Now what

Well, the Whole30 kinda sorta petered out.

This blog piece brought me close to tears this morning because a) I didn't realize how alone I felt in dealing with myself the last few days and it made me realize I was not alone; and b) I have been off-kilter, including emotionally, and the tears have been swirling just below the surface.

Melissa's voice and approach is very clear and black/white.  While I appreciate the clarity, the black/white rubs me uncomfortable sometimes.  But, man, was I ever glad to come across this today.  This paragraph is exactly what I experienced going away for five days and coming home:

Coming home, however, can be tough. You’re still tired from travel, you’re still in the mindset of treating yourself, and the Sugar Dragon is rearing his ugly head, thanks to the indulgences you’ve fed him while on the road. So what are your options? Ease back into a healthy routine with some less bad indulgences, as you’ve been doing… which hasn’t been working, and makes you unhappy. Or go cold-turkey back into a Whole30 when you get home, which may feel like a “punishment” for enjoying yourself while traveling—a very unhealthy mindset, and one we do not encourage.

I have been doing the former.  The tiredness post-travel has been unexpected (because I wasn't tired while I was away) and significant.  Between that and the Sugar Dragon being awoken, I was eating GF bread here and brown rice wraps there (as well as, commercially made mayo, Kerrygold butter and cheese) and not feeling happy.  My belly has been bloated, my nerves have been shot, and this morning, my stomach hurt when I woke up, which had completely gone away during the Whole30.  On top of it all, what I was eating didn't even taste good.  My palate/body has become very discriminating and anything processed (like the GF bread, the mayo and the shredded cheese) has little to no flavor, weird texture, and lands with an almost literal thud into my stomach.

Of course, my sleep issues have an impact.  The night before we left MA I had insomnia (I did continue magnesium while we were away, but I was drinking coffee again, rather than black tea, and also consuming foods with sugar in them) and so I came home sleep deprived.  I can see how sleep deprivation and inflammatory eating can and do feed and fuel each other.

What you don’t do is eat the bread, drink the wine, or order dessert because you’re tired, hungry, under-slept, and miss your husband/dog/own bed. You don’t ever, ever do that. And if you catch yourself trying to do that, use the last three years of experience to stop yourself in your tracks and say to yourself, “This is not a good enough reason to eat something that makes me less healthy.”

Now, I know.  And this has helped me change my outlook about going away again next week, for longer, from anxious dread to expansive optimism.

Eating while away will require energy and commitment.  Yes, it will be tricky preparing food, planning food, eating food whilst using the kitchens of friends and being out and about in different cities.  And carting a GFCF kid along (family vacation!)  But, this is my life, this is less of a challenge (since I have been doing this for awhile now albeit mostly at home and on again/off again) and more of a...what?  I don't know what to call it, other than my life.

My first meal came very late in the day, today.  I got caught up in going through the 500+ items in my Reader.  (I have been quite out of it.)  It was worth it because there was some good stuff embedded amongst the Onion and TLo funnies.  Like the piece above.

When I was ready to set my mind to eating, it was, once again, a no brainer.  Cherry tomatoes sautéed in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, a dollop of defrosted basil pesto stirred in, scrambled with three pastured eggs.  Ahhh.  Flavor and texture: present and wonderfully accounted for.  Magnesium supplement in one mug, English Breakfast tea with wildflower honey in another.

I finished Aisha Tyler's book yesterday (loved it) and started both Chris Kluwe's and Ahmir Thompson's (Questlove).  Kluwe's book is a pick it up now and then book, for me.  It's more essay collection than memoir.  I am hoping to dig deeper into Questlove's memoir today.  As ever, there is some paperwork that needs attending to and organizing/cleaning to be done.  I am a little less tired than I have been, but still tired.

Off to practice some Qigong and then see where the rest of the day takes me.

Peace and love.

Whole30 :: Day 28

So.  How did the Whole30 go while I was away from home for five days?

Okay.

I made some rookie mistakes despite this not being my first rodeo.  To mix some metaphorical clichés.

