of the equation.  Not as much and not as nastily, but it’s there nonetheless.  Why is this?  Well the pop-culture nerd-splosion in the hipster community is largely to blame I guess.  Lots of 20-somethings walking around sporting Han Solo back packs with absolutely no understanding what the phrase “Han Shot First” actually means. The problem is that now if you don’t know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING in geek culture you are immediately suspected of being a phony.

Which leads back to my bathroom conundrum and my realization that lately I’ve been on a quest to absorb literally everything geeky to avoid this.  Frankly it’s exhausting.  Look I admit it; I didn’t know that Boba Fett was such an icon until late in High School when someone I knew started rambling on about the character.  And Jango Fett?  I didn’t know bantha shit about this character until the abomination of the new films.  I was more into Star Trek and while I’d read a number of Star Trek books, I’d never touched one for the Star Wars universe.  I’d seen, loved and worshipped the films but my fandom ended there.  Why?  There’s just not enough time to do it all.  It’s not fair to expect any of us to.  It’s also not fair to limit ourselves to only engaging in geeky pursuits out of a pressure to constantly demonstrate our involvement in the culture.

If I want a Barbie Bathroom then by Joss, I should be allowed to have a Barbie Bathroom and not have my passion for space aliens called into question.  Actually it’s got more of a floral vibe right now than anything else but you get my point.  It’s just exhausting otherwise and all we do is wind up alienating one another—and that’s not the kind of alien-nation we like.

Mango Bran Muffins

An Olivia Original Read more

Apr 3

You’d think I’d have anticipa-ncaked this….

It’s pass-OVER.  Bring on the Chametz folks because the holiday is done and I can finally eat a giant pizza topped with yeasted donuts and a mug of frosty beer.  Mmmmmm.  Homer food.

Actually sadly my desire to celebrate fell through since most of my friends had other plans/obligations for the end of Pesach and I had already loaded up my schedule with yet another class.  Whoops!  Passover ended actually in conjunction with day 30 of my yoga studio’s sponsored 30 day challenge so not only did I have bread to look forward to, but I just did another 30 days of Bikram yoga in a row.  I felt I totally deserved my celebratory pizza.  But instead I ate a bran muffin running from day 30 to my brand spanking new improv class at the Berkeley Repository Theater.  I am home so late but I don’t care because this class was fantastic.  I never thought I could have so much fun with a room full of strangers for 3 hours.

Then of course I realized upon getting home that I hadn’t really thought about what to blog once Passover was well, over.  I mean I had such a convenient topic for posts and now pbbbbbblt total brain fart.  So you’re getting just a random emotional download today.  Sorry guys.  There’s just nothing clever going on up here after work, yoga, taking care of my dog, improv class and studying for my clinical trial certification….  I feel like the most boring busy person in the world.  But I love every second of it.  I know it’s sick and twisted in a masochistic way but I’m just naturally happier when I’m juggling.  Stillness outside the yoga room drives me up the wall.  I’ve been wondering why.

Is it just that I’m a highly active, okay past active to the point of mildly manic, person?  Or is there another reason—something a little less flattering to admit?  Could it be that at least part of the reason I hate stillness because it gives me time to think?

Heaven forbid you THINK Olivia.

No what I mean is…well when I stop to think I have to spend time with myself and really, really look at myself.  Whenever I do that, no matter how much I’ve accomplished, I have to admit I’m never satisfied.  So this stillness only means that I’ve got time to reflect upon things I’m unhappy about.  I have to wonder if part of the reason I’m running is because I’m running from dealing with things I don’t like about my life.  You’d think I’d be over the moon with it and I did just right a post the other week saying that I’m making all these great strides and improvements but sometimes….

Sometimes when I stop and realize I’m almost 25 and look where I am, I can’t help but feel like young-me would be disappointed.  I haven’t conquered the world yet—not even a little island with a technologically backward tribe.  I have more lofty dreams and ambitions than fingers to count them on and yet I feel like I’m miles away from getting to any of them, if I ever do.  If you asked me at 13 where I should be by now it would be married with plans to start having kids in two years, working both as an actress and scientist, at least one book published, at least 3 or 4 more stamps in my passport and an elegant apartment in SF or NYC.  I’m nowhere close to…any of those things.   So I stay busy, I keep running, because if I stop to think I start to get really down on myself.  Stopping to celebrate things even drives me nuts because I start to wonder “is this really anything special at all?  No.  You really haven’t done enough yet…”

Then again it could just be manic personality thing.  Who knows?

