Archive for the ‘weird stuff Candice eats’ Category:
Melted Salad
There are only six days until Christmas. This should be a lovely post about a wonderful Christmas memory or a favourite Christmas recipe. Except, truth is, I have whatever Tom has. Sore throat, headache, and I’ve slept more in this past week than I have in the past semester. So this is a bit of a lame post, it’s just a recipe.
I’m really not a fan of anything cold. I’m that annoying girl who says “no ice” at restaurants. This makes winter a little tricky; however I compensate by eating very warm things all winter long. Apparently though, you are supposed to eat salad all year round because the vegetables are good for you. So, to get around the cold-ness of a salad, here is my recipe for Melted Salad - I invented it on the bus the other day after griping for a while about eating salad in winter.
Cut up an onion and some garlic.
Cut up some celery (really tiny because celery strings are gross)
Cut up a few carrots
Cut up a turnip (or rutebaga if you’re from Toronto)
Cut up some spinach (salad = need for some leafy greens)
Cut up anything else you like in your salad (except berries)
Put your favorite salad dressing in a big pot (Greek is good. So is oil and balsamic vinegar). Add tons of salt and pepper. Throw in all the vegetables. Cover the works with water, turn on burner. You’ll know it’s done when everything has melted.
This is the kind of salad you’ll want to serve in a bowl, not on a plate.
Subscribe to the comments for this postBed Lunch
Today I read a little snippet in Women’s Health that said apparently “studies” show that couples who drink hot liquids together trust each other more. So now I’m pretty sure that Tom and I are still together because of all the tea. I think Tom and I have been having nightly cups of tea together every day for about five years. And these teas are often accompanied by bed lunches.
When we first started having bed lunches they were often after long evenings of dancing and were often carb-o-licious slices of raisin toast with butter. Then that whole thing with the gluten happened and my snacks shifted to having cereal or leftovers from supper. Tom would have, like, a roast or something. Now, that I’m not quite as active and don’t eat as much fruit during the day my bed lunches are usually just a piece of fruit and maybe some cheese. Mmm cheese.
But the point of this post is not meant to be some sort of food diary or exposition of my weird relationship to food. It’s meant to talk about the best bed lunches of all. Those when you’ve eaten all the good food you need to during the day, got all your micro and macro nutrients and the bed lunch is just the icing on the cake. And sometimes, it can even be icing. Or, cheese and crackers and jam; or a muffin; or a piece of banana bread crumbled into un-homogenized whole milk yogurt (can you guess what I had for a snack tonight?)!
So, if “hot liquids” keep couples trusting each other then I think bed lunches (or at least the good ones) can let couples know what their partner’s indulgences are and subsequently keep them interested in each other! The combo works well for us!
Yes, I tried to make a grape pie.
As an update from our video blog, my eye has healed just fine. I spent a few days with blurred vision but eventually healed. Since then my life has been a non-stop flurry of appointments, followed by meetings, followed by workshops, followed by assignments, followed by work (followed by cooking, cleaning, teeth brushing, etc.). The back to school rush hasn’t seemed to settle quite yet! Right now I’m just continually working for the next deadline, which is not ideal, but I just keep reminding myself that it’s all worth it.
However, while this post was going to be about a (mis)adventure I had in making a grape pie, something interesting happened yesterday that I feel the need to blog about.
Even though I have yet to complete this degree I am already thinking about the next one and the deadlines for applying for the big scholarships are fast approaching. I went to a workshop yesterday morning designed to help students with their applications. Basically, each scholarship requires that you write a one or two page proposed project including as much detail about the project and yourself as possible. This workshop broke students up in to small groups who, along with a faculty member, read each others proposals and provided feedback.
I had been warned that it would happen at some point, but it still caught me off guard. When it came time to discuss my proposal there were a few excellent suggestions and criticisms (which will improve my paper so much) but there was also this unsettling discrimination against dance research. While it would be difficult to explain exactly what things were said and how they were framed, some of the particularly frustrating comments included things like, “I don’t think they’re going to want to fund a dance school” (keeping in mind my project has nothing to do with dance schools); and “You don’t have the background to call this a social science project” (keeping in mind that I’m not just a dancer. I have a degree in social science and have focused my master’s research on doing social science fieldwork and writing).
It’s something that dance scholars seem to come up against all the time. Other academics don’t “get” that it is a legitimate topic to study (yet music, film, food, and sports are all okay). There are a lot of reasons why this barrier exists, and now is not the time to get into them, but the point is - it hurts. I do just as much reading, researching, and fieldwork as students in other programs and my work also involves actually moving and working with people who move. My work is not frivolous. Dance scholars don’t just sit around all day and write reviews of classical ballet. I am devoting my academic career to this topic because I really believe it is important. I am learning and discovering and advocating for new and exciting ways to challenge our world - through dance. Dance is not just people performing on stage. Dance is SO much more.