Here is some food I ate at home in the days leading up to being away.  That salad was SO good.  I started with a piece of baked (in lieu of grilling) boneless, skinless chicken thigh seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic granules.  (I cook the chicken a package at a time to have on hand for the rest of the week.)  I added cucumber, tomato and apple from the CSA share and toasted pecans.  Drizzled on my current fave vinaigrette.  This salad was delicious and satisfying.  It made me happy.  The melon also came from our CSA share and was, hands down, the best melon I've been lucky enough to eat, ever.  It was perfection.  It was so big I gave a quarter of it to our neighbors.

It may seem simple to replicate this kind of food while away, staying at someone's house.  (We were hosted by my sisters-in-law who share similar food values.)  But, here is what I was challenged by:

• their local supermarket was no Whole Paycheck.

• Gem is a challenge to feed while traveling and it took a lot of energy to deal with that (not only is he gluten- and dairy-free, but he is, ahem, very discriminating by nature, palate- and personality-wise.

• we were, all of us, in somewhat of a vacation/weekend mode and there were a number of unplanned meals "out".

We headed out of town early Thursday morning.  I fortified with a solid breakfast and asked to stop at a local coffee place to grab an iced coffee for the road.  As I waited for my coffee, I noticed the red velvet cupcakes which used to send me into a tizzy.  These are really good cupcakes and my favorite red velvet item (I am very picky when it comes to cupcakes.)  I had a quiet moment of realization: I had absolutely no emotional or chemical response to the cupcakes.  I looked at them and felt nothing.  It was such an even-keeled passage of time that felt utterly not me, yet there I was.

We planned to stop for lunch at Five Guys, a straightforward "slow" fast food joint that keeps its ingredients and concept pretty simple.  I packed pistachios to snack on (road trip habit...when you eat/live Paleo, you generally do not need snacks and in the Whole30 they are discouraged), as well as, lunch food.

I did not pack a sweet snack.  Dried apricots or figs would have really hit the spot.  On our drive home last night, I was very tired/sleep deprived and in the last hour of our trip I succumbed to my need for comfort (I felt a little hungry, too) and dove into an open bag of Wise potato chips.  Next trip I take, I will make sure to have both savory and sweet snacks on hand.

I did bring with me a good amount of meat and veg all ready to eat.  This worked well.  I had fridge space at my disposal and it took very little time for me to fix up a Paleo plate while helping out with meal preparation for general consumption (and being careful to keep food prep and eating surfaces free of gluten bits for Gem, and keeping up with washing and drying dishes, utensils, glasses, pots, pans, mixing bowls, etc...their dishwasher was broken!)

Because we were staying with my sisters-in-law, there was the challenge of being mindful of what and whether to eat what they were serving.  Case in point, our first dinner, Jay made potato salad.  If you don't already know, I heart potato salad.  It is one of those foods I like to try anytime I am somewhere new and it's on the menu.  I love how it can vary, I love how it tends to be simple.

So, what to do.  I knew I wanted to respect still being on the Whole30.  I knew I was being given a gift and an opportunity to enjoy a food I really love (which my sister-in-law knew).  By the time I finished my homemade Paleo dinner plate, I was too full for the potato salad.  But, I did have some the next morning for breakfast, as a side, and ate it once or twice afterward.

Once I ate the potato salad, I knew, chemically, the gate was open.  There is sugar in commercially prepared mayo and mustard.  White potatoes themselves break down to sugar during digestion.  It was interesting to note that for the rest of our time away, I was mentally shutting down "sugar" and actively avoiding it even as I ate other things off road, so to speak.

I did start to get a little bored with the food I brought (chicken, baba ganoush, fried peppers and onion, eggs, tomatoes, melon, peaches).  I had meant to bring pesto, but forgot.  I thought I might make mayo, but didn't get to it before we left.  If the meat and veggie selection at their supermarket had been better, I could have easily supplemented, but that turned out not to be feasible.