Either way if you’re going to keep running you need FUEL.  So it’s time to carbo-load.  I made these pancakes for a brunch with some friends a month or so ago.   Forget blueberries or chocolate chips—my favorite pancakes are CRANBERRY.  I love the tart little bursts of the ruby red fruit.  They pair well with maple syrup but if you want a real culinary delight pick up some ginger syrup instead and pour that on top.  It’s delicious.  I could eat about a dozen or so of these and still want more despite the protest from my stomach’s fire marshal about capacity limits.

Omnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom

Ultimate Cranberry Pancakes

an Olivia Originalnomnonomnom Read more

Apr 1

Race and Beans- Sephardic for Passover

morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (4)Two more days!   Then it’s totally time for Pizza and Beer.  The perfect counterbalance to the Passover grain-free agony.  I am retaining so much water too.  I’ve gained something like 2-3 pounds in the last two days alone.  I feel so bloated and disgusting.  Oy.

morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (2)But just like two more days we’ve got two more pieces to our Seder plate to discuss.  Today is a simple one – the Zeroa or lamb shank.  The bone is placed on the plate to represent G-d’s arm as it swept over the land and protected the Jews.  Remember that blood of the lamb was what Jewish homes were marked with so their children were spared the fate of the tenth plague.  Lamb was also traditionally sacrificed each year for the holiday at the Holy Temple…until its destruction.  My understanding is that it is because of the destruction of the Holy Temple that the lamb shank on the seder plate is now ceremonial and no lamb is consumed that night.  To remember that without a temple there was no way to perform the ceremony and sacrifice.  What temple do I speak of?  Once the Jews finally reached the Holy Land they constructed their Holy Temple.  Except this structure was destroyed…twice; first by Babylonians and then later by the Romans.  The Greeks  tried to get in on the action too in between those attempts but the temple was never destroyed and was reclaimed by a group of Jewish fighters—this story actually relates back to the only Hebrew Holiday most Americans know – Hanukkah.  Anyway after the second destruction the Romans banned the Jews from Jerusalem.  Eventually Muslims conquered the holy land and a series of Christian/Muslim holy wars ensued.  A third temple has never been constructed though it is often prayed for and the subject of much debate.  The Temple Mount, which is what remains of the Holy Temple, is a highly contested religious location as you might imagine.

morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (7)Now let’s segue for a minute though this will come back around I promise you.  The holiday is finally starting to wind down and by now you may have caught a Jewish friend scarfing down a burrito bowl out with friends.  “Wait a minute!” You say now armed with the knowledge from my Matzo post “Aren’t beans and rice considered “kitniyot” and also forbidden along with grains”  Your friend might reply with something along the lines of “Ummmm I’m going Sephardic for Passover” and then continue to stuff his or her face with chipotle contraband.  No that wasn’t a sneeze though it is a lame, but incredibly useful, copout many of us will use.

See Judaism is not a race.  Judaism is a culture.  There are many races that comprise the Jewish community.  This repeated destruction of the temple and removal of Jews from their holy land resulted in centuries of diaspora – or the movement away from a homeland.  The Jewish people became a scattered people across the globe.  And it wasn’t just this one time that they were relocated either.  European history is littered with records of countries expelling Jews at various times.  We were a pretty nomadic people for hundreds of years.  Guess the desert was good preparation.

Most traditionally when people think of “Jews” they think of North and Eastern European Jews known as the Ashkenazi.  You know the type.  Big noses, skin that doesn’t tan set against dark hair and the funny looking sideburns.  The thing is that Jews are NOT a race.  They don’t have a set of distinctive and universal features like skin color.  There are African Jews, Asian Jews, Israeli/Middle Eastern and Western European Jews—it’s a global Jew-demic!  Religious practices aren’t consistent either across these various groups as centuries of separation and Talmudic study led to differing practices.  This is partly why you have so many different aspects of the religion (orthodox, reform, conservative) and also is why I consistently say that Judaism transcends religion and race—it’s a culture and it’s a big one.morrocanbeefpreservedlemons