Obviously I didn’t get defensive or go into this rant at the session. It just wouldn’t have been worth it. So, luckily you got to “hear” it, for one because it was frustrating me, but also because I wonder how many people who actually know me don’t know what I do and think my research is frivolous. . . . I’d be happy to explain it to you some day. Just ask!
Down time? What’s that?
It’s been a non-stop week since our last blog post. Tom and I have barely seen each other, let alone been in touch with anyone else. The workload this semester has been rough due to its shortened duration and lack of any breaks. This leaves just barely enough time to catch up on the work for the next class, let alone get started on any of the major research projects or finish any thesis proposals (okay, maybe that one’s just me).
We also had a crazy weekend trying to get some work done before my parents came to visit on Monday! It was difficult with the beautiful, hot, sunny weather and many of our friends, and just about everyone else in Toronto, celebrating the end of the semester. But, much worth it as we both took yesterday off to spend the day with my parents who were here on an extended lay-over on their way to a well-deserved vacation in the sunny south. It was great. They brought presents from home, helped us run some errands, and took us out to dinner at Live, one of our favourite Toronto restaurants. They seemed a little skeptical when we told them it specialized in raw, vegan food, but I think they ended up liking it a lot. My meal was amazing!! I have to learn to cook like they do. Everything is sooo tasty, and it always looks really good. (Tonight I attempted to recreate their house dressing. I think I did a pretty good job taste-wise, though it’s not quite the right texture). We spent the evening chatting about nascent wedding plans and playing Tom’s new favourite card game, Fluxx. Dad won all three rounds. I think he cheated, though in that game winning always feels somewhat like cheating . . .
It was really hard to say goodbye, and I still don’t think I’m over it, but luckily my sissy is coming up for a week in May! I’m super pumped about that. Tom and I are also looking forward to having one of his sisters visit us over the weekend on another of those extended lay-overs. We’ve got a few fun adventures planned and hopefully I won’t have to spent too much time doing school work!
Wow grad school is stressful - I cried over cookie dough
So yes, I’m in the process of making some cookies and I cried because I got to eat the batter. There is a back story though, I’m not completely crazy. It’s a bit of a long post, but a huge part of my life that I haven’t shared, but feel ready to now.
A few years ago I started having weird stomach/digestive problems. I gave up eating wheat and the problem went away. That is, until about a year ago. Since then I have been doing EVERYTHING to try and figure out what is wrong. It’s been a long a frustrating process, particularly because I like eating so much.
As part of this process I did a six week elimination diet starting in January where I didn’t eat anything with gluten, dairy, soy, corn, egg, peanuts, strawberries, melons, red meat, shellfish, dried fruit, caffeine, nightshade vegetables (tomato, potato, pepper, eggplant), citrus, bananas, and any kind of sugar. It was frustrating at times, but a really worthwhile process in showing me the relationships I have with certain foods and letting me explore some new foods and recipes that I now love (mmmmm tahini!). It did not however completely heal my symptoms. So, I began to reintroduce some of the seemingly harmless foods and stayed away from the five big allergens for another few weeks. Eventually I had reintroduced most of the foods and found that I had reactions to both gluten and egg. I’m not sure if they are the cause of my problems, but I’m staying away from them for now just in case.
It’s been quite aggravating to avoid foods that I’m not even sure are causing my problems, particularly when they are in everything and the cheapest sources of grain and protein around. However, I’m trying to come to terms with it until I start to feel consistently better and can try to reintroduce them again.
This might sound easy, particularly because I’ve been avoiding wheat for years, but when it’s York’s birthday and there is free cake and waffels for everybody, its very upsetting - I ended up going home and eating a chocolate chip cookie (that Tom had made) out of spite and was sick for a few days. After that incident, I decided that it was time for me to suck it up and start doing my own gluten-free baking. I’ve avoided this for years because it is much more expensive than conventional baking and all the support is for celiacs - which I haven’t been diagnosed with and just can’t seem to identify with. However, after a trip to our favourite natural foods store I had a great revelation. Both flour and eggs need to be cooked to be edible, so maybe I can find some support in the raw food community. And, turns out, I can! And it also turns out that there are a lot of gluten-free, vegans who also have the same dietary restrictions.
So, a few days ago I made some raw banana, date macaroons that were awesome, but I was still craving that baked-good texture. Eventually I will invest in a good “cook”book, food processor and dehydrator so I can make more interestingly textured raw food, but for now I decided to invest in some gluten free baking supplies and give them a try.