By Sunday, when Cap and I traipsed into Cambridge for a lovely, lovely respite from just about everything that we knew, I was feeling a bit on the edge of my total commitment to Whole30.  I was pretty much out of my food-from-home, had been running low on creative/happy food juice, and was looking forward to stopping at a Whole Paycheck on our drive back to the family compound later that afternoon (and a planned surf-and-turf grill dinner on the patio en famille).

It was one of those go-with-the-flow days, the kind you can have, and embrace with more fervent depth, when your kids are not with you.  So, we found ourselves at the 1369 Coffeehouse in Central Square just after 10am.  I easily set up a powerful mind/sensory block against all the muffins and scones and cakes and cookies (though had I not done that, I may have found I could work with their menu and tweak out a salad or eggs from them, I realized later), and ordered an espresso.  That was breakfast.  Which is not a good breakfast.  Especially for someone doing a Whole30.

By the time I arrived at Dado to meet Sue, at noon, I was ravenous.  Our plan had been to pick up tea and walk down to the river, but I knew I had to eat something so I ordered a bibimbap...with chicken salad.  (It is traditional with thin slices of beef, which I would have much preferred, but it was not to be...so a very mayo-y chicken salad it was.  The Paleo problem with commercially made mayo is that it is full of rancid oil.)  I ate the cuke and shiitake mushrooms and grated carrot and mung bean sprouts, so happy for their fresh goodness.  I did eat all the chicken despite the mayo load (canola or some such oil) and picked at the sticky brown rice studded with what looked like adzuki beans.  The lettuce, unfortunately, had a slightly musty taste so I left it.  My iced white iced tea, was refreshing and wonderful.  Spending time with a friend I don't see often, in a comfortable space, talking and talking: priceless.

The afternoon was a cornucopia of fairly controlled and joyful Cambridge shopping.  Books at Harvard Bookstore, cards at Bob Slate and shoes at Cambridge Clogs (formerly Vintage Etc.)  I am catching a good drift in middle age...shop only at favored stores for favored items.  At the bookstore, I only browsed in the remainders, I looked only at cards at Bob Slate, and Cambridge Clogs is a small shop (less feeling overwhelmed, for me) and I always know quickly if I am going to buy something.  I have been looking for a pair of Mary Jane style shoes for years and fell in love with these, made by Naot.  And the Hue socks, made in the USA, were on sale!

Cap and I were feeling peckish and we had enough time for a quick bite, so we stopped in at one of his favorites, Moody's Falafel Palace, on our way out of town.  I got lamb shawarma with baba ganoush and Syrian salad (underneath the lamb).  I ditched the dressing figuring it had dairy in it and dove into a tasty and incredibly fresh meal that was very Whole30-friendly.  Half the meal filled me up and I had the rest for breakfast the next morning.  Yum.  

It is possible to eat out and Paleo, or close to it, and have one's taste buds and senses totally satisfied.  But, your quest can be complicated by resources (or lack thereof), destabilization in routines of planning/activity, and luck.  I decided last month that it was time to get back to Paleo, and that I wanted to do a Whole30 despite not being home for all of the 30 days.  It was more important for me to restart healing through food rather than worry about staying strictly Paleo while traveling.

The upshot is that everything, including experiences that could be construed as negative, has been clearly positive.  I have figured some things out, I have learned some things, I know that if I want to feel better, if I want to maximize my health and energy and extend my life in the ways I can, then I will be eating Whole30ish way beyond this set of 30 days which ends Thursday.  And "life" is going to continue to happen, luckily, which means negotiating variable resources and routines and doing my best to maintain, maintain, maintain.

As a side note, as these 30 days wind down, I am aware that there is more that needs to be excavated.  My stomach/digestion has not been...happy.  I am on the constipated side, I still see/feel a lot of bloat from the waist down, and I have not regained a ton of energy.  I am even more aware of how sensitive my system is...but also feel stronger and more resilient.  Less inflammation, more elasticity/flow.

Bring it.

Peace and love.

Whole30 :: Day 21

Apologies for the absence.  I lost a day, yesterday, to sleep deprivation.  Didn't fall asleep until 5:30am.  I am still wiped this morning, but take great comfort in having slept nine hours.  We have family coming to stay overnight as they wend their way further south for a funeral.  Between getting ready for their visit, a haircut (will my stylist be able to do her magic on my hot mess of a head of rapidly thinning hair?), and a session with Vinny, today will be busy in very good ways.