So what are Sephardic Jews?  Sephardic Jews are those who settled in North Africa and Western Europe.  Passover for Sephardic Jews does not entail a ban on things like rice, lentils and other legumes that resemble grains.  Why?  Well think about the cultures they were exposed to.  France, Spain, Portugal and Morocco specifically are all regions where rice, beans, and these other items are largely part of the regional diet.  I don’t think rice was as essential to the Germans.  Assimilation to culture and just a different interpretation of religious text has resulted in a separate custom.  So your more traditionally Ashkenazi friend might decide to “adopt” the Sephardic label for Passover to make eating easier.  It’s not really “kosher” to do so but some years you make concessions I guess.  What I do wonder and don’t know is how this works out in Israel.  I’d love some feedback from Israeli jews.  The second largest population of immigrants to Israel, after Russian Jews (Ashkenazi), were Moroccan Jews.  Yup like Casablanca.  I wonder if the Sephardi who moved to Israel have given up this practice of eating non-grain, grainy like foods….morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (6)

Then of course there’s Quinoa.  Quinoa is for some bizarre reason not considered kitniyot.  It was explained to me by another friend like this “the Rabbis didn’t know it existed so they didn’t know to expressly forbid it.”  Erm.  Okay.  Another loophole.  Whatever if it means I get something starchy to put in my stomach other than this Matzo I’m happy!

Moroccan Lamb Meatballs

an Olivia Original

Meatballsmorrocanbeefpreservedlemons (3)

  • 2 lb ground lamb
  • 1 small preserved lemon, peel, chopped
  • 1 sweet onion, chopped
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tbsp matzo meal
  • 1 tsp coriander
  • 1 tsp roasted cumin
  • ½ tsp turmeric
  • 1 cup chopped parsley
  • ½ teaspoon pepper
  • ½ tsp cinnamon

Sauce

  • 2 Tbsp grapeseed oil
  • 1-28 oz can crushed tomatoes
  • 2 small preserved lemons, chopped
  • 5 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • ½ tsp cayenne pepper (more adjusted to desired spice)
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1 Tbsp honey
  • 1 cup chicken or beef stock
  • 2-3 large sliced bell peppers
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

For the meatballs: blend together the spices and mix into the ground lamb.  In a food processor be sure to mince down the lemon and onion very fine.  Mix this into the ground lamb followed by the egg and matzo meal.  Form small meatballs – about 1 inch in diameter and set aside.  Preserved lemons are very salty so you will not need to add any salt to this mixture.

Sauce: Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a sauce pan over medium high heat.  Add the onion, garlic and the bell peppers and cook for 6-8 minutes until translucent.  Pour in the crushed tomatoes and chicken stock.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.  Add the lemons and spices and let this simmer for about 10 minutes until the volume reduces slightly.  Taste and add honey or salt and pepper to desired flavor.

Meanwhile in large wide rimmed pan or tagine add the other 1 Tbsp of oil over high heat.  Add in the meatballs and brown—approximately 6 to 8 minutes on one side, turn and heat another 5.  Remove from the heat until you are ready to add the sauce.  Pour the sauce into the large pan with the meatballs and return to medium heat, cover and cook for an additional 20 minutes.  The meatballs will cook and flavor the sauce as well.

After 20 minutes taste and adjust seasoning as needed.  If the sauce is too thick you can thin it out with a little more broth.  Serve over rice or quinoa.

 

Mar 26

1 Comment

Think Thin Tuesday: Better get the Parsley started

Welcome to the first part of my Virtual Seder!  I hope you learn, I hope you feast and more than anything I hope you are entertained.  I will do my best to be both reverent and irreverent over the course of these posts. Traditionally the story of Passover is told near the beginning of your Passover Seder.  First it is preceded by blessings and the drinking of a cup of wine.  After the wine everyone washes their hands and moves on to the first element of the Seder plate.  Now the Seder plate is a literal plate that has been set with 7 symbolic foods for the telling and remembering of Passover.  These foods are consumed in a specific order.  Tonight we feature the first – the Karpas.  This is the first food eaten of the night after the washing of hands.

The Karpas is a vegetable, usually something bitter like parsley, and it is dipped in salt water before consuming.  This is meant to symbolize the bitterness and tears of slavery for the Jews of Egypt.  This action, dipping of vegetables in salt water, is meant to prompt curiosity of the children and lead them to ask the question: Ma nishtana ha lyla ha zeh mikkol hallaylot?
Why is this night different from all other nights?

SO why do Jews celebrate Passover?  What prompted this holiday in the first place?  Well it’s a line from Exodus in the Old Testament that provides the basis for the entire ritual:  You shall tell your child on that day, saying, ‘It is because of what Adonai did for me when I came out of Egypt.’” (Exodus 13:8)

The Story of Passover – as overly-simplified and wryly told by Olivia.