This all resulted in me making cookies today. I mixed up the batter and licked the spoon without having to worry that I would be poisoned by it. I was so happy. It is the first time in years I have been able to do that (aside from licking the beaters from a chocolate cake mix on my birthday). I cried.
Oh, and I just reviewed the post and decided that I needed to add this clause.
Note: Please do not worry that Tom and I are eating poorly because of my weird diet. We eat incredibly. Last week we had white bean and apple chili, cinnamon tofu sweet potato, this incredible vegetable adzuki bean pie, polenta fries, and a billion different salads and vegetables (5-10 a day!!). We avoid pre-made anything and HFCS like the plague! Tom also eats all kinds o’ wheat and eggs!
My Week: Dancing, Depression, and . . . Porridge!
After a brief period of warmth, both in temperature and atmosphere, York is once again freezing.
I’ve been keeping myself busy going to dance and fitness classes while Tom has been working. Last night we went to TDT to hear Christopher House and Deborah Hay talk about TDTs latest piece. Hay had a lot of really interesting and thought provoking questions about dance that, coming from anyone else, might have sounded flighty and pretentious. But, she has obviously put a lot of deep thinking both psychologically and somatically into her insights and was able to share them quite brilliantly. On Thursday I am going to watch one of her rehearsals and listen to her speak on dance writing afterward. The transit is long, but it will be worth it.
It was also nice to see so many familiar faces from the dance department. It brightened my spirits a bit!
Today, like many other union members, I took a shuttle to the polling station to vote on York’s offer. It took place at the Novotel Hotel about a half an hour away. The energy there was quite interesting. Cupe members (getting paid for a strike shift) milled about the building and tried to promote their extreme agenda answer voter’s questions. But, beyond that everything was quite somber. People seemed exhausted, frustrated, and hopeless. I was glad to get out of there.
Anyway, we just heard the news, and the vote was ~60% no. So, the strike looms on. Not only did we not go back, but there wasn’t even a particularly strong “no” vote that may have put more pressure on the situation. I don’t know how I’ll get out of bed tomorrow.
But, if I do get up I’ll eat some of my new favourite breakfast food: Millet Porridge. My recipe changes, but my latest favourite is:
1 Cup Millet
2 Cups Water
2 Cups Almond Milk
1 over ripe, chopped pear
Handful of almonds
1-2 tsp vanilla
Put in pot and bring to a boil, then lower heat, cover, and simmer for 1/2 hourish or until porridge-y. This makes about 4 breakfasts to me. I make it in the night and then reheat a bowlful in the morning with some extra almond milk or water if needed! It’s worth getting out of bed for.
Rice “Cake”
Today I have been very sookey because I am bored of my diet. No wheat, lots of vegetables, etc. I feel that I can’t actually eat anything that I want to and that I just want to eat like everyone else and not feel sick or guilty. In reality eat the way I do so I don’t get sick, and there are a lot of things that I can eat, but I’m moody today.
Sometimes I’m just not creative enough though and end up eating a lot of the same things over and over. Sometimes I am too creative. For example, today, in a fit of hunger because I’ve been watching what I eat all week, I made a “rice cake” which is a rice cake topped 1/2 with peanut butter and 1/2 with that icing that comes on store-bought cakes (yes, I had to scrape it off a piece of real cake). It was surprisingly good.
Earlier, I also made a “brownie” by putting chocolate chips and walnuts in my mouth at the same time as a bit of banana and chewing it all together. Classy.
To make up for it I am going to make a nutritious supper though. Something with curry potatoes . . .
Snowball Oatmeal
So, I’m working on a post about the madness of my last few days teaching at DSW, but before that I thought I’d provide this quick update on my breakfast this morning - Snowball Oatmeal. After a wonderful but super-filling supper of ribs and potato salad last night I did not have a bed snack and was really hungry when I got up this morning. However, all I wanted was cookies. Experience has showed me that this is not a good idea, so I worked on making a substitute.
Most mornings I have “Banana Bread Oatmeal” which is plain oatmeal with a third of a mushed up banana, a little cinnamon, and sometimes some nuts. Don’t worry. I don’t mush the whole banana and then only eat a third. I break off a part to mush and eat the rest with peanut butter later in the day. Left over banana mush crisis averted.
Anyway, this morning I had “Snowball Oatmeal” which was plain oatmeal made with soy milk, a half a spoonful of cocoa powder, a little bit of banana mush for sweetness, and a sprinkle of coconut. It was pretty much the greatest idea I had all week and not that unhealthy. I hope it inspires someone else’s oatmeal creativity!