I reconnected with a very old friend from the neighborhood.  I dug up this photo I shot of her (she is on the right) to share on Facebook.  It was jarring to remember how far back my interest in photography goes...I took this photo and developed it during high school...thirty years ago!

Over the weekend I spent some time with Donna who is dogsitting Lucy this week.  We sipped coffee while walking in the park and catching up.  The weather has continued its wonderfully near-autumnal arc.  Later in the day we went to see In The Way, Way Back (without the pup).

Morning shot of the kids.  Sag recently bought Animal Crossing and plays it every morning upon waking.

A small, enjoyable moment.  The light, the anticipation of going to see a movie in a theater, these great sandals I wear ridiculously infrequently...just taking a breath and drinking in some beauty.

The second-to-last of last week's veg.  (I have a red cabbage recipe which calls for duck fat and wasn't able to find any at Whole Paycheck...pondering this puzzle.)  The story of this pic is not the lovely zucchini (which I roasted up in the toaster oven and was so delicious I ate all of it in one sitting), but the mixing bowl.  We have this great, colorful set of bowls that were a gift many, many, many years ago.  But, they were so "special" that they rarely got used.  We've opted, instead, to work our plastic OXO mixing bowls down to the bone.  The smaller of our OXO bowls finally cracked the other day after a fall to the floor from a high shelf.  My immediate instinct was to go out and buy another one, but then I remembered we had a perfectly good set of bowls at our disposal.  Going old school/fancy...love it.

Peace and love.

Whole30 :: Day 17 (actual)

Wow.  Waking up early in order to take the dog out (he is getting up in years and cannot hold it as he once could) and the breezy gentle summer weather we've been blessed with the past week have combined to bring me to 3 o'clock in the afternoon with most of my commitments for the day DONE.

Cutting out sugar and grains has certainly played a part in my mental clarity and calmer nerves.  (Calmer nerves = better sleep, for one.  A big one.)  (I am not sure about dairy.  I don't think it has any clear detrimental effect on my system, but it is a fairly potent gateway food group.)  I have been having thoughts of staying sugar- and grain- and dairy-free into the near and far future, past the 30 days.  It feels good enough not to be denied.

Today's CSA contestants:

Mystery melon.  In the farmer's newsletter, he just says "melon".  I let last week's Korean melon sit out too long (it had begun its ripe-y collapse on its underside...doh!) so I have been watching this one like a hawk.  It wasn't giving off sweet melon scent yet, but it sounded ripe-ish upon tapping so I decided to cut it open.

It looked a lot like a cantaloupe on the inside.  The flesh was a lovely grapefruit pinkish orange color...and not so ripe closer to the rind.  Oh well.  Still refreshing.

I had beets from last week and newer ones from this week.  I love beets.  But, I do not love how stain-y their juice is.  After today, I think I am officially over that.  I loved how Nom Nom Paleo guided me through preparing these beets.  I have not tasted the final product yet, looking forward to doing that at dinner.

Total color therapy.  I felt peaceful energy wash over and through me while gazing at these beautiful gems.

The peaches are being very cooperative, this week.  They are ripening one by one and waited until the sugar plums were all gone.

My delicious lunch plate: baked pastured chicken thigh (boneless/skinless seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder), baba ganoush and almost caramelized peppers and onion.  All veg from the CSA share and the chicken from the farmer's market.  Love.  And, yum.

Gem and I stepped out to take Baxter on his mid-day walk.  Gem likes to hold the leash which freed me up to snap this shot.  (And bag the poop.  Baby steps.)

Wishing you a good weekend.

Peace and love.

Whole30 :: Day 17

These are photos from yesterday.  Shifting is inevitable.  Realignment will come soon, no doubt.

Our first cherry toms of the season.  Delectable.  And pretty to look at.