Once again those people with the funny looking sideburns were the target for some genocidal lunatic.  They ran away, survived and now to remember the fact that we once again managed to avoid extinction spend by spending 8 days eating, drinking and praying.

Haha very funny Olivia.  So what is it…really?

Well the story that most people who are familiar with is the Biblical narrative of Moses.  Many many years ago the Jewish people were enslaved in Egypt.  Some crazy Pharoah decided that all male Hebrew babies should be put to death.  One mother managed to hide her child for a while and eventually, in a desperate attempt to save his life, set him adrift on the nile in a basket to avoid the soldiers that had come to kill him.  The child was discovered by the Pharoah’s daughter and raised as a member of the family.  Many years later the boy, who was named Moses, intervened when an Egyptian was beating a Hebrew slave.  Intervened as in he killed the slaver.  Whoops.  Papa Pharoah not so happy about that so Moses flees, winds up saving some more Jews, marries one and hey look you’re actually one of us.  Who knew? Oh Moses did okay cool.  Anyway.

Eventually after having what some might argue was a pyromania fueled schizophrenic talk with some shrubbery, Moses believes he has the command of G-d to return to Egypt and set his people free.  Moses commands the Pharaoh release the Hebrews and when he doesn’t, 10 plagues descend upon Egypt.  Water to blood, frogs and lice as afflictions of the land followed by flies, diseased livestock, disfiguring boils, hailstorms, locusts and days of darkness all followed as the Pharaoh refused again and again to free the Jews.  Finally the tenth plague was death of all the first born sons of Egypt.  Ah the story has come round from the beginning, clever narrative or a just G-d depending on your personal religious leanings.  The Hebrews marked their homes with the blood of the lamb so that death would know that Jewish people lived in this house and pass over their doors, sparing the Hebrew children.

And that is where the term Passover comes from.  Isn’t the Old Testament so much more fun than the New?  By fun I mean just the kind of radical and violent story we love to read.   It may be a bloody and horrific tale but it’s certainly a captivating one.  There’s a lot of “Blood of Lamb” references to Jesus but the original use of this term to denote the favor of God upon the innocent, his “children”, began with some other Jews in Egypt.  I say other because as Avenue Q loves to remind us “Hey guys, Jesus was Jewish….”

Moving on…seeing children die, including his own son, apparently gets to Pharaoh.  Finally he relents, frees the Jews only he changes his mind.  Actually the exact wording is that G-d hardens his heart…what a dick.  Apparently he set up the Pharoah to fail?  I never understood that bit.  Anyway for whatever reason he changes his mind and sends his soldiers against the fleeing Israelites.  There’s a whole chase scene involving water being parted in the Red Sea thanks to Moses and his big stick.  The Jews hustle through like there’s a sale at Loehmann’s on the other side.  Once safely across the parted ocean waters, the waves collapse back down drowning the pursuing Egyptians.  (Then there’s the whole Ten Comandments and getting lost in the desert thing but that’s a whole other story and holiday for another time.)

Endeth the story.  Onto the Karpas!

I’ve almost always seen Parsley used as the vegetable for the Karpas and it’s probably the only time (other than some out-of-date 90′s restaurant plate styling) that you ever see curly parsley on a table.  Thus I always think of Passover when I see curly parsley at the store.  Typically the Italian Flat-leaf variety beats out this cousin because it’s a little less bitter but with much more flavor due to a higher volume of oils in the leaves.  For my recipe today I used both varieties.  I wanted to really showcase the flavor of the parsley.  The result?  Broiled Tilapia with a parsley-vegetable pistou.  Tilapia is a fantastic fish to use when you want something with a mild flavor so I knew it would be just the thing to let my main star shine through.  It’s so easy to cook if you have a broiler on your oven.  If you need something simple and Kosher for the middle of the week, this is just the ticket.  The whole meal can come together in 30 minutes.  Plus this is a great Think Thin Tuesday post since Pistou is similar to Pesto but lower in fat and calories since it omits cheese and pine nuts.  Traditional pistou is just basil, oil and salt.  Mine has considerably less basil and a lot more vegetables to bulk it up.

Tilapia with Parsley Pistou

An Olivia Original Read more

Mar 25

L’Chaim Muffin Monday: I’ll bake to that!