Thanks to the fridge reorg, I have started serving the kids and myself sauerkraut in the morning.  In the old fridge it was not in a visible location so I never remembered to eat it.  It is a very healthful food and it feels good to be enjoying it on a regular basis.

The kids are making videos as part of a project they are doing with Cap this month.  Sag was excited to film in the rain (I was holding a big umbrella over us to keep the camera dry).  He thought the weather would provide a moody backdrop to his film.  Gem was not excited, but he was a trooper.

Our kitchen is small.  The rearrange was tricky and required precision locating of the new fridge.  As you can see.  (That's the red garbage can tucked back into that corner.)

Lunch.  Hard-boiled eggs wrapped in prosciutto, grilled peaches, cucumber with vinaigrette.  Yum.

Baxter is here for a few days.  Love having this sweet pup around.

There were peppers and onions in the CSA share.  I didn't quite caramelize them, but got very close.  I remembered, fondly, the meatless sub with mayo and cheese that I would order form our favorite sub shop in Cambridge.  Yum.

There were eggplants this week, too.  I nervously whole roasted them (500º is hot) and whipped up some baba ganoush.  Yum.

Peace and love.

Whole30 :: Day 16

20 years ago today we had our version of a wedding on a hot day in Massachusetts.  We were lucky to be enveloped in so much love, care and support that day...and even luckier that we continue to be loved, cared and supported, twenty years later, by our families and friends, near and far.  I am full to the brim with gratitude.

Look at us, such babies!  (Though we didn't feel like babies, at the time.)

Our herb this week was basil.  It was a sad bunch of basil.  Enormous leaves barely moist and quite fed on by bugs...in past seasons I believe I would have chucked it in the trash without giving it a second thought.  But, I dutifully clipped the stems under the faucet and placed the bunch in a jar of water.

In the morning, the basil looked a bit drier.  But, it were fragrant.  And I realized that though there were not nearly enough leaves to make a pesto, there were enough to make cookies.  So I harvested the usable leaves, washed and dried them, then chopped them up and tossed them into the food processor with the cookie dough.

Lovely.

Last night, I baked the kids corn bread to go with our dinner of reheated turkey chocolate chili (I prefer it with beef, it's official) and grilled peaches.  Cap is our resident corn bread baker and since he was not home, I gave it a go and, boy, was I clunky!  I had to do some emergency maneuvering halfway through baking to prevent the top from getting any toastier.

It was a nice mid-point (Day 15) event.  The first time I baked the kids something that was not Paleo since starting the Whole30.  It felt perfectly fine that I was not going to be partaking of the bread.

Desserts are a no-no during the Whole30.  I plated myself this post-dinner snack...I don't know why, other than I had made the cookies and they were ready (they have to cool for two hours).  I wasn't hungry, I wasn't craving sweets, it was kind of weird.  I did eat them a couple of hours after dinner, but I did not need them, and I barely wanted them.

Baxter arrives today for a couple of days.  Looking forward to snuggling with that sweet pup.

Peace and love.

Whole30 :: Day 15

Halfway is feeling anti-climactic.  Just a little bit.  And that is due to dashed expectations.  I strive to keep expectations to a minimum.  It took awhile, but a good thing I have learned over the years is to discern the difference between deeply felt anticipation (which I cannot control, it's in my nature) and deeply held expectation (which I can control, it's in my mind).

I am not bouncing around like the energizer bunny.  My body has not shed gonzo pounds as it has during past Whole30/Dragon Ways (I am not stepping on the scale, but I can tell).

But, I am calmer, sleeping better, thinking more clearly, connecting more presently.  I can feel my body has more room to breathe.  Which, not surprisingly, feels Sofa King good.

Look at what Jamie sent me...a manatea infuser!  It was a lovely end note to a day tinged with blue.

We took another walk around the block last night, this, too, a mood booster.  The weather has been so gentle and summery.  Really, really nice.

Sag and I have been enjoying the sugar plums that came from the orchard.  Natural gems, I tell you, they are so delicious, so fragrant, so pleasing to the eye and palate.

We received our first tomatoes of the season and this beauty did not disappoint.