Passover begins tonight.  For the goyim readers out there Passover is a Jewish Holiday, one of the more important ones really, but it’s relatively glossed over during Easter time in the stores.  Don’t worry I’m not about to rant about how most Americans only know Hanukah (a far less important holiday) or how a very Catholic girl I knew once said “Yeah they always show the Moses story for Easter but I don’t know why.”

Oy.

You might have noticed this holiday in the past though.  Maybe a Jewish friend starts whining about not being able to eat pizza or shows up to work hungover after something called “First Say-dur?” and you’re a little curious just what this Passover thing is all about.  Okay so let me explain.  No wait, there is too much, let me sum up.  This is how I explain the point of most Jewish holidays to my coworkers or semi-interested friends: someone tried to kill us, we survived, and now we celebrate surviving yet another attempted genocide by eating weird foods and getting drunk.  Sound about right?

Okay so that’s something of an oversimplified explanation but Passover can be a little hard to explain in detail to the totally unaware.  And again I’m not going to whine about how no one knows anything about Jewish holidays or how far too many people who claim to be Christian and know their bibles have no clue about a key part of the Old Testament.  I’m not.  Really.  Because you know what?  I don’t know shit really about Islamic or Hindu holidays.  I know more than the average Uh-MARE-ican.  Enough that I know what the point of Ramadan is and not to eat in front of my Islamic friends those long days.  I know that I would love to someday see and participating in celebrating Diwali and Holi because from what little I know, these Hindu holy days that utilize light and color sound beautiful.  I’m actually really intrigued by Hinduism.  There’s a lot to it from what little I’ve researched (or in other words spent hours on Wikipedia procrastinating) that appeals to me.

I guess my point is I’m at least aware of the existence of some non-mainstream Christian holidays which is all I ask of most people for Passover too.  I try not to be haughty when people don’t know the deal with that weird flat bread (Matzo) or get annoyed when people reduce it to a week of the Atkins diet.  I’ll be patient when I explain why I’m cooking up a storm for Seder dinner aka the Jewish Thanksgiving (except not really because we have a lot of those, it’s called Shabbat or every Friday night.)  ?  Oh wait, what’s a seder?  The first night, and second, nights of Passover (which lasts for 8 days) feature a large feast with prayers, songs, wine and a lavish ritual meal.  This is called a “seder” and is a very big deal for the holiday.  The point of the meal is also to teach the youngest members of the family about the meaning of the holiday through a series of questions asked every year designed to retell the story.  There’s also the “Seder Plate” which contains 7 foods present at every Seder to help with the telling of the story.  Thus I had a thought: I’m not going to get to have a proper Seder with my friends this year.  Most of them are scattered across the land anyway in faraway places like LA, New York and I shudder to think of it—Montana.  How about a virtual seder through my blog?  You’re all invited to attend.  Starting tomorrow for each day of Passover I want to feature a food inspired by one of the Seder plate offerings and give you a little insight into the holiday.

In the meantime I’m getting in my last bit of chametz (bread) with these Masala Chai Tea Muffins.  Wait—Chai?  Olivia you’re mixing up your cultures!  Chai, pronounced with a soft ch like chimichanga, is a term for flavored black tea from India.  Chai, with a hard chhhhh phlegmy sound, is the symbol for life in Judaism.  You’d be most likely familiar with the term as a toast offered by Jewish friends with wine— “L’Chaim!” which means “To Life!”  These muffins are tasty enough that you might get a little culturally flustered too.  I prefer to think of it as a melding of worlds in tasty, pastry form.  Just sit back, enjoy the ride and take your last few bites of bread until April 3 rolls around.  I promise they are a tasty way to toast to the holiday.

Masala L’Chaim Muffins!

An Olivia Original Read more

Mar 22

SciFriday: Mutant Toxic Spill Cake

The teenage mutant ninja turtles are a joke. No, really, I mean they were created as a joke.  They were initially conceived as an absurd little doodle by creator Kevin Eastman.  Eastman had no idea what he was starting when one night he decided to sketch an animal that he thought would be “the funniest animal to be a martial artist as skilled as Bruce Lee.”  The story goes that Eastman and his conspirator Peter Laird then spent the evening one-upping each other by drawing successively ridiculous images of our shelled reptile friends holding a variety of weapons.  Sounds like the sort of thing my friends did on a Friday night in high school—just sitting around being silly.  Who knew it would turn into a million dollar franchise?

s-TEENAGE-MUTANT-NINJA-TURTLES-largeLeonardo Leads
Donatello does machines (that’s a fact!)
Raphael is cool but crude
Michelangelo is a party dude!