My lunch plate called for more vinaigrette!  I love having a go to vinaigrette: Dijon mustard, honey, garlic powder, ume plum vinegar and olive oil.  It takes no time to whisk up.  Yum.

Gem broke our bathroom sink glass (a gift from Cara long, long ago).  "I am really not having a good day," the poor boy said.  I peeked into the kitchen cupboard to see what we might have...and found this ceramic cup that Elizabeth made long, long ago.  It is beautiful and perfect.  Hoping to use it for more and more years to come!

Peace and love.

Whole30 :: Day 14

Bumpy day mood-wise.  Mostly feeling blue.  Fell asleep late, woke up late, behind the eight ball getting into the kitchen followed by deep wariness due to memories of last night's trauma involving flies gathering there, à la The Birds.

But, there were no flies this morning (my duct tape sealing job worked, it seems), and, in fact, today there is a wonderful breeze and I loved not having the air conditioner on.

I made a pot of chocolate chili using ground turkey.  Cap doesn't eat red meat and he likes chili, so I decided to give it a whirl.  Preparing the chili was therapeutic.  I felt much, much better when I was done.

I have been loving up our wooden spoon lately.  Just noticing how beautiful it is in its well-seasoned age.  Appreciating the gestalt of the moment when I reach for it in order to stir whatever ingredients have been assembled in a pot, awaiting alchemy.  I love this spoon.  I don't remember where we got it.  Maybe Tags in Porter Square.

After lunch (the Primal Thai Beef still delicious on day three), I gave the inside of the fridge a once over since Cap will be coming home later with our CSA share.  I pulled out the lamb I made yesterday.  It was not tasty last night (Gem did not care for it, either).  It was still not tasty this morning when I choked it down with some baba ganoush and sauerkraut.  I was loathe to throw it away and was wondering what to do with it...when Sag hit upon some unintentional inspiration.  He suggested making Rogan Josh (he thought there was still uncooked lamb) and I realized I could easily attempt a lamb 2.0.  So, I picked out as much of the rosemary needles as I could and placed the lamb in a pot with a tablespoon of Rogan Josh spice mix and a can of coconut milk.  It is now simmering on the stove alongside the turkey chili.  Fingers crossed.

Peace and love.

P.S.  Thank you to Sue, for the comment about my cooking creativity.  I don't think of my kitchen activity in that way and appreciated the perspective.  Funnily, today, I did feel like I used some creativity to turn the lamb around.

Whole30 :: Day 13

After quite a productive morning and early afternoon, I am hitting a wall of pooped.  Good thing I have some slow cooker goodness in the making and some Sunday night tv to catch up on.

Sag has been craving slow braised meat.  Our farmer's market meat connection, Anthony, doesn't, as it turned out, carry much in the way of stew meats during the summer.  He offered up lamb shoulder chops, so that's what went into the slow cooker this morning with onion, garlic, vegetable broth, rosemary, thyme and some grinds of black pepper.  It's my first time making this recipe and I dug how simple it was to put together...especially, not having to brown anything before putting it in the cooker.

Once the lamb got going and the kids and I breakfasted, I began "processing" veg and fruit.  A lovely organic watermelon (from Whole Paycheck) was cut up, strawberries were washed (also from the store, Gem loves strawberries), and I sauté-steamed a head of cabbage from the farm (with shallot and a half a pepper from the farm).  

I then plucked the bowl of peaches from the fridge.  They had been ripening and ripening and hit that point of just before no return yesterday.  I was too tired to cook, though, so I stuck them in the fridge and hoped for the best.  After some google research, I decided to brush these with coconut oil and grilled them using our cast iron grill pan (an outlet find).  I waited till the pan was very hot and then cooked them on medium-high heat for about three to four minutes on each side, with a lid on the pan.  They looked so pretty, but I was not hungry, so I stuck them back in the fridge.  I am going to serve them with the lamb tonight.  Should be tasty!