Poor Donatello.  I think he gets forgotten about the most when kids picked their favorite.  No love for the inventor.  Raphael was my favorite…apparently the love of bad boys transcends species.  Friends of mine and I are talking about doing a cosplay at some point for the show.  One girl is spot on for April and the boys scrambled to claim their respective turtles.  Me?  I totally want gender bender Shredder.  I think that would be HOT and insane fun.  What do you think?

 Laird and Eastman developed a comic that sold like hotcakes.  Add in a sly creative marketer who saw the potential and soon toy companies came flocking.  With the success of action figures and merchandise came more comics, television shows and the 90s films which some love and some love to hate.  While there are TMNT comics I have to admit that like most of my generation my original exposure to our heroes in a half shell was the original series cartoon that started in 1989.  Saturday morning cartoons in the 90’s really were, in my not so humble opinion, the pinnacle of television cartoons.  I have some pretty rosy colored memories of early Saturday mornings watching X-Men, Spiderman, TMNT and Power Rangers.  My entire generation seems to be stuck in perpetual nostalgia of those days.  Aside: The other day I was in the gym and heard someone’s phone going off to the sound of the Power Ranger call.  Instinctively I listened to hear Zordon’s voice before foolishly realizing it was a phone.  I totally want that as my SMS notification tone now btw.

I think the turtles are somewhat special compared to these other shows.  Most of the other comic-cartoon adaptations on tv started a few decades before as comics and already had a large following.  The Power Rangers part of a longstanding tradition of adapting and repackaging products of Japanese pop-culture to appeal to Western tastes.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the other hand were entirely American conceived during my childhood.  I think that’s why so many of the late 20-somethings I know proudly deck themselves out in TMNT gear and nostalgia.  It’s ours and it’s pure candy for our viewing pleasure.  The series doesn’t really explore deeper social issues like X-Men did and it doesn’t have the kind of heavy drama that Spiderman or Batman did.  It didn’t try to propagandize us like Captain Planet did.  DISCLAIMER: I’m not saying caring about the environment is bad but seriously let’s at least acknowledge that show was some heavy handed propaganda.  Fern Gully too.  Nope TMNT was just four radical dudes, who happened to be turtles, fighting crime and eating that American delicacy, the pizza pie. And they were a hit.

Why?  I honestly don’t know.  I mean the team of Renaissance ninjas was created purely to be a laugh.  But my generation embraced the pure giddy joy of something delightfully nonsensical.  I know I did and continue to—not just TMNT but anything that is joyous and absurd.

We love them and we don’t know why except that they are awesome.  True the character of April is not the strongest female character out there.  I always just saw her as a kind of a pretty spokesperson for the turtles even though she was supposed to be a “hard hitting” journalist.  Did you know that in the comics her character was originally a skilled computer programmer working the lab where the toxic slime that created the turtles was developed?  I wish that version of April had been retained in the shows.  Nerdy girls are hot and it would have given the girls watching the show a great science minded role model to go along with the ninja menagerie.  Later on the show tried to develop a female turtle, Venus de Milo, but I don’t think her character really caught on. She just never fit in the lineup to me—heck even her name made her stick out.  All the other turtles were named after artists whereas she was named after a work of art.  I could pick that apart in some sort of sexist rant but I’m not going to.  That’s just not the point of TMNT and that’s okay.  Not everything we consume for entertainment has to be part of a social movement.

Sometimes we just want candy.  So in honor of that I present to you a TMNT inspired SciFriday recipe.  Pizza?  Too obvious.  Decorate a cake?  I’ll save that for the movie premiere even though the new film will undoubtedly suck.  Nope instead I had a random inspiration about the origin of the turtles which is why I wrote about the origin of the series today.  What was the origin of the turtles? Toxic slime: that glorious green goo which mutated 4 reptilian sewer dwellers into Ninja Superstars.  You’ve heard of chocolate lava cakes right?  Well how about a Key Lime TOXIC SPILL CAKE.   Kind of a merging of the concept of those Ninja Turtle pudding pies and OOZE- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Jello –neither of which I was allowed to eat at home though I remember having those pudding pies once with my cousin.

Mutagenic Toxic Spill Cake

An Olivia Original inspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Disclaimer: this cake will not give you super powers but it might give you cavities Read more

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