This just made me sigh and smile.  Gem came it at some point while I was cooking and spotted half a peach that wasn't going to fit into the pan.  He asked for it and I handed it right over, delighted, because he doesn't often eat peaches.  We chatted and he wandered back to his work and I kept going.  Later, I noticed the pit he'd left right in the middle of the table.  Gem definitely has "absent minded professor" in him.  Some very seemingly simple and practical things just don't click in his brain.  He's also the one who consistently leaves his clothes right where they were stepped out of.

Here is my lunch plate.  Dinner leftovers and the braised cabbage.  I adore the flavor of cabbage, so naturally sweet and earthy.  The flavors are heightened and deepened when the cabbage comes from a local organic farm.  No seasoning necessary, just Spanish olive oil, cabbage, shallot and a bit of green pepper (and a splash of water for the steaming).

Peace and love.

P.S.  My internet awesome of the day.  A fan-made mashup of Breaking Bad and Weird Al:

Whole30 :: Day 12

One of the things I love about doing a Whole30 or The Dragon's Way is the assumptive knowledge that I/one will feel awesome during and after.  What is not to love about feeling awesome?

During this Whole30 I am noticing that, in a way, it is taking longer to feel awesome.  But, there is awesomeness embedded in my awareness of the fatigue and aches and pains which are taking longer to dissipate.

For example, I don't think I am eating much less than when I have done Whole30s before...but my body is experiencing it much differently.  I am encouraged by the fact that I am at a place where if I need to eat, even if there isn't anything at the ready, I am not wanting the ease/convenience of grabbing a piece a toast.  And I am way past cravings for anything not Paleo.

Cap and the kids went out for Japanese food the other night, mostly because the kitchen was in disarray with the fridge-on-the-fritz.  I opted to stay home because there was nothing I could eat at the restaurant...but also because I could envision myself eating an avocado roll or two.

The grip of inflammation is loosening on my body and I can feel the effects of muscle tension all over.  "Normally", I don't feel these pains because when I am eating inflammatory foods my body goes into what I imagine as a sort of traction.  The energy, or whatever, becomes so immovable, held in place by the inflammation response, that I don't feel how tight my muscles actually are.

I am almost mid-way and I am happily keep on keeping on.

There has been a brief weather respite and last night we took a walk at Gem's suggestion.  Today has been muggy again and it has been raining for a couple of hours.

I am enjoying the rearranged kitchen.  Sag has been vocal about his dismay.  I felt crappy this afternoon, but, again with the creeping bits of awesome, my mind took its time sifting through the algebra of the experience...and I realized a cup of Chinese herbal tea was just what my internal doctor was ordering.  (It has been a dog's age since I've had this tea!)  Then, I noticed what the cup of tea reflected in the kitchen table's new location.

I spent time organizing the new fridge.  Out came the labeler.  I love this gadget.  The new fridge is slightly different than the old one and I liked puzzling over what to put where, maximizing ease of use and space.

Boy, did that thing fill up fast.  (The beginning of the week tends to see a fuller fridge because we food shop weekly on the weekend.)  Our CSA share comes on Tuesdays, so some of this needs to be eaten down by then!  The most significant difference between the two fridges is that this one doesn't have a "meat" drawer.  So we are losing one of the produce crisper drawers to meat/cheese.

I made a new-to-me recipe tonight: Primal Thai Beef.  It was the bomb.  A serious flavor bomb.  I had most of the less-perishable ingredients on hand which made putting this together a snap (and economical).  The sauce is what really makes the dish.  I think the protein could be switched out with another type of meat, or tofu, no problem.  We have a buttload of ginger powder so I subbed that for the fresh ginger.  I was skeptical of adding the onion and garlic (along with the bell pepper) after the meat was halfway browned, but it totally worked.  I skipped the carrots because that's how your hated-carrots-as-a-kid blogger rolls.  Also, this recipe calls for zero salt.  I knew fish sauce is very salty, but, again, I was skeptical.  The resulting dish totally did not need salt.  And, finally, it was so refreshing to make something Thai-inspired that didn't call for coconut milk!

So, so good, you guys.  Eating this made me really happy.  Sag loved it, Gem did not try it.  I will be making this again, no doubt.

Peace and love.